You are on page 1of 52

BUSINESS

FEASIBILITY PLAN
Zzz Healthcare

Lecturer: Dr Dave Chapman


Pei Boon Ong XXYB8
Saranya Sukumaran ZCLB0
Yixiu Zhuge BMRM7

WORD COUNT: 4999


Table of Content
1.0 About Us

2.0 Opportunity
2.1 Problem worth Solving
2.2 Our Solution
2.3 Positioning
2.4 Validation of Problem and Solution

3.0 Market Analysis


3.1 Target Market Segment Strategy
3.2 Key Customers
3.3 Future Markets
3.4 Competition
3.5.1 Current Competitors
3.5.2 Potential Competitors

4.0 Execution
4.1 Marketing Plan
4.2 Sales Plan
4.3 Technology
4.4 Law

5.0 Company and Management Summary

6.0 Financial Plan


6.1 Projected Profit and Loss
6.2 Projected Cash Flow

7.0 SWOT Analysis


7.1 Strength
7.2 Weakness
7.3 Opportunities
7.4 Threats

8.0 Final Remark and Next-step Strategies

9.0 References

Appendix 1 Team Members & Contributions


Appendix 2 positioning
Appendix 3 Customer Development/Interview Strategy & Results
Appendix 4 Concept/Explainer Video
Appendix 5 Personas and Initial Solution Designs/Prototypes
Appendix 6 Financials
Appendix 7 Final Presentation
1.0 About Us

We are a healthcare company that cares about client’s sleeping quality, proposing solutions that can help
improving sleeping quality of people that suffers from mental illness such as insomnia and depression. The
company greatly values the health of their customers, providing only the best solution to solve customers’
health problem. Zzz healthcare is also known for their health solution with no side-effect.

Currently, the solutions to insomnia and mental health issues that dominate the market are drug and cognitive
behavioural therapy (CBT). There has long been a call for developing a new alternative treatment for insomnia
without any side effects and being affordable as well. According to statistics, more than 50% of the people
whom are suffering from insomnia are from North America and European countries (Sunmat and Kunsel,
2017), not to mention the people who are affected by depression and anxiety. Judging solely using statistical
values from the research papers, sleep aid product market has a huge potential to grow. This can be supported
by the global insomnia market in 2016 and the prediction made by experts; the total worth of global insomnia
market is £3 billion, and it is predicted to reach more than £4 billion by 2023, having a CAGR of 4.2% (Sunmat
and Kunsel, 2017) which is even higher than the CAGR of alcoholic beverage industry, 3.1% (Market Watch,
2018). Furthermore, the global sleep aid market is expected to reach £60,442 billion in 2023. This further
justifies the growth of the global insomnia market (Allied Market Research, 2017). Seeing this clear window of
business opportunity, we developed a sleep aid device porotype that matches market needs called ‘Insomnia
Slayer’.

In this report, we will analyse the feasibility of our business by various business evaluation methods, including
the Lean Canvas proposed by Alexander Osterwalder, macro market and industry analysis and the Strength,
Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis. The overall attractiveness of this business plan
will be determined based on these analytical results and its financial feasibility. Additionally, the next-step
strategies will also be included to mitigate existing problems.
2.0 Opportunity
As mentioned in the previous section, the number of people with insomnia, depression and anxiety is
increasing. People who suffer from mental illnesses often find themselves harder to fall asleep hence, most
of these patients are consuming sleeping drugs with side effects which have the ability to affect the patient‘s
wellbeing. Therefore, the demand for a product with fewer side effects which helps with insomnia and improves
sleeping quality of people with depression and anxiety is rising. Furthermore, the lack of data regarding
personal sleep aid device suggests that people in the UK are not familiar with any kind of sleep aid device.
This indicates a potential opportunity to tap into this growing market (details of the market will be discussed in
section 3.0 to section 3.5).

2.1 Problem Worth Solving


Researchers found that CBT is not as effective as it used to be for treating depression, insomnia and
anxiety due to inexperienced and incompetent therapists (Burkeman, 2015). Although sleeping pills are
more affordable, consumers might develop psychological dependence and is labelled as Britain’s third
biggest ‘killer’ due to the side effects (Gøtzsche, 2015). However, some students still purchase them without
full awareness of the consequences hence, a solution with appreciated values must be proposed to solve
the listed problems.

2.2 Our Solution – CES sleep device: Insomnia Slayer


To solve the rising problem, cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) sleep aid device is proposed.
The proposed device uses a micro current to regulate the brain waves, relaxing and making the user less
excited. This allows the patient to fall asleep easier and improves sleeping quality. Usage of this product
does not lead to psychological dependence and has no side effects. The product also offers a variety of
treatment modes depending on the seriousness of the mental illness. However, a single unit of the sleep
aid device is £350 and is considered expensive for most of the people, especially students. For the device
to be financially affordable for our beachhead customers, the device can be paid by monthly instalments
or the customer can choose to rent the device. The detailed cost breakdown can be found in the financial
plan, Section 6 and the detailed design specification is illustrated in Appendix 5.

Figure 1: CES Sleep Device – Insomnia Slayer


Currently in the UK, general practice doctors will offer CBT treatment for insomnia patients and only
consider sleeping tablets as a last resort (NHS, 2014). Therefore, CES sleep aid devices is an innovative
business.

Table 1: Treatment type comparison table

2.3 Positioning
For university students and office workers who suffer from mild level of anxiety, depression or insomnia,
the ‘Insomnia Slayer’ is a physiotherapeutic sleep aid device that regulates the brain waves using CES
(Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation) technique. Unlike traditional sleeping drugs or psychological sleep
therapy, our product is purely physical without any side effects, non-habit-forming and relatively cheaper in
the long term as well.

For details of positioning please refer to Appendix 2 where we have articulation of the initial and final value
proposition with initial and final lean canvas.

2.4 Validation of Problem and Solution


This section will be validated in the next section and Appendix 3.
3.0 Market Analysis
In this section the market will be analysed thoroughly using PESTEL and Porter’s Five Forces framework.
The target market segment strategy, key customers, future market and competition is also included and
discussed in this section.

Below is the PESTEL framework canvas for external market environment analysis.

Figure 2: PESTEL analysis for Zzz Sleep aid

3.1 Target Market Segment Strategy


To approach the key customers which are students and workers, a set of strategies must be made to
effectively maximise the chances of successful sales. First, students can be approached by talks (insomnia
professionals, brain-science students and students who had tried CES sleep aid) regarding improving
sleeping quality. This allows the students to have a better understanding on the CES technology, so they
are more willing to use it. Next, other than talks, students can also be approached in the student wellbeing
centre (after obtaining centre’s permission). This is because some of the students with mental health issues
will seek the centre’s help; therefore, can be seen as an opportunity to acquire more information about the
patients’ demands and possibly increase the number of successful sales. Workers can be approached
through annual body checks organised by their company; flyers can be distributed among the white-collar
workers to give them an insight on the CES sleep aid device. Furthermore, a poster featuring the Zzz
healthcare’s product can also be posted on the conspicuous side of the psychological division hospital.

3.2 Key Customers


In this business plan, university students are chosen as the beachhead customer where workers are
targeted customers since university students are socially more approachable. Furthermore, they are more
adventurous than white collar workers or elder people and more willing to try new products. According to
NHS, mental health issues are very common among the students because of stress generated by college
studies which often have a huge impact on students, resulting in poor sleeping quality.

By year 2015/16, UK universities reported more than 15,000 first year students suffering from mental health
issues; it is 500% more than in 2003 (Yap, 2018). This further validifies that the number of people in the
UK with mental health problems are increasing and therefore there is potential in this customer segment.
On the other hand, workers have 100% financial freedom; studies show that almost half of the workers
have poor mental health (Mind, 2018), which further increases the chances of successful sales and justifies
the potential of the market.

3.3 Future Markets


According to Professor Vince Walsh (UCL neuroscience department), electroconvulsive therapy is said to
be the most effective treatment and the reasons for its unfamiliarity is due to its high financial commitment
as well as its typically unattractive appearance. Upon educating the market, the first impressions should be
positive given the scientific research and health regulatory approvals such as NICE which formally
addresses CES as a treatment for depression. Professor Walsh predicts there is a future market for CES
devices in the UK, considering people’s continuous use of drugs of which they have no knowledge of its
side effects and therefore they will eventually be open and willing to try CES even if they don’t understand
fully how it works.

The UK has an undeveloped market and therefore little to no data is available to predict the trend of usage
of sleep aid device. On the other hand, the US has developed and educated the sleep aid device market.
Statistics show that the number of people using sleep aid devices, similar to the Insomnia Slayer, has been
increasing and had forecasted the future market trend. The diagram below shows the insomnia therapeutics
market of the US from 2014 to 2025 (Grand View Research, 2017).

Figure 3: U.S. insomnia therapeutics market 2014-2025 (USD Million)

An educated market in the UK can produce a pattern similar to the US market’s trend.

3.4 Competition
Porter’s five forces, introduced by Michael porter in 1979 is used in this section to identify competitive forces
in sleep aid industry. The canvas can be found as follows:
Figure 4: Porter’s Five Forces analysis for CES sleep device

3.4.1 Current Competitors


In the UK, the industry level competitiveness for CES products is not vast. There are predominately
three main CES devices that already exist in the market; CES Ultra by Neuro-fitness LLC, various
models of Alpha-Stim and Fisher Wallace.

Table 2: Comparison tables of existing competitors


Generally, all the CES devices on the market provide the same function and are of similar effectiveness,
therefore differentiation amongst rivals are based on design of the product, consumer price, customer base
and any other services the company can provide.

