Avi BaglaBilly GallagherShailesh Tainwala

To Speak or Not To Speak

Current SystemComments Summary –

• CardCounter – made one critique of the article and one of the protest

• MD – Insults Stanford students, author, Gates Foundation, Economic department of Stanford (ridiculous, unintelligent, idiotic, delusional…)

▫ Gabe – Logical argument with personal insult embedded in it

MD – Blocks and returns the insult, goes on to speak about BDS, Apartheid.

Gabe – Defends his credibility, question’s MD’s sanity. Is baffled by MD’s view on Apartheid

▫ MD – Segregation, South Africa, misogyny. Closes with some comments on Gabe’s ineptitude.

------- End of Thread ---------

6 Comments1,128 words8 minutes reading time

1st Product Test

Results – Very High Engagement

• 119 unique page views

• Engagement – 79% (94) clicked on at least one vote

• 1 new high-quality question generated

• Average time on page – 1:12

• Device –▫ 55% Desktop▫ 44% Mobile▫ 1% Tablet

Burning Needs• Online News readers

▫ Share their opinions▫ Learn from peers▫ Influence decision-makers

• Publishers▫ Increase engagement▫ Learn about their readers

• Businesses▫ Gauge reactions (aka – sentiment measurement)

Secret Sauce - Marriage of IdeasCommenting systems completely re-imagined to put the User Experience first and foremost

+ Partnership strategy leveraging the current fragmented marketplace

+ Data for companies and government bodies to make better decisions

SolutionExtremely usable yet flexible UI -

What do you think of the new Twitter homepage?

Hate It!Love It!

How should the government spend its surplus budge?

Transportation Environment Education

Solution (cont)Capture structured content –

Enter Why _Students need to uphold the institution’s values

The graduating students are affected by choice of speaker

Students need to uphold the institution’s values

G4S has not been _G4S hasn’t been convicted for any of the accusations

…

…

…

…

…

…

217

183

116

66

9

398

85

38

12

1

Similar Answer found –G4S hasn’t been convicted for any of the accusations

Existing Features –

Solution (cont)A feature rich web+mobile ‘Home’ application –

With elements that online publishers can embed into their sites –

Business ModelPotential monetization strategies –

▫Monetize the users (advertising)

▫Monetize the publishers (subscription fee)

▫Monetize the data (market research)

MarketingMarketing –

•Build user base from news sites instead of spending effort on organic user acquisition

•Build viral features into the product

Competition

Topic-centric

Descriptive words used to calculate sentiment

Complexity >>> Usability

Topic-centric

Descriptive words used to calculate sentiment

Complexity >>> Usability

“Hot-or-Not for stuff”

Polling service for the general public

Completely anonymous

News-centric

Directly calculating sentiment

Usability >>>>Complexity

Team

Technical Chops

ManagementEconomics

Design

Journalism

Product

Avi Bagla

Billy Gallagher

Shailesh Tainwala

• Symbolic Systems major

• Managing Editor @ Stanford Daily

• Writer @ Techcrunch

• Co-Student Body President @ Stanford

• Grad Student inManagement Science and Engineering

• Two years work exp as PM (Microsoft) + Software Eng. (Informatica)

Key MetricsOur defining metrics –•User base

▫Number of users▫K-Factor (viral growth)

•Engagement▫Frequency of visits to home application▫Time spent on application▫Number of data points entered

Timeline

1

• Build MVP and alpha user-base [COMPLETED]

2

• Iterate on MVP [6 months]

3

• Test partnership to iterate on plugin [3 months]

4

• Partner with high traffic news sites [3 months]

5• Monetize

Why invest in us• Successfully identified a significant problem space

• We will persist until we’ve perfected our solution

• Relentless focus on usability and solving users’ needs

• Tremendous upside –▫ People consuming news online – 500M (Jan 2013)▫ ARPU: Google - $45; Facebook - $7.24; Twitter - $3.55

With the fast growth in online news consumption, we see this as at least a $150M opportunity by 2020

Appendix – 1

The Ask:

$ 75,000 to sustain us while we run experiments and build our product

Appendix – 2

Milestones for current phase –

• Daily return rate of at least 50% of users • Engagement of at least 5 mins per (first daily) visit• High success rate of marketing campaigns• Signs of organic growth through word-of-mouth or viral

features• Positive feedback and high levels of interest from our users

Appendix - 3• Should students have petitioned against the foundation's investment?

▫ Yes 57 (69.5%)▫ No 25 (30.5%)

• Does the foundation's investment in G4S affect the commencement ceremony?▫ Yes 16 (23.2%) ▫ No 53 (76.8%)

• Should the Gates fully divest from G4S?▫ Yes 4 (36.4%)▫ No 7 (63.6%)

Appendix 4 – Solution (cont)Social and data exploration features–

FILTERSCIRCLESFRIENDSALL INFLUENCERS

Tech CircleLiberals

Football Pundits

AGE GENDERLOCATION EDUCATION

18 – 36<18

>36