· web viewby may 2013, fs will have promoted mutually beneficial and strong relationships between...

NOVA SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

Fall semester 2012Professor Cármen LagesTeacher Assistant Cláudia Iglésias

Group 1Alejandro Coarsa nº 973

Ana Schedel nº11056

António Zhu nº 10218

Bruna Franco n. 10920

Carolina Santana Lopes nº11032

MARKETING PLANFÁBRICA DE STARTUPS

0. Executive Summary 3

1. Situation Analysis 1.1. Market Overview 4

1.2. Macro Analysis 5 1.3. Micro Analysis 5 1.4. Industry Analysis 7 1.5. Internal Situation Analysis 7 1.6. SWOT Analysis 9

2. Strategy 2.1. Mission and Objectives 10

3. Strategic Triangle: 3.1. Market Segmentation 11 3.2. Target Selection 11 3.3. Positioning Decisions 12

4. Marketing Mix and Programs 4.1. Product 13 4.2. Princing 13 4.3. Distribution 14 4.4. Promotion 14 4.5. People 15 4.6. Process 15 4.7. Physical Evidence 15 5. Implementation and Control 16


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6. Contingency Plan 187. Conclusions 188. Methodology 19

9. Appendixes, References and Survey


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Table of Contents

António Faria is the CEO of FS and was the one that, when looking back to the companies he had already created, some of them turned out to be failures while others successes; he felt the need to change the game of business towards triumph and erase the luck factor.

FS offers a service of acceleration and incubation of ideas into business and has as competitive advantage the methodology based on the Business Model Canvas, of which the CEO is one of the authors. Faststart is a 9 step methodology of 12 weeks that will help entrepreneurs developing ideas, testing hypothesis and validating them just like in a scientific model. FS is the only in Portugal being at the same time incubator and accelerator. Regarding their service that is in the initial phase: a scenario that is characterized by low sales, high costs and negative profits. This situation made us aware of two main problems: the lack of prompt money and the low brand awareness.The idea is to create an extra feature to bring money to the company, a consultancy service. We also have to raise brand awareness by creating a partnership with Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), Oeiras and NOVA SBE.


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Have you ever imagine not having to wait 9 months for your baby to be born?With your dream idea you can go to Fábrica de Startups (FS) because they create a business out of it, within 3 months with a 9 step methodology. FS brings you and your future closer!

Executive Summary

1.1 Market OverviewThe market of FS would be the Portuguese market for technological business people. FS focuses on technological business since it represents a market that is scalable, i.e. increase sales without increasing costs.

According to GEM Portugal, in 2010 there were 5 entrepreneurs out of 100, which represented a decrease from 2007 (9/100). This can be explained by the economic crisis in 2008 that still has effects nowadays. Since the Portuguese economic situation deteriorated from 2010, it can be assumed that the number of entrepreneurs in 2012 will decrease even more. Moreover, from GEM Portugal 2010, we can conclude that it should focus on male entrepreneurs because they represent the double of entrepreneurs in comparison with women and there are more men thinking they possess the right skills/knowledge to become an entrepreneur than women (61,3% against 43,1%). Another important insight is that the age with more entrepreneurs is between 25 and 34 years old. 1

Even though the number of entrepreneurs is decreasing, according to GEM there are incentives from the Government to increase the entrepreneurial attitude of Portuguese people, with “Programa Estratégico +E, +I” which includes entrepreneurial courses in high schools.

One positive trend that is occurring in the last years is the increasing of entrepreneurship events in Portugal. This year there were events such as “Semana Global do empreendedorismo”, a one week global entrepreneurship event that occurs at the same time in many parts of the world and has had more than

1 Global entrepreneurship monitor (GEM) 2010 Portugal, pp11-12


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1. Situation Analysis

7,5 million people participating directly in its activities since its inception in 2008 2 or Greenfestival Portugal, an event focused in social and green entrepreneurship that had 25000 visitors in 2011 3, that increased the interest in creating companies.

Despite the unfavorable situation the company faces, FS believes it can increase the number of successful startups in the country by concentrating in attracting customers that are looking to launch their own business with the minimum possible risk and the highest efficiency and accuracy rate. The explanation lies in the fact that the majority of startups are launched without a plan to follow and many times the business ideas are not even tested, therefore reducing the odds of success. FS appears as a solution because it provides a service and at the same time it allows entrepreneurs to use their space. Now, FS serves 15 startups that go through many stages from testing an idea to finding business partners.