3.4.2 Potential Competitors


There isn’t much concentration in this market due to high barriers to entry associated with high fixed
costs in the manufacture of the product, as well as extensive testing and certifications requirements for
the device to be sold on the market. The technology is internationally renowned and accessible;
however, the main problem is educating the UK market about the technology.

Regarding other devices that are used for the purpose of non-invasive brain stimulation, the UK
company ‘Rogue Solutions’ for example, offer various Neuroimaging, sensory, modulation and
navigation devices however their products are predominately used for research purposes. Zzz is at a
competitive advantage with no other UK company supplying directly to consumers, avoiding the pain
points of shipping costs and long delivery times from ordering internationally in the US and with financial
incentive since our product is lower than competitors, almost half the price of Alpha-Stim. This is an
essential point to address since Alpha-Stim is our main competitor, having already a UK presence with
the NHS as a client. With our company being based and marketed in the UK, there is greater opportunity
to directly reach out to UK consumers through greater customer interaction and physical marketing
strategies hence the physical location of the company puts Zzz at a competitive advantage.
4.0 Execution
To achieve maximum efficiency, this business proposal requires an execution plan. This plan consists of
different components which are the marketing plan, sales plan, Intellectual property protection and law issues
of the company.

4.1 Marketing Plan


To attract both students and workers, the company will participate in tech fairs across various places in the
UK. The product might earn a chance for free newspaper advertising and increase the public awareness
of the CES sleep aid device. As mentioned before, the product can be advertised to the workers through
related authorities. Students can also be reached in the same way, as every university in the UK is
cooperating with a general practise (GP). For students who suffer from mental health issues, the GP can
recommend the CES sleep aid device to help achieve better sleeping quality and potentially curing the
illness. To advertise more accurately to patients with mental health issues, accurate advertisement is used
to correctly advertise the company’s product to individual who always sleep late or searching for sleep aid
products. The two diagrams below show a sample of the accurate advertisement for Zzz Healthcare.

Figure 5: Accurate advertisement on social platform

4.2 Sales Plan


To coup with the marketing plans, sales plan must be included to help setting out to the customers due to
the lack of awareness. The first sales plan is an existing client can get a cashback when he introduces a
new customer to the company. By using this sales strategy, the company is getting advertised through
customers; earning potential customer confidence in the company’s product. Furthermore, discounts will
be made during festivals like Boxing day and Black Friday. Discounts can increase the chances of
successful sales and most importantly offers a chance for people to buy the product at a lower price. This
can also help to promote the public awareness of the product. As mentioned before, accurate
advertisements will be used to promote the company’s product which is hyperlinked to the official website
of Zzz healthcare to increase the accessibility of the product. Featuring section 3.1, the sales of the product
can be increased just by selling it to a medical related medium such as hospitals. Sleep aid devices like
the Insomnia Slayer can be introduced to patients that are neither interested in sleeping pills nor
psychological therapy.

After analysing the market, the proposed sales and marketing plan estimated a maximum of 20 units will
be sold to both workers and students per term (3 months period, refer to the financial appendix). This
would eventually produce an increasing positive trend of cash flow by the end of the 3rd year. Therefore,
the business can be supported by the selected customer segment and has the potential to grow.

4.3 Technology
Cranial electrotherapy stimulation is a technology inspired by electrotherapy. CES is a type of non-
invasive treatment using micro electric currents, with specified amplitude and frequency to stimulate the
brain. The technology can be considered as unique because other mental therapies can either take a
long time or contain side effects; CES, however, hasn’t shown any side effects in literature. CES
technology is mainly used in the North American (Alpha-Stim) and Asian region where most CES devices
are widely available. However, in the UK, CES devices are not widely used and most of them are
imported from abroad. For our product, an IP protection is required to protect the product design, the cost
of which is found in the appendix 6. The technology is considered mature and perfected; it can be
produced easily without much technical issues.

4.4 Law
Products related to health of the customer are often bound to very strict rules and regulation set by the
government. To start a medical related company in EU, certain certificates must be obtained. First of all,
to start up a company a certificate of incorporation will be required. Then, the company must obtain a CE
certificate and RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substance) certification as the sleep aid device is an
electronic product and uses rechargeable battery. To ensure the quality of the product, certificate of
compliance must be obtained to increase customer’s confidence on the product. The prices of these are
listed in appendix 6.

5.0 Company and Management


The established team consists of three co-founders, all of whom have various skills essential for the
development of this business venture. More detailed information regarding each member of the team can be
found in Appendix 1
6.0 Financial Plan
It is important to analyse whether the business venture is financially viable. With the second main cause for
start-ups failing being insufficient funds, the use of a profit and loss statement and cash flow statement
(Appendix 6), is vital to understand where the main costs lie and whether the venture is profitable enough to
pursue. The financial statements run through a period of three years and is broken down into quarter time
periods, starting from October to December.

6.1 Projected Profit and Loss


The sale price is retailed to be £350 per unit which is a 270% mark-up of the cost per unit (£130), considering
the industry standard margin being 2-4 times the cost of goods sold. The first quarter is associated with the
highest costs at £50,207.20 with majority of the cost being allocated to the design, development, systems
approval and manufacturing of the product itself as well as costs of building a prototype. The greatest budget
of advertising and marketing will also be focused in the first quarter. Subsequent months are associated with
lower costs, with costs of goods being flexible dependent on demand. It is anticipated that quarters, Oct-Dec
and Jan-March would have the highest amount of sales since this is during term time and therefore is an ideal
time period to market our product. During these periods, production will be peaked. When looking at the
financial forecast throughout the year, due to the very high start-up costs in the first term, there is a negative
gross profit at the end of the three-year period, amounting to -£48,346.40. However, there is positive net profit
for each quarter in the third year, indicating financial viability whereby the sales revenue is greater than costs
of goods sold and the overheads. With ongoing marketing and good word of mouth regarding our brand, there
is a projected growth in sales in each year.

6.2 Projected Cash Flow


Much of the initial funding is dependent on grants and competitions supporting start-ups. Under the
circumstance that this is unsuccessful, then venture capitals would be sought however this should be avoided
to the best of our ability in order to limit business decisions from people other than the founders. The predicted
cash inflow in the first term is around £86,400, with subsequent cash inflows being only from sales, the end
cash flow of the three-year period is predicted to be £136,800. Total cash outflow is predicted to be £99,846.40
hence a total net cash inflow of £36,953.50. Regarding bank balance at the end of the quarter, there is a 9.19%
increase from the beginning of the first year and end of the third year. Although, this isn’t substantial, with
greater investment opportunities and potential for series funding to try and expand our brand as well as more
funding to reach customers, there is high potential to increase cash inflow.

With a predicted average 15 customers acquired each term at a cost of £2000, customer acquisition cost is
roughly £133. Calculating customer lifetime value (CLV) as ‘(Annual revenue per customer * Customer
relationship in years) – Customer acquisition Cost’ translates to a CLV of (350*1)-133 = £217, which is fairly
low.

Despite this, the profit and loss statement and cashflow statement, have shown that this business venture is
financially viable and has the potential to attract a reasonable return. Although the net profit is negative at the
end of three years, this is primarily due to high initial costs however with sufficient cash inflow at the beginning
of the term, this problem should be resolved. There is a positive trend of cash flows, predominately in the final
year of the forecast, indicating the company’s liquid assets are increasing allowing for reinvestment and is
more attractive to outside investors, increasing the possibility for greater investment to help grow the brand
and customer market. In all, the opportunity does provide an attractive return on investment.
7.0 SWOT analysis
The SWOT analysis is then used to assess the internal potential of Zzz Healthcare. The canvas we used for
the analysis is as follows:

7.1 Strengths
CES is a non-invasive form of treatment with highly effective results of improving anxiety, depression
and insomnia. As opposed to common treatments such as antidepressant drugs, CES is non-addictive
and there are no side effects from its use. The fact that it’s safer than alternative treatments with no
chemicals being inserted into the body can be a driving factor for more people to actively try CES.

With increasing technology usage in the healthcare industry, CES can accommodate itself into a more
digitally evolving industry and meet the rising demand for alternative methods of sleep aid. CES is an
innovative solution to a prominent problem and has the potential to revolutionise the traditional sleep
aid industry.

The most significant competitive advantage Zzz possesses is a cost advantage, compared to
competitors where Alpha-Stim is nearly double the price. When looking into long term costs of CES
against other forms of treatment, CES is the most cost-effective solution.

Considering the beachhead segment is students, with the founders of Zzz also being students
themselves, this allows direct contact and accessibility to the customer base therefore easier target
marketing strategies, ensuring we are reaching out to the right audience.

7.2 Weaknesses
One of the biggest weaknesses of the business idea is the need for huge initial funds as there are high
fixed costs for development, design, systems approval etc. In addition, due to the lack of knowledge
of the technology, there needs to be large funding towards marketing. Only through this can we
maximise sales to make a substantial profit. It comes into question whether £350 is too high of a price
for students despite customer interviews suggesting otherwise, this is still a weakness to consider.

Another weakness to address is the low customer lifetime value of the product. Since the device is
generally a one-time purchase, there is no need for the customer to affiliate themselves with the brand
thereafter. However, solutions to overcome this and other issues are outlined in the next-step strategy

7.3 Opportunities
One of the biggest opportunities is the growing UK market for medical technology and with us being a
company solely to provide this product directly to individual consumers, with the appropriate marketing
strategies this can be hugely profitable for us. With the belief of a growing future market in CES devices,
we can benefit from first mover advantage by developing our business now. All dominant CES device
competition is situated in the US hence we have a location advantage whilst there is no dominant
competition itself in the sleep aid industry.

