1

The Course Exercise

BUSINESS PLAN: FOOD ORDERING APPLICATION

TLO-35247 Software Business

Group # 5

Heikkinen Mireilla, 219093,

mireilla.heikkinen@student.tut.fi
Mazhar Usama, 232753,
usama.mazhar@student.tut.fi
Poutanen Joona, 233553,
joona.poutanen@hotmail.com
Waris Ali, 238939,
ali.waris@student.tut.fi
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...................................................................3

1. INTRODUCTION.........................................................................4

2. BUSINESS IDEA.........................................................................5

3. MARKET, MARKETING AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT.......9

3.1. Competitors and substitutes...................................................................9

3.2. Potential market segments...................................................................11

3.3. Product development............................................................................13

4. REVENUE MODEL, FIGURES AND FINANCING....................14

4.1. Revenue model....................................................................................14

4.2. Figures..................................................................................................17

4.3. Financing..............................................................................................18

5. ORGANIZATION.......................................................................20

5.1. Management team................................................................................20

5.2. Organization and resource allocation...................................................20

6. RISKS........................................................................................22

7. EXIT PLAN................................................................................24

Selling the whole business:..........................................................................24

Dissolving the business:...............................................................................24

REFERENCES................................................................................26
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Our main business idea is to provide a service based application for users and the
main idea is to create a food ordering application for mobile phones, tablets and
other smart devices and which will also be useable through laptops, notebooks
and personal home computers by using the internet and location based services
using GPS (Global positioning systems). This application will allow customers to
order food easily and quickly from various restaurants from the user defined
location and will contain the list of names, menus, services, pricelist and the
restaurant lo- cations, users would be able to either order a food delivery if
restaurant itself does provide this possibility for home delivery or go and pick it
up by themselves from the restaurant. All types of most common payment
methods will be supported by the app, such as credit cards and e-bank. This
whole as a service will allow users to order food from local restaurants within
their reach easily with a push of a button on the app.

We have performed an initial research and an initial market study on the internet
that depicts that there aren’t many substitutes or competitors in this particular ser-
vice so there exist a good market segment, good number of potential customers
and we do have a good differentiation strategy for our services offered by the app
that are further explained later in the plan. For the revenue models we have
planned to use software pricing strategy and pay per use model and we do have a
good financing plan that supports our business plan.

The main area which need good efforts from our team would be marketing and
development of the app so our management team would mainly consist of people
who are experienced in terms of marketing, finance and software industry. We do
have a good analysis of the risks involved in the plan and main focus would be
the customer’s feedback, revenue and financing needed to runt eh business
effectively. In the end we have clear alterative exit plans for the effective
business needs in terms of operations of the company and revenue generated
from the services we plan to offer.
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1. INTRODUCTION

This report describes in detail our business idea that is Food ordering app and
some extra features, potential customers, targeted market and risks involved in it.
The main idea is to create a food ordering app for smartphones which allows the
user to order food from local restaurants easily with a push of a button. The first
part of our report is focused on explaining the main idea behind our business plan
and creating a whole and clear picture of our idea, what are the leading features
and what is our main focus, which is customer satisfaction.

In the second section we have discussed our marketing strategies further in detail
that are needed essentially for this sort of business plan to become successful. In
modern days the social media and spreading any word thorough it is a very pow-
erful ally or enemy so marketing is one of the key components needed for the
suc- cessful implementation of our business plan. We have also provided in
depth-anal- ysis of the current competition in the field and potential rivalries. We
have ex- plained that our product will be superior over those existing competitors
and there- fore have substantially large potential for success on the markets.

The third section focuses on the most important part for venture capitals the reve-
nue models. We have provided comprehensive analysis on why our revenue
model is suitable in these sort of business and in this situation and how our
venture ben- efits from it. The advantages and disadvantages of our revenue
model compared to other models are provided in detail with the help of clear
examples.

