What do we get to see at the end of the project (form of prototype, etc.)?
The prototypes for The Storyteller Society come in two forms:
1. The actual “physical” product; an eBook.
These prototypes are currently under development (you read the working titles earlier!) and are Collections of 15 short stories by different authors. The targeted genre is “humor,” and the themes center on work. Each collection will be approximately 25,000 words.
FINAL DELIVERY: End of the incubator program
2. The mobile environment that supports the business.
This includes a website and an app that allow Authors to submit their stories, Reviewers to read and rate them, and Curators to combine and edit stories for publishing. The prototype will have three components (produced in this order):
A) Wireframes.
These are basic illustrations which focus on the environments’ navigation, flow, functionalities, and content prioritization. This part of the prototype focuses on how the product will be used.
B) Mockups.
In order for wireframes to be effective, they are usually not produced with any style, color or graphics. Mockups provide a preview in these areas, and as such, this part of the prototype focuses on how the product will look.
C) Technical Specifications
Wireframes are not interactive and do not give the full picture of what an environment will or won’t do. To provide this, a technical specifications document will be produced. It will describe all the features of each environment (website and app separately), and what the features accomplish in relation to user goals. This part of the prototype focuses on how the product will work.
FINAL DELIVERY: End of the incubator program
Key concept that must be validated, proved, prototyped
So far, we’ve dazzled you with tales of how the product is built, supported, and sold. That’s important, and yes, a little fun, but now we need to talk about how we prove this key concept.
The question we have the answer is, will it be successful? And we don’t have the answer.
(This space intentionally left blank for you to write comments with lots of exclamations marks).
Yet. We don’t have the answer YET! Just because we think it’s a good idea, doesn’t mean it is one. We could quote statistics, run through consumer market data, and detail the competition (don’t worry, we will a little later), but that still wouldn’t prove that this specific idea will work. Why? Because no one is doing the exact same thing in the exact same way.
We may not have a definitive answer to the question of “will this be successful?”, but we do have a plan to find the answer. First, we’ve established the criteria that qualify success for us:
1. Customers are willing to open up their wallets and buy the product. That’s a big one. There is no success if there is no revenue.
2. Authors want to write stories and submit them to a community of Reviewers. That’s also important. You can’t sell a book with no words.
3. Reviewers are attracted to and active in the community. The whole concept relies on this happening; you can’t scale this business if just our team is reviewing and rating every story (plus, that’s a pretty scary thought).
And this is our plan for how we answer whether or not it will be successful, based on that criteria.
1. Launch three Collection prototypes for sale on Amazon. Gauge consumer interest based on sales, social referral traffic, and return on (limited) advertising investment.
2. Use Collection prototypes to recruit Beta Reviewers – the people who will test the technology and business model “live.”
3. Use targeted online advertising and personal networks to find and recruit Beta Authors – the first group of people to submit stories to the community.
4. Using the wireframes, mockups, and technical specifications prototype, build Beta environments for the mobile website and app.
5. Have Beta Authors submit stories on the site and Beta Reviewers read and rate them. They’ll experience, and give feedback on, the usability, functionality, and most importantly, the appeal of the product.
6. Publish a Collection from the Beta test, and further test the community’s ability to sell the book with minimal advertising support (primarily using word-of-mouth marketing).
7. Review data from all the previous steps to determine if the product/process is viable and will be successful.
The key concept in The Storyteller Society is the system that produces and markets the product. That is, Authors submitting stories, Reviewers reading and rating them, and the community promoting the product through word-of-mouth to generate sales. Using the information we collect from the process we just described, we’ll have the answers we need to move to the next phase of the business – a full scale launch.
What is the essential INNOVATION in your product or service?
Let’s talk some SMAC. Yes, the “k” is intentionally left off. It stands for “social, mobile, analytics, cloud,” and the convergence of these four industries are driving business innovation today (Rouse, 2014).
The Storyteller Society merges components of customer loyalty and engagement programs into the typical Participatory Commerce model. The way we do it is certainly different, but by looking at the SMAC implications, we can show you how it’s innovative.
Social Networking:
The Storyteller Society isn’t what might think of when you hear “social networking.” More broadly, digital social networks are communities of people who use technology to share information (Merriam Webster, n.d.).
More importantly, users will have the ability post to other social networks. There’s nothing revolutionary about this technique; it is pretty common. BUT remember both Authors and Reviewers are financially rewarded with each sale. That success depends on people’s ability to promote the Collections using word-of-mouth, driven by their social networks.
That is the meat of our innovation, members making money just for participating in the process and then again when they generate new sales from word-of-mouth. This is unlike any other Participatory Commerce model we’ve encountered.
Mobile Devices:
We won’t go into depth telling you about how big mobile usage is, or how critical it is that businesses embrace it – that isn’t news to you. Mobile is all about connectivity and accessibility; it is no longer an optional strategy for businesses.
The key thing to understand here is that every piece of technology we build will be “authentically mobile.” This is a mobile design philosophy that puts a greater emphasis on the collection and analysis of data (Wagner, 2015). Instead of just building a mobile environment, we’re building an ecosystem of data that helps us understand our users better. The more understanding we have, the more effective, and innovative, we can be.
