Business Plan

Designed and Developed By Team SHeLL:

Lucy Xu Hannah Phan Lwam Gidey

Shreyaa Raghavan

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Executive Summary 3

II. Company Description 5

III. Production Description 10

IV. Market Analysis 13

V. Marketing Plan 16

VI. Financial Plan & Projections 17

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

PURPOSE Team SHeLL’s mission is to modernize lobster industry practices by making them safer, more sustainable, and more efficient while curtailing the environmental harm caused by lobster fishing.

PROBLEM Every year, traps used in the lobster fishing industry are lost due to poor weather conditions, gear collisions with other vessels or marine life, or gear overuse, contributing to the global marine debris crisis of known as “ghost fishing”.

● Lobster fisheries lose 20-30% of their traps per boat per year, amounting to a loss of 31,000 traps and $2.5 million dollars for a single fishery alone.

● Derelict fishing gear, or “ghost traps,” continue to trap and kill marine life, such as endangered marine mammals and sea turtles, yet is rarely ever reported.

● New limitations increase the EPA’s need for more efficient and cheap ways of retrieving traps.

Inefficient lobster fishing practices force lobstermen to seek out fragmented and unreliable information.

● Unpredictable weather cannot be adequately or easily gauged by lobstermen simply by checking weather forecasts, leading to loss and snarling of traps.

● Inaccurate tidal information complicate the timing and placing of lobstermen’s traps. ● Trap locations are currently stored in boat GPS’s, which are outdated and difficult to use.

SOLUTION In order to address the problem of derelict fishing gear and inefficiency in the lobster industry, TEAM SHeLL developed LOBSTAH, an app that modernizes the entire lobster fishing experience. LOBSTAH is a unique app that integrates aspects of sensor hardware and big data to provide systematic tracking of the locations and conditions of each trap and to promote fishing optimization over time. The key features of the app are as follows:

● GPS system that allows lobstermen to track the locations of each trap. ● Utilization of wire circuits and bluetooth technology to detect and notify users and local

environmental agencies if a fishing line has been cut. ● Displaying fishing data collection (temperature, location, duration) over time to help

lobstermen learn through experience what the best fishing conditions are.

COMPANY TEAM SHeLL is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is comprised of four high school girls: Hannah Phan, Lwam Gidey, Shreyaa Raghavan, and Lucy Xu. Although each girl has

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varying levels of expertise in technology and entrepreneurship, they are all incredibly passionate about utilizing computer science to making a truly meaningful impact on the world they live in.

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COMPANY DESCRIPTION

MISSION STATEMENT Team SHeLL is a for-profit social enterprise start up that seeks to improve the livelihood of small-scale lobstermen and to curtail the environmental harm caused by lobster fishing by modernizing industry practices to be safer, more sustainable, and more efficient. PEOPLE As LOBSTAH is a product that involves so many components, each individual within Team SHeLL takes on specialized roles in order to develop expertise on the various elements of the business, including, but not limited to software, hardware, finance, and marketing. However, close collaboration and communication remain crucial in allowing the team to successfully integrate these numerous departments into one comprehensive and cohesive product.

Hannah Phan Software Engineer

As the lead software engineer of the team, Hannah heads the design and development of LOBSTAH. This includes devising the user interface, programming the prototype, and optimizing the app for successive versions based on feedback. Although every single member of the team is involved in writing different parts of the code for LOBSTAH, Hannah maintains authority over the entire app and delegates the programming responsibilities of each member so as to promote efficient teamwork and clear communication within the company.

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Lwam Gidey Hardware Engineer

As the hardware engineer, Lwam is in charge of researching, building, and upkeeping all the mechanical and electrical engineering components of LOBSTAH. In addition to conducting critical research in deciding the optimal hardware parts for LOBSTAH, Lwam also sets up the circuits of every lobster trap wire and sensors and ensures that the hardware parts can reliably communicate with the app software. Since this hardware aspect of LOBSTAH is such an incredibly complicated one, Lwam’s experience in robotics and electrical engineering gives her unique qualification for her role.