In the fourth section we have mentioned our planned management team and or-
ganisational structure. A detailed list of work force needed to operate our venture
efficiently is provided along with calculations to support these estimates. In the
fifth section we address the matter of risks involved in our business idea and how
we are prepared for them. We also discuss how the risks can be minimized or
even eliminated completely.

Last but not the least our final section consists of detailed analysis of our exit
strat- egy. This will involve real life example of how our business will be made
profita- ble for both ourselves and more importantly, for the venture capitals that
have in- vested in our venture. This section will also include solid arguments why
invest- ment in our venture is a remarkable opportunity backed up by consistent
data.
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2. BUSINESS IDEA

Our business idea is a food ordering application for mobile phones, tablets and it
can also be used through laptops and PCs with the help of internet connection.
This food ordering application will allow customers to order food easily and
quickly from various restaurants all over the country. They can either order a
food delivery if restaurant does provide this possibility for delivery or go and
pick it up by them- selves from the restaurant. There won’t be any need to go
through multiple web- sites to check the food offerings of different restaurants
because all the needed information is integrated into one food ordering
application that will serve as a platform offering services. Customers will save a
lot of time and effort. Through this application customer also have the
opportunity to directly pay for the food and delivery just by tapping a button in
the application confidentially and safely. All types of payment methods will be
supported, such as credit cards and e-banking payment systems.

A graphical user interface will be constructed in a way that the customer feels
comfortable using the application and therefore continues to use it in the long run
after the first use and becomes familiar with most of the features. An easy to use
and self-explaining user interface will be developed to reach this goal. New cus-
tomer surface allows the restaurants involved to increase their sales and also is
good platform to give special offers the customers using the application. User
friendly graphical interface brings in a lot of application users, which in turn cre-
ates wide customer base for the restaurants. Because of this the application
attracts other restaurants that are not yet involved. This domino effect ensures
that custom- ers using the app have variety of restaurants to choose from and the
restaurants will have the opportunity to reach wide customer base easily and aim
for increased sales and effective marketing.

Because of the payment feature in the app, money and transactions are involved
on daily basis. This creates huge demand for efficient customer support, which
will be one of the cornerstones of the service. Customers can send feedback
directly from the application to the developers concerning software malfunction.
It can be for example failure in money transaction or feedback about restaurants
(e.g. deals not what promised). Also the overall experience about the
service/application can be submitted through a feedback.
 6

We also want to endorse customers to submit reviews of the restaurants so that

the other customers can choose restaurants based on customer feedbacks and
ratings. There will be a rewarding system implemented for these reviews for the
users. When customers are active for submitting reviews of restaurants (other
users can give likes/dislikes), they can get special offers which can be used to
any restaurant they want. This will encourage the users to use application more
actively when they notice that they will receive nice benefits back when giving
feedbacks.

The social media is more popular than ever. The adult users of social media in
the US have gone up 800% in eight years (Forbes, 7.1.2015). Therefore social
media will be fully integrated to the application allowing the users to share their
experi- ences about the services and restaurants with their social circle easily.
This feature will allow the restaurants to get publicity outside the applications
users since the shared experience will be shown also to those not using the
application yet. The service will be even more attractive for restaurants to use.

All registered restaurants in one application just only as far as few clicks. No
more need to spend time on researching several restaurant’s homepages for food
order- ing. Through this application customer feedbacks and ratings can be easily
re- viewed and a decision made if the restaurant is worth of trying. All needed
infor- mation in one place, and on the top customer can also check the estimated
delivery time directly from the app when an order have been submitted. Good
food at cus- tomers’ fingertips and on the top, they save money by getting the
best deals.

Table 1 below explains how the service would be provided for service providers
and what are the main benefits from the customers’ point of view. There are three
different account service levels provided for restaurants that are Basic, Pro and
Super accounts.

