Based on your reading of the Solome Tibebu case, sketch out a preliminary but coherent business model canvas for each of the three businesses she considered (Whole Teens, Tools for Schools, Cognific).
Based on your analysis, what is the most attractive opportunity for Tebebu to pursue? Why? What are the risks arising from the strategy you recommend she adopt; and how might she mitigate those risks?
Case Template
Case #
Please provide your analysis in a memo with the following three headings (no executive summary is required):
Section 1: Current Situation and Recommendation
<
Section
2
: Analysis using appropriate framework(s)
<
Section 3: Implementation and risk mitigation
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Additional Guidelines:
· The expected page length of the memo is two pages. Under no circumstances, should the memo (excluding the Appendix) exceed three pages. The Appendix does not count against the page limit. You can use the appendix to provide additional details on frameworks used in your analysis. So, for example, the appendix can be used to include the business model canvas, SWOT analysis etc., without counting against the page limit. .
· Do not forget to proofread your analysis for typos and errors
2
Solome Tibebu 1
Solome Tibebu: Evaluating Possible
Business Models
Laura C. Dunham, University of St. Thomas
PREPARING TO LAUNCH
With summer break nearly over and her senior year in college ahead, Solome Tibebu
was feeling increasingly excited about a new venture idea she was developing with
hopes of launching by graduation. Her venture was focused on helping teens cope with
anxiety. As someone who experienced ongoing episodes of severe anxiety since middle
school, Tibebu knew how debilitating this disorder could be. Having worked with
multiple therapists throughout her teens, she believed there were significant limitations
to traditional forms of therapy. In the last few years, Tibebu began designing a set of
interactive video games featuring psychotherapeutic activities that she felt had the
potential to educate, empower and calm young people in the throes of an anxiety attack.
She recently shared her ideas with several therapists and they were encouraging. She
was at a point where she needed to determine the best way to bring this venture to life.
Based on her research, Tibebu identified three viable options, each with merits.
She was determined to pursue the idea further, but was not sure of her next steps. Her
commitment was clear – as she put it:
I want to be the number one source for teens who are suffering from anxiety, which can mean
pre-teens all the way to college students as well as parents who need help with a child with
anxiety. I want this to be …where they go for help, wherever they are … Even if you are
seeing a therapist, if you have that luxury, which I did, and which many don’t, it can still
seem like an eternity for the weeks or half a week that you have to wait to see them. So, if
in the middle of the night, you are in trouble, you can go to this … to get immediate relief.
As an Entrepreneurship major at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul,
Minnesota, she was unsure if she should:
1. Sell her games directly to teens and their parents via her own website. She had
an operating web site – Anxiety in Teens (AiT) – developed five years
previously to serve as a source of education and community for teens like her.
Although she currently offered free access to it, she wondered if she might be
able to offer a subscription service that provided access to her games and other
premium content.
2. Sell her games to school systems and provide access to middle school and high
school students via the internet in what was termed a “software-as-a-service
(SaaS)”1 model.
—————————–
Copyright © 2018 by the Case Research Journal and by Laura Dunham. This case was prepared as a
basis for classroom discussion, not to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of an
administrative situation. The author wishes to thank Gina Grandy and anonymous reviewers for
extensive comments and insightful recommendations, and Solome Tibebu for her assistance in
preparing this case.
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2 Case Research Journal Volume 38 Issue 4 Fall 2018
3. Sell to mental health professionals in a SaaS model, enabling therapists to offer
the games to their patients and thus provide 24/7 support.
She knew it was going to be tough to find the time to make good progress. It was
August 2012 and fall semester was starting in two weeks. In addition to classes and
various other school activities, Tibebu was also becoming increasingly busy with outside
internships and active networking within the local entrepreneurial community, as well
as with speaking engagements to parent and youth groups dealing with teen anxiety.
She felt a small pang of anxiety as she considered what she should do. Should she
continue researching each of these business models, and if so how? Should she select
one and plunge ahead, and if so, how? How do you go from idea to action, she
wondered.
