AppBajar

AppBajar is a unique local, clean digital content marketplace platform with multilingual C2C marketplace of Digital contents like Android mobile applications, Ebook, Music with ambition to support growing mobile app developers to realize their dream to serve end users and monetize the digital contents from local market.

AppBajar promotes the concept of PAID Android applications/media/Ebook to enhance the IT experience of local market using the local payment system and language. Content seller/Developer gets the payments in their registered  bank account monthly. The Prices of paid digital contents start from the minimum local unit. AppBajar works to ensure the slogan - Value the creativity.

People will be able to create an account easily into AppBajar, sell their content using their local currency, hence employment opportunity will be increased. Creative workers will get their work value easily, hence social and economical growth will be enhanced. 

What is the scale of the problem in the communities you are working in, and in Bangladesh broadly?

• People like to get digital contents which follow their own culture/language.

• Digital contents price is higher in international marketplaces. 

• It’s hard for people to create an account/ purchase digital contents using international currencies from Bangladesh and few other countries.
  

• Hard to remember the email based registration where the phone number is easily rememberable.

• In Bangladesh, there’s no actual perfect functioning platform to sell music and ebooks thought it's a big market with millions potential customers. 

• There are several countries like China where Google play service is banned, so people can’t use Google play.

• No Strong Ad network in Bangladesh and Bangladesh is losing more than 1200 CRORE BDT per year by using global platform to serve ads though target customers are local. 
  
  

  More than 140 million people, out of Bangladesh's population of 160 million, use mobile phones while around 80 million people access the internet, say the telecom regulators. Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission or BTRC .
  
  Presently about 35% of the mobile handset users use smart phones. This is increase to 60% within 2020 considering the existing trend and the launch of 4G in 2019.

1. → Google is in a challenging situation in Bangladesh given Government is eyeing on enforcing TAX for the revenue earned through advertising from Bangladesh market. Also there are prevailing remittance related TAX issues for paying to foreign entities which will also be a factor. Therefore, it is more likely that Google will not open up local payments for bangladesh consumers through local payment sources (direct operator billing through mobile operators, bkash etc) until these tax issues are resolved.

   → If we look at the popular app stores like google play, opera mobile store, symphony store, samsung’s S-store everywhere it's free for developers to upload apps while the monetization for platform comes from the usage growth and customers interaction and transactions. Being a marketplace, app-stores keep a margin for each transactions happened through the apps. Also, given usage of AppBajar SDK, AppBajar can mine usage data from all its apps which will help build analytics driven revenue sources in coming years through big data, AI and contextual targeting for effective advertising etc.

AppBajar is consist of a website with the address https://appbajar.com and a native android app to serve the necessary services to the end users.

The end users/merchants can upload their digital content through the website and subscribers use the android app or website to buy those contents using their local currency. 

We recently introduced the mobile balance based purchase offer along with the largest telecom provider - Grameenphone. It's a unique solution to provide easy purchase option. 

AppBajar has a networking tool as well to upload training contents, Linkedin like job portal and few other facilities. 

We are hosting our website into Amazon AWS. 

AppBajar has a facebook page (https://web.facebook.com/appbajar) with 72,000 followers and a group named AppBajarian (https://web.facebook.com/groups/462542570578918/) and AppBajar team is providing various learning tools for its subscribers. 

Here are the few unique features which we are offering now:

• Free digital content upload, paid content download/use.

• Local Payment system using local currency and language.

• Own wallet system for recharge worldwide. It allows all kind of debit credit cards, internet banking, mobile banking.

• Portfolio development for career.

• Introducing AppBajarian ( Social micro-networking features, combination of Linkedin+Twitter )

• Phone number based registration to bypass email address based complex registration.

• No dependency of Google play services to ensure the access from more android devices globally like China, Myanmar etc.

• DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology to ensure the copyright and privacy of digital contents.

• Mobile operators promote such app store to habituate their users to use more apps and use their own billing only, which is very limited monetization option to attract local developers. At the same time, revenue share payout by the mobiler operators of bangladesh are not favorable (20 - 30% for developers) for developers in compare to global standard (in Android Google Play and Apple App store, developers receive 70% of end user price as revenue share from Google and Apple). Therefore, our strategy is to offer developers maximum monetization opportunity by allowing customers most available source of funds.

  → ICT division of Government of Bangladesh has a prime focus on human capital development under the digital bangladesh ambition of current government by 2021. As part of the plan, Government will support training for thousands of new developers on android apps. Many of these developers will come up with their own apps and primarily target bangladesh market to monetize. Government has not yet come up with an appstore for hosting these upcoming apps and since AppBajar is already a recognized platform, we will try to get engaged with Government to endorse

  it as national app-store, which will give us a huge mileage and standalone sustainable future for this platform’s growth. We can then be able to have strategic alliance with A2I and other government institutes so that we can use 5000+ Union Digital Centers as activation, distribution and training point for mass users in rural to get Appbajar on their phone.

• 1. the current number of people you’re serving 
  
  >> 14,000 registered users

• 2. the number you’ll be serving in one year
  
  >> 1 Million 

• 3. the number you’ll be serving in five years

      >> 10 Millions or more.

Increase Sales and Revenue from the platform and monetize own apps

• Commercialise appbajar with mobile payments enablement
• Explore tie-up with Device vendors for pre-loading appbajar app in local market apps.
• Localize trending apps in market to monetize through ads and other revenue models.
  
  

  
  

  1. There are several areas for R&D which is pending for investment. Following are the key R&D segment at the moment:

     → Intelligent Data Mining Platform with AI capabilities → Multi-level Smart Advertisement distribution module → Cloud Management and Optimization for user experience → Growth Management Capabilities including network, infrastructure and software solutions

     In order to run these R&Ds, also we will need to invest in dedicated resource, separated from operational resource. These R&Ds may also result certain patents, which will also help us build credibility, reputation and further monetization. 