Table 1. Service structure from the service provider’s point of view and benefits for
customers
Service providers (aka restau-
rants)
Basic Possibility to get free market space
and provide up to date information
of the restaurant.
Information that restaurant can add:
1. Restaurant description
2. Location in a map
3. Opening hours
4. Contact information
5. Waiting time (if eating in or
taking out, how much time
does it take for the restau-
rant to serve the food)
6. Delivery time (if food deliv-
ery ordered,, how much
time it will take)
7. Homepage
8. Social media pages
9. Menu & price list
Restaurants can receive:
1. Feedbacks from the custom-
ers
2. Reviews and ratings done
by customers
3. Social media sharing will be
supported for customers to
share recommendations of
the restaurant
7
Benefits for customers
Customers can directly see through one
app various types of restaurants located
nearby. All restaurants can be sorted by
type, location, rating, opening hours and
pricing. Through all restaurants’ so
called profiles, can be seen accurate
waiting and/or delivery time that will be
updated by the restaurant every hour.
Based on this customers can also decide
if choosing that specific restaurant or
not.
Customers will be rewarded when giv-
ing feedbacks and ratings through the
app. When enough rewards are gath-
ered, they will get bonuses to their ac-
count which can be used for discounts
when ordering food through the appli-
cation.
All feedbacks and ratings can be re-
viewed for a reference for qualifying if
the restaurant meet their expectations or
not. Social media shares (facebook,
twitter) can be done for the recommen-
dations.

Pro With this account level restaurant
will offer the possibility to order
food for takeaway and/or home de-
livery. This will also include the
possibility for customers to do table
reservations. For table reservations
also pre food ordering can be made
if wanted, not required. No pay-
ment submissions via app provided.
Su- Super account includes all the ser-
per vices provided in Pro account. In
addition to this, Super account of-
fers the possibility to submit pay-
ments through the application with
all the payments types (credit
card, e-bank, klarna).
8
No need for customers to contact res-
taurant via other connections. Applica-
tions will provide intuitive and user
friendly user interface for food order-
ing. With just few clicks food order
will be submitted to the restaurant.
Ordering requires customers to create
an account (no fees included) for the
service. Ac- count is required to
identify the person to be a real person
and that he/she can be contacted by the
restaurant in any concerns. When
restaurant has received the order, they
will confirm it and up- date the latest
waiting/delivery time with that
confirmation.
When forwarding orders through the
app customers has the possibility to also
submit the payment directly through the
application so later they don’t need to
think for the payments when picking up
or receiving the food.
 9

3. MARKET, MARKETING AND

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

3.1. Competitors and substitutes

Based on the current research in the internet and checking the application
offering in Application stores (AppStore, GooglePlay) there aren’t many
substitutes or competitors available in Tampere. There used to be a Astronautic
company offer- ing the similar kind of service years ago but the business has
been stopped already due to low profitability. The difference in between our and
Gastronautti’s service is that they took care of the food delivery themselves for
all restaurants. The main reason for the business to go down was the high
delivery costs. Demand was not enough high to keep the pricing attractive.
(Huusko, 2012) The difference to our service is that we offer the possibility for
restaurants to offer their own food deliv- ery service if they have one. If not
restaurants can either provide the possibility to order takeaway through the app,
reserve a table from a restaurant or just provide restaurant information for
marketing purpose. This application will hold all the needed information and
features for easy and intuitive food ordering. This infor- mation that are provided
through the application are opening hours, menu and pric- ing, waiting time (how
long does the food preparation take when eating in), deliv- ery time (how long
does the food delivery take), general description of the restau- rant, ratings, link
to the homepage and contact information. Especially nowadays, consumers
prefer to find information easily as we have reached the internet decade. Even
better if there is an application providing the needed information easily and
quickly that can be used via mobile device. Society has been driven towards into
app-driven world. Consumers spend now more time on their mobile apps than
ever before. (Nielsen, 2015)

Substitutes that can be found and discovered are restaurant’s own home pages
and food ordering by calling. These are the traditional ways to order food from a
res- taurant. Competitors that can be found are food ordering web pages that
serve all around the country. These are pizza-online.fi and eatit.fi which both
have the same owner. Also a restaurant application can be found from AppStore
which is availa- ble also through web browser that is eat.fi. These competitors are
compared in the table 2 below with SWOT-analysis to give better understanding
how these services work and what our software’s benefits when comparing to
these are.

