Final report

Principles of entrepreneurship

Prepared by:
Amina Khassenova 20180020
Maria Papp 20181370
Mark Tomas 20171176
Aruzhan Kumarova 20170538
Aruzhan Batyrkhankyzy 20170332

Course instructor:
Dana Abeuova

Almaty 2021

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Table of Content
1.0 Executive Summary………………………………………………………………
1.1 Objectives
1.2 Mission
1.3 Key to success
2.0 Company Summary………………………………………………………………
2.1 Company Ownership
2.2 Company Locations and Facilities
3.0 Products ………………………………………………………………
3.1 Product Description
3.2 Competitive comparison
3.3 Sourcing
3.4 Technology
3.5 Future Products
4.0 Market analysis summary ………………………………………………………………
4.1 Market segmentation
4.2 Target market segment strategy
5.0 Strategy and Implementation Summary ……………………………………………
5.1 Strategy Pyramid
5.2 Value Proposition
5.3 Competitive Edge
5.4 Marketing Strategy
5.5 Sales Strategy
6.0 Management summary ……………………………………………………
6.1 Management Team
6.2 Management Team gaps
6.3 Organizational structure
6.4 Personnel plan
7.0 Financial Plan……………………………………………………
7.1 Important assumptions
7.2 Key financial indicators
7.3 Break-Even Analysis
7.4 Projected Profit and Loss
7.5 Projected Cash Flow

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7.6 Projected Balance Sheet

7.7 Exit Strategy
8. Appendix……………………………………………………

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1.0 Executive Summary

Q-it is a product, which provides people a lot of opportunities regarding music.
Firstly, the main database of the app would consist of millions of music tracks, albums, EPs
and music videos. Our customer would be able to listen to music on an online and offline
basis by searching them and adding to the music library if needed. In terms of searching, we
will try to fulfill the database with tracks for any age and nationality. Offline listening will be
provided after downloading. Downloaded music will take up more space on the user's device.
Besides, people could read lyrics while listening and turn on “karaoke mode”.
The most interesting feature of our app is the opportunity to share music and collect it into a
single playlist for DJ. One user could create a playlist each of which are nominated with ID
number. Others at the event share tracks using playlist ID.

1.1 Objectives
Our main objectives are to make useful and new apps for the customers, to help
people make their events more memorable and to become top 10 music apps in the App Store
and Play Market. Since there are a lot to offer on the market it is important to us to make
those features special for every customer.

1.2 Vision and Mission

The vision of the “Q-it” is “To be the first choice of people when it comes to listening
to music”. Our company will provide the best service and a whole different experience to its
customers.
The mission of “Q-it” is to make people’s life brighter and more interesting with music.
We want to remind people about the importance of being together during these hard times.
Moreover, we want to provide our customers the best quality app. Although many other apps
like Apple Music, Spotify and Yandex Music provide similar service, Q-it will create
additional features like karaoke mode, sharing playlist by ID and etc. in order to become
more popular.

1.3 Key to success

Our team believes in the success of the future musical app. There are several reasons
to think so. Firstly, as it was mentioned previously, the app has new interesting features
which are- access to private playlists of other people, unified lists of songs for many users
and a fast updating system that will provide different genres of music according to the

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parties’ theme and people's mood. Such innovative characteristics will boost people's interest
because consumers always seek something new in regular products. Second reason for the
future success of the app is that it combines in it our common passion- music. Every member
of the team absolutely loves music in its every form. Moreover, music unites people all over
the world, always did that and will continue doing it in the future for sure. Good example of
such unity is our idea for creating a mobile app that will continue uniting people together for
good emotions and great time spent together. Therefore, through the app, we as a team will
spread the message of sharing good music with other people.
Following reason for the app’s future success is our team. Team work makes the dream work!
The members of the team will be responsible for different stages of the app preparation,
launch and its further work.