An additional channel to reach our beachhead segment is through universities. With greater pressure
for universities to actively address the rising mental health crisis amongst students (the Guardian,
2019), universities are a potential customer by purchasing and providing our devices to much needed
students. It is important to contact the student wellbeing services of universities for this to be
achievable.

7.4 Threats
In terms of competitors, they have established businesses and better channels of distribution
compared to our start-up. This automatically puts us in a vulnerable position as competitors have the
power to undermine us since they already have a customer base and have greater ability to expand
into new customer bases.

A significant future threat is the rising AI technology, making innovative solutions less expensive for
customers to access and potentially allowing CBT technology to be free. AI allows for personalised
CBT to emulate real face-to-face meetings. With the potential for competitors to provide personalised
and cheaper services, this would reduce the demand for our product. However, by providing a highly
satisfactory service and increasing customer lifetime value, this threat should diminish.
8.0 Final Remarks and Next-step Strategy
When analysing primary and secondary research, it is clear that there is a market for our product to flourish
within the UK. With competitors and existing products generally focusing on targeting practitioners, we decided
to focus on the beachhead segment of university students with city workers being an extra target market as
only now is this market revolutionising towards B2C, according to Dr Jeffrey Marksberry (CES researcher).
Our research stems from published papers on the technology and use, online market research on the success
of this technology in the US markets and contacting experts and professionals with a working knowledge of
CES technology and its market. With similar products being available in international markets with great
success in improving the sleeping patterns and quality of consumers suffering from depression, anxiety and
insomnia, we have established that similar results can also be emanated in the UK. We decided upon a
beachhead segment based on the increasing mental health difficulties experienced by students and therefore
the high value this product can provide to help them.

Throughout our research and construction of this business feasibility plan, we have established that the main
problem we have faced, regarding our customer segment, is the lack of knowledge regarding the technology
and its benefits. This was firmly established during customer interviews hence posed a problem regarding
sales numbers. The price of the good, on the other hand, was thought to be reasonable considering the
extreme benefits that can be reaped from use of our product. We predicted that during our three-year forecast,
with our current plan, the most that can be sold during a term is 20 units which doesn’t create a substantial
profit. Our current plan incorporates the design, manufacture, marketing and sale of our product from the first
term onwards which is not recommended. We thought it was best to still pursue our idea as there is the
potential to be highly profitable, but with the initial focus where the first two terms are dedicated towards
marketing and advertising in order to educate the market. Through re-planning the marketing strategy to a
larger scale, the financial analysis needs to be adjusted to understand the profitability from the change in the
previous plan.

In order to understand the next steps, we have highlighted four SMART objectives as a course of action and
to set out achievable goals.

SMART Objective 1: ‘Attain initial funding of at least £100,000 within three months’
The financial side of the business plan was constructed under the assumption that pre-seed funding
money would be approximately £86,400. Most of this funding is budgeted on the design, manufacture
and quality assurance of our product. With greater focus on advertising and marketing, an additional
£23,600 would be beneficial to extend beyond campus talks, but for print advertising, digital and other
marketing strategies. We would first need to apply for a government grant for innovation funding on
Gov.UK with ‘Innovate UK Smart Grants’ closing applications by 24th April 2019 and have the potential
to distribute £20 million. The application process will be done by all three cofounders. If we are
unsuccessful in obtaining a grant then we would approach angel investors through online platforms
such as www.gust.com which would give us the opportunity to pitch our idea. Overall, £100,000 seems
like a reasonable amount to raise given our options in sources of funding.

SMART Objective 2: ‘Have at least 20,000 students register interest in our product within 6 months’
The initial plan focused on mainly marketing and advertising towards UCL students on campus,
however with more time dedicated towards advertising we can extend towards various universities in
and out of London. Through our core marketing strategies, mainly within university term times, we are
able to reach out to thousands of students in order to raise awareness of our product. Potential
customers would be directed to our website where they fill out a form asking for their age and
occupation, so they can be subscribed to us about news articles related to CES technology and when
our product is likely to be sold on the market. This will allow us to monitor and measure how many
students are interested in what we are selling and helps us to understand whether we are reaching
out to our intended audience. The cofounders would need to promptly plan and execute advertising
through flyers, paper advertisements on student newspapers and websites, advertising in public tech
events, sleeping societies around London, healthcare magazines etc for this objective to be achievable.

SMART objective 3: ‘Increase the number of sales by at least 10% for each term (3 months)’
With one of the limitations of our customer segment is the lack of awareness and knowledge of the
benefits of our product, this has reflected in the sales revenue as can be shown in our financial plan.
This can be solved through more investment in marketing strategies to increase the number of sales
overall with a reasonable target of at least a 10% increase than initially predicted for each quarter.
This should be easily attainable since we are also marketing to students outside the UCL campus and
additionally to office workers.

SMART objective 4: ‘Increase customer lifetime value by 15% within the next 5 years’
Currently the customer lifetime value is very small with generally our product being a one-off purchase,
instalments or rental over a couple of months. With the customers acquired, we need them to be more
devoted to our brand and hence to solve this we should provide more services. An idea would be to
create an online community app for our customers for them to be able to connect with each other,
connect with professional psychologists, accessing mindfulness podcasts, as well as other services.
The app will allow the consumer to monitor their sleeping pattern via Bluetooth on their phone. This
will require a large investment for this idea to be executed, going through potentially series A funding
and will generally occur 5-6 years from now. There will be a subscription fee for continuous use of the
app but since we believe it will create value to them, this shouldn’t be a problem and ultimately increase
customer lifetime value as they are more loyal to us. This app would also create a competitive
advantage for us as we are providing them with additional services that are not being offered by our
competitors.

This business plan is considered frontier in the UK due to the lack of mental health awareness and the
uneducated and undeveloped market. However, it is believed that under the mitigation proposed in the
previous sections, all the problems can be solved and thus Zzz can provide an outstanding business
opportunity.
9.0 References

Allied Market Research (2017). Sleep Aids Market by Product. Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry
Forecast. Allied Research Market, p.5.

Anon, (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/enterprise/students/develop-your-entrepreneurial-


skills/launch-ps10000-programme-launch-your-business-venture [Accessed 14 Mar. 2019].

Burkeman, O. (2015). Why CBT is falling out of favour. [online] the Guardian. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jul/03/why-cbt-is-falling-out-of-favour-oliver-burkeman
[Accessed 13 Mar. 2019].

cesultra.com. (2019). Relief from Anxiety, Depression and Insomnia using CES Ultra, Cranial Electrotherapy
Stimulation manufactured by Neuro-Fitness, USA.. [online] Available at: https://www.cesultra.com/
[Accessed 23 Mar. 2019].

F6S. (2019). Government grants: Which small business grants can tech startups and SMEs win?. [online]
Available at: https://www.f6s.com/gb/government-grants#find-a-grant [Accessed 14 Mar. 2019].

Fisherwallace.com. (2019). Fisher Wallace. [online] Available at:


https://www.fisherwallace.com/pages/patient-doctor-testimonials [Accessed 23 Mar. 2019].

Gøtzsche, P. (2015). Prescription pills are Britain’s third biggest killer. [online] Mail Online. Available at:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3234334/Prescription-pills-Britain-s-biggest-killer-effects-drugs-
taken-insomnia-anxiety-kill-thousands-doctors-hand-like-Smarties.html [Accessed 13 Mar. 2019].

Grand View Research (2017). Insomnia Therapeutics Market Analysis By Treatment Type. Insomnia
Therapeutics Market Size. Grand View Research, pp.7-9.

Irs.gov. (2019). Medical Device Excise Tax: Frequently Asked Questions | Internal Revenue Service. [online]
Available at: https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/medical-device-excise-tax-frequently-asked-questions
[Accessed 14 Mar. 2019].

Julien, A. (2015). INSOMNIA - GLOBAL DRUG FORECAST AND MARKET ANALYSIS TO 2023. pp.2-3.

London IP. (2016). The Cost of a Patent | London IP. [online] Available at:
http://www.londonip.co.uk/patents/patent-costs/ [Accessed 14 Mar. 2019].

Market Watch (2018). Global Alcoholic Beverage Market Analysis, Growth, Trends & Forecast 2018-2023,
With an Expected CAGR of 3.1% - ResearchAndMarkets.com. [online] MarketWatch. Available at:
https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/global-alcoholic-beverage-market-analysis-growth-trends-
forecast-2018-2023-with-an-expected-cagr-of-31---researchandmarketscom-2018-08-01 [Accessed 6 Mar.
2019].
Mhra.com. (2019). Cost and fees for the registration of medical devices with MHRA. European (EU/EC)
Authorized Representative service. [online] Available at: http://www.mhra.com/cost-and-fees-for-the-
registration-with-mhra.html [Accessed 14 Mar. 2019].

Mind (2018). Half of workers have experienced poor mental health in current job | Mind, the mental health charity -
help for mental health problems. [online] Mind.org.uk. Available at: https://www.mind.org.uk/news-
campaigns/news/half-of-workers-have-experienced-poor-mental-health-in-current-job/#.XJeTDSgzZPY
[Accessed 24 Mar. 2019].

NHS (2014). Insomnia causes and treatments. [online] Nhsinform.scot. Available at:
https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/mental-health/insomnia#treatments [Accessed 23 Mar.
2019].