Table 2. Competitor comparison with SWOT-analysis
pizza-online & Eatit
(https://pizza-online.fi &
https://eat.fi) same owner, same
service)
Service de- Pizza food ordering website.
scription Search all registered pizza places
with a search by location or locate
yourself. Order and submit the
payment through the website.
Restaurateurs who would want
their restaurant to be available
through the service would need to
open an account by submitting an
assigned contract.
Strengths Bonus system provided for loyal
customers
Direct payment supported with
various payment types
Delivery time estimation given
Follow up if 30 minutes response
time for the food ordering from
the restaurant exceeded
Users can create accounts for the
service that will take track of the
orders made and will save cus-
tomer information
Ratings available for customers
Weaknesses Only available in Finnish
Only pizza places available
No mobile application
Quite costly for restaurateurs to
open an account for the service
Restaurateurs who has committed
to this service are not allowed to
open accounts for competitors’
services
10
eat.fi
(www.eat.fi)
Provides information (opening
hours, menu, pricing, link to
homepage, customer feed-
backs/ratings) of all restaurants
all around the country. All restau-
rant locations gathered into a map
from which users can directly see
if a restaurant is open or not.
All restaurant related information
provided through one app
Restaurants can be searched and
filtered by location, category, or
rating
Mobile application provided
Restaurateurs get free marketing
space and possibility to update
their restaurant information for
free
Only available in Finnish
No food ordering
 11

Opportuni- To expand the service to mobile Provide food ordering service

ties application Give users the possibility to make
table reservations through the ap-
plication
Provide waiting time information
Integrating social media to re-
views - Possibility to share feed-
backs and reviews through Face-
book, Twitter or other social me-
dia

Threats Other competitors Application might include old

High costs might avoid potential data which might affect the relia-
restaurants to join the service bility
Other new entrants

When comparing our food ordering application to these competitors the benefits
that our application will offer when comparing to these are the availability in
Eng- lish and Finnish. As the amount of foreign inhabitants are growing in
Finland every year, this service should be available also in English that will also
give positive impact to demand. As highlighted in the competitor comparison
table there are only two online food ordering places that are concentrated in pizza
places which has home delivery services. Our application would also provide the
possibility for other types of restaurants (e.g. Indian, Chinese) to add their
information to the ap- plication. These restaurants can be any that provide the
possibility to order takea- way. Restaurants can be filtered by category or
searched by location and these restaurants locations can be shown in a map if
wanted or just view as a list with ratings and latest feedbacks.

3.2. Potential market segments

This service will serve a wide variety of customers who are interested in finding
information about restaurants nearby in Tampere, order takeaway, home delivery
or make a table reservation. The scope of the service is wide which covers all
will- ing to eat customer’s needs. Also the other way round, our other customers,
res- taurateurs, will benefit in many ways if creating a service account to our
software application. This restaurants can be any in Tampere who does serve
food.

First of all our potential food ordering customers are all willing to eat something
from a restaurant. These can basically be students, workers in a hurry or looking
for a nice lunch place and even families who want to order pizza home delivery.
 12

We can describe few different use cases to clarify how our potential market could
locate. First are busy people who don’t have time to waste. They are in hunger
and willing to just get something quickly on the way to the office from a client
meeting, they would just check the restaurants through the applications, add the
preferred location, compare the available restaurants, check the current estimated
waiting time and based on this choose the most appropriate one. After the
decision, an order needs to be submitted and payment if wanted. A confirmation
message will be received in a minute from the restaurant with the accurate time
estimate based on which the busy worker can schedule his visit in the restaurant
to pick up the food.

