MGMT 806 - MuZcalc Business Plan - ChadwickLin

MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne Lin

MuZcalc Business Plan

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ContentsExecutive Summary...............................................................................................................................................................3

Company, Products and Services..........................................................................................................................................4

Markets and Strategy............................................................................................................................................................9

Financial Section..................................................................................................................................................................16

Management and Organization...........................................................................................................................................18

Milestone Events and Key Risks..........................................................................................................................................20

Appendix 1 – Consumption Chain and Attribute Maps.......................................................................................................23

Appendix 2 – Financial Projections......................................................................................................................................26

Appendix 3 – Product Visuals..............................................................................................................................................26

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Executive SummaryMuZcalc (pronounced “mew-zee-calc”) is a computer-based device that is used by individuals

learning to play a piano who are in the beginner to intermediate levels of proficiency. It monitors their playing technique, compares their playing against sheet music instructions, and provides real-time recommendations on how to correct mistakes. The experience of using MuZcalc is similar to a teacher-led instruction session in terms of the amount and quality of feedback. However, unlike face-to-face training, it works inside the student’s home, eliminating the need for travel and recurring payments for weekly instruction.

Marketing messages will be altered depending on which consumer segment is being targeted. For cost-conscious parents that cannot afford the desired extent of in-person tutoring, the message will be that of strong similarity of learning experience using MuZcalc versus in-person instruction at vastly reduced cost and lessened commute time commitments. For wealthier learners who value the in-person teaching experience, MuZcalc will emphasize its complementarity with traditional instruction while eliminating the need to procure and constantly transport sheet music scores to and from lessons. We will attract teachers with claims of improved student satisfaction and increased instructor productivity due to robust capabilities in sheet music editing, curriculum creation and progress reporting. Finally, a new ecosystem will be created for 3rd party content creators who will get ability to create their own personal brand and to receive a share of the company’s revenues resulting from content sales to students and teachers.

Should MuZcalc prove to be a commercial success, it will eventually be marketed in all developed countries within the Americas, Western Europe, East Asia, Middle East, Australia and New Zealand. According to our conservative estimates, US market alone is estimated at 8M households with 1 piano student of learning age, about as many in East Asia, excluding China. In China, the market is roughly double that of US. Latin America, Middle East, and Australia & New Zealand each represent about a quarter of US market. We assume that up to 15% of global learner population will be receptive to MuZcalc-based instruction and will be willing to pay the price for a la carte curriculum pieces or for device/content bundles aimed at 3 distinct learner proficiency levels.

Most of the opposition to MuZcalc’s success would come from the status quo in the world of piano instruction. In order to convince consumer and contributor stakeholders of the product’s worthiness, it is envisioned with superior features and unparalleled ease of use. Extensive live demonstrations and multi-media marketing campaigns will be rolled out in an effort to capture each of the target markets with salient and localized messages. Viral marketing and social media will be vital tools in MuZcalc’s go-to-market approach. We would like to prevent strong opposition from piano teachers concerned with loss of revenues by offering them a commission on device sales and content purchases resulting from inclusion of our technology in their teaching practices and stipulating that all students participate in the program.

Fortunately for MuZcalc, there presently are no other technology-based complete product alternatives to its offering. The biggest competitors are represented by SmartMusic, Steinway Etude and eMedia. SmartMusic is not marketed for piano users since its capabilities are limited to teaching orchestral or band instruments, Steinway simply acts as a tablet-based sheet music display with on-screen demonstrations of which keys to strike in order to play the score, and eMedia lacks compatibility with acoustic pianos that happen to constitute the majority of pianos owned by students. To prevent retaliation by SmartMusic, MuZcalc intends to in-license some of its technologies and signal its strong willingness to stick with the piano market where the incumbent has no presence. With Steinway and eMedia, the hope is that MuZcalc will get to market quicker with a more attractive offering and would be in a position to capitalize on its first-mover advantage and superior features.

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne LinCompany, Products and Services

With over 100 million players in developed Western and East Asian countries alone, piano is the world’s most studied musical instrument. Typical learning curriculum consists of once-weekly visit to teacher’s home or music school for a 45-minute to 1-hour long lesson coupled with daily home exercises of about 1 hour covering prescribed music pieces. Between the financial commitments of teacher’s monthly or per-lesson fees and cost of transportation, as well as time spent commuting, piano learning can put a strain on many families’ financial and emotional budgets.

The unfortunate fact for parents is that whether the kid turns out to be a prodigy or never makes it past “chopsticks”, the teaching costs will remain the same. Aside from financial and time implications, many a student feels initially uncomfortable playing in front of strangers (teachers and other students in group instruction settings, a typical way to cut down on teaching costs compared to 1-on-1 instruction). Not the least of concerns is parents’ desire to know how much time their kids spent practicing the instrument and what progress they’re making. If there’s only a way to cut down on costs, time and performance anxiety, and still get optimal results based on student’s talent without having regular interactions with teachers or music schools, both parents and learners would seize such an opportunity.

Before venturing into the student market with the full-blown device, we intend to prove viability of our fundamental software features, infrastructure, marketing etc. by offering a software-only light version of MuZcalc. This entry-level product will be targeted for most common tablet devices and it will function as an electronic sheet music organizer. It will be targeted to advanced and professional musicians who are past the early stages of learning and would not require any feedback on their performance. The application would listen to a few notes of a musical piece to determine which score is to be displayed. Once the performer has chosen the score, the program will monitor user’s head gestures through the tablet camera to takes hints as to when to transition pages. It will also support use of fingers on the display surface to flip pages back-and-forth (like a printed book metaphor). The software will allow the user to change score annotations with additional instructions that they find useful in their performance. The software will be distributed for free and musical scores will be available for a fee either a la carte, or bundled by musical period, genre, composer, style etc.

Once we have gotten our feet wet with the software-only version and gained some marketplace recognition due to application popularity with accomplished musicians, we will turn our engineering efforts towards development of the full-blown MuZcalc device. It will be used by individuals learning to play a piano who are in the beginner to intermediate levels of proficiency. It monitors their playing technique, compares their playing against sheet music instructions, and provides real-time recommendations on how to correct mistakes. The experience of using MuZcalc is similar to a teacher-led instruction session in terms of the amount and quality of feedback. However, unlike face-to-face training, it works inside the student’s home, eliminating the need for travel and recurring payments for weekly instruction.

MuZcalc is fashioned into a decorative lamp-like setup (see Appendix 3) that is placed on the top of the instrument in place of the traditional sheet music holder. The product is equipped with 2 cameras, 1 pointed at the student’s face, and one pointed downward at the student’s hands. The forward-looking camera is trained to respond to head gestures e.g. turning the page, responding to yes/no prompts. The down-facing camera is trained to monitor fingering techniques in order to provide improvement recommendations. The device is equipped with an LCD projector that displays sheet music images, along with instructional overlays onto a white screen of approximate dimensions consistent with side-by-side standard-sized sheet music foldout. MuZcalc will have the capability to connect to a computer through Wi-Fi, or through a cellular connection, to download sheet music, instructional libraries, and other community-related material. MuZcalc automatically keeps track of students’ practicing times, persistent problems and progress made. The real time fingering analysis

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne Linand other feedback are displayed as an overlay on the digital music sheet. E-Ink technology will also be assessed as an alternative sheet music display.

With the unique ID on each MuZcalc device, students, their siblings, parents and teachers can also create an online profile through our official portal to manage the music sheet content and access the feedback information. The online portal also serves as the primarily interface with the students for managing the setting of how information is displayed on the screen. Students can access and order learning programs online, manage lessons, and socialize with other MuZcalc owners in an online forum. The online portal will be free for MuZcalc owners, but charge for premium content like advanced curricula. We will create different modules for students, teachers, and parents for their respective needs.

