1. Prof. Yechiam Yemini (YY) Computer Science Department Columbia University (c)Copyrights; Yechiam Yemini; 2004-05 Assignment 2: Draft Business Plan Version: 2.00 5/20/05

2. (c)Copyrights; Yechiam Yemini; 2004-052 Goal  These slides provide a framework for the Draft Business Plan (DBP); I use PALM to illustrate this  You should use these to submit your DBP Please use concise bullets to fill the framework You may reduce font size but not increase # of slides over the budget provided  Add notes with brief explanations using PPT’s speaker notes  Part 1,5 and 8 (optional) should be handled by the full team other parts should be allocated among you and the names of individuals responsible for a part should be provided with the part.

3. (c)Copyrights; Yechiam Yemini; 2004-053 1. Summary: The Elevator Pitch (1p)  Provide a brief summary of the entire company business in at most 3 brief sentences (elevator pitch)  E.g., for PALM We plan to become a leader of the exciting PDA market by introducing the first pocket PDA. We developed unique technologies, required for pocket PDA, for simple handwritten input through touch sensitive screen. Our product will be superior all current PDAs in its size and usability features, yet priced at same level.

4. (c)Copyrights; Yechiam Yemini; 2004-054 2. Mission & Goal (1p)  This slide should provide single bullet description of the mission of the company.  E.g., (for PALM) Mission: Our mission is to develop, market and sell a pocket PDA that leads the market in supporting the full range of information services required by mobile users. oNote: mission statement should be concise and describe the long term position sought by the company. Goals: Our goal is to bring our product – the first pocket PDA -- to the market within 1 year from start, capture 20k,100k,250k,500k users by years 2-5, respectively and break-even at $25M revenues by the middle of year 4. oNote: goals should focus on schedule of major milestones and should be quantified.

5. (c)Copyrights; Yechiam Yemini; 2004-055 3. Market & Opportunity (2p)  This part should focus on describing and quantifying the target market and identifying the opportunity in terms of driving need.  E.g., Market: our customer is a mobile individual requiring constant simple access to her/his calendar, contact list, notes and email as well as synchronization of these with a PC. oNote: characterize the “Market” by defining the profile of your consumers and their defining need. Current situation/market-size: The market for PDA users is presently estimated (see….) at 10M users and is dominated by YYY (56%), ZZZ(28%) and WWW(14%)… the market is estimated to continue to grow at CGR (cumulative growth rate) of… oNote: describe the market size, growth rate, and market share controlled by competitors… Opportunity: it is now possible to transform the PDA from a clumsy palm-top to a light pocket device by exploiting unique technologies we developed for simple handwritten input to a touch-sensitive screen. oNote: characterize the opportunity in terms of the change and benefits you will enable and the unique technologies you will introduce to cause the change.

6. (c)Copyrights; Yechiam Yemini; 2004-056 4. Products & Technologies (2p)  Here you should describe the product in terms of its specific features/capabilities; describe its competitive edge over similar products; and outline the unique technologies used to create this competitive edge. Try to quantify claims or indicate which claims you plan to quantify…  E.g., Product: The PALM1 is the first pocket PDA. The HW features a pocket-size box measuring… and weighting….A touch sensitive screen provides brightness level of … and permits simple hand-written input using a pen-like device…. Power is provided by two batteries that take 30 minutes to charge and last for 4 hours…The PALM1 supports fast communications with any PC through… The initial SW includes standard mobile office applications… and features two unique capabilities: first, PALM1 is the only PDA that enables handwritten input… second: PALM1 is the only PDA offering single button touch synchronization with a PC… Competitive edge: PALM1 offers (A) much smaller size, enabling it to uniquely fit in a pocket-shirt… for example the XXX measures…. And YYY measures….(B) simple, intuitive handwritten input and large touch-sensitive screen offer superior capabilities to all current PDAs… for example… XXX has a screen area of … a resolution of only… and uses an inconvenient keyboard input…. Technology edge: we have developed several technologies that provide this unique edge. In particular, the touch-sensitive screen we developed is based on novel XXX technology which is protected by pending patents… Similarly, we developed new, patent pending, handwriting recognition technology that accomplishes superior recognition measures than the best previous algorithms… for example, our technology accomplished recognition rates of over xxx% whereas the best algorithm accomplished only yyy% over the same sample input…

7. (c)Copyrights; Yechiam Yemini; 2004-057 5. (Intellectual Property 1P)  This part is not required for a business plan; but I would like you to try to include a brief informal outline of claims you could pursue in patents for your key technologies. (It would be very interesting for you to find and read the actual patents for PALM)  Example: We claim A process for entering data into a mobile computer comprising a first step of drawing a symbol on a touch sensitive screen and a second step of classifying said symbol into a character from a given alphabet. oNotice first that this illustration claim is too broad to be acceptable over prior art (but would have been gladly owned by PALM; if you read their patents contrast their relevant claims with the generality of this one). Second, whenever a repetitive activity is involved, such as writing multiple symbols it is best to consider one instance.

8. (c)Copyrights; Yechiam Yemini; 2004-058 6. Marketing & Sales (2p) Describe here:  What is your positioning strategy?  How do you plan to distribute your products?  What is your pricing strategy?  What marketing relationships will you develop?

9. (c)Copyrights; Yechiam Yemini; 2004-059 7. Competitive Strategy (1p)  Describe here  Who are your competitors?  What is the unique competitive edge offered by your products/technology?  How will you increase and protect this edge? Describe both technology development as well as strategic marketing actions (E.g., relationships with key players) to protect and enhance your edge.

10. (c)Copyrights; Yechiam Yemini; 2004-0510 8. Financial Plan (2p) [Optional]  Use detailed spreadsheets and notes to describe  The revenues generation plan Provide detailed assumptions for unit pricing and quantity sold  The expense plan Provide detailed assumptions on staffing/payroll growth  Capitalization plan How much capital will you need, when? When will you break even….