TONGAL STRATEGY FOR BUSINESS GROWTH
ITERATION 2
By: Limassol Zok, Nicholas Morozowich, June Wang, Shota Aizawa
Feedback from Tongal: Generated Insight for Reiteration for Round II
The five prototype posters were posted at the Tongal offices and allowed time for all employees to interact and write their feelings and thoughts regarding the business ideas, which provided the New Business team valuable insight and key concerns to reiterate and enhance the product through a validated learning approach of a lean startup.
Prototype posters at Tongal’s office
Among the five prototypes, participants showed strong interest in the TongalStock.com idea, particularly giving positive feedback on the idea of an annual subscription model for ad agencies. In addition, several participants questioned if the TongalStock.com can utilize the
current Tongal process to upcycle unused ideas and pitches, by getting rid of intellectual property issues.
Furthermore, concerns regarding additional labor inputs on new business development, feasibility of transparency in the voting system and strategic relationships with advertising agencies were raised from participants This valuable feedback leads us to narrow down our suggestions into focusing on what works in specific time frames Based on the given time priorities, the team categorized the ideas into short-term and long-term plans and decided to focus on further developing TongalStock com as follows
1. Short-term Business Plan
TongalStock com
2. Long-term Business Plan
Automation of Operational Process of Tongal Projects
Tongal U
Subscription Model for Advertising Agencies
Blue Sky Ideas
Reiteration
The TongalStock.com prototype was reiterated, combining the received feedback to bring together unique ways of looking at sustainable and scalable solutions from different perspectives, and adding key strategies from the other long-term plans
Round II Prototypes
Prototype I: Tongalstock.com
Concept
The concept for tongalstock com after reiterating was for Tongal to utilize their current assets and provide more opportunity to community members to make more revenue, while educating and encouraging them to participate more actively This would also allow the development of new marketing tools that increase inbound clients, and it would allow for a new revenue source to attract startups and ad agencies
Multi-Sided Platform Business Model
The business model of this prototype is a multi-sided platform, where community members who did not get awarded would get the chance to participate as main stakeholders in the service,
catering to startups with low budgets, and providing creative work for subscribing ad agencies. Thus this model aggregated the talents of the community to provide as services for the other side of the platform, the potential clients.
Three Revenue Stream Options
1- Freemium: Subscription-based + Pay Per Use
Example: Shutterstock
All clients are offered to have a membership of varying payment plans depending on the type of client, needs, and budget The basic membership is offered for free with limited access to posts of ideas, pitches and videos, up to ten idea posts per day, a preview of the pitches, and the first 30 seconds of a video that may be fully viewed upon payment This level of details may be further tested and reiterated to fine tune the prototype
Clients like startups may have the option to pay per use instead of paying a monthly subscription, and may be allowed to have certain amounts of views based on their payment plans.
Paying members may have full access to posts in each section: ideas, pitches, and videos. If paid members get interested in a post in the pitch and video sections, they may contract with a creator to pursue several scenarios; either ask the creator to make a few videos for the client, or ask the creator to re-pitch the idea to meet the client’s needs and launch a new project on the Tongal platform skipping the ideation and pitching phase and aiming directly to the video
2- Subscription-Based Freemium Model Example Spotify
All clients are offered to have a membership Basic membership is offered for free to have full access to posts: ideas, pitches and video, after having to watch an advertisement before the video starts These video advertisements may be those of Tongal’s clients, and for eliminating the advertisement videos, members would need to upgrade their plan. Paid members would also be allowed to view the creators’ contact information and therefore pursue contracts for the pitches and videos.
3- Advertisement-Based Distribution Platform Model Example: Youtube
The two revenue models mentioned above may be short term ways of setting up a distribution platform channel, and as the long term plan, tongalstock com may follow the youtube model Tongal would them be aiming to become a channel to distribute its own video content, incorporating documentaries by 2025 Until then, it may have gained enough traction of active viewers of Tongalstock com who may then shift to the distributed channel, and the revenue Strategic Plan for Tongal, Parsons MS SDM, March 2016 By: Limassol Zok, Nicholas Morozowich, June Wang, Shota Aizawa
model would shift to advertisements from brands.
How It Would Work
The non-winning submitters would receive an email from Tongal announcing the results and giving them the option to publish their content on tongalstock.com and gain potential future projects that would allow them to make revenue. The condition would be that they take IP over Tongal. In addition, we will consider any concerns of IP by reviewing contract with clients
The Website Layout
A tabular module on the homepage displays the three categories: Idea, Pitch, Video
- Idea: searchable by industry and keywords
- Pitches: video thumbnails
- Videos: video thumbnails
