Idea factory

2021-11-09 18:08:50 #WeeklyContest #PitchYourIdea #ElevatorPitch

POD Forex Trading by @P_O_Darko Prince Oti Darko

Idea:
Retail Foreign Currency Trading to be sided with transportation business- indirectly using the transportation business to market the Currency Trading Investment firm, via logo designs on the transportation vehicles.

Problems:
1. Transportation issues

2. Reduces the financial burdens on orphanage home managers, as a yearly 10% is assigned to orphans.

3. Alleviate the negative concerns of every individual who has problems investing with his or her money

Potential:
60% - 120% ROI per annum Open / Comment

2021-11-09 17:22:02 ​#StartupNews
Coursera: how to make education available for everyone

Country: the USA
Valuation: $7 billion
Business model: integrator

This is a leading educational ecosystem in the world. Coursera connects students with universities, and company-employers. Universities and companies design educational courses, and Coursera sells them or distribute for free. Overall, the service includes 3,000 courses used by 36 million people from 190 countries.

Idea
The concept of Coursera — to combine all the courses of leading universities on a single website. The project aims to change people’s life by means of education. Today more than 90 universities collaborate with the platform. However, online learning is considered to have loads of drawbacks like the lack of control, homework, and limitations.

Hence, Coursera came up with a brilliant solution. Unlike podcasts, the company posts an entire course program and has its own control system, exams, and credits.

In addition, users can buy extra learning materials, acquire university certificates, and get tutors’ help. Coursera is so far the most successful project in the distant learning field.

How it started
The founders are Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller — professors from Stanford’s university. Over 10 years, the company has become the world largest provider of online courses. In 2011, Andrew and Daphne generated a concept that hadn’t existed before. It implies control over students, home tasks, and exams.

In 2013, Coursera introduced a system of paid certificates. They would confirm that a student has passed all the course stages. It would include homework completion, test and exam passing. The user would be identified by handwriting peculiarities and a webcam photo. Such certificates cost $29-$99 and brought in $4 million to the company in the first year.

In 2014, Coursera launched complex course kits for in-depth studies. That was another breakthrough in online education: in the first five months, the project raised $800,000. Besides, the company started to offer educational courses for the staff of corporative clients — employers. Coursera charges $400 yearly for each employee.

Advantages
A multilingual educational program helps expand the Coursera community globally. The courses are translated into 120 languages, and some of them have double and triple translations. The variety of formats including audio, video, and text materials keep students involved.

The function of control over learning has also become a unique competitive feature among other platforms for remote learning.

Investments
Coursera’s idea appealed to many venture investors. The major ones are New Enterprise Associates and Kleiner Perkins. They have invested over $210 million within 4 rounds. Overalls the project raised $446 million.

Nowadays
Due to lockdowns, Coursera keeps growing and generating cash at a rapid pace. However, according to the forecasts, 50% of jobs are bound to be automatized in the nearest 10 years. Therefore, the major mission — help study those who want to get ready for tomorrow. Many of new specialties are going to be related to computers, data processing, and a new kind of business.

Have you ever used Coursera? What do you think about its concept? Share in the chat Open / Comment

2021-11-09 11:50:00 ​#BusinessBooks
Helpful books for entrepreneurs

The most successful people have hit the big time thanks to their specific mindset. Books are the things that shape it. They can either give us a lot of food for thought or distract from important things. Hence, it’s essential to select books that will keep you on the right track.

The Goal: a process of ongoing improvement — Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox

This is a business book written in a novel genre. It tells us about the ways of overcoming bottlenecks. The author also helps entrepreneurs identify and cross barriers which prevent companies’ development. The plot is centered around a production enterprise: how it copes with the challenges. However, the described principles can be applied in other types of business as well.

The Innovator’s Dilemma — Clayton M. Christensen

A professor from Harvard’s business school tells us about how companies interact with breakthrough technologies and the way it changes business. Particularly, it leads to the bankruptcy of the largest industry leaders. Besides, Clayton splits tips on what to do in order to make innovations a force for good in your business.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion — Robert B. Cialdini, Ph. D.

This is a classic book about social psychology. It explains many features of human behavior. Especially, it regards the way we buy manipulations and take them for granted. On top of this, Robert shares advice on how we can implement this knowledge.

Rework — Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

This book can inspire you to start a new business or to improve an existing one. If you think it requires a bunch of resources, the author can prove you wrong. They assert there is no need for tons of money or the commitment to risks. Jason and David reason about what an optimal company size is, whether it needs to expand, and how to learn from your own mistakes.

Steve Jobs — Walter Isaacson
This is a biography of Steve Jobs written by an American journalist. Jobs himself suggested the idea of the book based on talks with his family, friends, and colleagues. This biography — the most truthful and fullest story of Jobs’ life. His life insights, challenges, highs and lows — that’s what you can learn about the business icon from this book.

Which book have you read or would love to? Share in the comments! Open / Comment

2021-11-09 10:30:02 #ExpertStory

We appreciate how hard it is to establish your own business from scratch. Our experts know it like nobody else. Therefore, they would like to share their own stories of success which didn’t work like a dream at first.

Today Paul Lupi shares his personal experience. In the video he reasons about how to launch a startup, and what fails and strides he went through.

Check it out! Open / Comment

2021-11-08 21:16:48 #PitchYourIdea #WeeklyContest

Dear community!

We are happy to announce the results of this weekly contest!

