Doon Business School, Dehradun

Simulated Consultancy
Project
Business Plan- Collegemate.com

Submitted By- Team Members-

Rohan Jha Dipanshu Arora
Rohan Jha
Pratik Kumar
Tushar Budhiraja
Index
1. Executive Summary
2. Start-Up Overview
3. Opportunity
4. Objectives
5. Financial & Capital Requirements
6. Mission
7. Business Model
8. Services Offered
9. Future Prospects
10. Competitive Analysis
11. Marketing Strategy
12. Success Mantra
13. Financial Plan
14. Where will the Funds be Used?
15. Exit Strategy
Executive Summary
Collegemate.com is a student-to-student Internet marketplace
providing college students with the opportunity to buy, sell and
trade college textbooks, participate in auctions, post classified
ads, provide teacher evaluations, and buy products for college.

Start-up Overview
Collegemate.com will enable students to buy, sell, and trade
used textbooks directly to other students, by-passing the
university bookstores. By selling textbooks to other students,
the seller can receive more money than the bookstore will pay
and the buyer can pay less than the bookstore charges. In
addition to textbooks, students will be able to sell class notes,
old tests, computers, tutoring services or anything
students wish to sell via an online student-to-student
marketplace. In addition, Collegemate.com will offer other
services such as classifieds, teacher evaluations, weblogs
(bloggers), specialized content and retail.

Collegemate.com will establish itself as the leading online

student-to-student marketplace by combining extensive
market-specific expertise with Internet technologies to generate
revenue while creating a win-win solution for students.
Collegemate.com will achieve market dominance by utilizing
extensive domain experience, a local grass roots marketing
strategy, an exceptional management team, superior software,
and the formation of strategic alliances, memberships and
partnerships with companies within the college market.

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Opportunity
College students are eager to find ways to get “quick cash” at
the end of every semester. One method college students use is
to sell their old textbooks at the end of every semester. Because
bookstores monopolize the market, students receive only a
fraction of the value paid for the book, typically 75% or less of
the purchase prices. The bookstores then re-sell the books back
to other students, receiving over 125% profit. The current
situation creates a lose-lose situation for students and a win-
win situation for bookstores. Students are looking for
convenient, money saving ways to purchase textbooks and to
receive more value when re-selling textbooks at the end of each
semester.

Objectives
Collegemate.com will strive to achieve the following objectives:

• Become the leading Internet student-to-student

marketplace
• Attract 50,000 registered users in the first year
• Achieve 10,000 visits per month
• Establish sustainable profitability within the first year

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Financial & Capital Requirements
According to the opportunities and requirements for
Collegemate.com described in this business plan, we have
determined the following financial projections:

• Generate exceptional revenues by the end of year one.

• Report profits during the 15th month of operation.
• Exceed a 1.5x increase in sales and profits by the end
of year four.

Collegemate.com will require an initial seed investment as well

as later rounds of investment. The initial seed capital will be
used for marketing and customer acquisition, software and
website development.

Mission
Collegemate.com mission is to provide college students a
valuable and unique source for products, services and
information. In order to achieve our mission, Collegemate.com
commits to the following philosophies:

• It’s all about the product.

• Our customers are our employers.
• Don’t be greedy.
• Keep the employees happy.

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Business Model
• The main business model for Collegemate.com relies on
college students providing the textbooks, auctions,
classifieds and teacher evaluations that are posted on the
website. Therefore, our focus relies heavily on the
marketing strategy that will increase traffic and usage and,
in turn, maintain our inventory of products and services.
• For the retail business component, we will establish
relationships with manufacturers or distributors that offer
drop-shipments direct to the customer. This will allow
Collegemate.com to keep expenses associated with
inventory and distribution to a minimum.
• We will be contracting students as subject matter experts
to provide the content in the Blogs. The use of students as
Blog content experts will help keep costs to a minimum
yet still providing interesting and relevant content.
• For content and other value-added service, we will
establish relationships with 3rd party vendors. This will
enable Collegemate.com to offer a wide variety of
products and services online yet allow Collegemate.com to
focus on the key business elements; textbooks, auctions,
classifieds and teacher evaluations.