1.2 Macro Analysis – Pest Analysis

The macro environment is studied using the analysis of some forces of the market that could affect Startups business in Portugal. So, regarding that factors, we considered the following ones:

Political: The environment regarding politics is very stable; Country has long term relations with EU for trading;

Economic: Financial crisis; decreasing level of investment (According to INE4); High interest rates; High unemployment rate (According to INE5);

Social – Culture: Portuguese is one of the most talking languages in the world (according to CIA World Factbook6); decreasing the available income of the average consumer5);

Technological: Portugal has high speed and broad and facilities; 25th position in the world ranking of technological development (according to United Nations Development Program7);

1.3 Micro AnalysisCompetitors:

2 https://sites.google.com/a/sge.org.pt/sge---semana-global-do-empreendedorismo/noticias/semanaglobaldoempreendedorismo (Access on 29th November)3 www. greenfestival .pt/ (access on 29th November)4

http://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?xpid=INE&xpgid=ine_destaques&DESTAQUESdest_boui=130162227&DESTAQUESmodo=2 (acess on 29th November)5

http://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?DESTAQUESdest_boui=133547187&DESTAQUESmodo=2&xpgid=ine_destaques&xpid=INE (acess on 29th November) 6

CIA World Factbook - is a reference resource produced by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States with information about the countries of the world. 7

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_tec_ach-economy-technological-achievement (acess on 29th November)


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http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_tec_ach-economy-technological-achievement

http://www.ine.pt/xportal/xmain?DESTAQUESdest_boui=133547187&DESTAQUESmodo=2&xpgid=ine_destaques&xpid=INE

http://www.greenfestival.pt/

https://sites.google.com/a/sge.org.pt/sge---semana-global-do-empreendedorismo/noticias/semanaglobaldoempreendedorismo

To be successful, a company must provide greater costumer value and satisfaction than its competitors do. Thus marketers must not only adapt to the needs of target costumers but also gain strategic advantage by positioning their offerings strongly against competitors’ offerings in the minds of consumers. In this case in particular, FS differentiates from its competitors through its improved refreshing business model and by offering at the same time the services of accelerator and incubator.Here we can only consider indirect competitors. Since FS will operate in the Portuguese technological market, we consider as competitors all companies that offer a similar service to the FS, such as: Startup Lisboa, Beta-i and DNA Cascais.

Startup Lisboa Beta-i DNA CascaisStrenghs incubation program

with expert advice; big portfolio of client network.

A broad range of entrepreneurship events such as “Sillicon Valley comes to Lisbon” that reaches many different segments.

Collaboration of Cascais municipality; Wide team with different skills and capabilities that allows the creation of startups in different areas, i.e. healthcare and tourism.

Weaknesses Charges for space occupation.Inexistence of accelerator service.

Nonprofit association; Their acceleration programs do not last very long therefore the results could be dubious.

Nonprofit association; Their focus is on young and social entrepreneurship in Cascais thus they do not attract customers from other regions.

Suppliers:

FS uses a model that implies a great importance on the part of the suppliers, in this case, the investors. They represent a major role because they are the ones who make the business possible. The investors, Business angels, are private investors that have the financial resources to invest in startups.


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Customers:

Costumers represent the major propose for this company. Their customers are full time entrepreneur - Someone in their 30´s that wants to develop a startup, and at the time

1.4 Industry Analysis: Porter`s Five Forces Model


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Entrants (Low) New entrants must be prepared for not be profitable in the early stages Economic crisis leads to fewer new entries to be possible know-how Lack of investment

Rivalry (Low) Indirect

competitors More and

more companies offer a huge variety of services.

Buyers (Moderate) Firms are running out of liquidity, so there is a concern about the return of the investments Companies can offer a range of services and solutions for a company in a one package, guaranteeing the loyalty and

From the model, we can conclude that the risk of the company is medium.

1.5 Internal situation Analysis

Sales forecastFS revenue model is based on the share it controls

from the startups it accelerated (Whisle, Crazydog, 30 simple systems, FastRent). In other words, the 15 startups, which were accelerated until December, will just be launched in December and January 2013 and only when these companies start to profit will the FS begin to get revenues. Since there is not enough information about the current accelerated startups, making a sales´ forecast of those companies was impossible to be done.

Cost structure


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Suppliers (High) CEO investment Powerful companies investment Unemployment rate in Portugal reached 15% in 2012

Substitutes (Moderate) Only indirect substitutes (Consulting companies) Entrepreneurs may solve the problems their selves Company offers a package of services that may be too costly for entrepreneurs to support by themselves.

According to Porter´s generic competitive strategy, FS is concentrated in two competitive strategies. In one hand, it is adopting a strategy of focusing because it wants to help entrepreneurs create their business, which represents a narrow market segment. Therefore it already knows this segment very well because of the close relationship it established with them by using public relations such as “summer of Startups” or “Energia de Portugal”. On the other hand, FS revenue model implies no initial costs for their customers since it only charges its customers when their startups begin to growth, therefore a cost leadership is used by FS. FS begun its activity this year so one of its objectives is to growth and one useful tool to analyze this is to use Ansoff´s product-market growth. In this sense, FS service is located in market penetration strategy since it already has the resources and capabilities to operate in its market. It also means that FS should find ways to attract more customers in the existing market that has no direct competitors. So if its market increases then if FS maintains its market share it will result in growth.Another important topic is a portfolio analysis, which can be done by positioning a company in a BCG Matrix. This matrix gives important insights regarding the attractiveness and competiveness of a company working in a specific market. In the case of FS it is considered a cash cow.

1.6 SWOT Analysis


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External analysis

Internal analysis

Opportunities (O)Reshape portuguese pessimistic mind, starting with entrepreneur’s workshops in universities.Economic downturn, make unemployed potential clients and entrepreneurs.Rearrange the methodology to be helpful to big companies that are entering new and unknown areas.Internationalization to Brazil.

