Thomas Sheridan
Philadelphia, PA (USA)
Role(s):
Other
The IN Network
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Startup
Location:
Philadelphia
Industry:
Retail/Clothing
Year Founded:
2011
Number Employees:
1-10 people
Business Stage:
Creation/Idea
Entity Type:
Sole Proprietorship
Description:
The floral industry is a $7 Billion a year business where even bottom feeding order gatherers are making millions of dollars.
This amazing business concept called "The IN Network" will allow for the franchising of the name "The Florist IN (city name)"
We currently own that domain name for the top 100 cities in America.
So a flower shop in boston would open the franchise "A Florist IN Boston" and with the franchise would receive the domain name (URL removed) with a already built full featured ecommerce website.
The name itself serves 2 very important purposes:
1. It fits with the slogan and mantra of the company which is "Flowers should be Local Not National". This is important to florists, there has been a major backlash in the last 5 years towards big networks like Teleflora and FTD because of there HUGE fees. With the IN network, the florist communicate with each other and cut out the middle man.
2. It is insanely SEO effective and 411 effective. Not only will it grab a ton of traffic from people on google searching "Florist in Philadelphia" but it will also grab a ton of phone traffic. There are 1 Million queries a month to directory assistance for florists and most of the time the person on the other end of the phone says "I need a florist in (city name)"
The final and most revolutionary aspect to this network is the never seen before penetration into airports. I plan on opening carts in airport terminals called "A Florist IN The Airport" that would allow travelers to stop and place a flower order to be delivered anywhere in the world. It is a great way for a busy person to show their wife they are thinking of them before hoping on a plane.
The $2 Million Dollars would be used for:
1. The opening of 3 retail Locations in Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco and capital to support them for 2 years.
2. The opening of 3 airport kiosks and the capital to support them for 1 year.
3. Capital to support a 3 team sales staff to visit and sign up florist to the network
4. Advertising of the franchise opportunity in magazines.
5. A full-time SEO/Online Marketing executive for the web sites.
the great benefit we have is the fact that I own a web development company. The company is Brainsick Media. We are the number 1 ranked developer on Guru and have offices in Philadelphia, Asia and Italy. That allows our software and design development to be extremely low.
I have complete numbers available that breakdown to how many sales are required by the hour in order to become self sustainable. I have all the airport traffic numbers as well.
10 websites have already been built and can be launched immediately in 10 cities.
This is a full land, air and web assault on the floral industry.