Some Brainstorming on Revenue Streams, Partners & Resources

We have worked on the research that would help us determine the revenue streams. In order to be able to actually set up the platform for the activity we had to explore what resources and partners we would need to get involved. First of all, we need to build a platform - website and app. What is the best solution for that? Build ourselves? Where to host it? These and many other questions got answers when we interviewed a Cloud Solutions Specialist from Google. Did you know that many startups use Google Cloud platform to kick off their businesses? There are opportunities for support (e.g. free credits, discounts etc.). From the interview and Google Cloud Solutions site, here's what information we got and we are considering to use it.

Google has one of the largest and most advanced computer networks. Google’s backbone network has thousands of miles of fiber optic cable, uses advanced software-defined networking and has edge caching services to deliver fast, consistent and scalable performance. Using Google Cloud platform would allow us to develop, deploy and iterate our application without worrying about system administration. Google manages the application, database and storage servers so we wouldn’t have to.

As per suggestion of our Google Cloud specialist it would be optimal for us to go with Google App Engine. Features include:
Popular languages and frameworks. It is possible to write applications in some of the most popular programming languages: Python, Java, PHP and Go. We can also use existing frameworks such as Django, Flask, Spring and webapp2.
Focus on your code. Google takes care of the database administration, server configuration, sharding and load balancing. With Traffic Splitting, we can A/B test different live versions of our app.
Multiple storage options. A traditional MySQL database using Cloud SQL, a schemaless NoSQL datastore, or object storage using Cloud Storage.
Powerful built-in services. App Engine makes you more productive by eliminating the need to write boilerplate code. Managed services, such as Task Queues, Memcache and the Users API, let you build any application.
Familiar development tools. We can use the tools we know, including Eclipse, IntellIJ, Maven, Git, Jenkins, PyCharm and more. The App Engine SDK allows to test applications locally in a simulated environment and then deploy the app with simple command-line tools or the desktop launcher.
Deploy at Google scale. Some of the world’s most popular web services are built on Google's platform. It is possible to scale up to 7 billion requests per day and automatically scale down when traffic subsides. Basically this means that the system allows the application to grow with our users.

As for the costs, we have already clarified that it may be possible to get approx. $500 credit which depending on the usage (the system works so that we pay for what we use) may enable us to run approximately for a year. To add, there is special support for Startups available. The offer says: "$100,000 in credit and 24/7 support for eligible startups. Focus on building your product and don't worry about complex infrastructure. Google manages your application, database, and storage servers so you don't have to." This offer is available to startups that meet the following criteria:

And one more thing. Potential investors may be interested what happens if and when the usage of app grows beyond the credits available. For this we may be eligible for Sustained Use Discounts.

Post by: Laura

Partnerships

As in any other company, business partner can be crucial for our businesses, especially at the very early stage - it is important that both sides of the agreement to complement each other, but also that there are some common ground. As we've learned from a video, what defines a partner is shared economics, mutual success or failure, co-development and/or invention and a common customer base or a profile. There are also a lot of reasons to have a partner and one will depend on the stage on both partner. As per video, there are main five: shared economics, economics of scale, money and resources, access to customers, access to marketing/brand. It can be (but not limited to) in a form of strategic alliances, joint ventures, traffic partners, coopetition, joint business development and suppliers. For us, as an alpha start-up, partnerships are critical and can undermine the success of the business. At the beginning, we've identified a number of general partners, such as technical support and vendors (restaurants/cafes/bars). Later, we've realized that partnership is much broader term and can include a number wide range of partners and overlap other sections of our Business Model Canvas. First, we invalidated sports and health shops and we've decided to concentrate on restaurants and cafes. We've re-segmented our technical support to website and mobile application support and technical support for data analysis (for vendors and data buyers). We added Google Adsense as well as we feel they are playing an important role in our revenue stream as an advertising platform.