2.0 Company Summary

2.1 Company Ownership
Our project was found in 2021 in Almaty, Kazakhstan by 5 KIMEP University
students. We combined our passion - music in the project. When we were thinking about our
business project, we wanted to make something valuable for people of all ages, and also,
interesting for us. Then, after talking to each other, we found out that music is what unites our
team. It can motivate, calm us down, make us laugh and bring all our friends together. That is
why our business project is connected with music. During global pandemic, moments with
your family, friends, loved ones are more precious than ever. Taking this into consideration,
our goal was to make something that can gather all friends and family members together. In
the modern world, one of the easiest ways to do it is by using technologies. So, we stopped
the creation of a music app that can sync playlists with your friends and family members in
order to make the event more memorable, add different activities to listening to music and
add a needed atmosphere to it. Our main goal of creating this business project is to share your
favorite music, playlists for parties and organize karaoke nights all in one app. This is a new
type of music experience and what makes us different from each other. Since we all are
responsible for the project, we decided that Q-it would be a limited liability partnership.

2.2 Company Locations and Facilities

Since Q-it is a music app, it would be located online. The app could be downloaded
from App Store and Play Market. We chose those particular locations so it would be easier
for the customers to download our apps.

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Demand on the streaming services and music apps

Before getting into details about the product we want to add an important explanation
about the rising demand on musical apps and musical streaming services. The information is
also one of the reasons for the team choosing exactly this product type for the whole project.
Listening to music was always an enjoyable process. Nowadays, due to the
development of both technology and business services, music applications and streaming
music services are now experiencing huge success. Moreover, the big rise of it is a merit of
global consumers. Because music listeners all over the world increased the demand for the
music streaming services and music apps. In 2019 the on-demand streaming segment
dominated the market with a revenue share of nearly 70.0% (Music Streaming Market Size,
Share & Trends Analysis Report, 2020). Moreover, the segment is expected to witness even
greater growth over the next 5 years. Because those streaming platforms and music apps
provide listeners a wide range of music artists and genres. Besides, most of music apps are
convenient, user friendly and include people’s favorite music

Since our project is about creating an innovative and outstanding music app we dig
deeper to see statistics that are relatable for us. Thus, we found out that the music applications
segment dominated the market in 2019. Largest revenue share accounted for 85.2%. The
segment is expected to register the highest CAGR of over 18.0% from 2020 to 2027. (Music
Streaming Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report, 2020)

Music apps have built a strong point in the industry as they give an opportunity to listen
to thousands of songs. Besides, they can be both purchased from the app and streamed for
free. Furthermore, the rising trend of media streaming, driven by high-speed internet and the
extreme rise of smartphone adoption, is meaningfully driving the global demand for music
streaming apps.

3.0 Product

3.1 Product Description

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This app is a product, which provides people a lot of opportunities regarding music.
Firstly, the main database of the app would consist of millions of music tracks, albums, EPs
and music videos. Our customer would be able to listen to music on an online and offline
basis by searching them and adding to the music library if needed. In terms of searching, we
will try to fulfill the database with tracks for any age and nationality. Offline listening will be
provided after downloading. Downloaded music will take up more space on the user's device.
Besides, people could read lyrics while listening and turn on “karaoke mode”.
The most interesting feature of our app is the opportunity to share music and collect it
into a single playlist for DJ. One user could create a playlist each of which are nominated
with ID number. Others at the event share tracks using playlist ID.
In our case purchase is not mandatory, however it will just help people with the
application to get rid of advertisements and to enjoy additional features. Also, for new
customers we provide a 30 days free trial so they can try all of our features for free and then
decide to use or not to use our application.
We plan to provide an auto payment feature in our app, so the consumer will not have
to do manual payment regularly. The purchase process is easy, customers have to open a
subscription button and select the subscription they want and then the system would take the
money (Apple pay or Android pay), or the consumer can add a card to the system and pay
straight from there. In addition, it is comfortable because I enter a card once and we will
automatically take money every month and you do not need to do anything.
The prices we have set are not that high. Moreover, there are 3 different subscription
packages available- 1) family subscription, 2) adults subscription and 3) student subscription.
If to take prices in tenge family subscription will cost 2499 tenge, adults subscription will
cost -999 tenge and student subscription will cost -499 tenge. The benefits of the monthly
subscription is that customers will not face any kind of advertisement. Also all the features in
the application would be available for them at any time and without any limits. Additional
benefit for our consumers is that our prices are smaller compared to other companies who
provide the same service.
Considering additional product features, we want to mention that our application does
not have any limits in case of location of the customer. We as a team want our app to have
worldwide distribution. There might be several limitations in terms of cases where we may
not be able to provide all of the music according to the specific locations. For example, some
old folklore songs that are related only to South Korea, because it's related to the other
countries' customers. However, we strive to provide all popular music compositions that will

