How easy/difficult is it to add additional school offerings?
Unique Pay per use service targeted at university students
Sit back and collect cash, or take this idea to a new level
http://www.coursesniper.com/chooseschool.php
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- Bid History:
- 0 Bids (0 Pending)
- Offer History:
- None accepted (0 Pending)
- Listed:
- Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:10:37 GMT
Accepted Payment Methods: PayPal, Western Union, Electronic Transfer, Escrow.com
Description
This service addresses one of the most frustrating things about being a university student – getting into the best courses. They often fill up in the blink of an eye – the only way to get in is to constantly check the registrar’s website. In many cases, students need specific courses to graduate – and they will go to great lengths to get into a course that they require.
Course Sniper (coursesniper.com) is a pay-per-use service that sends out an SMS alert as soon as the course opens up – giving the student first dibs on getting in! I am currently pricing the service at $10/course – though you are free to experiment with different price points.
This is a unique service – never been done before. There is fantastic room for growth – either through increasing awareness of service at existing nine universities – or expanding reach of service. I have had great success with advertising this service through Facebook Ads – you will typically be paying around $0.08-$0.11/click to bring in a potential customer. That means that EVEN at conversion ratios of around 5%, you are still making a 500% return on your advertising budget!
Furthermore, Course Sniper continues to be the only website on the Internet that provides this kind of a service. While competitors can be expected to eventually move in, the catchy name of this service will resonate within minds of university students.
Revenue is highly seasonal – this is to be expected as late August/September is the time when enrolling in courses is on the mind of a university student. This is an advantage – because you only have to “manage” operations of this property for a few months out of the year. If, however, you are serious about taking this idea to the next level, you have the other 49 weeks to improve service.
Costs for this service are extremely low – it costs exactly $0 to send the student the SMS.
On to why I am selling:
I started this service 1.5 years ago while I was a university student (hence inspiration for the idea). Shortly thereafter, I moved into the corporate world – which left me with no time to pursue a business online. I am hoping that a savvy internet marketer can exploit this idea to its full potential.
What is included:
Everything required to operate this venture, including
• PHP Code to access registrar systems of nine major universities in North America
• Existing customer database
Domain names:
• CourseSniper.com
• CourseSniper.ca
would be happy to answer any questions that you have.
Revenue Details
Pay-per-use model. Students pay $10 via PayPal for each course that they would like to snipe.
Traffic Details
University students (age 19-23) are primary users of this service.
If customers use Course Sniper, get into the course that they want, and do not come back until next year/semester - I am happy! The service did it's job! This is why traffic figures appear low.
Attachments 6 public (0 verified)
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While course schedules are not yet online for Winter 2009, I would like to show you how the service works. The student begins by
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Step 2: Pick course
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Step 3: Pick section (timeslot) of course
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Step 4: Make payment via PayPal
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While January is a slow month for Course Sniper, the revenue is still decent!
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I use TurboDB Admin to keep a glance on recent subscriptions.
Questions 12 public, 1 deleted
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- Posted by:
- Date:
- Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:46:37 GMT
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- Posted by:
- Date:
- Wed, 12 Nov 2008 23:53:51 GMT
The 800 monthly earnings - is that ongoing - where are you right now with income?
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- Posted by:
- Date:
- Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:13:43 GMT
Top Dollar:
It takes 8-10 hours of work, and an intermediate knowledge of PHP to add a school offering. The majority of the time is spent on tailoring the system to the unique cataloguing system of each university.designcrowd:
Course Sniper's revenue is highly seasonal. Nearly all transactions occur during one of two periods:
1) End of August-Early September
2) End of December-Early JanuaryFor comparability purposes, I divided net revenue over past 12 months by 12 - thus calculating an "average" monthly income".
There is considerable room for growth within the business - simply expanding to additional schools should bring in additional customers. -
- Posted by:
- Date:
- Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:16:21 GMT
Isn't there usually a termination fee per message to send an SMS? I am not sure how it is 100% free is both Canada and the US? Perhaps I got my facts mixed up.
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- Posted by:
- Date:
- Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:21:31 GMT
How much additional cost is required to add each school
and
How much revenue per university / school you can get in a given year? -
- Posted by:
- Date:
- Fri, 14 Nov 2008 07:05:50 GMT
Also could you specify if you (or the programmer you used) will be available for when the schools change their system (which would break the site) and also to add new schools?
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- Posted by:
- Date:
- Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:29:21 GMT
steen:
SMS are sent using the email-to-SMS protocol, which is free.webmaster5:
I assume that your second question refers to revenue potential. It’s huge! Let’s do the math together, feel free to point out any flaws in my analysis:An average university has 50,000 students
Assume that we capture just 1% of that market (500 students)
That’s $5,000 revenue per SCHOOL per year.
Which is $4,600 in profit after you subtract out PayPal transaction fees.I will admit that I have not even began to reach the potential of Course Sniper. With successful marketing, full potential at existing (and new schools), could be reached in 3 years – this is because length of university is 4 years (for most), and the customer base “rolls over”. From a marketing standpoint, this means that targeting 1st year students is most effective, since they will return to use the service in subsequent years.
Steen:
I will be available to perform coding changes to the system, in the event of universities changing their cataloging system, or to expand the offering to additional schools. As part of the contract, we will need to determine an appropriate hourly rate for my time. -
- Posted by:
- Date:
- Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:26:18 GMT
Can you give a ballpark figure on an hourly rate for adding more schools?
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- Posted by:
- Date:
- Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:35:25 GMT
martyt76:
Around $40/hour. -
- Posted by:
- Date:
- Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:44:14 GMT
So users pay you when they sign up, not based on getting into the course.
Correct?
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- Posted by:
- Date:
- Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:05:31 GMT
tke71709:
Yes, that is correct. Users pay when they sign up.However, I give users a refund if the course that they want does not open up - this gives users the peace of mind about effectiveness of service. Yet, this is something that I have rarely had to do.
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