Astrall inc

Summary 

Astrall is an all-in-one marketplace for astrologers and their clients. It connects astrologers with consumers, providing them content, tools and advice. 

If you need an individual astrological forecast, the Astrall is a place where you can quickly and easily find a solution to your most important and difficult life problems using personal consultations from the best professional world astrologers.

If you are a professional astrologer, the Astrall is a place where you can quickly and easily get a steady flow of loyal paying customers from all over the world, as well as the latest tools and technologies to provide your services and consultations. 

Problem

• Consumers spend a lot of time searching for suitable and trustworthy astrologers and online-services in the Internet.
• Astrologers suffer from high customer acquisition costs, they’re not good at marketing and promotion. Their dominant tool is a website, often made in a suboptimal way.

Solution

A marketplace for professional astrologers and their consumers, empowered by a social component. It reduces customer acquisition costs and risks, increases number of clients for astrologers. For consumers it: 

• provides variety
• simplifies search
• decision-making

Target Market

The US market for astrology products & services exceeds $3.5 bln.

• 42% of US consumers believe in astrology, 103 mln of them (75%) are online, astrology websites are visited by 23 mln unique users monthly.
• 185 thousands astrologers practice in the US, 10 thousands of them work full-time.

Competitors

1. Online-consultations sites such as wengo.com, psychiccenter.com

2. Professional astrology websites such as astro.com

3. Popular mass-media such as astrology.com, horoscope.com.

4. Mobile apps, apps for social networks such as moonit.com

5. Astrologers with their own websites, doing business online

6. Vendors (online stores, software developers) who sell astrological services and products.

Competitive Advantage

1. Concept: Single world astrological ecosystem with a social component and mobile applications.

2. Format: All-in-one marketplace, focused on astrology.

3. Technology: Sophisticated software developed to generate astrological services (forecasts). It took time (years) and talent to build it.

Growth Strategy

1. Partnerships:

1) integration with dating and entertainment sites & services.

2) relationships with world astrological communities to build awareness of Astrall.

3) building a big data center for user base to meet the requirements of partners for business & advertising.

2. Development of new products:

1) a line of mobile & social networking apps, automated astro-services, which are not presented at the market.

2) API for vendors (e-shops for astro-products and astrological software developers).

3) world of astrological encyclopedia AstroWiki & education Base.

3. Geographical expansion:

1) launch of the project at the US market for English-speaking users

2) scaling and localization of the project to the European countries, Russia,

Australia, Canada, India, China, Japan.

Revenue Model

1) Subscription: For both astrologers and consumers (up to $100)

2) Commission: Transactions between users and astrologers (5-30%)

3) Commission: Vendor revenue-sharing affiliate program (10-30%).

Status

• Server technology 100% ready

• Landing astrall.org

• The first version of the site (MVP) in developing

Team

Marina Rusinova, CEO 

6+ years in sales, marketing &bizdev in IT, including experience as CEO of astrostar.ru.

I'm the ideologist and founder of the project Astrall. I developed the idea, concept, business plan, growth strategy and other business components of the project. I assembled a team of founders and attracted highly skilled professionals-freelancers to the development the first version of the site (there're 5 specialists who work on the development of project — three programmers, one designer and one product manager). 

I also engaged the experts in various business spheres to the project, founded the corporation in the United States, attracted the first investment of $25000. I supervise all the important issues on the project.

Dmitry Сhizikov, Сhief developer

7+ years in software development & online promo. Developed a unique astrological software.

I am the developer of a unique software, which represents the restructuring of professional astrological software into a server version. This program allows you to generate new automated products and services (individual horoscopes) that don't exist at the market yet. The program was successfully tested on astro-vision.su (launched in January, 2012). We plan to create a new line of automated forecasts, mobile and social network apps based on this program.

+ Nataliya Goryacheva, CMO

5+ years in marketing and PR, including project management experience 

I am the marketing director of the project. I am doing the market research of American astrological services, study the target audience and competitors. I conducted interviews with more than 200 customers (professional astrologers and users of their services), which confirmed the basic hypotheses about the project: the US market of astrological services needs such a marketplace as Astrall. I also developed the marketing strategy to promote the project. I'm responsible for all the online ans offline PR activities of the project. 

Who we are

When Marina was the CEO of Astrostar.ru Dmitry told her about his astrological software. In March 2013 Marina decided to leave the company in order to make her own project Astrall and she suggested Dmitry to develop the project together. 
Marina met Natalia in February 2014 during their studies at Moscow branch of the Founder Institute. Natasha liked the idea of the project and decided to join the team. 

Each of the founders performs his role according to his competencies and professional experience.

Why we're doing this

We develop the project Astrall because we're passionate about Astrology and we consider it to be one of the most important tools for understanding of the world and a person's place in it. Marina has studied astrology for over 10 years already and she has an experience working as the CEO of one of the largest Russian astrological projects Astrostar.ru with an annual turnover of $1.5M. She knows the market, target audience and business practices. Dmitry is focus on the development of astrological software and Natasha has friendly relationships with the world's leading astrologers.

What's ready

• Product: the test site, the server version of the unique software, the landingastrall.org is open for early registration,  the first version of the site (MVP) in under development. 
• Marketing: the survey of 200 English-speaking users, which confirms the basic hypothesis.
• Company: the corporation is registered in the USA (Delaware C-Corp)