Analytics:
“Big Data” is just numbers until you do something with it. Because we’ll operate in a data-centric, mobile environment, we know we can collect and analyze information on our users. That information can be used to fuel engagement efforts and make changes to the structure of the program on an ongoing basis.
In Wagner’s words, CRM is “ripe for greater mobile authenticity” (2015). The full plan for this will be developed with the Technical Specifications; however, we know the potential for data goes far beyond a simple ranking system for stories. Some examples of data-centric ideas we are exploring:
*Gamification, as a way to drive further engagement & loyalty with the community. Data allows us to track word-of-mouth success and use it as a means of further incentives.
*Localization, as a way to better take advantage of regional differences in content production (i.e. Stories specific to Boston being written and reviewed by people IN Boston).
*Reward systems, as a way to increase relevancy. If we explore non-monetary incentives, including merchandise or experiential prizes, we can start to analyze preference and motivation data from our users.
Cloud Computing:
Briefly, Cloud computing is the new foundation for any IT ecosystem. It’s about scaling technology without the barriers, and cost, of physical servers (Capgemini Consulting, 2013). The “cloud” is what enables us to do everything we’ve talked about so far, without the cost of developing internal systems.
PROBLEM SOLVING TIME…
With these innovations, our model attempts to solve these problems:
Consumer Problems:
1. No financial incentives for participating in crowd projects
Crowd-funding and sourcing are great ways to involve the masses with new products, but they function on “pay to play” or “play for free” models. We want to incentivize our users from the very start and keep them invested in our success.
2. Little influence over the creative process
Beyond seeing what an Author is writing, we want Reviewers to see how the product is constructed (and maybe even write a few stories themselves).
Author Problems:
1. Doing it alone
Authors join our existing community where their unique voice can be heard, and unite with a system that can launch a successful eBook.
2. Building a reader base
Reviewers in our community are the voice of consumers, because they are our consumers. They help Authors get feedback and build their readership.
Finally, our model attempts to solve some problems for the Participatory Commerce market:
1. Lack of customer insight
So often, Authors write a book then try to sell it to people. Instead, we’re asking the customer what they want to read, and then publishing that.
2. Lack of product sales
Our engagement and loyalty (including monetization) integrations push product sales by rewarding members.
What is the COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL?
We like talking about cool ideas, especially if they’re ours. But the hard fact remains, if the product can’t make money, the business can’t survive. So let’s explore our commercial potential, guided by 4 critical questions from Shopify (Lazazzera, n.d.).
1. What is the potential market size?
-Every day, over 1 million eBooks are purchased from Amazon (Author Earnings Report, 2016).
-Total publishing industry sales: Over $30 billion (BISWorld, 2016).
-The average American reads 12 books a year (Ferro, 2015).
-WattPad, a company we’ll talk about more shortly, has 25 million monthly active users and those members post over 24 hours worth of new material every single day (Etherington, 2015).
These are great statistics and show a burgeoning industry with a potential for more products, but they do not give 100% certainty for viability of our model. With a successful test (described earlier) we can further validate this concept.
2. Who are your competitors?
We could classify any publishing company or writing social platform as a competitor, even if neither do the same things, the same ways, as The Storyteller Society. Here, we’re focusing just on other Participatory Commerce models in the writing industry.
Competitor: WattPad
Description: A social network with self-publishing authors offering up their content for free and work with the community to incorporate feedback (Etherington, 2015).
Key Differences: WattPad authors share their work to get feedback and then must publish it separately, and alone. Storyteller Society Authors are never alone – they are supported by a community of Reviewers. And because we’re a publishing company, not just a social network, the final Collections sold by us.
Competitor: Unbound
Description: A crowd-funding platform for books. Authors present a pitch, readers pledge, and when the goal is reached the book is written. (Unbound, n.d.)
Key Difference: Unbound’s model is similar to that of Kickstarter, which relies on users pledging money before a product is produced. Our users don’t pledge money, and are instead financially rewarded when the product is sold.
Competitor: Write On
Description: A writer’s workshop community, where users can read books that are works-in-progress. (Amazon, n.d.)
Key Differences: Unlike The Storyteller Society, Write On doesn’t incentivize its users to participate, it is not a publishing company, and users don’t decide what product will be sold.
3. What is the state of the market?
The publishing industry isn’t new, and books are not a fad. With modest year over year revenue and unit sales increases, the book market continues to slowly grow but has massive overall revenue; $28 billion in 2014 alone (Bluestone, 2015). The Storyteller Society merges this stable market with one that is growing, social commerce (which we’ll cover in more depth in the “Hot Market” section).
4. Who are your target customers?
We look to find our target customer in a niche market, or the piece of the market serving one product need. This is where we find opportunities that are “high impact” but not currently being done well (Dino, 2016). And we aim to change that.
Nielsen provides a tool called PRIZM which categorizes U.S. consumers into distinct segments. This system helps marketers discern those consumers’ lifestyles and purchase behaviors (Nielsen, n.d.). Using what we already think we know about our customer, we land with the Nielsen segment called “Young Digerati.” (Nielsen, n.d.)
