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From TechCrunch: A startup pitch is not a presentation and founders must understand the differences Bill Reichert (serial entrepreneur and venture capital investor at Pegasus Tech Ventures ) emphasizes the distinction between a pitch and a presentation, particularly in the context of startup entrepreneurship. Bill, a serial entrepreneur and venture capital investor, highlights that while presentation coaching focuses on turning pitches into performances with a structured narrative, a pitch is more dynamic and interactive. The successful startup pitch requires active engagement from the audience, such as investors, who should be asking questions and participating in a conversation rather than passively listening to a rehearsed story. The article also stresses the importance of being concise and ready to address questions in a short timeframe, as pitches can be as brief as 60 seconds. Read the complete article From Ted After Hours (Podcast): Our Prediction for 2024 Harvard Professors Mihir Desai and Felix Oberholzer-Gee have a spirited discussion and make the following predictions in the podcast. The Future of Oil and OPEC's Influence One of the most striking predictions discussed was the potential fall of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The oil industry has been a cornerstone of the global economy for decades, but as we move towards renewable energy sources, the influence of OPEC could significantly diminish. Personal Opinion: I don't believe this is what is going to happen in 2024, but later in a decade when our renewable resources become more mainstream and proficient. This is likely to happen. For similar reasons, OPEC are also shifting economic models which are less oil-dependent. Artificial Intelligence: Transforming Technology and Human Connections One area that particularly stood out was content creation. We discussed the controversial topic of AI-generated erotic and pornographic content and its potential effects on the industry. Moreover, we touched upon how AI might evolve to foster human connections in a world where technology is increasingly omnipresent. Macroeconomic Policy: The Quest for 2% Inflation Macroeconomic policy, especially the challenges of achieving a 2% inflation rate in the American economy, was also on the table. This target, often pursued by central banks, has become increasingly elusive in recent years. The talk explored the tools and strategies that might be employed to reach this goal and the potential hurdles that could arise in the process. Gaming and Entertainment: A New Frontier In an exciting turn of conversation, one prediction was made that a major streaming company, such as Disney or Netflix, might acquire Electronic Arts, a leading game maker. This move could be driven by the financial allure of an ad-supported tier and the longevity of successful gaming franchises. The future foresees blurry lines between gaming and traditional video content, suggesting a future where gaming content could be repurposed for other entertainment forms. Content Distribution Over Creation Adding to the gaming discussion, broader trend of focusing on distributing and using content rather than creating it anew. This shift towards monetizing existing content could redefine how we think about entertainment and its value. Environmental Concerns: Plastic as the New Asbestos The conversation took a sobering turn as the podcast discussed the environmental impact of plastic. Plastic might soon be viewed as the new asbestos, with growing concerns about its effects on human health and the environment. Drawing parallels to the organic food movement, a realization of plastic's negative effects could lead to significant changes in consumption patterns and product design. Despite the convenience and cost-efficiency of plastic products, we acknowledged the need for a shift in consumption and substitution patterns, especially in light of the microplastics issue and its environmental ramifications. The Decline of Search Engine Quality AI-generated will lead to the rapid deterioration of search engine result quality. Driven by a business model that favors sponsored links over verified high-quality content, they anticipated challenges in distinguishing between AI-generated content and genuinely high-quality material, leading to a decline in the overall quality of search results. Listen to the complete podcast on Spotify From Ted (Video): How we can protect truth in the age of misinformation Adding to the last prediction made in the above TED podcast, I found a great TED talk held 4 years ago. Sinan Aral, Professor, MIT/ Director MIT IDE/ Data scientist, talks about Fake news and why it spreads so quickly. With the advent of AI-generated content, it will be nearly impossible to differentiate between Fake and Truth. He talks about 5 ways in which we could tackle the Fake news pandemic along with the challenges that occur in implementing them. What is most noteworthy is, that the predictions made in this talk 4 years ago are becoming today's reality. False news spreads faster, further, and more broadly than true news on social media, with false political news being the most viral. Spreaders of false news typically have fewer followers and less online presence, yet their content is 70% more likely to be retweeted. Generative adversarial networks are getting better at fooling us into believing lies. The ease of access and deployment of these AI models exacerbate the problem of synthetic media and misinformation. Watch the full video.