Other potential customer case would be a couple who are willing to eat out on a
Friday evening but they are having difficulties to decide where to go. This couple
will add the preferred location for the restaurant in the application and now when
they are looking more into fancier restaurant they will sort the located restaurants
by average price. But this is not still enough because they want to ensure that the
restaurant has received good feedback so they will filter the restaurants by ratings
also. Now they have a list of potential restaurants that meet their needs. They de-
cide to go with the Italian restaurant for tonight and they were lucky because the
application description of the restaurant says that they still take table reservations
for tonight. Just with few clicks also a table is reserved for them.

These customer cases gave quite broad perspective, how large scale of potential
customers this application could have. Our other potential market segment is all
different kinds of restaurants who are willing to advertise and provide their ser-
vices through the application. When they notice that users are getting more inter-
ested about the applications they would be more than willing to get their
restaurant visible also in the application. And this wouldn’t be a huge barrier to
go through the account creation as the prices will be set attractively for them.

Especially because of the application’s dynamic search and filtering features, it

allows the users to filter restaurants exactly according to their needs. Also the
server levels improve the service levels for the customers. These are the main
reasons why we are expecting our market segment to become big. We are also
expecting that the growth perspectives can be set to high. These kind of applica-
tion will easily attract users as this is easily applicable to their daily lives.
 13

3.3. Product development

This food ordering service will be based on a software that can be used either
through a web browser or mobile application (all browsers and operating systems
will be supported). A demo version of this software will be developed by internal
resources with no salary defined in the beginning. This development work will be
based on dedication for establishing a potential business in near future. With this
business plan and a demo version, this business idea will be tried to be sold fur-
ther for trying to seed findings for the company establishment and further devel-
opment. People who has devoted their time on developing this software and busi-
ness plan will be considered as founders and shareholders of the company.

We also see that when developing by ourselves, the maintenance would be easier
to handle and costs kept low. The user interface would be one of the very im-
portant objectives that would take most of the development efforts to get it pre-
cisely designed with a nice flavour. User experience would be showing a core
role in the development. Application has to be self-explanatory, easy to use and
intuitive.

For further development plans, if the application will be receiving interest widely
and demand is high enough to cover the costs, the restaurateurs account profile
features can be expanded so that they can personalize their own profiles. Kind of
having a social media platform for restaurants. Restaurateurs could give daily
up- dates of the menu or something else related to the restaurant activities in a
status update form if wanted. Users could start following restaurants and adding
them to favourites. Push notifications can be sent to users if the enable the
notifica- tions. This app can be also easily extended to cover other cities in
Finland.
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4. REVENUE MODEL, FIGURES

AND FINANCING

4.1. Revenue model

In order to make our venture successful we have two strategies in terms of

revenue models that are pay per use model and software pricing structure
both have their pros and cons these both are defined in this sections as fol-
lows:

Pay – per use model:

Pay – per use model is used a revenue model for our food ordering application.
As there no such application exists in the market, also many of the food
restaurants have not targeted the customer base which is not comes to their
restaurants. To convince the restaurants to use our application they can pay for
the number of units the application used for their specific restaurants i.e. number
of orders made. This will allow them to see their potential customers who not
come to their restaurants or unaware of the offerings the restaurants is making.
The model also promotes the network externalities effect, meaning that the
increased number of buyers in- creases knowledge of the product among
potential customers, lowers customers’ search costs, and makes the product well
known in the market.

Though the model has the disadvantage of the data security but as far as Tampere
is concerned there is not much competition among the restaurants So can be seen
as the advantage that restaurant can see which restaurants is providing the
services that will compliments there business. It will enhance customers as the
restaurants customers becomes their customers.

From the customer perspective, for smaller companies lacking a budget for the
kind of investments required by traditional software licensing, the pay-per-use
model is a good option. Customers can purchase the software without making
spe- cial budgeting arrangements or undertaking long decision-making processes.
Thus, the software usage resembles an operational cost rather than a capital
invest- ment.
 15

The pay-per-use model also has advantages over other models if customers need
the software only occasionally, because this decreases costs and lessens the need
for customers to set up their own IT infrastructure. It’s easier to change vendors
if the software’s quality or functionality isn’t appropriate. Thus, in this model,
it’s possible to test and evaluate the software to see if it suits the company’s
needs. It also frees the customer from the need to install, maintain, and update the
software, and it lessens the need to have IT personnel.