Sunmat, O. and Kunsel, T. (2017). Insomnia Market by Therapy Type [Non-pharmacological Therapy
(Hypnotherapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Medical Devices, and Other Non-pharmacological Therapy)
and Pharmacological Therapy (Prescription Sleep Aids and Over-The-Counter Sleep Aids)] - Global
Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2017-2023. Allied Market Research, p.56.

the Guardian. (2019). Universities and the NHS must join forces to improve student mental health |
Gianmarco Raddi. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/feb/15/universities-
and-the-nhs-must-join-forces-to-boost-student-mental-health [Accessed 24 Mar. 2019].

Themicrocurrentsite.co.uk. (2002). Results & Research | The Micro Current Site. [online] Available at:
http://www.themicrocurrentsite.co.uk/Results.aspx [Accessed 23 Mar. 2019].

Yap, J. (2018). The declining state of student mental health in universities and what can be done. [online]
Mental Health Foundation. Available at: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/blog/declining-state-student-
mental-health-universities-and-what-can-be-done [Accessed 23 Mar. 2019].
Appendix 1: Team Membership

Our Team
Pei Ong is the team leader – CEO of Zzz Healthcare. The team consists of 3 people from different
academic backgrounds with their distinct skill sets. Pei’s priority is to ensure all 3 understands
their responsibility and are capable of doing their jobs

CEO CTO CFO

PEI BOON ONG YIXIU ZHUGE SARANYA SUKUMARAN

Market Analyst. Pei assesses the Product designer of Insomnia Financial officer. Saranya is
feasibility of the product by Slayer. Apart from providing responsible for managing the financial
conducting relevant technology technical support for the actions of Zzz Healthcare. She
and market analysis. Based on the product, Yixiu is responsible predicts cash flow and future revenue
results, he creates a reliable sales for promotion and graphic of the product as well of analysing the
plan and is in charge of execution. design as well. company’s strength & weakness.

PEI BOON ONG CEO


Pei is a multilingual individual with capability of speaking 3
nd
languages and 3 dialects. Currently, he is currently a 2 year
civil engineering student in UCL. Like most of the
engineering student, Pei has developed critical thinking
skills. To further improve his critical thinking and
engineering skills, Pei joined an engineering consultancy,
Meinhardt (multi-national company) as an intern from July
2018 to August 2018. In that period, he gets to further
enhance interpersonal communication skills.

Pei is always described as an initiative, passionate and hardworking individual by his colleagues. He is also
keen to articulate his opinions to his teammates in order to produce a finer quality of the deliverable.
Furthermore, he is very fond of human history, as he always says, ‘History reveals the true nature of mankind’.
He strongly believes by combining the skills sets and the knowledge can lead to developing a revolutionary
marketing plan. As a decisive personnel with developed interpersonal communication skills, Pei is selected as
the CEO of Zzz Healthcare.

Appendix 1
Appendix 1: Team Membership

YIXIU ZHUGE CTO


Yixiu is a second-year civil engineering student at UCL
whom owns a versatile skill set with extensive
experience in commercial banking, customer service,
tutoring and interpersonal communication. Despite her
keen interest in financial market, Yixiu is an expert at
medical device as she comes from a family with
pharmaceutical background; combining with her
knowledge from engineering, she produced the design
draft of our product (Please see Appendix 5 for details).

She demonstrated outstanding capabilities of logic thinking and team cooperation through her internships in
Citic Bank (China), Citi Bank (China) and Standard Charted Bank (China). She was Commented as amiable
and reliable by both employers and her clients.
Besides, Yixiu has award-wining drawing skills. She was commissioned to produce the architecture blueprint
of Roman London Bridge for the television show ‘Capital – The Story of London’; in the past few years, she
won 1st or 2nd prizes in Chinese National Painting and Calligraphy competition. The product she designed,
Insomnia Slayer, is an embodiment of high-technology, spiritual value and of aesthetic value. In addition, Yixiu
speaks native level of Mandarin and proficient level of English; she develops a good relationship with Chinese
medical instrument manufacturers as she travels extensively between UK and mainland China.

SARANYA SUKUMARAN CFO


Saranya is a current third year economics and statistics
student at UCL, with expertise in numerical and
financials. With previous experience working in the tax
and assurance departments in the Big 4, and advanced
knowledge in Microsoft Excel, her skill set is of
particular use to the accounts team. In addition to this,
work experience at the financial department of various
companies have given Saranya insight into the way
professional businesses handle accounts.

Saranya describes herself as an ‘an impeccably well-mannered and hardworking student who can use their
skills and talents in a high pressured and stimulating work environment. My main skills I find necessary for this
position is my professionalism and high communication skills as well as my motivation to execute the job to
the best of my ability. I can efficiently work in a team, which I have successfully done in many endeavours such
as being part of Young Enterprise as well as the Rag team at school, where I find it important to listen to other
people as a sense of gaining knowledge and I am also keen to express my opinion even if it is alternate from
everyone else’s’.
In terms of educational background, Saranya is in her final year in her BSc programme, having previously
gone to Nonsuch High School for Girls for her A levels (including Maths and Further Maths) and GSCEs
(completing an FMSQ Additional Math qualification and completing her Maths GCSE a year early).

Appendix 1
Appendix 2: Positioning

Positioning Statement
For university students and office workers who suffer from mild level of anxiety, depression or
insomnia, the ‘Insomnia’ is a physiotherapeutic sleep aid device that regulates the brain wave using CES
(Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation) technique.
Unlike traditional drug or psychological sleep therapy, our product is purely physical without any side
effects, non-habit-forming and relatively cheaper as well.

The sections below are the reason why each column is modified.

Problem
In the first canvas, the problems identified are the device is too expensive for university students, the
majority of the students or workers do not realised how much would sleep shortage harm their health,
people underestimating the power of deep sleep, the targeted customers are afraid of the product itself as
it involves electric current and finally, the ear clips connecting to the CES device might be uncomfortable
for the users.
After summarizing the first canvas, there are 4 problem can be summarised into two major categories as
followed:
➢ Uneducated market
➢ Low public health awareness
This problem can be further identified by the presentation feedback as the markers are not familiar with
the CES technology and deny the fact that people are suffering from mental illness.

List existing alternatives:


Currently sleeping pills Diphenhydramine, Melatonin and Valerian are still widely used as people are more
familiar with these products. Psychological therapy is also widely used to treat the mental illness. This is
because people believe that mental problems are the main reason causing sleep disturbance. In some
cases, lavender’s soothing fragrance does enhance sleeping quality. However, lavender is only accessible
in certain region in the globe, therefore, not considered as a competitor. On the other hand, there are
existing CES sleep aid device that can be purchased across the globe through Amazon or Taobao.
Therefore, existing sleep aid device replaces lavender as an alternative.

User Roles
The product is mainly designed for two users, which is students and office workers. Therefore, the users
are not modified.

Early Adopter
To maximise the sales rate students who have some basic knowledge of brain science that also suffers
from sleep disturbances and student who have tried CES therapy before and are satisfactory of the
results are targeted as the beachhead customers.

High-level concept
Initially, the high-level concept is Insomnia slayer. To further deepen the impression of the public, the
product is name as Insomnia slayer and has a high-level concept of ‘Sleep anytime, anywhere’

Appendix 2
Appendix 2: Positioning

Solution
As the top 3 problems are modify, therefore different solution must be proposed. To solve the top 3
problems, the initial plan was as listed below:
➢ Lower the price by self-manufacturing, so that it is affordable for the students.
➢ To increase the public health awareness, online forum can be created to allow the public to interact
with the professionals to talk about their personal sleeping problems.
➢ To tackle uneducated market problem, the public events can be organized for existing clients to
bring in potential customers. A talk can be given to the new customers and introduce more about
the product itself.

Channels
After rethinking strategies, we realised there are more ways to approach customers directly and indirectly,
therefore two more channel are added into the canvas. The following is the channel used to market our
product to the consumers.
➢ Sleep/psychology division in hospitals
➢ Private or university sleep/psychology clubs
➢ Facebook/twitter/Instagram advertising for active users after 12:00 AM
➢ Healthcare centres
➢ Medical (physical examination) centres
➢ University student welfare
➢ GP that cooperates with universities

Revenue Streams
The revenue stream in the first canvas is rather unrealistic, therefore, a new revenue stream is proposed.
The new revenue stream is stated as below:
➢ £217 customer life time value
➢ An average of 15 customers acquired each term, which gives a total cost of £2000 per term
➢ A cost of £130 and price of £350
➢ Rental available (£35 per month) and guarantee of £100 must be paid up front.

Cost Structure
Since initially the business is conducted only in the UK, therefore, international shipment fee is not required.
Since the product is self-manufacture, therefore it is included in the cost structure. Furthermore, after
analysis rental of public spaces are not required as the product can be tried in the hospital and in GP’s.
However, as a medical related company, certification of the product is essential in giving the customer
confidence in our product. Tax is also included in the cost structure considering the company are required
to pay corporation tax. IP protection is also required to protect the company’s product. Finally, marketing
and advertising cost must also be included; this is because the market will remain uneducated if marketing
and advertising strategy is insufficient.

Appendix 2
Appendix 2: Positioning

Key Metrics
The following key metrics are included in the first canvas, which is then later realised that they are not
specified or realistic due to the producing cost.
➢ Sleeping
➢ Sleep tracking (installed in device)
➢ Health data (from bracelet)
➢ Therefore, the metrics is modified into the following 3 metrics:
➢ Micro-current regulation
➢ Online user platform
➢ Health data tracking (app)
➢ Which is more economical (as producing an app and online platform requires lower cost) and more
specific

Unfair Advantage
The unfair advantages has remain unchanged as the concept of the device has not changed.
➢ Different modes for different symptoms at different levels. More precise and controllable than
traditional drug/psychological therapy.
➢ The sleep disturbance can be easily solved at home without going anywhere (Note that prescriptions
are needed for certain types of sleeping pills). There is no site limitation for its usage.
➢ Improve a variety of physiological signal such as heart rate, blood pressure, galvanic skin and muscle
tone.
➢ Combine the theory of traditional Chinese medicine with western medicine.

