A proposal for a business venture

note: I (Nick Rusnov) am not trained in business, and therfor this
proposal may not be "business correct". It is as good as I can make
it, as I see it.

A) Summary

We propose to form a corporation that will develop and market
high-tech Internet business and education communication software
(initially), and potentiall to diversify into reletively unexploited
Internet markets.

B) Initial Product Description

It is our plan to inititially develop an integrated collaboration/
"auditorium" solution. This solution will consist of seat-licensed
multimedia servers, and free (with advertising) and low cost (without
advertising) multimedia clients.

The purpose of this software will be to facilitate easy auditorium
situations on the Internet. It will allow a teacher or speaker to
broadcast audio, video, images and slides, text, and reference
materials to one or more users, using normal consumer Internet
connections. It will also allow users to talk back to the broadcaster,
to submit questions, to participate in shared white boards, and other
important communications talk-backs.

The design of this solution will leverage existing technologies and
systems, allowing for reletively rapid development and deployment.
It will be paritally based on existing World Wide Web standards,
and partially based on our own designs, all integrated cleanly.

  i) Potential market
  
  Anecdotal evedence says that the potential market for a system such
  as this is huge. Not only internally in companies, but across the
  Internet. Consumers desire clean, integrated solutions, and that is
  the aim of this system; to provide users, with minimal effort, the
  ability to participate in lectures, meetings, classes, etc wherever
  they may reside in respect to the event.

  Furthermore, one of our primary potential competitors, Placeware,
  has recieved a large amount of attention and investment from
  major telecommunications players, and with products that aren't
  as visionary as those proposed here.

  ii) Potential returns
  
  As mentioned above, Placeware has recieved investment capital,
  as have other startups along similar lines; this shows a
  desire by telecommunications companies to have products such
  as this actively developed. This shows great promise for large
  profit returns, given the proper start.

  The ruturns from sales show great potential too. Properly marketed
  and integrated, this product has huge market potetial.

  There is also to a lesser degree the advertising platform within
  the general use clients. With a large enough client deployment
  this could potenitally bring a steady revenue stream from high
  tech advertisers.

C) Timeline

With the initial solution outlined above, we believe that the total
development-deployment cycle would take 18 months; this being aproximately
8 months for development and aproximately 10 months for market penetration
and marketing.

Month         Activity
----------------------------------------------------
 0            Initial company start.
              Gathering resources, hiring employees.

 4            Primary development phase

11            Initial releas (beta test period)
              Pre-sales and investment wrangling.

14            Product release, begin of shrink-wrapped sales

Note this is only a rough timeline, the software development phase may be
significantly shorter, giving much more time for market development.

D) Division of assets

The primary founders, Nick Rusnov and Keith Crouch, have tentatively chalked
out a stock-based asset division scheme, in this scheme, the stock of the
company would be divided thusly:

26% Nick Rusnov
26% Keith Crouch
10% Business manager
8%  Initial employees (see below, Required resources)
30% Capital investors

E) Required resources

As a high-tech startup, the required resources are stikingly low. 

We would potentially need three aditional employees for development, perhaps
one or two office assistant employees, and a business manager.

The aproximate initial outlay for the first year would be an estimated $850,000, 
divided thusly:

$ 50,000  Nick Rusnov's living expenses (salary)
$ 50,000  Keith Crouch's living expenses (salary)

$300,000  Other employees' salaries

$150,000  Office leases

$200,000  Equipment

$100,000  other/misc

Of course the exact values and costs would be manipulated by the business manager
to more readily reflect reality.