Business Plan Template

Company Biographies

Company name: GoldGate

Company address: 105 / 20, Kent Road, Colombo 09.

Company contact no: 0773400965

Names of Directors : Shilpa Gunawardana
Erandika Lakmali
Gimhana Kaldera
Sachini Chandrasekara

Date of submission: 02-07-2017

 1. Executive Summary

GoldGate is a web based educational resource providing company owned and operated by 04
undergraduates of the department of Industrial Management of the University of Kelaniya.
GoldGate aims to facilitate equal and fair share of educational resources among all the
customers, without and discrepancy while providing many different sustainable solutions to a
number of issues encountered in the current tuition field. The revenue stream of GoldGate is
the subscription fee of the students on a monthly basis. We will have affiliate relationships
among our service providers, the tutors / teachers where we will not be producing or carrying
any inventory.

Our financial strategy is based on staying profitable while keeping expenses extremely low.
We're more concerned with keeping the cash flow and cash balance positive.

In order to reach our goals, we must complete the following keys of success:

 We must execute our marketing plan well, since the main focus is on maximizing
profits while effectively utilizing the available resources.

 We must keep our expenses low. We don't plan on generating a large amount of
revenue in the near-term, so we can't let expenses get out of control.

 We must be updated and consistent with the operational plans of GoldGate in order to
provide our customers with the most relevant and useful content through our service
providers.

 We must treat our service providers as the most important assets and thereby be
flexible and always communicate with them in order to help them facilitate their
services efficiently.
 2. Company Description

Company Summary

GoldGate is a start-up website implemented under the partnership of 04 undergraduates of

the Department of Industrial Management of University of Kelaniya. The purpose of this
start-up is to elevate the current standards of the tuition sector in Sri Lanka and thereby
provide solutions to several key issues that are incorporated with that industry. GoldGate
brings the in-class tuition experience to any student wherever they are and most importantly,
at any time of their preference.

Company Ownership

As mentioned above, GoldGate is owned and operated under the ownership of the 04
partners;

1) Shilpa Gunawardana
2) Erandika Lakmali
3) Gimhana Kaldera
4) Sachini Chandrasekara

Product

Our company does not produce any products or services. In fact GoldGate provides a
platform to the tutors around the world to tutor any student at a lower fee in any part of the
world without any additional effort while conducting their existing tuition classes.

The income is generated through affiliated commissions of the GoldGate subscriptions

which amount to a 10% (ten percent) of the monthly tuition fees of the students.

The advantage of this setup is that, we incur no cost of goods, production requirements or
inventory levels.
Vision

“To be the leading educational resource provider in South Asia.”

Mission
Reduce the disparity of the distribution of educational resources around the country in order
to facilitate the learning processes of the students irrespective of their various personal
preferences and obstructions.

Objectives
1. Provide tuition services to students at an affordable lower price from inception.

2. To register 5000 subscribers by the end of the first year of operation.

3. To have 100 existing tutors in our database by the end of initial 18 months.

4. To provide platforms for 25 new start-up tuition classes by the end of first year.

5. To have 15,000 average monthly website views by the first 12 months.

6. To be among the 5 best people’s choice websites in Sri Lanka by the end of the first year.

Keys to Success

GoldGate stands up among any other existing tuition solution provider as it possesses the
novelty of vast choices that are available for the students in terms of tutor selection, learning
time and place.

Furthermore, GoldGate will function as the one and only secure and reliable educational
resource provider in this sector.

We believe the main reason behind the future success of GoldGate is the essence that the
partners bring into this venture through their experiences as

 Students of the local education system and existing tuition cultures

 Undergraduates of a degree that bridges both Management and Information
Technology.
 Tutors and assistants of different tuition classes around the country.
 3. Target Market Description
Customers: All the AL and OL students under the local syllabus
Geographic location: We will be targeting on the students from the Nugegoda area in our
pilot launch and then along with the official launch, we will allow an island-wide access to all
the students in the country.

Target market in detail:

Current Statistics: 314,635 O/L students

302,501 A/L students
(Performances in education, Department of Census and Statistics, Sri Lanka 2015)

Direct Internet users in Sri Lanka: 29.3%

(http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/sri-lanka/)

The bottom line of benchmarking the targeted direct users of GoldGate in the coming
year: 180,821.

Annual increment in the percentage of internet users: 2.86%

Predicted increment of target market in the future.

