EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Get the Student Saver app and start saving money today!

The Student Saver app will save you money by suppling you with all of the discounts and
coupons offered to University students.
Problem:
66% of graduates from public colleges had student loans, 75% of graduates from
Data: private nonprofit colleges had student loans, and 88% of graduates from for-pro t
In fall 2017, some 20.4 million colleges had student loans.8 As illustrated by the above statistics a majority of
students are expected to attend college graduates graduate with student loan debt. In addition to a majority of
American colleges and students having to take out loans from the government to get through their four
universities.1 years of college, over 75% of the students at The University of Denver are
unaware of all of the discounts and coupons that are offered to them by local
In 2017 83.8% of mobile phone
businesses. At most Universities, the students spend a majority of their time on or
users have smartphones, and that near campus. A student working full-time (35-40 hours a week) at the
is expected to rise to 92.8% by federal minimum wage would earn $15,080 annually before taxes.5 That
2020.2 isnt enough to pay tuition at most colleges, especially private, much less
There were 11,614 students at the room and board and other living expenses.
University of Denver in 2016.
5,754 of those being Overview:
College students have notoriously been known to be broke, but this does not
undergraduate students and 5,860
mean that college students are not spending their money and participating in the
of the 11,614 being graduate economy. This service based app, The Student Saver app, developed by Jillian
students.4 Dragon, Jenni Anclien, Dylan Teeter, Angel Serrano, and Krik Krisksic, is
66% of college students download directed to college students, specifically the students at the University of Denver.
apps for the purpose of staying This easy to use app will have search capabilities for students to find specific
informed about news and events places, goods, and or services. The current location feature of the app, will filter
on campus, and 65% download nearby discounts for the user. The app offers a premium model to users, using an
apps to learn about new offers.3 algorithm that will analyze the users spending patterns, and recommend discounts
A student working full-time at the specifically for the individual user. The premium model offers exclusive discounts
that are not offered on the free version of the app. In addition to helping the
federal minimum wage would
students save money, the app is an incentive for students to explore the area
earn $15,080 annually before around their college campus and discover new businesses. This app would help
taxes. That isnt enough to pay stimulate the local economy and companies would want to use our platform to
tuition at most colleges, especially help grow their business.
private, much less room and
board and other expenses of
living.5
In 2012, 71% of students
graduating from four-year
colleges had student loan debt.6
There are 44.2 million Americans
with student loan debt.6
There is $1.45 trillion in total U.S.
student loan debt.6
About 40 percent of the $1 trillion
student loan debt was used to
finance graduate and professional
degrees.6

Revenue Model:
The Student Saver app is going to make a profit by charging the companies 5% of the profits they make through the
app. The companies will be able to keep track of this because all of the discounts and coupons are electronic, and
scalable through the app. There will also be a freemium package offered with a small subscription fee of $2.99/month.
Similar to search engine optimization, businesses can pay to be featured on our app to maximize visibility of their
offers.
Business Plan

Problem:
The Student Saver app is the solution to a common problem on all college campuses, including the university of
Denver. Over 50% of students recorded spending more than 30 dollars a week on non-school related expenses and
79% of students do not know all of the local discounts that are offered to them. This is clearly a problem that our
app will solve because it will allow DU students to see all the discounts that are offered specifically to them. 64% of
students are full time students and have no source of income. With the spending patterns observed and no source of
income it is necessary for college students to save as much of their money as they can. According to Bloomberg,
college tuition and fees have increased 1,120% since records began in 19787 and with the national student debt
hitting 1 trillion dollars7 it is more important than ever for students to save money.

The bar graph above shows the distribution of how much money the students at DU spend on a weekly basis. The y-
axis is the amount of money spent in dollars.