SOLOME TIBEBU
Tibebu grew up in the affluent suburb of Eden Prairie, Minnesota. One of two children
of recent émigrés – her father was Ethiopian, her mother Polish – Tibebu’s early
childhood was a happy and busy one.
In middle school, things changed when Tibebu experienced her first of many panic
attacks. Suddenly, and seemingly out of the blue, she became excessively fearful of
losing her family. At school, she was constantly in the counselor’s office, weeping
uncontrollably and begging the counselor to call and check on her parents, to make
sure they were all right. At home, she clung to her parents, afraid to let them out of her
sight.
Years of therapy seemed to be of little help until she began seeing a therapist whose
approach was different. As Tibebu recalled:
He really showed me what was going on in my brain, what was the chemistry behind it all.
He mapped out what was an obsessive and compulsive thought process and helped me
understand what was going on. I felt like that really empowered me. When I was in a high-
anxiety situation, I could say, ‘Oh, wow. This is what I learned. This is what’s going on
with my body. I’m having these thoughts because I have an anxiety disorder.’ So instead of
focusing on ‘Oh, somebody’s dying right now,’ I was able to move to, ‘Oh, what is going on
with me and my serotonin levels?’
Having this knowledge made a profound difference for Tibebu, allowing her for
the first time to become more proactive about managing her anxiety. She became eager
to learn as much as possible about anxiety and effective techniques for working through
panic attacks. However, she became increasingly frustrated by the lack of information
available on the web. During one particularly debilitating attack while she was away at
summer camp, Tibebu was searching the web for helpful information when she became
angry:
I remember I Googled ‘teen anxiety’ or something. The only things that came up were just
very medical stuff like WebMD and what was anxiety and not really a community or a
refuge, especially for teens… I remember my frustration. I mean, I was angry. I thought,
‘How is there nothing out there?’ This is the most common mental health illness there is, but
there was nothing.
Right then, Tibebu became determined to start her own web site, to provide
“information, inspiration and community” for teens suffering from anxiety. Her goal
was to provide immediate relief for teens in the midst of a panic attack as well as the
kinds of resources that could help teens with ongoing management of their disorder.
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Solome Tibebu 3
Aged 16 at the time she started the web site, Tibebu spent the next few years improving
and expanding it. Designing and redesigning the site, building content, creating a user
forum, establishing a store – the work was hard and time consuming but very
rewarding.
However, by the time she was finishing her second year in college, it became clear
she was at an inflection point. She had pushed things as far as she could with the
resources she had in hand. Even though she had attracted six interns through the
University’s Learning Through Service course (a required course in which all
undergraduate business students volunteered 40 hours to a local nonprofit), it still was
not enough to accomplish her goals.
Tibebu was impatient to increase the impact of her efforts, and to help more teens
manage their anxiety and put themselves on the path to recovery. However, she felt
she had taken things as far as she could with the web site. If she were going to develop
the content and applications that could really support teens with anxiety, and
successfully reach the millions of teens suffering from anxiety, she needed a different
approach. She felt the games she was developing might be the right vehicle for reaching
and helping young people, and might also help her attract the investment she needed
to scale and sustain her efforts. By the end of her second year in college, Tibebu began
actively exploring new business models for her venture.
ANXIETY DISORDERS AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE
Anxiety disorders encompass a range of mental health disturbances that feature
excessive worry and fear, experienced in a constant and overwhelming manner, that
can interfere with daily activities such as work, school or social life. Anxiety disorders
include panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, specific phobias, obsessive compulsive
disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. According to WebMD, all anxiety
disorders share some symptoms, including:
Panic, fear, and uneasiness
Sleep problems
Not being able to stay calm and still
Cold, sweaty, numb or tingling hands or feet
Shortness of breath
Heart palpitations
Dry mouth
Nausea
Tense muscles
Dizziness
In 2012, anxiety disorders were the most common mental health ailment in the
U.S., with an estimated 40 million Americans affected each year2. Treatments typically
included medication, such as anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs, and
psychotherapy, including family therapy, talk therapy, and cognitive behavioral therapy.
