RetaiLink provides a collaboration platform for retailers to effectively manage trade funding to meet objectives. The presentation discusses RetaiLink's team structure, experience, areas of expertise, and education. It also covers early challenges with their previous idea (Orchard View), lessons learned, and the value proposition and ecosystem for their new idea - RetaiLink.

1. Overview Document
RetaiLink
RetaiLink provides a collaboration platform for retailers to effectively manage trade
funding to meet desired objectives
E245 – Class Update
Arne H, Beyang L, Soumya M, Mithun S
Feb 26, 2012

2. Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6Rdwb3GFV0&feature=youtu.be
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3. Team Structure
First and
Mithun Sheth Arne Hartmann
last name Soumya Mohan Beyang Liu
Title
Summary of experience Summary of experience Summary of experience Summary of experience
• 8+ years of management • 10+ years experience in Growth • 2 years experience working as an • 2 years of enterprise software
consulting and operations Equity investments and Tech engineer with an early stage development experience for
experience M&A startup with top telecom financial vertical
operators as customers.
Areas of expertise Areas of expertise Areas of expertise
Areas of expertise
• Developed innovative consulting • Extensive experience in aligning • Computer vision & machine
solutions with focus on retail business models with market to • Design, development and learning research in Stanford AI
drive value. marketing of mobile applications Lab (3D reconstruction, action
• Driven by strong entrepreneurial recognition, and semantic scene
skills and also been founding • Structured numerous rounds of • Mobile wireless network segmentation)
member of few startups. growth financing through equity connection management
and debt. • Core developer for interactive
• Built global delivery teams that • Enterprise software quality large-scale data analysis platform
have bought numerous new assurance (experience at for banks and finance
service offerings to market Microsoft)
generating more than
$30 MM in revenues. • Managed and recruited engineers
Sloan 2013, Sloan 2013, Mgt Science & Engineering Computer Science 2013,
Stanford GSB Stanford GSB 2013, Stanford Stanford
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4. Orchard View
• Hardware development
• Partnership with soil (Camera array
We deliver agriculture • Sell service for periodic
sensing companies information to growers, farm review • Our technology can
mounted on cart) be applied to most
with whom our • Machine-learning
using computer vision • Dedicated sales team
product offering can technology which helps to help provide insight fruit and nut crops
computer vision
be combined manage crop yield and into the farm issues with some
algorithm
(Leverage go-to- reduce cost for farmers. based on data adaptation.
• GUI development
-
market alliances) • Orchard sign up for our • Drive the cart and relay
• Partnership with service
• Our cart periodically the information on a • We plan to tackle
chemical companies tours the orchard and cloud based platform the following in our
that help accelerate
takes images of the initial outreach –
leaves and trees and almond, walnuts,
our offering to reach
identifies issues oranges and grapes.
their customers helping growers take
• Support from cart (Primarily driven by
corrective measures • Directly to Grower geography, market
providers to make • Current methods
• Team with expertise community or through value of crops,
modifications (as deployed by farmers to
in computer vision / Co-ops growing season and
needed) detect issues in trees
machine learning • In partnership with business need in the
• Partnership with are either based on
• Domain expertise in Pest Control Advisors orchards)
Almond / Walnut sampling, aggregate
agriculture farm- and independent
board to help push information or driven by
related issues consultants
our technology highly labor intensive
• Understanding of • Potential
process.
agriculture value arrangements with
chain Heavy Equipment
manufacturers
• Fixed cost : Cart, camera sensor and array of add ons • Subscription based service fee model of $15-$25 per acre,
• Infrastructure: Includes computer, server, software, and other per trip
expenses • Service required multiple times before the harvest season
• Variable Cost: Includes gas, driver, transportation, and other cost
• Other Recurring Cost : Advertising, Website, Rent, Utility,
Inusrance, Travel and other expenses
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5. Orchard View - Early stumbling blocks
■ Market issues
• Farmers did not see it as a big need and not ready to pay a lot
• Class did not coincide with harvesting seasons for target crops leading to challenges in
prototyping and customer discovery
■ Technology issues
• Current state of research in the space is primitive
• Challenging to prove the exact value-add in prototype stage
• Customized algorithms required for each crop and disease
■ Team issues
• The whole team was not passionate about the idea.
