We need seed funding to design, build, launch and market an app and website that helps friends and family capture the best candid photos from all sides of a special event!

MRAQCS, LLC completed an initial round of seed funding on Jan 1, 2015 ($120K in cash from investors), and kicked off the project on Jan 15, 2015. These funds were less than the amount required to complete the MVP (minimum viable product) based on the requirements identified in competitive research, user research, and design research. The original funds were enough to complete ~70% of the MVP requirements for the Happy Snap app, along with an accompanying minimal budget for a marketing-only website, promotions, and testing. The product went into Alpha on Jun 15, 2015 with nearly 100 users and testers, and then into Beta (pre-GA) on Aug 10, 2015, and is still in Beta today with over 2,000 users.

Happy Snap consists of four versions: Free w/ Ads on Android OS and Apple iOS, and Paid Ad-Free on Android OS and Apple iOS. To date, there have been over 2,000 downloads with active users, and over 1,000 Likes and Follows on Facebook, with fans on other social networks as well.

The Beta version of the product has been producing revenue since the first month, both from ad revenue (AdColony) and from the app stores via paid downloads. Currently, the paid version is $0.99 in both app stores.

At this time, the monthly cost for overhead, including AWS cloud services, hosting fees, usage/storage fees, etc, are $240. The total revenue from ads to date is $20 and the total revenue from paid downloads to date is $168. See the [Financial Summary] below for more details.

Users have been very excited about the app, and it has been positively received by people coast to coast and around the globe. Extensive testing of the pre-MVP app in real-world scenarios at public events and promotions has validated the company’s understanding of the MVP requirements still needed in order to have a successful product. This testing has also confirmed which features need enhancement, and which specific functionalities will improve the performance of the app, and generally help achieve better user adoption and referral. The further development of these features and functionalities would put Happy Snap at a significant advantage over the competition. This includes a fully-functional website that mimics all features and functions of the app for broader user adoption and increased customer acquisition.

The company is approaching investors a second time to raise funds to complete the required features for the MVP, including a fully-functional and feature-rich website, and raise enough capital for an extensive marketing, advertising and promotions campaign with ongoing support and maintenance for up to six months. It is believed that due to the nature of this app (social, photo sharing, events industry, requirement for many downloads per event for guests to participate, and the fact that each event album is a closed, private, niche social network) that it would be extremely well positioned for a large tech or competitor to acquire in less than three years.

MISSION STATEMENT

Bring people together through real-time event-based photo and video sharing with a fun and convenient tool.

PROBLEM STATEMENT & BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

It can be tedious to share a large number of pics and videos: phones die, batteries run low, and sometimes you just don’t catch the right angle. However, someone else probably caught that perfect shot you were going for – and now the Happy Snap app can give you all of the event photos taken by all of the attendees, in one place. You may not even be “friends” with each other in various social media networks, but still want to be able to share media. The opportunity is prime right now for this app, and while there are several versions of apps that may do something similar, none have as broad of application as this app. None cover events such as sporting games (NFL, NBA, etc.), school events (Kindergarten Graduation, Prom, etc.), weddings, family reunions, vacations, and many more. The opportunities are endless, as people want to connect and share easier, faster, with the ability to curate all media from an event from multiple sources, all in just one place.

When hosting an event, many people want to be able to remember the experiences they had long after the event has ended. Naturally, the first place one would turn to for a solution to this problem would be their camera. Pictures can be taken, stored, and shared from a multitude of different angles with little effort. Some events will even hand out cameras for guests to take pictures of.

The problem with all of this is that once those photos are taken; there isn’t one central hub for all of them to sit. Pictures get emailed back and forth, shared through different file-sharing programs, or physically printed and mailed. Due to different people using different methods of sharing their photos, many get lost, jumbled, sent to the wrong person, or deleted altogether. There is no record of who got whose photos, no labeling system for when or where the photo was taken, and no way to collect all of the photos easily so that they can be edited/distributed/etc.