Lucy Xu Finance and Operations Director

As the finance and operations director, Lucy facilitates communication between each member of Team SHeLL to guarantee smooth and collective teamwork as well as to provide the most comprehensive financial analytics for the company. Although her role involves a broad range of duties, her primary responsibilities are to strategize the company’s revenue model, to manage the company’s funds and budgets, and to oversee all the departments to ensure orderly and productive operations.

Shreyaa Raghavan Marketing Director

As the marketing director, Shreyaa plays the main liaison role between our company and our customers. The job description of the marketing director requires Shreyaa to conduct research, such as coordinating interviews and meetings with local lobstermen and environmental agencies, to better understand our target market. This allows her to develop the marketing strategy of Team SHeLL and to advise the team on the future direction of the app. Lastly, Shreyaa also leads the creation of any promotional materials for the company, including the pitch and demo videos.

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MARKET OVERVIEW In order to accomplish our goal of eliminating the problem of ghost fishing while pioneering safer, more sustainable, and more efficient lobster fishing practices, Team SHeLL created LOBSTAH, a mobile app that integrates tracker hardware and data analytics to aid lobstermen in the management of their traps. As such, the marketing demographic of LOBSTAH are lobstermen and oceanic environmental organizations, as they have the most invested interest in a product like LOBSTAH. In particular, however, Team SHeLL plans to focus on marketing to local, small scale lobstermen and environmental agencies in the New England area. Although the size of New England is rather small in regards to the entire scope the lobster industry, the region’s role as the lobster capital of the country and the leader in environmental protectionism makes it the optimal location to be the target market for the initial launch of LOBSTAH.

I. Lobstermen in the New England Area Initially, LOBSTAH plans to target lobstermen in the New England area, particularly in the lobster capital states of Massachusetts and Maine.

State Number of Lobster Licenses

Massachusetts 1278

Maine 5900

Total 7178

II. Environmental Protection Agencies in the New England area. In addition to marketing LOBSTAH to lobstermen as a means of modernizing their fishing practices, Team SHeLL also plans to advertise to environmental protection agencies in the New England area who have vested interest in finding and retrieving ghost traps. Since these organizations already spend a lot of money annually to recover and retrieve traps, LOBSTAH will sell the service of trap cut notifications to them at a lower price. Not only does this allow the agencies to save money, it’s also a more efficient and convenient way to locate derelict traps. In the initial launch stage of Team SHeLL’s LOBSTAH, the company will exclusively target a handful of agencies in the New England area, namely Massachusetts and Maine.

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State Main Environmental Agency

Massachusetts Energy and Environmental Affairs: Division of Marine Fisheries

Maine Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation

FOUNDING HISTORY Team SHeLL was founded in September of 2016 by four young women, who were first united by their involvement in Science Club for Girls, an organization set in Cambridge that seeks to instill a love and curiosity for technology in young girls’ lives. Science Club for Girls has provided each girl wonderful avenues to explore her interests through mentorship and programming opportunities. Sharing their mutual love for technology and entrepreneurship, the founders of LOBSTAH were motivated to create a revolutionary product that will meaningfully affect the lives of people around them. Yet more than a simple mobile application, the girls wanted to bridge the gap between software and hardware in application to real world problems. Since all the girls in Team SHeLL grew up in New England, they understand firsthand the importance of the lobster industry. The girls were stunned to learn of the ghost fishing crisis that prevails in the lobster industry. Therefore, they decided to utilize their technology skills to undertake the task of eliminating the key issue that lies in the heart of their home, Massachusetts. Through creating LOBSTAH, Team SHeLL hopes to alleviate the burdens caused to lobstermen and the environment as a result of derelict fishing traps, among other inefficient fishing practices. Although a complex and challenging goal, the idealistic and hardworking nature of the members of the team drive them to push forward. As such, they are confident in their abilities to realize their goals and look forward to the future of LOBSTAH. FUTURE PLANS Despite already having developed a highly functional app, Team SHeLL realizes that there is still much to do to ensure that LOBSTAH reaches its fullest potential. The future plans of Team SHeLL fall under two main categories: optimization of the app software and hardware and expansion of the company’s target market.