Customers who use the software for their core business, the continued existence
of the cloud provider is vital. If a cloud provider disappears from the market, the
effect on the customer will be immediate and possibly catastrophic.

Dealing with any new product development brings uncertainty to the business,
thus, management of R&D project portfolio is needed in order to answer if com-
pany, first of all has necessary capabilities and resources, and secondly if it is
going to make good business for the company (Artto et al., 2011). Project
portfolio man- agement concentrates on applying certain knowledge, skills and
tools in order to match or to surpass requirements and opportunities of
company’s investment (Artto etal., 2011). The main goal project portfolio is to:

 Maximize the value of the portfolio

 Balance the portfolio
 Link projects with its strategy
 Engage your audience with frequent updates and promotions. This keeps
our audience interested and loyal

Develop cross-platform. Despite the buzz around one or two operating systems, it
is extremely effective to develop cross-platform app that supports OSes such as
Symbian and BlackBerry. In fact, we have found that these platforms have higher
CTRs, as users are not as “ad-blind” as iPhone or Android users. Generally
speak- ing, we have found that the early adopter tech community pays less
attention to ads than other types of users.

Create web and native apps. While native apps are often more robust and
respon- sive, Web apps using HTML5 can also yield a positive response from
your audi- ence. However, we have found that for games, the native model works
better with faster response times and an overall more robust experience
 16

Enable sharing. Give users tools to easily share your app across their social plat-
forms. Add some integrated options to tweet or share the app on Facebook. This
will provide a very effective method of spreading the word about your app. Some
good examples of this are news and info apps that have an option to tweet the
article and the tweet then includes the name of the app.

Software Pricing Structure

Another option for the revenue model can be to opt for software pricing structure
that enables customers not to get committed for longer time period more detail
description is described as follows:

Advantages:

No need for customers to commit for a longer time period to make an investment
decision (if we don’t go with option 3). Customer would only need to pay a
monthly rental fee.

1. Pay only for the features needed

2. No long time commitments
3. Flexible pricing system
4. No need for separate budgeting
5. cost- and demand based pricing
6. Application free for customers from App store and via internet

Account fees for restaurants:

1. Basic account for sharing and maintaining the restaurant information - 1

month for free, after 4,99e/month.
2. Food ordering takeaway - no payment submissions through the app - 1
month for free, after 9,99e/month.
3. Food ordering takeaway - payments enabled through the app - 1 month for
free, after 9,99e/month + 15% of the food price.
4. Food ordering takeaway + home delivery - no payment submissions through
the app - 1 month for free, after 14,99e/month.
5. Food ordering takeaway + home delivery - payments enabled through the
app - 1 month for free, after 19,99e/month + 15% of the food price.
 17

4.2. Figures
In this section we have included some figures about sales including amount of
units and the assumed revenues generated in return. We have compared the
amount of subscriptions with different options and analysed the profit keeping in
mind the interest rates also, and analysed in the graphs after the table.

Table 3. Comparisons of different subscription options

Amount Amount Amount Amount Reve- Total All Profit/Loss Interest Inter-
of of of of nue reve- costs statement rate% est
sub- sub- sub- subscrip- from nue (€)
scrip- scrip- scrip- tions/ food (€)
tions/ tions/ tions/ Option 5
Option Option 3 Option
2 4 Total
5 3 5 10 100 1314 788 525.6 0.5 2.63 33
9 6 8 12 500 2224 828 1395.7 2 27.9 48
13 9 11 14 900 3133 869 2263.9 3 67.9 63
17 12 14 16 1300 4043 913 3130 4 125 78
21 15 17 18 1700 4952 958 3993.9 5 200 93
25 18 20 20 2100 5862 1006 4855.5 8 388 108
29 21 23 22 2500 6771 1057 5714.8 8 457 123
33 24 26 24 2900 7681 1109 6571.5 9 591 138
37 27 29 26 3300 8590 1165 7425.6 10 743 153
41 30 32 28 3700 9500 1223 8276.9 10 828 168
45 33 35 30 4100 10410 1284 9125.3 12 1095 183
49 36 38 32 4500 11319 1348 9970.6 13 1296 198
 18

