Scene 1 of Trough of Sorrow in Entrepreneurial Story Series
By Amin Ariana — February 2015
2015-02-24
The times are changing for the young in the United States. The Federal Government is slashing spending on social programs just to catch up to Medicare spending and Debt. Fear of not having computers for her students, due to another round of budget cuts, drives Principal Joan Hendricks and millions like her to reach out to their communities to raise money.
In the U.S. alone, teachers, parents, nonprofit managers and volunteers have to raise $240B every year to keep their organizations running. The cost of these activities is $60B. Brand marketers, meanwhile, fearing loss of customer engagement in traditional marketing channels, have already shifted $60B of spending per year to digital marketing.
Sponsorbrite is a timely fundraising platform: Brands pay us to engage with Joan’s community of supporters. The supporters of Joan’s school are the very same consumers that Brands desire to engage. Digital marketers pay us for better engagement over the channels they have traditionally used. Sponsorbrite has a 98% email open rate (20% industry) and a 50% click-thru rate (10X industry). Over time, brands will re-allocate most of their budgets on keeping such meaningful customer relationships.
We have two revenue streams: (1) the traditional model of charging Joan a service commission [1], and (2) the advertising model of charging brands for customer engagement. [2] Because of this two-pronged approach, no platform with a single revenue stream can survive competing with our model.
With each fundraiser, Joan establishes her financial supporters and brand sponsors network on Sponsorbrite. She increases the value of the network for all existing fundraisers and brands, making their departure less logical.
To date, Sponsorbrite has run 1,000+ fundraisers, engaged 60K+ supporters, and represented 5 regional brands, such as Sports Basement, City Sports Club, LA Fitness, Kona Ice, and Soccer Post. Based on our concentrated effort in the sports fundraising market, we see that every sale becomes easier given a growing network. Tradition in the face of our changing times is conceding to the happy marriage between corporations and society.
Team:
Mike Wilson - Successful entrepreneur VC funded and self-funded start-ups. Expert technology management, sales, marketing.
Amin Ariana - Ex-Googler, ex-Microsoft Full Stack engineer, U Waterloo Computer Science, Masters Software Innovation, Carnegie Mellon University.