I. Optimization of the app software and hardware We plan on improving the connection between the app, the wire, and the sensor hardware components so that they can communicate across longer distances and do so in a smoother

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fashion. We also hope to implement more data analytics option so as to collect data over time and analyze the best conditions for the lobsterman.

II. Expansion of the company’s target market We hope to expand into lobster industries and environmental organizations outside New England. The Florida coastlines are also a hub of lobster fishing, and they have the potential to be target customers outside of the New England region, especially environmental agencies such as the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Even though the ghost trap issue is mainly prevalent in the lobster industry, we also believe that it would beneficial to begin targeting other trap fishing industries besides the lobster industry, such as different types of crabs and fish. Further down the road, we want to approach national environmental agencies, such as EPA, to collaborate in providing valuable data for protecting the environment.

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PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

BREAKDOWN Team SHeLL’s main goal in developing LOBSTAH was an ambitious one: to modernize and revolutionize the entire lobster fishing experience. However, through extensive market research, revision, and effort, the team was successful in creating an all encompassing app that connects the physical world of lobster fishing to the technological one. LOBSTAH is the first of its kind that combines an app with aspects of sensor hardware and big data to provide systematic tracking of the locations and conditions of each trap and to promote fishing optimization over time. Although LOBSTAH is comprised of numerous functionalities and features, the most integral ones are listed below.

I. Geolocation System The main purpose of the app is to allow lobstermen to easily and efficiently keep track of their numerous lobster traps. As such, the pin drop system provides the backbone of the app because it allows lobstermen to drop pins on and save the location of their traps with ease. As of right now, lobstermen have to resort to using the GPS system built into their boats but the pin drop feature of LOBSTAH streamlines the process and stores and displays each trap on a map.

II. Frayed Rope Alert System In addition to saving the locations of each trap through dropping pins, users are also given the ability to link specific wires to each trap so that any changes to the wire can be virtually recorded and notified to the user. Therefore, in the event that any trap wire is cut, the user, along with the local environmental agency, will be sent immediate notifications via the wire’s bluetooth connection to LOBSTAH. The utility of this feature is twofold: on the one hand, lobstermen will be given the opportunity to sail to the location and save the loss of the entire trap and on the other, environmental authorities will be given the opportunity to potentially retrieve the trap. The biggest problem with derelict traps is that once it travels deep under the ocean, the chances and effort needed to retrieve the trap increases exponentially. Therefore, this notification feature will be crucial in preventing the loss of future traps. This system is the only one of its kind that currently exists on market. Without LOBSTAH, lobstermen would have no idea as to whether their fishing line is still connected, resulting in lost time, traps, and money. III. Incorporation of Weather and Tidal Data

Among some of the biggest inconveniences for lobstermen are the incomplete, inaccurate, disorganized nature of critical information related to lobster fishing, including the weather and tidal information. By incorporating weather and tidal data into LOBSTAH, Team SHeLL creates

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an integrated and readily accessible platform for lobstermen to track the conditions of their traps and fishing locations. IV. Additional sensors (allow remote tracking of the state of their traps) Beyond simply tracking the location and wire status of each trap, the integration of multiple sensors including the accelerometer and thermometer, LOBSTAH opens the door to a limitless number of opportunities for Team SHeLL. Not only can we contribute to the reduction in derelict lobster traps, we can provide avenues for lobstermen to track the general conditions of their traps over time for optimization of their fishing practices. However, we would like to note that our hardware device does not currently have the temperature and motion sensors, but we plan to implement that in the future.