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be easy to share. Also, we will create a chart with musical trends that shows both what is
popular worldwide and what is popular in a specific country of the consumer. The feature
will work with the help of a geoposition system within a specific location and that playlist
would be prioritized in the section where the person is opening the app (example if the user is
from Russian so the first playlist would be the songs that people most listen to in Russia).
Also, we will try to translate the app into many different languages, so everyone will not have
any troubles in using this app. In addition, we can consider a slight change of color scheme of
our app as a theme and this theme will be connected with some kind of holidays or may be
national colors of the country. This strategy will make users of the app feel that the company
is taking care of them and knows about the events that are happening in their home land and
this will increase customer loyalty to our product.
3.2 Competitive comparison
Our main competitors are Apple Music. Spotify and Yandex Music. These are well-
known and high-quality music apps, which offer the same services. On Apple Music. Spotify
and Yandex Music the customer can listen to music, watch videos for tracks, download and
read lyrics in convenient mode.
What makes Q-it special? This app allows people to connect their favourite tracks into
a single playlist at any party or event. It is important because nowadays there is a problem
with appropriate playlist for party, event or teambuilding. People listen to and relax only at
those tracks, which were chosen by someone. In case of playing your favourite one you have
to send it or connect your device to the main DJ laptop. With a help of Q-it the DJ announces
the ID of the playlist so the guests can add their favourite tracks. In case of the choice
between other music apps, we provide features that are not available in other music
applications, of course not everyone would like to use this feature, but still this feature is new
in this sector.
3.3 Sourcing
The source of the product is direct from the manufacturer. The role of manufacturer in
our business is devoted to the IT specialist who will write all the codes for the app. The
coding is essential and the main part of app production. The quality of the code influences the
quality of the app, its configurations, design features, the convenience to use, the ability to
produce good sound and videos, the speed of lyrics during karaoke mode, and absence of
“lags”.

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Even small mistakes in the code could corrupt the whole strategy and timing of our
company, all marketing and design efforts. That is the reason why the problem of searching
for the real specialist was that important for the company.
The IT specialist who will produce the code for Q-it app is Azizbek Mirzaolimov. He is
a graduate of INHA University (South Korea) majoring in Business Administration and
Computer Engineering. Azizbek has an experience in HANPASS company (Seoul). We are
fortunate to have such a professional being a friend of Tomas. So the financing of coding was
lower than the market price.

3.4 Technology
Regarding technologies in the business, we are required to have a hosting platform.
Application hosting is a form of SaaS (software as a service) hosting solution allowing
applications to be accessible over the internet from a remote data center.
Our company had decided to use Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). It
provides a changeable volume of resources in the cloud. You define the characteristics of
your Amazon EC2 virtual environment, such as the operating system, services, databases, and
application platform stack, required for your hosted application. To manage compute
resources, Amazon EC2 provides a management console and API with access to all of the
service's capabilities.

3.5 Future Products

As for now the plan of the company is developing the current Q-it app by adding new
features and opportunities for our users. Q-it will be being developed and improved for
months. Moreover, we will focus on marketing even harder as it is important to increase our
market share.
In terms of long-term future plans, we plan to create new apps in different directions:
games, educational platforms. We will always pay attention to the needs of our customers and
create new opportunities for them.

3.6 Copyright
Copyright is a type of intellectual property. The owner has a right to make copies and use
them. The intellectual property must be registered so no one else could use it. Those
intellectual properties are usually called “creative works” which include poems, fictional
characters, plays, motion pictures, musical compositions, sound recordings, choreography,

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sculptures, photographs,paintings, drawings. So in order to use tracks/videos for the app our
team has to obtain that right.
According to Stim (2016) there are main 5 steps to get the permission for copyright:
1) Assess whether permission is required.
2) Determine who the owner is.
3) Determine the required rights.
4) Call the company and discuss whether or not payment is necessary.
5) Get a written consent document.
Regarding the music app, there is a need to contact labels which in most cases work with
many artists.

