eyedeus business plan (plan9)

8/13/2019 Eyedeus Business Plan (Plan9)

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Eyedeus

Eyedeus LabsTechnologies for Vision, Augmented Reality and

Human Computer Interaction


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Table of Contents

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ 1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................ 2

1 THE COMPANY AND PRODUCT .......................................................................... 3

1.1 Overview .............................................................................................................. 3

1.2 Business Model .................................................................................................... 3

1.3 The Product .......................................................................................................... 4

1.4 Entry and Growth Strategy ................................................................................... 5

2 MARKET RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS ............................................................... 6

2.1 Customers ............................................................................................................. 6

2.2 Market Size .......................................................................................................... 7

2.3 Competition and Competitive Edges.................................................................... 7

2.4 Marketing Strategy ............................................................................................... 8

3 FINACIAL STATEMENTS ..................................................................................... 10

3.1 Five year projection summary ............................................................................ 11

4 MARKETING PLAN ............................................................................................... 11

4.1 Overall Marketing Strategy ................................................................................ 11

4.2 Distribution......................................................................................................... 11

5 DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT PLANS .............................................................. 11

5.1 Development Status and Tasks .......................................................................... 11

5.2 Difficulties and Risks ......................................................................................... 12

5.3 Product Improvement and New Products........................................................... 12

6 MANUFACTURING AND OPERATIONS PLAN ................................................ 13

7 MANAGEMENT TEAM ......................................................................................... 13

8 OVERALL SCHEDULE .......................................................................................... 13


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Eyedeus Labs is a LUMS based startup developing Computer Vision technologies for mobile devices

particularly enabling technologies for Augmented Reality and Human Computer Interaction. The core

team has over 20 years combined experience in Computer Vision related R&D and is currently

associated with Computer Vision Lab, LUMS. We have already developed several components of our

vision technology and demonstrated its potential though our first product Groopicwhich allows users

to take a group photo which includes the photographer. A first demonstration of the solution won theBest Startup Awardat Startup Weekend Lahore in February, 2012. It has, since then, been converted to

a fast and stable application for the iOS platform, which is planned to be launched in the festival season

this year.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYThe product:

The currently software development industry lack computer vision expertise and we aim to bridge thisgap through our vision library. Our main product will be core computer vision technologies forsmartphones on which we will develop range of utility, service and entertainment applications. Our first

proof of concept application is Groopic that allows users to take a group photo which includes thephotographer. It solves, for the first time, the age-old problem that one member of a group thephotographer cannot be part of the photo so traditional group photos were always incomplete. Theapplication automatically combines two such incomplete group photos with different people missingeach time into one complete photo of the group.

Target Market

There are about 1.08 billion smartphone users in the world. Initially, we are targeting young user on iOSthe most prominent smartphone platform. This makes the size of our target market 133.28 million users(calculations based on the 2011 statistics). Even 20% of this number means a user base of 26.7 million.We are anticipating an initial adoption of our free application by around 1.2 million during the first year.

Startup Costs

We have incurred $12,000 in developing our initial prototype during the final quarter of fiscal year2012. We anticipate future expenses of $32,000 in launching and initial marketing of two applications infirst year. Another $40,000 expenses at minimum are expected in the first year for patenting thedeveloped technologies. This makes the total cost of $72,000, which is required by the team.

PayoffEyedeus Labs expects break even within the second quarter of the first year and approximately 7Xreturn on investment within the first year on this product. We expect to expand by developing additionalproducts ideas included in the subsequent years. The exit strategy would be a merger/acquisitionwith a larger competitor in the Augmented Reality space by acquiring a large user base, developing IP

through R&D and product development.

Management TeamOur team has a combined experience of over 20 years in research and development. The co-foundersinclude Ali Rehan and Abdul Rehman (MS CS graduates) on application development and testing;Aamer Zaheer (Senior PhD student) and Dr. Murtaza Taj (Assistant Professor) on product prototyping,R&D and quality assurance while Shehryar Hydri (COO Trango Interactive, Co-founder at Scrybe) isthe technical advisor.