“Young Digerati are tech-savvy and live in fashionable neighborhoods on the urban fringe. Affluent, highly educated, and ethnically mixed, Young Digerati communities are typically filled with trendy apartments and condos, fitness clubs and clothing boutiques, casual restaurants and all types of bars--from juice to coffee to microbrew” (Nielsen, n.d.).
This segments might not include all our potential customers, but this guidance from Nielsen can help us understand the people most likely to want our product and to target them with our (limited) marketing dollars. (When we are ready, we can purchase actual population data from Nielsen to get the full count of U.S. Young Digerati and supplemental information).
Additionally, within this segment we know we are targeting consumers who are avid readers and technologically capable and equipped. To give you an idea of the possibilities of that group, let’s look at Goodreads, a social media company Amazon paid $150 million dollars to acquire (Weissmann, 2013).
Goodreads is the world’s largest site for book recommendations with 40 million users (Goodreads, n.d.). Think about this: 9% of Americans do 79% of all our (non-required) book reading (Perrin, 2015). That means that with a U.S. population around 323 million, 40 million is about 12% (US Census Bureau, n.d.). Goodreads’ user base may very well represent the 9 percent of Americans doing most of the reading.
Describe the HOT MARKET your product/service is addressing.
Participatory Commerce, the subset of Social Commerce that we’ve been talk about a lot in this application, is our hot market. In fact, we’d even call it SIZZLING. Let’s explore that, looking specifically at the Crowdfunding model:
Crowdfunding is an industry that is doubling every year and is spread across several types of funding models including rewards, donation, equity, and debt/lending (Barnett, 2015). Massolution, a research firm specializing in the crowdfunding industry, recently reported that the industry raised $34.4 billion in 2015 (Barnett, 2015). They also estimate that this year, crowdfunding could surpass venture capital in the amount invested in businesses.
Just in case you missed that: Crowdfunding could surpass venture capital in the amount invested in businesses. That’s huge! We could go into detail about the implications of that for the market at large, but what’s important is what it means for The Storyteller Society. People want to be involved, and invested, in businesses and given the market’s growth, we see it as both a hot market, and prime opportunity.
What is your benefit to mankind/sustainability?
Great stories are powerful, but we know they alone can’t make the world a better place. That’s why we’ve decided to partner with ProLiteracy, and international organization that supports the people and programs that help adults learn to read and write (ProLiteracy, n.d.).
“Books unlock a world of possibilities” (ProLiteracy, n.d.). Their words, not ours. And when we read them, we knew that ProLiteracy was the right organization to partner with. Words and people are our business, so it only made sense that when we chose an organization to work with, it was one that helps people use words. Why is this so important?
*36 million American adults can't read well enough to fill out a job application (ProLiteracy, n.d.).
*29% of people can only read at an eighth grade level or lower (ProLiteracy, n.d.).
*Among those with the lowest literacy rates, 43% live in poverty (ProLiteracy, n.d.).
We want to help ProLiteracy support people by helping them learn to read and write.
(The full scope and formation of this partnership still being developed, but we have committed at a minimum to donate money with each eBook sale to the organization).
Describe your team and multidisciplinary members.
I’m Joel (picture me waving). Kalinowski is usually the name you see after that. I’m a graduate student in the Public Administration program here at the University of Connecticut, dangerously close to graduation (5 weeks and three days left … but who’s counting?). I hold an undergraduate degree from Johnson & Wales University in Entertainment/Event management. I’m also an avid reader and aspiring author; shocking, I know. My two other passions are ecommerce and marketing, which I’ve been lucky enough to focus on for most of my career. My friends and colleagues say I’m annoying because I’m constantly driving everyone, including myself, to do more, to do it faster, to do it smarter. It’s ok, because that’s why my role in The Storyteller Society is Chief Motivator. (When you’re the boss, you can come up with any fun title you want). That means my primary responsibility is finding great people and, to paraphrase an author I love, getting out of their way and letting them be great (Fey, 2011). I’ll also be in charge of The Storyteller Society marketing & sales efforts.
My goal when assembling a team was very similar to my goal when building my personal network. I surround myself with people I can learn from, people who are smarter. The common thread with my team is not that they all know me – it’s that I’ve learned something valuable from them.
Lisa Malo is our Chief Curator. She has an undergraduate degree from Syracuse University in Journalism and is currently the Director of Integrated Marketing Communications for Edible Arrangements International. She also reads more than anyone I know and is a better writer and editor than I could ever be (shhh … don’t tell her I said that). She’ll be using these skills on the Collections our community creates and working closely to develop and nurture authors.
Matt Bailey is our Financial Wizard. (We made him a hat and everything). His focus is on the numbers, something I’ve seen him excel at throughout our many years working together. Profitability, costs, structure – all the number-crunching that is sometimes avoided by entrepreneurs is his territory. Matt is a serial restaurateur, with several in Connecticut and more coming soon and holds an undergraduate degree in Finance from Central Connecticut State University.