MuZcalc’s portable design is intended to make it easy to bring along to traditional music lessons to supplement face-to-face learning. The “teacher” mode allows instructors to input homework assignments and track students’ adherence to the curriculum. The typical music score depicts minimal fingering, and stylistic and interpretational instructions. This is where the music teacher adds value by going over the score and inserting annotations for performance attributes like use of pedaling, tempo changes, sound intensity and even as far as replacing note sequences with combinations more suitable for the given student’s limitations/abilities. Content available through MuZcalc will include many of such annotations and enhancements as part of the baseline offering, and will allow teachers to use the device instead of the pencil-paper currently used to revise scores.

In order to enhance earnings opportunities for the teachers, MuZcalc will offer an online marketplace for instructors to create and sell customized lesson plans, as well as provide their own unique interpretation guidelines for various musical pieces. Intermediate to advanced students wanting to practice specific performance styles popularized by famous instructors would get an opportunity to purchase such plans and interpretations for an additional fee, and be coached by MuZcalc accordingly.

We firmly believe that success of a product like this depends on how well thought-out the usage experience is. For this reason, we have made extensive investments in identification and further detailing of usage scenarios that cover the most important workflows. The actual scenarios are listed in the appendix, but the guiding principles behind our approach have been:

People value the traditional learning experience of the piano by overwhelming margin, per survey results. This dictates the style of the device as not being overwhelmingly “techie” and requires dimensions to project traditional-sized side-by-side 2 sheets of music.

Because we foresee this device being carried (e.g. to teachers’ houses for in-person lessons), the device is collapsible into a transportable form in order to accommodate maximum number of piano styles and sizes (e.g. acoustic grand, acoustic upright and electric pianos). The device must conform to a variety of placements on top of various instruments.

Extensive use of hand and head gesturing to confirm end users’ intent or to make selection among available options

Complete avoidance of any speech recognition techniques so that we don’t have to deal with intricacies of languages and accents that would be an impediment to this being a global product

Ease of use is of paramount importance, as is complete avoidance of end user training in any of the product’s features. This is especially important since the product itself is to train people in piano playing and the last thing one would want is to go through extensive learning of how to use the learning tool

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne LinStudents and Parents Teachers and Content

AuthorsLess In-Person Teaching Usual In-Person TeachingMarketing Message(s) Learning experience similar to

in-person teaching at a vastly reduced cost.Game-like features to attract younger students.Reduced lesson commute time and expense.Instant feedback to student on errors.Up-to-date progress reports for parents.Unit pricing structure tiered by completeness of baseline repertoire.Access to optional curriculum from famous instructors.

Lower unit price with pay-as-you-go model for individual content pieces included in the curriculum.Score marking updates during the lesson based on student’s performance.Curriculum updates based on progress.Instant feedback to student during at-home practice.Up-to-date progress reports for parents AND teachers.

This is your chance to create a recognizable and marketable professional teaching profile.Ability to create musical piece interpretations, including custom score annotations, note expansions, complex passage simplifications for younger learners.Recording of audio and video of “reference” performance.Online updates to custom curriculum.Ability to create your own marketing messages, collect user feedback, and stay on top of sales figures.

Advertising Medium(a) Participation in Google AdWords campaign with traffic directed to marketing areas of MuZcalc’s corporate website.YouTube channel with high quality demo and user accolade videos.Social networking fan base on Facebook and Twitter.Piano learning-related websites (e.g. Piano World).Sponsorship of local piano competitions.Printed brochures and demo stations in piano retail locations.Printed ads in national and local publications for targeted customer ethnicities (e.g. local Korean language publications in Northern NJ, Taiwanese publications in Northern and Southern CA)Amazon online store.Appearances on Home Shopping TV channels.

Personalized electronic invitation.Piano learning-related websites (e.g. Piano World).Marketing region for teachers and authors on MuZcalc’s website.Brochure mailings to music schools.Prospective user seminars.Contacts with music certification board members.

New User Referral MuZcalc provides all users with software “widgets” that work on social networks e.g. Facebook, on e-Commerce websites, in blogs etc. that allow for informing one’s followers/readers of its benefits.Successful referrals result in rewards e.g. free content, more ad space

We are planning for a parallel launch in both offline and online retail channels. For the online channel, we plan to leverage mostly grass root online marketing campaign to drive word of mouth about MuZcalc. We will build an official company portal to showcase the product features as well as taking online orders which is directed to our official store on Amazon. We will identify passionate bloggers who writes about teaching and playing piano, including teachers, student and parents, and send the top ten most widely followed bloggers a free MuZcalc for them to test it out, help them to discover the functions and features, and encourage them to write positive review about MuZcalc on their blog. We will leverage these materials, as well as those prepared in-house, to drive a PR campaign in online piano forums like Piano World, etc, to show case product features, share user stories, and also drive promotion events like distributing sales coupon.

We will invest in shooting high quality promotional video about our product, and also launch a campaign to encourage our early adapters to upload their own videos of how they have been benefiting from our product, to enter into a user rated competition for a grand prize. We will feature those video on our website, as well as drive viral spread on SNS like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc to effectively push information about MuZcalc out to the online communities.

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne LinWe will carefully track all the above mentioned online marketing initiatives, measure their

effectiveness in terms driving traffic to our official website and our official store on Amazon, and conversion into sales, and prioritize our resources around the most effective channels.

Once a fully-featured product is available, we will be approaching Home Shopping Television Networks e.g. QVC, HSN etc. to run prime-time infomercials for MuZcalc. Our experience indicates that successful high-tech devices generate revenues of $8M-9M for each television infomercial appearance. The benefit of live show-and-tell highlighting MuZcalc’s unique features to a broad audience of potential customers who fit precisely into our target demographic is difficult to underestimate. With appearance cost of $1.5M, going the Home Shopping Network route is an expensive gamble, but the combination of a quality product, and promised revenue windfall would justify the investment.

For the offline launch, given the high concentration of piano learning in the Asian American community in US, we plan to tap into the community media outlets like World Journal for the Chinese community for a pilot campaign to test out the market. Those ethnic group media outlets are traditionally cheaper than major US publications, and have devoted more space for advertisements which are well read, especially by Asian parents living in the US.

We can tackle retail stores and music schools by convincing brand-name piano manufacturers to bundle MuZcalc with their instruments in order to drive up their product sales. The relatively small number of manufacturers makes for an ideal target in face-to-face sales negotiations, an option superior to approaching every retailer separately.

Business Model

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne LinOperations

MuZcalc’s development is governed by the complete product philosophy. As such, it should be easy to sell, easy to buy, easy to use, easy to maintain, easy to support, and finally, easy to sunset. The consumption chains and attribute maps for status quo, MCO and MuZcalc can be seen in (please note that MuZcalc’s consumption chains represent the capability ladder). Coupled with our ambitions of eventually making MuZcalc available to consumers in industrialized nations across the globe, we have to be highly aware of financial commitments that are needed to operate such a globally-marketed offering. In order to preserve our cash, especially during the critical early stages of MuZcalc’s development and marketing efforts, we are envisioning a phased approach that would gradually expand MuZcalc’s availability to an ever-increasing number of consumers in different geographies.

Below is a summary of our phased go-to-market approach. Each phase includes operational considerations comprised of FTE count, timelines, and projected costs and revenues.

Phase 0 Phase 1Objectives Demonstrate technological feasibility

In-license IP (if prudent) Develop app w/ limited features (electronic

sheet music organizer w/ gesture recognition) Sell to piano-loving technocrats Incorporate cloud-based backend operations Bring in some revenue

Timeline Year 1, Quarter 1 Year 1, Quarters 2-3Paid Resources

3 employees 8 employees

Costs $0.2M $0.6MRevenue $0M $0.6M

Phase 2 Phase 3Objectives Can MuZcalc mimic human instruction?

