The History Of The Ebusiness Plan

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

The idea for Mission came from Sam Sun, Pramantha Taufik Bagus Amir, Anton Wang and Zhihui He in 2012 while they studied together at Newcastle University. Mission is a start-up company that is designed to offer web-based platform for people can do transaction with their knowledge. Our business idea comes from crowdsourcing concept, where a particular problem or task can be outsourced to a group of people. Our website allows users to exchange and purchase service, information, share knowledge and experience. We try to provide an accessible platform for users to use and divide the role of the user to meet the different demands.

Up to 2010, several crowdsourcing marketplaces have together paid well over $1 million dollars every month to the users for reward around the world. The lifetime billings in these websites are still booming. Therefore, we believe that the market in crowdsourcing is still in their infancy.

There are two kinds of users of our service either as seeker or solver; a seeker can post a question that falls into several categories including science, technologies, business and many more. Then, solvers can come out with solutions and submit it to the seeker or bid on the mission, the accepted solution will result in payment with some fees charged by mission.com. The fee that we charge depends on the type of mission; Answer mission is the basic service which offers lowest rewards and shortest posting period. Bid mission is for a rather more complex problem with big amount of rewards upon completion and longer posting period, also a deposit is required in advance. Lastly, the Mission solver map gives solvers a personal page to put their skills, information and other things to allow easier hire by the seeker in a wide range of areas.

To attract more high quality solutions, Mission integrates three business models in one platform. For the reason that Mission has probable the most thorough mission model, friendly servers, and high ability solvers, people would believe Mission is the wonderful place to publish their tasks.

The company is seeking a moderate start-up investment as it is needed to enable the company to run optimally. The company’s revenue is almost doubled in growth every year, and we expect to achieve profitability from the first six months of operations.

2 Company Information

Follow Us Socially

Learn more about Mission by reading our blog at http://www.mission-newcastle.com/blog

Become our friend on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Mission

Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Mission

Mission Location

Mission

87 Westgate Road

Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear NE1 4AE

United Kingdom

Phone: +441234567890

Email address: [email protected]

Website URL: www.mission-newcastle.com

2.1 Management Team

Our key management team is made of four people who are responsible for the daily operation of the company.

Sam Sun (CEO)

Sam Sun is in charge of total management of the company, responsible for the marketing department and concerning with the long-term and "big picture" issues of the company. Sam holds a Bachelor’s degree in finance from Macau University of Science and Technology, China, and has won the competition of VW marketing while he was pursuing his bachelor’s degree. His current major course at Newcastle University focus on e-marketing, thus he has much of knowledge of marketing which can help him designing the most suitable marketing strategy for our company. In addition, he has enough experience of being the leader in his undergraduate study, such as working in Jenkee management consulting company limited before, and he also has wide ranged knowledge both technology and business.

Amir (CTO)

He is responsible in monitoring new technologies and assessing their potential to become an addition to products or services, data centre operations, network operations, application development and maintenance, security, and other line functions; his role also as intermediary between clients and internal development and the main influence on the development of the product portfolio. He is experienced in building a computer system to fit a specific requirement, a C++ software developer, an enthusiast PC Overclocker, and man in action type. Amir holds a Bachelor’s degree with Honours in Information system engineering from Multimedia University, Malaysia. He is currently pursuing Msc. Programme in E-business at Newcastle University. He gained both a certified MTA database fundamental from Microsoft and certified JNCIA-Junos from Juniper while he was pursuing his bachelor’s degree.

Anton Wong (CIO)

He is responsible for managing the implementation of the useful technology to increase information accessibility for the web-based system of the company. Mainly focus on technology needed for running the company (maintaining the foundational software system on the website) and data collection. He is good at data mining. Anton holds a Bachelor’s degree in Information system and Information management from Beijing Language and Culture University, China. He is currently pursuing Msc. Programme in E-business at Newcastle University. He used to work in MSN for data mining while he was pursuing his bachelor’s degree.

Zhihui He (CMO)

He is responsible for the marketing section and managing the financial issues of the company. He is a rigorous person and has got a bachelor degree in marketing from Shenzhen University after undergraduate study. He is currently pursuing Msc Programme in E-business at Newcastle University. Before he entered Mission, he worked for HSBC as practice.

