BUSINESS PLAN For the ZIP WALLET 5/2012 Paul Jay
There is a patent, finally, on the zip wallet! #8157140 This patent is only for
the U.S., but a trademark is being sought in France for the brand name le.zip
Whatever the brand name and trademark we end up with, it will be protected by
trademark and a U.S. patent. The plan is to introduce le.zip in such a way as the
name is associated with the product in the public mind. If le.zip is even mildly
successful, it will have brand value that can be sold to corporate interests on the
Rue Fabourg St. Honore, such as Hermes, Prada, etc. Patent protection in France
may be required, and has an assigned cost below.
Paris is the ideal place to launch le.zip There is available through
Dominique many contacts for all aspects of the launch. The requirements for doing
this are:
1. a booth at next year's WHAT'S NEXT fair, in Paris in February. This
would take extensive work that has to be done anyway, mostly coming up with
samples and items for purchase, also branding le.zip and display.
2. a storefront that sells wholesale/retail/e-tail to anybody interested in
le.zip . This would take advantage of any publicity generated by the What's Next
presentation, for instance in Le Monde and airline maagazines, so that the wallets
can be shown to and bought by anyone interested. This storefront would exist for a
limited time, unless it proves very profitable, in which case it will stay open.
I imagine a nice African leather worker working in the back of the store
making zip wallets, perhaps the Taureg from Bamako who made them for my sister
Alida. With or without that there will be orders for zip wallets placed from
le.zip , the storefront in Paris, where these handcrafted wallets will be available.
This will probably be in the Montmartre area, selling to tourists as well as to
interested Parisians. Someone has to set up retail software and stock numbers and a
credit card machine and an accounting system, and a cost will be assigned for that.
There are retail packages, with hardware, sold and maintained by consultants.
Another option, if this is too expensive, is to work with someone who already has
these things. For this reason it would be interesting to find a small business with a
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storefront, as a partner for this launch. The partners would split the profit evenly
with such a store-owner, and it would be for a limited time, say one year.
3. supplying the store: There is some travel required to establish a reliable
supply of zip wallets. First trip is to Morocco to explore the leather industry there.
Then a sample will be made and if approved, a prepaid order for 50 leather zip
wallets, based on the samples from Mali. Other possibilities for leather work are
Senegal, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and India.
4. pricing: These custom made wallets will cost about $35 each, as a guess,
to make, and I will need a steady stream. The store will sell them for about $100. At
some point the mass production will shift to India or some other leather work center
and the cost per unit will reduce substantially.
5. publicity: Metro ad, le Monde $20,000 with photos by Valery Wallace
6. spokesman: I will be the spokesman for le.zip .
7. product: le.zip will be available in different designs, for men and
women, and in different materials, some high-tech.
8. accounting/ book-keeping:
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9. contracts: all partnerships need pre-nuptial agreements, in case the
enterprise fails, also strict time limitations in the terms of the contracts. Dominique
is very good at this and can be consulted. I suggest that pre-nups are drawn up
without lawyers present, and the document then rewritten by a lawyer and signed
by the parties.
10. partners: Generally we are creating a company that we can sell.
Therefore I have to start by assigning value to the company. $250,000. is the value I
assign to the company at this time, pre-launch, and after the launch and gestation
time, I believe it will be worth upward of a million. I have for sale two partnerships
for $50,000./each for 20% shares. This cash will launch le.zip .
11. corporation: The parent company will be in NYC, with an accountant
watching over it. It will pay U.S. City, State and Federal taxes based on revenues in
Paris that end up in the bank in NYC.
12. web site. For all things Zip, hopefully most of the sales will be orders off
the web site. $5,000. to setup fully operational fullfillment and web site.
Store: e5,000/month for 6 months
Management: Florence? $2,000/month
Trademark: In Young, room mate of Dominique, knows what to do: $500.
What's Next fee: $700.
Expenses:
This comes to around $70,000 to launch Le Zip in Paris. The plan is to
attract corporate interest in the product and this requires a public awareness of the
product.
WHOLESALE OPTION
Without a storefront, one would sell le.zip to many stores, and on line. A
non-leather option might be preferable to the hand-made leather wallets, so that the
models are standardized, rather than individual creations. In this case most of the
investment would go to designing and mass-producing thousands of non-leather
wallets.
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The design and manufacturing are now the big expenses, where the attention
focuses, and these are new fields for me. Therefore, if there are problems with the
retail options as outlined above, the wholesale option has to be explored. This
would require exposure to buyers from the retail outlets, through a ‘What’s Next’
display. Also, a nice packaged zip wallet with brochure, sent to potential retail
partners, could produce such appointments and lead to orders.
The launching of le.zip as a wholesale product will require everything
above, including the WHAT'S NEXT booth, but not the storefront or the metro ad.
After le.zip is established in Paris among retailers and in public
consciousness, the idea is to license it to various manufacturing retailers like
Nautica, Coach, Fossil.
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