S.A.M.E.: Study Abroad Made Easier
About:
SAME is a start-up application that is made to solve day-to-day problems, of students that are going, to begin with, a new phase of their lives i.e. attaining education in a foreign country. Most of the students going foreign to study, face many problems in settling due to the lifestyle over there as it is very different from the comfortable lifestyle they used to experience in their homeland. Many students even drop the idea due after looking at the initial struggle of settling at some new place and hence miss a great opportunity of getting valuable education and a lifetime experience of studying abroad. So, we with this amazing application are trying to help such students in tackling the difficult situations they tend to face in settling in foreign countries so they can freely plan to pursue foreign education as a part of their education plan. The maximum luggage allowance for various flights is felt to be much less than needed by students so they tend to leave various necessary things they require due and have to make a choice between many important pieces of stuff like utensils, clothes, food items and many more and they try to find a way to get them in the foreign country that is found to be very much expensive for them. Even when they are done with their respective courses they have to leave all those things over there either sell them in scrap or even if they manage to find a buyer for the goods they face a hard time finding it.
Working of the app:
Our app will definitely benefit both the buyers and the sellers and we as intermediates will have a good time getting their blessings and profits with the nominal membership charges to our app. The work of this app will be simple yet very beneficial for the needful, it will connect the fresher students with the ones who are now done with their course and ready to leave that country and are willing to sell certain goods. The app will ask its members if they are a buyer or a seller, then it will redirect them to a list of other students that live nearby and are willing to sell or buy their goods respectively. Students who are currently in their homeland but are soon going to go to their universities can type in their address of accommodation the range of search can be selected by the user. Then the user can chat with any other user and they can easily communicate about the products available and the charges, then the transaction can be made easily. The app will provide certain templates to the sellers in which they have to put certain details of their products which they can post on the common area of the app where all the buyer students in the range can see them and connect so that they get the best prices for the goods they need. Students of the same courses can also exchange their books and there will be no limitation on the types of goods they can buy or sell. Moreover, the buyers can easily find the desired products through the in-app search bar.
Market Demand:
If we talk about the market demand for our application, it’s gigantic. Today India secures second place in the list of countries with a maximum number of students flying abroad for an international degree. The statistics of 2019, released by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs of Indian students studying abroad tells us that 753,000 Indian students were studying in universities abroad in 2019 and expected an increase in number by 2020. After talking to some of the students studying abroad and some who came back after attaining their degree we are pretty sure that many of these students would need an application like SAME.
With time we will also make tie-ups with many international universities, Study abroad educational counselors in India, schools, and many more…
Relevant Products in the Market:
There are some applications and websites that deal with buying and selling second-hand goods that help some students with their books and utensils and some other needs but we think that no single app is sufficient for a student or targeted for the wellbeing of students. So, the key features of our app itself make it very different from the other relevant products in the market. We haven’t seen any application that does such kind of work and after talking to some students who had or are going to have experience of studying abroad we see a great need for our application.
Target Customers:
The target customers for our app will not be limited to any age group or any nationality. All the students worldwide will be able to take benefit from the app. For instance, if there is some student from India who is going to the UK and another student of Russia who lives nearby his UK accommodation and is going to leave the UK the same year the Indian student is going there, they can communicate with each other and the Russian student can get a good rate for his products which the Indian student can buy for a price as well as the convenience of not carrying the goods from India.
Required Knowledge or Expertise:
We already have all the technical know-how required for making this startup work.
1) Study:
The first requirement of any startup is a good study of the product or service one is going to provide through their startup. We have gathered a lot of information required to make this startup successful but we know that we still have a lot more to learn and improve. We have studied our audience and the demand for our product in the market and we have discussed it already in our blog.
2) Knowledge of program development:
The second thing we quite obviously need for this startup is to program the application on any appropriate software using any computer language and design it in a user-friendly way so that every student can get the best use of the application instead of making the use of the application a burden itself. Then launch it to the android and iOS platforms so that it is available for the use of all students
Our Solution:
Most of the students, when they go abroad to study the first problem they face is in cooking food. Students are unable to take their utensils and crockery from home as other necessary things already complete the maximum weight allowance for luggage on flights. Then, most types of utensils are either not even made there or even if it is available at some shops it is way too expensive. It is really difficult to find those goods at a good price. Even if for once the student plans to buy all those utensils he is unable to bring them back to their homeland as other stuff already fulfills the maximum luggage allowance of flights. Then in that case the student has to sell all the utensils in scrap for which he gets a very little amount back. Finding a buyer is way too difficult and it is against one’s respectful pride to ask someone new if they want to buy some regular use goods.
So, our app will be a solution to avoid such a waste of money and maintaining pride too. So, it is going to be a great help for all the students who are going to or have claimed an international degree.
Estimated Budget:
The following will be our expenses in the initial stage of our start-up:
1) For programming the app:
We got in contact with a brilliant app development company that is into app development, the link to the company’s website is given in the references,
It will cost us around 2,00,000 INR for the development of our application.
2) For publishing on Google Play Store:
It will cost 25 USD for publishing our app on the google play store.
3) For publishing on App Store:
It will cost 99 USD for publishing our app on the app store.
4) Human Resource:
It will cost nearly 60,000 INR per month for the 2 staff we need, one of them will handle our social media handles and advertisement, the other one will be a designer who will design all the posters, logos and posts for social media of our company.
5) For marketing:
We will put aside an amount of 3,00,000 INR per year for accomplishing our marketing strategy.
Newspaper ads- 50,000 INR/year
SAME Hoardings printing- 1,00,000 INR (one time)
SAME billboards in public places- 1,50,000 INR/month (for 2 months)
Product Pricing:
The app will be free of cost to download from the google play store or the app store depending on the user. Then there will be in-app membership charges for every user.
There will be 2 types of membership plans:
· Basic Membership: Buyers and sellers will get access to the common area
· Premium Membership: Buyers and sellers will be able to find each other and chat as well as find and upload their products in the common area.
The membership charges will be as following:
1-week free trial of basic membership for a new single-user (they will have to fill in their payment information)
After the free trial:
Marketing Plan:
For the starting years when our company will be running in loss, still, our main expenses will be in advertisements as that is the key to the success of our business. Our time of main advertising will be of only 2 months that is the start of a new academic year, but we will keep giving ads in newspapers so that our name remains in the mind of people. We will not go for expensive advertisements sources like television and radio. We will stick to the basic but effective resource that will be newspapers. Moreover, we will publish our advertisement hoardings in public places.
Risk Analysis:
There is no big risk involved in this startup and I believe it can turn out very well. But the utmost priority of the company is marketing and expanding its reach to customers as much as possible if somehow, we fail in that then the company will come out to be a complete failure.
Milestone & Timeline:
References:
https://www.iecabroad.com/in/blog/the-2020-trend-for-indian-students-studying-abroad/
https://www.themediaant.com/television/star-plus-tv-advertising
https://www.bhavesads.com/ad-rates/times-of-india-newspaper
https://www.merahoardings.com/hoardings/new-delhi-hoardings/