2.2 Service overview

The Internet is developing rapidly from the beginning of the century. People have begun to use the Internet for different kind of application such as e-business, blog, wiki and search engine. Well known websites such as eBay and Amazon provides a platform for people to sell and buy stuff online in a convenient way and it inspires us to try to build an online-based platform where people can do transaction with knowledge instead of goods. This mainly refers to the concept called crowdsourcing which is a process that involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people.

However, from the perspective of exchanging knowledge, there have been some large-scale and well-known websites such as the Google Answer, Yahoo Answer and Wiki. But the ways they portrayed in is far different from the business model we go into. Additionally, we realized the best way to attract people to exchange their knowledge and use it to solve actual problems in practice is to offer them the proportional rewards which could be given by the problem seekers. A platform for exchanging intelligence with economical purpose is being vividly portrayed.

"Mission" has developed an Internet-based broadcasting platform for people who want to convert their wisdom, knowledge, ability and experience into actual revenue. The idea basic on some non-profit information sharing sites such as Wikipedia and Google Answer, but the major difference is that the winning solvers are awarded, and intellectual property is managed by our website.

This part we provide an overview of the Mission.com system, for both Seekers, and Solvers.

Seekers

Step 1: Post your Mission

This stage involves carefully describing your project to Freelancers. Make sure to write up the most efficient project description to achieve the best results. In summary, make sure you make clear your requirements, your budget, your time frame and other desirables (such as time-zone).

Step 2: Select a Bidder

When choosing a provider for your project, make sure that you choose someone demonstrated experience in the field- going for the lowest bid is not always the option. You might also consider the Solvers’ past portfolio, communication skills, and Solvers ratings when choosing a provider. Make sure you discuss the project in-depth with your favorite Solver before awarding them the project, thus giving you an opportunity to further judge the scope of their knowledge.

Step 3: Create a payment

Mission.com encourages the use of their Escrow-style service. This allows you to pay a set amount of the total project budget directly to Mission.com. Mission.com requests all Seekers to make a Milestone payment to their Mission (usually of around 25-50% of the project budget), so the Solvers know the money is actually behind the project to keep it afloat. This money isn’t yet released to the Solvers yet, and is only released once you are happy with the end results.

Step 4: Approve the Mission

Once the Solvers have finished the project, you should check the work and make sure it is all up to standard. If it is, you can proceed to the next step - however, if you aren’t happy with it, try to work with your Solvers to get it up to your standards before moving on. Remember that most projects can be easily resolved with one thing- communication!

Step 5: Pay the Solvers

If you are happy with the project, you can now release the Escrow payment held by Mission.com to the provider. To release funds to your provider, you can login to your Mission.com account and select "Release" next to the Milestone payment section. Don’t forget to leave feedback for your provider once your new project is live.

Solvers

Step 1: Bid on Missions

Using the Mission.com website, you can search by title and job category for new mission postings. You can then submit an answer or a bid on the mission, to the seekers, with your quote, a public message and an optional private message. Here’s an overview of the bidding system, and our tips for each stage:

Price- when submitting a bid, make sure you bid as low as you can. Most seekers come to Mission to save cash by outsourcing, so many won’t consider a solver significantly higher price than other bidders. Make sure you stick within the employer’s stated budget.

Timeframe- Make sure you give yourself an honest timeframe. Make sure you don’t guarantee a completion date that you know you can’t achieve, and make sure you give yourself a few extra days for any issues that may arise.

Public Message- this is the message that seekers will see when comparing your bid against others. Make sure you briefly explain why YOU are the suitable solvers, and make sure you DON’T post a pre-written spiel.

PM- you can enable this feature by clicking the checkbox at the bottom of the bid page. This lets you essentially send an email to the seeker or visit their blog, so you can explain your ideas to the solver in detail, in private. Once again, pasting a pre-written message just looks plain unprofessional. Your best bet is to explain your past work, your ideas and why you are a suitable candidate for the project.

Step 2: Lease with the Seeker

If the seeker is impressed by your bid, your past work, or just wants to discuss the project more with you, you’ll likely get a PM back from them with a few questions. Make sure you answer any questions or comments from them as quickly as possible, and remember to remain professional.

Step 3: Accept a Bid

If you are chosen by a seeker, the seeker will award the project to you from their end. From here, you have 36 hours to accept the project, and agree finally that you will take on the project.

