PROJECT REPORT

UNIPAL
COURSE NAME : LEAN START-UP MANAGEMENT

COURSE CODE : MGT1022

FACULTY NAME : PROF. JAMBESWAR SAHU

SLOT : TE1

GROUP MEMBERS :
KANAV BHASIN : 18BEE0068
AKSHAYA AKHATE : 18BEE0236
SHRESHTH VERMA : 18BEE0196
AEHSAS MATHUR : 18BEE0262
MANAV MANTRI : 18BEE0235
NEEHAL GUPTA : 18BEE0264
MEGHNA BISWAS : 18BEC0761
SHASHWAT SHUKLA : 18BEI0089
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Firstly, we would like to express our gratitude towards Prof. Jambeswar Sahu. He
has been supportive teacher and a significant motivator behind this project.
Without his guidance, Unipal would not have come into existence.

Secondly, we would like to thank VIT UNIVERSITY for presenting this

opportunity to us. We have gained considerable knowledge and it has been a
remarkable experience working together to apply our skills in a practical
environment.

We would also like to thank all our classmates and fellow students in this college,
for participating in our pre-implementation survey and providing us with
inspiration to carry out this project.
 INTRODUCTION
The term ‘fintech’ (or FinTech) is an abbreviation of ‘financial technology’ and
it means a new technology or innovation that aims to compete with traditional
financial methods in the delivery of financial services.

Different Categories of Fintech apps:

Unipal is a one-stop solution to every college student's financial woes. It helps you
keep track of your expenditure on various tasks, activities and services that are
inevitable parts of a student's daily life. Unipal features a simple user interface
tailored to each student's needs. Once the app is opened, the user is asked to select
a service that he/she requires. Under the corresponding service, the user will be
asked to put in the amount of money he/she has planned on spending on it. Based
on the user's requirements, the app will list the possible locations that can be
accessed by the user. The app also provides a pivotal feature to keep track of the
student's spending on the different services. These services will include
restaurants, entertainment centres like arcades or theatres, laundry services, retail
centres, etc. It categorizes daily expenses in a neat, user- friendly manner to make
budgeting an easier task for students. Simply put, Unipal is a tool that will regulate
the student's spending and aims to help them along a hectic university life.
 PRODUCT FEATURES

➢ Key features which make tracking enjoyable and powerful:

1. Intuitive and easy to use user interface. No redundancy

2. Add new records extremely fast

3. Handy widgets that could be used on lock screen

4. Multi-currency support

5. See your spending distribution on the nice and informative chart or get
detailed information from the records list

6. Manage categories if defaults do not work for you

7. Be safely synchronized using your own Google Drive or Dropbox

account

8. Choose the report period

9. Backup and export data in one click

10. Use budget mode

11. Backup and export data in one click

12. Passcode protection

13. Multiple accounts support

14. Built-in calculator

15. Completely Localized: Smart Recommendations for places under user’s

budget.
 PRE-IMPLEMENTATION SURVEY
In order to understand the precise financial problems that college students face
and their intricacies, we carried out a Google survey to narrow down on the issues
that needed addressing and to better our understanding of the general financial
situation of college students.
Other than this we also did one to one interviews, made focus groups The
questions we thoughts were most pertinent were: 1. How would you grade yourself
in terms of managing money? 2. Do you keep track of your monthly budget? 3. Do
you wish to keep a track of, and reduce your expenses? 4. How often do you
exceed your target budget? 5. Do you wish to make budget a habit? 6. What types
of financial apps do you use? 6.
How likely are you to use an app which keeps track of your budget and daily
expenditures? The following figures show the results:
 Top Preferred Features in a Finance App:
• 79% Requires sign in for secure access
• 67% Stores my preferences to make future activities easier
• 65% Has a wide range of feature

THE MARKET
Fintech applications are enjoying quick growth with the time spent by users on
business and the market’s largest segment is Digital Payments with a total
transaction value of US$ 62,234 m in 2019.

Due to the benefits offered like quick payments of bills, tracking of multiple
account finance, the convenience of customers, rise in need of advanced financial
tools, increasing demand for low-cost products and shifting of few banks to online
transaction mode have created a boost in the personal finance app market.