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1 THE COMPANY AND PRODUCT

1.1 OverviewEyedeus Labs is a company founded by a group of Computer Vision researchers from School of Science

& Engineering, Lahore University of Management Sciences. We have worked on maturing coreComputer Vision research particularly targeting Augmented Reality (AR) and Human ComputerInteraction (HCI) technologies with applied perspective. With a vast experience in Computer Vision,Image Processing, and 3D Reconstruction, we aim to develop various stable and efficient algorithms forembedded devices. Several computer vision based utility and entertainment applications can then bedevelop these platforms. Our first application, called Groopic grabbed us the Best Startup Award atStartup Weekend Lahore, in February 2012. Since then, we have tested and improved the applicationand now we have a fast and stable prototype ready for the iOS platform.

The Groopic application lets users take group photos including the photographer in just three clicks. Thekey pain point that this application addresses is the fact that whenever people want to take a group

photo, they either need an extra non-group person to take the photograph or a camera with tripod.Both of these scenarios limit the users ability to preserve their memories because, either, one of thegroup members is always missing in that memorable picture while tripod is not a very portable piece ofequipment. Groopic solves this problem by combining the portability of a smart phone with the state-of-the-art in the Computer Vision research.

Other avenues that we aim to address through our core technologies is HCI based gaming where usercan do various moves within the game by moving its head or face direction or even by just using blinkof eyes. We aim to develop new verticals in mobile applications through our core competency ofComputer Vision which can make us market leader of HCI based gaming and augmented sharing.

1.2 Business ModelAugmented Reality (AR) and Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is one of the most intriguing fields inthe technology today. A lot of companies including the technology giants Google (with their GoogleGlass) and Qualcomm (with their AR SDK) are investing in the field. This points to the overall trend ofthe market towards such applications and hardware. Many Computer Vision based solutions, includingthe applications in AR and HCI, only requires a camera and a processor. One of the best combinations ofthe two is present in virtually everyones pocket today in the form of a smart phone. It is estimated thatthere are about 1.08 billion smart phones in the market today which is a huge market to work for.

With our key expertise and experience in the field of computer vision, we at Eyedeus Labs, have set out

to develop computer vision technologies for the Smart Phones. To monetize our vision library we willbe developing several utility and entertainment application. One of the first applications that we aredeveloping is Group Photo. Group photo will be helpful for everybody who cannot capture thememorable moments with all the people in one picture, if they do not have an extra person or a camerawith tripod. This is a scenario faced very frequently by friends out for picnic, a couple on honeymoonand a father on trekking with his youngest son etc. Group photo will be useful to people in suchconditions. We intend to generate profits by both giving a version of application with ads for free andsome paid in-app upgrades which rid user of the ads on screen and provide additional features. After the


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launch of the first product, the research team will continue working on extending library with additionalfunctionalities and on prototypes of future applications.

1.3 The ProductEyedeus Labs aims to develop a computer vision library consisting of reusable functions which enablesseries of augmented reality and human computer interaction algorithms for application developers. Thislibrary will then be used to introduce a new genre of computer vision in computational photography,Games and utility applications. Several functionalities of this library are already developed and testedthrough prototype applications. These functionalities include image blending, stitching and alignment.Our proof of concept application is in computational photography category and its called Group Photo.It is an application that lets users take group photos in which photographers are also present in just threeclicks. It solves a very unique problem that many people around the globe face on a daily basis, wherethere have to be either two pictures of same group (with two people switching the job of taking picture)or a single picture in which one member is missing. It is a challenging problem to solve and our solutionis the very first in the market. The application is in the final stages of development - with a stableprototype available - and will be ready to launch in a month.

Figure 1: Group Photo example results. (Col 1) Typical Group Photo scenario of 4 friends on atourist spot. (Col 2 & 3) Further

interesting scenarios obtained from the same app without any modification. Row 3 shows the group photo produced from two

images in row 1 and row 2 in each column respectively.


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Figure 2: Splash Screen and home screen

Figure 3: Screenshots of the Group Photo application. First image (left) is taken by tapping on the screen. Middle shows the

process of taking the second image while the first image is overlaid on the screen to help with alignment. The result computed

automatically - is shown on the right. The user then moves on to additional options like editing/sharing the image. Note the

possibility of going back to the previous step at any point in time, adding to the usability.