Step 4: Pay the Fees

Now that you’ve been awarded, and accepted, a project, you will be charged the fee set out by Mission.com to your account. You have 35 days to pay the fees- if you have an existing payment agreement with solver the fees will automatically be deducted from your card or PayPal, otherwise the fees will be deducted from your Mission.com account balance.

Step 5: Do the Work

Mission.com recommends you wait for the seeker to make you a Milestone payment, you can see they have the money and you have the right to dispute the payment if they don’t release it to you. Make sure you keep your seeker up to date with your project’s status, and keep them involved in decisions relating to the project.

Step 6: Finish the Mission

Once you think you’ve finished the work, show it to your seeker via a PM. Once they are happy with it, they will release your payment. Be prepared to change anything that your seeker wants you to change, as this is the final stage of development.

Step 7: Receive Payment

Once you’ve received your payment from the seeker, confirm that they’ve received the work they’ve paid for from you, and that it is all working fine.

Step 8: Leave Feedback

Once the project has been finalized and the seeker has paid you the full amount you bid, both parties have the opportunity to place a review of each other, and a rating. Make sure you are polite in your review- also keep in mind that the seeker may have future work for you.

Service Process

The operational processes of "Mission" have three steps: questioners post problems and mark the price; respondents find the questions and give their answers; questioners choose the best answer and pay remuneration to the respondents. As the service provider, "Mission" would charge a fee in proportion. With "Mission", users can raise or solve questions including science, technology, business and many other areas of work, study and entertainment quickly and easily.

2.3 Service category

Mission provides the service in several categories:

Design class which consists of designing logo, advertisement, poster, and drawing.

Application class is dealing with scripts/tools, database development, systems management, and embedded system.

Writing class is for event planning, slogans, literature writing, technical, translation and other writing.

Multimedia class focused on video capture/clips, photography, audio and multimedia data collection.

More service categories.

Mission provides three great ways for individuals or small businesses to find the best way to solve their problems.

-Answer Mission

Answer Mission which basically allows any respondent to answer the given question; the amount of rewards set is the lowest and have shortest posting period. Anyone could ask questions, offer a price for an answer, and researchers, who were called Solvers, answered them. It just likes an online knowledge market offered by Mission.com that allowed users to post bounties for well researched answers to their queries. Mission.com allowed answer mission cost £0 to £5000.

-Bid Mission

Bid mission dedicated for a mission that involves high degree of complexity, has a big amount of rewards upon completion, and longer posting period; the mission publisher must pay the deposit to service provider in advance. Bid Mission help customers solve their most difficult business and technical problems. Mission.com delivers breakthrough ideas and solutions at lower cost, in shorter time, and with less risk than previously possible. Our communities of problem solvers reach into the millions through our direct community, syndication partners, and social media. Mission.com enables you to access diverse, global talent both inside and outside of your organization. And, our customers pay for results, nor work or failure – a fundamental change in the economics of innovation. Mission.com allowed bid mission cost at least £1000.

-Mission Solver Map

The Mission Solver Map is intended for mission solvers to set up his personal page, this could be used by website to create a database for online search in different skills, information or location. Seekers may search by keyword, category, tag, or duration and get work done quickly and securely. Through Mission Solver Map, employers can easily hire people who can do work in areas such as software, writing, data entry and design right through to engineering and the sciences, sales and marketing, and accounting and legal services.

2.4 Service description

The table below provides of an overview of our three primary Mission types.

Market Research

Market capitalization

From the perspective of exchanging knowledge, there have been some large-scale and well-known websites such as the Google Answer, Yahoo Answer and Wiki. However the ways they portrayed in is far different from the business model we are going into. This mainly refers to the concept called crowdsourcing which is a process that involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people. While in our business model, the difference between the crowdsourcing websites and those well-known websites is the economic benefit.

Crowdsourcing is fundamentally changing business, government, non-profits, education, research, and other sectors. Remarkably, we realized that there is a huge market in the area of Crowdsourcing.

In 2010, the top two design crowdsourcing marketplaces (99design and Elance) together paid well over $1 million dollars every month to thousands of designers from around the world. These payments will continue to increase in 2011. We hypothesize the potential market in the UK and US alone runs into billions of dollars per year, given this it is clear that crowdsourcing marketplaces are still in their infancy. We also saw greater professional participation when many Brands and agencies embraced crowdsourcing websites and searched for new and innovative ways to purchase design, copywriting, R&D, and other services. Though the functions in different websites of crowdsourcing are various, it prompts the huge market potentials in this area. There is a bar chart below showing that the lifetime billings between some famous websites of crowdsourcing:

The Lifetime Billings

3.2 Competitor analysis

Our company is trying to create a positive image in people eyes with providing online platform that able to save time and money in dealing with exchange and purchase service and information. In our line of business we have both indirect and direct competitors.