Several apps like Monefy , Wallet, Spendee etc. are some of the most used
products in the market and each of these products has a good user base.

WHY UNIPAL ?
Although there exist many budgeting applications in the market, still people don’t
use much budgeting application.Through our market research and Audience
survey, We were able to analyse the problems faced by the different users in the
existing products.

1. Difficult navigation/Poor User Experience

2. None of the available apps are focused on a college students daily
expenses
3. Not Localized for Users
4. After Months of Usage, User Stops keeping a track of Budget: Why
not make Budgeting a habit?

Unipal’s Solution:
The Following are Unipal’s Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
 ANALYSIS OF FEASIBILITY REPORT:
The above market research and pre-implementation survey formed the basis for
the feasibility report. We launched a MVP and the got the feedback . A positive
feedback for mvp as well as market and Audience survey motivated us to carry on
with our product and make it scalable. The market competition also suggested us
that product is technically and economically feasible.
We came to a conclusion that our initial product in the market should only focus
on Student community rather than the complete audience as student community is
the easiest target audience for our product.
Considering the legal aspects which may be a constraint for us – Privacy and
data security is main concern which can also be achieved.

BUSINESS MODEL AND FINANCIAL

ASPECTS:
Revenue Model:

Affiliate Model:
• Charging a commission from the partner fintech companies for
advertising and suggesting their services to customers.
• Thus it benefits both customers as well as partners.

Ads revenue:

● According to these parameters, monthly ad revenue per user is found.

○ Sessions per Month for a Typical User: How many times is an
active user opening our app?
○ Average Minutes per Session: When a user opens our app,
for how long do they use it?
 ○Ad Impressions Per Minute: How often are ads shown in our
app?
● Then, monthly Ad Revenue per User will be multiplied with
Monthly Active Users to give us the ads revenue.

Freemium Model:

• Paid/premium version of the application which charges customers for

specific services.

• By knowing the monthly selling estimations and prices, In-App Items

Revenue will be calculated via simple multiplication of units and prices
per month.

BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS:

COSTS:

Fixed Costs are a type of costs that does not change with the amount of app
activities. These are paid regardless of any revenue, downloads etc. We can
separate fixed costs into two categories-’Salaries’: By knowing the no. of
employees and monthly projected salaries, we can calculate this and ‘Other Fixed
Costs’: All operating expenses goes here i.e. Rent, utility bills, travel expenses,
hosting etc.

Commission rates are the fees paid for services as a percentage of the total
revenue. Some platforms do not charge commissions for Ad Revenue, so it is
imperative that we separate our calculations and projections for each platform.
Commission amounts will be calculated automatically via a simple
multiplication of revenue amount and commission percentages.

Startup Costs are the expenses that are prior to the going live date of our model.
These costs include the software and hardware used to develop the app, travel
expenses related to the app development etc. Startup Costs are especially used for
Breakeven Analysis in order to find out when will we be able to pay-out the initial
expenses and start making real-profits.

CASH FLOW STATEMENT:

The cash flow statement is divided into three sections - cash flow from
operating activities, cash flow from investing, and cash flow from financing
activities. Collectively, all three sections provide a picture of where the our
cash comes from, and how it is spent

1. Cash Flow from Operation constitutes the revenue-generating

activities of a business, which in our case are the in-app purchases
and ad revenues.
 2. Cash Flow from Investing will include capital expenditures
(CAPEX) such as office lease, laptop cost, and software
development costs depreciated and amortized over time
3. Cash Flow from Financing includes debt and equity financing. In
general, the transactions that cause positive cash flow are:
● Issuing equity or stock, which is sold to investors
● Borrowing debt from a creditor or bank
● Issuing bonds, which is debt that investors purchase And

the ones that cause negative cash flow are:

● Stock repurchases
● Dividends
● Paying down debt

For our app, we have decided to go through the equity route i.e issue stock to
investors who purchase the stock for a share in the company.