Objective To perform a brief competitive analysis of the University Living business landscape and identify growth and improvement opportunities. Method A 4 steps method is used for this analysis as follows: Identify competitors Strategic Differentiation Comparative feature analysis Identify the scope of value offerings. Comparative Analysis of Value proposition We can analyze the value proposition based on 3 parameters: ● Strategic differentiation How our current product is strategically placed i.e. What is our model? ○ Is it different from other competitors' models in terms of revenue generation?  What are the pros and cons of it What is the geographical footprint? ● Functional differentiation How is the product placed in terms of features and services offered to the customers? Is there any differentiating feature? if there are which are those for each of them and based on heuristics which has the most impact? What kind of functional service is a strength of the product and should be adopted as soon as possible ● Actual Product Usage Experience ( UI/UX) How are the user experiences of the Products Different 1. Identify Competitors Through a collection of Google keyword searches, the following competitors are identified: Amberstudent - https://amberstudent.com/ Uniacco- https://uniacco.com/ Nestpick-  nestpick.com Spotahome - spotahome.com Website Analysis of University Living Among Competitors duration (Oct-22 to Dec 22) Disclaimer- Website traffic analysis doesn’t give the complete picture of whole business operations (Marketing and sales (inbound + Outbound)). Hence, certain observations based on this data would need more input for deeper discretion. Overall  traffic performance comparison Spotahome, Nestpick, and Amber students are globally popular. However, University living is second only to Amber students in India. Traffic and Engagement University living falls 5th in global traffic (in comparison to these 5 platforms). Nestpick and Spotahome prove to be global leaders. Geographical distribution traffic among the top 10 countries Geographical distribution of University Living website traffic India, the US, and Australia are the top 3 regions visiting the University Living website. The above metrics gave us a brief overview of web traffic distribution on the 5 student accommodation providers that helped us gain a rough idea about the market distribution of the 5 companies. However, this does not represent actual sales and other important metrics. 2. Strategic differentiation Key Takeaways: University living, Amber Student and Uniacco offer housing and accommodation services targeting the niche market of students. Nestpick is an aggregator platform that fetches offers from housing and accommodation service providers. Like Trivago does for hotels. Spotahome offers housing and accommodation solutions to the general market not targeting any specific niche. From Web traffic analysis, the Top 5 countries where University Living is active are India, the UK, Australia, the US, and Sri Lanka 3. Comparative Feature analysis: Functional features with user experience Key takeaways: In comparing features, the University beats all the platforms providing all necessary services specific to students looking for education abroad. Uniacco offers economic benefits such as No Visa No pay, No deposits, and No university no pay, which differentiates it from competitors. Nestpick and Spotahome being generic housing providers don’t provide value-added services catering to the student segment. 4. Recommendations (based upon both website and mobile app) ß To improve engagement. Mobile app -  Offer internship recommendations to mobile app users based on their location and education. This has the potential to increase user retention on mobile applications. Mobile app - As the B2C market segment is moving towards community-driven. We should have a Community Forum feature to build a community of users where users can chat, and help each other. This feature has 3 main benefits: It may help build a long-term relationship with users and organization. It may help us learn more about user requirements and behavioral patterns In the long term, this opens a gate for potential consumers (acquaintances, relatives, friends of current users, who might avail of our services) To improve user acquisition- Certain questions are required to understand the situation better What is the current marketing strategy? Is it different based on the region? What is the operational model of the organization across the regions?