Threats (T)The target is risk-averse.

The actual crisis made investors less willing to invest.

Indirect competitors.

Strengths (S)The CEO Unique accelerator and incubator in portuguese market.Faststart methodology.Target of technological market has an exponential growth and less risk taken.

SOEnable the creation of startups in a short time period and with validated rates of success.

STMake the CEO the master mentor of every team so that they feel supported and give credibility to the company for them and for investors.

Weaknesses (W)Is itself a startup companyLack of public exposure.Take a high risk in the charging method used, become partners.The localization and access of the physical company.

WOImprove access by implementing a branch of the company in city downtown.Settle in Brazil in the next six months so that we’ll be the first Portuguese company with a platform in Brazil.

WTHire a designer that can be responsible for the marketing department.

2.1 Mission and Objectives


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2. Strategy

Vision: Fábrica de Startups is committed to make Portugal a Technological Entrepreneurship Center recognized internationally.

Mission: Become the best partner of Portuguese entrepreneurs, offering a unique combined incubation and acceleration support, converting their ideas into successful business.Considering our product’s life cycle and our technologic market pace we made a marketing plan of one year, therefore we only established the short-run objectives.

Short-run Business Objectives (1-3 years) By March 2013 expand FS portfolio by launching a new chargeable consultancy service to help

newborn startups deal with typical beginner’s problems. By May 2013, FS will have promoted mutually beneficial and strong relationships between

suppliers and clients. This strategy to bound investors and fetus startups can be achieved through an additional part in the website where only investors can access to look up into the posts that FS teams put about their business creation, so that we can awake interest in investors from the beginning of the process of creation and not only in the end in order to increase willingness to invest.

Short-run Marketing Objectives (1-3 years) By February 2013 to have a signed protocol with Nova SBE and IST Oeiras for increasing brand

awareness and clients’ network enlargement, starting in the universities of management and computing engineering in Portugal.

By the end of 2013 have a brand awareness of 30% (every 30 in 100 recognize the brand) among recent graduated students, namely potential entrepreneurs.

3.1 Market Segmentation


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First of all, we have segmented the market by region, and we decided to focus on Lisbon´s residents since FS´s office is located in Oeiras and FS´s service require customers to stay in FS´s office to work on their projects. Secondly, we are looking for people who are technological oriented because FS are concentrated on helping technological startups. Thirdly, the occupation of the segment determines if we are dealing with people fully committed with their startups or people that only want to create a company for fun. Finally we divided the market by the age of the people.Group:Red – Full time entrepreneurs – People with age between 28 to 40. They either have worked in a company as a collaborator or they have created their own business so they have already accumulated many years of experience. We feel that with FS help they can create a company by reducing their risk.Green – Part time entrepreneurs – People with age between 28 to 40. They are currently working in a company but they can use their free time to start a business. Similar to the red group, the green group also has some kind of knowledge in specific areas. Since they have limited amount of time FS can support them save time by showing the fastest and most efficient way to create a startup.Blue – Recent graduate students – Young people that want to take an unusual route. These people have different ideas and their minds are not formatted to work in conventional way. We think that their financial restriction implies less risk in their investments so FS service may help them access the viability of their ideas. Black – Mature entrepreneurs – Group of people with age higher than 40. They have worked many years so they possess some kind of expertise in a given area. These people are very conscious about the environment so they might cast opportunities very easily turning it into a business.

3.2 Target selection

Having the needs of entrepreneurs in mind we think that FS will increase their probability of success because a lot of people do not know which steps to take in order to launch a business.

Persistence – Willingness to work many hours and are motivated even when there are signs of lack of results.Experience – Expertise about an area that could be useful in building a business. Fit company values – People are willing to take FT advises and share the same vision as FS do.


133. Strategic Triangle

Color Persistence Experience Fit company values

Total

Red 5 4 5 14Green 4 4 5 13Blue 2 1 5 8Black 4 5 2 11

Red and Green have the highest score so they are considered our main priority and they will require a different course of action.

3.3 Positioning Statement

Our positioning statement is the following:” to individuals who want to create, validate and internationalize their startup and investors, we are an accelerator and incubator that focuses in increasing the entrepreneurship culture in Portugal because we provide a 9 step methodology that facilitates the validation of a startup.”

Figure 1-Positioning map


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FS provides a service, which means that the product is intangible. Production and consumption occurs at the same time, since the buyer/Costumer participates in the production of the service.

4.1 Product

Insight: FS appears because the CEO thought that one of main obstacles to create a company in Portugal is the waste of time and high costs that entrepreneurs incur when creating a company.

Promise: FS is an accelerator so they do not use a business plan; instead they use the business model canvas. Business model Canvas is a nine step approach that includes in each step the important things that matters for the creation of a business. Here are created hypotheses, exactly like a scientific model, and then they try to validate each hypothesis. So the key point of differentiation from their competitors is their own methodology.

