Changing the way you track your impact.

carbon footprint tracking to enable you to live a greener lifestyle on your own terms

to About

Solving a Problem

In today’s world, climate change dominates news headlines daily and scientists consistently publish studies about devastating impact humans are proving to have on our planet. This problem can often seem so huge and insurmountable that people tend to react in one of two ways: commit themselves to a fully green lifestyle (complete with veganism and a brand new Prius), or they withdraw from actively dealing with the situation at all. “greenerYou” presents a personal solution for citizens on all ends of this spectrum to see their own impact and make positive changes—at their own pace.

The app is an outstanding tool for anyone to come to terms with their true carbon footprint and use features like live tracking, personalized feedback, and an educational news hub to embark on their personal journey towards living greener. All of the statistics and feedback for a user's account is based on their input of two general types of carbon footprint factors. First, the user inputs longterm factors like household efficiency, airplane travel, and and general diet. The rest is calculated based on daily lifestyle inputs such as commute, nutrition, waste and recycling, shopping, and laundry. This app combines personalized tracking, thorough graphs and metrics, feedback, and relevant education, to inform the consumer on concrete steps to take towards decreasing their environmental impact.

Leave your social networking for Instagram and Twitter, because greenerYou is simple: it's all about you. We believe living a greener lifestyle only sticks if it is made up of individual intention, so we don’t put you in a competition with your friends on this one. The idea here is if many individuals make these lifestyle decisions for themselves and their planet, focusing on personal growth day by day, the movement will have a wide, long-term impact. We want this to be more than winning more prizes than your friends. greenerYou provides a platform for you to hold yourself accountable for your consumer decisions and understand why this is so important. Our goal is that with enough individuals committing to the app and understanding this mindset, consumer accountability will become the new normal and the Earth will feel the positive effects.

Why Now?

As we know, climate change is a pressing issue in today’s world and the urgency to reduce our collective carbon footprint is ever-increasing. Young people carry the biggest responsibility in changing this narrative so the design and marketing of this app will target them. The app design is modern and trendy, we will focus mostly on marketing through Instagram and Twitter, and we will create an ideological brand to pique millennial and Generation Z's interest in joining an important social movement.

greenerYou also combines three major trends in today’s information market: personalized products, tracking consumer's habits, and digital news content.

Fitness tracking apps like Fitbit and Apple Health, and budgeting apps like Acorn have blown up in the market because they are personalized and hold consumers accountable to certain lifestyle choices they choose to commit to such as exercising more or saving money. Consumers continue to use these types of apps because they have discovered that tracking their goals really works: they're faced with the facts of their actions and forced to hold themselves accountable. GreenerYou would take advantage over this enthusiasm for habit tracking and combine it with push notifications and personal feedback to create an interface that consumers will make a habit of coming back to.

Additionally, greenerYou builds on the trend of personally curated content which has taken over the market. The greenerYou news hub will aggregate news and information specifically for each consumer. Based on information the user has input about their lifestyle and goals, it will present relevant environmental news, sustainable brands they may enjoy, and offsetting strategies that may be useful. This educational platform fits perfectly into the news market today as most consumers prefer getting news aggregated specifically for them rather than filtering it themselves.

Audience

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James, 22, University of Southern California

Hana, 19, University of Wisconsin

Hana and James are college-aged young people who are well-educated, involved, curious, and make intentional life decisions. They do not fit into either the "tree hugger" or "jet setter" stereotypes but rather fall somewhere in the middle: the average environmental citizen. greenerYou hopes to attract a wide audience of generally curious, moderately civic minded young citizens. Like most millennials and Generation Z, the ideal consumer is interested in technological trends, brand awareness, and their own personal impact on the world. greenerYou does not hope to capture only one end of the environmental spectrum, but more anyone in between who is curious and self-aware in these ways.

Because greenerYou aims at a young audience, it will use exclusively social media marketing. It will sponsor ads on Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube made up of short, eye-catching, graphic-heavy promotional videos and quizzes about the app. These ads will focus on clean, trendy designs and a focus on ideological branding--that signing up for greenerYou can make a deeper impact. Emerging companies like Billie: The New Body Brand have used this same method of ideologically driven social media marketing that have been highly effective among the younger generation.

Competitive Advantage

In general, greenerYou's competitive advantage in the environmental technology market lies in its focus on education. With its combination of personal tracking software and curated news, the app performs for consumers who are not experts in environmental happenings and those who are. While a variety of carbon footprint calculators exist in mobile and web formats, they tend to give the user a one-time result and short explanation on tons of carbon used in a way that is not particularly accessible to the user. GreenerYou focuses on a long-term journey towards understanding and consequently improving a user's impact.

The Competitors

Ecoviate

A free app that posts eco-friendly activities and products that will help you reduce your impact on the environment. You earn “eco-points” and can see how you rank among your friends with rewards.

Competitive Advantage

greenerYou focuses on a more personal experience where users get awards for their own gain rather than to win a competition over their friends. Additionally, it gives more customized options for inputting data and getting feedback.

Oroeco

A free app that tracks your daily consumption by connecting to health and budgeting apps and compares it to your friends and neighbors. The app includes a detailed points and badges system and connects with your Facebook friends to share all of your consumption.

Competitive Advantage

greenerYou features a more streamlined interface and is far simpler for users to navigate. Additionally, it maintains a user's privacy since many of their personal apps aren't synced and shared with friends like on Oroeco.

Commute Greener

A free app that gives users tailored suggestions for their daily commute to make it low-emission. The app incorporates a mild competition as users accumulate badges and rewards as they improve.

Competitive Advantage

This app only addresses one facet of a user's environmental impact (commute) whereas greenerYou offers wholistic data input of all factors of a carbon footprint.

to Prototype

Take a look inside the app

Prototype

Business Model

Initial Investment

In addition to my $100,000 in Herndon bucks will get most of my initial investment from a well-managed equity crowd funding campaign through Indiegogo, a popular crowdfunding site which has a specific environmental section and only takes 4% of the funds raised. This funding push will be well advertised through social media marketing and an informative video and will raise around $50,000. Finally, I would raise around $30,000 from friends and family including a couple of relatives who were former business owners themselves.This would result in a total of $180,000 in intial investment.

Expenses

The main expenses my app will have would be the initial app development (and the cost of maintaining it each month) and the extensive digital and digital and social media marketing campaign through Instagram, Facebook and Youtube each month. Additionally, I would employ one expert to run all of these advertising campaigns internally.

Revenue

My app would make money primarily through native advertisements and sponsored partnerships with the sustainable brands featured in greenerYou's news hub. Sustainable clothing, ethical food sources, and environmentally friendly car brands may be some examples of companies who will pay for advertising and sponsorship on the app.

The initial crowdfunding campaign will also raise awareness and attract venture capital investment for my company. Currently, venture capitalist interest in “sustainable investment” is growing immensely and in April a venture capitalist will take interest an invest $100,000. They would invest another $100,000 in August.

Take a look at the advertising sales projection: