Executive Summary: 1.1 Objectives
Executive Summary: 1.1 Objectives
Executive Summary: 1.1 Objectives
Ibrio Incorporated is a small start-up firm located in the business district of Palmyra, Pennsylvania. We offer Internet and Web-related services to small businesses in the Central Pennsylvania area. The services we offer include website development and design, hosting, maintenance, marketing, and analysis. Given our experience and expertise in both commercial Web development and business-tobusiness sales, we believe we can offer a unique and superior service to small business owners, in comparison to what is currently available. The demand and growth rate for Web development and marketing services in the small business market is at an all time high and shows no sign of slowing anytime soon. Even more astonishing is the fact that very few Web development companies have taken advantage of the opportunity, as there are no dominating participants in this huge market. We believe the reason for this virtually untapped market is due to expensive project costs, the highest profit margins in Web development today are in servicing large- and medium-sized corporations. We have developed a system that dramatically reduces steep project costs and henceforth will allow us to offer the same high-end Web development services as larger companies receive at a much lower cost to the client. This business plan will highlight many aspects of our system and our business. It will detail market growth and demand, and it will outline our projected cash flow and profit margins over the next three years. All numbers regarding our projected company growth are based on previous information gathered by activity in the company over the last few months of operation.
1.1 Objectives
1. Revenues of $200,000 by month 10. 2. Net Profit of 25% in year one and 35% in year two. 3. 65% Gross margin by month 10.
1.3 Mission
Our mission is to provide affordable, accessible, and streamlined Internet and Web services to small businesses. We have developed a system for offering many different types of Web services (site development, hosting, marketing, and maintenance) that are exclusively tailored to fit the needs and resources of small companies.
Company Summary
Ibrio Incorporated is a start-up company that will provide high-end, affordable Internet related services to small businesses that are looking to expand their existing marketing efforts to reach the Web. We have a system established that will allow us to offer website development, hosting, marketing, and maintenance of the same caliber that large companies take advantage of, at a very affordable rate.
The cash requirement of $17,000 are funds that we need to provide the capital to run our business for the first few months. This capital will fund two employees payroll and equipment/supplies to get them started. It will cover business expenses for a few months until our cash flow takes over. The four-year $20,000 loan has been secured from the XYZ bank to supply the needed capital explained above.
Start-up Requirements
Start-up Expenses Business Cards Phone Line Install (Two Lines) Computer Monitor InfoUSA Database Office Equipment Dedicated Server Setup Fee Membership Fees DSL Setup and Install Phones Total Start-up Expenses Start-up Assets Cash Required Other Current Assets Long-term Assets Total Assets $24,650 Total Requirements $60 $150 $200 $400 $580 $150 $600 $350 $160 $2,650 $17,000 $7,650 $0 $27,300
Start-up Funding
Start-up Expenses to Fund Start-up Assets to Fund Total Funding Required $2,650 $24,650 $27,300
Assets
Non-cash Assets from Start-up Cash Requirements from Start-up Additional Cash Raised Cash Balance on Starting Date Total Assets
Loss at Start-up
(Start-up Expenses) Total Capital Total Capital and Liabilities Total Funding ($2,650) $4,650 $24,650
$27,300
Services
Ibrio Inc. is a full-service Internet solutions provider for small businesses. We focus mainly on the Web, offering the following as our key 'Bread & Butter' website services:
E-commerce development. Website renovations and upgrades. Application development (i.e. chatrooms, message boards, online polling, live-feed audio/video, etc.). Website maintenance training. Internet/website education seminars. Database construction.
We have plans to offer the following services within the next year:
Internet access service for small businesses. Local Area Network (LAN) installation. Intranet setup and installation. Result-based website marketing.
Ibrio Inc. currently distributes a sales folder with all the pertinent information about our company and services. This folder includes our strong points, history, portfolio examples, and pricing packages info. It also contains facts based on the growth and popularity of the Internet for small businesses. Ibrio Inc. currently operates and maintains a fully-functioning website that provides information about the company, plus a variety of helpful resources for small business owners which we will be constantly updating. In the next six months, we plan to produce and distribute bulk mail and fax flyers promoting our Web development and hosting services to small businesses in Central PA to solicit new business. We have plans to offer a more compact version of our main sales folder in a brochure format. This brochure will be available both as a mailer to interested parties and as a sales solicitation in area businesses.