FS can provide a 1st job experience to graduated students that have an idea and want develop it. And also, can help entrepreneurs with or without a job to develop their ideas.

Reason to Believe: young and pro-active minds, full of constructive ideas that want to change people’s lives by improving the technology.

Regarding the product`s life cycle, FS is right now in the Introduction phase. Usually this phase is characterized by low sales, high costs and negative profits, which means that the company has to raise brand awareness and find another way to get revenues without having to wait for the startups to generate money. The idea is to create a consulting service for startups already created but that are facing some troubles succeeding in the market. This will add a feature in the service provided by FS, increasing their competitiveness.

4.2 Pricing

Regarding the price, FS uses a Freemium pricing model. This consists in a service that is provide for free in the beginning but charged in the end, usually a premium price. The company helps to develop the product and then when the Startup begins to generate revenues they “take a piece of their pie”, depending on the risk of success. According to the PEST analysis, that reflects the actual market conditions, we think that this market is a sector where high quality is linked with higher price. Taking this into consideration we would say that their price strategy is Premium, since the company values high quality and without direct competitors, can use a strategy of medium/high prices. We will base our estimation on the costs we have, but it is important to retain that the price will depend on the project - each project lasts for 12 weeks. The costs that we need to take in consideration


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4. Marketing Mix and Programs

are the fixed costs which are related with the office, such as: rent of the factory, wages and outsourcing that will represent 5000€ per month. Variable costs will consist on miscellaneous costs, office cost like water and electricity; and communication costs. This means 111€ per month.We cannot calculate the exact price charged per project. But we know that the “slice of the pie” will be between 25% and 50%.Regarding the new consulting service, we need to take in consideration the price charged by consultancy firms. In average, per hour, it is charged 80€. Since this new service will be performed in the company`s office, they will not incur in more variable costs, but it will be necessary to hire someone to perform this new task. So we calculate that this new service will cost, to the consumer, between 20€-35€.

4.3 DistributionFS uses a selective distribution strategy, since their services can be purchased through the website and Facebook.

4.4 – PromotionWhat they need is to create brand awareness, so in order to achieve this FS should obtain a partnership with Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) and NOVA SBE. The success of FS remains on this network of clients, so this is definitely a point that they need to focus on. The purpose is to activate the brand in the universities in order to get the wanted brand awareness. Now the majority, 83.3% 11 of the students (possible clients) do not know this company so they do not get aware of the benefits the can be provided for them. Since FS operates in the Portuguese technological market, the focus will be on universities related with this market, like NOVA SBE and IST Tagus Park. The idea is to communicate to each university the benefits of creating a partnership with FS. The company can gain from the university: The wanted brand awareness, an increasing level of possible costumers, since each university as in average 10.000 students.Regarding the university side, this partnership will help in the future when students graduate. FS can provide them a first job experience with an internship. This will also give to the university the chance to be able to guarantee more jobs to graduated students.In this partnership, it will be purpose to the universities to have a campaign to spread the brand name. The idea is to have, during one month, flyers on the cafeteria trays8. With this, it is suppose to show to the students the idea behind Fabrica de Startups.

Also, it would be great to have a space in their website only directed to investors, in order for them to follow the evolution of the new startups. For this, will be need a web designer. But with the partnership

8 Appendix 2


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with IST Tagus Park, they could get their best student to develop this new service, for free. In the end it would be beneficial for the company and for the student that could put this job in their curriculum.

This promotion will capture all segments in which the company works.

4.5 PeopleFS began its activity in April, with a team of three people – including a marketer. Things did not occur very well, and they had to dismiss the charge of the marketing department. Now they do not have anyone responsible for that department, they can only count on Operation Director Karina Costa, which has a Marketing Degree. However, due to the fact that this position is fundamental, the company should invest more on this area, which would be hiring someone in a part-time job since the costs of having a full time employee becomes really expensive. It is important to refer that the employees should share the same values as FS and be ready to give out a considerable amount of their time and effort to it.Also regarding the consultancy service, the company will not need to hire someone to perform this service since we purpose to be performed by one of the actual employs.

4.6 ProcessRegarding the company, the process starts when a client approaches them by email or Facebook. Then the company come up with hypotheses and test them using interviews, surveys and slip testing (that something used in the internet: the concept like having a homepage, where you put the same product but with different subscription, some people prefer the page A and others prefer page B). Once the ideas have been tested, they present them to the investors and the product starts being developed.For clients, the process starts when potential customers say that they would buy the possible product with a feature for some amount of money, which is what they want to get in the end. That is what the company present to investors, then the project is invested, the company is created and the product is developed. What is finished in these 12 weeks is not the psychical but the web placed platforms and software. It is supposed appear in the interface the things the customers see and value: if they would buy it or not, how do they want it; then when the company has the evidence that it is going to work, they start develop the whole product. Clients do not spend any money until the company is sure that the project is going to be launch.

4.7 Physical EvidenceThe place that will be serving as physical evidence for the service of FS is the office in Oeiras, a rent space near Lisbon. This location offers a disadvantage for the company, since it is not a central place. However, with a possible partnership with IST, a university nearby, the company could turn this disadvantage into an advantage, since possible clients could dislocate more easily into the company space.