Indirect competitor comes from companies such as Yahoo with their Yahoo Answer service, Wikipedia and general search engines. Yahoo answer is a community driven question and answer site and its free service, member participation will be rewarded by points. Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia which allows anyone to contribute in writing articles. Then, search engines like Google search mainly used by people to find solution to their problem just by typing them in the search bar, whilst the solution rely on website that being indexed.

Direct competitor here indicates those companies which provide the similar service of crowdsourcing. Some companies like Innocentive, 99design, Elance and oDesk offer the similar kind of service online. However, the focuses of these companies are various.

- Requests are focused on a certain kind of area: 99design (design), Elance (business)

- Service object: Innocentive (Individuals and Enterprise), oDesk, 99design (Individuals)

- Price standard: 99design, Elance, oDesk (up from ï¿¡0), Innocentive (up from ï¿¡500)

In order to differentiate our service and gain advantage in the market, we have analyzed the functions between different websites related to this area and trying to combine the advantages from those websites.

The Tick-box from different websites related to crowdsourcing

Platform Functions

Services

Free Answers

Service

Charged Answers

Service

Specific

Personnel

Service

Diversity of Tasks

Service or Payment

Guarantee

Identity Authentication

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Google Answers

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3.3 Positioning

On the basis of the result of the comparison based on the competitor analysis, the functions of our platform are divided in three dimensions related to the payment level in order to satisfy the different demands of the users in a more flexible way. Reward level is being related to the difficulty of the tasks posted by the users.

Answer Mission (Low Reward)

Reference by the popular free-answer platform such as Google Answer, we combine the free-answer and low-reward answer services into our Answer Mission service. Simple tasks without reward would be available for users in order to increase the platform-use ratio.

Bid Mission (Medium Reward)

Bid Mission would be our main service limited by moderate reward level. Compare to the direct competitors such as 99design and Elance, the types of tasks on our websites would be more diversified instead of only focusing on a particular area.

Mission Solver Map (High Reward)

In order to provide high quality service at the same time, Mission Solver Map service would be based on the social network of our platform. Users are able to assign their tasks to a certain user on the website via the social network on the platform. However, this service will be limited by the high reward level. This service is aimed to provide service for those who want to find professional answers like the market where oDesk and InnoCentive involved.

3.4 Target customers

Based on the function of our website, our target users can be divided into two groups: Seekers and Solvers. Seekers are mainly focusing on individuals or companies who would like to place a request on our website in order to find a useful answer or a suitable solution for their questions in a short time while the questions are usually not easily answered. Students, self-employed, or senior managers in companies could be our potential Seekers.

Profiles of Seekers:

No time to solve the problem by themselves

Want a considerable or professional answer with acceptable cost

There is a time limit to their problems

Hope to choose the best solution from multiple perspectives

Want to find the right person for their problems quickly and effectively

Cannot get a suitable answer from practical work

Solvers are mainly focused on people who have the ability and extra spare time to contribute solutions to the requests. Because of the answers could be paid in our mechanism, considerable economic benefits would encourage people like student, professor, paid part-time employed or unemployed to seriously provide a suitable solution for the Seekers.

Profiles of Solvers:

Have specific skills in particular area

There is spare time for extra work

Hope to earn money in a different way

With efficient working ability and passion

3.5 SWOT analysis

Strength

Comprehensive function

Based on the advantages of other crowdsourcing websites, we collect the useful function from them and combine them into our websites.

Aimed at a wider range of users

Since we will have a multiple function compared to other crowdsourcing websites, the source range of the users will be much wider than the rivals.

Weakness

Lack of a batch of new users

In order to form up a reliable web-based platform, it is important we have a considerable scale of users as the foundation of our website. However it is not easy to reach this goal in a short period.

Lack of experience

As a new entrant in the crowdsourcing marketplace, lacking of experience might affect the operation process of the website and leads to negative effect.

