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April 2008 Presentations

DropToMe.com

Bringing together people with similar tastes & interests

April 15, 2008

Drop to me is a new company by Adora Interactive Corporation combining successful models in e-commerce (Amazon.com, Buy.com) with successful social networking sites (MySpace, Facebook), to create a model that offers recommendations based on user preferences. They are seeking $2.2 million to reach a market of 70 million users and achieve projected revenue of over $51 million by 2012.

Drop to me’s premise is that people want to discover things that they’ll like, but it’s hard to know what type of data you’re really getting in most reviews/recommendations. Friends, who provide reliable information, are a relatively small and homogeneous network, and reviews are scattered across many sources and lack context to make them relevant. In addition, conflicting reviews lead to customer confusion and a lack of relevant information decreases purchase intent.

Drop to me brings together people with similar tastes and interests in a unique way to rank, share and discover. Anything from music to wine to vacation spots can be ranked and then shared on a customized profile page with a unique interface. This allows users to discover personalized recommendations and meet new friends with shared interests.

The premise of the site is that ranking products is more fun when you involve your friends. Drop to me lets you share ideas and reviews with current & new friends, in an easy way. You can network based on shared interests versus shared e-mail addresses, and share friends just like you share products. You can localize your database by adding bands, restaurants, and more, in addition to sharing about other items available nationally.

Revenue will be through four independent, scalable streams: banner ad revenue; sales commissions; featured drops; and market research. 70 million social networking users will be targeted trough three marketing campaigns. The first, a local campaign, will begin in April/May 2008 at Indiana University and partnering with local restaurants and merchants. A regional campaign will start in June, and a national campaign will begin 3rd quarter 2008 and focus on college students returning to campus.

Strong revenues and healthy margins are expected from the site, with revenue of $315k in 2008, growing to $51 million by 2012. As the site grows, percent of revenue will adapt to reflect the networking effect. The company expects that long-term, market research will be one of the most appealing parts of their model, as their database will contain information on millions of users that can be mined for almost any type of data.

The company expects user pull built by the DropToMe.com launch will help the site become the Digg of products. The site will allow users to add products to their drop box away from the site itself, just by clicking and dropping. They will start with partners where company relationships are already started, and expand to consumer goods companies with products not served by their partners.

DropToMe.com is a revolution in social networking. The company is already making it happen, having realized its first revenue dollars even before launch of the website itself.