4.0 Market analysis summary

4.1 Market segmentation

The Q-it will focus on two different market segments: people who enjoy listening to
music both online and offline and people who often have gatherings with friends.To access
both of these markets, we plan to attract the market through effective online and offline
promotion through different communication channels like social media, outdoor marketing,
searching engines and endorsement of influencers.
Demographic segmentation
Considering the fact that our app is made for people who want to chill out with their
friends and with music, our age group is quite a broad choice from 13 year to 60, because no
matter what age group you are, you still like music and you want to listen to it with friends.
Moreover, according to the extreme demand for music streaming and listening apps the age
group is planned to be this big. In terms of segmentation in generation, the smallest group
would be baby boomers, next group would be Generation X and the last two groups-
millennials and Generation Z would be the biggest ones to use, because they are used to these
types of apps. In the case of gender, it was difficult to find a statistic, so we decided to take
specific statistics from music applications like Spotify and Apple music. So, based on 2018
year 56% of males and 44% females use Spotify, in case of Apple Music statistics its
opposite 44% males and 56% females. (Statista, 2018) Based on the statistics we got, we can
predict that the result of gender separation would be 50 on 50 of the gender. In terms of
income and social class segmentation, we plan to make the product affordable. In addition

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there will be 3 subscription packages oriented for 3 different types of our target consumers-
student subscription, general subscription and family subscription.
Music has so many different genres that any person from any religion, ethnicity,
generation and gender enjoys it. Moreover, our app uses colors that would not trigger any
group of people, so the design will be in neutral and pleasant colors.
Thus, our group of consumers is expected to increase and to not have any limitations in
case of usage and purchase. Last but not the least is the family segmentation, in this case we
have a special subscription plan for the family where they can listen to all the same music or
do music filtering in case there are young family members in the plan.

Behavioral Segmentation
Considering a second type of segment we are focused on are those people who often
use music on different occasions and those who seek to get a certain benefit from it.

Here the considered part of the segment are young people from 16-30 that often spend
their time in the company of their friends at parties, celebrations and special thematic
gatherings. Also this group of youngsters use musical apps in order to get the benefit. Benefit
like emotional feeling of enjoyment or on the contrary to get a comforting feeling to feel
better.

4.2 Target market segment strategy

The Q-it’s target market is customers who enjoy listening to music online and offline
for their personal benefit and also listen to music on different occasions with his/her close
people or parties.

After analyzing our target customer group, we as a team decided to use a multi
segment marketing strategy because it suits a mass appeal and we want to sell the product in
more than one segment. In our application we will have all the genres available. So, in the
strategy our advertisement will cover several groups of people, with different age, sex,
location, income and behavioral features like ocassions and benefit.

To be more specific, our segmentation strategies that we plan to mostly lean on are
demographic segmentation strategy and behavioural segmentation strategy . Thus we plan to
use the behavioral segmentation by benefit and behavioral segmentation by occasions.
Firstly, we chose the benefit strategy because from our perspective we assume that our

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consumers want to earn an emotional benefit when they listen to music. Moreover, the benefit
of special connection of their close people also is taken into account. It’s important to
mention that nowadays, people listen to music to get comfort and a mental support, because
of the hard situation with pandemic. So, considering all these factors we came to the
conclusion that all people seek to benefit from listening to music. Secondly, occasional
behavioral strategy will be used. As it was mentioned before, our music application can be
used in different gatherings, parties and celebrations due to its unique ability to share playlists
and songs between all over consumers. Hence, we will use this opportunity of occasional
usage for the further promotions and attraction of new potential consumers.

In the case of demographic segmentation, we can cover all groups of people both
females and males, whose age range is 13-60, income level- average and above average, no
matter what age they are and no matter their preferences, because as it was mentioned
previously songs are made for any person and any person would be able to find the song they
like. Looking at behavioral segmentation we will provide free sessions as a trial usage and
paid subscription if the consumer wants to experience more additional features. All
subscriptions will not have high prices and they will be affordable for everyone.

