Agenda
Live Session Notes:
Introduction and Product Tour
- Craig explained the new company
- We bought the company for $2,750
- 3 on the call knew about the college system and applications
- Craig reviews the website and explains the 2 account types
- Finds 1st problem live - not enough info on the category side
- Shelby asks if anyone was actually paying the $8 and questions "What is the problem this solves for each side?"
- Supply-side: helps students get into the best colleges. Created by a high school student
- Demand-side: Bug #1 on page after logging in
- We have no blog yet, no social media, none of the social links work
- Probably some engineering work to be done - nothing under partnerships for example
Metrics
- We have 4 subscribers and we know that some are family from the previous owner essentially we need to think of it as having no subscribers
- Don't know if the data we have is real or not
- Where do we go from here? What are our plans to grow?
- We have some ideas on spend
- Think about customer acquisition
- Product improvements
- Channels
- Goal: after 6 months, put the company back on MicroAcquire - hopefully make money on it!
- No monetary goal just yet!
Jen Bryan:
- Will be setting up tracking in the coming days, will record everything & make it available
- We have support all the GU team so no need for outsourcing yet
- We don't need an Agency - ourselves & our network will meet our needs
- Total budget for the project is $5000 and we will pull funds from any profits if available
- Where we will spend the budget is open for discussion in this forum
- I will do the Paid Acquisition & Jake will assist with the creatives
- Tracking will be the first step to set up - to get insight into who is using the site and gather data
- Aoife Jacob will be taking charge of email sequencing
- We will always be testing and will show everyone the data as we go
Questions:
-
Varun pointed out an issue: "Wouldn't that also present a small issue as well, at least for top tier colleges they look for differentiation - mimicking someone who got in wouldn't quite help unless they are accepting many of the same candidates even though they say otherwise?
-
Nina "What is the real value we want to provide for both sides? What is this company built for?"
- We need user research
- Social media is playing a role in student life and have talents
- Plays a role in who they are
- Should it be focused on more than grades?
One of the big questions for the GU team - where do we go from here for next week?
- Fixing bugs?
- Validating supply/demand side?
Closing statements/Comments
- It is worth mentioning that the college application process is very cyclical
- Craig asks if we are ready for Acquisition? Agreed no but perhaps to find users for early interviews
- We might be ready to use channels to make connections
- Shelby wonders if the definition of demand and supply is correct?
- Who is the right demand-side - current college applicants
- There could be other demand sides for the data and a higher willingness to pay for the data
- Jen wonders are there other resources outside of students? Perhaps College advisors?
- Are we going to have students meet certain criteria?
- Are we going to change the company or scale it up as it is?
Key Takeaways & Next Steps
- Understanding supply and demand
- Might be a paid side to that
- We have to work on the structure
- Jen will focus on tracking and analytics in place