LiveAd Startup Online and Mobile Advertisement Network

This project envisions a digital advertisement management and network product for online and mobile advertisement. The primary focus of this project is the Chinese market. The project is in it's initial stages and needs funding to finalize the software development, hardware and the creation of a marketing and sales team.

Mobile advertising is currently a fast growing market. Both Google and Apple are positioning themselves to become a major player in this market. However both major players seem to focus mainly on the USA. Using either of their products in Asia is disappointing as the content is simply not localised for Asia.

This is illustrated by the statistics published by Admob on a monthly basis. While the mobile internet market in China is substantially bigger as the US market Admob showed around 300.000.000 mobile advertisements in China in march 2010, while showing 7.800.000.000 mobile advertisements in the USA in the same month. This leaves a lot of space for growth for any successIntroduction.

Mobile advertising is getting a lot of press lately. Big players like Google with Admob and Apple with iAd are jumping into this new market. However both major players seem to focus mainly on the USA. The use of either of their products in Asia is disappointing as the content is simply not localised for Asia. This leaves a lot of space for growth for any successful company in the online and mobile Chinese advertising market.

This business will focus on delivering advertisements to consumers. Targeting both enterprises in need for a management product and small business that just want to join a network that focusses on Asia.

Current position:
The company has created a working platform and used that platform in several mobile and web applications but not yet performed a large scale introduction. This means that the software in effect is proven and the focus will be on a successful market introduction.

Since the mobile advertising world only really started with the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, mobile advertising is in it's infancy. However, as mentioned before, the number of mobile device connecting to the internet is growing fast so the market will become large with room for multiple global and regional players.

Competitive advantage:
The market is large and there will be some major players involved. Companies like Google and Apple are buying into the market but seem to be focussing on the US market. By making a product that is localised for Asia, supports Asian payment methods and provides local content we believe we have found a niche that is currently being ignored. Even when the major American players come to Asia in a few years time the market will have room for multiple players.

If a network or management tool works well, there is no reason to switch to different products. Bringing a good product into the market early will gain us loyal partners that will stay with the proven products instead of switching to other alternatives. Keeping the product attractive both price and feature wise is off course key to the long-term prospective of any company.

LiveAd will focus on two products. An Software As A Service enterprise application that allows customers to run advertisement campaigns on specific sites and a Network where we in effect run the same application but allow people to join the network either as an advertiser or producer (owner of a website/mobile application).

One unique strength of combining the Software as a Service approach (where customers get a complete working solution with hard- and software) and a Network is that both can run on the same set of hardware and can interact. If an enterprise customer cannot get enough advertisements for their websites themselves, they can fall back on the advertisements provided in the network. At the same time an advertiser using the enterprise application can choose to provide advertisements to the network from within their own application environment. This feature can not only be used to link the enterprise users to the network but also to establish links between enterprise users.

Another competitive advantage is that LiveAd works as an agregator for advertising networks. By using other networks as a backup to the LiveAd network, LiveAd can ensure high quality advertisements to producers and high fill rates to advertisers not achievable for single network and not networked products.

By providing a complete platforms to enterprise customers without fixed costs LiveAd has a very good position in any negotiations with enterprise customers, Those who have their own platforms are burdened with the costs associated with maintaining those platforms, while customers that have an external supplier usually pay a steep price.

Growth plan
Currently the application is available but the focus needs to be on a successful market introduction in China.

The enterprise application is focussed on companies that do a lot of advertising or run several websites. These companies need to be approached and the product needs to be pitched

For the advertising network there are two strategies that we intend to explore.
1. Work together with telecom operators and provide the network as their in-house advertisement network. The advantage of this approach is that it will allow to use the operators power to reach and convince both producers and advertiser to use the network. This can be interesting for the telecom operator if we offer a revenue-share on all the advertisements shown on phones on their network.
2. Approach marketing firms and developers directly. This approach involves actively approaching developers and marketing firms to join the network. Note that this can go hand in hand with the approach for enterprise customers. In effect we can give people an option to join the network or manage more themselves with a seamless transition from the network to the enterprise environment (thanks to the linked sites concept)

Growth is important but customer satisfaction is even more important. Thus the goal is to ensure that we meet the expectations of new clients. After introduction there might be several requests for new features. Those requests need to be handled and can slow the rate of introduction in 2011. However the target is to be cash flow positive by the end of 2013.

