Shai Leib

West Sacramento, CA (USA)
Role(s):
Founder/Owner/Principal

SacFreeMarket

Find More Startups Startup
Location: Plumas Lake
Industry: Internet
Year Founded: 2008
Number Employees: 1-10 people
Description: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Philly Free Market (“PFM”) is a free local classifieds website serving the Greater Philadelphia Area ((URL removed)) and Sac Free Market (“SFM”) serving the Greater Sacramento are the first installations of Free Markets (“FM”) - a conglomerate of free local classifieds websites based in local markets that will spread across the globe. Similar to Craigslist, users can post ads for local housing, jobs, autos, merchandise, goods, and services for sale or barter. Our user interface (UI) is designed to be simple and user-friendly for quick user registration, postings, and product sales. FM will personalize the Philadelphia and Sacramento experience by creating a visually unique site & logo that distinguishes it from other markets. FM will eventually add a community portal for users to chat, post blogs, and engage in discussion threads about any topic they please, including local events, economic issues etc, and include helpdesk chat support to assist users in posting ads, and shopping assistant agents, articles/videos by local merchants providing how to or cost saving advice. Each “Free Market” will have a localized feel and community portal, giving users a sense of pride in belonging to their respective communities. FM is distinguishable from Craigslist in the following ways: (i) the localized feel of each Market, (ii) an advertising based revenue model, (iii) featured listings on the main page that highlight listings, (iv) user ad stats on views/responses, (v) online chatting between sellers & buyers, (vi) free advice and help desk support on how to develop effective ads & make them visible on search engines , (vii) shopping agents that notify users when certain products or services become available (viii), articles/videos by local merchants providing how to or cost saving advice (viv), and an open source developers platform allowing anyone to build applications that enhance user experience on FM sites, and even allow for cottage industries to sprout out of FM sites by offering value added services. . REVENUE MODELS FM will implement traditional and innovative revenue models by (i) selling page & contextual advertising, and (ii) charging fixed fees in select markets for (a) job postings, (b) job candidate highlighting services, (c) housing, and (d) featured listings. As for advertisements, FM will implement the following strategies: • Ads will be placed on the main page in a non-obtrusive manner They will also be placed on searches so contextually based ads will be served to viewer • Contextual ads will also be placed in discussion forums. • Local experts will provide free “how to articles/videos” where they can plug their business. Contextually based ads/videos will be strategically placed in this area. • FM will maximize virtual real estate for ad placement by increasing volume of user postings & pages that link out to each posting. • Future considerations will involve deciding whether to proprietarily manage ad placement/sales, use 3rd party ad networks (Google, Yahoo, ASK, MSN, etc), or to combine both 3rd party and proprietary ad placement. The proprietary model maximizes revenue, because one doesn’t have share gross revenue with 3rd parties, but additional overhead in resources (sales team, managers, software, and accounting) is required to manage proprietary ads. However, 3rd party ad networks manage the ad selection while we can filter out the ads placed. • Advertisement packages can be tailored to geographic and demographic needs of the advertiser by serving ads across all local sites or geographically targeting local markets or by targeting buyers and sellers based on specific products and services they are trying to buy or sell. Classified advertising has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry online. The rise of the Internet as a source of local classified listings and a range of new classifieds providers (many of them free) has shifted the paradigm of the classifieds industry and has eaten into the market share of traditional publishers, especially newspapers. FM will be in a classifieds industry niche distinguishable from other online eCommerce models such as eBay, which caters largely to a user base content to deal with shopping and auctions to get the best deals, and the seller base is charged a portion of their earnings. FM however caters more to a user base preferring to deal with local merchants, and get instant gratification of being able to buy or sell goods and services quickly within a reasonable driving distance. The option is always available for the user to view goods and services in other local markets. In addition, certain goods such as Furniture, Real Estate listings, Autos, and Jobs tend to perform better when organized by local classifieds as opposed to an auction or ecommerce model. From a publisher's perspective, the effective cost-per-thousand impressions (eCPM) are a useful way to compare revenue across different channels and advertising programs. It is calculated by dividing total earnings by the number of impressions in thousands and advertisement is viewed. An impression is approximately equal to a page view so that: 10,000,000,000 impressions/month x ($4.00/1000 impressions) = $40,000,000/month. Our first year Goal is to reach 500,000,000 page views/month. As for fixed fees, we will model ourselves after Craigslist which charges for job postings & realty listings in select markets. For job postings, Craigslist charges $25 in Chicago, NYC, LA, DC, Boston, Portland, Sacramento, Seattle, and San Diego, and $75 in SF. In addition, we will charge for featured listings to highlight job candidates, and user products and services. PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKS Thus far, we have launched Free Markets sites in both Philadelphia and Sacramento and the growth has been incredible in just a short space of time without any marketing dollars. We generated the below statistics based on a strong email campaign and viral marketing. With the right resources in place, we can rival the statistics of Craigslist and the other big players ((URL removed), (URL removed)). • Philadelphia ((URL removed)) Stats collected from 7/18/2008 (Website Launch – 8/5/2008 5:30 AM PST: o 36,864 page views, 12,043 visits, 243,387 hits o # of Total Ads: 786 o # of Total Members: 397 • Sacramento ((URL removed)) Stats collected from 7/10/2008 (Website Launch 8/5/2008 5:30 AM PST: o 37,986 page views, 8,162 visits, 291,041 hits o # of Total Ads: 641 o # of Total Members: 324 Our ultimate goal is to reach 10 billion page views /month, more than 40 million users each month, more than 30 million new classified ads each month, and overall 90 million user postings in 100 topical forums. We are modeling this based on the milestones achieved by Craigslist. We believe that we can exceed Craigslist based on our unique business model with the localized approach. FINANCING Seeking $500,000 in startup capital to support web development, SEO Marketing costs, infrastructure and software licensing for first year. MANAGEMENT TEAM The management team is composed of brothers Oren Leib, Esquire and Shai Leib. Oren is an Intellectual Property (IP) attorney and Managing Partner of Turnkey Legal Solutions LLC, an online law firm and outsourcing service for lawyers. Oren has successfully integrated principles of e-commerce and law to create a successful business model online. Oren’s strong backgrounds in IP & internet technology enable him to vigorously protect and advance the intellectual properties of Philly Free Market. Shai is an entrepreneurial and highly accomplished software architect and project manager with a chemical engineering degree from Rutgers College of Engineering. He graduated summa cum laude in 1994. Shai has over fifteen (15) years of experience delivering advanced internet and software technologies that cut across a host of different industries. His portfolio includes successful projects with, IAC ((URL removed)), SAP, Wyeth, Cendant, State of California etc. Shai began programming as a hobby back in grade school. Our team is highly competent, synergistic, and able to successfully develop and manage Philly Free Market.