theone partner and investor update

to all who support us... the one outlook for 2021

It's now 2021 and every year we're getting closer to our ultimate dream; to connect millions of people every day around the world through video calling to share knowledge.

It wasn't an easy year for many people. Many doors were literally and metaphorically closed and then you have to do with what is still possible. That has disadvantages, but sometimes also advantages.

In January, in conversations with coaches and yoga school holders, among others, we were often carefully laughed at or looked at with incomprehension. Providing services via video calling was a little too modern for them and definitely didn't fit in with their business model.

By now we all know better. Getting coaching, learning something new and for example remote yoga or fitness lessons via video calling or webinars has many advantages. The innovators and early adopters who supported us from the very beginning now suddenly get support from the late majority. As a result due to this year’s leap in the acceptance of the advantages of live video calling, we as TheONE have become part of "the new normal" sooner than expected.

Videocalling as part of the new normal

It has been two and a half years since our platform went online. With great hope and great expectations we started on a journey to adulthood. Our optimistic expectation was that we would outgrow our puberty sooner than any other startup.

Even though our market is rapidly reaching maturity, the maturity of a platform is not easy to impose. A good example of this is Tesla, who currently still suffers from many imperfections. Tesla was founded in 2003 and to this day had problems delivering high standard quality. The majority is ready for electric driving, but Tesla itself is far from ready to deliver a car with the service that the majority demands.

At TheONE this is no different. That's why, in addition to our strategic focus, we've also paid a lot of attention over the past year to how our platform works under the hood. Because without a solid foundation you can expect problems in the future and only build on success with limited means.

on the road to 2021 with theone

We knew from day one that we would be taking a special position in the field of knowledge sharing. But the form in which we do that and how we present the available knowledge should of course never be set in stone. The world is too volatile for that. In the past there were smart people who dared to think years ahead. Nowadays it is difficult to look a few months ahead.

dynamic optimization
2021 will therefore be entirely devoted to dynamically optimizing how we bring supply and demand better into contact with each other. We now have a large and exponentially growing number of organic visitors looking for knowledge. On the other hand, we also have an enormously diverse and exponentially growing supply of professionals who like to share their expertise.

simplify interaction
But the frequency of the interaction between supply and demand can be much higher. We have concrete optimization ideas about this, but the coming months will show which of these will work and which will not. This will be a phase of trial and error. Or as we ourselves believe: months of "Fail fast and learn rapidly".

We see that intercontinental contact is being made and that there is therefore more than a latent need to share and obtain knowledge with no boundaries or origin playing a role in this. You could say that the first steps towards our vision have been taken.

We see that we are slowly being understood and recognized. But there is still a lot of work to be done and there is plenty of room for improvement. Both in the field of platform communication and in the field of simplifying interaction. That is where our focus will be in 2021.

more concretely, this means that we are working on:

Better search and navigation functionality to be able to exactly find what you are looking for

Making our enormous offer more transparent

Better profiling of so-called "hero users"

Making the first moment of contact more accessible, e.g. through a live chat function

In short, we will implement various functional, design and communication improvements that will simplify and intensify the first contact between supply and demand.

what have we been able to
achieve in 2020?

We are pleased that there are more and more professionals and experts from all over the world, who regularly come into contact with our visitors and that visitors find the right professionals. Internationally and via live video. Below are the highlights of 2020 that have contributed to continue this growth and interaction.

key features

easy login
We got feedback that there are a lot of people who would like to learn something, but don't necessarily want to offer something. That's why there is now an optional easy-login where a name and email address is enough to call someone. This allows one to remain anonymous for the rest of the visitors.

free webinar hosting
As part of borderless knowledge sharing, webinar hosting cannot be lacking. It is free and one can interact with 3,000 participants per session.

60 minutes free
The hurdle to call someone directly via live video turns out to be high for some users. Especially since you start paying automatically after the first minute. That's why the experts can now offer up to 60 minutes for free video calling.

blog integrations
Within our domain www.calltheone.com we are now able to easily add other blogs. Wordpress and other sites can be easily integrated under [blog name].calltheone.com and can thus benefit from our Domain Authority and Page Authority.

most important (technical) improvements

reporting
As a user, you hardly notice it, but in order for the platform to grow in the right direction, reports are fundamental. This allows us to better monitor what works and what may need adjusting.

site speed:
Google wants to show fast sites in the top ten of their search results. That is why we have improved the speed of our site by more than 80%. The result is more and more pages that rank among the top 3 worldwide.

key initiatives

wefunder
Because we are also based in the US, it was possible to do a crowdfunding campaign via the US platform WeFunder. This way we wanted to get on the radar of future American investors.

affiliate marketing
Through so-called affiliate networks, affiliates can promote TheONE and get a commission if they sell a subscription. That's why we developed a subscription for heavy users of our webinar functionality.

high quality bloggers
Our main growth strategy is based on our SEO strategy. This means that we have to post high quality content on a regular basis. Meanwhile five bloggers have been trained to deliver this quality for free and thus contributing to their and our exponential organic growth.

In addition, we have started a collaboration with a college in the Netherlands which provides us with a variety of articles that we can use after minor adjustments.

most important growth figures

195% 195% organic growth in visitors compared to 2019. And this continues to increase exponentially, so we expect a 400% or more growth in 2021.

188% 188% of community growth compared to 2019. In 2019, around 20% of all users registered thorugh paid advertisements. We didn't advertise this year. That shows that the community is growing exponentially on the basis of the organically acquired visitors. Our SEO strategy is starting to pay off.