Our jury council determined 3 finalists:

Device for preventing heatstroke in a car by @Adt_reb Levi David

Digital Clinic by
@Yakamata Umar Musa

TiMi Technologies by @OMMISHRA_2004 OM MISHRA

Congrats
You all guys move forward to the next stage — Monthly Pitch where you may win $1,500.

Michael Aulov — our regular expert. He selected the best idea out of the 3 ones.

The winner:

Device for preventing heatstroke in a car by @Adt_reb Levi David

Our congratulations!
Michael found this idea the most promising one. So @Adt_reb receives $500

Thank each and everyone for your ideas! It was a very exciting competition full of amazing projects.

Be sure to watch the video to see Michael select the winner! Open / Comment

2021-11-08 17:49:59 ​#StartupNews
Alibaba: how to become the retail legend

Country: China
Valuation: $640 billion
Business model: marketplace

Its founder — Jack Ma came a long way to build such an enormous corporation. In the beginning he couldn’t even enter a university. Now he is the richest person in Asia and his company brings billions of dollars every year. Regardless of numerous fails, sometimes Jack was very lucky. Besides, largely his success was predicated on Ma’s ability to meet the right people.

Background
Originally, Jack Ma wanted to become a teacher. However, he gained only 1 point out of 120 when passing a maths exam. The third time was the charm, though: Ma entered the university. He was fond of teaching and became one of the best students.

In order to earn some cash, Ma tried to apply for 30 different jobs. However, he was refused even by KFC. Jack considered his “unattractive appearance”and short height the cause of his fails.

Finally, Jack rose to the occasion and established a translation agency. Thanks to his English knowledge, Ma set off to the USA. While there, he first got acquainted with the Internet and was amazed.

For the next several years, Jack worked in the Ministry of International Trade. While working, he realized in China a variety of goods was produced at a substantially lower cost than abroad. So Jack decided to create an Internet platform for small and middle trading.

At first, Alibaba didn’t raise enough investments and took losses. Later, Goldman Sachs and SoftBank invested $25 million in the startup. In spite of the fundings, the business didn’t work like a dream. Jack had to test the website by himself and change the business model. Then, Alibaba did the trick outpacing the major competitor — EBay.

Jackpot
Ultimately, Alibaba group has conquered the world market. In 2014, the company entered New York’s stock exchange. Alibaba became the largest IPO ever having raised $25 billion. In October 2020, its stock price exceeded $300.

In 2016, the company became the world biggest retailer in terms of GMV (gross merchandise value). Its current capitalization is $686 billion, whereas Ebay’s — $31 billion.

Exit
At some point Jack Ma fully relished its celebrity status and overwhelming success. Therefore, in 2019, he decided to quit the post of CEO. By that time, he had already established charity funds to focus on ecology help.

Nowadays
Alibaba’s business overstepped the limits of online trading a long ago. Online education, mobile apps, trip booking — it’s not even a complete list of the company’s activities. Alibaba is consistently building a single ecosystem that would combine all the business industries.

What do you think about Alibaba’s story? Share in the chat Open / Comment

2021-11-08 12:49:20 ​#BusinessEducation
Jeff Bezos: tips for entrepreneurs 2.0

The multibillionaire used to be a mere bookworm. When Bezos was 30, he quitted a well-paid job on Wall-Street in order to sell books. Today he is the richest media magnate on Earth. Jeff is ready to share his advice on how to make success happen in your life. If you haven’t read the first part, be sure to check it out!

Don’t let the process kill progress
Large companies easily shift to the work format that ruins progress. Despite its size, Amazon still demonstrates its changeability. We can tell it by regular tests and experiments with Amazon Prime. They have implemented a free delivery during the day. Besides, they introduced Prime Video and Prime Day. Any entrepreneur has to be ready to master the business and look for innovations.

Delve and improve
Bezos had managed to make Amazon successful with the help of breaking a traditional business practice. He created a new way of delivery. Elon Musk sticker to the same approach. He explored Mercedez Benz cars very carefully before launching Tesla.

Get rid of bureaucracy
Startups are full of brand-new fast solutions. However, they frequently slow down getting stuck in paperwork. Bezos seeks to sustain startup vibes in Amazon, even though it has already turned into a huge world corporation. The maintenance of a fresh mentality is very important for the entrepreneurs who want to stay up-to-date.

Become a failure master
The fear of making a bad decision often prevents a person from changes in life. But Bezos states that you can’t avoid making mistakes. So if an entrepreneur is not able to handle small fails, it will be nearly impossible to cope with bigger ones. Moreover, the will cost more. Try until it’s cheap and not large-scale. This way you understand how to deal with more considerable challenges further.

Plan for a long term
That was the first thing Bezos advised to his shareholders. All aims should reflect company’s strategy in a long run. Every step the startup takes has to be considered from a long-term perspective. Such an approach will help you make more feasible choices and achieve not temporary but permanent success.

Which advice do you consider the most helpful? Share in the comments! Open / Comment

2021-11-07 21:22:47 IDEA FACTORY official pinned «​Dear community! We are grateful to each of you for your valuable ideas. So we do want you to grow with us further. Therefore, we strive to make the process of idea application as simple as ever. This is our new bot @StartUpPitchbot We have refined…» Open / Comment

2021-11-07 20:58:22 #AskIdeaFactory

Dear friends!

We have a special rubric #AskIdeaFactory where each of you can ask any question and receive an answer from our experts.

Zach Gershon has given a brilliant answer to the following question from ADI:

How to collect funds. i have idea , partners & plan but no funds . I have $30 only

Watch it and make your comments on this! We are sure you love it Open / Comment