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Implementation MilestonesThe table shows a task schedule that should be followed by FS in order to have an effective introduction of our one year marketing plan.

MinuteTask name Duration Start Finish Predecessors

1 Marketing Plan 67 days24th

September, 2012

30th

November, 2012

-

2 Approval Process 7 days1st

December, 2012

7th

December, 2012

1

3Partnership with

NOVASBE and IST 31 days

8th

December, 2012

8th January, 2013

2

4To get a web

designer8 days

8th January, 2013

16th January, 2013

3

5To improve the

website8 days

16th January, 2013

23th

February, 2013

4

6Advertising Campaign

31 days23th

February, 2013

23th March, 2013

5

7 Provide consulting 277days 23thMarch, 2013

31st

December, 2013

6

8 Payback period -31st

December, 2013

- 7


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5. Implementation and Control

MenFS is a small company composed by three elements: CEO, Operation Director and resident entrepreneur; here typically multiple functions are often assigned to one person. In our opinion, the best person to deal with the partnership would be the Operation Director Karina Costa because she is the one with a more similar background comparing to college students. As we explained before, the partnership with IST (Oeiras) will provide a web designer to improve the website for free. The advertising campaign will be directed by a person chosen by the CEO and with the help of the web designer. Our suggestion would be Karina because she has a Master degree in Marketing. Finally the consulting service will be provided by the only three members of the company.

MoneyThe current annual costs (61409€) incurred by the company are sunk costs, because of that we only focused on the additional costs such as the dislocation to the universities, the advertising campaign and the additional salary to be paid for the consultancy service delivered.

Advertising Campaign

Print Price (Color A4 Flyer) = 0,25€Plasticization Price(A4 Flyer)= 2,90€


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Although our advertising campaign last a month, there will only be needed 1000 flyers for cafeteria trays since flyers are plasticized, they can be reutilized.Additional salary= 200 x 2 salaries x 12 months = 4800€Dislocation costs to universities= 100€Total additional costs= =3150+4800+100=8050€

(0,25+2,90)x 1000 flyers = 3150€

Contingency plan

Preparing a plan B is always a good idea; developing a marketing plan is all about being adaptive and flexible because unexpected things could happen. The biggest issue that FS may face is the fact that the incubated startups may not profit due to the actual crisis. To solve that, we suggest that instead of using in the beginning a freemium model, they could charge ahead for the service. Other fact that could occur is Portugal exit of European Union. This will reduce the level of investment in the country due to the increase of the interest rate. Without investment incubated startups will struggle to be launched. A possible solution will be search for investment in Brazil which is an emergent market for high-tech.

ConclusionSumming up, FS will certainly benefit from the implementation of our marketing plan which is accurate and realistic without being challenging. It adds value to the company as a whole, solving two main problems: the lack of prompt money and the low brand awareness.


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6. Contingency Plan7. Conclusion

Our data collection included two types of gathering: online surveys and interviews. However several other methods of secondary data collection such as academic papers, books and Internet were also used. Besides the information we got from FS, we launched our own online survey in order to collect unbiased data. The survey was answered next to last year’s Undergraduate and Master degree students of NOVA SBE and IST (Oeiras) during the last November fortnight. We chose these two universities in order to examine the viability of creating partnerships with FS.

The main goal of the survey was to know better the characteristics and consumer behavior of the target market entrepreneurs in a Business to Business relationship context, to test our assumptions about it.

The secondary goals of the survey were:o Analyzing the viability of forming a partnership with IST and NOVA in order to attract potential

targets from there.o Measuring the brand awareness of FS. o Analyzing if the location of FS in Oeiras would be an opportunity.

Our sample size was composed by 47 respondents.According to the excel analyses, the majority of the surveyed students around 66,7% 9 did not know the meaning of accelerator neither incubator. Consequently, the percentage of students that did not know about FS was even bigger around 83,3%. The concepts of accelerator and incubator were more common for NOVA students rather than IST students. Therefore, we concluded that the brand awareness of FS is very low.Finally, we planned two interviews: one with Prof. Soeiro who is an investor and other with Inês Silva who is the co-founder of Startups Pirates, but we could not mange to get in contact with them.

9 Appendix 3


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8. Methodology


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Appendix 1Development of sales volume of technical consumer good in Portugal

Appendix 2Canteen Flyer for advertising campaign


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Appendix 3Statistics of questionnaire survey


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9. Appendix

Appendix 4Cost structure


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Worker´s wage/month 1.500 €

FIXED COST Outsourcing (cleaner)cost/hour 7 €

Labour costs Oeiras cost/m3 10 €2 full-time workers 36.000 € Space (m3) 200

Outsourcing 77 € Water costs/month 15 €Rent 24.000 € Electricity costs/month 30 €Total 60.077 € Paper + ink costs/month 40 €

Telephone + Internet 26 €VARIABLE COST

Miscellaneous costs 540 €Office expense 480 €

Communication costs 312 €Total 1.332 €

Total costs 61.409 €

Appendix 5QUESTIONNAIRE SURVEY

We are 3rd Students of Management degree at NOVA School of Business and Economics. We are developing a Marketing Plan for Fábrica de Startups, which is an accelerator and incubator of Startups, firms which are being created and launched in the market for the first time.