Appendix 2
Appendix 2: Positioning

Initial Lean Canvas

Appendix 2
Appendix 2: Positioning

Revised Lean Canvas

Appendix 2
Appendix 3: Customer development / Interview Strategy & Results

Customer Development
With CES handheld devices being more popular in the China and US market, we wanted to introduce this
into the UK market. Customer development was done in the early stage when developing our idea for
‘Insomnia Slayer’ as through this step, we were able to identify our potential customers and see how to
meet their needs to improve our product.
To use a scientific approach to our target market and to put ourselves into a unique and advantageous
market position, we will use the following four-step framework for our business plan, which are:

Step 1: Customer Discovery


We made some hypothesis to our business model and created the initial lean canvas (Please see
appendix 1 for more details). After that, we propose a plan to talk to our customers and collect their
reactions as analytical data. To see whether people are willing to try our product, we conducted a survey
among UCL students. There were in all, 20 responses received, and the majority of respondents were from
the Engineering Faculty.
Step 2: Customer Validation
For customer validation, we carried out interviews with some expertise in brain science field and got some
positive feedbacks. Apart from that, we carried out a 2nd questionnaire to see whether customers will be
satisfied with our product (Please see appendix 5 for product satisfaction survey). The testing result further
validates the feasibility of our business plan and proves that the business model is desirable and
implementable.
Step 3: Customer Creation
In this step, the business plan will be executed. The complete market & sales plan can be found in section
4.1 & 4.2 in the main report.
Step 4: Transition
Execution a validated business model begins. The Zzz company will transfer from a start-up to a real
organisation.

However, as we are only introducing business concept in this report, step 3 and step 4 will not be covered.
Through this section, we will introduce the methodology we used for customer development. The results
of the development were then used to identify some threats and opportunities of our business, and the
lean canvas was adjusted according to customers’ needs.

The following 2 links are used to investigate customer’s opinion towards CES sleep aid.
For CES sleep aid market questionnaire:
https://qtrial2019q1az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1Bm5QJU8806syfr
For Product Satisfaction (which is included in appendix 5):
https://qtrial2019q1az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3eZnNGULsO19MkB

Appendix 3
Appendix 3: Customer development / Interview Strategy & Results

Questionnaire Feedback Report 01


Step 1 - Customer Discovery
CES sleep aid market questionnaire

In question 1, we found that only 25% of the respondents claimed that they don’t suffer from any types of
mental or sleeping disorder. Insomnia has the greatest proportion of all, as 30% of the students surveyed
had this type of problem, which proves that our product potentially has a market among university students.
In question 2, the answers received are distributed quite evenly, varying from 30% to 36%. Most students
would rather choose listen to music than use a sleep aid device, and that is by all means a huge threat to
our business idea – the students don’t think they need any medical help! Therefore, for the lean canvas,
we added ‘Low public health awareness’ in top 3 problems identified. As the majority of the students do
not realise the harm of low-quality sleeping, our product will have no chance in the market if the problem
remains unsolved. For mitigation measures, we then suggest a strong marketing plan that can raise public
health awareness, and to increase publicity of our product at the same time.

=> Top 3 Problems Identified => Solution

Appendix 3
Appendix 3: Customer development / Interview Strategy & Results

In question 3, most students answered ‘no’ when being asked whether they would utilise the service
provided by university. This could still attribute to lack of health awareness, and it validates our concern of
‘low public health awareness’ proposed in question 2. However, since we were planning to sell our product
through universities, the situation is not favourable. As long as the health awareness remains low, we will
not make much profit from selling to university student welfares. This poses a great threat to us, but if
mitigated properly, the bad situation will be turned into an opportunity in the future.

For question 4, we asked students about CES technology. It is not surprising that most students had no
idea of what CES is, luckily, among all 20 students, 5 students knew about CES technology; after detail
inquiry, we found that those students were somehow interested or possess basic knowledge in brain
science. In question 6, those who had learnt about CES before are all willing to try CES sleep aid; the
finding is very important as we spotted a new group of early adopters, that is:

=> Early Adopters

In Question 5, 40% of respondents would decide to use the product after having insight on CES sleep aid.
Only 25% of the students claimed that they would not use the product, and the left 30% remain undecided.
We believed that if educated properly, the swinging part would be more inclined to use our sleep aid product.

In question 6, we asked them about their first impression to CES. 60% of students said they would definitely
try, 30% suggested the sleep aid to be intimidating and 10% did not think it is scary. The feedback is
absolutely positive to us, and it shows that most people are willing to try the new sleeping technology;

Appendix 3
Appendix 3: Customer development / Interview Strategy & Results

Question 7-10 is used to improve our prototype design. Before sending the questionnaire to students, we
showed them the basic concept drawing of our sleep aid device. In question 7, we asked about ways of
using the product. 45% of the students would choose the purchase the device with full price; however,
there are still 55% of the respondents who would prefer rental or instalment plans. In order to meet the
needs of those customers, we revised our revenue stream:

=> Cost Structure


In question 8, surprisingly, 35% of the students are willing to pay 300-400 pounds for the product for they
all regard CES as a ‘high technology’ so the device would probably cost more. There’re also 50% of
students who believed that the product should cost less than 200 pounds, or they simply cannot afford the
price. Unfortunately, the product itself is indeed costly and the common CES sleep aid available on market
can cost up to £700, we are able to reduce the pricing down to £350 but it will still be too expensive for
some students. Therefore, pricing is also a big issue for us to solve. This question validates our hypothesis
of ‘The device is too costly for university students’

Appendix 3
Appendix 3: Customer development / Interview Strategy & Results

Question 9 aims to detect how long the customers will keep our product. 80% of the students think the
products can be used for more than 2 years, with 35% of which suggest the life span of the device should
be designed as 4-5 years. Since the users are expecting a longer using span, we choose to equip our
device with rechargeable lithium-ion battery rather than the disposable ones. Additionally, using lithium-ion
battery will by all means exert less adverse impact to the environment.

In question 10, we ask the students about how they would use the customer service. 40% of the
respondents stated that they would just choose to buy a new model, and 35% would send their old devices
into the service centre for repairs. Since it is only 35% of all that demands repair services, we don’t need
a physical store for device maintenance and repair; If the device stop working, we will advise the customer
to send their device to our centre so the technicians can repair it straight away.

Question 10 is seeking for suggestions from customers in order to produce a better appearance design.
The CES sleep aid, from the technical perspective, can be design in headset shape, earphone shape or
nasal plug shape. Most students chose ‘headset shape’ as they would love to have something like a
headphone, however, the headset shape is not an ergonomic design and people would feel a strong sense
of foreign body when trying to get into sleep; therefore, we decided not to use feedbacks from question 11
and stay with the original idea, that is, in the earphone shape.

The questionnaire offers a clear window of business opportunity. After we have determined our target and
beachhead customers, we now move on to the second step: Customer validation

Appendix 3
Appendix 3: Customer development / Interview Strategy & Results

Interview Strategy
Step 2 - Customer Validation
With our beachhead customer segment being students who suffer from anxiety, depression and insomnia,
in the first step, we did a questionnaire and distributed copies among UCL students; the data we obtained,
however, might not be precise as we’ll need larger population to get a more reliable result. Apart from that,
students in the survey might exaggerate their symptoms, so they might not be suffering from real mental
or sleeping disorders. In order to talk to real person that needs sleep aid, we need access to larger
database. The Zzz team had tried to get data from internet and government organisations but unfortunately,
due to limitation of information, we were unable to get detailed statistics of students of workers who
suffered from insomnia as the topic is rather sensitive.
Based on the advise given by Dr Dave Chapman, we decided to ask a few questions regarding our idea
to some specialists in this field. We appreciate the time that president of the mental health society at UCL
have taken to answer our questions. Also, we received generous help from professor Vincent Walsh of
Human Brain Research from Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL. We're honoured and grateful for
their support.

Interview Results 01
President of the Mental Health Society at UCL

1) How many students in UCL suffers from insomnia, depression or anxiety and come seek for help every year. Normally
which department has the highest level of anxiety? Mainly bachelor students? Masters? Or PhDs?

2) No response

2) what are the common solutions?


The most common solution is a combination of medication and talking therapy.

3) Which solution works best and how long does it takes normally?
As far as antidepressants are concerned, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are the most often prescribed,
however only up to 50% of patients benefit from them. Antidepressants and anxiolytics take a while to start exerting their
effects and they do not ‘cure’ mental health issues, which is why people are often encouraged to take talking therapies, one
of the most popular being cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). As far as insomnia is concerned, sometimes patients have to
be given a combination of medications before they begin to experiences any changes.

4) Side effects of each solution.


One problem with the medications is that in the beginning (before they start exerting their effects) they often worsen
symptoms, which lasts for about two weeks. In these two weeks, suicidal thoughts can appear or, if they were already
present, can worsen. There is a number of people who do commit suicide in this period.
The side effects of antidepressants tend to be bad in the beginning but improve over time. Examples of side effects are
nausea, fatigue, dizziness, loss of appetite, insomnia, etc. The side effects of anxiolytics are similar, however they cause
sedation instead of insomnia. A problem that arises with anxiolytics is that they can cause dependence and harsh withdrawal
symptoms. Sleeping pills used to treat insomnia also often lead to dependence and shouldn’t be taken for over a week or
two. Sleeping pills can also cause loss of balance, and erratic behavior such as sleepwalking.