Year Of Operation Target Market

2nd 185,992
3rd 191,311
4th 196,783
5th 202,410

Demographic Characteristics:

Age limit of the target users : 15yrs to 21 yrs

Potential customers:

Main line of target market : Parents of the O/L and A/L students

Target Market Segmentation:

Students usually have a very low- level of income and the majority of them have much less
inclination towards searching and attending the best classes. Usually they get their parents to
handle this on behalf of them.
Parents are the sole guardians that take care of the general expenses of children. The students
will inform the parents about their preferred classes or either the parents will find the classes
for their children. Our key strengths in attracting the parents are the lower cost of fees
incorporated with our subscription and the ability to monitor the performances of the
students.

Therefore, we think that the importance of targeting our products towards parents is the main
priority within our current context.

The students of the national GCE Ordinary and Advanced Level Examinations will
Our subscription (product) will be purchased on a monthly basis. The customers will be able
to pay for 3, 6, 9 and 12 months in advance, where they will be provided with discounts on
the total expenditure.

Our Buyers are students. But, we promote this product to their parents. The number
of buyers increases as we join best and popular teachers more and more island wide.

The GoldGate subscription fee accounts for a 10% of the monthly fee of a student. Other
than the marketing expenses encountered during the respective marketing periods the
operational costs of the company under the current context is ************** (Financials
pg. ** )

GCE Ordinary Level - Candidates

500,000
450,000
400,000
350,000
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,000
0
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015
 GCE Advanced Level - Candidates
305,000
300,000
295,000
290,000
285,000
280,000
275,000
270,000
265,000
260,000
255,000
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Motivations and Purchasing Patterns:

Factors which are favorably influencing buying patterns:
Popularity of the teachers
Medium of class
Past pupil’s Results
Recommendation by the teachers

The frequency of the customer purchases will increase in the periods of October – December
and May – August due to the examinations held on August and December.
This will change in the near future since the O/L and A/L examinations will both be held in
the same month.

Current trends in the sector:

As depicted above, the internet usage and the awareness on online purchases are rapidly
increasing in almost all the sectors and industries. There have been many different attempts to
provide a solution for this, but all of them are providing a supplementary answer to the
current tuition system. Whereas we provide a customer biased solution that is actually
reliable and effective.

There is a massive urge in the present to provide green / greener solutions to many different
sectors in the country. Current tuition classes and the industry as a whole are contributing to a
mass amount of paper usage which is completely solved by GoldGate usage.
 Gold
Gate

Availability of m any options for O/L and A/L

results

Increase in parental influence on pursuing Online

education Purchase

Increse in demand for O/L and A/L Green

Qualification Solution

4. Competitor Analysis

Our Main Competitors

Guru.lk
Guru.lk is an online tutoring platform for Sri Lankan students. Their tutors are teachers who are
doing group classes. Students can be registered in their system and select a tutor based on different
criteria. Once they made arrangement for a session.

Siplo.lk
Siplo is an online tutoring platform for Sri Lankan students. Their tutors are students who have
completed their Advanced Level and who have obtained higher Z score. Students can be registered in
their system and select a tutor based on different criteria. Once they made arrangement for a session
the session can be conducted in our virtual classroom.

Our Strengths

Students who use Gold Gate can learn from leading tuition teachers in Sri Lanka. And there
are many teachers available for one subject to choose according to the preferences of the
students. It makes the real environment of a class room learning and without any extra effort.
Since leading teachers available their accuracy and productivity of teaching is very high
rather than an undergraduate student. High parent or guardian guidance is needed. Can watch
uploaded videos within a month at any time. But need to watch full video without skipping
since it guided student to watch full tutorial. And a discussion secession available once a
month with the teacher to dissuasion the problems regarding to the subject matters. Student
can change the teacher as his/her desire and can select more than one teacher for one subject.
Have ability to pay by credit, debit either to deposit on bank and later after expansion by
PayPal.

Other websites like Gurupara.lk, mytutor.lk, tution.lk, tutionlanka only providing education
related course information, teachers information, E books, examination result alerts, government job
alerts, tuition class information, career guide for school leavers. So, they are not competitors, they can
be taken as a resource to find leading teachers for students according to their preferences.

