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“ Caffeinated ”
Chapter 1: The Company 1.1 Executive Summary
This is the business plan proposed by Caffeinated Co., Ltd., founded in Thailand by family Siriyontakan. The aim of this business plan is to elaborate on the idea of how to build up a business model around the passion of the co-founder, Miss Thidarat Siriyontakan, which are mobile application and coffee drinking.
Although the coffee industry in Thailand is not as big as in the United States or Japan, but the trend is going stronger each day. Consumers do not only consider coffee as energy sources to keep them awake, but they start to enjoy more of its rich flavor and the experience that comes with coffee drinking. This group of people is willing to pay higher to have better or unique experience. Hence, we can see more and more coffee houses starting up around the city competing against each other or trying to survive against big chains like Starbuck’s coffee shop.
The revenue margin of running a coffee shop is not as high as before as the competition is the market is getting higher, so our company is looking for an alternative business model to make profitable income in this industry.
As more and more consumers are moving towards the online platform to receive services or purchase products, there are many opportunities still available to tap on. That is the reason why our company is looking forward to create a service platform that brings convenience to consumers through their mobile phones and connect the local businesses with those consumers. We will develop a mobile application to help promoting local coffee houses to those coffee drinkers all around Bangkok and eventually around the country.
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“Caffeinated” is first mobile application owned and developed by Caffeinated Media Co., Ltd. It started one day when the Co-founder and CEO, Thidarat, was looking for a comfortable and relaxing coffee house nearby her place to work on her school assignment. With this day and age of modern technology, she expected to effortlessly find the right place with her mobile device. To her surprise, google search came out with some outdated information or irrelevant search results. She tried again this time with google maps, but the result she found did not satisfy her. Most suggestions were either Starbucks Coffee shops or other chain stores that did not exactly fulfill the requirements she was looking for. Furthermore, she tried downloading a few mobile applications that have database or reviews of restaurants, but they did not have enough databases of coffee houses.
This was the moment when the idea of business came to her mind. She loved coffee, and she always had eyes for smaller coffee houses where they served quality coffee and offered a pleasant space to fully enjoy a cup of coffee. She wished that those coffee houses could have better recognition among people who shared the same taste with her. And there should be a community or online platform where people can search for this type of coffee houses easily, as the roasted coffee consumption in Asia and especially in Thailand has been growing steadily.
As a result, she then planned a start-up named “Caffeinated Media Co., Ltd.” that would go on to develop a mobile application “Caffeinated” as a platform to connect both local coffee houses and consumers in Thailand.
Vision Statement
Our goal is to create the ultimate online community to connect all coffee lovers with amicable local coffee houses.
We commit to providing the best online platform possible for all the coffee lovers who seek the most up-to-date information and are in search of their next favorite coffee house. We commit to creating the most accessible platform for local business owners to promote their
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quality coffee houses and set the foot back into the competition against international or mega-millionaire national franchise stores.
Mission Statement
Our company will put our best efforts and investment to provide consumers with widest range of database of coffee houses in Thailand. While doing so, we still maintain the core values of passion in qualitied coffee, integrity in the online reviews, responsibility and accountability in any information shared under our online platform.
Our company is committed to deliver the mobile application to all operating systems so that our users of any mobile carrier can enjoy the services of our application.
1.3 Product and Service Description
Since the founder of our company has great love for a good cup of coffee and has a vision to bring like-minded people to experience the finest local coffee houses, our company aims to provide a mobile application that can achieve this goal. Our company takes an interest in the mobile application because we believe that, nowadays, more and more people gain access to the internet through their smartphones. People want to get the information right away from their handset, without any complication or delay.
Our company’s goal is to provide a user-friendly platform for any user who downloads our application. User should be able to navigate through our provided contents effortlessly and receive the best user’s experience while engaging in our application. We would also like to encourage this platform to be driven by users, as we expect all reviews by users to be reliable and resourceful for other users in this community. This is not just a platform for business to promote their stores or users to check-in to the coffee shop and boast them to social network.
Our platform aims to be a space where we connect coffee lovers, where people create a genuine review of their experience, where they find their favorite laid-back spot and want to share to the world of this new-found place, and where they can spread their passion in coffee to people in the community.
We also understand that smaller businesses cannot compete, in terms of marketing campaign and promotion, with a multinational business like Starbucks Coffee or Lavazza Coffee. Our company would like to be a part of a solution to strengthen local coffee businesses in our community as well.