12% 12% increase in conversion Meanwhile, 0.59% of all visitors sign up. In 2019 this was 0.53%, including targeted online ads.

-4.2% 4.2% decrease in number of unsubscriptions compared to 2019. On average, this percentage is around 11% for similar platforms. TheONE is now at 7.2%.

+34 34 additional countries where we are active. Thanks to this growth, people from 137 countries now offer their expertise.

8000%+ more than 8000% increase in sales. Let's be honest, though. Rising from almost nothing to something is not so difficult. In total, sales are not yet significant and we are far from being break even, which is ultimately what it's all about.

what turned out differently than expected in 2020?

Webinars: Just after the outbreak of Covid-19 we were able to put our webinar functionality live mid April 2020. This was an essential part of our strategy to complement live video calling, because webinars are very suitable for sharing knowledge. Expectations were high due to a number of unique features such as:

Within 3 simple steps everyone can easily create a free webinar
Webinars are shared within our community
Webinars are available on the user's profile (instead of sharing a link each time).

We suspect that due to the sudden rise of, among others, Zoom and Microsoft Teams, there is at the moment a lack of interest or desire for another platform. Even when it’s free and better. We are considering what we can do with this.

Affiliate marketing: We had great hopes to sell our webinar functionality at an affordable price through affiliate marketing. When after six weeks no subscription had been sold, we decided to offer webinar hosting for free.

B2B partnerships: Our first partner that let us integrate our platform into their platform is active in the sports and fitness industry. Because of Covid-19, the rollout of their platform was severely delayed. Because this should have been our primary showcase, we are waiting until 2021 to actively promote this again.

Crowdfunding: Perhaps the biggest set-back of 2020 was the failed crowdfunding campaign on WeFunder. Prior to the campaign, we had more than 100,000 Euros in pledges with which we could kick things off. A few days before live-course we wanted to capitalizr these pledges, but because of Covid-19 and the fear of the economic consequences, more than 80% of these pledges evaporated. This contributed to a failed introduction on the WeFunder platform, where we were not promoted to potential other investors within the platform due lack of initial backing.

theone strategy 2021

Our growth figures are nice to have and small successes should be celebrated, but everyone who has been involved with us in recent years would have hoped for something way bigger. In other words, turnover and margin with which we can sustain ourselves, expand rapidly by investing and ensure continuity.

We have not yet been able to live up to this expectation when it comes to turnover and explosive growth. What we have been able to achieve is that we can guarantee our continuity despite the lack of tremendous success. We have the means and resources to continue to innovate and grow. Although at a slightly slower pace than previously thought, we have faith in commercial and social success in the near future.
in 2021 there will be four pillars in the direction of success.

interface & interaction

More than 1,500 unique visitors a day find our platform via search engines in 137 countries. Thanks to the more than 600 articles in five languages and almost 10.000 other posts in various languages that we now offer. These visitors come with a specific demand for knowledge. This is in addition to the thousands of visitors a day who visit our platform because they read something on social media or a partner site.

6.000 high quality professionals from these 137 countries offer their knowledge via live video calling. So 24/7 there is someone online who can answer your question directly, teach you, coach or train you.

Research shows that applicants find it too difficult to find the right professional at TheONE. A completely new interface and search algorithm will change this in the course of Q2 2021. The following will change:

Clustering the most popular groups of service providers
Simplification of the menu
Smarter search functionality
Banners in and around articles to match supply and demand

content & seo

Our content strategy appears to work and remains unchanged. The intensification of high quality bloggers will continue and there will be more partnerships with colleges and universities.

The goal is to host more than 500+ extra high quality blogs by the end of 2021, which can increase our organic traffic by more than 400%.

innovation by thinking out of the box

We started by telling you that in these times you can't really look more than six months ahead. We don't know where the impact will be that it will make a real change. What we do know is that we are an important part of international knowledge sharing. For rich and poor, educated or uneducated, and religious or non-religious. Unity and equality among people is achieved by sharing and absorbing knowledge.

How we seduce people to do so is the question. It is even the question whether people should be seduced. We will continue to experiment with that. In our belief the most important component of success is already there. Sufficient supply and demand. And our platform facilitating this comes slowly into adulthood. Time will have to tell which innovation we will and must use to bring the two closer together.

We have the platform technology, the will, the perseverance and the creativity to adapt to what is needed to contribute to a more beautiful world. A world where everyone can contribute to the knowledge and happiness of another through technological innovation.

We are open to support and ideas that will help us achieve our dream. So don't hesitate to call us at TheONE and you can also just mail us at innovation@calltheone.com.

investors

Our growth figures show that we are scalable in all areas. The more promotion we make, the more visitors, the more registrations and the more commercial interaction. We have also been able to show that we are able to develop, innovate, control costs and keep our team together on our own. These are, beside our vision, strategy and business model, key criteria for many investors.

In order to boost the leap towards immense social and commercial success in a relatively short period of time and become a world-class player, the capital requirements are relatively high. As a result, we are fishing in a pond where only a few investors are interested or able to sufficiently fund us.

In spite of that, we will not give up the search and hope to enter into a partnership with an investment company by the end of 2021.

In conclusion
Thank you for your support and contribution to our success. Together we make the world a little more future friendly.

Ben Steentra
Co-founder of TheONE

Read the previous Partner & Investor updates
Jan' 19 Jan' 20