The pie graph above displays the results of students who do and do not know about all of the discounts and coupons
offered to DU students.
Overview:
The Student Saver app is being created to solve the problem, that has been around for decades, of college students
struggling to have enough money to make it through their four-year long journey of getting their college education.
Business Plan

The app will do this by providing its users with clear and easy to use discounts and coupons for local businesses and
restaurants. The app will have multiple features including but not limited to, search capabilities, location based
offers, and search engine optimization (for the companies). The app is free from the app store but there will be a
premium option offered for $2.99/month. One of the advantages of the premium option is unlimited coupons, the
free model will have a cap on the amount of times a coupon/discount can be used. The premium model will also
include exclusive discounts that are not offered for those that do not have a student saver subscription. The best part
of the premium model is the personal profile that is created through the app for each individual user. Once the user
purchases the premium model they will create a profile for themselves. The profile is very simple to create because a
majority of the profile is created by the app itself. As the premium user uses the app to make purchases, where they
go and what they are purchasing gets saved to their profile and the app will begin to show the user offers that they
should like based on their profile. For example, a female that gets a manicure once a week will get more offers for
nail salons, and less from video game stores. In addition to just saving students money, the app will boost the local
economy by getting DU students to shop at and support different places that they may have never even heard of.
Yelp uses a current location feature, similar to our app, to show you businesses near you and you can pull up their
menu and reviews; however, they do not focus on discounts of those businesses. Groupon has a featured page
similar to ours where they charge businesses an additional fee to be featured on their app, but their target market is
much broader when compared to ours, we are focusing on college students as our target market. Gift Card Granny
shows national coupons with a focus on large retailers and does not have a functioning mobile app and does not
have a current location feature. The DU Zone card has partnerships with over 30 businesses to offer DU students
discounts; however, they do not have a functioning mobile app and in our survey, we found that 98% of DU students
do not have the DU Zone card or even know what it is. Through calling local companies we found that most of the
local businesses do not know what the DU Zone card is, even Black Jack Pizza, who is listed as a DU Zone card
partner. The Student Saver app will differentiate itself from our competitors by having a functioning mobile app
with search capabilities, current location based features and a profile for each user that gets the premium option.
Student Saver Groupon Yelp DU Zone Gift Card Granny
Functioning website X X X X
Functioning app X X X
Discounts and coupons X X X X
Directed at students X X

Premium option X
Search engine optimization X X X
Why Mobile?
A mobile app is the easiest and most efficient way of allowing college students to download our app and begin their
path to great savings. The mobile app is the most convenient way for students to see all the businesses that offer
discounts to students. The cell phone is the one thing that everyone tries to keep on them 24/7. A study by eMarketer
in 2016 found the average American adult spends more than four hours a day on their mobile device and college
students are likely to spend even more time on their phones.4 Because of this, students can keep checking discount
Business Plan

updates throughout the day, or whenever they please. The app will also have a feature to show notifications when
new discounts appear, therefore students will be efficiently updated. Additionally, when the student is planning to
use a discount featured on the app, they simply click on the offer and a barcode appears that can be scanned at the
register. With each scan of the discount on our app we will take 5% of the profit of the total purchase. With a mobile
platform, we can obtain statistics on who is using the app and what discounts are the most popular. We can analyze
this data and report it back to the businesses and learn more about our users. This is much easier and up to date with
current technology. Using the app platform also eliminates the cost to produce hard copy version of coupons which
takes much more effort, and paper that can easily be misplaced.

The photo to
The photo to
the left is the
the right is a
screen from the
screen shot of
app that the
the page that
user can use to
displays all of
search from or
the deals once
to look at the
the user clicks
different
on the Food
categories of
and Drinks
discounts and
option on the
coupons
search page.
offered.