V. Execution of fishing data collection As mentioned above, the combination of a variety of hardware components to LOBSTAH including the wire and other sensors like the accelerometer and thermometer, LOBSTAH gives lobstermen the unique ability to wholly understand their own fishing practices. Through data collection, lobstermen can succinctly learn over time and experience critical information regarding their fishing practices including the optimal locations, durations, and temperatures for lobster fishing. CURRENT DEVELOPMENT

Home Page Weather Page Navigation Page Statistics Page

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RESEARCH AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT The truly meaningful and exciting aspect about LOBSTAH is the countless possibilities that we can execute in the future. However, the company’s most important goals in the future development of LOBSTAH are as follows.

I. Expanding data collection to water temperature and trap motion II. Expanding to IOS

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MARKET ANALYSIS

CUSTOMER RESEARCH LOBSTAH targets lobster fishermen, specifically fishing at places like the New England or coastlines. There are a total of 52 ports open to lobster fishermen. In the past five years, approximately 13.2 pounds of lobster were fished within Massachusetts state waters, and around 289,620 traps were fished by commercial lobster fishermen. In Maine, where lobstermen actively fish more than 2 million traps, it’s estimated that 5 to 10 percent — 100,000 to 200,000 — are lost in any given year. In a decade, that could be 1 or 2 million lost traps.

A survey conducted by the Gulf of Maine Research Institute provides some insight into the demographics of lobstermen, especially those fishing in New England and Maine. In New England, lobstermen are typically men with an average of 50 years old. Approximately three-quarters are married, although fewer than one in three has children living at home. Also, Maine lobstermen appear less likely to have graduated high school than those in other areas. We also found that usually, active lobstermen were the sole wage earner in a little less than half of all households surveyed. The entire household remains dependant on the lobstermen’s wage, making it detrimental to the welfare of his family.

MARKET DESCRIPTION

I. Key Competitors Observing the other apps similar to ours, we were able to conclude that our app is the only app with the capabilities to detect when and where the line of the lobster trap is cut. Detecting when the current is cut off in wire is a key part in the detection of a cut line. We also noticed that unlike our competitors, LOBSTAH includes a component of hardware, sending real time information through bluetooth to your phone. The wire that connects the trap with the buoy will be the main piece of hardware and the ultimate aspect that differentiates us from any other app that was created to modernize the lobster-fishing experience. To learn more about the current lobster-fishing technologies, we interviewed two lobstermen from Maine, Dick and Loring, who have been lobster-fishing from the moment they could. We learned what the biggest problems were in their community and whether they felt our app would benefit lobster-fishermen. The interview was enlightening and gave us a base to build our ideas off of

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LOBSTAH also strives to modernize the interface to reflect the changes we want to inspire in the lobster community. C-MAP Plan2Nav provides animated maps with bright neon colors, which make it difficult for the user to understand the data provided. Contrastingly, our app is complemented by a sleek, easy -to-use design that encompasses all aspects of the app into an appealing homepage.

II. App Performance Given that LOBSTAH is the only app of its kind that offers a way for lobstermen to monitor their individual traps without having to go out to sea, our app has garnered a lot of interest from amateur to experienced lobstermen alike. The combination of LOBSTAH’s software and hardware is unprecedented in the lobster industry. Furthermore, LOBSTAH is more cost competitive, comprehensive, and accurate than its current competitors.

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COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

LOBSTAH

C-MAP Plan2Nav

Marine Weather Plus by Accuweather

Tracks tide information,

weather, wave heights, and sea-surface

temperatures

✔ - No indication of ocean temperatures

✔

Informs lobster fisherman when

and where a buoy line is cut

✔ - No communication with traps or buoy

- Provides a buoy report for individual buoys

- No indication if the line is cut or not

Has a reliable software that

functions without errors

✔ ✔ - Has numerous glitches and crashes frequently

Has an appealing appearance and user interface

✔ - sleek interface,

easy to use

- Outdated user interface, animated maps are difficult to

understand

✔

Compatibility - Compatible with all models of

Android devices

- Compatible with all phones

- Compatible with all phones

Cost - Free with extra features for $9.99 - Hardware for the lobster trap line is