After the marketing, launch and initial post-launch support of Group Photo on iOS platform we willwork in two parallel teams. First team will aim at launching add-ons for Group Photo and its Android

Version. Group Photo add-ons includeGroup Again

andGroup Panorama. Group Again

will allowusers to group photos that are already taken in the past. Group Panorama will enable users to takecontinuous group photos by sliding the cameras in any desired direction.

The second team will collaborate with game developers to produce HCI enabled mobile games. Thisteam will particularly focus on introducing interaction between human face and game controls.Functionalities such as face pose estimate, gaze direction and eye blink events will be exposed to gamedevelopers. These games will allow users to experience a more immersive game play by using facialmovements for actions and interactions.

1.4 Entry and Growth StrategyWe will first develop applications using our vision library. These applications will then be launched oniOS and Android Platforms through App Store and Google Play respectively. These market placesprovide instant access to millions of users. The fun and entertainment aspect of our products is aimedtowards capturing the interest of youth and teenagers who are the major contributors of photos on anysocial network.

Since there are already over 5 million applications on these market places, this makes marketing a veryimportant aspect for a smartphone app in order to introduce it to potential users. We intend to secure


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product endorsement through early adopters and tech blogs as a source of word of mouth marketing forour target market. We will attract users through aggressive advertising and promotional campaigns andsocial networking channels. In order to retain and increase the user-base, we plan to continually developand introduce new and compelling features in our products. We also intend to explore possibilities ofbundling our products with multiple add-ons to provide an economical package to the user for multiple

apps and their features.

Another interesting direction to pursue is by having the computational photography applications such asGroup Photo feature built right into camera. After launching it on iPhone and Android, we plan todirectly contact major camera manufactures for providing a version of app as an feature of cameraapplications running on various cameras such as those from Sony, Olympus, Nikon and Panasonic.Similarly, mobile phone manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Nokia can also add ourapplication as a built-in feature in their camera app just like RIM (Research in Motion Blackberrysmartphones) has started adding computational photography features to their native camera application.Once we develop a significant user-base and realize capital gains from our user-base, we hope to getacquired by a leading seller of competing or related products.

2 MARKET RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS

2.1 CustomersOur core product is vision library and applications build on top of this library. We do not plan to licenseour technology to developers instead we aim to reach the application users directly by in-housedevelopment of applications. This makes application users as our main customers. The socialperspective of our computational photography and augmented sharing products makes every smartphoneuser our potential customer. The unique problem that our product solves makes it particularly attractivefor tourists. For e.g. every group of tourist could be a potential customer of group photo. Anyonelooking for fun and entertainment there is a lot they can gain from our various Photo apps includingGroup Photo and Augmented Tattoo.

Figure 4: Market Segmentation (image source:www.puremobile.com)
http://www.puremobile.com/http://www.puremobile.com/


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2.2 Market SizeThere are about 1.08 Billion Smartphone users in the world. This number increases by about 61.3%every year. Since the market is fragmented into multiple platforms we will initially target only userswith iOS based devices because they allow for easier quality assurance and higher spending rate of iOS(iPhone, iPad, iPod) users. These devices constitute approx. 30% of the total smartphones which is

equivalent to 324 Million users. We are targeting our apps towards youth which is approximately 43%of the total iOS users. This makes the size of our target market 139.32 Million users. Even 2% of thisnumber means a user base of 2.79 Million.

2.3 Competition and Competitive EdgesThe field of Digital Image Processing is all about generating perceptually correct images. Even a minuteerror creates clearly visible artifacts defeating the whole idea of augmented reality. There are severalgroups within mobile application development community that are trying to produce Augmented Realityrelated products. However, the current market survey suggests that most of them can only do verylimited work as they lack the required expertise in Computer Vision and Augmented Reality. Similarly,for HCI based games to be successful, the technology component should be robust enough that user caninteract seamlessly without even realizing that it is done via front camera of smartphone. Ourcompetitive advantage over others is our extensive research and development experience in the area ofComputer Vision and Augmented Reality. The three senior members in our team co-advise a lab full of

over 20 researchers including undergraduate and graduate students as well as full time ResearchAssistants. Additionally, many interesting ideas can be demonstrated through the course projects in halfa dozen specialized courses being offered by the lab.