The latter was increasingly widespread in the treatment of anxiety disorders and
focused on helping patients learn to recognize and change thought patterns and
behaviors that triggered anxiety. Despite available treatment, only 36.9% of anxiety
sufferers received treatment.3
An estimated 31.9% of adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 experienced an
anxiety disorder, with symptoms typically arising around age 6.4 Over 8% of
adolescents experienced severe impairment. Various studies indicated a sharp rise in
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4 Case Research Journal Volume 38 Issue 4 Fall 2018
the number of teens coping with anxiety disorders.5 Research indicated that the
majority of young people with moderate to severe anxiety disorders responded well to
treatment with cognitive behavioral therapy, medication or a combination of both.
Further, these patients continued to show improved outcomes over a 6-month follow-
up period with the help of monthly booster sessions.6 However, only 18% of teens
with anxiety disorders typically received mental health care.7 Without help, studies
indicated that children with anxiety disorders were more likely to underperform in
school, to miss out on social experiences, and to experience problems with substance
abuse.8
EVALUATING POSSIBLE BUSINESS MODELS
Whole Teen
By the end of her second year in college, as Tibebu considered how to create more
impact, she wondered if she could use the Anxiety in Teens web site as the platform
for selling her games to teens. Her first thoughts centered around developing a
“freemium” model9. This would entail continuing to provide basic content and the
community forums for all users, as she currently did, but also offering a subscription
for teens and their parents that would provide access to premium content. Tibebu
envisioned calling the subscription service “Whole Teen” and she hoped to offer her
games as well as articles, products and webinars on a wide range of topics including
nutrition, exercise and meditation.
This business model built on the learning and experience she had accrued through
her work with AiT, including skills at social media marketing and search engine
optimization techniques to drive more traffic to her site. However, despite her growing
skills and knowledge, Tibebu knew it was difficult to build brand awareness and traffic
on the web to the extent she hoped. Traffic remained low, with unique (new) visitors
numbering fewer than 500 each month.
She also knew she was up against tough competition. As a website offering medical
advice and support, AiT competed against much more established players such as
WebMd, Mayo Clinic and Helpguide, each of which reached millions of consumers
annually. These comprehensive sites offered advice on a variety of illnesses and health
topics. Another competitor, Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), was
an established nonprofit organization dedicated to helping individuals suffering from
any type of anxiety disorder. The organization recently expanded and redesigned their
website and the new website received over 5 million hits each month. A leader in
advocacy, education, training, and research for anxiety and stress-related disorders,
ADAA offered an array of services including electronic chat rooms, nationwide
conferences, special events that allowed people to come together in person,
informational materials and brochures, podcasts, newsletters and resources for finding
a therapist.
Tibebu’s site was the only one focused on young people with anxiety, and she
believed this was the reason why visitors returned regularly. She conducted an online
survey with her users and discovered that over 50% regularly visited the site, either
daily or weekly, and that they valued the focus on teen issues and the ability to connect
with other teens experiencing anxiety. Given the high prevalence of young people
experiencing anxiety, the fact that so few visited a therapist, and that teens valued the
community and tailored information she provided, Tibebu felt that Whole Teen could
be a viable vehicle for delivering impact. In spring 2011, as she began considering a
business model centered on a subscription service, Tibebu’s mind raced with ideas for
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Solome Tibebu 5
products and services she could offer subscribers. However, the more ideas she
generated, the more stuck she began to feel. It would cost a lot of money to develop
these apps and other products and services and where would she get that? With fewer
than 500 unique visitors a month, her numbers were still too low to sustain a
subscription site and provide cash for product development. She felt stuck in the
aggravating grip of a “chicken-egg” problem:
What comes first? Do I want to bring more people before I have a lot of bells and whistles,
or should I develop the bells and whistles before I bring more people? But how to do I attract
the people without the bells and whistles? If I go the other way, how do I get the offerings on
my site without more money? Either way, I need more money.
Tools for Schools
As she headed into her third year in college, and wrestled with these issues, Tibebu
began brainstorming another possible business model. Thinking back to her days in
middle and high school, when she was a constant presence in the counselor’s office,
she remembered how challenging the situation was for the school counselor.
