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Spotted!
Spotted! has found a way to get thousands of users to spend over 16.7 million seconds engaged on advertisements since our launch in December 2015. In the short span of 5 months, we have demonstrated traction with more than 5,800 users devoting over 4,600 hours remembering advertisements.
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8 years ago
Overview

Quick Pitch
Spotted! has found a way to get thousands of users to spend over 16.7 million seconds engaged on advertisements since our launch in December 2015. In the short span of 5 months, we have demonstrated traction with more than 5,800 users devoting over 4,600 hours remembering advertisements. 

Product/Service Details
Spotted! uses the concept of gamification to make advertisements engaging again. 

Definition of gamification
noun
the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service.
"gamification is exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun"

By turning traditional static and passive mobile adverts into a fast-paced memory and puzzle game, we convinced thousands of users to spend thousands of hours engaged with advertisements. Comparing our length and cost of engagement with Facebook, Spotted! engages our users with adverts for at least 10x the duration while charging just 15c SGD (~10% of a typical FB click-through rate). In other words, Spotted! delivers 100x more value on a dollar/length of engagement basis for our clients.

 

Problem/Opportunity
As smartphone penetration continues its upwards trajectory, the mobile advertising industry is booming and set to grow 3-fold by 2018.  

Mobile advertising however, has been largely ineffective in its attempt to scale what worked on wide-screen PCs to tiny handheld devices. The ineffectiveness of mobile advertising comes in 3 forms:

1. Little Attention 
The average Facebook advert has a click-rate of 0.31%. In other words, for every 1000 impressions there will only be 3.1 clicks on the advert. The reason?

Major social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, 9Gag, Twitter) utilises a scrolling user-interface, and as a result adverts tend to be swiped away just as quickly as the plethora of photos/posts/articles that are shared on their newsfeed. As a result, adverts have a hard time to stand out amongst the crowd of information presented.

2. Lack of Engagement 
Even if a particular advert captures the user's attention, the average person spend less than 2 seconds engaged with the advert before scrolling away. The reason? 

Again, the problem comes from the advert having to compete for attention against information that are more relevant and engaging for the user. The root of the problem boils down to the purpose and intention of the user. When a user log into his Facebook/Instagram account, the purpose is to stay updated with regards to their friends' online activities. An advert plugged into his newsfeed is a noise and create a disparity between the user's purpose and the app's offering. Thankfully, this nuisance can easily be averted by scrolling pass without much effort as there is already scrolling inertia to begin with

3. Zero Focus
For every 100,000 mobile adverts, there will only be 118 click-through. But that's not the end of the story, studies have shown that more than 30% of these clicks are actually caused by fat fingers. In other words, most adverts fail to get any focus from their users. The reason?

Information overload. Most people are already desensitised to the tremendous amount of advertisement they are exposed to daily. The result is an unconscious process of blocking out unnecessary information while looking for what they came for. Splash screens, top bars and other gimmicks can no longer capture users' attention, as they mechanically look at the top right corner for the X button.

The end of an era for browser advertising
Apple brings ad-blocker extensions from to Safari on iPhones. Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-34173732
Samsung's Android browser gets ad blocking capabilities. Source: http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/31/10880394/samsung-internet-android-ad-content-blocker-adblock-fast
UK mobile operator 3 starts ad-blocking. Source:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/feb/19/mobile-operator-three-ad-blocking

With the plug pulled for browser advertising, the last avenue for mobile advertising lies in in-app advertising. 

Solutions - Regular Gameplay
      

Players will be given 15 seconds to memorise the initial advert before the image becomes scrambled. Players must complete the image as quickly as possible to save the keys dangling above before they get burned up. The keys are needed to open the chests at the end of the game. Each chest may contain either gold (which is exchangeable for cash), experience points or building tokens. As such, players are pressured to remember as much content as possible to piece them together quickly. Details such as $6, 5 buns or Prima Deli will be remembered and retained as users struggle to complete the game on time. 


Gold - Exchangeable for cash

The unique proposition of Spotted! to our players is that our app will always be free and is the only app globally that pays out cash directly to our players. Players provide us with their bank details and we will transfer their winnings to their within 3 to 5 working days. 

Solutions - Feature Gameplay
  
For clients that want to host a customised competition and be the landing page of our app, we provide the feature event function. This allows clients to request for customised competitions and rewards while retaining their branding without having to fork up significant capex for application development. We have since promoted Mediacorp's opening ceremony on Dec 8 (Spotted!'s launch date) as well as Channel 8 prime time TV series "Life Fear Not" using the feature event. 

Traction & Accomplishments

Apple Store Ranked Top 50 in Free Games as of 6 Jun 2016 


Awards:
iJam Innovation Grant 2014
SMU Innovation Award 2015
Mediapreneur Class of 2015

Advertising Campaign
8 Dec 2015 - Mediacorp Opening Ceremony (4 TV advertisement slots during Live Show)
7 May 2016 to 4 Apr 2016 - Life Fear Not Marketing (Prime time and off-prime time channel 8 TV advertisements running on the grid, ie displayed whenever there is a slot)

6 Jun 2016 - TODAY newspaper false cover (front page) advertisement


TBC - Radio advertisement 
TBC - Partnership with Toggle for Hearts & Hugs, CSR campaign to raise money for charity through games


How We're Different
Our business model is a cash-cow despite the fact that we are paying cash to our players. This is because our model operates as a third-party advertising partner that takes ~85% of our clients advertising budget and pay out only 15% to our players. Net margin is projected to be around 50% for the next 3 years. 

We are also the only application that pays cash to our players. This sets us apart from the slew of casual games out there, as the only one that helps benefit our players financially instead of making them pay for micro-transactions. This strategy has allowed us to retain our players' loyalty and they spend a significant amount of time on Spotted!. 

Team
Business Founder - Yingchun Tan
Senior (on Leave of Absence) from SMU Accountancy
Founder of SMOO - Social Messaging Application
Interned at Jackrin Investments (Private Investments) 

Business Founder - Xavier Ng
Graduating Senior from SMU Economics & Business Management
Founder of Bachelor of Slides LLP - Corporate Training Startup
Interned at Accenture and Cevesto Capital 
Bain & Co 2013 Case Competition Champion / JP Morgan Asset Management Challenge 1st Runner-up / CFA Competition 1st Runner-up 


Technical Founder - Nguyen Viet
Alumnus of SMU Information Systems 
Developer at Singapore Tourism Board, Codigo and Little Voice Games
Interned at Port Authority of Singapore


Technical Founder - Benjos Anthony
Alumnus of SMU Information Systems 
Developer at Appic Technologies, TickTock (Acquired by Chope)
Interned at Envisage Systems

Use of Investments
We have earmarked 60% of the investments to employ engineers, graphic designers and account executives. All founders are currently on $0 salary and will remain so until the enterprise turns profitable. With a substantial advertising inventory provided from Mediacorp (sufficient for our next 12 months of advertising campaign), Spotted! will not be using any of the amount raised for marketing. 

Contact
The team can be reached at [email protected]. Conversely, the founders can be reached directly at [email protected] and [email protected]

Press Appearance
Channel NewsAsia: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/studying-start-up-options/2614422.html
Channel NewsAsia: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/a-start-up-opportunity/2669854.html

(Previous iteration of the gamification concept using the Spot-the-Difference strategy, 2014)
Yahoo News/Vulcan Post: https://sg.news.yahoo.com/everyone-hates-advertisements-game-might-040031658.html 

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