Revenues, paid interest and total costs

12000

10000

8000
Interest
6000 Revenues Total costs

4000
2000

0
123456789101112

60

50
Ammount of subscriptions
40

30
Option 1
Option 2
20
Option 3
Option 4
10
Option 5
0
123456789101112

4.3. Financing
In the beginning at first when the company is set up there is some amount which
will be kept for the equity fund, so if the management of the company feels they
do not have enough funds to support the expenses they can use that or can get
loan against that equity .Our company will adopt seed financing we have the
limited partnership structure with the restaurants so it’s quite easy to follow. The
growth accelerators are formalized mentoring a network of contacts and in some
cases small amounts of financing. The company will try keep the performance
active to
 19

avoid significant upfront losses in the beginning. In case of huge losses in the be-
ginning it’s expected that this eliminates one of the biggest potential benefits of
the limited partnership structure. This is because there are no significant losses to
distribute and because the fund would have taken advantage of the losses pretty
quickly as their earlier exits started to be realized.

Tax Free Switching between Funds and Cross Fund Tax Deferral which has the
advantage that managers can set up multiple funds under one corporate structure
by using different classes of shares.
 20

5. ORGANIZATION

This section will explain the roles for the individual team members in the company and
explanation of the management team also the main structure relate to the structure of the
company in terms of organization.

5.1. Management team

Our management team consist of people who are experienced in terms of market-
ing, finance and software industry. The possible team members and their roles
are as follows

Team Member Role

CEO - Chief Executive Of- responsible for the daily operations , support for the software de-
ficer velopment

CFO - Chief Financial Of- financing & sales

ficer

CMO - Chief Marketing Of- marketing, branding, supporting sales

ficer

CTO - Chief Technology software development

Officer

The management team is still in the early stages of formation all of them give input for
business development. The rest of the personnel will be hired according to the need and
their work will be valued with salary payments, organizational structure and resource
allocation

5.2. Organization and resource allocation

Any additional hires will be part time and devoted to the expansion of any catering
func- tion, as well as increased capacity/operation of a private party function. An
additional manager will be hired to help CFO,CMO in maintaining and reviewing
operations of the
 21

restaurant consultancy and entertainment venue / bar. Mobile developer will be hired for
the application development. An assistant finance who will be a salaried employee will
provide regular table service as well as assistance to the manager and the finance manager.

Technical Team lead will perform software development management. The marketing,
and accounting function will be handled by independent contractors/consultant but all
will be monitored by CFO.The five full-time salaried employees which are technical
and have software experience will be hired at start-up. Part time software will have to be
hired to manage approximately 135 hours of operation per week, designers will have to
be hired for approximately 120 hours of operation per week. Any additional hires will
be part time and devoted to the expansion of any catering function, as well as increased
capacity/op- eration of a private party function.
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6. RISKS

Although software business and especially mobile app business is booming at the
moment there is some serious risks involved. It doesn’t matter how ground
break- ing the idea is and how much potential it has, there’s still the risk of
venture failing. The popularity of mobile apps and the whirlpool of money
surrounding app stores make our business idea more appealing to breath into life
but it also brings signif- icant risk.