Here I was running to the counseling department five days a week, several times a day,
hysterical. And I know my counselor was trying her best but she was just as anxious as I
was because she wasn’t trained in mental health. She was just trained more in college planning
and maybe middle school boyfriend/girlfriend drama. But not really mental health.
It occurred to Tibebu that she could target schools, providing counselors with a
set of tools that they could offer to students experiencing anxiety attacks. From her
own experience, she knew there was a need. It was also a much more focused target
audience – rather than having to go after such a broad and diffuse audience as teens
and their parents, Tibebu would be able to target school systems and their counselors
directly. She could start locally and learn and grow the business from there.
Initial research confirmed that there was a sizeable market. In her home state of
Minnesota, the numbers were substantial (see Exhibits 1 and 2 at end of case).
Although state law in her state did not mandate that schools offer counseling services,
there was indication of a growing need for services of this kind. For instance, Tibebu
discovered that at the high school near her apartment, there were 4 counselors serving
2,236 students, a student/counselor ration of 559 to 1.
Through an acquaintance, Tibebu met several professors in the Masters in School
Counseling Program at the Adler Graduate School. She shared her idea with them and
was pleased by the highly positive reception they gave her. She learned from them that
mental health issues were becoming an increasing area of focus among school
counselors, who traditionally were more focused on academic issues and college
planning. One of the professors shared studies that indicated that mental health
interventions within the school setting dramatically improved student performance.
Heartened by these findings, Tibebu approached contacts at the state Association
of School Counselors. With their feedback in mind, Tibebu aimed to develop a set of
interactive web-based video games featuring psychotherapeutic activities that could be
sold to the schools. The schools could then provide them to students experiencing an
anxiety attack at school. The games would have several goals:
1. To calm the 504-Plan students (students with special needs, including emotional
disabilities, often students who have severe anxiety and depression) who are in
immediate distress at school and cannot attend class.
2. To educate users by offering fun lessons on the cognitive process and teaching
youth what is ‘really going on in their minds’ when they experience an anxiety
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6 Case Research Journal Volume 38 Issue 4 Fall 2018
disorder, which allows users to disassociate themselves from their distressing
situation.
3. To empower users to further build self-confidence through effective affirmation
exercises and self-esteem-building activities.
Tibebu anticipated offering these games through a subscription program to
schools, using sliding scale fees based on school size. She was aware that school systems
already purchased various web-based services, such as for college counseling.
Companies serving schools with those kind of services charged anywhere from $450 a
year per school to close to $1,000 per school.
In the fall of her third year in college, as she was in the preliminary stages of
thinking this business model through, she decided to test the idea by applying for her
university’s business plan competition, the Annual Business Concept Challenge in
October. She knew that if she advanced past the first round, she would have the
opportunity to present the idea to a panel of local entrepreneurs and investors. She was
eager to hear their feedback on the idea.
Tibebu placed fourth, receiving a small scholarship as her award. Although the
judges all applauded the idea and saw the value of the service, they were less
enthusiastic about her choice of schools as target customer. They noted that schools
were notoriously hard to sell into, with tight budgets and long sales cycles, they told
her.
Discouraged but not deterred, Tibebu continued to investigate the idea, but also
began thinking about another possible business model centered around serving
therapists. By the spring of her third year, she created a new iteration of the business
model, Cognific, a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and “terrific.”
Cognific
Having worked with five different therapists when she was younger, Tibebu knew that
the games she was developing could fill a need. She described the need:
The way the therapists give mental health homework today is like a typewriter when it needs
to be an iPad. The therapist writes down the homework on a little Post-It note – ‘go do this.’
Do exposure therapy. Touch a spider 20 times when you get home if that’s your phobia. But
then once the kid gets home with this thing — if he hasn’t already lost it in the car — he’s
supposed to go and do exposure therapy completely by himself with no guidance and not
knowing really what to do and what’s going on. I remember myself how much I hated it and
often avoided it. I mean there’s not a real motivation there, and it just prolongs treatment.
And so what if my games could kind of like ‘Chef Boyardee’ the kids — they don’t know
that the veggies are in the pasta but they think it’s so fun and tastes good. What if mental
health homework was actually fun?