Projection of EBITDA Breakeven and Payback Period:

We can figure out in which month EBITDA becomes positive to calculate the
breakeven point of EBITDA. To calculate this payback period, we calculate
first the sum of all cash flows and track in which month the cumulative cash
flows become positive again (by when the investment is paid back) by plotting
the ‘Break-even analysis’

Break-even analysis can be calculated using startup costs, variable costs, fixed
costs and revenue. This analysis shows us when we pay back (cover) all startup
costs and start making profits. If the break-even point is too far from what we
expected, then we should increase revenues or decrease variable costs.
 FUNDING:

For our seed fund requirements, we will be focusing on three important

leverages:

1. Start-Up Incubators

There are specific incubators in India, that offer support to gain investment, such as
LetsVenture, StartUpMitra , Amity Innovation Incubator, AngelPrime, CIIE, IAN
Business Incubator, Villgro , Startup Village and TLabs.. These services actively
help to connect and chat with investors in a secure and private environment. By
signing up on the platforms, we can apply for funding and their startup team will
review and approve our requests to connect with Investors on the Platform. In
India, popular names are

Such incubators usually approve startups for connecting with based on the Startup
Funding Readiness Index. It uses the following parameters and more:

1. Team Profile (is the team well rounded? Does the experience reflect
alignment to the product? Does the team demonstrate the ability to
execute? Who are the advisors? Who are the previous investors., if the
startup has already raised an earlier round?)
1. Traction (Do traction metrics reflect numbers that are relevant to the stage
of the startup?)
2. Do the financial numbers align to the stage of the startup?
3. Startup Video and Founder Video does help provide additional clarity to
what is being presented, but is not mandatory in order to be approved.
ROI and IRR are two important quantities for investors looking to invest in our
app. So to promote ourselves to potential investors, we can calculate these two
factors.
ROI, or Return On Investment is obtained by dividing the difference between cost
of investment and current value of investment, by the cost of investment. Here,
the “current value of investment” means the proceeds obtained from the sale of
the investment of interest.

IRR, or Internal Rate of Returns is the interest rate that will bring a series of cash
flows (positive and negative) to a net present value (NPV) of zero. we calculate
using net cash inflow during a particular period , total initial investment costs, the
discount rate, and the number of time periods we take into consideration.

2. Angel Investors

Angel investors are individuals with surplus cash and a keen interest to invest
in upcoming startups. They also work in groups of networks to collectively
screen the proposals before investing. They can also offer mentoring or advice
alongside capital.

Though, the Angel investors invest less than the venture capitalist, it is not a big
issue as the cost required for developing is not so high.

The top angel investors network in India are: Indian Angel Network, Mumbai
Angels.

3. Hackathons
In general, a hackathon is an invention marathon. Programmers, designers, builders
and more come together to learn, build, and share their creations over the course of
a few days. Nowadays, to promote practical learning, colleges and companies
across India are hosting a multitude of hackathons. As our app is a fintech app, we
will narrow our hackathon search to finance related ones. One example is the
HackBattle’19 hosted by the IEEE Computer Society in our college, Vellore
Institute of Technology.
As such hackathons offer large cash prizes sponsored by leading technological
companies in the domains that the hackathons deal with, it is a viable and secure
option for attracting seed fund for UniPal.

4. Government programmes:
To provide funding support to student start-ups, the National Science &
Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board (NSTEDB), Department of
Science and Technology (DST), Government of India launched a Rs 100 Crore
programmes called National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations
(NIDHI).
As the Student Start-up NIDHI undertakes an annual National Level Competition
to select student start-ups amongst NewGen IEDCs. They shortlist maximum 20
best innovative start-up ideas with commercial viability and fund each start-up
maximum up to Rs 10.00 lakhs along with monitoring and reviewing their
progress. As VIT has been established as a Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Development Centre (IEDC) by the government, we will be eligible to apply for
this competition with UniPal.

5. Crowdfunding
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising small
amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.
Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance.
Crowdfunding campaigns provide producers with a number of benefits, beyond
the strict financial gains. The following are non-financial benefits of
crowdfunding.

• Profile – a compelling project can raise a producer's profile and

provide a boost to their reputation.
• Marketing – project initiators can show there are an audience and
market for their project. In the case of an unsuccessful campaign, it
provides good market feedback.
 • Audience engagement – crowdfunding creates a forum where project
initiators can engage with their audiences. An audience can engage in
the production process by the following progress through updates
from the creators and sharing feedback via comment features on the
project's crowdfunding page.