Are students willing to learn from MuZcalc?

Are parents willing to pay for the experience?

Neutralize potential retaliation by human teachers (incentives, incentives, incentives)

Good Teacher + MuZcalc = Great Teacher Learn to mass-produce MuZcalc Develop selling, support and servicing

competenciesTimeline Year 1, Quarter 4

Year 2, Quarter 1

Year 2, Quarters 2-3

Paid Resources

18 Employees, 10 Contractors 57 Employees, 10 Contractors

Costs $1.8M $4M

Revenue $0.8M $1.2M

Phase 4 Phase 5Objectives Enter mainstream North American

market Target consumers through online ads,

social networks, viral videos and printed ads

Create a marketplace for 3rd party authors to sell custom learning curricula (with a fat commission to us!)

Can we support large numbers of contributors? Can we manage micro-sites?

Can everyone get paid correctly and on-time?Timeline Year 2, Quarter 4; Year 3, Quarters 1-2 Year 3, Quarter 3

Paid Resources


Costs $10M $4.5M

Revenue $36M $16M

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Phase 6 Phase 7

Objectives Expand into Australia, Western Europe, South America, East Asia, Middle East

Develop localized advertising and marketing approaches

Provide multi-lingual customer support Create regional order fulfillment centers

Sell through established electronics retail channels

Create MuZcalc “versions” branded for famous piano manufacturers

Timeline Year 3, Quarter 4; Year 4, all quarters; Year 5, Quarter 1

Year 5, Quarters 2-4

Paid Resources


Costs $47M $25M

Revenue $652M $528M

Markets and StrategyThe strategic implications of our phased delivery approach deal with, in no particular order,

market uncertainty reduction, build-up of brand name recognition figuring out what features/teaching methods are most salient, gripping of teachers

through judo strategy conquering markets from small to big in order to build up organizational learnings

(related to selling the product and minimizing expenses) eventual partnerships with piano manufacturers

Throughout the phases, we are incrementally increasing our feature set from light to full-blown and generating learnings in each market before we expand both geography and sales force. A significant part of our strategy was the real options thinking that we applied to our phases, and we have considered the abandonment options at the end of each phase should that phase prove to be the last one in our lifecycle. We will discuss our strategic plans for developing and exploiting competitive advantage phase by phase. In each phase, certain angles may get emphasized or de-emphasized depending on their relevance e.g. the phase of gripping teachers may place more emphasis on marketing messages, whereas the global expansion phase will focus more on operational aspects.

Phase 0 – Determine Technological Feasibility

The objective is to prove that our envisioned product features can in fact be implemented using a combination of hardware and software components in an economically viable fashion. To minimize costs, expedite development schedules and avoid patent infringement claims, MuZcalc will rely on extensive in-licensing of key enabling software algorithms. This includes research in gesture interpretation developed in Sixth Sense Project by Pranav Mistry at MIT Media Lab, commercially-available software for identifying tunes by analyzing audible sounds, musical analysis software components developed by Pandora, and sheet music interpretation algorithms from SmartMusic.

If we cannot prove the technological feasibility of MuZcalc, we will abandon the endeavor and try to sell off our IP.

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne LinPhase 1 – Release Barebones App for Pros

Core features in this free app for Pros include the ability to identify and display sheet music corresponding to what you are playing, page-turning via gesture recognition and management of electronic sheet music. Targeted at piano-playing technocrats, the app is also intended to test out key features of MuZcalc, generate buzz and ultimately provide a small ongoing revenue source.

If the App does not take off, we need to assess whether the music score sales can be a lifestyle business. If not, we should again try to sell off our IP.

Phase 2 – Deploy Mechanical Turk

Once technological feasibility of MuZcalc’s technology has been demonstrated, we will need to establish that consumers are willing to be taught by a device like MuZcalc as opposed to a live teacher. Before we commit major resources to build out the full-blown product, we will try to work out market uncertainty and teaching protocols by using a device that is missing most of the expensive software for real-time analysis and feedback. From the user’s perspective, there will be nothing different about the way the device looks and functionality will appear exactly as advertized. But rather than having an elaborate set of algorithms to analyze student’s playing and provide feedback (the development of which is expected to be the bulk of our R&D expenses), we will be relying on what’s essentially a high-end version of a Mechanical Turk. We will contract with a sufficient number of qualified piano instructors who will sit in front of computer workstations while listening to and watching students as lessons are taking place. These instructors will send feedback through an inexpensive user interface and they will be paid hourly. We don’t foresee a shortage of individuals interested in such jobs, especially given the current economic climate. Participation in this Mechanical Turk setup will provide a useful source of supplemental income to the likes of conservatory students and unemployed young graduates.

If we discover that students are not able to or interested in learning off MuZcalc product, then we will abandon the full-blown venture and revert to the tablet-only approach for advanced player (aka the lifestyle business).

Phase 3 – Grip US Teachers

We will enter a limited segment of North American market by appealing to both unaffiliated and institutional teachers and positioning MuZcalc as a great add-on to human instruction. This is meant to neutralize teachers by offering them discounts on devices they purchase for themselves and incentives to incorporate MuZcalc into their curriculum e.g. commissions for device sales resulting from student referrals. We will encourage teachers to begin differentiating themselves from the traditional competitors with statements of improved student and parent satisfaction, reduced need to carry around printed music scores, real-time performance feedback between lessons, and performance tracking reports that are available exclusively on MuZcalc’s platform.

We will use the influence network to reach teachers e.g. local certification boards that assess students’ piano playing proficiency. We will show respect to the teaching professionals by soliciting their feedback in forming our library of musical pieces.

We will source baseline sheet music from both public domain and copyrighted sources. In the latter case, we will be negotiating revenue-sharing agreements from MuZcalc distributing such copyrighted materials for inclusion in learning curricula. Once the rights are cleared for each score, it will be digitized into an electronic music format using our proprietary technology. MuZcalc content analysts will eventually provide additional annotations. But for now, we will be outsourcing content to the same instructors who used to serve as the unseen Mechanical Turk backend of the prior phase. These individuals would have by now gained proficiency with our platform and seen how much

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne Linpotential it offers to content contributors. By not employing them directly, and rather paying a commission from sale of each piece, MuZcalc will optimize its cash flow and avoid fixed costs associated with additional FTEs.

All content will be accompanied by an AV recording of reference performance produced using MuZcalc device through the down-facing cameras to capture the visual of performers’ hands over the piano keys and built-in microphone for the sound. A complete content piece consisting of the marked-up score, the reference AV recording, marketing descriptors and pricing details is uploaded into the backend cloud servers and made available for inclusion in teachers’ curriculum.

We see Phase 3 as less of a Go/No Go indicator and more as an opportunity to diffuse attacks from our major competitors. If teachers revolt, we will revise future success projections, increase marketing expenses, and move forward.

Phase 4 – Woo US Consumers

MuZcalc’s second official release will go out to English-speaking North American consumers. By focusing on a limited geography and avoiding foreign language support, MuZcalc will preserve valuable financial resources and channel them towards achieving top notch user interface functionality. Consumers will gain awareness of MuZcalc through combination of online ads, music-related blog postings, a YouTube channel with high quality promotional videos and printed marketing campaigns directed at high geographic concentrations of targeted prospective customer ethnicities. At the risk of stereotyping, we will be looking at over-achiever Asian American families as the first segment to conquer. We believe that this segment is most receptive to learning methods that involve high repetition, rigorous dedication to constant improvement, progress reporting and disciplined practice.