3.3 Fulfillment
For the website design, development, marketing, analysis, and maintenance we will employ industry professionals to handle our clients' needs. Working for the company presently is Brandon Andrews, a professional website development engineer and strategist with four years of experience in the commercial Web development industry. To keep employee costs low, we have designed a "team" development system that will consist of two full-time sales people and three full-time Web developers. Of the Web developers, one position will be filled by a highly-qualified senior Web professional and two lesser-qualified, lower paid developers. All three will work full-time on separate projects provided to them by the sales people. However, the senior developer will have the duty of maintaining the same high quality level of work in the junior developers' projects, that our clients have learned to expect from us now. For the website hosting services we offer, Ibrio Inc. has formed several alliances with industry leaders to provide top-rate, reliable hosting solutions. Forming the alliances has allowed us much flexibility in important hosting features, customizability, and it has drove costs down dramatically. All these benefits are crucial to preserving the integrity of our company as being a 'fully-rounded Internet solutions provider' for small businesses.
3.4 Technology
It is a given that technology and keeping up with new innovations strongly influence our business. We operate a Windows based Local Area Network (LAN) in the office that is equipped with the most current software and hardware tools available to meet our project requirements. Within the next year, we will be investing in additional tools that will extend our capabilities in handling various types of program files (i.e. Macintosh computers, large capacity data storage, and high-end image scanners). We also have plans to purchase licensing agreements with our major software vendors to allow for automatic upgrades in new software tools.
Currently we own and operate both a professional digital and film camera for the purpose of offering on-site and in-house product and business photography to our clients. We would like to improve upon these services in the near future by purchasing a more complete photography system, it has been our experience that this is a service many small businesses are recognizing as a crucial part of their online marketing efforts and would take advantage of it were we to offer such a service.
E-commerce/shopping cart. Database driven websites. Dynamic content and website features. Aggressive online website marketing.
handle interoffice tasks, we believe that many smaller companies will begin to realize the time and money saving advantages to this strategy.
By 2001, small businesses (1-99 employees) will spend in upwards of $22 billion to either gain an Internet presence or improve their existing efforts. This number is up from $12 billion in 2000 (Activemedia Research). Small and home-based business' Internet usage is at approx. 81%, this is an increase from only 26% usage in 1996. It is estimated to reach almost 95% by the year 2004 (IDC Research). Total U.S. business Information Technology (IT) expenditures for 2000 are $119.1 billion and will reach $285 billion by the year 2003. The year 2000 will also be the first year that U.S. businesses spend more of their total IT expenditures on Web-related services than on IT hardware (IDC Research). Currently, the total number of online users in the U.S. is 107 million, by 2004 that number will grow to 210 million (IDC Research). E-commerce revenue will reach nearly $6.8 trillion by the year 2004, up from $48.6 billion in 2000 (Forrester Research Group).
Web development and graphic services. Strengths: Teeple has a very strong clientele, by talking to several of their Web development clients, we have come to the conclusion that Teeple offers a very dependable and high-quality service. Weaknesses: Teeple Graphics is owned and operated by George Teeple, he is also the only employee working for the company out of his home, and does not run his business as a fulltime operation. In addition, Teeple Graphics requires all clients who operate an e-
commerce website to pay his company a commission on the revenue generated by the site, this is paid on top of the development fee that Teeple charges.
2. Sharp Innovations: Located approximately 30 miles from our Palmyra offices, they offer
Web development services to small businesses in the Lancaster, PA area. Strengths: Sharp Innovations has a large market share in its area, offering a very broad range of services from Web development, e-commerce, graphic design, and Internet access. Weaknesses: Sharp Innovations is a young company with very high overhead. They market themselves as "The Small Business Internet Marketing Professionals of Central PA," but the types of services they offer and their very high prices do not in anyway reflect the needs of small business owners. It is also our opinion, after reviewing Sharp Innovations' portfolio that they lack a certain level of technical and aesthetic design knowledge that so many small businesses are beginning to demand.
3. Say1.net: Located approximately 10 miles from our Palmyra, PA location. They offer a
wide range of community and business-related Web services in the Lebanon, PA and surrounding areas. Strengths: Say1 has established a 'portal' type website designed to serve the Lebanon and surrounding areas with useful information regarding community events and business listings. This could serve as a valuable tool to their clients when marketing to that area. Weaknesses: For a company that claims to be experts in marketing for small business, they do virtually no advertising of their own and it appears that they lack in the ability to bring on clients that are outside the city of Lebanon. Even though Web development is a service that Say1 offers, it is only one in a long list of varied services and we believe this will dramatically hinder their focus toward leading the industry in our market.
