It's amazing how my founder's story and what help I need can change in the span of two months, since the GreatAlbum Summary for Pitch at Cambridge Innovation Center
Seeking Advice
Best way to build a marketing engagement engine in front of the app, that we use to attract new users, follow-up on outstanding invitations, entice customers back when they haven't used the app in a while, and inform them of new/interesting customer engagement.
The Origin Story
My son played on the same club soccer team for 6 years – that’s 200 games across 10 states and 3 countries. This team became a mainstay of our family’s social life. We amassed 20,000 photos and 200 videos of our experiences, on and off the pitch. We did our best to share them, but it was always disjointed via emails, texts and WhatsApp, with media spread across Google/Apple Photos, Google Drive, Dropbox & Youtube. There was never one place to see all these albums & playlists, and no way to get notified when new ones were created. Now, as we reminisce about the times we shared, finding the media is like finding needles in a haystack, and we’re starting to forget the amazing stories that accompanied these experiences.
Venture Description
GreatAlbum is the only app that enables families to celebrate and relive the achievements of their kids on youth sports teams in shared albums that use events to organize media, stories and discussions, tagged with shared individuals and places. It’s also the only app that lets users keep their source photos/videos in Apple, Google, Youtube, Vimeo, etc. and yet represent them in shared albums that span those platforms.
Problem
Soccer moms (and dads) take lots of photos and “mental notes” of their kids games, with the intent to share them with other family members who weren’t there (like grandparents), and hopefully to relive them in the future. Yet most photos get locked away in Apple or Google Photos vaults and never see the light of day. Soccer moms are too busy and overwhelmed to collaboratively organize and share them, and there are no apps that make this easy, especially with multiple kids on numerous teams spanning decades.
Solution
GreatAlbum’s unique approach solves the problem with albums that represent real life. Album members organize content by events, with media, individuals, places, stories and discussions. Media is not stored in GreatAlbum. Users import metadata about their Apple/Google photos and Youtube/Vimeo videos. We're focused on three use cases: (1) Cheer your kid's team, (2) Build a family biography, (3) Celebrate a Loved One.
Market & Opportunity
60M kids playing youth sports in the US. 200M team “fans” (family & friends) who would like to cheer on those kids/teams. If they all paid $100/yr subscription, then TAM = $20B. If only 10% of potential users would use GreatAlbum, then SAM = $2B. Assuming 70% free users, 20% pay $50/yr and 10% pay $100/yr, then SOM = $400M.
If the global market is 10x US, then the global numbers are:
TAM = $200B, SAM = $20B, SOM = $4B.
Business Model
Subscription business model:
-
Free for up to 5 albums and 25,000 media items
-
Standard $50/year subscription for up to 10 albums and 50,000 media items
-
Unlimited $100/year subscription for unlimited albums & media items
Competition
Apple and Google Photos are obvious, but very clumsy when trying to share media across many events/years. They don’t have shared tagging of individuals, places or events. TeamSnap, TeamApp and related apps are mostly for organizing games across teams and leagues; photo sharing is a “step child” feature. Most of our perceived competitors are in fact potential business partners. GreatAlbum is unique in its approach and designed to integrate (partner) with other apps/services
Moat/Durability
Network effects are huge. When fans use GreatAlbum for one team, many will likely create Albums for other teams and invite more users to join. That will drive exponential growth. Also, building B2B distribution channels through private sports clubs and private schools, when they sponsor tens of teams at a time and sign-up thousands of user per club/school, will fuel even greater growth.
Team
Erik Britt-Webb, Founder/CEO/visionary has three decades of business and technology leadership experience. He’s an expert in building channel partnerships and epitome of a sports dad and team photographer. Dima Storozhuk, GreatAlbum CTO; iTech4Web Inc. CEO. Expert Drupal architect/ developer. Nicole Cutrufo - Project/Product Manager - has deep expertise in project and program management.
Financial Projection
Within the next two years, achieve 1M users and annualized revenue of $5M. Achieve profitability within 2-3 years.
Marketing Distribution
Customer acquisition strategy has two main pillars:
-
B2C viral adoption – members of Team A create their albums for Teams B-Z and invite new members to join.
-
B2B partnerships – with private sports clubs and private school who sponsor albums for all their teams.
Traction
Started building MVP1 two years ago. Just launched MVP3 in Feb. We have 300 registered users, of whom 10-20 are active, with over 75,000 media imported from Google Photos. Erik has 2500 people on his target/waiting list, across 20 teams/families. As soon as Erik figures out the best approach for user marketing, we will engaged groups to drive viral adoption. Erik will then use his strong personal relationships with two private soccer clubs (Valeo, Juventus) and one private school (Belmont Hill) to cultivate their partnerships.