She believed that the games she was designing would work well in the clinical
setting. She could also add a back end with all sorts of features for the therapist. While
the patient was playing the games, the software could be capturing data about timing,
frequency and intensity of his or her panic attacks.
Tibebu explained:
This is so important especially with young people when they come into the therapist’s office
only once a week or maybe every other week. Let’s say they had a panic attack on Monday
and came to see the therapist on Friday — they can’t articulate the same feelings or the
experience. Or even details around when, what happened, what triggered it. And so by the
time they get there, it’s almost a waste of time. Cognific will help the therapist help the patient
a lot better. What Cognific could do is really kind of like what online banking did for the
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Solome Tibebu 7
banking system. It could create a 24/7 connectedness between patient and therapist. And
really making that bond a lot stronger.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there were over 552,000 mental health
professionals practicing in the U.S. Psychologists made up the largest sub-segment of
mental health professionals, and about 34% of them were self-employed, mainly as
private practitioners and independent consultants. The number of psychologists was
expected to grow 12% between 2008 and 2018. There also appeared to be little
competition in the space. Based on extensive web research, Tibebu was not able to
identify any other vendor who provided this kind of resource to mental health
professionals. Tibebu ran the idea by a couple of therapists for input. Working through
her growing network, she identified several marriage and family therapists who agreed
to speak with her. They were not a perfect fit – she really needed to speak with clinical
psychologists who worked with teens – but she felt they could address basic issues
around the idea. For instance,
I was kind of afraid — the therapist isn’t going to like something that’s helping their clients
get better faster, not because they’re a bad person and they don’t want to see their patient get
better, but they have to pay the bills too. If it’s helping so much, maybe they don’t want to
buy it? And so that was just a fear I had. And the therapists said, ‘Oh no, we want to do
everything we can to make it better for our patients.’
Tibebu was pleased that the therapists welcomed the idea of better mental health
homework to give their clients, but was disappointed to find that her small group of
interviewees seemed lukewarm about the idea of a web-based program.
The therapists I spoke with had been doing it for 30 years, and I don’t think that older
generation is quite my target. So I wasn’t getting quite the feedback that I needed. It’s tech-
y. They’re comfortable with what they’ve been doing for so many years, and this kind of
product would be a big departure for them.
Tibebu knew she needed to find therapists that better fit her target group in order
to get more detailed feedback. However, in the spring of her third year, she became
engrossed in writing a business plan for Cognific, to submit to a statewide venture
competition that attracted over 1,000 entrants in six categories. Tibebu submitted to
the student division, and to her delight, was selected as a semi-finalist. In addition to
the validation the idea received from being selected, Tibebu also experienced the
benefit of two mentors helping her flesh out and revise her business plan for the next
round of the competition. Her mentors were bright and experienced, both having
started significant businesses, including one in the healthcare area.
Over the course of the next few months, through the end of her third year and the
summer before her 4th and final year in college, Tibebu’s mentors and others helped
her refine and elaborate her plan and develop preliminary financials to submit to the
next round of the statewide competition (Exhibit 3). Working through the financials
was eye opening. Tibebu realized she needed more specifics about all aspects of her
business model in order to detail her revenue sources, costs, and start-up capital
required. For instance, she had to make a decision about her revenue model – while
the end user was clear (clients and therapists), who should pay? For the purposes of
her submission to the next round of the statewide competition, Tibebu decided to base
her financial model on charging therapists $69 per patient per six-month period. This
seemed like a reasonable fee to her given what she knew about therapists’ charges,
although it was not yet validated with the market.
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8 Case Research Journal Volume 38 Issue 4 Fall 2018
Her mentors also stressed the importance of an exit strategy. If she were going to
raise investment capital, she was going to have to provide would-be investors with a
future “liquidity event” that would generate an attractive return for them. One of her
mentors suggested that she target health insurance companies and large pharmaceutical
companies as potential purchasers of the business once established.
