1. Lighted Bridges, Inc. is a software company focused on providing cultural /foreign language software geared toward two distinct but related markets - the business traveler and the tourist.

 
2. Lighted Bridges, Inc.’s first package will focus on the business traveler. This software will offer the business traveler a virtual reality (VR) immersion into the culture and foreign language of a given region of the world. The VR immersion will be in the form of interactive business situations (i.e. meeting in office, dining with clients, etc.).

 
3. Lighted Bridges, Inc.’s second package will focus on the tourist. Like the software for the business traveler, this software will offer the tourist a VR immersion into the culture and foreign language of a given region of the world. The VR immersion will be in the form of a interactive cartoon where the user will receive a "pre-tour" of a foreign country or some region of the world.

 
4. Lighted Bridges, Inc. will be entering an existing market as a new competitor. The company will differentiate its products by offering greater functionality than its competitors.

 
5. Our mission is to create virtual learning environments.

 
6. Our vision is to help our customers to become excellent communicators with anyone and anywhere on Earth.

 
7. Our goal is to create interactive, virtual reality software that aids the user in effectively and easily communicating in a foreign language and understanding the idiosyncrasies of a given culture.

1. The packaged personal computer software market in the United States is estimated at nearly $30 billion – of this, $24 billion is business software, $5 billion is home use products and $1 billion is software designed for schools.

 
2. The annual growth rate for the software industry is estimated to be about 12% per year.

 
3. The growth rate of the software industry is dependent on and proportional to that of the hardware industry.

 
4. Market data on the foreign language and cultural software market is available from Software Information Industry Association (SIIA), but is very expensive, so it was not obtained.

Source: Dataquest, a Gartner Group company

1. Lighted Bridges, Inc. will differentiate itself from its competitors by offering highly interactive software that immerses the user. In addition, aggressive marketing will also take place.

Our initial strategy will focus on a differentiated product with a narrow range. This is mainly due to the additional helpful features that we are looking to provide with our products. There maybe similar (although not exactly the same) products in the market, but our product will offer extra "value" to the customer in the form of several additional features. As we start getting a grip on the market and brand name establishment, we will diversify our product range. We predict that we should be able to extend our market capabilities to a broader range by the second or third quarter of 2003. The product development for this range will start as soon as our initial products are launched in the market, hence enabling us to meet our targets. From this point on, we expect to shift our strategy from narrow to broad, still offering a differentiated product. Also, if by then there is too much competition in the market and it is flooded with similar products, we will look to offer our products at a lower cost then our competitors, thus capitalizing on our experience and brand name and their inexperience.

The virtual reality market is looking up and is projected to be more than a $1 billion market by the end of the year 2000 (refer to graph on previous page). The economies of scale for new entrants are not too high, but it will be very tough for new entrants to battle the existing stalwarts by 2001. Bargaining power of suppliers will not really make an effect, as there are many such suppliers in the market. The bargaining power of customers, though, will play a major force in determining corporate strategy in about 3-4 years time. This is the primary reason for us already focusing on two different future corporate strategies. In summary, we predict that the bargaining power of suppliers and rivalry amongst existing businesses will determine who’s who in the virtual reality market.

Download full business plan
Competition Matrix