Startup Idea - Marketplace for Unconventional Advertising

The Problem – Limited advertising options and increasing advertising budgets have led to steep rises in advertising rates of these options. This has affected the return advertisers can get on their advertising spend, at times making it unreasonable for them to do so.

The Solution/Startup Idea – A marketplace connecting sources of unconventional advertising with potential advertisers. This includes adverts in places like gyms, hotels, salons, educational campuses, residential areas etc.

Rationale – A host of unconventional advertising sources exist which are largely untapped. Tapping these would tend to bring down the advertising costs of advertisers, help them target better and also generate additional revenue of vendors of these new advertisement options.

Target Market –

Customers – Advertisers (especially local businesses, SMEs etc.); New vendors of advertisements (local options like gyms, schools, hotels, salons, spas etc. and online options like blogs, personal websites).

Geography – Global (launch can be in a particular city/country)

Current Competition – This unconventional advertising market is still untapped.

Competitive Advantage – The market is largely untapped. A first mover advantage can prove to be a significant competitive advantage. Also the volume and quality of the data will create barriers to entry in the future.

Startup Model – Online Learning Tool

THE MODEL: A app which lets users learn mainly languages with courses created by the community. The startup. The aim is to make learning lasting and joyful.

STARTUP: Memrise (British startup)

WHAT I LIKE

Core Idea – An app which makes online learning lasting and joyful.

The Fun Angle – The app turns learning facts and language into a game where you grow a colourful garden of memory. The more you learn, the more the flowers in your garden.

Scientific Learning – The startup focuses on the science behind learning and tries to use the best practices in ensuring that the learning is faster and more lasting. ElaborateCoding, Choreographed Testing & Reminders are used to ensure that users can pick up a language in the fastest time.

Community – Adding a community is a great as it helps in the following ways – users can compare their progress and great content gets crowd-sourced along the way.

CONCERNS

Competition – Online learning tools are in plenty. With some established apps already in this space, building a space for yourself in this market will be difficult.

Revenue – A lot of the competing apps are free and hence building revenues might be a problem for Memrise as well. Driving a business on investor money is risky and not very long lasting. A robust revenue model will need to built in.