Rebel Interactive Group is a full service digital agency that focuses on emerging technologies and online marketing. They are a collective of many different people who will support The Storyteller Society’s marketing efforts, as well as build all the technology (website and app) required to support it. Learn more about Rebel here: http://www.rebelinteractivegroup.com/
I’m really proud of the team I’ve assembled here, but I know it’s far from complete. While I welcome people from different backgrounds (especially those who meet my criteria of being awesome), there are two specific holes I need to work to fill:
1. A Publisher. The ideal person would have experience in publishing, and doing so on Amazon. Maybe s/he is even an experienced author. They would take the final Collections to market and help the team sell them.
2. A Developer. Even though we have Rebel Interactive to help us design and build the first round of Storyteller Society technology, we’ll eventually need someone in-house whose sole focus is being an expert at our technology.
Do you currently have a go-to-market plan? If so, describe briefly.
With a SIZZLING market and a product that’s ready to be tested, we’ve started building our go-to-market plan. To briefly outline it, we’ve borrowed 8 go-to-market components from Odin, a cloud ecosystem provider (Robinson, 2014).
1. Business Summary
We’ve summarize our business for you earlier, but also recognize that this is an evolving document and we expect to keep tweaking it as we finalize the model.
2. Product Strategy
We’ve covered this earlier too, with details about how our product works and how we plan to position it in the market.
3. Channel Strategy
Again, our primary channel of distribution will be Amazon (Kindle). Because we don’t have a physical product, we don’t a complicated distribution chain.
4. Marketing strategy
There are three prongs to our marketing strategy, as there are three distinct groups we need to reach:
*Our primary tactic for growing our Reviewer base will be a partnership with Goodreads. By advertising on their site, we can bring in some of the most engaged readers to be part of our community.
*Our primary tactics for reaching consumers are:
A. Word-of-mouth marketing, as part of the engagement and loyalty components we discussed earlier.
B. Digital marketing (search, banner, email, affiliate, and social media).
C. Partnerships with Amazon. They have specific programs that allow for the promotion of books, including “early reader” programs and on-site advertising. Publishing on Kindle exclusively also gives us access to additional Amazon marketing programs that help drive sales. (Learn more about this program: http://amzn.to/1MPGX1A)
D. Facebook advertising, where excerpts from stories can be posted to promote a Collection. In retail, Facebook drives 25% of social referral traffic, so this is an important tactic to supplement the other efforts (Beese, 2015).
*Our primary tactic to reach Authors will be direct response. We’ll use Goodreads for this as well, as they have a growing list of author members. In additional, we’ll recruit using other social media sites for authors (some of whom were listed in our Competitive Analysis).
5. Customer Experience
We’ve started this process with our technology prototypes; however, we need to continue to look at and map out how customers (both internal and external) will journey through the product.
6. Technical Requirements
We also covered this in the “Prototype” section; however, we expect this to grow and become stronger over time.
7. Evaluation & 8. Timeline and Execution
We have yet to establish metrics by which we will measure our success. We will complete these sections of the go-to-market plan after the product has been tested.
REFERENCES
Amazon. (n.d.). Guide to Write On. Retrieved March 29, 2016, from https://writeon.amazon.com/info?ref_=ign_h_tn_lm
Author Earnings Report. (2015, October). Apple, B&N, Kobo, and Google: A look at the rest of the ebook market. Retrieved from http://authorearnings.com/report/october-2015-apple-bn-kobo-and-google-a-look-at-the-rest-of-the-ebook-market/
Author Earnings Report. (2016, February). Amazon’s Ebook, Print, and Audio Sales. Retrieved from http://authorearnings.com/report/february-2016-author-earnings-report/
Barnettt, C. (2015, June 9). Trends Show Crowdfunding To Surpass VC in 2016. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/chancebarnett/2015/06/09/trends-show-crowdfunding-to-surpass-vc-in-2016/#b174b68444b5
Beese, J. (2015, June 20). 17 Powerful Facebook Stats for Marketers | Sprout Social. Retrieved from http://sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-stats-for-marketers/
Bluestone, M. (2015, June 10). U.S. Publishing Industry's Annual Survey Reveals $28 Billion in Revenue in 2014. Retrieved from http://publishers.org/news/us-publishing-industry’s-annual-survey-reveals-28-billion-revenue-2014
Capgemini Consulting. (2013). Accelerate Your Transformation: Social, Mobile, Analytics in the Cloud [Brochure].
Chafkin, M. (2008, June 01). The Customer is the Company. Retrieved from http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080601/the-customer-is-the-company_pagen_2.html
Dino,R. (2016). Thinking and Acting Entrepreneurially [PowerPoint slides].
Etherington, D. (2015, March 11). Amazon’s ‘Write On’ Crowd-Publishing Platform Opens To All. Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/11/amazons-write-now-crowd-publishing-platform-opens-to-all/
Ferro, S. (2015, October 26). 5 Bookish Facts About American Reading Habits. Retrieved from http://mentalfloss.com/article/70303/5-bookish-facts-about-american-reading-habits
Fey, T. (2011). Bossypants. New York: Little and Brown.