Our first product, Group Photo, is the first solution for the users specific problem which lends us theearly movers advantage over our potential competition. Given that the problem is very challenging andthe technical expertise needed to reverse engineer our solution or come up with a new solution will


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make sure that most of the development firms are at a serious disadvantage. This allows us a reasonablewindow at least six months to establish ourselves as the market leader for this particular problem.

2.4 Marketing StrategyWe plan to spend $2000 during the post launch period to create the hype of the app and additional $5000at the time of app Launch to give initial boost to our sales. Once the app start receiving user traction, weplan to spend significant portion of our profits on marketing. The estimated marketing budget during thepost-launch period is around $15,000 to $20,000 per month to acquire users. We aim to increase ourmarketing through the social networking aspect of our application. After capturing the image, userwould be able to share the pictures instantly on the social media like Facebook, twitter etc. This wouldalso act as a marketing strategy for us. All the photos would be shared through the Group PhotoFacebook application, which will attract other users too. Since our app belongs to the photographycategory it requires only 3,100 downloads a day for free app and 2,700 downloads a day for a paidversion of an app to reach top 25 app category as shown below:

Figure 5: Image credits: http://www.insidemobileapps.com


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Figure 6: Image credits: http://www.insidemobileapps.com

Given the social aspect of our app we believe that these targets are well within our reach. We will baseour experience from the sales of Group Photo to devise a strategy for marketing our HCI based gameapplications. In gaming category we will also gain from the experience of our collaborator i.e. MindStorm Studios.


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3 FINACIAL STATEMENTSThe financial statement give below is based on one app launch only which will be Group Photo App that we plan to Launch by holidayseason. Moreover, the office space, marketing and legal support that we expect from PITBPlan 9 is also taken into considerations.

M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10 M11 M12 Y1

App sales $0 $0 $0 $199,000 $99,500 $199,000 $199,000 $199,000 $597,000 $597,000 $497,500 $497,500 $3,084

Op. Expenses

HR $4,000 $4,000 $4,000 $4,000 $4,000 $4,000 $4,000 $4,000 $4,000 $4,000 $4,000 $4,000 $48

Launch & Marketing $0 $2,000 $5,000 $10,000 $15,000 $15,000 $20,000 $20,000 $20,000 $20,000 $20,000 $20,000 $167

Equipment $6,500 $135 $135 $135 $135 $135 $135 $135 $135 $135 $135 $135 $7

Patent & IP $0 $0 $40,000 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $40

Office Expenses $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $700 $700 $700 $700 $700 $700 $4

Legal $0 $0 $15,000 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $0 $15

Op. P/L $(6,500) $(2,135) $(60,135) $188,865 $84,365 $183,865 $178,165 $178,165 $576,165 $576,165 $476,665 $476,665 $2,802

Apple/Android

Share $0 $0 $0 $59,700 $29,850 $59,700 $59,700 $59,700 $179,100 $179,100 $149,250 $149,250 $925

Taxes @ 35% $656

Net Profit/Loss $(6,500) $(2,135) $(60,135) $129,165 $54,515 $124,165 $118,465 $118,465 $397,065 $397,065 $327,415 $327,415 $1,220

Assumptions

Unit Price $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $1.99 $1.99 $1.99 $1.99 $1.99 $1.99 $1.99 $1.99 $1.99

Downloads 0 0 200,000 100,000 50,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 300,000 300,000 250,000 250,000 1 ,750

Sales $0 $0 $0 $199,000 $99,500 $199,000 $199,000 $199,000 $597,000 $597,000 $497,500 $497,500 $3,084

It should be noted that in month 3 we are expecting a loss of over $60,000. This loss is due to increased legal, marketing and patentingexpenses for which we need support and network of PITB Plan 9.


