Tink R’ Labs

Team Name – Tink R’ Labs

Initial IdeaA device agnostic platform that enables distribution and management of high quality educational and entertainment content for children.

Initial Size of OpportunityDual-sided opportunity targeting 20,000,000 American children aged 4-11 who use online devices and educational content providers

Who we are

Henry Hsiao ◦ Mattel Inc.◦ Digital and Web business / technology experience◦ Conceived initial idea

Daphne Luong◦ Tellme Microsoft◦ High tech startups, education non-profits.◦ Engineering management, bringing version 0 products to scale

Tanuja Singh◦ AT&T◦ Lead Technical Architect, Educational non-profit◦ Application Architecture, Technology and Business Roadmaps

Michael Bowers◦ Research Affiliates◦ Background in Management Consulting and Asset Management◦ Business model research, advanced financial modeling

Our Team

BMC Version 1 (initial idea)

Risk2 channels7 value props6 partners

What We Originally ThoughtParents Willing to pay to control their children’s online

experience through selecting and managing educational and entertainment content

Valued a device agnostic experiences for their children

Content providers Seeking multiplatform distribution Unhappy with the Apple ecosystem Wanted additional analytics on user behavior

Interviewed 50 parents in person Interviewed 3 child-focused content

providers and publishers Observed the technology usage behavior of

parents and children Researched existing solutions and

technologies Researched industry

What We Did To Test It

What We FoundParents Concerned about controlling content and

managing online experience, but not willing to pay for a service

Not concerned about device agnostic experiences for their children

Content providers Multiplatform distribution is nice to

have, but not worth the effort to adapt content

Unhappy with Apple ecosystem – but benefits outweigh sacrifices and they are skeptical of an alternative

Want more data as user behavior is a blind spot, but only a nice-to-have as they perceive a level playing field

Pursued Three New Options1. COPPA Edutainment AppStore2. Edutainment Content Platform3. Kid Screentime Analytics

COPPA Edutainment AppStoreKey Partners

Revenue Streams

Cost Structure

ChannelsKey Resources

Key Activities

Value Proposition

Customer Relationships

Customer Segments

- Content discovery

- Content rating and review by experts

- Provide “Seal of Approval” (?)

- Provide user specific recommendations

- COPPA compliance

- App developers

- Toy/Game Co.- Publishers- Entertainmen

t Co.- Educators

- Two-sided market, connect content to users

- Parents with k-8th grade children

- Parents with K-6th grade children

- Content/game providers

- Help parents discover good, age and subject appropriate content

- Provide one-stop-shop for kids edu-taiment content

- Allow parents to search and structure their kid's content and curriculum

- Provide content providers with consumer insights

- Provide expert ratings and reviews + user ratings (parents/kids)

- Subscription fee- Freemium- Premium content fees- Ad revenues

- Direct web channel

- Advertising on social networks, parent lists & magazines

- Parents: Automated services

- Content Provider: Co-creation

- Communities

- Engineers/IT

- “Experts” / reviewers

- Marketers

- Platform / webservices design, development, and operation

- Marketing expenses- On-going content discovery/rating/reviews

Edutainment Content PlatformKey Partners

Revenue Streams

Cost Structure

ChannelsKey Resources

Key Activities

Value Proposition

Customer Relationships

Customer Segments

- Platform Development

- Recruit brand-name content providers

- Targeted Marketing

- Toy/Game Co.- Entertainment

Co.- Educators- Educational

Institutions- Textbook

publishers

- Content / game providers

- Parents with k-8th grade children

- Parents with K-6th grade children

Content Providers:- Simplify authoring

content tool- Alternate revenue

model for content distribution

- Specialized content distribution platform

Parents:- Device agnostic education and entertainment platform (HTML5?)

- Platform license fee (?)- Premium content fee- User analytics data to content provider

- Direct relationship with content providers

- Direct web channel

- Co-creation- Automated

services

- Engineers- Content

providers- Content library- Marketers- Brand

- Platform design, development and maintenance

- Marketing expenses

Kid Screentime AnalyticsKey Partners

Revenue Streams

Cost Structure

ChannelsKey Resources

Key Activities

Value Proposition

Customer Relationships

Customer Segments

- Platform Development

- Targeted Marketing

- COPPA compliance

- App platform developers

- App developers

- Parents with k-8th grade children

- Working parents with K-6th grade children

Parents:- Monitor &

benchmark children’s progress

- Motivate children through rewards & recognition

- Know children’s media usage time and usage content.