Opportunity

Increasing scale of the marketplace

Crowdsourcing is still a new concept these years and the marketplace is experiencing a remarkable increasing trend in this area. This helps us to get access into the market and have a considerable market share more easily.

No special outstanding representatives

There are many independent websites for crowdsourcing focusing on different areas. However, there is no such an outstanding one could affect the market and other competitors. The market is still in a relatively fair environment.

Threat

Low market barriers

It would lead to a situation that the market share would be separated into smaller pieces.

Easy to be imitated

Once we have made certain advantages, we might face the risk of being imitated.

SWOT Matrix

Strength

- Comprehensive function

- Aimed at a wider range of users

Weakness

- Lack of a batch of new users

- Lack of experience

Opportunity

- Increasing scale of the marketplace

- No special outstanding representatives

SO - Strategy

- Capture the market as the first comer with comprehensive function on the crowdsourcing area

WO - Strategy

- Take advantage of the increasing market, to build reputation and market share via creative advertising

Threat

- Low market barriers

- Easy to be imitated

ST - Strategy

- Constantly enrich the content and function of the website continuously

WT - Strategy

- Based on the profile of target customers, enhance the publicity by increasing advertising in order to form a group of stable and excellent customer base

4 Market Strategy

4.1 Marketing Objective

We intend to become the leader and most attractive online marketplace for seekers to publish their problems and for businesses looking to find, hire and collaborate with top professional solvers from around the world. We aim to create a user-friendly platform for all level of individual clients or enterprises. Although we have limited capital for developing our business, we will accomplish our goal by using flexible budget on valuable marketing spending and website designing. And we also use some free or low-cost analysis applications and social media to monitor our website traffic and customer feedback to further improve our services.

There are some marketing objectives we want to achieve in Year 3

Total Revenue: Build net sales to 5 million by Year 3

Total Solver Reach: More than 100 million through our strategic partners

Total Registered Solvers: More than 10 million from all over the world

Total Missions Posted: More than 50,000 per month from over 200,000 seekers.

Total Solution Submissions: More than 1 million solutions per month by solvers

Total Award Pounds Posted: More than 7 million per month

Range of awards: £10 to over £100,000 based on the complexity of the mission

Average Award Amount: Approximately £140

Average Award Rate*: 70%

4.2 Marketing Mix 7ps

- Product

Accessible platform that is easy and useful to utilize.

Multiple functions suit with different demands.

An effective way for both the problems seekers and solvers to receive a pleased answer for their requests and earn considerable extra income by using their spare time as well as the knowledge they possessed with.

- Price

We are committed to offer extra value services, better value for money. According the different service categories, we have different charging standards.

Answer Mission: £0 - 5,000, if the deal finish, we will collect 10% as commission fee.

Bid Mission: Starts at £1,000, if the deal finish, we will collect 15% as commission fee.

Mission Solver Map: We will collect 5% as commission fee when the employment relationships build

- Place

All kinds of Mission will be available to publish on our website, and we also collaborate with some third-party applications to help analysis our data and extend our business scope (e.g. with mobile application developer to allow customers can use our service on mobile terminal).

- Promotion

Three kinds of promotional strategies include company website, social media, outdoor advertising, print advertising, banner exchange affiliate, pay-per-click affiliate.

To raise the traffic and ranking of our website

Timely update the new information and activities of our website.

Comprehensive manage the customers’ feedback, the sales statistics and the market and competitor information.

- People

Online Customer Service: Our staff 24 hours online to serve for customer

Provide extensive report for the details of transaction and a feedback sheet to collect customers’ suggestions.

- Process

Use reliable payment platforms to make the payment process convenient and safety.

Use e-mail and messages to keep our users informed throughout the transaction.

Provide an online chat tool for the communication between seeker and solver.

- Physical evidence

Use brochures and pamphlets to introduce our website

4.3 Promotional Strategy

We plan to use three kinds of promotional strategies for our business, including Public Relations, Advertising and Affiliate Promotion.

Public Relations

Company websites: When meet important festivals such as New Year, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Christmas, etc, relevant Mission will have discount or free commission for our customers.

Social media: We plan to create our official account on social networks as Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus to promote our news and events. We also have the YouTube channel which will not only have our promotional videos but also some relevant videos which will impact on our business.