Fail Early, Fail fast !
Restarted from a blank slate !
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6. Birth of RetaiLink
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7. Value Proposition
Features
The Path to MVP
• Collect initial customer feedback and only then
showcase the wireframe
Filter • Focus only on the key features in initial design
• Reduce MVP further to bare minimum
• Build MVP – does not need to be functional!!
Wire frame gets 95% of validation in 10% of the
time.
• Iterate MVP based on feedback
MVP
• Helps understand dynamics between different
stakeholders
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8. Customer Segments
FOCUS : Who to Sell ? How to Sell ?
• Category managers are primary users who can
• Eliminate other retailer segments initially to validate the need but cannot make the
focus on the grocery retailers based on need purchase decision
• Map out customers according to technology • SVP Merchandising is the primary decision
adoption and their size maker
• Parse through latest top industry journals • Category managers at all ranks below SVP
to figure out the early adopters and IT heads are key influencers
• Speak to competitors and other suppliers • CPGs are influencers of the decision making
to identify early adopters and may be paying for it indirectly
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9. Key Learning’s for Channel / Revenue and SaaS economics
Channels SaaS Economics (5 “C”s of Cloud
Computing)
• SaaS based delivery model
• Direct Sales Force • Committed Monthly Recurring Revenue
• System Integrators / Consulting partners will
NOT be interested in product offering at the early • Cash Flow – Gross / Net Burn Rate
stage
Revenues • CAC – Customer Acquisition Cost
• Charge both CPG / Retailers a tiered pricing • CLTV – Customer Lifetime Value
structure per category ($/category)
• Additional fees for Advanced Analytics/
Reporting capability can be leveraged • Churn or Renewal Rate (Logo churn, CMRR
• No Implementation, maintenance or churn or CMRR Renewed)
performance based pricing will work in the retail
space
Source: Interviews, Bessemeer Venture Partner (Articles on Cloud Computing)
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10. RetaiLink
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11. Fieberkurve
Week 8: 1st Pilot User
Week 10: What next?
Week 3: New Idea
Week 4-7: 10 Interviews? Really?
Week 2: Drop or Step up?
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12. Lessons as an entrepreneur
Customer • Customer discovery can lead into successful business proposition but it is
Discovery important not be in selling mode (Raley’s, Schnucks, Target)
• Customer discovery is to “validate” the intuition and not to give you the core
idea
• Avoid confirmation bias during customer discovery for entrepreneur
especially when showing the wireframe
• Understand different perspectives and take all advice with a grain of salt
Managing
Start Up
• Each startup has only few key numbers that need to be validated. Understand
what they are to manage your business
• Passion in the team is a key element to success (especially when you are
dealing in the enterprise space)
Competition
• A crowded space with competitors does not mean anything. Need to
understand the gaps in the current space to evaluate if you can sustain a start
up
• Market research mainly analyzes the history and not the current need. So key
to get out and speak to customers.
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13. Appendix
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14. Value Chain of Retail industry
Trade Funds ($200B)
Promotion, New Items, Display,
Supply chain etc..
Product Support
Newspaper Ads, Display, Temp.
Price Reduction etc..
Online collaboration platform that provides
the right decision support for retailers and a
collaboration platform for CPG
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15. Ecosystem
Data provider
(Nielsen, RSi)
RetaiLink
Trade funding system-
Retailer of-record CPG
(Tradepoint, Nopa)
ERP Modeling tools Modeling tools
(Oracle) (Excel, DemandTec) (Excel, custom)
3rd party systems
integrator (IBM)
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