Team Tink R' Labs aims to create an educational platform for children. It would allow parents to select and manage age-appropriate content across devices. The initial opportunity targets 20 million American children aged 4-11 who use online devices. The founding team has experience in education, technology and startups. Customer research found parents want help controlling content but not a paid service. The team will focus on a COPPA-compliant analytics app for parents and a content platform for providers.
2. Team Name – Tink R’ Labs
Initial Idea
A device agnostic platform that enables distribution
and management of high quality educational and
entertainment content for children.
Initial Size of Opportunity
Dual-sided opportunity targeting 20,000,000
American children aged 4-11 who use online devices
and educational content providers
3. 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
5. Parents
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
6. 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
7. Parents
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
9. Key Activities Key Partners Value Customer Customer
Proposition Relationships Segments
- App - Help parents - Parents: - Two-sided
- Content developers Automated
discover good, age market,
discovery - Toy/Game services
and subject connect
Co. appropriate - Content content to
- Content rating - Publishers Provider:
content users
and review by - Entertainment Co-creation
- Provide one-stop-
experts Co. - Communitie
shop for kids edu- - Parents with
- Educators taiment content s k-8th grade
- Provide “Seal of
Key Resources - Allow parents to Channels children
Approval” (?)
search and
structure their - Parents with
- Provide user - Engineers/I - Direct web
kid's content and K-6th grade
specific T channel
curriculum children
recommendatio - “Experts” /
- Provide content
ns reviewers - Advertising on
providers with - Content/game
- Marketers social networks,
consumer insights providers
- COPPA parent lists &
- Provide expert
compliance magazines
ratings and reviews
+ user ratings
Cost Structure Revenue
(parents/kids)
Streams
- Platform / webservices
design, development, and operation - Subscription fee
- Marketing expenses - Freemium
- On-going content discovery/rating/reviews - Premium content fees
- Ad revenues
10. Key Activities Key Partners Value Customer Customer
Proposition Relationships Segments
- Toy/Game Co. Content Providers: - Co-creation - Content /
- Platform - Entertainment - Automated
- Simplify authoring game
Development Co. services
content tool providers
- Educators - Alternate revenue
- Recruit brand- - Educational model for content - Parents with
name content Institutions distribution k-8th grade
providers - Textbook - Specialized content children
publishers distribution
- Targeted
Key Resources platform Channels - Parents with
Marketing
K-6th grade
- Engineers Parents: children
- Direct
- Content - Device agnostic
relationship
providers education and
with content
- Content library entertainment
providers
- Marketers platform (HTML5?)
- Direct web
- Brand
channel
Cost Structure Revenue
Streams
- Platform design, development and - Platform license fee (?)
maintenance - Premium content fee
- Marketing expenses - User analytics data to content provider
11. Key Activities Key Partners Value Customer Customer
Proposition Relationships Segments
- App platform Parents: - Automated - Parents with
- Platform developers services
- Monitor & k-8th grade
Development - App developers benchmark children
children’s progress
- Targeted
- Motivate children - Working
Marketing
through rewards & parents with K-
recognition 6th grade
- COPPA
- Know children’s children
compliance
Key Resources media usage time Channels
and usage content.
- Engineers - Direct web
App developers:
channel
- Customer usage
insights
Cost Structure Revenue
Streams
- Platform design, development and - Subscription fee
maintenance
- Marketing expenses
12. Key Activities Key Partners Value Customer Customer
Proposition Relationships Segments
- Schools / teachers Teachers: - Teachers of
- Platform / Portal - Educators - Relevant, engaging Teachers: 3rd to 5th
Development - Content providers - Co-creation
, effective lesson grade
- Curriculum
plans for children classrooms
- Establish content
developers
- Safe way to expose - Middle
relationship with
students to school(?)
schools/teachers
internet - High school(?)
(US +
international)
Key Resources Students: Channels
- Exposure to other
- COPPA
- Engineers cultures, writing Still selling
compliance - Through school
skills, communicati
- Marketing
on skills, both
districts or through
- Curriculum / - Business / directly with
content relationship teach & learn.
teachers
schools and
development - Through teachers
parents
Cost Structure Revenue
Streams
- Platform design, development and
maintenance - Sponsorships
- Procure classroom participations (US + - Subscriptions
international)
- Content development
13. 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
14. School approval process tedious and
convoluted
Teachers prefer parents to pay for solution
Teachers are excited to endorse this solution
17. A Day in the Life of
Michael Jones (California) Xi Cheng (Shanghai, China)
7:00 AM Wake up and eat breakfast, I 10:00 PM Sleeping
have cereal and milk
8:30 AM Go to school, my mom drives
me to school
10:30 AM Recess, play kick ball with What is kick ball?
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.
20. 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
21. Here’s What We Did
Market data from research firms
Launched Alpha Product
(mynetpals.com)
◦ Analyzed customer feedback
o Recorded kids and parents usage
o Launched social marketing campaign
◦ Facebook Fan: 150 likes, 81 talking about
◦ Twitter: 24 Tweets, 93 Followers
22. 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/
Facebook campaign generated lots
of overseas interest
24. The Process
o Don’t be afraid to show “imperfect” versions of your product
o 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 Business
o There is a business here!
o Focus!
o Communicate Value Proposition to Parents and Provide User Experience to kids
o 5.9 million US kids 6-11 with family income > 150K
o Amazing feedback from EVERYWHERE (interviewees, beta users, online search,
Facebook, Twitter, potential partners)
To Pursue on not to Pursue
o Yes, Yes, and Yes!
o Launch version 2.0 of MyNetPals product in two weeks
o Engage early adopters more fully to take the UI to the next level
25. 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 with
o 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 learn
o Providing new thoughts and avenues
o Caring so much
Notas do Editor
More specific – on number of ad words bought, more data
Possible use animation
The kid can type in their own schedule and we will match the time zones so it’ll display nicely (so they know what the other child is doing at that time). Also allow commenting and interacting per each entry (click & expand?) How to best display?