2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
D-Tangle is an innovative product invented by Christina Nicholson which detangles earphones.
It is a small, cheap, practical, user-friendly gadget that solves the very common problem of
tangling wires of earphones.
D-Tangle, which belongs to Laidback Life Ltd (LL), has a Utility International Patent pending
number, a EU design patent granted, trademarks for EU & USA.
The market for D-Tangle is the whole world. Anybody who uses earphones for mobile phones,
portable media players or other gadgets is a potential user of D-Tangle and the objective of LL
is to market the product methodically in Europe, the USA and the rest of the world.
We have produced 5000 units and we received pre orders for Cyprus, Greece & UK. We will
be launching the product beginning of November and feedback has been good so far. In
Cyprus & Greece we will be entering two of the biggest retailers, Public & Debenhams.
1. D-TANGLE – THE PRODUCT
For a better understanding of the product please refer to the attached presentation.
2. LAIDBACK LIFE LTD
Laidback Life Ltd (LL) is a company formed in Cyprus with Christina Nicholson as the
shareholder and executive director.
Christina Nicholson (30) has studied business in Essex University and The London School
of Economics. After working for the accounting firm Delloite, Cyprus for two years (2008-
10). Christina moved to the Nicholson Group (owned by her father and two brothers)
working as a marketing executive.
The second director will be Stelios Nicholson (59), father of Christina, with 10 years
experience in banking and who over the last 25 years has been one of the executive
directors of the Nicholson Group with extensive experience in retailing, wholesaling and
international trade.
3. THE MARKET
There are no available statistics for earphones but we know that the market for mobile
phones for 2016 is estimated between 6.5-7.0 b. subscriptions and around 4.5-5.0 b.
users (as some users have more than one subscription / phone). This is a growing market
as opposed to the market of portable media players which is diminishing because of
competition from smart phones. In view of this and as there is an overlap between mobile
phone users and media player users, and for the sake of being conservative we shall use
only the statistics for mobile phones in order to estimate our market potential.
We consider that it is a reasonable assumption to estimate that at least 50% of mobile
phone users use their earphones. This would give us a potential market for D-Tangle of
more than 2 b. customers world wide. From the magnitude of the numbers involved one
can understand that even a very small % of the market potential will make LL a very
successful company.
3. 4. THE COMPETITION
There are some similar products but none in retail stores. iCoil or Recoil have similar
usage but we haven’t seen them anywhere in the retail market. Only through e-commerce
sites. D-Tangle is smaller, affordable, lighter, comes in five colour variation and is also
customizable.
Another competition one might think is also wireless technology. However, wireless buds
technology cannot be commercialized...not just yet. Fact is iPhone 7 trying to introduce
wireless Airpods which they failed since they only have 5 hours of life, one can lose one
pod really easy and are $159 in retail stores! However, with their new iPhone 7 they are
selling their new wired buds just with a different lighting port which D-Tangle of course is
compatible with their new earbuds. Again people reacted since they want to be able to use
their own buds and so Apple also included an adaptor in their new iPhone 7 so that people
will be able to use their own buds. So, wireless buds have still many years to become
popular since companies will need to be able to make them long hour durable and not
sucking all the phone’s battery after 4-5 hours, price competitive and handy (introduce a
tracking system connected to smartphones so people won’t lose them maybe?).
5. THE BUSINESS MODEL
The best way to penetrate the market is LL to strike distributorship agreements with
mobile phone retailers. In most countries retailers are also distributors / wholesalers and
this simplifies the distributorship chain. It also allows for enhanced profit margins for all
parties involved. In view of the great task ahead, and depending on country conditions, LL
may decide to appoint in different markets representatives (based on commission) to
actively search for business partners.
We first want to tap into Europe & USA. We will begin first with Cyprus, Greece & UK. On
January 2017 we will be exhibiting at CES in Las Vegas where we hope to get US
customers.