App developers:- Customer usage

insights

- Subscription fee

- Direct web channel

- Automated services

- Engineers

- Platform design, development and maintenance

- Marketing expenses

BMC Version 2 (Penpal 2.0)Key Partners

Revenue Streams

Cost Structure

ChannelsKey Resources

Key Activities

Value Proposition

Customer Relationships

Customer Segments

- Platform / Portal Development

- Establish relationship with schools/teachers (US + international)

- COPPA compliance

- Curriculum / content

- Schools / teachers- Educators- Content providers- Curriculum

content developers

- Teachers of 3rd to 5th grade classrooms

- Middle school(?)

- High school(?)

Teachers:- Relevant,

engaging, effective lesson plans for children

- Safe way to expose students to internet

Students:- Exposure to other

cultures, writing skills, communication skills, both teach & learn.

- Sponsorships- Subscriptions

- Through school districts or directly with teachers

- Through parents

- Engineers- Marketing- Business /

relationship development

- Platform design, development and maintenance

- Procure classroom participations (US + international)

- Content development

Teachers:- Co-creation

Still selling through schools and teachers

Here’s What We Did More customer validation

◦ Parents (interviewed 30 parents)◦ Teachers (interviewed 7 teachers)

More Research◦ Everloop.com (meeting with founder)◦ Facebook (meeting with CIO)

Launched parents and teachers sign up pages◦ Over 70 sign ups / Average ~18% conversion rate

Purchased adwords to generate traffic◦ 80 ad words

Begin build out of functional MVP website

Here’s What We Found School approval process tedious and

convoluted Teachers prefer parents to pay for solution Teachers are excited to endorse this

solution

BMC Version 3: Remove schools and teachers – focus on parents

Here’s What We Did

A Day in the Life of

Michael Jones (California) Xi Cheng (Shanghai, China)

7:00 AM Wake up and eat breakfast, I have cereal and milk8:30 AM Go to school, my mom drives me to school

10:00 PM Sleeping

10:30 AM Recess, play kick ball with my friends 12:00 PM Lunch time, I have ham sandwich and milk today. I play in the playground with my friends

1:00 PM I have music class. We learn a song and some music theory

3:30 PM Done with school 5:30 AM Wake up and eat breakfast, I have porridge and break.

What is kick ball?

MVP - Wikispaces

Link

MVP - Google site

Link

Here’s What We Found(Lessons from MVP Product) Simple, “living” interface with visual cues Easy commenting and conversations Easy usage of widgets

◦ Embed Pictures, videos, games, etc. Additional engaging content Strong endorsement from Teachers Strong preference for sponsorship of

another child with subscription

Here’s What We Did Market data from research firms Launched Alpha Product

(mynetpals.com)◦ Analyzed customer feedbacko Recorded kids and parents usage

o Launched social marketing campaign◦ Facebook Fan: 150 likes, 81 talking about◦ Twitter: 24 Tweets, 93 Followers

Great discussions with leads for the following organizations:◦ One Laptop per Child (OLTP)◦ BCT - http://bctindia.org/. They have an extensive educational program including a

residential school. ◦ KommunityDesK - http://www.kommunitydesk.com/Default.aspx. The TechAwards

laureates. (http://thetechawards.thetech.org/)◦ Global Give Back Circle - http://www.globalgivebackcircle.org/

Schools and partners in India funded by Small Steps Foundation (US 501c3 charity) for a computer center or computer education◦ Deenabandhu Trust @ http://deenabandhutrust.org/index.html◦ Sshrishti @ http://sshrishti.org/◦ Hayden Hall @ http://haydenhall.org/

Global Interest

Facebook campaign generated lots of overseas interest

Next Version (Usability focus)

The Processo Don’t be afraid to show “imperfect” versions of your producto Get outside the building! o Have mentors!o Share information (41 blog posts, 24 mentor comments, 13 teaching team comments,

38 team responses)o Go Lean! Bootstrap!

The Businesso There is a business here!o Focus!

o Communicate Value Proposition to Parents and Provide User Experience to kidso 5.9 million US kids 6-11 with family income > 150Ko Amazing feedback from EVERYWHERE (interviewees, beta users, online search,

Facebook, Twitter, potential partners) To Pursue on not to Pursueo Yes, Yes, and Yes!o Launch version 2.0 of MyNetPals product in two weekso Engage early adopters more fully to take the UI to the next level

Here’s What We Learned

Mentors (Nick O’ Connor and Jack Kloster)o Agreeing to weekly meetings and email conversations, proving honest

feedback, and pushing us to do things we weren’t comfortable witho Nick – always being there, to push and guide us, share tools knowledge,

send emails to his school, his daughter our one of our first “alpha” testers

o Jack - Sharing Yardbarker experience and guidance on business approach

Teaching Team (Steve, Jon, Jim, Oren, Bhavik)o Allowing us to grow our business idea, teaching us the framework, and

giving us opportunities to fail and learno Providing new thoughts and avenueso Caring so much

Thank You!!!