Industry Analysis

Rivalry among existing firms – Moderate

 There are few existing firms. (Guru.lk, siplo.lk, mytutor.lk, gurupara.lk)
 Currently, the main competitors are Guru.lk & Siplo.lk, but they are not direct
competitors. Guru.lk Provides lectures but they don’t give a chance to students to
select a tutor according to their preference. Siplo is a new tuition platform, but the
classes are conducted by the undergraduates and graduates. Our service, conduct with
the leading teachers in the industry.
Threat of New Entrants – Low
 Entry barriers are relatively moderate for the education industry, but the barriers for
the tuition are very low.
 Capital requirements are low, because of that threat is low.
 Distribution channel is internet. 99% of A/L students know about the internet and
they use it for many purposes. Awareness of the distribution channel and usage is
high. Anyone can easily access to the distribution channel.
  We make this platform to connect students with most popular tutors in Sri Lanka.
Reliability of the system is very high because of that customer loyalty does not
change.
Threat of Substitute Products– Low
 There are few competitors, but they are not direct competitors. Gold Gate platform
 facilities are different form them. There is no any substitute for this service.

The Bargaining Power of Buyers – Low

 Customer has not any chance to change the product. Customer bargaining power is
very low, because Gold Gate is the only one product in the market with these
facilities.
The Bargaining Power of Suppliers - Low
 Tutors are our suppliers. They don’t have any virtual platform to connect with
students. Their bargaining power is low, because we are the only customer of them.

Force Threat to industry profitability

Low Moderate High
The Bargaining Power of
Buyers
The Bargaining Power of
Suppliers
Threat of New Entrants
Threat of Substitute Products
Rivalry among existing firms
 Competitors Gold Gate
Guru.lk Siplo.lk myTutor.lk Tution.lk Guru
Para
Working with
popular tutors
Conduction Lectures
Able to select a tutor
Able to choose an
ambitious time
Support
advertisements
Interact with a
guardian about the
progress of the
student.
Tutorial & paper
submission process.
Time slot to discuss
with the teacher
Flexibility payment
methods
 5. Marketing and Sales Plan

Main marketing message

Revolutionizing the way, you learn

Marketing vehicles
 Email Chains in Corporate Sector
 Teachers – TV endorsements
 Students – Handbills in leading papers
 Social Media – Videos on groups
 Paper advertisements
 SMS
 School
 Supermarkets

Strengths
 Gold gate team, because there are IT specialized members as well as management
specialized members. All members of the Gold Gate team are following Management
and Information Technology (MIT) in university of Kelaniya. All of us have the basic
knowledge of IT & Management.
 Tuition masters like this model, because the can earn more without any extra effort.
 Parents always to ready to pay any affordable amount for their children’s educations.
 There are around 200,000 A/L students in Sri Lanka in every year.
 Undergraduates also with our business.

Weaknesses
 No strong finance backgrounds.
 Cannot assure the quality of video materials, because video quality (1080p, 720p) is
depending on the tutor.

Opportunities
 Free product marketing from tutors.
 Have a chance to cover other classes like O/L classes, banking exam classes,
Administration exam classes.

Threats
 Existing Education institutes like Sakya, Rotary, Sipwin, Montana etc.
 Online Education web sites. (Ex: Guru.lk, Siplo.lk)
 Publications companies. (Sathara, Master Guide etc.)
 Printing firms.
 6. Operations Plan

Input Process Output

A/L Students
Bio Science Greener Solution that solves
Physical Science Provide a platform for provides equal access to
Commerce students to learn from educate students around the
Arts leading mass class teachers’ country without any
Technology teaching videos and tutorials. discrepancies.

Theory & Revision Provide a discussion to solve

academic problems once
Leading Mass Class month
Teacher’s uploaded teaching
videos, tutes.

Feedback
From Students, Parents
There is a way to provide feedbacks for students and parents about the service about the
quality of learning materials their effectiveness and uniqueness of our service.
Teachers who involve with this service.
Teachers also have ability to give feedback on effectiveness of the service how it adds value
to their selves.

Core Services
Quality
flexibility
Price
Speed

Location for start ups

This is a web based startup and don’t need a required location for start.

Advantages of location to this service.

Don’t need a physical location to start up and to carry further.
Customer accessibility is very high since any customer who have a media to connect to web
and an internet connection.
Since this is a web based startup any user who have interne facilities can access this in any
Geographical area
Since all the management team members are nearby towns (Colombo, Gampaha, Kaluthara,
Rathnapura) with all technology facilities and where major A/L classes are available, they all
can Interact with the service easily.
No need to spend any cost for location.
All the requirement equipment like Laptops and other internet facilities can available.