• The team needs several expert developers for backend, frond-end in Android and iOS platforms as well as designers for creating user interfaces through UI/UX journey mapping. Each Project should ideally have a dedicated cross functional squad of mix competences while for R&D there should be resources not involved in operational projects. Senior developers in the team contribute for training the new developers to get used to with the standard frameworks we use and code standards to maintain uniformity of coding. Number of resources can be planned based on  project demand, investment and business strategy. 

• Lack of 3G/high speed internet at villages. 

• Lack of Easy payment system. Mobile balance would be standard for those sort of product/E-commerce.

• Less education and technical knowledge of target user.

• Lack of significant fund to expand marketing promotions to reach end users.

1. For AppBajar we have used a social feature, which will help us have social marketing through developers, which we think as most effective towards the developer community. We currently don’t have a plan to target end user for marketing AppBajar, while we want to have 10K+ apps on the marketplace first through organic growth. For brand building we have plan to participate various events to network with potential developers and ecosystem partners.

   For creating a direct user base, we will use paid SMS marketing and online advertising of various apps (including our own) that we see potential in the market. At the same time, we will need to find a way to engage with device vendors and browser companies (ex. UC browser) to enable discovery and pre-loading of Appbajar client in smartphones.

   We will emphasize on building an influential relationship with the policy makers through startup bangladesh to position our branding to attain benefits from endorsement from Government in local and international forums. We would like to partner with Union Digital Center initiative of Government, so that we can use the centers in union level to actively use and promote Appbajar to end users to get maximum benefit from local apps from a local appstore that directly contribute in the country’s economy. 

Total 10

FUll Time: 6

Part time: 4

CEO Shafiul Alam Biplob (10 Y. Exp)

Business Advisor Sanat Pal Chowdhury (13 Y. Exp)

CTO Mahmudul Hasan Swapon (10 Y. Exp)

IOS Lead and Support Hemal Khan (8 Y. Exp)

Finance Admin Riaz Sikdar (7 Y. Exp)

Admin and Marketing ASM Salauddin (7 Y. Exp)

Head of Creative Dept Aninda Mintu (13 Y. Exp) 

Lead Web Developer Mamun Haque (10 Y. Exp)

• Advanced Apps Bangladesh (AAPBD, http://aapbd.com) is a mobile app development company. 

• Team members: 10.

• AAPBD developed more than 400 native apps on Android and iOS platform since 2012 for global clients where 90% were from the USA.

• AAPBD received several local & international awards like Basis Startup award 2015, Basis freelancing award 2013, Daffodil freelancing award 2015, mBillionth 2016 etc.
  MD Shafiul Alam Biplob 
  

  
  Computer science and Engineering from Shahjalal University of Science and technology (2003 - 2009)

  Android Engineer

  Former Founder and CEO of Droid Bangladesh Limited (2010-2012)

  Founder and CEO of Advanced Apps Bangladesh Limited (2013-running)

  Visionary AppBajar idea.

  Admin of Android Developers of Bangladesh facebook group.

  Active member of BASIS and BDOSN
  
  

•  Sanat Pal Chowdhury 
  

• Computer science and Engineering from Shahjalal University of Science and technology (1998 - 2004) 
• Software Engineer Grameenphone, September 2006 to February 2014 · Dhaka, Bangladesh 
• June 2012 to Jan 2014: Product, Commercial 
• April 2009 to June 2012: Internet & Broadband, Commercial 
• September 2006 to April 2009:Innovations, Marketing Telenor Myanmar VP, Head of Digital Service & Partnerships · 
• December 2013 to June 30, 2017 · Yangon Grameenphone July 2017 to present
• Business Advisor, AppBajar

Partnerships with other companies:

1. SSL Commerze for banking payment solution 

2. bKash for Mobile payment solution 

3. Grameenphone for Data connection and Mobile balance recharge.

4. Amazon AWS to use their server tools under FREE CREDITS as a part of Startup Bangladesh Project

5. Winner member of Startup Bangladesh (iDEA Project, http://startupbangladesh.gov.bd) 

Here's the Business model canvas.

Business Model Canvas

1. Product variation.

   → B2B Products 

   → Social networking services. 

2. → B2C Products 

3.  → Marketplace 

4.  → Content Services 

5.  → Digital wallet / Payment system service. 

6. → Ad network.

AppBajar requires 20 CRORE BDT (2.5 M USD) to make a sustainable business. 

Full Financial projection can be found at the following link

AppBajar Financial Projection for the next 3 years.

MIT Solve is global platform where emerging and innovative ideas flourished and get touch with the light. We really  believe that if some one win this challenge then that initiatives will get introduced and seriously taken by all other agencies. 

We need the finance access and mentorship support to make the following key-points true. 

Increase Sales and Revenue from the platform and monetize own apps

• Commercialize appbajar with mobile payments enablement.

• Explore tie-up with Device vendors for preloading appbajar app in local market apps.

• Localize trending apps in market to monetize through ads and other revenue models.

Invest in R&D for future Revenue Streams 

• SDK development for developers for data mining to provide relevant ads.

• Develop Ad-engine and use data mining for transforming appbajar to digital ad-distribution network

Enablement platform for making it easy for future developer to develop and deploy apps from concepts to reality using the appbajar platform.  

https://stripe.com/: to get listed as INC company and add their payment network into AppBajar to make it fully Global. 

Amazon AWS: To use their server, storage, Big data tools and Amazon SES Services.