Services Offered
Collegemate.com will offer college students a unique blend
of products, services, and content that is not offered by any
single company on the Internet. Collegemate.com
will aggregate participants, products, services and content to
create a student-to-student marketplace and retail website
targeting college students. The following describe
Collegemate.com revenue models:
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 1. Textbook Exchange

Collegemate.com will offer functionality to allow students to

buy, sell and trade their used textbooks with other
students. Specifically, the Textbook Exchange functionality
allows students to post their textbooks online for sale or trade,
upload images, and indicate the condition of the book.
Students looking for used textbooks will be able to search for
used textbooks for sale or trade in their local area or
nationwide. A fee will be charge for posting textbooks. The
fee may vary based on the asking price of the
textbook. Sample textbook categories include:

• Accounting
• Business
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Marketing
• History
• Law
• Physics
• Political Science

2. Auctions

Collegemate.com will offer a powerful auction package. The

Auction functionality will have many features such as Standard,
Reverse, Multi Item, Dutch and Blind auctions; Flash Buy and
Proxy Bidding. A fee will be charged for posting items to be
auctioned. The posting fee structure will be similar to
eBay’s. Sample auctions categories include:

• Textbooks

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 • Class Notes
• Old Tests
• Computer Equipment
• Tickets
• Electronics
• Games

3. Classifieds

Collegemate.com will offer fee based, student targeted,

classifieds ads. Here many features such as image upload, Web
links and nested categories will be offered. A fee will be
charged for posting a classified. The amount charged will be
based on the length of time the classified will be
posted. Sample classified categories include:

• Textbooks
• Class Notes
• Tutors
• For Rent
• For Sale
• Tickets
• Rides
• Help Wanted
• For Hire

4. Retail

Collegemate.com will sell products targeted to college

students. Margins will range from 10% to 50% depending on
the product. Sample product categories include:

• Textbooks

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 • Computer Equipment
• Electronics
• Games
• Appliances
• University Merchandise
• Clothes
• General Merchandise

5. Teacher Evaluations

Collegemate.com will enable students to post and review

teacher evaluations. The teacher evaluation functionality will be
a value-added service encouraging students to visit the site
each semester. Revenue for teacher evaluations will be
generated from the sale of banner ad space located within the
teacher evaluation pages. Banner ad sales will be targeted
toward local businesses on or around campus. The fee for
banner ad space will be determined by the length of posting,
number of users for teacher evaluations and demand.

6. Bloggers

Collegemate.com will offer Blogger services with topics tailored

toward students. Blogger functionality will be a value-added
service to encourage students to return to the site. Revenue for
the Blogs will be generated from the sale of banner ad
space located within the Blog pages. Depending on the Blog
topic, banner ad sales will be targeted toward either local
businesses in or around campus or national companies. The
fees for banner ad space will be determined by the length of
posting, number of users for the Blog and demand. Weblog
topics will include:

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 • College Sports
• Politics
• Entertainment
• Technology
• News

Future Prospects
Overall, we conclude that our current products, services and
banner ad strategy will ensure a strong market presence and
continued revenue growth. However, as part of our growth
model, we will regularly examine new services, products,
categories and content to support demand.

1. Brick & Mortar Locations

Collegemate.com will evaluate opening retail outlets in

proximity to college campuses to support and complement the
online presence. Franchise rights may also be available.

2. Employment Opportunities

Collegemate.com will offer a local and national job posting

service so that students may search for new opportunities
within the local community and nationwide. A fee will be
charged for posting jobs.

3. Apartment Finder

Collegemate.com will offer a local and national apartment

finder service so that students may search for apartments within
the local community and nationwide. A fee will be charged for
postings.
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 4. Club & Organization Finder

Collegemate.com will offer a local and national club and

organization finder service so that students may search for
clubs and organization within the local community and
nationwide. A fee will be charged for posting.

