1. Explosive Detection
NSF / ICORP Program
Ying Wang (Lead)
Yu Lei (PI)
Mike Wisniewski (Mentor)

2. Presentation Outline
• Show Canvas: Old and New
• Here’s What We Did/Found
– Show demo slide
– Marketing: build demand creation budget and forecast
– Customer acquisition cost
– Value Proposition
– Customer lifetime value
– Channel incentives
• Here’s What We Are Going to Do/Going Forward
NSF / ICORP

3. New Canvas (10/25)
Field Test
Dedicate Personal
Production Reliable
Manufacture of Assistance Profit Explosives
machine Cheap Detection/Cleanup
Demo
Organizations
Flir Easy to use Training (Development
Initiative Limited)
Smith Detection Large scale
Wider spectrum Non-profit
Direct Sale Organizations
IP (HALO)
Partner’s
Chemicals
distribution
Facilities channels
Production Sensing materials
Proved Changes/New Hypothesis NSF / ICORP

4. New Canvas (11/01)
Field Test
Dedicate Personal
Production Reliable
Manufacture of Assistance Profit Explosives
machine Cheap Detection/Cleanup
Demo
Organizations
Flir Easy to use Training (Development
Initiative Limited)
Smith Detection Large scale
Wider spectrum Non-profit
Direct Sale Organizations
IP Sensitivity (HALO)
Partner’s
Chemicals
distribution
Facilities channels
Production Sensing materials
Proved Changes/New Hypothesis NSF / ICORP

5. Prototype Demo
• Explosive vapor
1 µg 100 ng 10 ng 1 ng
TNB TNT Tetryl PETN RDX HMX TATP
• Explosive contaminated hand-print
Clean Handprint Contaminated
Handprint
• Buried explosives
NSF / ICORP

6. Marketing Campaign
• Public relations (Increase brand awareness)
- Journal publications
- Conference presentations (AIChE, Minneapolis, MN, 2011)
• Ask customers/partners for referrals (Quality leads)
- UConn news (helped to gain Smiths Detection lead)
- Prototype demo
- Using the results of the field test
• Offer humanitarian landmine mapping (Materials)
- Free samples for small areas in developing countries who can not
afford
NSF / ICORP

7. Demand Creation
• Budget
- Public relations: $5,000 (long-term impact, organic growth)
- Demo and field test: $14,000 (short-term impact)
- Free samples: $11,000 (2000 sq m2)
• Forecast
- Publishing will educate research academics (long-term impact)
- Demo will build credibility (short-term impact)
- Good PR and communication by helping dev. countries
NSF / ICORP

8. Customer Acquisition Cost
• Total customer acquisition expense: $30,000
• Number of new customers: 6
• Per customer acquisition cost: $5,000 (year -1)
NSF / ICORP

9. Value Proposition Focus
• Market type hypotheses: Resegmented market
• Our customers may come from those existing markets:
- Metal detector
- Trained animals: dogs, rats, etc
- Surface penetrating radar
• The compelling needs of those customers:
- Reduce false alarms
- Expand further than use of current techniques, cover more area
- Reduce cost
• The compelling features of our products (Value Proposition):
- Sensitivity
- Large scale
- Low cost
NSF / ICORP

10. Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
with High Efficiency
Acquisition Year Second Year Third Year
Customers 6 4 3
Retention Rate 65% 75% 80%
Orders per Year 1 2 2
Avg Order Size 1 sq km2 5 sq km2 10 sq km2
Total Revenue $ 24 M $ 160 M $ 240 M
Costs 70% 65% 65%
Cost of Sales $ 16.8 M $ 104 M $ 156 M
Acquisition/person $ 5,000 $ 2,000 $ 2,000
Marketing Costs $ 30,000 $ 8,000 $ 8,000
Total Costs $ 16,830,000 $ 104,008,000 $ 156,008,000
Gross Profit $ 7,170,000 $ 55,992,000 $ 83,992,000
Cumulative Profit $ 7,170,000 $ 63,162,000 $ 147,154,000
Customer LTV $ 1.12 M $ 10 M $ 24 M
http://www.dbmarketing.com/articles/Art251a.htm
NSF / ICORP

11. Channel Incentives
• Our Product extends existing revenues (such as dogs,
metal detectors, and radars) for the channels.
• Channel strategy:
- Build relations with our partners and distributors
- Educate to end-users
- Differentiate from competitions
- Gather valuable customer data
- Maintain an ongoing marketing dialog with our channels
NSF / ICORP

12. Going Forward
• Meet with…
– Customers
Follow-up discussion with Dr. Steve Saffin (Operation Manager of “Development Initiative Limited”). He
offered real field test sites in Africa to us.
Face-to-face meeting with Mr. Morris (Director of “Development Initiative Limited”) on this Wedn, Nov. 2nd,
at UConn. He would take the flight from Africa and we are going to pick him up at Hartford, CT.
– DHS
 Dr. Paul Ragsdale, Science advisor of US Department of Homeland Security. We have sent our briefing
slides and request to forward our request to the right person in DOD
– Experts in explosive detection area
Prof. Timothy M. Swager, MIT Chemistry. He sold explosive detection device > 2000 units to US army with a
unit price ~ $ 50K.
Prof. Michael Accorsi, Director, National Transportation Security Center of Excellence (NTSCOE), University
of Connecticut
 ALERT (Awareness and Localization of Explosives-Related Threats), Department of Homeland Security
Center of Excellence, Northeastern University
Center of Excellence for Explosives Detection, Mitigation and Response, Energetics Laboratory, Chemistry
Department, University of Rhode Island
NSF / ICORP

13. Thank You!
NSF / ICORP