5.0 Strategy and Implementation summary

The Q-it app will be a useful app for every person who enjoys listening to music. Our app
will penetrate the market by providing great, uniqueness options firstly for Kazakhstan,
Russia and Ukraine, because it will be easier for us to make promotions there and then we are
going to expand our borders and become an app that is known worldwide.
Q-it identified their target market as young in their souls, active and versatile people.
To be more precise, our target will consist of students and young adults who like to visit
some parties and events and listen to their favorite songs.
Also, Q-it will donate 3 percent to a global charity of our client’s choice from each
subscription. Which means that our app will provide not only a value proposition by
providing a uniqueness app with great service, but also a significant community value.
5.1 Strategy Pyramid

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Q-it strategy is to offer customers a comfortable app, great service and unique options.
Q-it will provide a big range of songs with everyday updates of songs for each trend and
comfortable usage of this app with beautiful and understandable interface. Moreover, our app
will have accessible prices, to be more precise, our prices will be a little bit lower than prices
of our competitors. Q-it app is not only a business for profit, but also for attracting people to
problems that others experience, that is why, we will also provide an opportunity for every
customer to choose a global charity of their choice to donate 3 percent of the price of their
subscription.

1. Provide a comfortable app with a great interface.

2. Provide accessible prices, a little bit lower than our competitors have.
3. Attract people’s attention to serious questions as donations.

5.2 Value Proposition

Q-it app provides a substantial value proposition because there is no such app on the
market that will be specialized on a creation of a united playlist for the event or party. There
is no analogue on the market with this specialization. Moreover, we will provide a value
proposition because our app will increase pleasure our clients will experience during the
party while listening to their favorite songs. Their great experience will also be provided
because of the comfortability and easiness of our app.
The concept of Q-it app will be that after subscription our customer will enter a
password for the concrete playlist of the party and will have the opportunity to add his or her
favorite songs in the list with others.
Q-it app will also provide significant community value on behalf of customers who
patronize Q-it.For every subscription a customer makes our app will donate 3 percent to a
global charity selected by our customers.
5.3 Competitive Edge
The Q-it competitive edge is simple. As was mentioned before we will be a unique
app. There is no such app that can create a unified list of songs for many users. Only our app
will provide such an option. Also, we will provide high quality products at a competitive
price.
5.4 Marketing Strategy
The Q-it marketing strategy will consist of 3 main things. organization of parties,
discounts on student and family subscriptions, social media.

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We are going to attract customers through events. Due to the fact that our target
market is people who visit different kinds of events and parties, it is obvious that the great
advertising step for us is organization of different parties and events. We are going to
organize large-scale events and invite celebrities and paparazzi to attract as much attention as
possible. During the party people will see how to use our app and will understand how
comfortable it is. Moreover, through these events, we will try to develop our guests' habit of
using our application at every party. Celebrities and paparazzi at these parties will also help
us to advert our app. They will make some posts through different social networks that will
attract even more attention to our event and of course to our app. Because of them, we will
reach a lot of our potential clients.
Also, we will rely on making connections with nightclubs and bars, to advert our
application there. At the beginning we are going to provide our app for free for one night for
each client of the nightclub or bar we will collaborate with. They will learn about the
existence of this app and will try it.
Another tool that Q-it is going to use is discounts on student and family subscriptions.
Due to the fact that students are usually out of work, which means that they have limited
amounts of money and families often have a lot of costs, we decided to offer a 15 percent
discount for these categories in order to attract the attention of these groups. These groups of
people are our target market, that is why through discounts we will attract attention to the
main market for us and our customers will be better off buying a subscription to the app.
The last but obviously not least tool that we are going to use is social network.
Nowadays everyone uses social networks on a daily basis and spends a lot of time there. It is
obvious that social networks are not only a place where people communicate with each other
but also a place where people find out about something. We already mentioned that
celebrities will post several posts about our app and the party they attended, but it is not the
only way we are going to use social networks for promotion. We will create accounts for Q-it
apps on every such as Instagram and Tic Tok and will generate great and entertaining content
on these platforms.
5.5 Sales strategy.
Q-it sales strategy will be based on an excellent marketing plan which will include:
organization of parties, discounts on student and family subscriptions, social media. All of
these points will attract a lot of attention and increase our sales. Moreover, we are going to

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organize our app presentation.We will host a massive event and invite a lot of celebrities and
bloggers to make a great and impressive presentation ahead of our release.