This leaves a huge market gap with potential customers in the millions and no prerequisites. Anyone who has a smartphone could easily download and use the app. Additional marketization opportunities exist within the app itself, with the possibility to add photo-editing, photo-manipulation, additional sharing, and printing. While there are file-sharing and photo-sharing solutions already out there, none of them work like or are as easy to use as Happy Snap. There are millions of events of all types held each year, and each one of them is a candidate for this app, making the potential nearly limitless.

VISION

We believe that we can provide a service to people all over the world that are hosting or attending an event. We believe you shouldn’t have to struggle to coordinate your guests and get all of the pictures you need.

We believe in a simple solution to the complex problem of photo-sharing; and Happy Snap will be the answer. With a simple interface that uses pre-built-in functions of the OS on modern smartphones, costs can be kept low while profitability soars. Larger organizations, tech companies, photo printers, event organizers and venues, cloud-storage companies, media and ISP networks, and many others will take notice (even sports organizations such as NFL, MLB, NBA, etc.), and want to use our solution for their events and games. People throughout the world will use this new app to share photos in one place for their special events, without the need to connect with each other in social media (“friend”, “follow”, etc).

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS & LANDSCAPE

High Threat Level:

● Facebook: Facebook already lets you create albums for event, share photos between friends, and comment on anything.http://www.facebook.com/

● Facebook Moments: In June 2015, Facebook launched a new service that allows users to share photos within the same group album. However, this service is not widely known or marketed, and is only available for Facebook users (must have a Facebook account). It is 100% free and unlimited.http://www.momentsapp.com/

● Google+: Google Google is reportedly planning to free up the photo-sharing component of Google+ as part of an effort to attract more users. The service is tentatively called Google+ Photos, but may be rebranded before its release. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2461973,00.as…

● DropShots: Doing many of the things that our app is planning to do.http://www.dropshots.com/

● Eversnap (fka WeddingSnap): Very strong competitor with a mature market, strong, positive online

review base, between 100K-500K downloads in iOS and Android marketplaces. Priced very high for a more exclusive market and audience. With Free (paid ads), Freemium, and lower price points, Happy Snap will be able to edge into untapped marketshare, focusing on volume and more ad revenue, in-app purchases/add-ons, etc. http://www.GetEversnap.com

● WedPics: Very strong competitor with a large install base (over 1M). Totally free and unlimited for the users. Their business model is to get affiliate fees from event coordination, photo printing, and accommodations reservations. They are 100% focused on the wedding industry.https://www.wedpics.com/

● Photo: Very strong competitor, owned by WedPics. This service is focused on all kinds of events, not just wedding. Totally free and unlimited for users. Launched in Sep 2015, they have the advantage of having access to the large numbers of users of WedPics. https://appsto.re/us/spq-8.i

Medium Threat Level:

● Flickr: Already has many users, can share albums easily on flickr (but isn’t made for rounding up photos from many different users at the same event)https://www.flickr.com/

● Shutterfly Share Sites: They have a little-known free service within Shutterfly that is not marketed or promoted, and seems to confuse users in user research as to its purpose (“I want to share photos, I don’t want to create a website! I’m confused.”).https://www.shutterfly.com/sites/create/welcome.sf…

Low Threat Level:

● Bonfyre: B2B event collaboration app for team building and entertainment (mostly enterprise). Does include photo and video sharing in the same event folder. High fees $. https://www.bonfyreapp.com/

● Instagram: Only does photo-sharing, but has no use for events or albums.http://www.instagram.com

● SnappyEverAfter: Not a substantial threat. Focuses entirely on wedding market, limited features and functions. Weak brand with a narrowly focused target audience (could be broader with a better brand).http://www.SnappyEveryAfter.com

● Snapfish: They were going to do some of what Happy Snap does, but after struggling with integrations and never releasing a mobile app for the Shared Albums function, with two way sharing directly into albums, and problems with Projects and Social Media sharing, they abandoned Photo Sharing all together. The previous URL for it doesn’t resolve at all.http://www.snapfish.com/snapfish/fe/l=en_US/p/info… More info about Sharing within Snapfish can be found here:http://help.snapfish.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/4…

MARKET ANALYSIS & LANDSCAPE

The primary market for Happy Snap is truly anybody who attends or hosts an event that will want pictures and videos of that event to be sourced by the guests, from all angles and perspectives. The event hosts themselves (persons or organizations) are a higher priority target however, because they will be the ones selecting and promoting Happy Snap for their event. Millions of events small and large take place every day where this service would be seen as a useful tool by both hosts and guests alike.