Advertising

Outdoor: We plan to use both traditional billboards on bike racks, rest areas which near to University and mainly residential, and some transit advertising channel placed such as on taxi, mobile, airport and bus to promote brand recognition and key messages to desirable targeted audiences. Because of the budget limitation, we will not use this way for the whole year in the first year.

Publication: A good way to enlargement the popularity of our website is via newspapers, and magazines.  We plan to select newspapers that reach our target audience with the least waste to promote our website. For example, The Economist, Popsci, Harvard Business Review and relevant recruitment newspapers

Affiliate Promotion Social media

Banner Exchange: We plan to negotiate with some e-business websites to trade our banner and logo placement among a network of affiliated sites.

Pay-per-click: We pay affiliates for a user click-through to drive their traffic to our website and make affiliate websites’ customers to be our customers by using their cost per click advertising service (e.g. Amazon Product Ads and Google Ads). We'll pay some money to make sure our logo in highly targeted placements in search and browse results and on product detail pages of such websites or search engines.

This is our promotion schedule

5 Operation

5.1 Law and regulations

The website, "Mission", does not take any responsible to any business activity which use or provide the information and products in the website. User can download the information which was published in the website but the information is for self-study and forbid to be used in any business activities. Whether there is a statement or not, the products are protected by laws. The user cannot modify, upload or distribute the product for business unless the user has got the permission from "Mission" or copyright owner.

Disclaimer

The information published by the users cannot stand for the views of "mission".

"Mission" would protect the privacy of users. The login name, E-mail address etc. would not be release to others.

Any people or companies consider "Mission" infringe their privacy can feedback to "Mission" on time. "Mission" would handle it as soon as possible.

When designer submit a design your designs will be shown to the client on our website (and possibly via email or PDF depending on the client's preferences) as JPGs which are watermarked.  Clients will not have the ability to access source files (if you have chosen to upload them) without first selecting you as the winner.  If selected and purchased, the ownership of your design is transferred to the client. 

When you buy a design from solvers, ownership of that design transfers to you. Note that you do not own all the designs submitted to a Design Contest, only the design that you eventually select, purchase and download. Note that before you select a design, the copyright of the designs is held by the respective designers.  

Web, brochure and other non-logo designs may include components/artwork for which the copyright remains with the original designer.  These designs may include photos, icons or artworks that the designer has purchased the right to use (i.e. They do not own the copyright) or that the designer owns but publishes elsewhere.  The copyright of these components may remain with the designer or the original "third-party" designer.  In such a case, the designer is contracted with buyer to ensure you have the right to and you will be granted a right to display those designs.  

Logo designs should not include third party stock components or vector works.  Any fonts used in logos should be owned by the designer or the designer should but the ownership of these fonts may not be transferred to the client as part of the purchase.

Solver’s responsibility to clients/buyers

You should understand the client/buyer's requirements and appropriate design standards and do your very best at all times to comply with both.

If you work on multiple projects, you should avoid conflicts of interest. (e.g. Submitting the same or similar designs simultaneously to multiple projects.)

You should submit only original work. If you use any stock images in your designs, you must be certain that you have the right to use such images, and you must disclose this information to the buyer.

You must treat all work for clients/buyers as confidential.

You must not misuse private or public comment tools to undermine the reputation of a client/buyer.

Solver’s responsibility to other Solver’s and the public

You should support fair and open competition in all projects.

You must never attempt, directly or indirectly, to compete with other creative by wrongful means. This community does not tolerate concept copying, insulting or negative comments, or otherwise unprofessional behavior.

You must, at all times, whether in private or public communications, be professional, objective and constructive when commenting on the work of other creative and must never denigrate the work or reputation of another creative.

You should communicate truth in all situations and at all times.

Standards of Conduct for Publishers

Provide consistent and constructive feedback and score as many of the entries in your project as possible. You have our solemn oath that you will directly benefit from better entries to your project.

Select your winning design(s) within 7 days after your project ends and complete the project wrap-up without delay.

Never violate the intellectual property rights of another person.

Please be nice in private and public communications. Don't be mean, nasty, malicious, obnoxious or otherwise unpleasant to another user.

Always be honest.

Intellectual Property

(a) Content License and Access. When you submit content to the Site, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display and perform the content in connection with the Site, in any media known now or in the future.

Subject to and conditioned on compliance with this Agreement, we grant you a limited license to access and to use the Site for the purpose of buying and selling the services offered by Solvers.

