CollabNet is a startup idea by me and the presentation is a marketing plan for the same as part of a final project in the summer internship under Professor Sameer Mathur, IIM Lucknow.

1. CollabNet
Knowledge and ideas have no bounds

2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

3. There are over 150 million students and academicians
currently in the world
There are over 150 million students and
academicians in the world

4. But there is a gap in the market…

5. Student X from India is passionate about a field of
study and has a project idea in mind

6. Student Y from USA is passionate about the same
field of study and has a similar project idea in mind

7. In the current market scenario, how easy is it for
Student X and Student Y to find each other and
collaborate on a project?

8. Professor X from India is an expert in a field of
study and loves to mentor and inspire young minds

9. Student Y from USA is passionate about the same
field of study and is looking for the right mentor who is
an expert in the field

10. In the current market scenario, how easy is it for
Professor X and Student Y to find and collaborate
with each other ?

11. Student X from India has graduated and is now into
research in a field of study he is passionate about

12. Professor Y from USA is an expert in the same
field of research and is looking for a talented
research associate

13. In the current market scenario, how easy is it for
Researcher X and Professor Y to find and
collaborate with each other ?

14. There is a market gap not just at a
global scale but even at a national
scale.

15. CollabNet aims to fill this market gap

16. SITUATION ANALYSIS

17. CollabNet is a networking platform where students,
academicians and researchers can find potential project
partners, research associates and mentors.
With strong technology our mission is to make sure
collaboration of knowledge and ideas are not bounded by
geographic segments.
Company Overview

18. With over 150 million academicians and students globally
and over 20 million in India, the Academia space is one that
continuously keeps growing and with the boom in the
online networking space in the last decade or so, CollabNet
has an opportunity to fill a market gap in this large, growing
community.
Market Overview

19. The company’s offerings targets the Academia space
consisting of students, academicians and researchers with
an aim to break the geographical bounds in knowledge and
idea collaboration.
In terms of demographic segmentation, there is a lower
bound of 18 years of age and no upper bound.
Target Customers

20. GOAL

22. To connect students, academicians and researchers
around the world and create a global community
where ideas are shared and projects are
collaborated on.

24. Push towards securing 5% of the global market
size onto the platform in the first year post
launch.
Push towards an annual 5% conversion rate from
free to premium users considering the company’s
freemium model.
Work on breaking even within 18 months post
launch.

25. STRATEGY

27. Target the student and academia space with a
strong focus on making this space a global
community where there is opportunity for all as
long as there is dedication and interest.
Key collaborators will mainly include Universities
and Research Centres with their strategy being
attracting national and global talent for project and/or
research collaboration as well as using the platform
for outreach.

28. COMPETITOR EVALUATION
Professional
Networking
Knowledge
Collaboration
CollabNet

30. Customer value lies in increasing speed of building
an MVP in terms of a project or increasing
efficiency in research as well as convenient
collaboration and networking at a global scale
which was not possible before.
Collaborator value lies in high value exposure and
outreach as well as attracting global and national
talent with diverse project and research collaboration
unbounded by geographic segments.

31. TACTICS

32. PRODUCT
The product follows the Freemium model with
respective to service tiers of the product
sticking to the internal brand focus of “
Knowledge and ideas are not bound”.

33. FREE SERVICES
Free services include user profile creation to showcase fields
of interest and ongoing and completed project and research
work as well as viewing other user profiles and sending
request for collaboration on other open projects.
The user can also start a new project and choose to make it
open/closed for viewership and more collaboration requests.

34. PREMIUM SERVICES
Premium services include personal messaging as well as
sending mentor requests.
It also includes a large variety of data science tools to find
perfect project partners, ideal mentors and research
associates as well as provide information such as research
centre and university wise analysis to find where maximum
work is ongoing in the respective interested field of study.

35. PRICING INCENTIVE
The premium features are priced at
$9.99 annually making the valuable premium
offerings extremely affordable even for the
student community.

36. COMMUNICATION
Engaging Student Campus Ambassadors for
communicating value to the student community
as well as increasing student users and projects on
the platform.
Engaging Universities and Research Centres via
collaboration value proposition to increase the
Academician and Researcher user base as well as
bring in more projects to the platform.

37. DISTRIBUTION
Application on mobile platforms such as Android,
IOS and Windows.
Web application for desktops and laptops.

38. IMPLEMENTATION

40. CollabNet
Research and Development
Technical Team
Content Development
Finance and Risk Management
Strategy and Marketing

41. IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS
FLOW
Build the MVP with the initial focus on the Android
market.
Financial planning and budgeting for organization
structure and marketing to break even within 18
months post launch.
A data driven marketing strategy should be
implemented based on the decided budget.

42. SUMMARY

43. DISCLAIMER
CollabNet is an original idea and the presentation is created
by Sreedhar Radhakrishnan, PES University Bangalore as a
final project during a marketing internship by Prof. Sameer
Mathur, IIM Lucknow.