We depend on your participation for the market study. This questionnaire is confidential and there is no right or wrong answers for any item, only your personal opinion counts. Thank you for your participation!

The questionnaire takes 10 min on average.What is your degree of agreement or disagreement with the following statements?

1- totally disagree2- disagree3- nor agree nor disagree4- agree5- totally agree

I can work for extended periods of time without noticing if what I am doing is something I love1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

I like to be in a situation in which I am required to take the lead1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

When compared with an average person, I would say that I am an optimistic1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

I enjoy being in a competitive situation1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

It is acceptable for me to depend on my parents for as long as necessary1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

If something I am doing is not successful I carry on anyway1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

I like to plan things ahead1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

I love to take risks


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1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

I enjoy myself when I experiment new and different things or ideas1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

I see myself as an entrepreneur starting my own company1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

I feel that after I finish my degree I have the right to demand a good first job1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

I am willing to wait for a long time until I can have a good first job1- totally disagree, 2- disagree 3- nor agree nor disagree, 4- agree, 5- totally agree

Are you familiar with the concept of accelerator and incubator of startups?1- I have never heard about it before2-I have heard about it but don’t know what it is3- I know exactly what it is

Which of the following is most adequate if I tell you: “Fábrica de Startups in Oeiras”?1- I have never heard about it before2-I have heard about it but don’t know what it is3- I know exactly what it is

Which of the following would you prefer?1- to create my own company 2- to be offered a stable job

Would you consider to start your own firm?1- no, never2- maybe, if I had help3- yes, always


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In your opinion, what is the main obstacle for you to start a business?1- I don’t have training to be a manager2- I don’t have an idea/technology worth building a firm around3- I don´t know where to start4- I don´t have the necessary money5- My family would oppose to it

In your opinion, what is the main advantage for you to start a business?1- I could make a lot of money2- I could be my own boss3- I could contribute with something of value

What is your degree of agreement or disagreement with the following statement?If I had a good idea/ technology, I would consider submitting it to an accelerator and incubator of startups, a group of people that helps the process of creation, validation and internationalization of startups.


I feel the need to have management-related subjects (ex: firm strategy, marketing, human resources) in my engineering training (Tagus only not NOVA)


Age:Gender:Nationality:Profession:

Thank you for your participation.About Fábrica de Startups: It is a factory of startups, an accelerator and incubator at the same time which speeds up the process of creation, validation and internationalization of startups. See here: fabricadestartups.com


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Link for IST: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true&formkey=dDNrSzJ5N2EzRllQMWhtTnZoY25XVWc6MQLink for NOVA: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true&formkey=dDNrSzJ5N2EzRllQMWhtTnZoY25XVWc6MQ

Appendix 6 Written InterviewWe are an accelerator, very similar to an investor but as well very different from anything else. So,

obviously we do not use a business plan, we use a business model is a canvas nine step approach that we put in each step the important things that are important to our business. Then we create hypotheses, exactly like a scientific model, scientific approach, we develop the hypotheses and then we try to validate each hypotheses. There is actually two canvas, the business model canvas and validation canvas were we tag the hypotheses. This has to do with our own methodology, so in our company you could call it: our biggest asset is our methodology, the methodology of all our Start-ups.

This is Start-up Factory, we have the methodology, and we have lot of things around this so our support from our CEO and founder of Fábrica de Star-up is like the master mentor of every team, we have in this moment 13 start-up companies. The methodology is the center of all of this, 9 step approach that follows the start-up life from the business model creation/idea/concept creation till the all business model validation, so traction. Traction is the evidence of sales without having a product. Steps take 12 weeks.

Ten thousand of potential customers say that they would buy this product exactly with this and this feature for this amount of money that is what we want to have in the end, that was we present to investors, then the project is invested, the company is created and the product is developed in the end. What you finish in these twelve weeks is not the psychical but the web placed platforms and software so you do not have the whole thing developed in the end. You have the interface, the things your customers see and that they can value if they would buy it or not, how do they want it, and then when you have evidence that it is going to work then you develop the whole thing. You don not spend any money until you have the certain your project was going to be launch. This approach is exactly what internet big companies based companies and software are doing in Silicon Valley, like Google, E-bay, Amazon.


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https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true&formkey=dDNrSzJ5N2EzRllQMWhtTnZoY25XVWc6MQ




This is a top notch we are trying develop in Europe. We are the first ones in Portugal. CEO of Fábrica de Star-ups was himself one of the authors of this methodology, this book, Business Model Canvas, and that is what we do so, business plan doesn’t have any interest. Business Plan is a great document for MBA. It has two parts, the first about crap things about the company, and we project things… This is not important for an investor. Must more important is having an assumption, in the beginning I have the idea of selling tomatoes in India, who is my segment is, what is my value preposition, am I faster/fresher, what is different and valued in my approach, what are my channels, online or distributors, types of relationship with the customer, partners, key activities, key resources, what we are going to outsource or do internally. “Strategy is what you choose not to do right” – you decide what you want to do and what you want others to do for you. Revenue extreme model: What is your price model is a free or premium like Dropbox. Cost structure – marketing, expenses…

We come up with hypotheses and we come up with tests, can be rather interviews based, on Skype, surveys like 4000, lot of people. We also use something you might never ear that is slip testing that something that is used in the internet, the concept is very easy, imagined you have a homepage, you put the same product but with different subscription, some people prefer the page A and others prefer page B. We use this technique is a very cheap technique, because can test very important thing all over the world.