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3.1 Five year projection summary

Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5

Total Download 1,750,000 1,925,000 2,117,500 2,329,250 2,562,175

Total Revenue $3,084,500 $3,392,950 $3,732,245 $4,105,470 $4,516,016

Op. Expenses $282,190 $315,500 $362,190 $419,253 $486,942

Op. P/L $2,802,310 $3,077,450 $3,370,055 $3,686,217 $4,029,075

Apple/Android Comm. $925,350 $1,017,885 $1,119,674 $1,231,641 $1,354,805

Taxes $656,936 $720,848 $787,634 $859,101 $935,995

Net P/L $1,220,024 $1,338,717 $1,462,748 $1,595,474 $1,738,276

4 MARKETING PLAN

4.1 Overall Marketing StrategyThe marketing strategy for iOS apps includes following standard components:

1. Introductory Video & interactive tutorial2. Website3. Tech Blogging: By contacting pre-identified tech-bloggers directly4. Social Media Campaign: through specialized marketing firms

We plan to accompany our product with a video presentation/demo. A professionally done video and

graphics can significantly increase chances of success. We will also be exploiting social networking

media such as Facebook and Twitter as well as Tech Blogs to maximize the word of mouth marketing

strategy and to create a viral effect.

4.2 DistributionOur Apps will be distributed through Apples App Store and subsequently through Google Play forAndroid based apps.

5 DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT PLANS

5.1 Development Status and TasksWe are in the final stages of development of our first product called Group Photo. Major portions ofthe development phase that includes prototyping and proof of concept trails on iOS is completed.Performance enhancement of app to handle higher resolution images is also done. This gives us a

leading edge over all other competing apps which only work at low-resolutions only. Additionally wehave built-in easy sharing options directly through the app. We are now working on improving userexperience by generating instantaneous results, ease of navigation through app and in providing moreattractive graphics. We intend to complete these tasks including product testing in 1 month time.

The core technology components developed for our first app are then combined with additionalfunctionalities for HCI. Particularly facial movement and expression recognition algorithms will bedeveloped. These functionalities will be combined into a reusable library for HCI enabled games. To


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6 MANUFACTURING AND OPERATIONS PLANWe are a traditional garage startup at the moment and planning to run that way until we raisesubstantial investment/revenue. Startup incubation, rent, utilities and stipend is already covered by PITBPlan 9. We are highly hopeful that it will pan out because of many factors including our Award Winning

performance at the only entrepreneurial event organized at LUMS.

7 MANAGEMENT TEAMEyedeus Labs is a company founded by group of Computer Vision experts from School of Science &Engineering, Lahore University of Management Sciences.

Ali Rehan: Ali, an MS candidate in Computer Science at LUMS has been involved in multiplesuccessful startups including chOpaal, the largest SMS based social network of the Pakistan. He has alsoworked with SATUMA Pakistan for development of Computer Vision based products for UAVs. Hewill be working as a lead developer.

Abdul Rehman Naeem: Abdul Rehman, an MS candidate in Computer Science at LUMS has also beenworking with SATUMA Pakistan for development of Computer Vision based products. He will also beworking as a lead developer.

Aamer Zaheer: Aamer, a final year PhD candidate in Computer Science at LUMS brings a stellarresearch experience of over 8 years in state of the art Computer Vision technologies. His main role inthe team is prototyping key technologies and new product ideas.

Murtaza Taj: Murtaza, Assistant Professor in Computer Science (CS) department at LUMS has donehis PhD in Computer Science and Electronics Engineering in 2009. He brings a combination of research

experience in Digital Image Processing and proposal writing skills. He will be sharing the role ofprototyping key technologies and new product ideas.

Shehryar Hydri: Shehryar is a COO of Trango Interactive and Co-Founder of Scrybe. He has done hisMasters in Business Administration from IBA, Karachi and then M. Phil in Islamic Economics fromIIU, Islamabad. Shehryar has a vast experience as a Co-Founder of multiple startups including iTrango,Scrybe and Mystic two of which are still doing good business. Shehryar has also experience in productbranding and marketing and he is working with the team in an advisor role.

8 OVERALL SCHEDULEWe have already prototyped multiple functionalities of our vision library and our first application is inthe alpha testing and User Experience design phase. In the meanwhile, we are preparing our marketingstrategy and launch planning. Our post launch plan includes enhancing library functionalities along withmaintenance and upgrade of the iOS app and development of the Android based app (which has alsobeen demonstrated).

eyedeus business plan (plan9)

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