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Our first mobile application to be rolled out is named “Caffeinated”. It reflects the lifestyle of people who enjoy the treatment of coffee in their daily life. Initially, we will deliver
“Caffeinated” application for mobile devices on Android and iOS operating systems first as they consist of the majority of mobile market users.
Any users with Android or iOS devices can download our application to enjoy our services.
We provide different services and user-interfaces for coffee drinkers and for coffee house business owners as following:
Services for coffee drinkers
Our company will develop and maintain a rich database of finest coffee houses across Bangkok. Customers can easily search for nearby coffee shops with required criteria such as location, good reviews, Wi-Fi internet access or electricity socket.
Registered users can write a review after they visit the coffee house to share their experience and impression. They can also share their review on any social media they connect to. Users can also view the others’ review on any coffee house information page so that they can get a better idea and make their decision accordingly.
Users can enjoy special promotions offered by affiliated coffee houses
Coffee drinkers can access any of these services conveniently on their mobile devices, as long as they have access to internet connection.
Services for coffee house owners
We provide an easy-to-use and maintain online platform for small to medium-sized business owners to gain exposure to targeted customers.
Coffee house owners can review the comments or suggestions left by visitors, so that they can understand the customers better and know if there is any improvement to be done for their business
For any special promotion at the coffee houses, they can easily use our platform as a channel to promote their campaign in order to gain new customers.
Our platform also provides the advertisement zone highlighting the recommended coffee houses to attract more customers‧
1.4 Company Ownership and Management Team
Caffeinated Media Co., Ltd. will be a sole proprietorship owned by Family Siriyontakan. It will be established within year 2015, by appointing Thidarat Siriyontakan as CEO to oversee the overall management and operations of the company.
Co-Founder - Thidarat Siriyontakan platforms. Even though she does not have first-hand knowledge on the programming or the application development herself, she believes that her experiences as user’s interfaces design and consumers’ behavior understanding will give her a head-start in this start-up business.
Moreover, from her studying and working experiences, she has made a number of friends who work in coffee industry businesses and mobile application development. She can seek consultant from those connections around her.
Co-Founder - Vilailuk Siriyontakan
Co-founder and CFO of Caffeinated Media Co., Ltd., Vilailuk now owns a business of her own, managing apartment buildings in Patumthani Province, a major city that is 1-hour drive away from central Bangkok. She holds a Bachelor degree of Accountings from the University of Thai Chamber of Commerce, Thailand.
She has managed all financial aspects of the her own business for the past 10 years, which makes her exceptionally qualified for the role of CFO of Caffeinated Media Co., Ltd, to manage finance and accounting of the company.
Advisor – Sirisuda Bunpitaksakul
Miss Sirisuda Bunpitaksakul was a former sales manager of CoffeeWorks, an importer, roaster and supplier of boutique coffees and professional Italian coffee machines. Her previous working experience includes a business development manager of Allied Solutions
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Co., Ltd. where she developed sales and marketing strategies for restaurant management software solutions. She is now a business development manager at Sodexo Thailand.
She had met Thidarat and was her mentor in career development since the time they worked together in university. She is always eager to help and share her wisdom to her mentees, without expecting anything in return. With her past experiences in business development and her connection in the coffee industry, she can bring many valuable input and advices for the foundation of Caffeinated Media Co., Ltd. She may not have direct involvement the business planning and operations, but she can give advice and ask critical questions to the company.
Employees
In the initial stage, the company will need to hire one full-time programmer to work on the coding and developing of the mobile application. The hiring process will be managed by Thidarat, the CEO, herself. The idea is to look for a fresh graduate who loves the vibrant working environment and who shares the same ambition and challenges that comes with start-up business.
Within the first critical one to two years, all family members will need to learn and have a hand-on experience in managing workforces and product marketing by themselves first.
After the business starts to kick-of, the company will need to look for two more full-time positions to oversee the operations of (1) digital marketing and (2) advertising account management.
1.5 Location
The office of Caffeinated Media Co., Ltd. is located at 134/10 M.2 Prachathipat Thuyaburi Patumthani, Thailand 12130.
The office location takes approximately 1-hour drive to reach the city center of Bangkok.
Hence, any business operation can be managed from this office with no difficulties. This office is owned and managed by Siriyontakan Family.