4. WebWorks: Located approximately 25 miles from our Palmyra, PA offices. WebWorks
offers Web development and marketing services to businesses in the Greater Harrisburg, PA area. Strengths: WebWorks has been in the Web services business for almost six years and has a very experienced team of developers and programmers. They also offer outstanding marketing services. Weaknesses: Although WebWorks is a direct competitor, they have begun to focus a large portion of their services toward attracting medium- to large-sized companies. Their pricing is dramatically higher than any competing firms in the Central PA area and they now have put into effect a policy of only excepting jobs of a certain size.
The first type are the very large, high revenue companies who service larger Fortune 1000 corporations and well-funded Internet based start-ups exclusively. In this category are only a few worldwide participants that dominate. The second type of firm offers pre-fabricated, all-in-one, proprietary type Web services to any size company at a very low cost or without any cost. The participants in this category consist of a few dominating companies that mainly all have additional sources of revenue and only offer Web services as a value-added service or additional attraction. The third type of firm is our classification, that is the smaller, usually very young companies that market to small- and medium-sized businesses in their local area. Currently there are a large number of participants in this category, but no dominating forces.
Market Analysis
Year 1 Potential Custome rs Dauphin County Lancaste r County Lebanon County York County Total Growth 2% 2% 2% 2% 1.88% 6,723 11,299 2,593 8,238 28,853 6,844 11,502 2,645 8,403 29,394 6,967 11,709 2,698 8,571 29,945 7,092 11,920 2,752 8,742 30,506 7,220 12,135 2,807 8,917 31,079 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 CAGR 1.80% 1.80% 2.00% 2.00% 1.88%
partnerships with various Internet and Web-related companies, we are able to offer our clients an affordable and efficient proprietary Web package that will meet all their related needs. Ibrio Inc. also has as its lead development manager, Brandon Andrews, a main principal in the company. Brandon Andrews has four years of commercial Web development experience and has been recognized as a leader and innovator in the graphic design and layout areas of website development. New Bplans Online Courses Fantastic New Courses Available View Our Course of The Week Now Research Your Industry Need to Get Figures on Your Industry? Free Year Financial Reports Available
We plan on doing a large scale marketing project during this month including (March 5 - April 5, 2001):
Radio advertising (WHP 580). Ad placement in local trade publications (The Central Penn Business Journal). Billboard Ads to promote wide-spread name recognition.
Budget Domain Website Package ($585.00): For simple, information based websites. Popular with companies who just need to gain an Internet presence.
Mid-Level Website Package ($945.00): Information based websites with a large amount of content. Popular with companies that have a large services/products list and/or want to implement more of their business into the Web.
Catalog Website Package ($1,440.00): Usually reserved for product-oriented websites that are e-commerce enabled. Popular with companies that have a desire to market heavily on the Internet or sell their products/services directly from the Web.
Website Hosting (from $15.00 to $45.00 per month): Depending on the type and size of the website, the price for hosting can vary greatly. The average cost of hosting for most clients is $25 per month.
Website Maintenance ($45.00 per hour): We charge a set fee of $45.00 per hour billed in 10 minute increments. If a client feels as though they will need their website updated or maintained on a regular basis, packages are available at a discount rate.
Currently we advertise in eight separate area yellow page directories. All our ads appear under either the Internet Services or Website Design headings. Ibrio Inc. also has an ad listing in a national business directory under the heading of Web Developers. In the near future we will feature ads in several area business publications such as The Central Penn Business Journal and the Who's Who in Dauphin County.
We have sent out targeted bulk mail flyers promoting special offerings by our company. We have participated in targeted broadcast fax promotions to small businesses in our area.
In the near future we will begin a new aggressive, ongoing bulk mail campaign to promote our Web development and hosting services.
We will begin advertising on a broader scale within the next six months. Radio spots will be continuously played during local area talk shows and news programs, this placement is intended to reach the highest percentage of our target client possible. Billboard ad placement will be the second mass media marketing campaign we will implement into our marketing efforts. Billboard ads will be intended as 'name recognition' advertising.
Educational Seminars:
Ibrio Inc. has been invited to speak to business owners and managers at several Internet and Web-related educational seminars on a variety of topic. In the near future, we will promote our services through these seminars.
To promote our services and our name as a participant in the Web services industry, we will be joining many of the local area Chamber of Commerce groups and various other strategic partnership clubs.
own. This method has proven successful provided that we keep our follow-up calls consistent and regular until we receive either a yes or no answer.