6.0 Management Summary

Q-it organization’s structure will maintain flat. The main intention behind this decision is
to elevate each employee’s responsibility and to have better communication during decision
making processes. As the company grows, there will be five main administrative posts: chief
financial director, information technology director, marketing director, chief administrative
officer and legal department director
6.1 Management Team
Each member of the Q-it organization has chosen his or her own positions according to
one’s skills, knowledge and passion that are beneficial for the company. All of the members
are experienced employees and most importantly frequent music listeners, so collective
contribution on improving the application from different perspectives will lead to a worthy
outcome.
Amina Khassenova performs as Q-it’s main designer-developer of the app and
website.She has a good sense of design skills and modern vision. Amina has experience of
working for a startup company and she has developed products that require digital design
development. Q-it application’s main design and website is what Amina is responsible for in
the team.
Aruzhan Batyrkhankyzy is a financial and accounting manager. She focuses on the
financial statements and regulates a great deal of expenses and earnings. Similarly, Aruzhan
has experience of working in this field for the last 2 years. Her experience and passion will
help the company to make right financial decisions and calculate the risks.
Aruzhan Kumarova is marketing manager. Her main duties are to create and maintain
prosperous brand management of Q-it. She has experience of working in a marketing
department of Samsung Kazakhstan. Her experience and creative ideas will help the
organization on successful brand management and marketing strategies.
Maria Papp is marketing and sales manager. She is in charge of the marketing
activities, especially launching corresponding marketing campaigns and arranging customers’
sales. Her great consumer networking skills will allow building strong relationships with the

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potential customers of the app. Likewise, Maria practiced working in this field and has great
expertise.
Mark Tomas will fill the position of administrative officer. Mark has a great potential in
recruiting potential employees and managing the team. He is responsible for all
administrative work, hiring and training new employees and examining the efficient working
environment. Due to his effective communication the organization will be able to hire
professionals and productively manage the team.
6.2 Management Team Gaps
The organization team is strong, yet not full. Q-it will require several additional
professional employees over the next several years.
Since the company is based on the music application development the company needs
to hire an Information Technology specialist. An IT professional will develop a unique
smartphone application within the corresponding website that will allow its consumers to
listen and enjoy their favorite music online and offline, to synchronize their playlists via ID
number for parties and events with other people and to enjoy music in karaoke mode.
Along with hiring a professional IT executive the company needs to hire a customer
service personnel. An employee will directly work with consumers of the application. One’s
duties will be maintaining strong relationships with loyal customers and building positive
emotional relationships with new ones. Besides, a specialist will collect and receive clients’
feedback regarding the app and its quality of work. Most importantly, this staff must and will
resolve customers’ complaints quickly and efficiently.
Parallel to the previous employees to hire, social media manager will be hired as well.
A manager will be responsible for managing and promoting the app in all available social
media platforms. Therefore, an employee needs to efficiently use social media promotional
strategies and techniques for effective communication with potential customers. Hence, two
last employees will work alongside since they both must communicate properly with
customers and potential customers.
As the application is expected to provide its listeners a world wide range of different
music, which is licensed by different labels and artists, the company surely needs to hire a
professional lawyer personnel. We want to make our consumers happy and enjoy their
favourite music and playlists. However we can’t just copy everything from illegal websites,
because our organization operates in accordance with the law of Kazakhstan and copyright
rights of the music authors. Therefore, we plan to hire a highly qualified lawyer, who can
contribute to our company to work legally without any serious violation of copyright use.