5) How is the sleeping quality of the student that suffers insomnia.


Students suffering from insomnia are always experiencing fatigue. They have a lot of daytime drowsiness and this can
interfere with their work quite a lot. They experience an inability to focus on tasks as well as a lack of motivation.

6) What kind of service does the university provide to help the students.
Universities offer student mental health and wellbeing services. The issue with these is that there are often long waiting lists
and not enough people employed who can help students. Many students do not find these services helpful and would benefit
more from medications than just these sessions. Universities do tend to have a lot of understanding from students suffering
from mental health problems, and can provide a Summary of Reasonable Adjustment which can help the student by

Appendix 3
Appendix 3: Customer development / Interview Strategy & Results

extending their deadlines or providing extra time for exams.

7) Are you aware of CES sleep Aid?


No
If no – ‘ Cranial electrical stimulation (CES) involves the use of a small, battery-operated device that delivers low levels of
alternating electrical current to the head via clips that are attached to the earlobes. CES therapy has had positive effects on
the treatment of sleep disturbances, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and other disorders in a variety of patient
populations, including persons with fibromyalgia, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and insomnia. It is believed that CES may
stimulate the vagus nerve, causing a parasympathetic response and resultant relaxation’

8) What is the first impression to the product?


People might be a bit nervous about trying the sleeping aids because it isn’t one of the main solutions currently being used
in the UK.

9) Would students be willing to use the product?


Many students suffering from treatment resistant problems would probably be willing to try it as it would offer a new form of
treatment that they have most likely not tried before.

10) Will you feel safe enough to use and operate on their own, given proper instructions?
Personally, I would prefer to observe some kind of demonstration of the product before having a chance to try it for myself.

11) How much are you willing to spend on a CES sleep aid (estimated price of the production is around the £300/400 mark)?
I probably wouldn’t spend that much on a sleep aid, however students suffering from bad insomnia who have tried every
other form of treatment might.

12) Preference of purchasing or renting the product?


I would prefer to purchase the product, just to ensure that it is kept sanitary.
13) Why do you think this product is not popular in the UK?
I assume that not many people have heard of this product as a form of treatment. By educating more people on the existence
of this sleep aid, I believe it would begin to gain more popularity.

14) Main reason why people are suffering from the sleeping disorders, insomnia and anxiety.
Most causes of sleeping disorders and other mental health problems are biological. There can be some psychological effects
causing them, but often in depends on the individual. Psychological effects can be anything from a traumatic experience to
stress at the workplace.

The president of mental health society at UCL gave a positive feedback on our product and she suggested
that students suffering from insomnia, anxiety or depression would be willing to try the product. For our
competitors, she mentioned CBT as it is now a very popular treatment and we have included that in our
main report. Same as what we have concluded in the questionnaire section, she also mentioned that not
many people have hear of this product, which means that we need to increase our expenditure in
advertising & marketing so as to increase product publicity. Therefore, we again revised our canvas:

=> Cost Structure

Appendix 3
Appendix 3: Customer development / Interview Strategy & Results

Interview Results 02 – Sound Track to Text File


professor Vincent Walsh
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL

Appendix 3
Appendix 3: Customer development / Interview Strategy & Results

We got a positive feedback from Professor Vincent Walsh as he also believed people are willing to pay
for better sleeping quality. In the long term, after UK citizens have more health awareness, they would
tend to spend more money on healthcare. The statistics of students with menta problems or sleep
disorders remain unknown. Details of his voice recordings are also highlighted in the main report.

Appendix 3
Appendix 4:Concept / Explainer Video

URL’s for the 1:40 minutes Video on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq_j8UXB0S4
Appendix 5: Personas and Initial Solution Designs/Prototypes

Product Overview
The Zzz Insomnia Slayer is a sleep aid device using Cranial Electrotherapy stimulation (CES)
technique. It is a portable device in similar size with mobile phones (eg. iPhone 8s) that allows
users to use it anywhere, anytime. Below is a concept drawing for the initial prototype.

Power on/off
Indicator light

Cable + Ear Clip

LED display

Touch Sensor
Charge port + ear clip port

Through the electrodes that are placed on user’s earlobes, pulsed micro electric currents are sent through
the cables to human brains. People with anxiety, depression and insomnia can use this device to treat their
mental disorder or sleep disturbances. Our product is rather easy to use as for the users, it only requires
one step – that is – to clip the electrodes onto your ear. Following is the illustration of how our product
works.

The general description of CES technology is discussed in section 2.2 and 4.3.
As hippocampus is the main area controlling an individual’s emotions using electrochemical to stimulates
the secretion of hormones. Hence, mental illness such as anxiety, depression and insomnia are generally
cause by malfunction of hippocampus, sending random signals to the hormones producing organ causing
unbalanced amount of hormone in the blood. This result in emotional fluctuation. The Insomnia slayer has
the ability of sending a micro electric current to stimulate and relaxing the hippocampus, making an
individual more relaxed and therefore easier to fall asleep.

Appendix 5
Appendix 5: Personas and Initial Solution Designs/Prototypes

Product Specification
Brand Name: Zzz Insomnia Slayer Place of Origin: London UK
Model Number: 01 Stimulation Type: Micro-current CES
Application: Insomnia/ Depression/ Anxiety Customer service: 12-month warranty + Maintenance
Original Manufacturer: Zzz Healthcare Power source: Rechargeable lithium-ion battery
Alternative Connection: Bluetooth Applicable system: Android / IOS

Indicator light An indication feature that allows the user to know if the device is working or not.
Power on/off button A feature to turn the device on or off.
Touch sensor A feature that allows user to increase or decrease the electric current.
Pause button A button that allows the device to temporary stop the treatment.
Charge port A port that allows USB cable to connect to charge the device.
Ear clips port A port that allow user to connect the ear clip
USB cable and plug Use to charge the device.
Sponge spacer a sponge that reduce foreign body sensation induced by the ear clip on earlobe.
Ear clips Clips that are provided to clip on the user’s earlobes and allows the flow of micro
electric current.

Appendix 5
Appendix 5: Personas and Initial Solution Designs/Prototypes

Questionnaire Feedback Report 02


Product satisfaction

A questionnaire was distributed to students in UCL. Due to the limited time, we have only received 20
response that was due by March 22rd 2019, 7:56 pm MDT. Below is the questionnaire feedback report:

For question 1, we asked the students about their first impression to the products. 80% of the respondents
rated our prototype design from ‘fair’ to ‘good’ which means our prototype design is overall satisfactory to
the customers. For people who chose ‘unsatisfactory’, we asked them for further suggestions; the students
who were not happy with out product thought it would be nicer for the device to have Bluetooth connections,
so that users can directly gain access to his sleeping monitoring database. It was indeed an extraordinary
suggestion, so later we directly add this feature to our design.
For question 2, since we are likely to introduce other healthcare products that are different from CES sleep
aids, we want to know whether customers will purchase a product from our company again. Most of the
students chose ‘somewhat likely’ since we didn’t have other available concept designs to show them.
However, based on the successful image of Insomnia Slayer, we seem to have a good reputation for our
company, and we are more likely to get return customers.

In question 3, only 35% of students are extremely likely or somewhat likely to recommend this product to
a friend, and they explained the main reason for that is the product might not be affordable to their friends
or their friends does not have mental disorder or sleep disturbances at all. In order to encourage people
to invite their friends as new customers, we introduced ‘cash back’ plan into our sales plan which is already
presented in the main report.
In question 4, 50% of people are extremely satisfied with our product. Note that the different between
question 1 and question 4 is that by ‘concept design’, we meant by our whole business plan. Prior to let
students fill in our questionnaire, Yixiu approached the respondents that participated in the first
questionnaire and explained our business plan in detail. For people that are somewhat dissatisfied, they
are mainly complaining about pricing – however, there’s nothing we can do at this stage. In the future when
we can achieve mass manufacture of our product, the price is likely to be reduced to under £200.

Appendix 5
Appendix 5: Personas and Initial Solution Designs/Prototypes

In question 5, 70% of the respondents think our product is better than other CES sleep aids that are
available on the market, which proves that our design is very competitive and has an undisputed advantage
over other products.
In question 6, in order to double-check people’s opinion of pricing, we ask students about what kind of
improvements should be done. 40% of the students still hold that the pricing is not reasonable, while only
25% think the appearance can be improved. To dealt with pricing, the main sales to students will be through
the rental/instalment plan as £35 is considered to be affordable to students.

In question 10, according to questionnaire results, people tend to buy the product online; therefore, we
created our official website where people can learn about CES technology, get access to online user forum
and of course, purchase our product and accessories. Nevertheless, there are also large proportion of
people who would like to purchase through doctors and hospitals, therefore, we decided to add GPs that
cooperates with universities onto our sales channel in lean canvas:

=>Channels
In all, our customers are all very happy with our designs.

Also, for the next-step strategy, we aimed to increase customer lifetime value by 15% within the next 5
years (See section 7 in the main report); one of the improvement measures is to increase user interactions
with the company, hence, an official phone app is designed:

Appendix 5
Appendix 5: Personas and Initial Solution Designs/Prototypes

Next-step Strategy Design


Official Phone App of Zzz

Appendix 5
Appendix 5: Personas and Initial Solution Designs/Prototypes

Official Website
Our official website can be visited at https://yixiu199802.wixsite.com/zzzhealthcare.