You cannot and must not sell, reproduce, distribute, modify, display, publicly perform, prepare derivative works based on, repost or otherwise use any content found on crowdspring.com in any way for any public or commercial purpose without our prior written consent or the consent of the rights holder. Unless you are otherwise lawfully entitled to do so, you cannot and must not use any content found on the Site on any other site, in a networked computer environment, or in any medium, for any purpose except your own internal viewing. You agree that you will not attempt to reverse engineer or attempt to interfere with the operation of any part of the Site unless expressly permitted by law.

The Site or any portion thereof may not be reproduced, duplicated, copied, sold, resold or otherwise exploited for any commercial purpose that is not expressly permitted by us, in writing.

(b) Reservation of Rights; Limited Licenses. We and our licensors retain all of its right, title and interest in and to all patent rights, inventions, copyrights, know-how and trade secrets relating to the Site. All other product names, company names, marks, logos and symbols on ‘Mission’ may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Except as expressly stated above, nothing in this Agreement confers any license under any of our or any third party’s intellectual property rights, whether by estoppel, implication or otherwise.

(c) Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights. Please report problems, offensive or infringing content, and policy violations to us. We want to make sure that the content on the Site does not infringe upon the copyright, trademark or other rights of third parties. If you believe that your rights have been violated, please notify us at and we will investigate.

5.2 Information technology

We use a set of tools to develop the website and build the system so it will meet the company expectations and to ensure user satisfaction.

Dreamweaver to develop the website and do the coding parts.

Adobe Photoshop to design a good website.

Website template.

Mission will host our website to third party webhosting provider to minimize the cost to buy expensive servers and the maintenance cost; the use of broadband internet is important to ensure the speed access to the website. We will invest in high-speed computers to provide its customers with a fast and efficient support. We will continue to upgrade and modify the systems to stay current with communications technology.

Our business is an online based so we only need a small place at our office to put PCs and to do meeting. We do not require a warehouse to store our materials or products as we only offer service. For initial start our office located in one of our executive board houses. Later, as our business grows larger and more staffs work in our company we will consider to a bigger and proper office somewhere in Newcastle.

5.3 Partner/Supplies

Partner

Our company partner will be the web hosting service provider as we rely on their service to run our business. Next, our partner will be an Internet service provider to support our online business connection to the server. To deliver ease in every transaction we will partner with the PayPal payment service. In addition, to maintain our equipment condition at its best especially PCs and networking hardware, we will partner with a local PC and service store.

Supplier

In our business the solvers pose as supplier as they come out with the solution in particular concepts or project. The solvers can be anyone who joined to our service from all around the world.

5.4 Human Resource

Besides Amir, Andong, Sam, and Zhihui, Mission will have a staff of five.

A Web administrator to monitor the website, deal with web page problems, and documents the changes.

Two members of the marketing team to ensure the effective way of marketing our service to prospective customers.

A Legal officer to deal with legal issues and regulations.

An Accountant to provide professional advice in financial systems, aiming to maximize profitability.

5.5 Exit strategy

To expand our business sector which allows smaller jobs to be catered. Users may provide services such as car fixing, plumbing, electronic repairs and many others small jobs via our platform for ease in getting a job.

Condition：

1. The profits of the website are greater than investments meanwhile the CEO find that the website will face the bottleneck and cannot maintain the profits.

2. The website cannot revoke the investment in two years after launching.

Solution：

1. To sell the website and to distribute the assets depending on the portion of individual investment

2. To apply voluntary bankruptcy and clear the accounts. Distribute the assets depending on the portion of individual investment.

6 Finance

If and when the time for outside investors comes, we want compatible investors or no investors at all. Compatibility means:

A fundamental respect for giving our customers value, and for maintaining a healthy and happy workplace.

Respect for realistic forecasts, and conservative cash flow and financial management.

Cash flow as first priority, growth second, profits third.

Located in Newcastle or the Northeast.

Willingness to follow the company carefully and contribute valuable input to strategy and implementation decisions.

We want to establish a mechanism for employees to acquire fair stock options that can become valuable as the company grows.

6.1 Key income sources and expenditure

The itemized costs for fixed technology, corporate and advertising are reflected in the sales and marketing.

Fixed Technology Costs: represents a percentage of revenues allocation for all fixed computer and Internet-related developments and charges. In 2012, £60,000 is allocated for the proprietary software development, £20,000 for the website design, and £30,000 for systems integration.