Sales Forecast
Year 1 Sales Website Development Result-based Marketing Maintenance Hosting Total Sales Direct Cost of Sales Website Development Result-based Marketing Maintenance Hosting Subtotal Direct Cost of Sales $117,000 $19,250 $14,230 $14,040 $164,520 Year 1 $0 $9,900 $0 $5,650 $15,550 Year 2 $350,000 $81,900 $43,000 $40,000 $514,900 Year 2 $0 $35,000 $0 $15,000 $50,000 Year 3 $750,000 $199,500 $130,000 $115,000 $1,194,500 Year 3 $0 $102,600 $0 $25,000 $127,600
5.5 Milestones
The accompanying table lists important program milestones, with dates and managers in charge, and budgets for each. The milestone schedule indicates our emphasis on planning for implementation. What the table doesn't show is the commitment behind it. Our business plan includes complete provisions for plan-vs.-actual analysis, and we will hold monthly follow-up meetings every month to discuss the variance and course corrections. Milestones Milestone Start Date End Date Budget Manager Department Incorporation 8/14/2000 8/28/2000 $500 Dave Admin Acquire Start-up Financing 8/14/2000 10/1/2000 $0 Dave Admin Accounting/Balance Sheet Setup 8/31/2000 8/31/2000 $300 Dave Admin Acquire Chamber Memberships 10/2/2000 10/9/2000 $600 Dave Marketing Staff Sales Position #1 10/9/2000 10/16/2000 $2,240 Dave HR Staff Development Position #1 10/16/2000 10/23/2000 $3,200 Brandon HR Upgrade Current Sales Literature 10/23/2000 11/6/2000 $300 Dave Sales Acquire Dedicated Web Host Service 11/1/2000 11/8/2000 $770 Brandon Development Staff Development Position #2 1/15/2001 2/1/2001 $3,200 Brandon HR Staff Sales Position #2 2/12/2001 2/26/2001 $2,240 Dave HR Acquire Large Scale Outside Marketing 3/5/2001 4/5/2001 $2,000 Dave Marketing Staff Developer Postion #3 3/19/2001 4/2/2001 $3,200 Brandon HR Other 1/1/2001 1/1/2001 $0 ABC Department Totals $18,550
Management Summary
Ibrio Inc. is owned and operated by two partners with equal equity in the company, and both directors in the corporation. David Hickethier attended Williamson College on a three year scholarship basis, earning his Associates Degree in construction management. He has completed many business management and business finance courses and has also had hands on experience with managing people. He has one year experience in Internet and Web-related sales and nearly two total years of professional sales experience. R. Brandon Andrews is an experienced website developer and strategist with over four years of commercial Web and Internet services experience, plus numerous attendance to various related seminars and educational classes. Previous to the forming of Ibrio Inc., he owned and operated a sole-proprietorship, which offered similar Web-related services, but did not market exclusively to small business.
Ibrio Inc. will depend on the two main principals, David Hickethier and Brandon Andrews, for all management responsibilities. This will include office management, accounts receivable and payable, marketing, and talent recruitment. David Hickethier will serve as chief operations officer and sales manager. He will supervise all salesmen and all sales promotions and projects. David will also be holding the office of the treasurer therefore will be responsible for all financial related matters. Brandon Andrews will serve as chief technology officer and lead Web developer. He will be directly supervising all Web development (employee and sub-contracting projects), and will also be responsible for any necessary training in the same department. Research Your Industry Need to Get Figures on Your Industry? Free Year Financial Reports Available #1 Business Plan Software Top Selling Business Plan Software for 10 Years. Download Your Software Now!
Personnel Plan Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Production Personnel Brandon/Web Developer $3,400 $25,000 $60,000 Keith/Hired in Oct $16,228 $23,000 $27,000 Developer #2/Hired in Feb $10,944 $21,000 $25,000 Developer #3/Hired in Apr $7,920 $21,000 $25,000 Other $0 $0 $0 Subtotal $38,492 $90,000 $137,000 Sales and Marketing Personnel Dave/Marketing $3,400 $25,000 $60,000 Sales Position #1/Hired in Oct $16,504 $23,000 $25,000 Sales Position #2/Hired in Feb $10,096 $21,000 $23,000 Other $0 $0 $0 Subtotal $30,000 $69,000 $108,000 General and Administrative Personnel N/A $0 $0 $0 N/A $0 $0 $0 Subtotal $0 $0 $0 Other Personnel N/A $0 $0 $0 N/A $0 $0 $0 Subtotal $0 $0 $0 Total People 7 7 7 Total Payroll $68,492 $159,000 $245,000
Financial Plan
Ibrio's financials summarize the following areas:
Important Assumptions. Key Financial Indicators. Break-even Analysis. Projected Profit and Loss. Projected Cash Flow. Projected Balance Sheet. Business Ratios.
Long-term Interest Rate 13.00% 13.00% 13.00% Tax Rate 25.42% 25.00% 25.42% Other 0 0 0