Inventory control
None

Product development process

Idea generation
Idea screening
Concept development
Marketing strategy development
product development
Test marketing
Commercialization

Why our product has no risk of failure

Good estimation of market size: -

The most competed exam in Sri Lanka is A/L and then O/L. So,Learning material providers
for these two exam participants have a huge market in Sri Lanka.
Annually approximately 314,635 students doing O/L and 255,191 students qualified of doing
A/L in island wide. Higher percentage of students attending to tuition classes and also each
student seeks for extra learning except school education. So, there is a huge market for
learning platforms like this. And also During the year of 2016 there were 32,990,963 total
number of internet users in Sri Lanka. (source - http://www.trc.gov.lk/2014-05-13-03-56-
46/statistics.html). From age 15-19 54.4% students and from 20-24 49.3% students have
computer literacy
(source-
http://www.statistics.gov.lk/education/ComputerLiteracy/BuletinComputerLiteracy.pdf).
There is at least an internet café in each urban village. So, this service has a huge market in
Sri Lanka as well in foreign countries.
Good Design: -

The designing of our web based service is mainly doing with the guidance of a psychologist
specialized in scientific study of human learning. (graduated from university of Kelaniya).
So, it helps to make a user-friendly stress-free environment for student to learn. And we use
search engine optimization(SEO) to optimize our website for search engines and thus
improve our search engine rankings to increase the quality of our web site by making it user-
friendly, faster and easier to navigate.

When searching a teacher for particular subject it nominates the teacher according to sorting
method rather than number of subscribers to find the best choice of the student. The
authorization of the videos and tutus are protecting since they can’t download and can’t copy
each student and parent need a separate account to handle the service (multiple users can’t
use the service with one account. High parent or guardian guidance is needed. Can watch
uploaded videos within a month at any time. But need to watch full video without skipping
since it guided student to watch full tutorial. Teacher have their own drive for their
materials. Only contacting leading teachers in the industry and their teaching accuracy and
productivity is very high because these teachers have recommended by students at now. And
each material will remove from website after a month. So, storage problem doesn’t occur.
Student can change the teacher as his/her desire and can select more than one teacher for one
subject. Have ability to pay by credit, debit either to deposit on bank and later after expansion
by PayPal.

Correct positioning and Correct timing

It can be clearly seen that there is a considerable increase of the proportion of households that spend
money on private tutoring over time since only 23% of households have used money on children’s
private tutoring in 1995-1996 and it has increased to 64% in 2006-2007.people might try to substitute
lower public education investment by increasing higher private education investments.
Limited higher education opportunities
Sri Lanka has only 15 public universities. So, university education is still extremely limited. There is
a fierce competition to enroll in public universities because over 80 per cent of eligible candidates are
willing to enroll in universities but no chance of enrolling due to lack of facilities. Therefore, lack of
higher education opportunities seems to increase the fierce competition to enter public universities,
thereby increased the student’s demand for private tutoring.

Social competition to enrol in popular schools and universities

Sri Lanka has acute social competition to enrol in popular secondary schools and universities
as people believe that entrance in to popular secondary schools and universities can generate
higher earnings in the future which enable them to have higher standards of living. Thus,
parents may believe that children have to take private tutoring in order to engage in this social
competition.

Increase of household income

According to statistical data, household average income level has increased significantly over
last two decades. For example, Sri Lankan per capita GDP was $3279 in 2013. As a result, Sri
Lankan middle class has expanded significantly over time. Thus, it is little wonder that
proportion of households who spend money on children’s private tutoring increases over time
because it is well known fact that private educational investments tend to increase with
income level of the households.

Available for reasonable price

It only takes 85% of the normal tuition fee of a class. Ex: it only cost Rs: 850.00 if the class
fee is normally Rs: 1000.00. Reasonable than going to a class and when comparing the
additional costs for transportation, food, other expenses and wastage of time as well.

Effective promotion

1) By uploading advertisements in social Medias like Facebook, twitter, Instagram YouTube

etc.: Most of the social media users in Sri Lanka are among age 15-30. So, there are most of
the A/L and O/L students. And parents also now engage with these social media network.
When connect to a social media a one to one connection with customer it makes more loyal.