Fixed Corporate Costs: represent a percentage of revenues allocation for all fixed corporate cost associated with office related charges. In 2012, £150,000 is allocated for initial sales force hire, £70,000 is allocated for hiring and training expenses, and another £50,000 is allocated for the office setup and purchase/lease of necessary computer equipment and infrastructure.

Advertising: represents a percentage of revenues allocation for advertising in all media. In 2012, £1,300,000 is allocated for the industrial marketing campaign. In the subsequent years, the much larger budgets include allocations for TV advertising.

Sales & Marketing: represents a percentage of revenues allocation for marketing and selling activities, including commissions paid on sales. In 2012, £1,500,000 is allocated for the initial sales and marketing related activities.

Research and Development: represents a percentage of revenues allocation for R&D activities. In 2012, £90,000 is allocated for testing and fine-tuning of the computer systems and programs.

General & Administrative: represents a percentage of revenues allocation for expenses associated with running a corporation. In 2012, £60,000 is expensed against the initial set-up, legal and accounting fees, etc.

Depreciation: represents a depreciation on all capital investment; straight-line depreciation over 20 years.

6.2 Monthly projections for next 3 years

Start-up

Requirements

Start-up Expenses

Legal

£60,000

Other

£3,270,000

Total Start-up Expenses

£3,330,000

Start-up Assets

Cash Required

£2,000,000

Other Current Assets

£0

Long-term Assets

£1,330,000

Total Assets

£3,330,000

Total Requirements

£3,330,000

Start-up Funding

Start-up Expenses to Fund

Start-up Assets to Fund

Total Funding Required

Assets

Non-cash Assets from Start-up

Cash Requirements from Start-up

Additional Cash Raised

Cash Balance on Starting Date

Total Assets

Liabilities and Capital

Liabilities

Current Borrowing

Long-term Liabilities

Accounts Payable (Outstanding Bills)

Other Current Liabilities (interest-free)

Total Liabilities

Capital

Planned Investment

Investor 1

Investor 2

Other

Additional Investment Requirement

Total Planned Investment

Loss at Start-up (Start-up Expenses)

Total Capital

Total Capital and Liabilities

Total Funding

Revenue Sheet

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Net Sales

£ 3.43 m

£ 4.24 m

£ 5 m

Gross Margin

£ 2.08 m (60.6%)

£ 2.61 m (61.7%)

£ 3.11 m (62.2%)

Marketing Spend

£ 2.8 m

£ 3 m

£ 3.2

Sales Forecast

We are forecasting revenue increase over the years covered in this plan, as shown in the charts below

Pro Forma Profit and Loss

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Sales

£3,430,000

£4,240,000

£5,000,000

Direct Cost of Sales

£1,200,000

£1,400,000

£1,620,000

Other

£150,000

£230,000

£270,000

Total Cost of Sales

£1,350,000

£1,630,000

£1,890,000

Gross Margin

£2,080,000

£2,610,000

£3,110,000

Gross Margin %

60.6%

61.7%

62.2%

Expenses

Payroll

£150,000

£315,000

£400,000

Sales and Marketing and Other Expenses

£2,800,000

£3,000,000

£3,200,000

Depreciation

£0

£0

£0

Research and Development

£90,000

£100,000

£120,000

Utilities

£600

£800

£1000

Insurance

£600

£800

£1000

Rent

£50,000

£55,000

£65,000

Payroll Taxes

£22,500

£47,250

£60000

Other

£0

£0

£0

Total Operating Expenses

£2,963,250

£3,253,850

£3,547,000

Profit Before Interest and Taxes

(£338,800)

£768,400

£1,213,000

EBITDA

(£338,800)

£768,400

£1,213,000

Interest Expense

£0

£0

£0

Taxes Incurred

£0

£192,100

£303,250

Net Profit

(£338,800)

£576,300

£909,750

Net Profit/Sales

-9.88%

13.59%

18.19%

7 Limitation and Problems

7.1 Problem of building Trust

The biggest hurdle we faced when we entered the online work space was the issue of trust — for people accustomed to working in the same office, sending work to someone on the other side of the country (or even the world) could seem unfathomable. How would you know the work would be done well, or that the person was actually working on the project during the times they were billing you for it? How would you ensure your information was going to stay safety?