Phase 4 will help us scale up important operational processes from incorporating offshore manufacturing ability into our internal value chain to outsourcing all cloud-based IT operations to a 3rd party, assuming it will result in better cash flow scenario for us. After all, the bulk of MuZcalc’s analytical capabilities will be implemented as software running in a cloud environment. The crucial capability for MuZcalc during this phase is to support online sales, including free trials, money-back guarantees and multi-payment purchase plans that will attract North American consumers. Order fulfillment will be done from a centralized location. The last capability that warrants special attention is customer support. Our preliminary analysis of consumer preferences indicates that manufacturers’ inability to figure out why a device is malfunctioning and carry out a quick and effective corrective action is a strong enrager in consumers’ eyes.

If MuZcalc fails to become a mainstream product, we will revise down future forecasts, and approach international expansion with caution.

Phase 5 – Getting 3rd Party Authors to Contribute Learning Curriculum Content

Once MuZcalc is a proven, viable product with a large install-base, we can then stop making our own content exclusively and open up the ecosystem to allow 3rd party authors to create and sell custom lessons. Our earlier outsourcing partners, the instructors from the Mechanical Turk phase that became baseline content authors, will now be in the heart of the new growing ecosystem of 3 rd party content providers. In exchange for their past loyalty, they will receive an opportunity to be first to market their custom-built content and curriculum and start establishing their recognizable professional persona in musical instruction. These early community participants are expected to spread the word about professional benefits of joining MuZcalc network to their industry colleagues through in-person conversations and online social media.

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne LinThe new key capabilities needed for the company in growing this community are: features

within MuZcalc that allow for additional 3rd party content creation/editing; online management of one’s curriculum library, marketing messages, persona, brand and finances; proficiency in micro-site creation within our social network; various aspects of payment processing involving revenue splits between us and content providers.

Should we fail to retain 3rd party contributors, we will need to revise down MuZcalc attractiveness and prepare to author all curricula internally.

Phase 6 – Going Global

Now that MuZcalc is a proven product that can be manufactured, sold and maintained for North American customers and supplemented by a strong network of 3rd party content providers, we will add multi-lingual capabilities for international marketing efforts. We will focus on developed countries in Western Europe, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, the Middle East and East Asia. We are considering markets where consumers have sufficient discretionary income, the cultural interest in music instruction and can appreciate the savings it offers compared to traditional in-person instruction. The order of international releases will be based on technological complexity of incorporating various writing systems. We will start out with Latin alphabet based languages due to great degree of technological similarity to English language software. Covering Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Italian will go a long way in making MuZcalc an attractive product for consumers in all of Western Europe and Latin America. We will then turn our attention to 3 languages with Far Eastern character sets (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and finally, to right-to-left Arabic language to gain attention of affluent Middle Eastern consumers. Given the spread of English in Israel, especially amongst the educated population segments that are most likely to be engaged in piano learning, Hebrew does not appear to be a worthy investment for a language plug-in.

Sales will continue in online channels, but depending on our international success, we may have to expand the number of fulfillment centers to be located closer to target markets. The same thought process applies to localized advertizing and customer support capabilities.

We will phase in our global expansion based on our ability to develop the language plug-ins for particular language structures, our ability to navigate government restrictions and our ability to master distribution system challenges. If some expansion plans don’t work out, we are prepared to stay out of certain markets and revise down forecasts. In the worst case, we may abandon a global strategy altogether and focus on sales in North America.

Phase 7 – New Retail Channels and Partnerships

With MuZcalc now occupying significant market amongst piano learners, teachers and content providers globally, we can now explore the opportunity of co-branding with piano manufacturers and opening up other piano distribution channels through specialty retail stores. In order to entice prospective buyers to purchase the co-branded version of MuZcalc at premium price points, piano manufacturers will rely on famous musicians that are contracted to advertize their products to put their names on content pieces only available to consumers that buy the premium co-branded version. Depending on how unique the manufacturer would like MuZcalc’s appearance to be, we will offer a variety of packaging choices. The high-tech appearance attractive to more innovative manufacturers (e.g. Yamaha and Kawai) can be differentiated from a classically-shaped piano lamp that followers of Steinway and Bosendorfer would find more attractive.

The key new capability involves adjusting MuZcalc’s design to be suitable for white-labeling such that manufacturers’ insignia, color schemes etc. can be applied to the product. Co-branded devices will be distributed through piano stores that sell partner manufacturers’ instruments. At the

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne Linend, both we and the piano manufacturers have to receive the agreed-upon share of MuZcalc’s revenues arising from bundling of our products.

If co-branding works well, we could use the information we gather from working with these retailers to develop additional products that we can sell through piano manufacturers and retailers. If partnering with retailers does not work well, we may need to concentrate on beefing up our online channels.

Market/Industry Analysis

The competitive landscape of musical instruction industry consists of a mix of mostly low-tech alternatives (e.g. DIY printed and electronic publications, and videos) with an emerging segment comprised of software-based solutions for desktop and mobile device platforms. Ultimately, none of the existing options can match the quality of experience and speed of learning available from in-person instruction with a qualified teacher. With status quo mostly based on one-on-one instruction, consumers’ switching cost among other alternatives is low and so is affinity towards new options. Lack of “stick-to-it-ness” is largely attributable to alternatives not presenting a complete solution to learners’ needs. However, low entry barriers mostly found in the form of IP and relatively low capital requirements for new entrants have led to a proliferation of competitive offerings. Currently, teachers face very little threat of substitution, but each of the technology-based options can easily be substituted by another comparable solution. The industry is supplied by traditional sheet music publishers that have been in business for generations and have produced books of musical scores annotated by editors employed by publishing companies. Other teaching and non-teaching professionals have taken on further annotation of musical scores that get included in unaffiliated teachers’ and school-wide curricula. Sheet music publishers have little bargaining power, since a lot of musical content required by a typical student to achieve even higher levels of proficiency can be found in the public domain free of charge. Teachers and other annotators, on the other hand, are perceived as much more valuable since their interpretations are created to accommodate specific needs of individual students. Learners and teachers that purchase instructional materials represent the industry consumers. Due to low bargaining power of suppliers and low switching costs amongst learning technology alternatives, consumers wield significant bargaining power. MuZcalc attempts to appeal to consumers’ liking of in-person teaching experience by offering a similar experience enabled by cutting-edge technology unmatched by any other high-tech competitors.

Customer Analysis

MuZcalc’s target market consists of: parents of 5 – 17 year old piano learners; unaffiliated and institutional piano teachers; and non-teaching piano professionals interested in authoring custom learning curriculum for financial reimbursement.

All targeted students are assumed to respect the power of technology-assisted learning and desire a serious course of study that allows for daily instruction and feedback with a tight focus on formal technique, performance tracking and progress reporting. We believe this target will be highly motivated to pay a premium for a superior product and to add additional features throughout a customer lifetime of ~4 years. In order to further segment the learner market, we assume existence of those consumers that prefer vastly reducing or completely eliminating the need to take lessons from a human instructor once they have purchased MuZcalc, as well as those who want to maintain strong relationships with their teachers and would rely on MuZcalc as the device through which the teacher would communicate learning curriculum and monitor results.

Every three years, the National Association of Music Merchants commissions the Gallup Organization to conduct a national telephone survey of U.S. households to gather some very detailed statistics. According to the 2009 survey, 58% of U.S. households have at least one member who

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne Linplays a musical instrument, and 30% of those who play an instrument play the piano. Therefore, about 17.5% of U.S. households have at least one member who plays the piano. The U.S. Census indicates that there were 130 million households in the U.S. Accordingly, we estimate that 17.5% of 130 million U.S. households play the piano.

