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OppJar, Inc.

Social savings platform for parents and their children.

USA, California
Market: Financial services
Stage of the project: Prototype or product is ready

Date of last change: 01.11.2020
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Idea

A majority (67%) of children get to adulthood with little to no savings to get them started. Many of these children live in underserved communities not unlike those that the founders grew up in. We’ve created a way for children to save and invest for their future by leveraging the power of their social network. Parents create an account for their child(ren) and people in their network contribute gifts as well as memories, creating not only a fund for the child but also a time capsule of memories.

Current Status

We launched our MVP (beta) product in mid July and it is available online (www.oppjar.com), and on the iOS and Android app stores. The product is fully functional, both on the front end (account opening, account management, gifting, public pages, and add children accounts) and back end (integration with funding mechanisms, KYC, funds flow to brokerage account, reconciliation).
Since the beta launch, we have opened over 200 accounts with little marketing. We are continuing to work to add additional features before we invest marketing funds in a larger way.

Market

We are targeting low to middle income parents with children in the 0-10 age range. Our marketing will be focused on the parents of these young children and our initial market will be the US market. We estimate the size of this market to be 40 million children and their parents. We plan on directly marketing to parents as well as looking for bulk enrollments via partnerships with school districts.

Problem or Opportunity

67% of children reach adulthood with little to no savings, putting them at a disadvantage just as they are starting their journey. Children with over $1000 USD in savings are 3 times more likely to attend college and 4 times more likely to succeed in college.

Children also grow up very fast. Before you know it, grandparents, aunts and uncles are gone, along with their memories and advice.

Solution (product or service)

OppJar makes it easy for parents to mobilize their social network to encourage financial contributions on birthdays, holidays or just random days. Parents and their network can also contribute with round-up feature on their credit card spend or with a simple monthly recurring contribution.

Along the way, memories are also saved. Grandma can leave a personal video message on their grandson's 5th birthday and tell them something special. An uncle could post their recipe for amazing chicken enchiladas. These memories are stored forever in a digital scrapbook for the child. The child not only gets financial contributions but lifelong memories and advice from their network of friends and family.

Competitors

Bean Stalk (UK), Acorns (US), KidFund (US). None of these have the same social network component that OppJar is offering, and this differentiator is what we think will help us grow quickly. Additionally, our efforts to pay a dividend back to accounts based on advertising revenues or corporate-sponsored donations is another key differentiator and solidifies the B-Corporation brand image we are trying to support.

Advantages or differentiators

Oppjar has a pending U.S. provisional patent application and pending U.S. trademark application. However, we do realize that patents on digital products are hard to defend. We therefore plan to make the product as "sticky" as possible via the memories feature, which we believe to be a key differentiator. Also, our concept of enabling corporate sponsors to pay dividends to the children is something we can leverage as a differentiator and FOMO feature.

Finance

Oppjar generates revenue through three ways: (1) a gift giving transactional fee, (2) an asset management fee and (3) advertising revenue. Advertising revenue is shared in the form of a dividend payment to the child accounts.

Currently, salary is not being paid to any of our team members. Our burn rate consists of $1200 a month for vendor service fees plus any marketing (digital advertising) and tech development expenses (outsourced). This has averaged to about $14,000 a month.

With this funding round, we anticipate spending 50% in marketing initiatives (social media advertising, referral programs, SEO, SEM, PR), 30% for additional product development, and 20% for minimal salaries and a new hire.

Business model

Our business model is comprised of a dual B2C and B2B customer acquisition effort. Our emphasis on the B2C front is to drive adoption by pushing the memories portion of our product, build trust, then migrate customers to begin to save for their children. Our B2B effort focuses on leveraging OppJar as a platform that can bring community businesses and schools together and focused around the betterment of the children.

Money will be spent on

Assuming we hit our target raise of $1,500,000 we anticipate spending 50% in marketing initiatives (social media advertising, referral programs, SEO, SEM, PR), 30% for additional product development, and 20% for minimal salaries and a new hire.

Offer for investor

We are valuing our company at a pre money valuation of $7,000,000 to $8,000,000. Therefore, our round of $1,500,000 would translate to post-money ownership of approximately $15.7% to 17.6% for the new investors. We are also open to a SAFE instrument where there is a valuation cap of $7,000,000.

Team or Management

Risks

Long sales cycles with school districts could be a risk. Additionally, a high CAC (customer acquisition cost) could be a risk factor, particularly because that would drive a longer time to profitability. Finally, we realize that larger players in the financial service space could enter our space directly and outspend us to try to take the market.

Incubation/Acceleration programs accomplishment

We are currently participating in the New Chip Accelerator program. We also have built a strong network of advisors with significant experience in fintech, scaling businesses, financial education and school districts.

Won the competition and other awards

We have not entered into any or won any competition or award.

Invention/Patent

Oppjar has a pending U.S. provisional patent application and pending U.S. trademark application.

Product Video

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Idea
Current Status
Market
Problem or Opportunity
Solution (product or service)
Competitors
Advantages or differentiators
Finance
Invested in previous rounds, $
Business model
Money will be spent on
Offer for investor
Team or Management
Mentors & Advisors
Lead investor
Risks
Incubation/Acceleration programs accomplishment
Won the competition and other awards
Invention/Patent
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Product Video
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