Thread: Please Critique my concept, business/revenue/marketing model

Okay, so I'm about to go "boots on the ground" with my proposed fastlane strategy by taking massive action. Before I make the 100% commitment, I need some constructive criticism regarding my business concept, as well as my models of revenue and marketing.

Concept: My business is a website that allows collegiate students (my niche) to make transactions of textbooks, class notes, study guides, previous exams/homework samples, classroom materials, dormitory wares, and study group networking with other students on campus.

Here is how my concept fits into the NECST model:

Need: Students always need easy access to textbooks, notes, and class materials. There is a huge need for these materials, and yet from what I have seen, there are few websites that cater to all of these needs mentioned above. Some sites are textbook specific, some are notes specific, etc. My website aims to bring all of these together to make the "hunting and gathering" of essential classroom materials easier.

Entry: Entry would be tough building and harnessing the magnitude of a website like the one I have in mind. Please read my marketing strategy below for my differentiation from websites with similar concepts.

Control: I would be able to have majority control over the company, with a small percentage of management going into my breadth of weakness (computer programming). I hope to team up with a programmer or two and make this a collaboration effort. My marketing strategy combined with their technical skills.

Scale: Has national and global potential. Every college campus could reap the benefits of my service.

Time: This business model would require a vast amount of time and energy into building the money tree. After it becomes a proven model and expansion becomes easier, it should run on its own.

Now that NECST is covered, here are several of my models:

Revenue Model: Revenue would have to be entirely from advertisements after the site has been scaled. I have toyed with the idea of taking a percentage of revenue from notes/study guides sold from using my site, but I have ran into a road block: If users can pay for notes off of my site and download them into hard copies, what stops them from distributing those hard copies to other students for free? I can't enforce copyright laws because technically, student notes are not original material. If anyone has an answer to this, feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Marketing Model: Honestly, my marketing model is the real reason why I am interested in pursuing this venture. Why? Every website that I have stumbled across does a terrible job in marketing their service. Let me first pinpoint the differences in my model versus similar models already out there: On the one hand, I have not seen anything that offers a "holistic" marketplace for all campus transactions (like I said earlier, some are textbook specific, some are notes/study guide specific, some are study group networking specific, etc.). On the other hand, all of these websites have scaled way too quickly. For instance, this website (Notehall - Buy and Sell Class Notes) has massive scale (lists over hundreds of universities with their website affiliation), but when you search for a class that you want to buy notes from, there are very few sellers. Why? I believe its because of the old "quality vs. quantity" debate.

My website would start very small. We would focus on one university, get students to use the marketplace for all classes at that university (by promoting notes and other materials for said classes), and establish a large community within this university of students who use our marketplace for all collegiate transactions. To scale = rinse and repeat until we have covered most universities.

Anyways, I have been tugging at this idea for the past year and a half. I either go through with it now, or throw it away if it seems too implausible to make a fastlane strategy out of it.

Here's the feedback I would really appreciate:

Does my concept violate NECST in anyway?
Does my revenue model seem to slow? The average university has about 10,000 - 20,000 students. Would it take too long to see revenue via advertisements if I use my marketing strategy?
Any ideas on how to tweak my revenue model so that I am not relying on ads alone?
Can I use lead sales in anyway?
Is my marketing strategy sound? Will this define me from my competitors enough?
Are there any websites that you are familiar with that have the specifics my concept website addresses, or use a marketing strategy similar to mine?

All feedback is greatly appreciated. I can't tell you how thankful I am to live in an age where you have access to people who know what they're talking about.

Is it something similar to this:Notehall - Buy and Sell Class Notes

I remember seeing it on Shark Tank a while back.

Haha, yes, it is very similar to that. I actually included that exact link in the description of my marketing model!

So comparing it to that website:

Does my "holistic" approach to constructing a collegiate marketplace (that is, a marketplace geared towards more than just notes) AND my marketing approach to scale differentiate me enough from my competitors?

Thanks!

It's a great idea though your largest barrier will be the students themselves. Buying/selling used textbooks is already achieved through many other sources. Selling notes though, that's ... tough I think. For example, coming from a computer science major: someone else's notes won't help me much. Actually doing the programming exercises will. For help with that we have the lovely Google search.

More to the point: Let's assuming we're in some not-too obscure quantum physics class (side note: it was a fun class), then how do you and I as desk mates find/buy notes from 'that' lecture we just missed?

The issue I see, and I really don't mean to sound like a downer, is how will you incentive many students to do this?

I would suggest making it super easy for sellers to post notes. It should be simpler than making milk & cereal!

On the side of the copyright stuff though: this is college we're talking about it. The more you try to enforce your ideals and rules onto them the more they'll push back. I'd say once they buy, it's theirs. Let them be.

I don't see the Need... You can buy used text books from the local book store or online. And you only have to show up to class once to meet a pretty girl and get notes/class materials. Plus, now with things like Facebook and Craigslist, people can buy and sell things to each other pretty easily.

Your idea seems good..

You could make a platform community for these student to share notes, knowledge among themselves for Free - in order to create a community platform, if you had already done this and lot of students hang out at your site and this is the time your start to sell something [e.g books, stationary,clothes etc ]

A lot of competition in this category