The same survey tells us that 72% of players first learned to play when they were between 5 and 11 years old, 14% between 12 and 14 years, and roughly 5% each in the 15 to 18, over 18, and under 5 categories. Of the musical instrument players across households, 35% fall between the ages of 5 and 17, when 90% of players first learn to play, so we will consider this demographic as our total addressable market.

According to the U.S. Census, there were 130 million households in the U.S. in 200, so the number of households that might have a use for our product would be: (130 million households) x (17.5% households with a piano player) x (35% players of learning age) = 8 million U.S. households with a piano learner. By extrapolating % ownership of tablets in the US general population to the piano learner segment, we can conclude that approximately 2M learning age students have access to tablets. This is an important number as it informs the market size for the MuZcalc variation that incorporates the tablet as a means of music score display plugged into the MuZcalc frame/sleeve. (see Appendix 3). Data for China is somewhat less comprehensive, but sources such as Music Trades magazine estimate the number of students to be between 30M-40M. However, we have taken the more conservative estimate of 16M in our financials to reflect roughly double the US market.

Competitor Analysis

We anticipate several sources of competition for our product. The first is the status quo. Parents know that in-person piano lessons work and may be skeptical of the capabilities of an electronic device, both in its ability to monitor and teach the material, and in its ability to motivate or push their child to study. We may face resistance from schools and piano teachers themselves, since MuZcalc has the potential to divert revenue away from them. We would need to stress its complementarity to in-person lessons as an additional practice tools, and emphasize the features that the teachers could use to create lesson plans and monitor the student’s progress as part of an integrated teaching curriculum. We might initially sell to teachers or schools at a discounted price to speed up trial, adoption, and recommendation.

Finally, we already see a number of electronic devices and software on the market that offer piano and music tutoring. We will need to differentiate MuZcalc as a high-quality and complete solution that parents would be proud to own. The device would need to deliver real-time feedback in the most natural way possible and should be a joy to use. On top of this, the key factor will be the live fingering analysis and feedback. This is a technological innovation that addresses a very clear need in the piano learning process, and we will have the technology and implementation protected by patent to ensure that we retain this unique advantage.

All of the software-based high-tech products out there have the fundamental flaw of being nowhere near the experience that students get from face-to-face instruction of a qualified teacher. The following are best-of-breed software-based solutions on the market today, including their price points, features and shortcomings:

SmartMusic – This is the most established competitor that comes closest to analyzing a student’s performance. Their analysis is not real-time, and their display of showing where student is at in the score is too simplistic, which is fine for individual band instrument scores, but does not work for the piano. In fact, SmartMusic is neither targeted nor marketed to piano learners. Its target audience is public school band and orchestra teachers and students learning to play individual instruments. Attractiveness of SmartMusic is further reduced by the fact that in order to analyze student’s performance, the software requires a microphone of higher quality than typically found

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne Lininside of a student’s computer (an add-on one-time purchase between $20-$40). Teachers are able to construct learning curricula out of available content pieces, but cannot customize sheet music instructions for individual students’ needs or for desired interpretations or playing styles. However, being a publicly traded company, it provides a wealth of information on its financials. Its revenues increased from $5,382,000 for the year ended December 31, 2009 by $1,054,000 to $6,436,000 for the year ended December 31, 2010. This is impressive for a product that comes with an annual subscription price of $140 for educators and $36 for students, which includes unlimited use of software with all available instructional pieces.

Steinway Etude – This is a free application where the consumer pays for the content. The app simulates piano playing on the iPad screen as opposed to real piano, lacks the real-time analysis, lacks the ability for one to keep track of where one’s at on the music score, and has no customizable content. However, it’s the first indication that a brand-name piano manufacturer is willing to attach its reputation to a software-based learning tool. This is an industry dynamic we intend to capitalize on as part of our eventual market expansion.

eMedia – Bills itself as the “publisher of the world’s best-selling and award-winning series of music tutorial CD-ROMs.” It claims to feature audio recognition technology that allows the user to receive real time feedback whether playing on an electronic keyboard or acoustic piano. This is a deceptive claim however, as it appears that the real time feedback technology does not work well with acoustic pianos. This means that, like most other gimmicky products, the eMedia offering is limited to working well only with MIDI keyboards, which are not the preferred instrument of our target market. The CD-ROMs do offer 300 lessons in scalable full-screen resolution. The over 70 videos can also be viewed in full-screen. The latest version of the eMedia product was priced at $59.95. Like MuZcalc, eMedia also understands the importance of the traditional piano instructor to its success and has developed an Educational Edition, including multi-user “lab packs” and site licenses. A major detractor of eMedia is the fact that it does not watch the performer’s hands and do not provide suggestions on fingering.

Gimmicky mobile apps – Games and widgets galore for musical instrument simulation that use computer/mobile device screens as opposed to actual instruments. These are targeted at casual, impulsive laypeople with no musical learning experience, and most often with no commitment to mastering any instrument. Examples are Magic Piano and Miso iPad apps.

Competitive Response Analysis and Entry Strategy

It seems that nobody today has put the set of technologies into a product offering like MuZcalc. Therefore, to create the barrier for entry, there needs to be a patent or a series of patents that applies to the product, that do not infringe on any technology-specific patents that have not been thought-of as a complete product. The next step is to go to these specific patent holders and offer mutually-attractive in-licensing terms (i.e. part of the judo arsenal of techniques for new entrants into markets where incumbents hold potentially powerful positions). We are not foreseeing head-to-head conflicts. But we do want to grip potential competitors by offering them an attractive slice of the pie that wouldn’t be there if it weren’t for us. This consistent approach of not offending potential competitors extends to gripping teachers with commissions, referrals and discounted prices. But as John Steinbeck once wrote about the best laid schemes of mice and men, someone will try to retaliate. Our defense path will be to mount a PR campaign touting our superior product offering while preparing to engage in price competition. Consumers be asked to pay less for content, and if necessary, we will offer sweeter deals to content contributors to remain loyal to our platform. We will also reach out to members of the ecosystem that we have created who are now getting steady revenue streams from their contributions because of our innovation, and give them even more incentive to step up to the plate in creating favorable public impression of our offering.

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne LinHopefully, MuZcalc being attacked by an established rival is not a likely scenario. What may be

a more likely possibility is imitators trying to copy our offering while potentially infringing on our intellectual property. To be prepared to attack such offenders, and to sustain strategic competitive advantage, from its inception MuZcalc will be maniacally focused on laying claim to valuable IP components by filing patents, trademarks and copyrights. As of this writing, MuZcalc’s architecture is far from finalized, but preliminary feature analysis suggests that the following mechanical, electronic and software components contain original intellectual property claims:

Pivoting mechanisms allowing for different angles of the projection surface. Projection screen mechanisms Packaging of electronic devices into various compartments within the device Software components interpreting sheet music Software components interpreting audible sounds against instructions on the sheet

music, potentially coupled with teacher-specified comments The idea of the product itself

Revenue Model

MuZcalc’s revenue model involves pricing the device at variable cost and making most of the money on content. Our research of consumer preferences confirms that there are those who are financially strapped and want to minimize the expense and time commitment of in-person lessons, versus those who value the in-person experience and would rely on MuZcalc as a supplementary learning tool. Our bet is that the former segment will be attracted to one of 3 device-curriculum bundles that would allow the learner to progress through increasingly higher proficiency levels depending on which bundle is purchased.

Consumers that are looking to supplement in-person instruction with MuZcalc for guidance during self-study exercises would not be interested in paying for any additional content as part of a bundle, since it’s up to the individual teachers to set the curricula. Every piece of content selected by a teacher will be paid for either by the student or by the teacher or by splitting the cost per the agreement between the 2 parties, thus generating an ongoing revenue stream for MuZcalc. We estimate that every piano learner receives 1-2 new pieces per week.