1. How did you come up with the idea of creating Fábrica de Startups?António Luciano de Faria has 25 years of experience of creating companies, he has created more

than 10 companies already and is some of them, he realize he did not do the right thing, he spent money created a product that was not validated at all, so in the end any customer appear, because customers don not come right to our door at all in any kind of business. So, and actually what I did myself in my own start-up, I am 25 years old but I already have a company, and I already spend 20000 euros but I don’t have one sale at all because is a big story I don’t want to talk about. But I never ask the right people…

2. How do you define your service? Innovative? Unique?It is unique. It is innovative in Portugal and maybe in Europe. Now we have a lot of accelerators in

the world but in Portugal we are probably the first one.Innovative of course, because all these concepts have been created for the past five years. These

are being developed in software development companies in the USA. Is unique in Europe as well, we don’t have big history of entrepreneurship as the USA have. It’s a new approach.

Due to our research we know you combine both the concepts of accelerator and incubator. Are you the only company in Portugal offering this mixed service?

Yes, the only one. All the companies here, we are partners. We enter in the capital of all of them, we are partners forever! So we are very engaged with their success and their development… So we are going to do everything to make them get funded, get growing and then going abroad because we have a positioning that we are going to open in Rio de Janeiro in the end of this year. So we are interested in their global development.We are the first ones to have the physical facilities as well as the services and coaching…


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You are saying that the persons with the ideas stay here and then they became partners of Fábrica de Startups?

The company is entering in their capital. They don’t pay anything to stay here; we just provide everything to for the kick of the company. Our payback is the profits of the company.

3. What are your objectives for the next 6 months? And for the next year? In long-run?In 6months: half of the companies we have here incubators since yesterday, we want to have them

funded. We are asking investors to fund these companies.Open our position in Brazil.Launch another Energia de Portugal Project. This is the event we do with CGD, EDP and impresa to

reach new startups.1year: get position in the USA; have a portfolio of 15-20 invested in our pipe line. We want around

200-300 thousand euros of revenue per year.

4. Who are your clients? Why did you choose this type of clients?

The clients three types of entrepreneurs:1- Full time entrepreneur. Someone in their 30´s that wants to develop a startup, who as quit job2- Entrepreneurs with a job but we free time and want to do a startup3- Investors our customers as well because they actually pay us to monitories and to present them new

startups 4- Big companies

5. Are there high-tech startups your target?Yes 100%. Because it’s global. With internet you can develop something and then sell it a lot of times

to a lot of people, all around the world. We are products that can be developed, and then they can expand!

6. Do you give any insurance to your startup clients?

There is no guarantee. Our revenue model is successful. If they are successful we have a share of their capital. We have a slice of the pie, so we always want the pie to be bigger. The revenue here is when we sell our slice if the pie is bigger the slice is bigger. 25.000 is our initial investments in the startups.

7. How do you determine the price you charge per service according to your different types of clients?

The slice is determined on the risk. We have a startup that is really promising team, the project is amazing is really easy to start, so I am willing to get a smaller slice because I assume the pie is bigger, so I probably ask for 50%.


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If I am little bit riskier, I am not really sure about this idea, I am gonna bet in something bigger like 25%.

8. Can you give us a number of how many services did you do in the last month?We helped more than 400 entrepreneurs since Fábrica de Start-ups has started, in April 2012. In

other words we incubated and put in accelerator programs 400 entrepreneurs. We were in Energia de Portugal, summer of startups and Greenfest and we did not charge anything because we wanted to test the model and it was also a marketing issue.

9. Do you think you are going to increase your sales in the next 3 months? Can you give us a number of that expected growth?What is the number of expected services per month?

We are not going to increase our portfolio in the next 3 months. Because actual customers would still be here.

10. What is the cost structure of the company? Regarding variable and fixed costs.

We are going to check if we can give you our balance sheet. (I´ve already sent the email).

11. How do you cover your costs?

We have a private fund from CEO and other administrators. We are not profiting and not break even. We will still make an increase of capital because it is very

difficult with this model.

12. How do you differentiate from the well-known consulting companies?

We are not in the consulting business.

13. Which are your main competitors? Do you think Startup pirates is your biggest competitor? Does this accelerator offer a fastest program than you do? They also operate in other parts of the world that give it higher brand awareness, do you agree? What do you plan to avoid their market share increase?


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Startup pirates is not a competitor because it’s only a small event for one week and they don´t have an accelerator program and they do not have an office space.

Indirect competitors would include Startup Lisboa, a Scholl space that people like and they may not get our value and prefer them.