Goodreads. (n.d.). About Us. Retrieved March 30, 2016, from https://www.goodreads.com/about/us
IBISWorld. (2016, February). Book Publishing in the US: Market Research Report. Retrieved from http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/default.aspx?indid=1233
Indvik, L. (2013, May). The 7 Species of Social Commerce. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2013/05/10/social-commerce-definition/#DUMB5XsMgOqV
Kickstarter. (n.d.). Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats
Lazazzera, R. (n.d.). The 16-Step Guide to Evaluating the Viability of Any Product Idea – Shopify. Retrieved from https://www.shopify.ca/blog/13640265-the-16-step-guide-to-evaluating-the-viability-of-any-product-idea
Lending Club. (n.d.). Lending Club Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.lendingclub.com/info/statistics.action
Merriam Webster. (n.d.). Social Network Definition. Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social network
Nielsen. (2013, September 17). Under The Influence: Consumer Trust In Advertising. Retrieved from http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2013/under-the-influence-consumer-trust-in-advertising.html
Nielsen. (n.d.). Solutions . Retrieved from http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/segmentation.html
Perrin, A. (2015, October 19). Slightly fewer Americans are reading print books, new survey finds. Retrieved from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/10/19/slightly-fewer-americans-are-reading-print-books-new-survey-finds/
Proliteracy. (n.d.). Teach an adult to read. Inspire the world to change. Retrieved from http://www.proliteracy.org/our-solutions
Robinson, D. (2014, September 11). 8 Essential Components of a Go-to-Market Plan. Retrieved from http://www.odin.com/resources/gtm-with-services/target-market-selection/detail/article/8-essential-components-of-a-go-to-market-plan/
Rouse, M. (2014, July). What is SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud)? - Definition from WhatIs.com. Retrieved from http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/SMAC-social-mobile-analytics-and-cloud
Unbound. (n.d.). How to crowdfund a book. Retrieved from https://unbound.co.uk/about
US Census Bureau. (n.d.). U.S. and World Population Clock. Retrieved from http://www.census.gov/popclock/
Wagner, P. (2015, May 17). Mobile First, But What’s Next? Retrieved from http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/17/mobile-first-but-whats-next/
Weissmann, J. (2013, April 1). The Simple Reason Why Goodreads Is So Valuable to Amazon. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-simple-reason-why-goodreads-is-so-valuable-to-amazon/274548/
The prototypes for The Storyteller Society come in two forms:
1. The actual “physical” product; an eBook.
These prototypes are currently under development (you read the working titles earlier!) and are Collections of 15 short stories by different authors. The targeted genre is “humor,” and the themes center on work. Each collection will be approximately 25,000 words.
FINAL DELIVERY: End of the incubator program
2. The mobile environment that supports the business.
This includes a website and an app that allow Authors to submit their stories, Reviewers to read and rate them, and Curators to combine and edit stories for publishing. The prototype will have three components (produced in this order):
A) Wireframes.
These are basic illustrations which focus on the environments’ navigation, flow, functionalities, and content prioritization. This part of the prototype focuses on how the product will be used.
B) Mockups.
In order for wireframes to be effective, they are usually not produced with any style, color or graphics. Mockups provide a preview in these areas, and as such, this part of the prototype focuses on how the product will look.
C) Technical Specifications
Wireframes are not interactive and do not give the full picture of what an environment will or won’t do. To provide this, a technical specifications document will be produced. It will describe all the features of each environment (website and app separately), and what the features accomplish in relation to user goals. This part of the prototype focuses on how the product will work.
FINAL DELIVERY: End of the incubator program
Key concept that must be validated, proved, prototyped
So far, we’ve dazzled you with tales of how the product is built, supported, and sold. That’s important, and yes, a little fun, but now we need to talk about how we prove this key concept.
The question we have the answer is, will it be successful? And we don’t have the answer.
(This space intentionally left blank for you to write comments with lots of exclamations marks).
Yet. We don’t have the answer YET! Just because we think it’s a good idea, doesn’t mean it is one. We could quote statistics, run through consumer market data, and detail the competition (don’t worry, we will a little later), but that still wouldn’t prove that this specific idea will work. Why? Because no one is doing the exact same thing in the exact same way.
We may not have a definitive answer to the question of “will this be successful?”, but we do have a plan to find the answer. First, we’ve established the criteria that qualify success for us:
1. Customers are willing to open up their wallets and buy the product. That’s a big one. There is no success if there is no revenue.
2. Authors want to write stories and submit them to a community of Reviewers. That’s also important. You can’t sell a book with no words.
3. Reviewers are attracted to and active in the community. The whole concept relies on this happening; you can’t scale this business if just our team is reviewing and rating every story (plus, that’s a pretty scary thought).
And this is our plan for how we answer whether or not it will be successful, based on that criteria.
1. Launch three Collection prototypes for sale on Amazon. Gauge consumer interest based on sales, social referral traffic, and return on (limited) advertising investment.
2. Use Collection prototypes to recruit Beta Reviewers – the people who will test the technology and business model “live.”
3. Use targeted online advertising and personal networks to find and recruit Beta Authors – the first group of people to submit stories to the community.
4. Using the wireframes, mockups, and technical specifications prototype, build Beta environments for the mobile website and app.