In addition to the pre-paid and the a la carte subscriptions, students can purchase additional content that may have been authored by us or 3rd party contributors to include as part of their learning. All such content pieces will be individually priced and our cut of sales revenue will depend on who authored the piece, and what revenue sharing agreement may govern involvement of a 3rd party contributor.

Financial Section A major assumption for our financial statement is that device sales will account for our variable

cost structure i.e. the price for hardware will be equivalent to the summation of hardware variable costs and the variable overhead costs. This is why our model is based entirely on ensuring that revenues from content will cover all of fixed costs. As a rule of thumb, we also assume that any geographic market will become saturated once MuZcalc gets to about 15% share. This is consistent with the numbers necessary for a technology to be considered a dominant design. We assume we will get through about 5% of market share per calendar year.

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne LinBelow is what we expect to see year by year in terms of cost, revenue and cash flow:

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5Revenue $ 1,056,250 $ 13,715,000 $ 148,850,000 $ 434,525,000 $ 636,350,000Fixed Cost $ 1,758,125 $ 8,253,958 $ 19,089,167 $ 31,550,000 $ 33,275,000Cashflow $ (701,875) $ 5,461,042 $ 129,760,833 $ 402,975,000 $ 603,075,000

Here are our fixed cost assumptions around FTEs, Rent and Infrastructure:

Assumptions LikelyMarketing FTE Cost $ 125,000Administrative FTE Cost $ 100,000Engineering FTE Cost $ 150,000Customer Support FTE Cost $ 75,000Contractor FTE Cost $ 50,000Executive FTE Cost $ 200,000Equipment Cost/FTE $ 5,000

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5Rent $ 62,500 $ 125,000 $ 250,000 $ 500,000 $ 1,000,000Infrastructure $ 312,500 $ 625,000 $ 1,250,000 $ 2,500,000 $ 5,000,000

Here are our revenue assumptions:

Assumptions LikelyMusic Score Marginal Revenue $ 0.25# Music Score Purchases per User per Week 1Curriculum Marginal Revenue $ 1.50# Curriculum Purchases per Student per Week 2

The complete financial model is in the Appendix, but the following conclusions can be reached:

1. For us, profitability is equal to cash flow positivity since we do not have any delays in getting paid. The business will turn profitable during Year 3, Quarter 1.

2. Assuming that $100M in EBITDA is the minimum required amount to support the liquidity event, we have done sensitivity analysis on this model. The likelihood of reaching $100M by the end of year 5 was found to be 100% with regular forecast, and 90.4% with the pessimistic forecast. Sensitivity analysis indicates very high probability of financial success for MuZcalc. We performed it on the parameterized assumptions using triangular distributions on the assumption fields with minimum, most likely and maximum numbers, and a Latin Hypercube simulation. The values used were the most likely with an average range of 26%. Even under the haircut scenario that assumes doubling of costs and halving of revenue, the probability of reaching at least $100M is 65.3% in year 4 and over 90% in year 5. Here is a summary of how our scenario and the VC haircut scenario stack up in probabilities of meeting $100M in years 3-5 of our venture:

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Year Our Scenario Haircut Scenario3 60.0% N/A4 99.7% 65.3%5 100.0% 90.4%

3. It is foreseen that angel/VC financing will be required to fund MuZcalc’s development. The critical path to applying for any outside financing involves development of a Proof-Of-Concept demonstrating critical ability to determine which musical piece is being played by hearing the sounds out of the instrument, followed by display of appropriate sheet music in sync with performance, concluding with real-time performance analysis against the instructions contained in the sheet music. We will assume that proving that the software works will take one software engineer three months to accomplish. Money for this will come out of founders’ pockets and with nobody drawing a salary. After POC, external financing will be needed to get us to the point of financing operations and growth out of cash flow, which happens in early year 3, quarter 1. Under our scenario, we predict needing $9M in venture money to finance activities up to this point, after which substantial money starts flowing in. By the end of year 3, we expect more than sufficient amounts of money for both online and TV infomercial activities so as to expand our product sales dramatically. Under the haircut scenario, the predicted VC amount needed is closer to $15M.

Below is the year by year revenue, cost and cash flow prediction under the haircut scenario:

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5Revenue $ 528,125 $ 6,857,500 $ 74,425,000 $ 217,262,500 $ 318,175,000Fixed Cost $ 3,516,250 $ 16,507,917 $ 38,178,333 $ 63,100,000 $ 66,550,000Cashflow $ (2,988,125) $ (9,650,417) $ 36,246,667 $ 154,162,500 $ 251,625,000

To increase the predictive power of the simulation, we may want to consider splitting up some of the key assumptions by year and provide an independent simulation for each.

Management and OrganizationThe company is led by a CEO, CTO, CFO and CPO (Chief Product Officer). Interim CEO is

Angela, responsible for vision, strategy and implementation. Music has always played a prominent role in Angela’s life. She plays piano for fun and has represented award-winning musicians and major record companies as an entertainment attorney. She has also served as counsel for technology companies. A Harvard-trained lawyer, Angela has developed particular expertise with respect to intellectual property issues and negotiating sales and license agreements. Angela brings personal passion and professional expertise to MuZcalc. It is understood that at some point a professional CEO will be hired and Angela becomes COO in charge of all things related to expansion, infrastructure etc. Daphne is the chief musicologist/head of product development. Daphne has extensive music background coupled with years of experience running technology organizations. A key venture success factor is ability to in-license gesture recognition technologies from MIT Media Lab and Daphne’s MIT alumni connections are paving the way for this in-licensing.

Both CTO and CFO are yet to be recruited. The CTO’s responsibility is technology POC and being in charge of all technologies. The CTO should possess extensive background in both computer

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne Linhardware and software-based solutions for complex computational problems. Music background and training is a must. The CFO should have background in finance, operational planning, execution etc.

The company will hire a professional CEO. The CEO’s responsibility is to attract venture financing and strike strategic relationships with hardware manufacturers (to make this product), with premium musical instrument manufacturers for the co-branding/content development opportunities. The CEO will be the public face of the company and accountable to the Board of Directors.

The company will rely on outside legal counsel who will be retained on contractual basis, and will receive reimbursement for services as limited cash payments and a share of stock in the company. The legal counsel’s responsibilities will include, but not be limited to:

Executing provisional and final patent applications Reviewing contractual terms Protecting company’s interests against infringements and other potentially hostile

external actions Beyond the executive team, we need the following resources at the minimum after successful

architectural POC that demonstrates viability of the software component:Reporting to the CTO:

Musical analysis software resource General application development resource Mechanical engineer Electrical/electronic engineer Infrastructure Architect

Reporting to CEO: Product manager with marketing and graphical/artistic background (to handle initial

product styling, packaging and promotional needs) Legal counsel

Reporting to the COO: Computer infrastructure and operations specialist (aka CIO)

The company shall have a Board of Directors. The Board will consist of the original founders, legal counsel, two seats for venture capitalists participating in the first round of investment and two outside advisors with no corporate positions who will accept equity only for their contributions to Board activities. The Chairperson is going to be Daphne while Angela is the CEO, and once a professional CEO is hired, the President title may go to Angela if agreed by the Board members.

Once the company starts to grow, there will be additional resources added to the aforementioned skill sets. And once the product components have been put together and validated with the internal “on the cheap” focus groups as mentioned before, we will take on 1 Sales Specialist reporting to the CPO. The role of the sales specialist will be first and foremost, to learn how to sell this product. There is nothing like it out there. We have our current expectations of payment/ownership/distribution channel options, but they may evolve such that competency needs to be developed first before we can grow our sales force to a big enough size where we can get the right sales volume. At this point, we will bring on a Head of Manufacturing reporting to the COO.

