Tag Archives: Yazeed

Finance, grants and awards

Managing Shuttleworth Foundation funding, project by project

Arthur’s fellowship with the Shuttleworth Foundation began 1 September 2011. He has received in total three years of funding which have been used in 17 projects which make up the total Paperight project.

The process is well organised and thoroughly monitored by the Foundation. We submit detailed pitches which are analysed and discussed before being approved. Memorandums of Agreement are created for each pitch and signed by Arthur and the Foundation’s representative. Invoices are submitted against each project and are tracked. At the end of each project, detailed closing reports are done and the remaining funds which have not been spent are returned to the pool.

Funding we have received and allocated to projects so far includes:

Project 1 – Beta

This is the first Paperight project pitched to the Shuttleworth Foundation. The plan for this project was to hire a core team, build and launch a minimum-featured beta site with automated content licencing and acquisition. The project went better than expected and took four months instead of three. A large portion of the funding requested for this project was put back into the pool to use for other projects. Our budget included a senior developer, a content manager, office costs, interns, registrations, and two laptops.

Total spend: R92 500

We learnt about:

  • The value of great internships
  • The mixed quality of of open sources of content
  • PDF technology
  • Workflow best practice using wiki-based operational manuals
  • The high cost of building open software
  • The difficulty of getting commercial publishers to provide content to new businesses.

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Nick Mulgrew
  • Arthur Attwell
  • Electric Book Works
  • Michal Blaszczyk

Project 2 – Promotion

The plan for this project was to promote outlets and customers while launching the instant-delivery website. The big goal was to get 100 outlets to register on our website and have 1000 documents purchased within two months. It took over two months to get 100 outlets, some of which were not viable outlets. In the first two months we sold about 100 free documents, and it took ten months to sell 1000 copies. Our budget included three months salaries for an outlet manager, a marketing consultant, a content manager, travelling costs, advertising costs, three computers, office costs and Adobe CS5.5.

Total spend: R489 372

Reasons for the low number of sales:

  • Very few outlets were advertising their Paperight service. Those who did advertise made sales.
  • The concept was very new to outlets.
  • Our marketing did not reach customers.
  • Our catalogue consisted of a small range of material.
  • We had few products to sell which were in demand by customers.
  • There is generally a low interest in the books which we had available on our site to purchase.

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Nick Mulgrew
  • Yazeed Peters
  • Zimkita
  • Zukisani
  • Arthur Attwell
  • Newsclip Media (social media monitoring)
  • Mega Digital (printing)
  • Nicole Sochen (marketing)
  • Strand Signs (Signboard)
  • Facebook (advertising)
  • Radio Zibonele (advertising)
  • Craig Hughes (content)
  • Caitlin Bracken (content)
  • Raeesa Pather (content)
  • Diann Selman (content)
  • Niki Anderson (marketing)

Project 3 – Site 1.0

it is always necessary to test your own coding and websites over and above that of the developer testing

This project was for creating the first release of the current paperight.com. We contracted Realm Digital and the project went really well. All objectives were achieved. We learnt that it is always necessary to test your own coding and websites over and above that of the developer testing.

Our budget included complete basic frontend components (landing, registration and profile pages, account-credit topup page, catalogue page, licence purchasing page, manage licences page, manage meta data page) and complete basic backend components (account credit management, user search and language page, doc search and manage page, licence search and manage page, PDF watermarking).

Total spend: R509 238

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Arthur Attwell
  • Realm Digital

Project 4 – Office

We planned to move to a formal office space and set up the office infrastructure. All objectives were achieved, the team settled in straight away, enjoyed their new working environment and productivity definitely increased. Our budget covered office furniture, rent, stationery, telephone and general office costs.

Total spend: R92 052

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Nick Mulgrew
  • Yazeed Peters
  • Dezre Little
  • Arthur Attwell

Project 5 – Team 2.0

We wanted to extend two existing contracts, create two new positions based on new needs and priorities, and allow us to bring in more interns. We first extended our contract positions: Our Chief Operating Officer (Tarryn Ann Anderson) and our Creative Director (Nick Mulgrew). Then we added new positions: Our Financial Manager (Dezre Little), and our Business Development Manager (Yazeed Peters). For our interns we found: Philippa Dewey as our Content Manager, Oscar Masinyana our Reading Communities Manager, and Marie-Louse Rouget our Marketing Coordinator. The team worked really well together and all were amazing team members. Our budget included three months salaries and three new laptops.

Total spend: R200 682

We learnt that

  • Our excellent team were the result of carefully selecting young purpose driven people
  • and a supportive environment.
  • Managing a team is an ongoing learning process. Arthur found giving each team member their own simple functional authority, and clear reporting lines helped to create ‘job coach’ relationships rather than task-based managerial relationships.
  • The process of including the team in the employment selection process meant that a team was created who bought into their team members success, built strong and loyal relationships where everyone is naturally interested in assisting their colleagues in both their career and personal development.
  • It helped a great deal that all team members valued each other as experts in their own area of work, and therefore saw each other as equals and relied on each others strengths wherever possible.

