On The Grind (Hawken Project Blog #4)

Hey there! I have been pretty busy with trying to start a company. I don't know how to, so there has been a lot of trial and error. This means I have spent most of my days just working on something then shooting holes in it to pressure test it. I will share my work with you because it is pretty interesting. ESTIM8 is an application for college students that automatically generates their schedules based on accurate homework time estimations. Colleges/universities will implement our system in to their LMS, such as Canvas. When students submit their assignments, they will enter how long it took them to complete. When teachers post the assignment, they will enter how long they expect the assignment to take to complete. When students open ESTIM8 on their phones or computers, their assignments will be loaded into their schedule with their assigned estimated time blocks. Our magic scheduling automatically finds time for each assignment to be completed before its due date. All the student has to do is sync their LMS with ESTIM8, enter their classes and AD-HOC events, then they don’t risk messing up when they try to use things like apple calender or a paper planner. The application will be seamlessly integrated with LMS like Canvas, but it will be a separate application that students will use as a planner/calendar.

Our financial plan is quite simple. We will begin by selling our product on a yearly licensing basis. We expect to land around 8 customers the first year with 12 more per year per salesman with a 30 percent churn rate. For pricing, our initial tag is $25,000 per year on average. That is expected to change on the size of the university/college and how the market values our product. With current market trends, we expect a 5% annual inflation increase. We decided to price it this way because we believe that our product will provide value to our customers that they either didn’t have access to before or already had for a higher price and lower quality. For example, students pay for planners upwards of $20, but ESTIM8 will be only a few cents per user. Teachers will be able to teach more efficiently and intelligently, which provides value that money (usually) cannot provide.