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Milestone Events and Key RisksMilestone events occur at every phase of MuZcalc’s go-to-market plan. Completion of each

phase represents a natural milestone in MuZcalc’s lifecycle. Our objectives for each phase in terms of assumptions to test and risks to address have already been covered in both Operations and Markets & Strategy sections. In summary, the only way MuZcalc can deal with these uncertainties is by sticking to its milestone-driven plan and methodically reevaluating known assumptions while proactively seeking new ones.

ID Assumption1 Able to secure technical resources for technology feasibility2 Complete functional picture can be met by mix of our patents plus in-licensed ones on attractive-enough terms3 We can patent sufficient amount of innovation to prevent unauthorized entry by copycat competitors4 Able to attract sufficient amount in 1st round venture financing on adequate terms5 Our hardware design can be solved through existing OEM hardware components6 Prove that gesture recognition is easy to use, and a coveted feature7 Prove the ability of MuZcalc to identify the musical piece being played

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne Lin8 English language of MuZcalc's interface is not a detractor given multiculturalism of North American consumers9 Mechanical Turk version of the device can be built with resources available

10 Mechanical Turk version of the device can be built per cost projections11 A legally-airtight contract is in place with study participants without revealing use of Mechanical Turk backend12 Able to attract sufficient number of Mechanical Turk actors at our projected pay structure13 Able to attract enough study participants meeting criteria and willing to participate on stipulated terms

14 Consumers accept MuZcalc as a full-fledged piano teaching device15 Consumers are receptive to the proposed MuZcalc cost structure16 Manufacturing relationships is working out as planned17 Cloud capacity is adequate and falls within the estimated pricing18 Marketing message towards teachers are appealing19 Incentive structure to teachers are attractive enough, no need to revise projected costs20 Local performance certification boards are receptive to our marketing proposals21 Enough teachers whose students get certified by these boards show interest in MuZcalc22 Teachers are willing to provide feedback on which musical pieces to incorporate into the electronic library

23 An attractive-enough library can be built out of public domain plus sufficient number of contributions from willing publisher participants

24 Publishers are willing to license their printed content on stipulated terms25 Mechanical Turk contributors agree to their new role of MuZcalc content creation at the proposed compensation

structure26 Software features coverage is complete, product quality meet expectations for a full-blown national release27 Support organization is meeting Service Level Agreements (SLAs)28 If 2nd round of financing is required, sufficient amount can be obtained on adequate terms29 Marketing message towards mainstream NA consumers are appealing30 Price points are set correctly for different product/content bundles31 There exists sufficient number of new customer referrals from existing customer social networks

32 Customer service can scale up to meet new SLAs33 Manufacturing can scale up to meet new SLAs34 Solution architecture, including cloud backend, scales up to meet performance requirements35 Retention rate amongst customers who start with free tials is at least 90%36 Consumers are receptive to installment plans paid by credit cards or bank account withdrawals37 Delinquency rate on payment plans is no higher than 10%38 Product defect rate requiring device replacement is no higher than 1 in 1000 units39 Mechanical Turk contributors that became our baseline content developers are now willing to be nucleus of new

3rd party ecosystem40 Referral network is efficiently attracts enough people41 Revenue-sharing agreements for content is appealing to potential contributors42 Company's financial performance enables removal of VC interest through a complete/partial liquidity event i.e.

someone will buy them out43 Future expansion phase can be financed through accumulated resources with no involvement of outside funds44 Accommodating each of the planned language plugins is feasible within existing architecture45 Costs of each planned language plugins are in line with projections46 Prospective customers in each target market are receptive to localized advertizing messages47 Proposed pricing holds for each target market

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne Lin48 Planned fulfillment center locations can be obtained at acceptable costs49 There exist piano manufacturers that are open to associating with MuZcalc50 Onboarding costs for each manufacturer will be picked up by the manufacturer51 The public is receptive to the premium device and content price points52 The revenue-sharing model is acceptable to each manufacturer53 We can perform adequately within value chain of 3rd party storefront and online retailers e.g. Best Buy54 Device architecture can be retrofitted into a variety of form factors to support different manufacturers'

preferences for appearance55 Competitor's response does not catch MuZcalc by surprise56 If attacked by a non-copycat competitor, our marketing messages will be effective in convincing consumers that

our complete product is a superior offering57 Our cost structure will be low enough to sustain a 20% price reduction and a 20% commission increase to content

creators58 A successful competitive campaign will not take away >20% of available market at the time of its launch59 If attacked by a copycat infringing on our patents, we will have sufficient financial resources and adequate legal

representation to mount an offensive (est. non-recoverable cost of offensive is $500K)

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CheckPoint Event Assumptions TestedTechnological Feasibility completed 1-5Tablet App for Pros launched 6-7Consumers' willingness to use the device proven 8-15US teacher support secured 8, 16-28, 34NA mainstream market penetrated 8, 17, 27, 29-38First competitive reaction 55-593rd party content network created 17, 27, 34, 39-42Going global 17, 27, 31, 34, 43-48Retail channels added, instrument manufacturers partnered 17, 27, 34, 49-54


Appendix 1 – Consumption Chain and Attribute Maps Status Quo:Traditional Lessons

Learning Software

MuZcalc:Barebones App

MuZcalc:Parents & Kids

MuZcalc:Schools & Instructors

MuZcalc:Content Authors

Research Instructors∙Word of mouth referral, ads∙Searching for reputable, safe

↓Commute to lessons∙Parents driving or teacher house call for extra fee

↓In person instruction∙Real-time human, specific instruction∙Help with page-turning

Teacher can ∙motivate

↓Pay for lessons∙Via cash, check, credit card∙No financing

Research Software∙Word of mouth referral , ads

Searching for ∙user friendly software

↓Purchase Software∙Payment via cash, check, credit card online or at store

↓Obtain Software∙Download∙Receive physical media

↓Install SoftwareUse Software∙User selects music.∙Product displays sheet music, shows user what to play. May give feedback

↓Supplement with in person instruction

↓Upgrade Software

Research MuZcalc∙App store, ads, WOM from other pianists

↓Purchase App

↓Purchase music

↓Organize own music library

↓Play music

↓Interact with app through gestures

↓Annotate Music

↓Get Latest App Version

↓View ads for full-blown MuZcalc device

↓Purchase MuZcalc device

Research MuZCalc∙Ads, music teachers, schools, WOM from early adopters

↓Purchase Device∙Via cash, check, credit card online, payment plan

↓Receive Device∙From store∙Via mail, delivery service

↓Register Device∙Register serial number to activate device on MuZcalc network

↓Calibrate Device∙Tuning, cam orientation

↓Learn to Play Piano∙Student plays while device analyzes rhythm, notes, intensity, etc.∙System projects teacher-prescribed exercises

↓Monitor Progress∙System tracks time spent on exercises, number of attempts, recurring problems and progress

↓

Research MuZCalc∙Ads, music teachers, schools, WOM from early adopters

↓Purchase, Receive, Register and Calibrate DeviceIdentical to Parents & Kids

↓Manage Students∙Select target student

Manage student’s ∙assignments

↓Teach Students∙Adjust instructions based on students’ performance

↓Opt for More Features∙Additional music libraries to incorporate into their custom curricula, online social media network

↓Troubleshoot, Resell user deviceIdentical to Parents & Kids

Learn about MuZcalc∙Via invitation, WOM or own research

↓Evaluate Opportunity

Evaluate ability to ∙make money by authoring custom content and developing learning curricula