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Nick Mulgrew
  • Yazeed Peters
  • Oscar Masinyana
  • Dezre Little
  • Arthur Attwell
  • Philippa Dewey
  • Caitlin Bracken (content freelancer)

Project 6 – 6A and B Software phase 2.1 and 2.2

This project was originally written in three parts and then added together to make up what was finally Phase 2.1 and 2.2. As with most development projects, it turned out that more development was needed as Paperight progressed. Overall this project went very well, thanks to good preparation on our side and great professionalism by Realm Digital. The work included building 3rd party product integration and product ownership functionality.

Total spend: R553 641

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Nick Mulgrew
  • Yazeed Peters
  • Arthur Attwell
  • Dezre Little
  • Realm Digital (website development)
  • Dommisse Attorneys (legal advice)
  • Von Seidels (trademarking advice)

Project 7 – Live magazine

Here we collaborated with Live Magazine, placing a full-page advert in their magazine. The full-page ad featured a story-like cartoon highlighting our Let’s Talk About Varsity and Project H (a graphic novel) . The piece was well executed but there was no discernible increase in sales.

Total spend: R37 500

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Nick Mulgrew
  • Yazeed Peters
  • Arthur Attwell
  • Live Magazine (advertising)

Project 8 – Team infrastructure

Our team is established and we started focussing on scaling our reach. This project created a year long foundation of infrastructure. We created our Paperight targets and goals to achieve over the next year.

Total spend: R912 555.25

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Nick Mulgrew
  • Yazeed Peters
  • Arthur Attwell
  • Dezre Little
  • Marie-Louise Rouget
  • Oscar Masinyana
  • Philippa Dewey
  • Wolfsohn and Associates (Accountants)
  • The Book Lounge
  • Publishing Association of South Africa (membership)
  • Facebook (advertising)
  • Topcopy (printing)
  • Newsclip (social media monitoring)
  • Digital Express (printing)
  • Caitlin Bracken (content)
  • Diann Selman (content)
  • Limnos Backery (cakes)
  • Brendan Hughes (legal advice)
  • Freeagent (accounting program)
  • Paypal (payment partner)
  • Dropbox (document storage)
  • South African Book Association (membership)
  • Transforming minds (BEE application)

Project 9 – Frankfurt Book Fair

We sent Tarryn to the Frankfurt Book Fair to develop contacts and build relationships with international publishers. Great relationships were created and additional publishers signed up as a result.

Total spend: R17 180.35

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Millenium Travel (travel booking)

Project 10 – Trademarking

Trademarking Paperight in South Africa, the US and Europe.

Total spend: Still current, we expect a total cost around R100 000.

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Arthur Attwell
  • Dezre Little
  • Von Seidels (trademarking)

Project 11 – London Book Fair

We sent Tarryn to the London Book Fair to develop contacts and continue to build relationships. Again this was a great success.

Total spend: R18 660.97

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Citisprint (courier)
  • Millenium Travel (travel booking)

Project 12 – Sales course Yazeed

A ten-week course on selling for our Outlet Development Manager Yazeed Peters, intended primarily to boost sales from outlets to bulk-printing customers, resulting in revenue for Paperight in rights and service fees.

Total spend: R13 369.62

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Yazeed Peters

Project 13 – Unisa guide

This project was for creating and publishing Now What?, a short book on how to succeed as a UNISA student.

Total spend: R30 850.00

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Nick Mulgrew
  • Yazeed Peters
  • Arthur Attwell
  • Dezre Little
  • Oscar Masinyana
  • Philippa Dewey

Project 14 – Software development

The third major phase of software development on Paperight.com.

Total spend: R139 080

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Arthur Attwell
  • Realm Digital

Project 15 – Software phase 4

Our next pilot project to add dynamically designed food packaging print-outs on paperight.com. Only kidding –this was our April fools joke for the Shuttleworth Foundation. We loved writing is as much as they enjoyed reading it.

Total spend: R0

Project 16 – Team operational costs

Paperight’s team infrastructure costs for 6 months, September 2013 to February 2014

Total spend: Still current, we expect approx R1m

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Nick Mulgrew
  • Yazeed Peters
  • Arthur Attwell
  • Dezre Little
  • Marie-Louise Rouget
  • Oscar Masinyana
  • Philippa Dewey
  • Wolfsohn and Associates (Accountants)
  • Publishing Association of South Africa (membership)
  • South African Book Association (membership)
  • Freeagent (accounting program)
  • FNB Instant Accounting (accounting program)
  • Dropbox (online storage)
  • Docraptor (Invoicing package)

Project 17 – Marketing budget

Initial marketing budget and plans for 6 months, including staff, September 2013 to February 2014.