Nowadays people’s span of attention is decreasing due to the flash news, social
media feeds and the increase of smartphone usage and the need to check on it
con- stantly. This creates a certain mind-set for people: if the app or text you are
reading isn’t a blockbuster you must abandon it soon after the first try. Therefore
the risk of one using our app once and never touching it again is very significant.
Making the Graphical User Interface (GUI) very compelling can minimize the
risk of user’s interest towards our app falling but it cannot be completely
eliminated. The GUI must also be easy to use and can’t absolutely have any bugs
or malfunctions: noth- ing dispels potential users more effectively than a software
malfunction or bug on the first try of the app. considering this risk the medium of
our software develop- ment will be user-friendliness and easy-to-use interface.
Also rigorous and thor- ough testing will be performed to ensure the rich and
positive user experience throughout the lifespan of the app. Testing will be
performed both among the de- veloper team and also among potential users in
beta testing phase to ensure that all the malfunctions and bugs will be obliterated
from the source code.

Another great risk comes with the revenue models. Although the pay-per-use
model is the most efficient and fitting and also has the lowest risk in this
scenario, it still bears some risks that need to be taken into consideration before
starting the business. The major risk in the pay-per-use model is the risk of poor
popularity and reputation of the app. Because all the revenue comes from the
usage of the app, not the acquisition of it, significant amount of active users is
needed to ensure the business ideas longevity and profitability. Minimizing this
risk also involves the user-friendliness of the app and efficient customer support.
By making sure users like to use the app we minimize the risk of them
abandoning it. Also we must make sure that the app is widely known among all
the potential demographic re- gions so that we acquire as large customer base as
possible. The more people know about our app the smaller the risk of it fading
away right after the take-off.
 23

One great risk that must be taken into consideration involves the restaurants.
Situ- ations may arise where customer is unhappy with restaurants products or
service and feels that it was also our app’s fault as much as the restaurant’s.
Therefore we must make ourselves separate from the restaurants so that
customers don’t associ- ate us to the bad customer experience they receive from
the restaurants. The risk of this happening is likely substantially insignificant but
must be endorsed never the less.
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7. EXIT PLAN

This last section provides alternative exit plans depending on what situation may
occur and timeline for results in terms of facts and figures and as a measure for
the success factor to scale the investment, money and effort invested by the
manage- ment team and investors. The exit plans basically depends on the
alternative situ- ations we have planned depending on the maturity of the
business and the scale result on how successful or profitable it is at that particular
stage. The two alterna- tive exit strategies that can be the options in situations we
have already planned are defined as follows:

Selling the whole business:

If we are able to meet the sales targets and able to create a good name for our
app as planned and we become successful to run the app and company
successfully over 5 to 6 years successfully and the feedback form the customers
is positive and we see a good market in service industry, we would definitely get
the good repute at that span of time in the app market as well as in our potential
market segment. We would have a planned sales target and return on investment
plan and if we feel that the business is quite successful in terms of revenue and
according to the initial sales targeted plan then we can plan to sell the business to
a public or private party that can be an existing big company in the service
industry, this will allow the management team as business owners to gain good
profit and fruitful result as output of their efforts and good price value for
investors in return of their invest- ments as stakeholders on favourable and good
terms and value shares.

Dissolving the business:

This option covers the worst case scenario for our business plan. If at some point
in time we feel that the business is not so successful in terms of revenue and we
decided to come up with a solution the best option is to try to find a company or
an individual stakeholder who can come up to buy the company name and
business plan and take some measures improve it other option would be to
dissolve the business and using company’s assets to get their current value by
selling them or liquidating them, this situation can occur if we are unable to pay
our debts on time and other expenses involved in doing the business over a
certain span of time. The first concern in this process would be definitely to solve
any debts or loans we had
 25

and the current value we get by dissolving can be divided on agreed terms between
the partners and stakeholders.
 26

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Huusko, M. 2012. Gastronautti lopetti monessa kaupungissa. Uusi Suomi.

http://www.uusisuomi.fi/kotimaa/121022-gastronautti-lopetti-monessa-kau-
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Nielsen, 2015. Smartphone: So many apps, so much time. Media and Entertain-
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Carlos Consylting Group Creating a Risk management plan

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