2) Show up a recyclable poster nearby cashier in every supermarket in urban areas: -To get
the attraction of parents who are with busy lifestyle and working, since most of them are
shopping in supermarkets.

3)Sending SMS and E mails: -To inform to the parents who are working and not connected to
social networks and other medias much can promote using SMS and E mail by finding them
through workplaces.

4) Newspaper advertisements: -for parents and students in rural areas can cover by this
method.

5)Letters: -For students who have done O/L and doing A/L can achieve by finding their
address from schools and can send letters.

6) Advertise on files and tots given by teachers: -Without using additional papers to advertise
like handbills it can advertise using the files given by teachers with a little cost.

Management influence: -

Low development cost: -Since the management team all members are good in both IT
management fields and have knowledge in web developing, don’t need to bare additional cost
for develop the website. For SEO development, it cost nearly Rs: 30,000.00.

Low competition

Most of the websites only providing the education related course information, teachers
information, E books, examination result alerts, government job alerts.

As example tution.lk - unavailable and only provide ads for all primary to up
Student Sri Lanka -provide class schedule
Mytutor.lk-ads contact teachers with students for all
 Tutonlanka.lk also only provides class schedules.
Guru.lk- provides only one or two teachers videos for one subject, but those teachers are not
leading teachers in this industry.

Risk Assessment and Mitigation Strategy

Low

Impact
 Not working an uploaded video
properly.
 Unable to upload the learning
materials in a week by teacher.
 Unable to conduct a discussion
secession which holds once a
High month.
 Network problems.
 Start another website similar to
our concept or similar with our
website name.
 Negative feedback from teachers,
students or parents.

Low High

7. Management Team
Name: Shilpa Gunawardana

Undergraduate of Bsc. Management & Information Technology from University of

Kelaniya.

2 years of experience in Project Management in Public Administration and Private

Sector Development.

Captained School and National level Hockey Teams in National and International
Tournaments.

Member in Women’s hockey team in university of Kelaniya.

Knowledge in Management, Marketing, Accountancy, IT.

Name: Erandika Lakmali

Undergraduate of Bsc. Management & Information Technology from University of

Kelaniya.
Name: GimahanaKaldera

Undergraduate of Bsc. Management & Information Technology from University of

Kelaniya.

Name: SachiniChandrasekara

Undergraduate of Bsc. Management & Information Technology from University of

Kelaniya.
 8. Development Plan and Milestones

The development of the website is mainly done by the 4 founders :

1. Front End: The graphical look for the website will be done in a very methodical
procedure to enhance the visionary and efficiency experiences of the users. The website
will be designed with the assistance of 02 psychologists who will look into fine details of
the website design. This will require a period of 6 weeks.

2. Back End: The second step is to code the part of our system that holds and distributes
our content. We'll create a database to store the details of our service providers and
undergraduates. We'll also create a database to store the email address and other
information about the clients who've subscribed to GoldGate. Both these systems will
interface with our front end since people will subscribe via the website, and we'll use a
Web form for registration and customer interactions.

Milestones
There are several milestones associated with the GoldGate development.

1. Completing the Business Plan: Creating a business plan is vital in the future
processes and the smooth flow of the business.
2. Website Development: This comprises of site design, database and email system,
creating affiliate relationships. This is obviously very important, because our website
will be our product.

3. Search Engine Optimization and Submission: This step is important in generating

traffic to our website. This will support GoldGate to be available get in the search
engines for the keyword terms our research has identified.

4. Link Building Campaign: As crucial as the search engines, this is the key second
step of our marketing by getting hundreds of links to our site from other educational and
related sites such as online bookstores etc.

9. Financials
Operating Budget (LKR)
Advertising 20,000.00
Supplies 5,000.00
Software 50,000.00
Hardware 20,000.00
Telephone 5,000.00
Maintenance and repairs 42,000.00
Other 10,000.00
Total Expenses 152,000.00
 Breakeven Analysis
18000
16000
COST-VOLUME-PROFIT

14000
12000
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0

11

13

15
0

10

12

14

16
NET UNITS (000)

NET NET FIXED TOTAL

UNITS REVENUE COST VARIABLE COST COST TOTAL PROFIT
0 0 2000 0 2000 -2000
1 1000 2000 0 2000 -1000
2 2000 2000 0 2000 0
3 3000 2000 0 2000 1000
4 4000 2000 0 2000 2000