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By the first year of launching the application Q-it organization plans to already have all
additional staff members in the team, except social media manager and customer service
personnel. Thus,we plan to have the team that will consist of seven personnel.
As the company plans to expand more in the future, there is a plan of further increase in
the team of employees.
6.3 Organizational Structure
As it was mentioned before, the organization’s structure will be flat.(Exhibit 3) Q-it
management team’s goal is to keep every employee engaged and involved in every decision
making process of the organization. By the same token, we encourage an open
communication between company’s staff, so that everyone can contribute to the community’s
better outcomes, internally and externally.
Basically, there are five main departments in the company: financial and accounting
department, marketing department, IT and product development department, administrative
department and finally law department.
Each department is an integral part of the Q-it system. Financial and accounting
department records and tracks company’s financial statements. Besides, the department
regulates a great bunch of the rising expenses and earnings. It is also important to mention
that financial departments staff manages the budget for the product development spendings,
employees’ training programs and other operational expenses of all departments. The sales
and marketing department personnel coordinates marketing activities such as promotion,
strategic planning and arranging customer sales. The department is responsible for
developing successful and appropriate marketing strategies for the rise of the app’s brand.
Consumer feedback, complaints and wishes are a significant part of the process as well. Next,
the IT and product development department is all about the music application’s creation and
its further development. The IT specialists and designers are expected to create an innovative,
convenient and smart music application, following the designer’s and founders’ vision.
Administrative department is responsible for the payroll, new personnel recruitment and their
further training. Moreover, the department provides additional support of the other
departments in terms of administrative, management, strategic planning, budgetary and legal
issues. A legal department performs the duties of providing legal consultation and advice for
the other departments. Obviously company lawyers must check and review all documents in
accordance with local and international laws and rules. The department is also significant in
terms of participating and balancing future business decisions.
6.4 Personnel Plan

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As it was mentioned previously, in the beginning stage we plan to have a small yet
ambitious team that will work on its product development and creation without sales. The
total expected headcount for the first year is, including all five departments and having new
missing personnel that are IT specialist and a lawyer. Two missing employees will not be
included in the first year, social media manager and customer service personnel. The reason
behind the decision is that there will be no sales of the product and consequently no
customers, since it's the initial development stage.
In the second year, with the plan of having a ready-made music app and start of the
sales we plan to hire two new missing staff members- customer service personnel and social
media manager. Moreover, since the start of sales we assume that the financial and
accounting department will have two more personnel to support the department's main
financial manager. The total expected team headcount is 11 employees.
By year three we expect an increase in the headcount. The assumption is supported by
an expectation of having a significant change in the management team. The initial team
members that worked alone in their departments are planned to become directors. Thus, they
need their own team to delegate. Each department director is planned to have five people
under their direction. Consequently, the expected total headcount is 25 personnel.

Personnel Plan

Personnel Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

IT & development personnel $13,000 $14,000 $20,000

Marketing and sales personnel $2,000 $5,000 $6,500

Finance & accounting personnel $1,000 $3,500 $7,500

Administrative personnel $1,000 $1,500 $6,000

Law personnel $1,000 $1,500 $6,000

Total payroll $18,000 $23,000 $46,000

7.0 Financial plan

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Due to the fact that our business does not incur any costs in terms of materials and the costs
of operating it are mostly related to the cost of human capital, such as IT developers, lawyers
and marketing, the costs for the first year consist of $18,000 for personnel and around $4500
for the Amazon EC2 subscription. Moreover, during the first year our team will mainly focus
on building the brand and the app and we do not expect much profit. Hence, we predict that
there will mostly be losses in the first year.

As Q-it is an online business and does not require any inventory, the capital expenditures will
involve only investment in talent, such as the most efficient IT and marketing specialists, and
appropriate software to maintain the operation of the app. We forecast that with a mix of
initial investment into equipment and human capital, there will be no other costs necessary in
case of an expansion of the business as it is an online business. The only additional costs
could be related to the purchase of new software and recruitment of more labor to sustain the
growth of the business. Hence, the strategy of our team is to grow exponentially and take
over the market share in this industry.

7.1 Important Assumptions

It is important to consider the following assumptions for the growth of Q-it:

● An adoption of fast growth strategy.

● No unexpected increases in the cost of SaaS (software as a service) hosting

solution

● Access to financing from the bank at the following rates for the first three years:

Table: General Assumptions

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Interest rates Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

Short - term 18 % 18% 18%

Long - term 10% 10% 10%

Tax rate 12 % 12% 12%

7.2 Key financial indicators

The following bar chart illustrates the changes in key financial factors, such as sales, gross
margin and operating expenses. The forecasted growth in sales surpasses 500 percent each
year as our strategy is an exponential growth. In terms of the gross profit margin we expect it
to be negative in year 1 and around 63% in the year 2.