$15

- $2.99 for the app - Free, but most features within the app are an

additional $29.99

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MARKETING PLAN

IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY Team SHeLL plans to implement and promote LOBSTAH in three ways. Initially, we will focus on individually reaching out to target customers such as local, small-scale lobstermen in the Boston and New England area. These are our main customers, since we, living in the suburbs of Boston, often witness the impact ghost traps have on these people. In addition, we plan on contacting larger lobster fishing associations and environmental organizations in the New England area to raise publicity and support for the app and to accelerate adoption of the app into daily lobster fishing practices. Moreover, we plan to leveraging social media platforms as a way to expand the reach and visibility of the product. Now, more than ever, technology is becoming an increasingly influential aspect of everyday life, especially social media. By creating a Facebook page, we can publicize Lobstah and inform those who are unaware. In the future, we want to continue updating and revising the app software and hardware components based on the feedback received by the lobstermen who have tried the app to improve Lobstah further. This includes optimizing and scaling the app and hardware, which will make the app more efficient and hardware connection more reliable. PRICING We were able to create a prototype of our hardware with $35 out of our $50 budget. Knowing we can mass produce this and reduce the individual cost, the hardware device will be priced at $15. Also, we offer a premium version of the app which includes sensors that collect data such as temperature of the water and trap movement. In the premium version, the user can also track the number of lobster collected each time, effectively tracking the lobster count over a larger period of time. The user will be charged $9.99 yearly to purchase the premium services of the app. We plan on distributing the hardware and app directly to the customer. EMPLOYEES Team SHeLL’s current employees are four girls, Hannah Phan, Lwan Gidey, Lucy Xu, and Shreyaa Raghavan. We run the company and are not looking to expand the number of employees.

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FINANCIAL PLAN & PROJECTIONS

CURRENT BALANCE AND ASSETS Unlike many other apps, LOBSTAH is unique in that it is closely integrated with its flagship hardware device, which includes a wire for detecting cuts in trap lines in the most basic model as well as other sensors like thermometer, accelerometer in the more advanced models. We had a total budget of around $50, and with the help of our volunteer mentors, we were able to purchase all the necessary materials to build the hardware component in $35. For the prototype, we used an Arduino device to build the hardware and attached a breadboard with various bluetooth, jumper wires, and transistors. POTENTIAL REVENUE Team SHeLL’s profit strategy is rooted in three main components: selling the hardware parts associated with LOBSTAH, selling the data generated by LOBSTAH to environmental agencies, and selling lobstermen premium versions of LOBSTAH with advanced data analytics options.

I. Hardware Component Sales Since LOBSTAH is an app that cannot function without this hardware device and since the basic version of the LOBSTAH app will be sold for free, we plan to make a profit by selling these hardware devices.

In total, the hardware aspect costed us around $35 to produce. However, if we mass produce this, we can cut our costs down to around $9 for each hardware device. As such, we plan to sell this

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hardware to lobstermen at $15 for one device. Assuming that 55% of our market of 7178 lobstermen are interested in using LOBSTAH, this would generate $59,218 in hardware sales.

.55 178 lobstermen in target market $15 for each hardware device 59, 18 in sales0 × 7 × = $ 2

II. Data Sales The second method is by charging environmental agencies a fee to be notified when traps are recorded to be cut. Through the freemium model, we will charge each agency $2,000 in the first year for the service but then increase the price in subsequent years. III. Premium App Sales

The free version of our app contains the basic components of notifying the user when their trap has been cut and providing directions to where the trap was broken. We plan on selling a premium version and charging user $9.99 yearly to access these options. They use sensors to collect data such as temperature, lobster count, and movements of the currents. If 15 - 20% of users, or 592 - 790 lobstermen, decide to purchase the premium option, it would generate $5,915.93 - $7887.90 in revenue for one year.

.55 178 lobstermen in target market ≈ 3948 users0 × 7

.15 947.9 lobstermen users $9.99 for each premium app 5, 15.93 in sales0 × 3 × = $ 9

.20 947.9 lobstermen users $9.99 for each premium app 7, 87.90 in sales0 × 3 × = $ 8

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