• Feedback – offering pre-release access to content or the opportunity to

beta-test content to project backers as a part of the funding incentives
provides the project initiators with instant access to good market testing
feedback.

There are various sites which offer crowdfunding. The popular websites in India
are: Crowdera, Impactguru, Catapooolt.

Initial Cost For Making Basic Application:

This is the cost vested by us, by raising fund from our friends and family.
Before going for a bigger service for our product we wanted to implement our
idea by making a basic application.
Total cost = 1.5 lakhs to 1.7 lakhs
Including factors :
Considering Development Cost as : considering ,in cost(our team is developing the
product)
Servers costing = 10$/month = 700Rs/month
Equipment Cost ie. Laptops/Internet/mobile testing = 45000 Rs x 3
Publish app on Play Store = 1750 Rs

From Investors:
Seed Fund requirement for a head start for making a scalable and
advanced service:
The split up!
EXPENDITURE DESCRIPTION COST IN LAKH OF INR

Offers/Referal Partner To offer discounts and lucrative 2.5

Program offers on certain combinations in
order to attract more users

Human Resources (Intern + Team expansion –both tech and 1.5

Fulltime) business side(2+2)

Tech Maintenance/Servers Would require servers to support the 1

website and other tech maintenance

Marketing Digital Marketing/Other marketing 1.5

options

Setting up office space Minimalistic workspace/Inventory and 1.5

other logistics

TOTAL This is just the initial cost to launch 8

the beta version with a grand head
start
 LEGAL ASPECTS:

Business registration:

When Unipal starts generating revenue, filings with the ministry of corporate
affairs, service tax registration can all go smoothly once an LLP is formed. We
found that going the LLP route was best for UniPal as in a general partnership
firm, partners are personally liable for debts of the business which means that
even our personal property may be used to settle Unipal’s debts. However, the
liability of partners is limited in case of an LLP.

Non-Disclosure Agreement between partners:

As a starting step to protect the app's features and code, the founders need to sign a
non-disclosure agreement.

Founders agreement:

The equity distributions, vesting provisions, Co-founders obligations, rules and

regulations are required to be discussed and written in a formal document to be
legally binding. This document will contain important information about
UniPal’s structure such as:

● Details of capital raised (by founders and investors)

● Ownership details (in the company)
● Roles and responsibilities of each of the co-founders
● Compensation (salary drawn by each of the co-founders)
● Details of exit formality for founders
● Dissolution of the firm
● Details of dispute resolution
● Miscellaneous provisions (assignment of intellectual property rights,
Intellectual property rights:

Intellectual property rights include rights of computer programs whether in source

or object code for a copyright in their programs and compilation data, right of
businessmen for protection of their undisclosed information on technology and
management and right of designers. To protect the work that we have put into
Unipal, we will be registering for trademarks and copyrights.

1) copyright-Indian Copyright laws for software protection prohibit copying the

structure and design of a software programme, along with its graphics, sounds
and appearance. Though the source code contains information pertaining to
writing the program, it is generally the object code that is protected by a
copyright. Creator of a software can file an infringement suit against any person
who violates their above-mentioned rights

2)trademark- if the software or product name is not trademarked, then a

competitor can offer a product with the same name. Therefore, filing of trademark
is also an important aspect of protecting the intellectual property behind a
software product.

There is an option to trademark our work online in India offered by the government
to make the process easier and more efficient. The service can be availed on

https://ipindiaonline.gov.in/trademarkefiling/user/frmLoginNew.aspx

Privacy policy:

The sensitive personal information of the user collected by the app will be
protected from third parties and any outsourcing of user data will first be
specified to the user and explicit permission taken. The exact details of what will
be done with the users information will be a part of the privacy policy. A
grievance officers name and contact will also be provided.
 UNIPAL IN THE MARKET
Fintech applications are enjoying quick growth with the time spent by users on
business and the market’s largest segment is Digital Payments with a total
transaction value of US$ 62,234 m in 2019.

Due to the benefits offered like quick payments of bills, tracking of multiple
account finance, the convenience of customers, rise in need of advanced financial
tools, increasing demand for low-cost products and shifting of few banks to online
transaction mode have created a boost in the personal finance app market.