Another one includes Beta-i. A non profit incubator without any revenue model that have been in the market for 2 years. They have a lot of startup events, startup weekend, beta talk. They have some mentors and workshops and resources. But they do not have a methodology. They do not buy companies equities. They do not have a solid relationship with investors.

DNA Cascais is also another. A fund that have space and financial resources to get to companies but with very difficult conditions for startups. They do not have any company sucess in the market.

14. About public exposure, are you satisfied with only your website and facebook page? How do you plan to increase your brand awareness?

No. We do not have anybody in the marketing department. We need to increase online presence with ad words campaign. We want to hire a designer. We need not only content development but also a good design (templates). A free lancer is what we need.

We have a strong relationship with impresa group, expresso and we leverage that relationship turning it into more media presence with events such as Energia de Portugal that will have a TV coverage so apart from being in the Expresso every week we will be on TV.

We lack a digital marketing person.

15. Have you ever thought on expanding the company to other markets or countries?We are not the only one offering the same kind of services in Europe. Even in Brasil there are two

great accelerators, but there are not a company in Europe with a acceration program in Brasil...16. Have you ever thought on expanding the company to other markets or countries?

You already said that you plan on expanding to Brazil in the next 6 months but you also said that you are unique not only in Portugal but in Europe, so why don’t you do or start your internationalization closer? For example, in Spain?


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No we are not the only one in Europe, there are like 2 or 3 really good accelerators much better actually, we are not even close and in Brazil as well there are 2 really good accelerators.

But there’s no thing as an accelerator in Europe with a position in Brazil. Why is this important? Because Europe is very small: Portugal is very small, Spain is small, and then France is small, Germany is small, UK is small. Everyone is small and we all speak in different languages adding that we are in an economic downturn. What this means is that if you want to have a viral product, a widespread approach online it’s very difficult to override all this constraints. There are good opportunities, we have products here that we are going to develop for Europe but how about doing it in Brazil where everyone talks the same and our language so that getting in touch with partners, with costumers very easily. Then we will be selling in Brazil with same costs of working in Portugal, nowadays good developer, marketer or designers are cheaper in Portugal than in any other country in Europe or in USA or in Brazil.

So if you are setting up your company in Portugal but selling to other markets even though you can have a presence there ,and that’s why Fábrica de Startups gonna have a presence, so you can go to country, you can have a visa, you can sell and you can do any kind of transactions its really cleaver because you will be paying lower costs. Brazil is not in a downturn as Portugal is instead growing, increasing online penetration, people have a bigger purchase power, there are 200 milion people and they all speak the same language that is portuguese. A german or a french company couldn’t do this as easily but a portuguese can so this is a really cleaver step that we intend to be the first one doing.

Since Spain is so near Portugal why didn’t you thought about going to Spain? Although Brazil has the advantage of not having a language barrier, cultural in Spain is much alike to Portugal.

Because our target segment has nothing to do with distance, being near or not is irrelevant. Everything is digital, your costumer can be anywhere, you can be anywhere, this is software. Physical presence is nothing, there will be no transference of goods between Portugal and Spain besides that Spain is a much smaller market of 26 milion.

It is very good that education in Brazil is not as concentrated as in Portugal because that’s what we want. We want to educate, to be the first with a platform when people start going online and the numbers of increase of people using internet are huge I think was 23 per cent this year. Our stores of entrepreneurs can be European, so people that think and make a product can be here but people who buy are in Brazil, that means that is actually good that they don’t have enough technological based entrepreneurs people because they needed so we give it to them.

16. What about internationalization policies. Have you ever consider changing your name to an English one to be adjusted to non-Portuguese customers?

No, but we have Fabstart that is also another brand that we easy. Although Fábrica de Startups is actually not difficult to say in English and our target is never gonna be a startup in Sillicon Valey or anywhere else is going to be in this area. But if we ever feel the need we can use fabstart.


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17. Could the economic crises be an obstacle for possible entrepreneurs interested in creating their own business?

No, on the contrary the fact that we are in an economic downturn means that more people are changing the game and thinking about creating a startup. No one talked about startups before, nowadays its really different people are doing things by themselves getting pride of having something done of their own. Can also be an alternative if they can’t find a job they will try new opportunities.

18. There has been a decrease of entrepreneurs from 2010 to 2011. What do you think is the main reason for this fact?

Not on entrepreneurs maybe you got this data of number of companies created, in Portugal the number of companies created decreased 50 or 46 per cent in 2011 rather than 2010. That has to do with economical downturn but entrepreneur is not a small business owner it’s a different thing. Of course small business owner incurs in a great risk, obviously that these are decreasing, failing or going bankrupt. We are talking about another thing, more intellectual based entrepreneurship so we call it entrepreneurship of opportunity and not of necessity. This distinguish the creation of facebook that I did because it’s cool, because I’m creating and I want to be on the edge and not necessarily to make money or having a supermarket shop that is to make money and so that you can pay your bills. So yes one is decreasing but I wouldn’t call it entrepreneur maybe individual initiative. I see entrepreneurship as a big concept and very ambitious.


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