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Dreamtime StoryTellers™
by Halo Sun, LLC
Business Summary: The purpose of Halo Sun is to profitably develop, create, mfg & sell high-margin, branded, proprietary content and products to families of infants and children up to 6 yrs that will enhance & promote positive bedtime environments and routine. Best business practices will be employed with licensing and professional out-sourcing where appropriate. The Halo Sun Company’s initial products will be the StoryLightÔ,Dreamtime StoryTellersÔ & First VoiceÔ Baby Comfort Light, all supported by the StoryClub.
Customer Problem: The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) finds 69% of children to have sleep problems, risking poor health and falling behind at school. Parents say their #1 headacheis getting kids to bed. Parents also lose sleep from young children’s night-awakenings.
Solution: NSF has tips for parents: 1. Maintain regular bedtime routines. 2. Include stories andexclude television. 3. Let the child go back to sleep without parental intervention. Other authorities urge introducing kids to their legacy of children's literature at an early age. The StoryLight system combines best features of nightlights & books-on-tape for children with a mix of voice & music that responds to a child's voice or cry. It brings childhood literature & music to the bedtime environment. It is a tool for parents, not a substitute for them.
Products: The StoryLight puts children to sleep. The system includes a patent pending audio-responsive StoryLight and a library of StoryTeller memory lenses, each with up to 15 minutes of children’s bedtime stories and music. FirstVoice allows Mother to record her own voice to comfort the child. The StoryLight retails for $29.95, Dreamtime StoryTellersÔ retails for $9.95 and the FirstVoice retails for $49.95. The next phase of product development will be to make the new internet-ready StoryLight II that will download content to StoryClub subscribers. Program content from the website will come to be the most important revenue source.
Management Team: Very experienced in establishing successful new companies, members of the team have been founders or executives of consumer products companies and successful start-ups. Rita Cooper, CEO, has extensive experience in directing sales and marketing teams, branding and working at high level with the company’s distribution and retail networks and has a background in theatrical productions.
Target Market: (US & CAN): 22 million children under the age of 6 yrs; 4.5 million babies every year
ANNUAL DEMAND: Educational toys $4.0 bil.; baby gear $6.5 bil.; children's bedroom lamps and nightlights $400m.
GROWTH RATES: Educational toys 15%/yr; Children's lamps 12%/yr; Nightlights: 8%/yr
EXPORT MARKET: International markets with similar consumer problems may prove to be even larger.
Distribution: Content through Internet download and product through retailers (Baby stores, Toy stores, Department stores, Book stores, Mass merchandisers, TV infomercials and shop-at-home, Online shopping, Catalogs, Specialty gift stores, Educational and Religious product retailers) and Export.
Sales/Marketing Strategy: Establish significant installed base of StoryLights through retail sales and supply it with StoryTeller content to subscribers of the StoryClub website. Website serves a community of early childhood parents with sleep advice, advertisements, links, sponsorships.
ANNUAL MARKETING BUDGET
Years 1 2 3 4 5
$ mil. 0.9 2.8 4.6 9.1 15.0
% of sales 35% 20% 15% 15% 15%
Media: POS, trade shows, retail trade pubs, parents' magazines, Infomercials, TV commercials and sustained online presence
Business Model: Meet demand for low-stress children’s bedtime routine with high-margin, scaleable (StoryLights, HolidayLights, LearningLights, SacredLights) patent-protected StoryLight System that generates a high-volume after mkt. residual income from Dreamtime StoryTellers and downloads of signature-style content. Evolve from product and content supplier to primarily producing content for multiple licensees including content to be downloaded from Halo Sun’s StoryClub.
Competitors: A number of companies sell electronic toys for children: (Disney, Mattel, Fisher-Price). Several companies sell electronic learning aids for children (Leap Frog, Baby Einstein). A few companies sell crib-soothers for infants (Philips).
Competitive Advantage: No one sells a voice-activated story-light device with interchangeable stories, none of them have addressed the bedtime routine niche and none of them provide an Internet accessible library of theater-quality stories. None have the features of the StoryLight and generate a stream of residual income. The StoryLight is not designed primarily to entertain or educate children, but to establish a routine that puts them happily to sleep. The technology is protected with utility patents pending for StoryLightÔ, FirstVoiceÔ and Dreamtime StoryTellersÔ. Very large branding, promotion & advertising budgets of up to 35% of sales in early years and up to $15 mil. in later years give market power.
Financials:
|
As of 3/1/06 |
To date |
Yr. 1 |
Yr. 2 |
Yr. 3 |
Yr. 4 |
Yr. 5 |
|
Revenues |
$0 |
$2,601,000 |
$14,135,000 |
$30,816,000 |
$60,352,000 |
$108,447, 000 |
|
Expenditures |
$180,000 |
$3,547,000 |
$12,217,000 |
$21,3323,000 |
$40,225,000 |
$70,005,000 |
|
Net |
($180,000) |
($946,000) |
$1,917,000 |
$9,483,000 |
$20,126,000 |
$38,441,000
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