5. Targeted Content

Collegemate.com will offer content. Sample topics will include:

• News
• Weather
• What’s Happening
• Best Of

Competitive Analysis
Competitors of Collegemate.com includes traditional university
bookstores, online textbook retailers, textbook exchange sites,
textbook price comparison sites, online auction sites and online
content specific sites targeting the college student market.

Marketing Strategy
Collegemate.com customers will be the college students in
India. This segment is a niche market that has no single
business entity accounting for any significant percentage of
total aggregated college student purchases.

The main business model for Collegemate.com relies on college

students providing textbooks, auctions, classifieds and teacher
evaluations available on the website. Therefore, our focus will

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be on the marketing strategy to increase student traffic and
usage. In turn, visitor volume and transactions will maintain the
inventory of products and services offered.

Collegemate.com recognizes the key to success as an extensive

promotion strategy to attract users. Once additional funding is
secured the advertising and promotion plan will be
implemented.

1. Strategic Alliances

Collegemate.com is looking to form relationships with major

companies in the college student market. Companies that we
will approach included university merchandise manufacturers or
resellers, specialized content suppliers, new and used
textbook wholesalers and local businesses.

2. Promotion Strategy

Collegemate.com overall advertising and promotional

objectives are to:

• Acquire customers and generate sales.

• Position Collegemate.com as the market leader.
• Increase company awareness and brand name recognition
among college students.
• Collect market research to create immediate and long-
term marketing plans.

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 3. Marketing Programs

Collegemate.com will attract customers by using a mixture of

traditional and online advertising strategies to create a
grassroots marketing campaign.

Since the majority of Collegemate.com customer acquisition will

result from direct promotion local to universities,
Collegemate.com will recruit current college students to fill
positions in the areas of campus marketing, local advertisement
sales and implementation of a “grassroots” marketing
campaign.

The following is a list of advertising and promotional channels

Collegemate.com will utilize:

1. Posting Flyer in and around campuses.

2. Direct Mailings.
3. University and local newspaper advertising and inserts.
4. Promotional item distribution.
5. Advertisements at on-campus kiosk.
6. Sponsorship of recreational team sports.
7. Sponsorships of campus or community events.
8. University and local newspaper advertising.
9. Indoor/outdoor billboard advertisements at college
sporting events.
10. Banner ads on select related sites with a significant level of
traffic.
11. Links on related web sites.
12. Traditional media including direct mailings, magazines,
radio and TV.

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Success Mantra
Our Success Mantra will lie in our ability to execute our
business model. In order to achieve success, we need to focus
on the following areas to establish Collegemate.com as a
successful and profitable enterprise. They are:

• Recruit an exceptional management and marketing team

with extensive domain experience in the college market.
• Create and maintain a “Grass Roots” marketing campaign.
• Offer innovative and unique products and services.
• Form strategic alliances and partnerships with companies
supplying products to the college market.

Financial Plan

• Collegemate.com will generate assertive revenues by the

end of year one.
• Collegemate.com will start reporting sustained profits
during the 15th month of the 1
• Sales and profits by year four will top 1.5x that of year one.
• Collegemate.com will require an initial investment in
capital to finance the marketing campaign and launch
strategy.
• Collegemate.com will require additional investment to
fund additional Web development, sales and marketing
efforts and general operating expenses.

Collegemate.com will provide a complete student-to-student

marketplace. Investment contacts have already been
approached and their expressions of satisfaction and
encouragement are numerous. We intend to continue our
advances with more unique and effective business solutions for
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the service, college market. Based on the attached financial
projections, we believe that this venture represents a sound
business investment.

Where Will the Funds be Used?

Initial funding proceeds will be used primarily for
marketing, additional website development and maintenance.
All the equipment needed will be leased or purchased, and
included in the operational expenses. The rest of the funds will
be used as working capital to maintain the operations until
revenues generated by Collegemate.com will be at the point
where we can sustain operational expenses.

Exit Strategy
The financial projections indicate that Collegemate.com will
have generated enough cash in the next five years to permit the
exit of the outside investors if so desired. It is the founders’
choice to continue with the company’s profitable operations
until Collegemate.com is presented with a viable offer for
acquisition or the opportunity of an IPO is contemplated.

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