Total spend: Still current, we expect to spend almost R600K

Current team members/people involved in this project:

  • Tarryn-Anne Anderson
  • Nick Mulgrew
  • Yazeed Peters
  • Arthur Attwell
  • Dezre Little
  • Marie-Louise Rouget
  • Oscar Masinyana
  • Philippa Dewey
  • Daily Maverick (advertising)
  • Minute Man Press (advertising)
  • Shaun Swingler (photography and media)
  • University of Cape Town (advertising and promotions)
  • The Good Times (advertising)
  • Fitees (tshirt printing)
  • C2 Digital (printing)
  • Top Copy (printing)
  • UCT Sax Appeal (advertising)
  • Mega Digital (printing)
  • Newsclip (social media monitoring)
  • Facebook (advertising)
  • Martin Graphix (roller banner)
Marketing

Adopt-a-copy-shop/Adopt-a-school Project

To increase Paperight study-material sales (and better understand our copy-shop partners), we decided as a team to individually adopt a registered Paperight copy shop and try to partner them with a local school. The aim was to test various methods of promotion (specifically to parents of high school students) and to simultaneously build close relationships with a small batch of copy shops that would ultimately become Paperight Premium Outlets in future. For more on that, read Yazeed’s entries.

Despite our best intentions, this project did not come together according to plan.

One of our major in-house hurdles has been finding the time to get out of the office, to spend time in our adopted copy shops, as well as visiting local schools on their behalf. We managed to find time to do so, but not easily and certainly not as often as we should have done.

Once we had identified schools to visit, we submitted briefs to Nick for personalised promotional materials. Specifically, we took posters and flyers to the schools highlighting educational materials (past exam papers, study guides and textbooks) available through their local Paperight registered copy shops, emphasising the copy shops’ competitively low pricing. The materials themselves were succinct enough to avoid confusion about how the Paperight/copy shop partnership works and the flyers doubled as ordering forms to cut down on the necessary steps to make a sale.

Once the posters and flyers were printed, we liaised with school secretaries for permission to bring them onto school campus. The posters were placed in obvious places, such as in the secretaries’ offices, in entrance lobbies, near school shops and near matric classrooms. Similarly, the flyers were given to matric class teachers to hand out to students in registration class.

more often than not the copy shop managers were either unwilling to do so or too busy to do so

Each team member managed to make the beginning steps to build the relationships, but we all found that we needed our chosen copy shops to really step up to sustain the partnership. However, more often than not the copy shop managers were either unwilling to do so or too busy to do so.

Apart from this, we found that our promotional materials led to only small spikes of sales. I believe this is directly related to the materials being present on the schools’ campuses and not visible enough to the students’ parents. I’m also quite sure that students made paper airplanes out of the flyers rather than giving them to their parents. The kinds of students who ultimately ended up in store buying past papers and study guides were typically the kind that did not need a flyer or poster to discover Paperight because they’re particularly proactive with regards to their studies. This failing on our part informed our marketing efforts that became the Matric Exam Campaign.

This project did not intend to change the schools’ official book purchasing protocols, but instead aimed to turn parents over to using Paperight . Ultimately, parents are the ones who have the most invested in their child’s success and it was on this personal interest that we hoped to ignite support for the Paperight project.

If I could pick out one overarching lesson learned from all this, I would say that the principal of any school sets the benchmark and with their support of a new initiative or supplier, the rest of school will fall into line. This has been proven by Yazeed’s wonderful work with Pelikan Park High School. Despite the difficulty of building a strong relationship like this, the rewards are manifold and certainly worth the work put it. More relationships like this could carry Paperight well into self-sustainability.

Marketing, Tech

The Paperight Help Video

Another part of my induction to Paperight was to produce a Paperight help video to be uploaded to the help site. The help video was designed as a nifty tool for new and registered outlets to refer to about how the site works.

The decision to make this video came from increasing evidence that a large number of registered copy shop managers seemed to find the Paperight.com website difficult to navigate when encountering it remotely, i.e. without a Paperight team member to assist them in person. With copy shops signing up all over South Africa, the help video became the most obvious solution.

The completed video covered the entire Paperight registration process, then how to top up an account with credits (including the two different payment options), the process of finding a document, buying the license and how to download. The option to change general account settings was also detailed, including how to add another user or multiple users to the account.

The video was created using screen casts of specific cursor actions (recorded through CamStudio) and voice recorded prompts that I edited together through iMovie. The finished product was far from professional, but it did the trick. For all outlet queries about the website, Yazeed and I would direct them to the help video to cut down on possible confusion.

The video was launched in the weekly newsletter, and uploaded to the Paperight blog and the help site.