5. Have Beta Authors submit stories on the site and Beta Reviewers read and rate them. They’ll experience, and give feedback on, the usability, functionality, and most importantly, the appeal of the product.
6. Publish a Collection from the Beta test, and further test the community’s ability to sell the book with minimal advertising support (primarily using word-of-mouth marketing).
7. Review data from all the previous steps to determine if the product/process is viable and will be successful.
The key concept in The Storyteller Society is the system that produces and markets the product. That is, Authors submitting stories, Reviewers reading and rating them, and the community promoting the product through word-of-mouth to generate sales. Using the information we collect from the process we just described, we’ll have the answers we need to move to the next phase of the business – a full scale launch.
What is the essential INNOVATION in your product or service?
Let’s talk some SMAC. Yes, the “k” is intentionally left off. It stands for “social, mobile, analytics, cloud,” and the convergence of these four industries are driving business innovation today (Rouse, 2014).
The Storyteller Society merges components of customer loyalty and engagement programs into the typical Participatory Commerce model. The way we do it is certainly different, but by looking at the SMAC implications, we can show you how it’s innovative.
Social Networking:
The Storyteller Society isn’t what might think of when you hear “social networking.” More broadly, digital social networks are communities of people who use technology to share information (Merriam Webster, n.d.).
More importantly, users will have the ability post to other social networks. There’s nothing revolutionary about this technique; it is pretty common. BUT remember both Authors and Reviewers are financially rewarded with each sale. That success depends on people’s ability to promote the Collections using word-of-mouth, driven by their social networks.
That is the meat of our innovation, members making money just for participating in the process and then again when they generate new sales from word-of-mouth. This is unlike any other Participatory Commerce model we’ve encountered.
Mobile Devices:
We won’t go into depth telling you about how big mobile usage is, or how critical it is that businesses embrace it – that isn’t news to you. Mobile is all about connectivity and accessibility; it is no longer an optional strategy for businesses.
The key thing to understand here is that every piece of technology we build will be “authentically mobile.” This is a mobile design philosophy that puts a greater emphasis on the collection and analysis of data (Wagner, 2015). Instead of just building a mobile environment, we’re building an ecosystem of data that helps us understand our users better. The more understanding we have, the more effective, and innovative, we can be.
Analytics:
“Big Data” is just numbers until you do something with it. Because we’ll operate in a data-centric, mobile environment, we know we can collect and analyze information on our users. That information can be used to fuel engagement efforts and make changes to the structure of the program on an ongoing basis.
In Wagner’s words, CRM is “ripe for greater mobile authenticity” (2015). The full plan for this will be developed with the Technical Specifications; however, we know the potential for data goes far beyond a simple ranking system for stories. Some examples of data-centric ideas we are exploring:
*Gamification, as a way to drive further engagement & loyalty with the community. Data allows us to track word-of-mouth success and use it as a means of further incentives.
*Localization, as a way to better take advantage of regional differences in content production (i.e. Stories specific to Boston being written and reviewed by people IN Boston).
*Reward systems, as a way to increase relevancy. If we explore non-monetary incentives, including merchandise or experiential prizes, we can start to analyze preference and motivation data from our users.
Cloud Computing:
Briefly, Cloud computing is the new foundation for any IT ecosystem. It’s about scaling technology without the barriers, and cost, of physical servers (Capgemini Consulting, 2013). The “cloud” is what enables us to do everything we’ve talked about so far, without the cost of developing internal systems.
PROBLEM SOLVING TIME…
With these innovations, our model attempts to solve these problems:
Consumer Problems:
1. No financial incentives for participating in crowd projects
Crowd-funding and sourcing are great ways to involve the masses with new products, but they function on “pay to play” or “play for free” models. We want to incentivize our users from the very start and keep them invested in our success.
2. Little influence over the creative process
Beyond seeing what an Author is writing, we want Reviewers to see how the product is constructed (and maybe even write a few stories themselves).
Author Problems:
1. Doing it alone
Authors join our existing community where their unique voice can be heard, and unite with a system that can launch a successful eBook.
2. Building a reader base
Reviewers in our community are the voice of consumers, because they are our consumers. They help Authors get feedback and build their readership.
Finally, our model attempts to solve some problems for the Participatory Commerce market:
1. Lack of customer insight
So often, Authors write a book then try to sell it to people. Instead, we’re asking the customer what they want to read, and then publishing that.
2. Lack of product sales
Our engagement and loyalty (including monetization) integrations push product sales by rewarding members.
What is the COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL?
We like talking about cool ideas, especially if they’re ours. But the hard fact remains, if the product can’t make money, the business can’t survive. So let’s explore our commercial potential, guided by 4 critical questions from Shopify (Lazazzera, n.d.).
1. What is the potential market size?
-Every day, over 1 million eBooks are purchased from Amazon (Author Earnings Report, 2016).
-Total publishing industry sales: Over $30 billion (BISWorld, 2016).
-The average American reads 12 books a year (Ferro, 2015).
-WattPad, a company we’ll talk about more shortly, has 25 million monthly active users and those members post over 24 hours worth of new material every single day (Etherington, 2015).