Primary target industries include weddings and trade shows/conferences. The wedding industry is of particular interest, with over 2.3 million each year (6,200/day), these are a type of event where there are almost always photos, and photos from each one of the attendees. On average, hundreds of photos are sorted, shared, edited, and later displayed for the guests, either from professional photographers at a later date, or from the host and guests through a myriad of social media networks with varying degrees of privacy settings in each account. This is the perfect situation for Happy Snap as it could simplify the entire process for a bride/groom, or wedding planner. The same goes for trade shows where a business may want to use different photos for promotion as they’re being taken around the convention area. Sporting and school events are another huge potential and key market for Happy Snap.

Target Market & Opportunity

Target Market:

● Focused target market: 25-35 year old women.

● Broader target market: 20 60 years old, any gender. Large age group that is most likely to be hosting and attending many events each year

● Any age can use the app to upload, share, view, and comment on pics and videos

Market Opportunity:

● New market segment that is currently left unfilled by traditional file-sharing systems.

● Most simple and easy to use of any other photo-sharing option.

PRODUCT POSITIONING & STRATEGY

While there are other options for sharing photos already out there, none of them are quite like Happy Snap. None of them are as simple and intuitive to use; and even though they offer additional options for sharing that Happy Snap won’t, the complexity of those file-sharing systems make them inaccessible, and aren’t intuitive to user for basic, entry-level users. Happy Snap will be simple yet intuitive and streamline the cloud-sharing process for all users.

The simplicity of Happy Snap also makes it easier to round-up all of the photos as well. With all of the photos sitting in one place in the cloud, coupled with a smart labeling system, there’s no guessing as to what is where and how to access it. Anything can be done within just a few clicks.

Happy Snap’s biggest selling point: its ease of use. Marketed as a solution to other bulky file-sharing systems that aren’t built around solely photo-sharing, Happy Snap creates a market segment of its own, giving users a product that will save them time, energy, and money. It eliminates the hassle of tracking down event-goers for pictures or trying to figure out when and where the picture was taken. It can be downloaded to any smartphone and registered/set-up in under five minutes.

Sharing Event pics and videos with strangers has never been easier. No need to “friend” or “follow” people on social media networks, worry about privacy settings, or forget to unfriend/unfollow them later, just so that you could share and access each other’s pics and videos. Now, all of this can be done at the Event-level, shared in a cloud-based album that has a start and end time, with no other settings or long-term commitments needed.

KEY BUSINESS METRICS & SUCCESS CRITERIA

● Alpha Release with 100 customers in closed-invitation (proto-users) by Jun 15, 2015 (attained)

● Beta Release with 1,000 customers in closed-invitation by Aug 15, 2015 (attained)

● GA MVP Release with 100,000 new customers within the first 90 days after Apr 15, 2016

● 1.0% penetration of the Wedding market and of the Event/Conferences/Trade-show market by 2016

● App is usable by focus groups in all age ranges 10+ (in terms of navigation, registration, sharing of the

photos, etc.)

● Bringing in Revenues by Beta Release. (completed)

● Profitability KPI: Profitable by Oct 1, 2015 (completed)

● Net profitability margin staying above 50% at all times after Jun 15, 2016

● One Celebrity (event or wedding) sign-up by Jun 1, 2016

● One Influencer sign-up by Jun 1, 2016

● One professional sports team, club, league or venue to partner with us by Jun 1, 2016

● $500K+ in revenues within the first six months after MVP launch

● $2M+ in revenues within the first 12 months after MVP launch

Source: Icrowdnewswire