7.3 Break-Even Analysis

The subscription will cost 1499 KZT or $3.5 per month and for family and university
students there is a discount of 15% with a variable cost amounting to around 1$ per
subscription. The fixed cost of the app will be around $17 500 per year, which is IT support
and the subscription to Amazon EC2, or $1460 per month. According to these estimates, the

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break even point is $2044, which is equivalent to 584 regular subscriptors without any
discount per month.

This number was calculated in the following manner:

Break-even point= Fixed costs/(Sales per unit-Variable cost per unit)

Break-even point= $1460/($3.5-$1)=584 subscriptors per month

584*$3.5= $2044 per month

Break even analysis

Monthly units Break-Even 584

Monthly Revenue Break- Even $2044

Assumptions:

Average Per-Unit Revenue $3.5

Average Per-Unit Variable Cost $1

Estimated Monthly Fixed Cost $1460

7.4 Projected Profit and Loss

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Q-it is expected to grow dramatically in the next three years by reaching big sales and normal
gross profit only starting from the second year as it takes a long time to program the app,
launch it and market it to gain a strong stream of clients. The expenses for the first year of the
app’s operation is likely to result in $22,500 with. We are forecasting that the app will start
making revenue only in the last three months of the year and will gain around 100 subs in the
first month, 200 in the second and 300 in the last, totaling to $2100. Such forecasts result in
the net loss of $27,400 considering administrative and other expenses.

Pro Forma Profit and Loss

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

Sales $2100 $50 000 $250 000

Direct Costs $4500 $4500 $4500

Production Payroll $13 000 $14 000 $20 000

Total Cost of Sales $17 500 $18 500 $24 500

Gross Margin ($15 400) $31 500 $225 500

Gross Margin % 63% 90%

Operating Expenses

Sales and Marketing

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Payroll $2000 $5000 $6500

Advertising/ Promotion $5000 $10 000 $30 000

Total Sales & Marketing $7000 $15 000 $36 500

Sales and Marketing % 30% 14.6%

G & A Expenses

G& A Payroll $1000 $1500 $6000

Equipment $2000 $5000 $10 000

Insurance $5000 $10 000

Total G&A $3000 $11 500 $26 000

G&A % 23% 10.4%

Other expenses

Accounting Payroll $1000 $3500 $7500

Legal Payroll $1000 $1500 $6000

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Total Other $2000 $5000 $13 500

Other % 10% 5.4%

Total Operating $12 000 $31 500 $76 000

Expenses

Profit before Interest and ($27 400) $0 $149 500

Tax

Interest $0 $0 $0

Taxes $0 $0 $16 018 (12%)

Net Income ($27 400) $0 $133 482

7.5 Exit strategy

In terms of recovering the investment by the investors and managers there are two ways.

Scenario 1: Q-it becomes very successful and begins expanding to European countries and
the United States attracting more clients. Q-it becomes a major competitor to Apple music
and Spotify, but due to the unique feature of the app Q-it earns the biggest market share
resulting in millions of dollars in profits, but also in costs as expanding overseas can be costly
with all the law regulations and larger IT support required.

Scenario 2: Biggest competitors notice the success of Q-it and come forward with a
proposition of acquisition of the firm. In terms of this scenario, our team forecasts that by

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such success of Q-it it will be valued at around $3 million assuming that all ownership is
distributed to investors.

References:

Department, P., & 8, J. (2021, January 08). Apple music users by gender in the u.s.
2018. Retrieved April 06, 2021, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/822927/apple-
music-user-gender/

Department, P., & 8, J. (2021, January 08). Spotify: Frequency of use in the U.S. by
gender 2017. Retrieved April 06, 2021, from
https://www.statista.com/statistics/203424/spotifys-us-demographic-profile-by-gender/

Music Streaming Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report By Service (On-demand
Streaming, Live Streaming), By Platform, By Content Type, By End Use, By Region,

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And Segment Forecasts, 2020 - 2027. (2020, October). Retrieved April, 2021, from
https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/music-streaming-market

Stim,R. The Basics of Getting Permission, (2016, October). Retrieved April, 2021,
from https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/introduction/getting-permission/

Appendix:

Appendix 1

Prototype of the Q-it App:

Home Page

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Subscription Page

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Host or Joint Page

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Appendix 2
Organizational structure chart

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Appendix 3
financial tables

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