You have come up with a great product idea that have got you really excited. But you don’t know how do you realize this idea. What will it take for you turn this idea into reality? What’s the next step you need to take? All this excitement has filled you with whole set of thoughts which now you don’t know how organize and turn them into actions . You are overwhelmed with the same idea that excited you in the first place. lf you have ever felt the same way , the Business Model Canvas is the savior that can rescue from misery of un organized and overwhelming thoughts on where to begin. What is business Model Canvas ? Business Model canvas is a strategic management template that enables you to visualize various aspects of a business idea in a structured format. This template helps you outline the overview on how the proposed business would function or document the already running business. It was initially proposed in 2005 by Alexander Osterwalder  and  Yves Pigneur. It comprises of total 9 sections: Value proposition Customer segment Channels Customer Relationship Key activities Key resources Key Partners Cost structures Revenue streams 1. Value Proposition Here you define what are you offering to your customer. What problem(s)are you solving? Why is it different from existing competitor? Your unique value proposition could be single or a set of offerings. It is important that you write these down in the Value Proposition block so that everyone is your team is on the same page on what you believe and how you are serving your end customer. For example, you are a brand new mobile company which builds phones for the minimalists. Your decide your value proposition is that your device - empower these minimalists to take back control of their time. Your user experience helps them to declutter their life from distractions so that they can finish work faster and spend their time with families or pursuing hobbies. 2. Customer segment Here you define what your customer would be. Following are the questions to keep in mind while defining this. Who is in the need or want of your value proposition? Who should be interested in buying your product and services? Are the above two parties same or different? How your potential user fall under categories such as demographical, economical, professional, geographical? What are their behavior patterns? (What’s their day look like and where and when they are likely to use your product) Idea is to put your foot in end user shoes to learn more about their needs. 3. Channels Here, you answer questions such as how do your customers get to know about your value proposition. In other words, how do you reach out to your customer with your value proposition. How do you acquire customer. Simply put, your Go-to-Market strategy. Here marketing channels into the picture. You marketing channels can depend upon factors such as industries, domain ( B2B Or B2C), budget. extending the previous example of mobile company which builds phones for the minimalists; because this is a B2C market, you promote your product on social media channels, groups, events, which discuss more about minimalism instead promoting on channels where Fast Fashion is theme. Some examples of channels could be- social media marketing, partnership with distribution channels, SEO, so on. 4. Customer Relationship. Now, you have acquired customers through your successful sales & marketing channels. In order to retain your customers , you need to build trust and grow a long term relationship with them. You need to ensure that both you and your customer are easily accessible to each other. Hence, you need a customer relationship policy to be communication with each other. In this section you need to define how you will be in constant touch with your customer? Some of the examples are- having customer support, newsletters to reach out to them with updates, social media channel, review and feedback system. 5. Key Partners Extending the “minimalist mobile” example, since you are mobile phone startup and expertise in designing a mobile phone (how should it look? how powerful it needs to be? What function it needs to perform for its users). However, you don’t have the expertise in manufacturing or marketing ; nor you have huge funds to setup your own plant or advertisement dept. Hence, you need to partner with people who have such expertise, so that you can focus on your value proposition. In this section, you define what partners do you need in order fulfil your business idea. These partners could be anything from being hardware suppliers, software component/service (AWS, AZURE, GCP), marketing partners, retail distributors law firms, etc. 6. Key Activities You have a clearer picture of what you wanna build and whom you wanna sell it to. To turn these ideas into reality, you need to take tangible actions on daily basis. Here, you define what key activities you need to perform on daily or regular basis in order to achieve your goals. What would be you and your team’s Day look like as an company? This section must answer these questions. Let’s take the “Minimalist mobile” example again. As a mobile company company, you need to have following activities on daily basis. Hardware design, R&D and prototyping Software development Testing Marketing and advertisement. 7. Key resources Now that you have identified what activities you need to perform on daily basis. You need resources to accomplish them. Hence, you need to note down all the resources are required to to fulfil these activities. for eg: based upon the key activity, The “Minimalist mobile” company need the following things: Hardware design engineers Appropriate lab apparatus for prototyping Software engineers testing and analysists software tools - UI/UX, testing, Admin tools work space (including utilities like chair, table, internet, etc.) marketing and sales professional(s) 8. Cost structure By estimating all the resources that you will be needing, you have identified where you will be spending money. The Cost Structure section helps you to list down the overview of the total expenditure around the business idea. This section helps you gain clarity how you money will be spending and even re-evaluate certain offering if it doesn’t fit into business model. For “Minimalist Mobile”, cost structure some elements of cost structure would be- Salaries of team workspace cost advertisement Work space cost one time lab setup cost Admin and legal costs (if any) 9. Revenue streams Lastly comes the aspect upon which the whole business is envisioned- Revenue streams. No business can survive without revenue. In this section, you are going answer the question- How will the company will make money? . Your revenue streams could be single or multiple. This is entirely dependent upon your value propositions and market. For eg. Apple has multiple sources of revenue- Iphones, Macs, Apple TV, Watches, Icloud+ , etc. Conclusion Business Model Canvas has always helped me at professional level whenvever I want to visualize a product idea from operation pov even before actively pursuing it. It has greatly helped me plan size of team and