Tibebu explained:
If Cognific is helping the patient get better faster, which could reduce medication times and
reduce therapy times and costs, that is a little more attractive to the health insurance company
than it is to the actual therapist. So, for instance, if you go to liveandworkwell.com, which is
United Healthcare’s portal for their health insurance policy holders, they have private content
— there are a bunch of articles and whatnot for policy holders to read and help themselves.
But I got to thinking, ‘What if they had Cognific? If I were to provide my product to them
to offer to all of their policy holders or to distribute however they feel with therapists?’ Not
only might this generate an important revenue stream for Cognific, but also, and more
importantly, a potential acquirer down the road when Cognific was up and running and
demonstrating its value.
Similarly, big Pharma might serve that role.
Right now, of the top 20 pharmaceutical drugs, 13 have their patents are expiring this
December, this year. And so the companies are really looking to find something else besides
medication, some more holistic approach. And not only that, but also because they are getting
such a bad rap for just being medication motivated. So what if they had Cognific – so a doctor
could prescribe six months of Prozac with six months of Cognific to a young person with
anxiety disorders? I’m really thinking there is huge possibility there, really huge potential.
Although she did not end up advancing beyond the semi-finalist stage in the
statewide competition, Tibebu was thrilled by how much she had learned about
business plan development.
WHICH BUSINESS MODEL?
As she prepared to enter her 4th year in college, Tibebu was eager to take advantage of
all she had learned in the previous two years, and really make progress with bringing
one of her ideas to market. Yet she still felt uncertain about the best way to proceed.
With all the excitement around the competition, and all the meetings she was
scheduling with various advisors to flesh out her business plan, Tibebu still did not
have the time to get back with therapists, her target customer, and get their feedback.
Meanwhile some of the school counselors she had met were contacting her to see if
she had made any progress with Tools for Schools. Activity was picking up on her
website – maybe Whole Teen was a better place to start, she thought. It seemed easier
and closer to what she knew. On the other hand, she was convinced there were needs
she could address for therapists and school counselors as well.
Looking ahead in her calendar, Tibebu could see that new commitments were
already piling up. The next day she had a meeting with an individual who served on the
board of United Healthcare, one of the country’s largest health benefits providers,
Tibebu was eager to get his feedback on the plan and his thoughts regarding her ideas
for targeting insurance companies. Later in the week, she was meeting with a web
design and marketing firm to help her update the AiT website. The day after that she
was meeting some school counselors who wanted to hear her latest thinking on Tools
for Schools.
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Solome Tibebu 9
Tibebu sighed and thought, “okay, it’s time to make some choices.” It didn’t seem
likely she could continue to juggle all these ideas and stakeholders. She needed to focus.
But how? Which of these business models would allow her to achieve her vision of
providing education, empowerment and calm to young people struggling with anxiety?
Which would be most impactful to the young people she wanted to serve? What were
the pros and cons of each approach? What were the risks and uncertainties in each of
the business models, and how could she address them? How could she begin moving
from idea to action?
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10 Case Research Journal Volume 38 Issue 4 Fall 2018
Exhibit 1 – Minnesota K-12 School System (2012)
School Type Number of Schools Number of Students
Public 1,967 824,333
Non-Public 491 74,384
Total 2,458 898,717
Source: Minnesota Education Statistics Summary, 2011-2012, Minnesota Department
of Education.
Exhibit 2 – K-12 Schools in the U.S.
98,328 Number of public schools in 2012.
30,861 Number of private schools.
55,091,000 Number of students in public K-12
High School Only:
Number of high school students: 15,976,902
Number of high schools: 27,034
Source: U.S. Census; U.S. National Center for Education Statistics.