These are great statistics and show a burgeoning industry with a potential for more products, but they do not give 100% certainty for viability of our model. With a successful test (described earlier) we can further validate this concept.
2. Who are your competitors?
We could classify any publishing company or writing social platform as a competitor, even if neither do the same things, the same ways, as The Storyteller Society. Here, we’re focusing just on other Participatory Commerce models in the writing industry.
Competitor: WattPad
Description: A social network with self-publishing authors offering up their content for free and work with the community to incorporate feedback (Etherington, 2015).
Key Differences: WattPad authors share their work to get feedback and then must publish it separately, and alone. Storyteller Society Authors are never alone – they are supported by a community of Reviewers. And because we’re a publishing company, not just a social network, the final Collections sold by us.
Competitor: Unbound
Description: A crowd-funding platform for books. Authors present a pitch, readers pledge, and when the goal is reached the book is written. (Unbound, n.d.)
Key Difference: Unbound’s model is similar to that of Kickstarter, which relies on users pledging money before a product is produced. Our users don’t pledge money, and are instead financially rewarded when the product is sold.
Competitor: Write On
Description: A writer’s workshop community, where users can read books that are works-in-progress. (Amazon, n.d.)
Key Differences: Unlike The Storyteller Society, Write On doesn’t incentivize its users to participate, it is not a publishing company, and users don’t decide what product will be sold.
3. What is the state of the market?
The publishing industry isn’t new, and books are not a fad. With modest year over year revenue and unit sales increases, the book market continues to slowly grow but has massive overall revenue; $28 billion in 2014 alone (Bluestone, 2015). The Storyteller Society merges this stable market with one that is growing, social commerce (which we’ll cover in more depth in the “Hot Market” section).
4. Who are your target customers?
We look to find our target customer in a niche market, or the piece of the market serving one product need. This is where we find opportunities that are “high impact” but not currently being done well (Dino, 2016). And we aim to change that.
Nielsen provides a tool called PRIZM which categorizes U.S. consumers into distinct segments. This system helps marketers discern those consumers’ lifestyles and purchase behaviors (Nielsen, n.d.). Using what we already think we know about our customer, we land with the Nielsen segment called “Young Digerati.” (Nielsen, n.d.)
“Young Digerati are tech-savvy and live in fashionable neighborhoods on the urban fringe. Affluent, highly educated, and ethnically mixed, Young Digerati communities are typically filled with trendy apartments and condos, fitness clubs and clothing boutiques, casual restaurants and all types of bars--from juice to coffee to microbrew” (Nielsen, n.d.).
This segments might not include all our potential customers, but this guidance from Nielsen can help us understand the people most likely to want our product and to target them with our (limited) marketing dollars. (When we are ready, we can purchase actual population data from Nielsen to get the full count of U.S. Young Digerati and supplemental information).
Additionally, within this segment we know we are targeting consumers who are avid readers and technologically capable and equipped. To give you an idea of the possibilities of that group, let’s look at Goodreads, a social media company Amazon paid $150 million dollars to acquire (Weissmann, 2013).
Goodreads is the world’s largest site for book recommendations with 40 million users (Goodreads, n.d.). Think about this: 9% of Americans do 79% of all our (non-required) book reading (Perrin, 2015). That means that with a U.S. population around 323 million, 40 million is about 12% (US Census Bureau, n.d.). Goodreads’ user base may very well represent the 9 percent of Americans doing most of the reading.
Describe the HOT MARKET your product/service is addressing.
Participatory Commerce, the subset of Social Commerce that we’ve been talk about a lot in this application, is our hot market. In fact, we’d even call it SIZZLING. Let’s explore that, looking specifically at the Crowdfunding model:
Crowdfunding is an industry that is doubling every year and is spread across several types of funding models including rewards, donation, equity, and debt/lending (Barnett, 2015). Massolution, a research firm specializing in the crowdfunding industry, recently reported that the industry raised $34.4 billion in 2015 (Barnett, 2015). They also estimate that this year, crowdfunding could surpass venture capital in the amount invested in businesses.
Just in case you missed that: Crowdfunding could surpass venture capital in the amount invested in businesses. That’s huge! We could go into detail about the implications of that for the market at large, but what’s important is what it means for The Storyteller Society. People want to be involved, and invested, in businesses and given the market’s growth, we see it as both a hot market, and prime opportunity.
What is your benefit to mankind/sustainability?
Great stories are powerful, but we know they alone can’t make the world a better place. That’s why we’ve decided to partner with ProLiteracy, and international organization that supports the people and programs that help adults learn to read and write (ProLiteracy, n.d.).
“Books unlock a world of possibilities” (ProLiteracy, n.d.). Their words, not ours. And when we read them, we knew that ProLiteracy was the right organization to partner with. Words and people are our business, so it only made sense that when we chose an organization to work with, it was one that helps people use words. Why is this so important?
*36 million American adults can't read well enough to fill out a job application (ProLiteracy, n.d.).
*29% of people can only read at an eighth grade level or lower (ProLiteracy, n.d.).
*Among those with the lowest literacy rates, 43% live in poverty (ProLiteracy, n.d.).