Appendix 5
Appendix 5: Personas and Initial Solution Designs/Prototypes

Appendix 5
Appendix 5: Personas and Initial Solution Designs/Prototypes

Appendix 5
Appendix 6: Financials - Assessment of financial viability

Profit and Loss Statement


The sale price is retailed to be £350 per unit which is a 270% mark-up of the cost per unit (£130). The first
quarter is associated with the highest costs at £50,207.20 with majority of the cost being allocated to the
design, development and manufacturing of the product itself as well as costs of building a prototype. The
greatest budget of advertising and marketing will also be focused in the first quarter. Subsequent months
are associated with lower costs, with costs of goods being flexible dependent on demand. It is anticipated
that quarters, Oct-Dec and Jan-March would have the highest amount of sales since this is during term
time and therefore is an ideal time period to market our product. During these periods, production will be
peaked. When looking at the financial forecast throughout the year, due to the very high start-up costs in
the first term, there is a negative gross profit at the end of the three-year period, amounting to -£48,346.40.
However, there is positive net profit for each quarter in the third year, indicating a financial success
whereby the sales revenue is greater than costs of goods sold and the overheads. With ongoing marketing
and good word of mouth regarding our brand, there is a projected positive growth in sales in each year.
The profit and loss calculation can be found at the end of this Appendix.

Cashflow Statement
Much of the initial funding is dependent on grants and competitions supporting start-ups. Under the
circumstance that this is unsuccessful, then venture capitals would be sought however this should be
avoided to the best of our ability in order to limit business decisions from people other than the founders.
The predicted cash inflow in the first term is around £86,400, with subsequent cash inflows being only from
sales, the end cash flow of the three-year period is predicted to be £136,800. Total cash outflow is
predicted to be £99,846.40 hence a total net cash inflow of £36,953.50. Regarding bank balance at the
end of the quarter, there is a 9.19% increase from the beginning of the first year and end of the third year.
Although, this isn’t substantial, with greater investment opportunities and potential for series funding to try
and expand our brand as well as more funding to reach customers, there is high potential to increase cash
inflow.
Overall, the profit and loss statement and cashflow statement, have shown that this business venture is
financially viable. Although the net profit is negative at the end of three years, this is primarily due to high
initial costs however with sufficient cash inflow at the beginning of the term, this problem should be solved.
There is a positive trend of cash flows, predominately in the final year of the forecast, indicating the
company’s liquid assets are increasing allowing for reinvestment and is more attractive to outside investors.
The predicted cashflow can be found at the end of this appendix.

Appendix 6
Appendix 6: Financials - Assessment of financial viability

Cash outflow
1.Electronic Manufacturing Services
Outsourcing is becoming a rapidly popular method to market a new product, with faster investment returns
and primary driving factors being cost reduction and improved service delivery. It is necessary to form an
OES-EMS partnership where the EMS is familiar with the medical environment, with the rules and
regulations in this sector. EMS is clarified as direct cost of producing the good, this includes the machinery,
tools and equipment, electrical components and labour costs. Despite labour costs in the UK being
relatively high, outsourcing abroad will not be an ideal solution due to additional costs and complications
related to delivery costs and communication problems. This however may be a viable option when the
brand expands hence outsourcing abroad could help reduce overall costs. EMS in the UK will be the
largest cash outflow, with these services including design work, procurement, PCB assembly, testing and
quality assurance. By contacting an EMS, Texcel Technology UK, it was established that creating a
prototype for our product would cost £2,000 with subsequent production of each unit costing £130 each.
Design costs from the same company is £20,000 whilst EMC and Systems Approval cost is £25,000

2.Advertising and Marketing


The highest amount of advertising and marketing money will be concentrated in the first term of the first
year. As evident from our market research, not many students are aware of the technology of our product
hence a greater budgeting is necessary to reach out to our target market. Throughout these quarters, the
advertising and marketing budget would decrease with increased knowledge and good word of mouth
allowing for this. This budget will be spent on campus marketing events at universities. Marketing activities
involves on campus advertising, student ambassadors for our product, flyers and leaflets, talks by experts
etc.

3.Certifications
The MHRA requires a £70 registration fee, with this fee being applicable for whenever there is a change
in registration, update or notification (Mhra.com, 2019). The best scenario is to pay £70 in the first quarter
of the first year with there being no additional costs to MHRA for at least the next two years. Other
certifications may be required this extending, but not limited to; FDA, CE, RoHS, as well as non-medical
certifications required to sell electronical products in the EU e.g. CE. Certification costs for the product is
at the beginning, with rough assumptions costing £300.

4.IP
With UK patents costing around £1500 to £6000 + VAT depending on the complexities of the invention
(London IP, 2016), amongst other factors, the assumption that a design patent would be a relatively
straightforward process with the costs associated to this being on the lower end of the spectrum.

5.Wages

Appendix 6
Appendix 6: Financials - Assessment of financial viability

Aside from the founders, additional staff is required for the design and development of the product itself.
Hiring part-time will be necessary to help with branding, marketing and building a professional and fully
functioning website. Professional help with these sectors is not required, with help from skilful university
students being sufficient, with £7.50 an hour and 3 students working 4 hours a week each, this would cost
£1080 per quarter. For the first two terms of university, there is recruitment of two university students to
help with promoting this product, with a cost of £7.50 an hour and 4 hours a work each week this would
cost £720 in a quarter. With greater popularity of this product and expanding to different universities, more
students with be recruited at £200 per student per month. Recruitment periods would be from Oct-Dec and
Jan-March.

6.Tax
Medical device tax is a 2.3% excise tax on the value of medical devices sold domestically (Irs.gov, 2019).
The tax is paid at the end of each quarter.

Cash Inflow
1.Pitched Competitions
There are various start-up competitions and grants that can be issued by UCL as seed funding for this
business. An example being UCL’s Launch business programme which allocates £10,000 to the winning
pitch to help develop our business idea (Anon, 2019). Pitched presentations at UK competitions can
further expand start-up competitions.

2.Government Grants
Government grants being particularly attractive as most are aimed at technology, science and medicine
which is beneficial to us. Innovate UK, for example can provide up to £10 million in funds for SMEs, where
grants can typically cover 70% of total costs F6S, 2019). In this circumstance, a good scenario would be
having initial cash flows of at least £75,000.

3.Sales Revenue
The sales price is generally 2-4 times the COGS. The retail price is approximated to be £350 and with cost
of each unit of production being £130, there is a mark-up of 270%. This is expected to be a consistent
cash inflow, with highest sales revenue collections during Oct-Dec and Jan-March in Year 2 and 3. The
initial sale of the product will occur on university campuses, but it expected that most purchases will occur
online. There will be three options of accessing the product; one-off purchase, pay through monthly
instalments or the choice of renting the product. The monthly installments are negotiable with options
including £35 per month, whilst renting for 3 months costs the customer £100. The installment option
incorporates an interest rate of 3%. These prices are set relative to our competitors who offer more
expensive schemes. The sales revenue forecast incorporates all three options. It is assumed that the
greatest number of CES devices sold in a quarter is 20.

Appendix 6
Appendix 6: Financials - Assessment of financial viability

Table 1: Profit and Loss prediction


My Business
Profit and loss forecast
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Oct-Dec Jan-March April-June July-Sept Oct-Dec Jan-March April-June July-Sept Oct-Dec Jan-March April-June July-Sept Total

Sales £1,400.00 £3,500.00 £4,200.00 £2,800.00 £5,000.00 £6,200.00 £3,500.00 £3,150.00 £5,600.00 £7,000.00 £4,900.00 £4,550.00 £51,800.00
One-off payment
Installments
Rental

Cost of sales
Purchases - Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) £2,650.00 £1,560.00 £2,080.00 £2,244.00 £2,600.00 £2,600.00 £2,244.00 £2,244.00 £2,600.00 £2,600.00 £2,244.00 £2,244.00 £27,910.00

Gross profit -£1,250.00 £1,940.00 £2,120.00 £556.00 £2,400.00 £3,600.00 £1,256.00 £906.00 £3,000.00 £4,400.00 £2,656.00 £2,306.00 £23,890.00

Overheads
Design and Development £20,000.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £20,000.00
ECM and System Approval £25,000.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £25,000.00
Web hosting and maintenance £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £480.00
Rent/ utility bill £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00
Tax £32.20 £80.50 £96.60 £64.40 £115.00 £142.60 £80.50 £72.45 £128.80 £161.00 £112.70 £104.65 £1,191.40
Advertising and Marketing £1,000.00 £500.00 £500.00 £500.00 £250.00 £250.00 £250.00 £250.00 £100.00 £100.00 £100.00 £100.00 £3,900.00
Wages £1,800.00 £1,800.00 £1,080.00 £1,080.00 £1,800.00 £1,800.00 £1,080.00 £1,080.00 £1,800.00 £1,800.00 £1,080.00 £1,080.00 £17,280.00
Delivery £28.00 £70.00 £84.00 £56.00 £100.00 £124.00 £70.00 £63.00 £112.00 £140.00 £98.00 £91.00 £1,036.00
Packaging £7.00 £17.50 £21.00 £14.00 £25.00 £31.00 £17.50 £15.75 £28.00 £35.00 £24.50 £22.75 £259.00
Warranty - Jigs and Fixtures £0.00 £0.00 £20.00 £50.00 £50.00 £60.00 £70.00 £70.00 £90.00 £100.00 £130.00 £150.00 £790.00
Certifications £300.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £300.00
UK Patent £2,000.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £2,000.00

Total overheads £50,207.20 2508 1841.6 1804.4 2380 2447.6 1608 1591.2 2298.8 2376 1585.2 1588.4 £72,236.40