Our biggest ambition however is to tap into countries like India & Africa. We have a vast
interest of distributors contacting us wanting D-Tangle to take it into their market. Problem
here is that in India we can’t sell D-Tangle in retail stores more than $5 so now with the
units we are producing through our factory its not doable. However, if we have the cash
flow to produce 50.000 units at once then per unit cost will be below $2 for our company
and hence we can distribute the product in India & Africa. We believe these countries are
really promising since masses can’t afford to buy expensive technology like wireless buds
or iPhone but are really gadget friendly!
6. MARKETING AND PROMOTION
As D-Tangle is an innovative new product unfamiliar to the consumers it is important that
our business partners will be willing to merchandise and promote the product in an
aggressive manner. This will be a precondition from our side and for this to work LL is both
able and willing to provide sufficient monetary incentives to our partners.
4. 7. PRICING
The price of earphones varies extensively and ranges from below € 20 to over € 100. As
D-Tangle is a new product, it is important for the price to be affordable and promote
impulse-purchase. We finalized an MSRP at € 10.90. Take a look at a pricing structure
when ordering just 5000 units from the factory and having 19% VAT for the country.
FOB CALCULATIONS for 5000 units (EUR)
10.90
1.19 9.16
33% 3.02
6.14
RETAILER BUYING PRICE
FROM DISTRIBUTOR
20% 1.23
4.91
DISTRBUTOR BUYING
PRICE FROM LL
12% 0.59
4.32
4.22 FOB FOR LL
When ordering 5000 units from factory our unit cost is really high as the amount
ordered is rather small and only leaves us with a 12% PM since we have a
distributor in the equation as well. However if we move to the production of the
second bulk of just 20.000 units (see table below) then our PM increases to 21%. If
we move to bigger orders and order from the factory 50.000 units our PM will be
even more and so on!
FOB CALCULATIONS for 20.000 units (EUR)
10.90
1.19 9.16
33% 3.02
6.14
RETAILER BUYING PRICE FROM
DISTRIBUTOR
22% 1.35
4.79
DISTRIBUTOR BUYING PRICE
FROM LL
21% 1.01
3.78
3.75 FOB FOR LL
5. 8. INVESTMENT COST AND FINANCING
We have already paid €108,136 to be able to get to this point we are today.
Please see below expenses in detail:
D-TANGLE
Payments made (€)
R&D 13228
Design for 9 prototypes 5200
Legal Fees for Utility Patent, Design Patent,
Trademarks 12298
Advertising clip for telemarketing purposes 15600
Animation Video 1190
Website 2000
Online advertising 1200
Trade Show 1: Business Show in London Dec
2015 5300
Trade Show 2: IAW Trade Fair in Cologne,
Germany March 2016 2100
Trade Show 3: CES in Las Vegas Jan 2017 6500
Lifestyle Shots 420
Tooling 22000
Production for 5000 units 21100
TOTAL 108136
6. 9. M9. MILESTONES
MILESTONES SO FAR 2014 - 2016
DATE DESCRIPTION
13/10/2014 D-Tangle Trademark
E.U Reg No 13355061
USA Reg No 86450291
29/10/2014 Registration of company
Nov 14-July 15 R&D for D-Tangle with our engineers in India
29/04/2015 International Utility Patent Pending Reg No: PCT/IB2015/053108
Apr-May 2015 Test Marketing anf production of T.V advert in USA
Design Patent for E.U: 002571208-0001
15/07/2015 Pre-approval by the Ministry for subsidy
Sept. 2015 Production for first 9 prototypes
Sept-Oct 2015 Finalization of product design
Nov-15 Commission of tooling through factory in India
01/12/2015 Receipt of 50 first units from maufacturing plant in India
3-4 Dec 2015 Attending the Business Show Trade Fair at Olympia, London
6-9 March 2016
Introducing D-Tangle at the IAW Trade Fair in Cologne, Germany.