Target Market:
There are over 20 million college students in the United States. Based on our survey we found that about 52% of
college students spend more than 30 dollars a week. We discovered that most college students care about food
expenses first, a vast 97% spend most or all of their money on food. Applying these statistics to the total number of
students enrolled in college, the size of our target market is approximately 9.984 million college students. We are
first going to focus on students at the University of Denver to introduce our app to the public. We are targeting the
students that live on or near campus because all the businesses are going to be located near the University. There is
an even 44.23% split between the people who spend money 1-3 days a week and 3-6 days a week. We found that
only 11.54% of students spend money 7 days a week. 82.7% spend no more than 60 dollars a week on average and
3.85% spend over $100 a week.
Reaching the Target Market:
There are 11,614 students at The University of Denver, including graduate and undergraduate students. We are
going to focus our marketing strategies to just DU for the start of our business. All of the strategies that are going to
be used on DUs campus can be applied to any other university. In order to get the most use out of our app, students
need to know that it exists. There are several ways we plan to reach our target market but the most effective will be
social media ads. Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat are the 3 biggest social media apps today, and this is where we
will focus to spread awareness of our app. Additionally, with being on a college campus and trying to reach college
Business Plan

students, another way we will market will be through posters in residence halls, dining halls, and academic
buildings. We will make sure our posters are easy to read and pleasing to the eye to catch the greatest amount of
students attention. We will also reach out to the Pulse and the Stall Street Journal to get our app out on large scale
newsletters that are read by a majority of campus. Word of mouth is also a big way we will expand this app across
campus. Once students here about this app and enjoy it, they will mention it to their friends. Then, their friends will
download the app, some will love it and those who enjoyed it will spread the word again and the cycle will continue.
Once the Student Saver app becomes a common app for all DU students to download and use we plan to move to
University of Colorado Boulder, Metropolitan State College of Denver, and the University of Colorado Denver.
Once we establish a solid presence at the largest Universities in Colorado we will expand to other large urban
Universities. With expanding our company, the target market stays the same focusing on saving college students
money; however, with expanding our app to different Universities we would have to find and contact local
businesses that are willing to offer discounts through our app.
Revenue model:
The Student Saver app will have three sources of income. The Student Saver is going to make money by taking 5%
of the earnings from the companies each time a coupon or discount is used through the app. The companies will
know about this before they partner with us and through the companies that I contacted I found that they would be
okay with giving the Student Saver company 5% of the profits they get through the app because they see the value
of having their company listed on our app and the new business that it will bring. We decided to take 5% of the
earnings because it is small enough for the businesses to comply with and it is also a big enough percentage for the
Student Saver to make a profit. The second revenue model for our app is also for the companies that we partner
with. The businesses listed on our app will have the option to pay a fee to be listed at the top of the front page of the
app, similar to search engine optimization. They can pay either $25 an hour to stay at the top of the front page of the
app or $500 a month to stay at the top of the page. The third and final way that the Student Saver app is going to
make money is by having a premium model, with additional services including personalized coupons, unlimited
coupons, and exclusive discounts offered with a monthly subscription fee of $2.99 a month.
Business Plan

Resources:
1. Digest of Education Statistics, 2016. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Home Page, a Part

of the U.S. Department of Education, nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_105.20.asp?

current=yes.

2. University Libraries Login Page, www-statista-com.du.idm.oclc.org/statistics/201184/percentage-of-

mobile-phone- users-who-use-a-smartphone-in-the-us/.

3. University Libraries Login Page, www-statista-com.du.idm.oclc.org/statistics/721010/top-reasons-to-

download-an- college-app-students-researching-college-us/

4. No Schools Added. College Navigator - University of Denver,

nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=University%2Bof%2BDenver&s=CO&id=127060.

5. Anthony P. Carnevale | Nicole Smith | Michelle Melton | Eric W. Price. Learning While Earning: The

New Normal . 2015.

6. U.S. Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2017. Student Loan Hero, studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-

statistics/.

7. Mosbergen, Dominique. Cost Of College Degree In U.S. Has Increased 1,120 Percent In 30 Years, Report

Says. The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 15 Aug. 2012,

www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/cost-of-college-degree-increase-12-fold-1120-percent-

bloomberg_n_1783700.html

8. The Institute for College Access & Success. Quick Facts about Student Debt, Mar.

2014.https://ticas.org/sites/default/files/pub_files/Debt_Facts_and_Sources.pdf