We want to help ProLiteracy support people by helping them learn to read and write.
(The full scope and formation of this partnership still being developed, but we have committed at a minimum to donate money with each eBook sale to the organization).
Describe your team and multidisciplinary members.
I’m Joel (picture me waving). Kalinowski is usually the name you see after that. I’m a graduate student in the Public Administration program here at the University of Connecticut, dangerously close to graduation (5 weeks and three days left … but who’s counting?). I hold an undergraduate degree from Johnson & Wales University in Entertainment/Event management. I’m also an avid reader and aspiring author; shocking, I know. My two other passions are ecommerce and marketing, which I’ve been lucky enough to focus on for most of my career. My friends and colleagues say I’m annoying because I’m constantly driving everyone, including myself, to do more, to do it faster, to do it smarter. It’s ok, because that’s why my role in The Storyteller Society is Chief Motivator. (When you’re the boss, you can come up with any fun title you want). That means my primary responsibility is finding great people and, to paraphrase an author I love, getting out of their way and letting them be great (Fey, 2011). I’ll also be in charge of The Storyteller Society marketing & sales efforts.
My goal when assembling a team was very similar to my goal when building my personal network. I surround myself with people I can learn from, people who are smarter. The common thread with my team is not that they all know me – it’s that I’ve learned something valuable from them.
Lisa Malo is our Chief Curator. She has an undergraduate degree from Syracuse University in Journalism and is currently the Director of Integrated Marketing Communications for Edible Arrangements International. She also reads more than anyone I know and is a better writer and editor than I could ever be (shhh … don’t tell her I said that). She’ll be using these skills on the Collections our community creates and working closely to develop and nurture authors.
Matt Bailey is our Financial Wizard. (We made him a hat and everything). His focus is on the numbers, something I’ve seen him excel at throughout our many years working together. Profitability, costs, structure – all the number-crunching that is sometimes avoided by entrepreneurs is his territory. Matt is a serial restaurateur, with several in Connecticut and more coming soon and holds an undergraduate degree in Finance from Central Connecticut State University.
Rebel Interactive Group is a full service digital agency that focuses on emerging technologies and online marketing. They are a collective of many different people who will support The Storyteller Society’s marketing efforts, as well as build all the technology (website and app) required to support it. Learn more about Rebel here: http://www.rebelinteractivegroup.com/
I’m really proud of the team I’ve assembled here, but I know it’s far from complete. While I welcome people from different backgrounds (especially those who meet my criteria of being awesome), there are two specific holes I need to work to fill:
1. A Publisher. The ideal person would have experience in publishing, and doing so on Amazon. Maybe s/he is even an experienced author. They would take the final Collections to market and help the team sell them.
2. A Developer. Even though we have Rebel Interactive to help us design and build the first round of Storyteller Society technology, we’ll eventually need someone in-house whose sole focus is being an expert at our technology.
Do you currently have a go-to-market plan? If so, describe briefly.
With a SIZZLING market and a product that’s ready to be tested, we’ve started building our go-to-market plan. To briefly outline it, we’ve borrowed 8 go-to-market components from Odin, a cloud ecosystem provider (Robinson, 2014).
1. Business Summary
We’ve summarize our business for you earlier, but also recognize that this is an evolving document and we expect to keep tweaking it as we finalize the model.
2. Product Strategy
We’ve covered this earlier too, with details about how our product works and how we plan to position it in the market.
3. Channel Strategy
Again, our primary channel of distribution will be Amazon (Kindle). Because we don’t have a physical product, we don’t a complicated distribution chain.
4. Marketing strategy
There are three prongs to our marketing strategy, as there are three distinct groups we need to reach:
*Our primary tactic for growing our Reviewer base will be a partnership with Goodreads. By advertising on their site, we can bring in some of the most engaged readers to be part of our community.
*Our primary tactics for reaching consumers are:
A. Word-of-mouth marketing, as part of the engagement and loyalty components we discussed earlier.
B. Digital marketing (search, banner, email, affiliate, and social media).
C. Partnerships with Amazon. They have specific programs that allow for the promotion of books, including “early reader” programs and on-site advertising. Publishing on Kindle exclusively also gives us access to additional Amazon marketing programs that help drive sales. (Learn more about this program: http://amzn.to/1MPGX1A)
D. Facebook advertising, where excerpts from stories can be posted to promote a Collection. In retail, Facebook drives 25% of social referral traffic, so this is an important tactic to supplement the other efforts (Beese, 2015).
*Our primary tactic to reach Authors will be direct response. We’ll use Goodreads for this as well, as they have a growing list of author members. In additional, we’ll recruit using other social media sites for authors (some of whom were listed in our Competitive Analysis).
5. Customer Experience
We’ve started this process with our technology prototypes; however, we need to continue to look at and map out how customers (both internal and external) will journey through the product.
6. Technical Requirements
We also covered this in the “Prototype” section; however, we expect this to grow and become stronger over time.
7. Evaluation & 8. Timeline and Execution
We have yet to establish metrics by which we will measure our success. We will complete these sections of the go-to-market plan after the product has been tested.
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