D-Tangle wins 3rd place as the Next Trendseller at IAW
16-Mar-16
UK client visits us in Cyprus and we sign a Distributorship
agreement. Locks 600 units for pilot testing in Birmingham at
various small mobile stores. Carphone Warehouse is also
interested but they have listing fees and have a 3 month credit
payment so we need financing to supply to them. Same applies to
Walmart that was interested and other big players.
Apr-16
Fall out with factory in India as units produced were not quality
satisfactory. Moved to another factory facility in China.
May-16 Commence tooling for 100K tooling life
Jul-16 Commence production for first bulk of 5000 units
Aug-16
Outsourced a company in USA who will be helping us in locating
distributors/ retailers for D-Tangle
Sep-16
Got pre orders from biggest electronic retailer in Cyprus & Greeec
(In Cyprus they have 3 million people turnover yearly and in
Greece 27 million). They gave us perfect spot at the tills as they
really believe in our product and don't have anything similar. We
also got pre orders from Debenhams where we will insert a stand
in every till point they have in Cyprus. With both these retailers
we will begin in Cyprus and then go to Greece. We also got pre
orders from another two distributors in Greece and another
distributor in Cyprus.
Oct-16
Pre sold 2300 units to various retailers in the UK, Greece &
Cyprus. We are not looking for any other buyers as we need the
rest units as stock for the existing retailers.
7. Also got an order for 1000 units from a client in Germany for
customized D-Tangles as they want to hand out DTs in the various
trade fairs. Did a meeting with PWC in Cyprus and they are
interested in making customized DTs (950 units) for their
employees.
Nov-16
Launch D-Tangle in Cyprus, Greece & UK. For Cyprus we also have
a marketing plan in motion that will commence with the launch.
For our distributors in other countries we offer a 5% marketing
budget from their orders.
Future scheduled
plan
Need to send samples from lot that will be delivered from us from
the factory to various interested distributors in India, Japan, Italy,
Hungary, Germany, USA
Jan-17 We will exhibit in CES, Las Vegas
Future scheduled
plan
Feb-17
We have been invited by a company in California to attend the
Syle Lounge at the Oscars end of February 2017. There D-Tangle
will be able to be photographed with various celebrities and
celebrities may even tweet or insta D-Tangle in their own personal
accounts. This is a massive opportunity for D-Tangle as it can
definately spike sales for our product just having one celebrity
talking about it!
Future scheduled
plan
10. FUTURE PLANS
Our official launch will be on November 2016. We plan in one year’s time, until November
2017, to be in many European countries and in USA. We also have vast interest from
India but the problem with these type of countries is that the MSRP can’t be at 10.90$ as it
is too expensive for the common people. From various talks we had with distributors that
want to take D-Tangle in India the gadget can’t be sold more than 5$. However by tapping
in such a huge country like India (1.4 billion) the results can be massive for a product such
as D-Tangle. If we manage to produce 50.000 units at once then the per unit cost of each
product from the factory is really low and hence we can give the PM distributors & retailers
will want and also have our satisfactory PM.
For countries like India, Africa, Brazil etc we want to give 3 years (Nov 2016 – Nov 2019)
to fully penetrate these markets with this version of D-Tangle (v1.0) since these countries
are way behind technology and we believe we have many years to try and make D-Tangle
known to the people over there. For USA & Europe for v1.0 we will give it one year
(Nov2016-Nov2017) and see how sales go. Since technology is rapidly developing for
these countries we would like to make a v2.0 by Dec 2017 (slimmer, different colors &
water proof).
Laidback Life Ltd will of course be on the look out on making more products as we can’t
stay with D-Tangle for more than two years. By acquiring money in the company we have
many ideas on making more products that will help people’s everyday tasks become
easier and user friendly!
11. COST - BENEFIT
Based on both our gross profit margins and the total investment cost, the quantity required
for the project to break-even is estimated to only 25,000 units. This means that the risk
involved is very small. However the upside is tremendous.
Hopefully our business plan and the information provided has made you to believe in our
project in the same way that we do.