↓Purchase, Receive, Register and Calibrate DeviceIdentical to P & K

↓Provide Content∙Obtain MuZcalc baseline score, annotate as necessary∙Record sample performance according to annotation∙Wait for MuZcalc approval

↓Package Curricula for Sale∙Determine pricing∙Create advertising messages

↓React to Sales/Feedback∙Review sales data and feedback, make curricula adjustments

↓Receive Payment

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne LinOpt for More Features ∙Additional music libraries, sheet music analysis, learning curricula, online social media network

↓Troubleshoot∙System self-diagnosis and self-repair∙Technical support

↓Resell used device

∙Party on

↓Refer MuZcalc for Bonus∙Use referral “widgets” for social networking and e-Commerce sites

↓Troubleshoot, ResellIdentical to P & K

Attribute Map for Students, Parents and InstructorsTraditional Instruction Learning Software MuZcalc

Non-negotiables ∙Real-time feedback∙Can track progress against plan∙Can advance plan via homework∙Instructors can annotate score based on students’ abilities

∙Student can navigate curriculum, display a score, receive feedback∙Instructors can manage curriculum∙Receive performance reports

∙Real-time feedback∙Can track progress against plan∙Progress reports∙Can advance plan via homework∙Instructors can annotate score based on students’ abilities∙Fingering analysis

Tolerables ∙Having to keep track of and drag around sheet music∙Instructors lack of information about student’s actual practice

∙Downloading and updating software

∙Greater initial payment for device∙Optional curriculum fees from online sales

F∙ ewer in-person lessons = less revenue for instructors

Differentiators ∙Psychological effects and performance results from verbal feedback

Instructor can demonstrate ∙live and in person∙Can provide instructions addressing individual student’s strengths and limitations

∙Ability to hear piano along with other instruments∙Provides standard fingering suggestions∙No need for printed music∙No need to commute∙ Minimal instructor involvement

∙Provides standard fingering suggestions∙No need for printed music∙No need to commute∙Can provide instructions accommodating individual student’s strengths and limitations∙Minimal instructor involvement

Dissatisfiers ∙Weekly fees∙Commute

S∙ chedulingMust w∙ ait until next lesson for

feedback

∙Inferior technique analysis

Lack of human touch∙

∙Equipment cost and potential for malfunction

Lack of human touch∙

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MGMT 806 Professor R. Pierantozzi By: Angela Chadwick, Daphne LinEnergizers Rapport with motivating ∙

instructor invested in student’s success

Personalized instruction∙

L∙ ower costR∙ eal-time tracker to

monitor rhythm and tempo

Gaming features∙

Gaming features∙Feedback superior to other non-∙

traditional optionsInstructors can use to become more ∙

virtual; marketing tool

Enragers Instructors cannot monitor ∙how much students practice or how closely student complies with lessons

Instructors become frustrated ∙with disinterested students and parents

∙One size fits all fingering, without regard to hand size and reach

Inability to tailor ∙instructions to student needs

Reduced revenue for ∙instructors resulting from fewer in-person lessons

∙Potentially difficult setup, calibration and repair needs

Reduced revenue for instructors ∙resulting from fewer in-person lessons

Attribute Map for Content ProvidersMuZcalc

Non-negotiables ∙Ability to manage custom library∙Ability to annotate sheet music score∙Ability to upload audio recording∙Ability to advertise one’s works∙Ability to get paid for one’s works

Tolerables ∙Payment delays for reasonable time periodDifferentiators ∙Ability to value-discriminate in content e.g. audio annotation for simple content vs.

premium content of basic plus video of piece being played as part of “Let me show you how it’s done” feature

Dissatisfiers ∙Potential complexity in authoring of content due to intricacies of musical notationCopyright laws and intellectual property laws potentially limiting baseline choices from∙

MuZcalc libraryEnergizers ∙Creating personal brandEnragers ∙Kinks in the system

Product use l∙ earning curveL∙ ate paymentsU∙ nrealized promises

Attribute Map for Barebones AppMuZcalc

Non-negotiables ∙Ability to manage custom library∙Easy to use

Tolerables Having to recharge tablet’s battery∙Differentiators Gesture recognition∙

∙Ability to annotate sheet music scoreDissatisfiers ∙Limited number of songs to purchaseEnergizers ∙Gesture recognition

∙Electronic storage of musicEnragers ∙Kinks in gesture recognition

∙Storage limitations

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Appendix 2 – Financial ProjectionsPhase 0 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Phase 5 Phase 6 Phase 7

# Quarters 1 2 2 2 3 1 6 3# Weeks 13 26 26 26 39 13 78 39

# Music Score Customers - 100,000 125,000 125,000 125,000 125,000 125,000 125,000 # Curriculum Customers - - - 5,000 300,000 400,000 2,775,000 4,500,000

North America - - - 5,000 300,000 400,000 1,000,000 1,300,000 Europe - - - - - - 600,000 900,000 China - - - - - - 800,000 1,400,000 Rest of East Asia - - - - - - 200,000 500,000 Middle East - - - - - - 50,000 125,000 Latin America - - - - - - 25,000 100,000 Australia & New Zealand - - - - - - 100,000 175,000

Revenue -$ 650,000$ 812,500$ 1,202,500$ 36,318,750$ 16,006,250$ 651,787,500$ 527,718,750$ Music Scores -$ 650,000$ 812,500$ 812,500$ 1,218,750$ 406,250$ 2,437,500$ 1,218,750$ Curriculum -$ -$ -$ 390,000$ 35,100,000$ 15,600,000$ 649,350,000$ 526,500,000$

Fixed Costs 202,500$ 650,000$ 1,811,250$ 4,007,500$ 10,022,500$ 4,520,000$ 47,325,000$ 25,387,500$ Rent, Utilities etc. 15,625$ 31,250$ 46,875$ 62,500$ 156,250$ 62,500$ 812,500$ 750,000$ Infrastructure Outsourcing 78,125$ 156,250$ 234,375$ 312,500$ 781,250$ 312,500$ 4,062,500$ 3,750,000$ Executive Personnel Count 0 0 4 4 5 5 5 5Executive Personnel Cost -$ -$ 400,000$ 400,000$ 750,000$ 250,000$ 1,500,000$ 750,000$ Sales & Marketing Personnel Count 0 1 3 16 32 32 64 64Sales & Marketing Personnel Cost -$ 62,500$ 187,500$ 1,000,000$ 3,000,000$ 1,000,000$ 12,000,000$ 6,000,000$ Administrative Personnel Count 1 1 1 2 3 5 7 7Administrative Personnel Cost 31,250$ 50,000$ 50,000$ 100,000$ 225,000$ 125,000$ 1,050,000$ 525,000$ Engineering Personnel Count 2 3 5 10 15 15 20 20Engineering Personnel Cost 62,500$ 225,000$ 375,000$ 750,000$ 1,687,500$ 562,500$ 4,500,000$ 2,250,000$ Customer Support Personnel Count 0 2 5 25 50 100 200 200Customer Support Personnel Cost -$ 75,000$ 187,500$ 937,500$ 2,812,500$ 1,875,000$ 22,500,000$ 11,250,000$ Contractor Personnel Count 0 1 10 10 10 7 3 3Contractor Personnel Cost -$ 25,000$ 250,000$ 250,000$ 375,000$ 87,500$ 225,000$ 112,500$ FTE Headcount 3 8 24 63 110 159 294 294Equipment 15,000$ 25,000$ 80,000$ 195,000$ 235,000$ 245,000$ 675,000$ -$

Cashflow (202,500)$ -$ (998,750)$ (2,805,000)$ 26,296,250$ 11,486,250$ 604,462,500$ 502,331,250$

Appendix 3 – Product Visuals

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MGMT 806 - MuZcalc Business Plan - ChadwickLin

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