Net profit -51457.2 -568 278.4 -1248.4 20 1152.4 -352 -685.2 701.2 2024 1070.8 717.6 -£48,346.40

Appendix 6
Appendix 6: Financials - Assessment of financial viability

Table 2: Cashflow Prediction


My Business
Cashflow Forecast
Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
Oct-Dec Jan-March April-June July-Sept Oct-Dec Jan-March April-June July-Sept Oct-Dec Jan-March April-June July-Sept Total

Cash inflow
Sales £1,400.00 £3,500.00 £4,200.00 £2,800.00 £5,000.00 £6,200.00 £3,500.00 £3,150.00 £5,600.00 £7,000.00 £4,900.00 £4,550.00 £51,800.00
Grants £75,000.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £75,000.00
Competitions £10,000.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £10,000.00
Loans £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00

Total money in £86,400.00 £3,500.00 £4,200.00 £2,800.00 £5,000.00 £6,200.00 £3,500.00 £3,150.00 £5,600.00 £7,000.00 £4,900.00 £4,550.00 £136,800.00

Cash outflow
Manufacturing £2,650.00 £1,560.00 £2,080.00 £2,244.00 £2,600.00 £2,600.00 £2,244.00 £2,244.00 £2,600.00 £2,600.00 £2,244.00 £2,244.00 £27,910.00
Design and Development £20,000.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £20,000.00
EMC and System Approval £25,000.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £25,000.00
Wages £1,800.00 £1,800.00 £1,080.00 £1,080.00 £1,800.00 £1,800.00 £1,080.00 £1,080.00 £1,800.00 £1,800.00 £1,080.00 £1,080.00 £17,280.00
Delivery £28.00 £70.00 £84.00 £56.00 £100.00 £124.00 £70.00 £63.00 £112.00 £140.00 £98.00 £91.00 £1,036.00
Packaging £7.00 £17.50 £21.00 £14.00 £25.00 £31.00 £17.50 £15.75 £28.00 £35.00 £24.50 £22.75 £259.00
Advertising and Marketing £1,000.00 £500.00 £500.00 £500.00 £250.00 £250.00 £250.00 £250.00 £100.00 £100.00 £100.00 £100.00 £3,900.00
Web hosting £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £40.00 £480.00
Warranty - Jigs and Fixtures £0.00 £0.00 £20.00 £50.00 £50.00 £60.00 £70.00 £70.00 £90.00 £100.00 £130.00 £150.00 £790.00
Tax on Sales Revenue £32.20 £80.50 £96.60 £64.40 £115.00 £142.60 £80.50 £72.45 £128.80 £161.00 £112.70 £104.65 £1,191.40
UK patent £2,000.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £0.00 £2,000.00

Total money out £52,557.20 £4,068.00 £3,921.60 £4,048.40 £4,980.00 £5,047.60 £3,852.00 £3,835.20 £4,898.80 £4,976.00 £3,829.20 £3,832.40 £99,846.40

Net cash inflow / (outflow) £33,842.80 -£568.00 £278.40 -£1,248.40 £20.00 £1,152.40 -£352.00 -£685.20 £701.20 £2,024.00 £1,070.80 £717.60 £36,953.60

Bank balance at start of quarter £33,842.80 £33,274.80 £33,553.20 £32,304.80 £32,324.80 £33,477.20 £33,125.20 £32,440.00 £33,141.20 £35,165.20 £36,236.00

Bank balance at end of quarter £33,842.80 £33,274.80 £33,553.20 £32,304.80 £32,324.80 £33,477.20 £33,125.20 £32,440.00 £33,141.20 £35,165.20 £36,236.00 £36,953.60

Appendix 6
Appendix 7: Final Presentation

Final Presentation
The entrepreneurship lecture session on 21st, March 2019 was devoted to team presentations.
Below are the slides and scripts used by Zzz:

Slide 1: General Introduction to the company Slide 2: Team membership

We are zzz , a healthcare company that cares about your sleeping quality.

Slide 3: Background information & opportunity Slide 4: Target Customer and beachhead customer

Opportunity
A third of the UK population is said to be suffering from insomnia, with the number of people diagnosed
with depression and anxiety rising also. The problem with popular solutions to help with these issues such
as medication are side effects or with therapy is ineffectiveness or the long waiting time in the NHS.
Therefore, we see an opportunity to provide a solution to overcome these issues.

Target Customers
With rising mental health problems amongst students and greater pressure with universities trying to
accommodate this, we found our solution to be most appropriate with the student market. Amongst
studying, gaming and social media are also prominent reasons for the increase in depression, anxiety and
insomnia for young people aged 18-25. Considering we are students ourselves, we felt this target market
is more approachable and accessible to us. Upon expansion, we aim to branch out our target market to
white collar workers and other professionals dealing from stress at work.

Appendix 7
Appendix 7: Final Presentation

Slide 5: Introduction to CES sleep aid Slide 6: Our Product (presentation of concept)

Introduction to CES Sleep Aid


CES is short for cranial electrotherapy stimulation. The sleep aid will send an electric current to your brain
that can regulate your brain activities, making you calm and less excited so that you can fall asleep.
For university students and office workers who suffer from mild level of anxiety, depression or insomnia,
the CES sleep aid device regulates the brain activities using micro current. In our product, the micro-
current is transferred through your ear lobes which are believed as ‘important acupoints’ in traditional
Chinese medicine theory. Unlike sleeping pills or psychological sleep therapy, our product is purely
physical without any side effects, it is not addictive and relatively cheaper in long term as well. Apart from
that, our products can improve a variety of physiological signal such as heart rate, blood pressure, galvanic
skin and muscle tone, and that gives us a very unfair advantage. It is a combination of the theory of
traditional Chinese acupuncture practice and western medicine.
Meet our product, the 'Insomnia Slayer'.

Slide 7: User instruction Slide 8: Product Specification

User instruction:
Step 1 is to clip the cables onto your ear. If you’re feeling uncomfortable about the ear clippings, sponge
spacers are provided for reduction of foreign body sensation. To use it, the user only need to follow this
step, so our ‘Insomnia Slayer’ is actually very easy to use.
In step 2, Special micro current will transfer to human skull and then further to the brain, including your
Hypothalamus, Limbic System etc.
In step 3, The micro current regulates your brain waves and neurotransmitter functions. Normally, it takes
less than 20 minutes for people to get into sleep but individuals would vary.
In stage 4, we believe the ‘Insomnia Slayer’ is now working.

Appendix 7
Appendix 7: Final Presentation

Slide 9: Financial Plan Slide 10: unresolved issues

Financial Plan
A predominate amount of funding would come from applying to start-up competitions and government
grants. Considering we are a business dealing with medical technology, we are fairly confident that most
of the funding will be supported with organisations such as Innovate UK which can provide £10 million to
start-ups. However, failing to do so will resort in approaching angel investors or even crowdfunding. By
contacting an electronic manufacturing service, Texcel Technology, we figured out that the main costs are
associated to design and development and systems approval, these cost £45,000 itself. Mass
manufacturing costs £130 per unit hence we included a 270% mark up for the sale price to be £350. With
our projected three-year forecast, we predict a positive net profit as the end of each quarter which shows
financial viability of our business venture. A problem we do realise though is low customer life time value
with the product being a one-off purchase and therefore new customers need to be acquired continuously,
increasing costs.

Unresolved Issues
First problem that needs to be solved is reaching out to customers, as sleeping disorder or mental
conditions are rather sensitive topics, people who suffer from those symptoms might not be willing to talk
so it is very difficult for us to get to our customers. We don’t have enough time to run a rounded customer
analysis.

Uneducated market. If your search ‘CES’ on google, all you can get are descriptions to a science forum
and no trace left about ‘CES sleep aid’, which means UK people are not familiar with this idea. We need
to put a lot of effort into market education or people will not be interested at all.
Funding shortage. It is clear that at this stage, our company needs a start-up fund to create prototypes of
the product etc.

Low customer life time value. We’ve mentioned that our product is a one-off purchase and we need to
acquire new customers continuously.

Appendix 7
Appendix 7: Final Presentation

Slide 11: Accurate Advertising Slide 12: Official Phone App

Next-Step Strategy
In order for this business to run smoothly, we will need a next step strategy. First, we need to run an
accurate advertisement in the most used social media platform, such as Facebook and Instagram. This
will increase the public awareness of our product, therefore, increase the chances of successful sales.
With more successful sales, the liquidity of the company assets will increase and hence it will be more
attractive while presenting our ideas to the potential investors such as Innovate UK and UCL launch
business programme.

Another next step strategy is we aim to develop an App to improve customers interaction. The app allows
Bluetooth connection between your phone and your sleep aid device. By connecting your phone to the
sleep aid device, your sleeping quality can be monitored and view at any time through your phone. The
sleep aid mode can also be change by using the app. To increase the user satisfaction, the app also
provides an online user forum for the users to interact with each other and also provide a 24hour customer
service (by using the live chat feature or calling the hotline) to help our client with any technical issues.

Feedback from the presentation session


Unfortunately, the mentor was not impressed with our idea as he mentioned ‘CES technology is one thing
he has never heard of’, and that further validates our concern. He also raised questions in our value
proposition and advised us to re-position our business idea. The feedback received was mainly related to
the product itself, and the mentor advised us to change our design, or even switch to another business.
Hence, it is difficult for us to add additional features to our product prototype. However, we still hold a
strong belief in our product, and we decided to proceed with our current plan with several adjustments. In
order to open the UK market for CES sleep aid, we would therefore need a stronger product marketing
plan and wider channels, and the mitigation measures to existing problems have been highlighted in this
business feasibility report.

Appendix 7

You might also like