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Solome Tibebu 11
Exhibit 3 Preliminary Financials
2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Revenues
Therapists 0 0 75,900$ 345,000$ 1,380,000$ 2,415,000$ 3,105,000$
Price per patient/six months $69
Patients per therapist 5
Therapist per year (D.O.) 0 220 1,000 4,000 7,000 9,000
Schools @ $499 0 0 12,475$ 32,435$ 149,700$ 414,170$ 583,830$
Schools per year (D.O.) 25 65 300 830 1,170
Total revenue 88,375$ 377,435$ 1,529,700$ 2,829,170$ 3,688,830$
\
Expenses
Development & Design 6,000$ 100,000$ – – – – –
Medical Consulting/Psych 1,000$ 2,000$ 5,000$ 3,000$ 5,000$ 5,000$ 5,000$
Salaries & Benefits 30,000$ 140,000$ 195,000$ 230,000$ 230,000$ 270,000$
Marketing 500$ 10,000$ 10,000$ 5,000$ 5,000$ 5,000$ 5,000$
Travel (Non-Marketing) 800$ 2,500$ 7,500$ 10,000$ 20,000$ 20,000$ 20,000$
Insurance
Gen Liab/Workers’ comp 2,400$ 250$ 649$ 4,994$ 12,283$ 19,677$
Errors & Omissions 2,400$ 250$ 649$ 4,994$ 12,283$ 19,677$
Hosting 100$ 500$ 750$ 1,000$ 1,200$ 1,400$ 1,600$
Legal 5,000$ 5,000$ – – – – –
Accounting 2,000$ 3,500$ 5,000$ 5,000$ 5,000$
Office Lease 500$ 1,000$ 1,000$ 1,000$
Office Equipment 3,000$ 4,000$
Phone 150$ 100$ 100$ 100$ 100$ 100$ 100$
Misc 1,500$ 12,000$ 15,000$ 17,000$ 20,000$ 35,000$
Total Expenses 16,550$ 156,400$ 177,850$ 234,398$ 298,288$ 312,066$ 382,054$
Net Income (Loss) (16,550)$ (156,400)$ (89,475)$ 143,037$ 1,231,412$ 2,517,104$ 3,306,776$
PROFIT AND LOSS STATEMENT
Source: Tibebu, S. (2018). Preliminary business plan.
NOTES
1 Software as a Service (SaaS), also termed “on-demand software,” is a software
distribution in which applications are hosted by a third party vendor and made
available to customers over the internet.
2 Source: Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Facts and Statistics.
Retrieved August 25, 2018 from https://adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-
statistics
3 Ibid
4 Source: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Statistics: Any Anxiety
Disorder. Retrieved August 25, 2018 from
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/any-anxiety-disorder.shtml
For the exclusive use of J. Li, 2022.
This document is authorized for use only by Jia ye Li in ENT 489 Spring 2022 taught by Amrita Lahiri, Washington State University from Jan 2022 to Jun 2022.
12 Case Research Journal Volume 38 Issue 4 Fall 2018
5 E.g. Nuffield Foundation study, “Changing Adolescence: Social Trends and Mental
Health,” 2012
6 “24 and 36 Week Outcomes for the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study
(CAMS)” by John Piacentini, et al Journal of the American Academy of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry, Volume 53, Issue 3 (March 2014), published by Elsevier.
7 Source: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Statistics: Any Anxiety
Disorder. Retrieved August 25, 2018 from
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/any-anxiety-disorder.shtml
8 Source: Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Facts and Statistics.
Retrieved August 25, 2018 from https://adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-
statistics
9 Freemium describes a business model that offers a basic services for free and more
advanced or additional features at a premium.
For the exclusive use of J. Li, 2022.
This document is authorized for use only by Jia ye Li in ENT 489 Spring 2022 taught by Amrita Lahiri, Washington State University from Jan 2022 to Jun 2022.
Solome Tibebu: Evaluating Possible Business Models
PREPARING TO LAUNCH
SOLOME TIBEBU
ANXIETY DISORDERS AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE
EVALUATING POSSIBLE BUSINESS MODELS
Whole Teen
Tools for Schools
Cognific
WHICH BUSINESS MODEL?
Exhibit 1 – Minnesota K-12 School System (2012)
Exhibit 2 – K-12 Schools in the U.S.
Exhibit 3 Preliminary Financials
NOTES 1 Software as a Service (SaaS), also termed “on-demand software,” is a software distribution in which applications are hosted by a third party vendor and made available to customers over the internet. 2 Source: Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Facts and Statistics. Retrieved August 25, 2018 from https://adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics 3 Ibid 4 Source: National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Statistics: Any Anxiety Disorder. Retrieved August 25, 2018 from https://w
