eEntrepreneurship

TH Köln - Master Programme / WebScience

Online session 214.06.2016

Schedule

❖ 21.04.2016 - 1st online meeting

❖ 08.05.2016 - Submission of assignment "Roadmap"

➢ Project groups will create a roadmap containing the steps to validate your business idea. This document will be a part of final

project documentation. Roadmap will be sent to lecturer via email. Each group will get a written feedback via email.

❖ 25.05.2016 - Extra online meeting

❖ 12.06.2016 - Submission of assignment "Project Documentation Version 1"

➢ Project groups will send a draft project documentation to the lecturer via email. This draft should contain performed activities

and results which was planned by the group before in the Roadmap. Project groups will get a personal feedback during 2nd

online session.

❖ 14.06.2016 - 2nd online meeting

➢ Feedback slots: Several feedback time slots will be offered on the WIKI. Each group will book a time slot to get a personal

feedback to the delivered draft project documentation. Groups will present their project status and get feedback.

❖ 23.06.2016 - 3rd online meeting (optional)

➢ Feedback slots: Several feedback time slots will be offered on the WIKI. Each group can book a time slot to get a personal

feedback. Groups will present their project status and get feedback.

❖ 08.07.2016 - On-site meeting

➢ Group presentations containing business idea, business model, results of the project incl. MVP, and learnings. Furthermore final

project documentation and presentation slides will be sent to the lecturer via email. See the deadline below.

❖ 15.07.2016 - Submission of "Presentation Slides" and "Final Project Documentation"2

Agenda

❖ Minimum viable Product (MVP)

❖ Discourse: Basics of Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

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MVP

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What we did

The first (and probably the easiest) step of being an entrepreneur is coming up with an

idea. Transforming it into a business is not trivial. Even if you have an innovative idea, an

entrepreneur is the one who successfully execute a viable idea.

● You started with an idea

● You captured early version of business model and gained an overview on one-sheet canvas

● You analyzed different components (blocks) of your business model and validated your

assumptions by means of online sources and web tools

● Now you know more about your target group, competitive landscape, possible sale/marketing

channels

● If you think it is worth to realize your idea, next step will be creating a tangible “thing”, so called

MVP, in order to get feedback from investors and potential customers. (Creating an MVP is part of

the course, but getting feedback by means of that is not!)

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Hints: Acting as an entrepreneur

You may become emotionally attached to your idea. And refuse to accept that it is not

valuable.

The same passion that sets you off on a path of hard working and taking high risks, that

keeps you going until you reach success, is the one that can blind you to the fact that you

have made a mistake.

An ideal entrepreneur needs to know when it’s time to withdraw from an idea and move

on to the next. A viability study will help for doing that before you have invested a lot of

time and money in an idea.

If you’re thinking about copying an existing idea then you also need to do a viability study.

This will help to decide you need to change the existing business to make it workable and

innovative.6

Go for your MVP

❖ Identify the components of your product

❖ Identify the resources needed

❖ Identify the resources available

❖ Develop a strategy with deadlines (and responsibilities)

❖ Get it done

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MVPIdentify the components

MVP: Minimum needed thing to test your business idea

● Create a list of all features you want in your product

● Prioritize that list by demand of the market and your results from analysis

(competitors, target group, etc.)

● Categorize your list as “must to have” and “nice to have”.

● Create a list of tasks to deliver your product

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MVPIdentify the resources needed

● Evaluating your must have list what are the resources you need

● Resources could be people, technologies, money, …

● Create a list of all these resources

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MVPIdentify the resources available

● What resources do you currently have?

● This could be talent, money, technology, connections, …

● Create a list of the resources available and who is providing that resource

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MVPMatching

● Match the list of resources needed with the list of resources available

● See how the available resources can fill the need

● Determine how to satisfy the other required resources with no available

resources

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MVPExample table of tasks

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Task Resources required

Resourcesavailable

Responsible Comments

Sketch a landing page One with design talent or experience

No one in the team is designer. But one is talented and know some web tools to sketch prototypes

John Doe John will use online tool Lucidchart to sketch a landingpage and the entire team will adjust it afterwards.

Programming a landing page

Developers with senior skills

No resources. Outsourcing.

John Doe John Doe will contact to digital agencies and get offerings

MVPCreate/Promote your idea

● Your table of tasks is just for you in case an investor might ask

● Now it is time for MVP.

○ Promoting: Create something that present your product/service idea and its “must to have”

features

■ E.g. a sketch/prototype/functional landingpage, flyer, FB page, infographic

○ Create early (beta) version of your product (optional)

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SEO

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SEO

Making web pages search engine friendly. We will focus on Onpage SEO measures.

SEO should be considered from the start. Some general measures:

● Domain name

● Site structure

● SIte design

● Site navigation

● Site topics

● Headings

● Usability

● Accessibility

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SEO: General measures

Domain name: Get a domain name that is memorable and contains your keywords

Usability: It doesn’t matter how well the content is if the site is frustrating to use

Design: It’s tempting to build a website and then think about SEO. Better to design with

SEO in mind

Navigation: Bots (crawlers) will rarely index deeper than the top 2-3 levels of a website. So

possibly they won’t index lower level pages. Sitemaps can still lead bots to lower level

content. For more: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/156184

Content: Bots use the content to know where to categorize each page. A page with lots of

text on lots of topics and keywords is hard to categorize. Don’t forget to place your right

keyword for a page as heading.18

SEO: General measures

Links: The link text is just as important as the link. Consider keywords in the link text too as

TITLE text..

Images: Always add an ALT text to image tags

Page title: This should be appealing, inviting clicks, contain keywords and consist of 60

characters

Page description: This should be appealing, inviting clicks, contain keywords and consist of

120 characters

File names: Try to name your files (e.g. PDFs) with your keywords

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SEO: Some other ranking factors

Link popularity

Webpage age

Number and quality of competition

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SEO: The most important factor is Keywords

Before starting SEO, you need to know what keywords you target. You can use tools

introduced during last meeting

Each webpage should concentrate on:

● One keyword matching the page content

● Most frequently used by the target audience (see competitors)

● Target keywords with little competition or modify frequently used keywords wisely

● Sprinkle the keyword throughout the page to remind the bot that the page is

important for that keyword

● The ratio of keywords appears in the page text should be important. c.a. 1-3%.

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SEO: Tools

Google Webmaster Tools: It provides reporting that tells you what you are doing right and

wrong

Analytics: It shows site’s traffic on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly basis

● Tools: Google Analytics, Piwik

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Next meetings

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3rd online meeting

❖ Optional. No plenary session.

❖ Several feedback time slots will be offered on the WIKI. Each group

can book a time slot to get a personal feedback. If you are interested,

please book slots gapless in sequence. You don’t need to submit your

documentation beforehand. In a feedback session you will present

your project status and get feedback.

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On-site meeting

❖ Group presentations containing business idea, business model, results

of validation, go-to-market strategy incl. MVP.

❖ Each group will have max. 15 minutes for the presentation.

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