Mid term planning is to add more different types of advertisements that can be displayed, more supported phone platforms and broaden the scope of the platform again from mobile to video and web applications and growth in other parts of Asia.

Full company in the mobile Chinese advertising market.

This business will focus on delivering advertisements to consumers. Targeting both enterprises in need for a management product and small business that just want to join a network that focusses on Asia. The current market with the huge popularity of "apps" for tablets/smartphones, the rapid growth of internet in China and the lack of large scale advertisement networks focussing on Asia are all factors that can lead to a very successful result.

The project is nearing technical completion, the focus is moving to marketing the project to the potential customers. Contact us on Merar for more information

The market is large and there will be some major players involved. Companies like Google and Apple are buying into the market but seem to be focussing on the US market. By making a product that is localised for Asia, supports Asian payment methods and provides local content we believe we have found a niche that is currently being ignored. Even when the major American players come to Asia in a few years time the market will have room for multiple players.

Bringing a good product into the market early will gain us loyal partners that will stay with the proven products instead of switching to other alternatives. Keeping the product attractive both price and feature wise is off course key to the long-term prospectives of any company.

LiveAd will focus on two products. An Software As A Service enterprise application that allows customers to run advertisement campaigns on specific sites and a Network where we in effect run the same application but allow people to join the network either as an advertiser or producer (owner of a website/mobile application).
One unique strength of combining the Software as a Service approach (where customers get a complete working solution with hard- and software) and a Network is that both can run on the same set of hardware and can interact. If an enterprise customer cannot get enough advertisements for their websites themselves, they can fall back on the advertisements provided in the network. At the same time an advertiser using the enterprise application can choose to provide advertisements to the network from within their own application environment. This feature can not only be used to link the enterprise users to the network but also to establish links between enterprise users.

Another competitive advantage is that LiveAd can work as an agregator for advertising networks. By using other networks as a backup to the LiveAd network, LiveAd can ensure high quality advertisements to producers and high fill rates to advertisers not achievable for single network and not networked products.

By providing a complete platforms to enterprise customers with limited fixed costs LiveAd has a very good position in any negotiations with enterprise customers, Those who have their own platforms are burdened with the costs associated with maintaining those platforms, while customers that have an external supplier usually pay a steep price.

The opportunity described is to tab into the Chinese online and Mobile advertising market by providing an advertisement network and services for Online and Mobile advertisers and producers.

At a fee, the advertisement network and services help both advertisers and producers to match the advertisements to the customer and reach the right type of person. This type of advertisement network is very successful in the US andEurope but the Chinese market seems underdeveloped.

The financing is used to finalize the software development, buy hardware to distribute advertisements and manage the users, and grow and professionalize the team.

Since the team is currently small it is important to obtain more outside knowledge and there is a need for growth to be able to reach the required company size to obtain a leading position in the market.

A development team will cost roughly US$ 15.000 pm, and for sales, marketing, finance a similar cost of US$15.000 is projected. For marketing events and branding a yearly budget of US$100.000 is reserved, while hardware costs are estimated at US$50.000

Investment schedule
US$ 150.000 at the start of the project (hardware, running costs)
US$ 250.000 at system ready to launch (3 to 6 month) Grow sales,finance, marketing and support teams and start marketing activities)
US$ 200.000 6 months after launch to cover initial costs and growth.
US$ 200.000 12 months after launch.
US$ 100.000 18 months after launch.
US$ 100.000 24 months after launch.

After the system has been live for a year the system should start generating revenue and should be self sufficient after 3 years