Story Time [2 grams]
Describe your founding story (or "myth")
What inspired you and how did you develop this vision?
Like many entrepreneurs, I've created a product and service that fulfills a need that I have that is not fulfilled - the ability to easily speak to government in real time.
OrangeCone is born out of a story that takes place during my early grade school, over a trip my younger brother Mike and I took with my parents to New Orleans. My dad was there for a conference of Emergency Physicians, and my mom, brother and I used the opportunity to explore Jackson Square, down in the French Quarter.
We were having a fine time eating sugar-coated beignets and feeding the pigeons, and we did some food shopping. My helpful brother was carrying a shopping bag for my mom as we walked in Jackson Square.
That particular week, Jackson Square was having some slate repaired, and benches were unscrewed from fasteners and set aside.
Without Orange Cones indicating a need for caution around the fasteners, my brother did not notice them, and he tripped on one bench fastener and fell and hit his head on another. His serious injury required an immediate trip to the hospital and surgery to repair his injury - a high price to pay for helping our mom!
Fast-forward to just recently in my Arlington, Virginia neighborhood and I notice the same thing: a street lamp has been removed for repair, and the screw fasteners in the sidewalk had not been covered or protected!
I realized that even twenty years later, there was still not a fluid, easy-to-use method to communicate that I have a need as a citizen to my government and fellow citizens.
So, I decided to try to create a way... and that's OrangeCone.
TAM Slam [3 grams]
Summarize the total addressable market for your venture
Distinguish between the long-term total potential market vs. the sub-set of that market that is "addressable" by your venture in its first year or two
My initial customer will be local executive governments in the US. Currently, there are 295 governments that serve more then 100 thousand citizens each, which includes ~63 million people if you do not include the 10 most populous US cities.
My initial target market is these medium and small cities that do not have a satisfactory way to source citizen issues, and do not have the funds or the know-how to create their own solution.
If I assume that I can capture 50% of this market, that is ~147 governments.
If I assume that half of these 147 governments will order an Enterprise subscription for 100 users at $80 per user per month, that will give $590K Revenue per month and $7.08M per year.
If I assume the other half of the 147 governments captured will select the Pay Per User option at $100 per user per month for 50 users per government on average, this will give us revenues of ~$4.43M per year.
This gives a Total Addressable Market of ~$11.5 million per year for the initial customer type - Local Executive Governments.
Once this initial customer is served, other customers will become viable, including: State and Federal Executive governments and Agencies, State and Federal Legislative governments, Nonprofits, and Media organizations.
Ultimately, this product can and should be utilized in the international market as well.
BMC Plate*** [5 grams]
Document your business model canvas
Present your canvas graphically, in the format reviewed in EF1 (MLD829M) by Osterwalder and Pigneur http://www.businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas/bmc
Specify your top three hypotheses:
One related to a customer segment you are serving
One related to your value proposition to that segment
One related to some other component of the canvas
Customer Segment hypothesis: I currently believe that governments will pay a subscription fee for a real-time information service such as OrangeCone, because they already pay for real-time information through TV monthly subscriptions.
Value Proposition hypothesis: I believe that the value of OrangeCone is such that a two-sided market - of both citizens utilizing the app for free to report issues, and subscribing users can be created
Value Proposition hypothesis: One recognized, branded mobile application that is useful for reporting to government in any geographic area will be utilized more than current single-city based mobile applications - both by citizens, who only need to utilize one application for this function, and by government clients with varying needs, who struggle to make use of bucketed government data.