What will be the strategy to launch a product that already captured around 70-80% of the students market? The catch is "As the students are graduating, new students are also coming in." Take an online furniture rental company for reference.

Microsoft product launch question: What will be the strategy to launch a product in which there are already established players for the students market and they have captured around 70-80% of the market (The catch is "As the students are graduating, new students are also coming in") - Take online furniture rental company for reference

Answers:

1. Clarify

• Product: Online platform provides students the ability to rent the furniture while in school.

• Target market: Student in the US

• Existing rivals have captured around 70-80% of the market

• The phase of product lifecycle (Introduction, Growth, Maturity, Decline) => Introduction 

2. Goals

• Raise awareness 

• Validate our product

3. Strategy:

• Identify our USP

  • Most of the rivals would buy the new furniture and allow students to rent them while in school. Then the company will do some things to renew the furniture to make sure the lifetime of each furniture is high.

  • Instead of being a supplier, we could be a platform. This means we would allow people who own furniture to lease to earn money. The students who want to rent, they can come to us and select what they want. We will be in charge of the quality assurance, delivery, and payment system. 

  • Offer a combo (full set of furniture for a room, ...)

• Narrow down the customer segment:

• • We will focus on international students who are not too familiar to the US.

  • Instead of diversify the market, we should focus on cities having a lot of universities

• Lower Price

  • We should lower the price as much as possible. For students, price is one of the key factors they will think of while making a consideration.

• Potential Risk

  • Low quality because of overused => Validate the quality before allowing people to lease. Find a way to renew them

  • Supply is not enough => We can own some furniture to back up

• Metrics

  • Acquisition (Focus)

  • Activation (Focus)

  • Retention

  • Reference

  • Revenue

4. Plan

   1. Pre-launch

• Partnership

  • Establish a relationship with the international department of universities to offer special promotion for international students when using our service.

  • Establish a relationship with suppliers to make sure we have enough supply especially when the semester begins.

  • Establish a relationship with study abroad agencies around the world to suggest us to their customers, international students.

• Marketing

  • Focus on marketing in school having a high rate of international students

  • Focus on digital advertisements involving studying abroad keywords because students would spend a lot of time on the internet to search for their oversea study.

  • Push marketing campaign when students are finding their houses for a new semester

• KPI

  • # of partnership with study abroad agencies around the world

  • # of partnership with international department

  • # of supplier

5. 2. During-launch

• Partnership

  • Keep good relationships with students by helping them set up the furniture.

  • Keep good relationships with suppliers by helping them improve the furniture and deliver it to students.

  • Keep good relationships with international departments and agencies to make sure our product is the first example coming to their mind.

• Marketing

  • Marketing through our partners’ network

  • Offer a good scholarship for international students to do branding

  • Focus on digital advertisement because students would spend a lot of time on the internet.

• KPI

  • # of reach from different sources

  • Convert rate

  • $ for MKT

  • # of orders

  • # of suppliers

5. 3. Post-launch

• Small gifts to thank and remain in good relationships with our partners.

• Keep in touch with our students.

• Compare the metrics of data collected pre-launch and during launch to measure the performance.

• Determine what went well and what needs improvement.

• Optimize the cost for MKT in each channel.

5. Conclusion

• Because we are the new one of the market, instead of trying to increase revenue, I think we should focus on increasing users' awareness about our product and validate our assumption.

• To do that, we should:

  • Partner: Establish good relationships with our partners involving international students.

  • Marketing: Spend more effort on marketing to raise the awareness of our students about our product.

  • KPI: Focus on Reach and Engage metrics

What will be the strategy to launch a product in which there are already established players for the students market and they have captured around 70-80% of the market (The catch is "As the students are graduating, new students are also coming in") 

- Take online furniture rental company for reference

What's the goal here?

Assuming the idea to capture a slice of the pie

Understand the market

1. Furniture rental for the stay while they are studying
2. Most dorms already provide the basics so you're looking at people who are staying outside Uni on rent ( those staying at home dont need furniture) - These will be mostly students from out of city or expats
3. High switching cost given the nature of product - you're almost always using the product and little to no maintentenance 

Who's the TG? Students 

1. Owners of rent places
   1. Want to maximise rent/reduce costs
   2. Want students to occupy right away immediately after the previous one leaves
   3. has multiple spaces to rent often 
   4. old in their 40s/50s, don't have the health to do heavy lifting
   5. movement of furnitures often damage their apartment 
   6. ownership of funiture - own parts of the furniture and most needs to be moved in 
2. Students
   1. Cost conscious: want to save money on expenses like stay etc
   2. Mostly from out of town so don't know the town well, find the place they want to rent after going their 
   3. Short on time to plan
   4. lazy 
   5. 2 types
      1. Existing: already stayng on rent and have rented out furniture 
      2. New: About to join 
      3. leaving: Leaving uni 

Problem

You want to break into the market - Establishes players have already captured the market.

Which TG to go after?

Given the high switching cost going after existing student is going to be a blood bath, you'll have to work harder for lesser conversion 

Go after new students, pain points:

1) Logistics of pick up and return + arranging the furniture 

2) Owning furniture is a problem since you need to move it again/pay for it when you relocate/move out 

2) Deposits tend to be high and often there is no visibilty on damages fees

3) Sharing expenses is a pain since usually individuals rent it out - some furniture is common and some is individual 

4) figuring out sizes of the rooms and what would fit/how it would look is challenging 

landlord pain points:

1) Furniture is expensive and they need to pay the full fees upfront - often they compromise, which means guests can have issues 

2) Movement of furniture causes damage 

3) Students may steal furniture/damage it, hence they want to minimise furniture and need to audit from time to time 

Goals

Maximise market share = % of students new student renting from us 

Product

Student facing 

1) Free delivery and pick up of furniture on renting out for a year - this will ensure students are able to move in and out easily  (adoption)

2) Free relocation once a year in case the student wants to switch houses etc  ( adoption)

3) optional: insurance, students can opt for insurance which will covers minor costs of damages  ( adoption)

4) Shared expenses: Students can rent furniture as a group and split the payments ( adoption)

5) Referral for students: students can refer students to use the rental service and earn credits that can be used to pay rent (growth)

6) Virtual mapping of the room: Students can use AR to virtually place furniture in the room to understand if it'll fit 

Will pick all except 6 - not all students are super concerned with how the apartment looks - will have limited reach/impact.

landlord facing

1) Tie up with landlord for furniture rental: Some furniture is permanent in the rental, landlords have to pay a fixed monthly fees. The fees charged would be more economical than to students since cost of it will be lower owing to no relocation expensses and a landlord typically will own multiple houses

2) insurance: Landlords can opt for insurance WRT furniture to ensure they don't need to worry about it 

3) Landlord referrals : landlords can refer other landlords and earn some free credits 

Strategic calls to be made

Acquisition strategy 

Students

1) Tie up with universities to offer aggresive rates to incoming students

2) Tie up with landlords and real estate agents to refer potential new student

3) Post on craigslist/other boards where students might go looking to rent apartment

4) optimise ASO and SEO for discovery of app/website 

landlord

1) call all landlords with apartments listed for rent on craigslist

2) Offer special discount to owners for referring other owners 

Product 

Already covered above

Retention

Students on renewal of their annual furniture rental can get a discounted rate of rental