Elisa Skinner
Spring, TX (USA)
Role(s):
Founder/Owner/Principal
Sign Wire, LLC
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Startup
Location:
Spring
Industry:
Internet
Year Founded:
2008
Number Employees:
1-10 people
Description:
Executive Summary
Approximately 10% of Americans are Deaf or Hard of Hearing. It is estimated that up to 2 million Deaf Americans use American Sign Language (ASL) as their primary language. Because English is an auditory/spoken language, it relies heavily on sound for understanding. That is why most Deaf adults read and write at a fourth or fifth grade level. Even the most intelligent, well educated Deaf individuals will admit that English is not their forte. Because of this language barrier, many Deaf people get their news and other critical information filtered, through friends and family.
Sign Wire, LLC seeks to remove barriers the Deaf community faces in obtaining factual unfiltered news and information. Through our website, (URL removed), we will provide access to news stories, submitted by news sources, by interpreting them into ASL and publishing them on our website. Revenue will be generated by fees charged to news sources for interpreting their stories and by advertising sold on the site. In addition to enhancing their public image, our service will benefit the news sources by providing a link on our website back to their site, thereby increasing traffic to their website by members of the population that may have previously overlooked the value of their content. Advertisers will benefit by specifically targeting the Deaf community, a segment of the population who may frequently overlook advertisements in other media venues such as newspapers and TV.
Many (if not most) TV news sources already have "Closed Captioning for the Hearing Impaired". Unfortunately, that only truly benefits those who became Deaf or Hard of Hearing AFTER obtaining a good grasp of the English language. For someone who was born Deaf, or has been Deaf most of their life, ASL (American Sign Language) is their "native language". Not to mention that more often than not, Closed Captioning is nothing more than garbled nonsense, and when it is correct, comes and goes on the screen so fast that even the most skilled reader can barely keep up.
The Deaf Community has put up with closed captioning for forty years because it is the best we've had to offer. It has served its purpose and will continue to do so, for those who are native English speakers. Sign Wire, LLC intends to provide truly equal access to those estimated 2 million who are not.
Sign Wire, LLC is a Limited Liability Company organized in the State of Texas and located in the greater Houston metropolitan area. Elisa Skinner, who is a Certified Sign Language Interpreter and also has several years experience in Sales and Marketing Management, is the sole owner of the company. The company leases office space which includes space for recording and editing video of the interpreted news stories.
We currently find ourselves in a unique position of being the first website solely devoted to providing ASL-interpreted news stories on the internet. As such, there are currently no competitors, and through our aggressive marketing strategy we project strong sales growth in the first three years of operation. Sales estimates project revenues of approximately $2.6 million in the first year, increasing to approximately $12.4 million by year three, with a net profit margin of 42.5% in year one, increasing to over 44.6% by year three.
In order to fund startup costs and provide cash flow for the first year of operation, we expect to require a total of $112,565 in start-up funding, which includes the cash required to sustain operations in the first year. Ms. Skinner has already provided partial funding from personal accounts to cover start-up costs to date; this business plan seeks to secure additional funding from private investors to cover the remaining start-up costs. Financial projections within this business plan assume a healthy return on their investment over the first three years of operation.