Automating Business Process via MuleSoft Composer | Bangalore MuleSoft Meetup...
Squirl final draft2
1. SQUIRL
Social Quest to Unite In Real Life
G. Steven Burrill Business Plan Competition
Friday May 2, 2014
2. • Social media:
– Connects us to the
friends we already have
• SQUIRL
– Connects you to the
friends you always
suspected existed in
your ZIP code
The Opportunity
3. Our Team
• App Development • Business Management
• Robert Masse
– Chemical Engineering,
Physics, etc. (Aug 2014)
• Michael Klapper
– Chemical Engineering
(Aug 2014)
• Andrew Klapper
– Electrical Engineering &
Computer Science
(Dec 2018)
• Nichole Whetter
– Accounting & Marketing
(May 2013)
• Cassie Zirbel
– Information Systems &
Entrepreneurship
(May 2015)
4. Our Product
• Web App
• Features
– Group Creation & Management
– Event Planning
– User Profiles
– Calendar Integration
– Suggested Groups & Events (location-based)
– Searching for Groups & Events
5. Lean Software Development
• Develop MVP
– Responsive Design
• Accessible via Windows, Mac, Android, & iOS
• Build - Measure - Learn
– Analytics – adapt to platform distribution
of user base
– Growth hypothesis
– Revenue hypothesis
• Pivot or persevere
6. • Target market
– College-aged young adults
• Reaching our target market
– Student Organizations
– UW Housing
• Goal
– 5000 end of FY 2014
• Viral growth model
– Expand to all demographics
Growth Model
7. • Revenue
– Phase 1: Advertisement Revenue
– Phase 2: Freemium Features
• Core Value of Accessibility
• Costs
– Extremely low barrier to entry
• Server cost – Microsoft BizSpark
• Legal fees – IP protection
• Marketing
Financial Model
8. • Meetup.com
• Competitive Advantages
– Free vs Subscription
– More student friendly
– Intuitive user interface
– More casual
Competition
9. • Digital → personal connection
• Underserved user base
• Capable and motivated team
• Track our progress @ squirlweb.com
• Questions?
Conclusion
Editor's Notes
RM: What we are going to present to you today is an idea of mine that coalesced earlier this semester. Towards the end of the “polar vortex” on a Friday much unlike today, I found myself at home, stuck in an infinite loop of Facebook, Reddit, and Imgur links, when it struck me that my predicament, and in fact this entire situation, was extremely odd:I could see that there was an entire internet’s worth of people that I don’t know personally, but they had the same general interests as me, and the same problem of having nothing to do on this particular Friday night. And I could very well be friends with these people, except that I’ll never meet them, much less get to know them since it simply isn’t feasible.But why shouldn’t it be feasible? If we have all this technology that simultaneously connects but isolates us, it should be a straightforward exercise to get achieve the opposite – generating real human connection using a platform that is similar, but not identical, to today’s social media. It is with this sentiment in mind that I began to assemble our crack team of developers and entrepreneurs….
…starting with MK. Our lead designer has already had 4 internships in industry as a chemical engineer, but has taken to coding recently. In his free time, he enjoys long walks on the beach and building Tesla coils.Michael has converted his brother AK from chemical engineering and computer science. While he is only a freshman, he has already been offered an internship at Maverick Software Consulting for this summer, which will surely be of great use to us moving forward. On the business side, we have NW and CZ. Nichole is a recent UW grad who now works here in Madison at BDO, a public accounting firm. She is currently pursuing CPA certification, which will also be valuable to the Team moving forward. CZ has experience both on the business and development side of things, and aspires to go into IT management. This summer she will be interning at CUNA Mutual Group.My name is Robert Masse. My main interests lie in renewable energy – I have co-authored 1 publication, with 4 more that are soon to be published, and I already have 1 patent application through WARF – but I am excited about this new opportunity and I am happy to have a capable and motivated Team that shares my enthusiasm. (Our # degrees per capita is 2.4 in case anyone is counting)
-The minimum viable product (MVP) will be an app for Android phones and tablet. -The primary goal is to allow people to find and connect with others in their area who share similar interests with them.-Our app’s main feature will be the creation and maintaining of group pages, which will list the group’s information, events, and members.-Events will be generated by groups or by users as stand alone events. The organizer of an event will be able to invite group members and give the event public status making it show up in local search results.-Users will each have a profile allowing them to list their interests and group affiliations.-Users will also have a calendar associated with their profile that will keep track of events they are attending. -Finally, our app will allow for users to search for local groups and events, both by entering their own search terms and by using the interests listed on their group profiles to generate a list of suggested groups and upcoming events for their location.These searches will also allow for searching for groups having regular meetings at a given time each week.-Lastly, users will be able to search for events occurring in a location they plan to visit on a future date.
Once our minimal viable product is operational, we have many other features to add to improve convenience and broaden the feature set of the app.One feature that will be adapted early on is calendar integration. This will allow the user’s calendar data from group events to be synched with their primary calendar app such as iCal or Google Calendar.Facebook integration is another feature that will be investigated, allowing users to post content from our app (such as events, or invitations to groups) to Facebook. Similarly, we want to allow users to rapidly create a profile by signing in with their Facebook credentials and allowing the app to pre-populate the user profile with interests based on interests the user has listed on Facebook.We envision adding the same features for Google+ as we will be adding for Facebook.Guest mode is a future feature to allow potential users without a profile to search for events in their location and test a limited set of features of the app before setting up a profile.Location services will eventually be added to allow users to be notified if they come within ~500 ft. of a group meeting or event that is listed as open to the public.Lastly, a great emphasis will be placed on providing the experience that the users request. We will actively pursue the most-requested features to give the users the feature set they most desire.
Primarily advertisement free version of the app
More casual – less intimidating to start a groupStand alone event creation