Several apps like Monefy , Wallet, Spendee etc. are some of the most used
products in the market and each of these products has a large user base.

To improve our popularity in the market, we will be focusing on Unipal’s

USP’s which are

1. Geofencing-It is a technology that enables mobile apps to take

advantage of location-based marketing. This technology can help
marketers collect information and engage app users as they enter, leave
or stay in certain geographical areas. Unipal provides smart localized
recommendations for places under user’s budget
2. App store optimization.
3. Gamification-It is the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g.
point scoring) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing
technique. Unipal recognizes that gamification in apps is one way to
increase engagement with our mobile app. Reward systems are widely used
in games, but there are certain game dynamics that be integrated into the
overall mobile app user experience. In Unipal, the reward will be in the
form of discounts for in-app purchases. Small productive actions such as
writing a feedback for a particular laundry service on the public forum will
give the user virtual tokens that the user can use for discounts on in-app
purchases
 4. Digital Marketing: Digital marketing encompasses all marketing
efforts that use an electronic device or the internet. Businesses leverage
digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and their
websites to connect with current and prospective customers.

IDEA EXECUTION:
We were able to build a basic prototype for the application, which serves the basic
functionality of budgeting. We were not able to implement the advanced features
of the application like smart recommendations ,localized behavior due to time
constraints. Below are the application wireframes:
 Projected vs reality:
A prototype was developed and was made to be used by 70-100 students. Though
the features were customized and catered to the needs of each person, the
budgeting portion of the app was no longer used by almost 50% of the test group
after a duration of 2 weeks.The easy UI was not enough to pique the customer’s
interest .It was realised there was an urgent need to increase the features of the
app.
We also thought that marketing would be easy through word of mouth because the
app is useful to all students alike but we realised there was a need to advertise
through other channels like social media.
 Implementation Success Rate:

The result of this project is that the app will fail. The rate of failure is more than
the rate of success in this case.

The main reasons of failure are:

• Limited Target Audience

In this case, our main target audience are the students.

First, due to limited target audience the probability of success of the app decrease
drastically.
Second, we can also see through this chart that the students are unwilling to
spend money on the app even if they get extra offers and features.
This has a major impact on the revenue generation of the startup.
 • Decrease in Interest/Continuous usage of app

From the survey, we can also see that the most of the targeted audience lose their
interest in budgeting apps in a month.

• High Competition

Since the fintech market is blooming right now, many big companies have entered
and implemented budgeting in their applications. The target audience of these
companies are large and most of them are free for a long time and provide better
offers as they have good funding to support them.
E.g.: Google Pay, Paytm, Mint ,Real byte Inc (Money Manager Expense &
Budget app)
 • Less funding

Since this application does not bring much innovation in finance field, it has been
difficult to find funding for the app. Even though initial funding was done by
bootstrapping, funding for further expansion has been difficult as investors like
Venture Capitals and Angel Investors are willing to bet their money on the
applications which bring innovation in a particular field or will be highly
beneficial to large amount of audience.
So, the funding required for improving the application has been difficult.

CONCLUSION:

Unipal is a small attempt towards solving a college student’s financial problems.

This startup idea helped us realize the concepts of Lean Startup and its importance
in building up a startup. The idea for the startup plays an important role, but the
finance, Revenue generation and customer interest play a major role in success of
the startup. Proper team work, co-ordination and equal work distribution is the key
to successful outcome.

REFERENCES
1. https://ipindiaonline.gov.in/trademarkefiling/user/frmLoginNew.aspx
2. https://developer.android.com/training/location/geofencing
3. https://letsventure.com/
4. http://www.startupmitra.com/
5. http://www.nstedb.com/new-programmes.htm
6. http://www.mca.gov.in/MinistryV2/incorporation.html
7. http://copyright.gov.in/
8. http://www.newgeniedc-edii.in/
 9. https://www.appsterhq.com/blog/app-development-cost/

10. http://howmuchtomakeanapp.com/
11. https://yourstory.com/mystory/0dd1fe75a7-how-much-does-it-cost
12.https://evoma.com/business-centre/what-is-the-cost-of-renting-an-office-in-
bangalore/
13.https://evoma.com/business-centre/what-is-the-cost-of-renting-an-office- in-
bangalore/

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