Week 14

It’s crazy to think that this is the last week working with this great team. I have really enjoyed learning from each of our members and seeing everyones different perspectives.

As we were going through our final presentation and mapping out our overall progress it’s been amazing to see how our orginal idea has morphed into something we are proud of.

I have learned the importance of creativity and that there is no limit to it in business. Also building a business requires you to hold back and really find a niche that your customers are having a high pain tollerance for. This takes time and a lot of failed expirements for you to start to get anywhere.

Overall, I have been able to cap of my IBC experience with this class and that “The Coup” isn’t as impossible as one might have thought.

-Ashley

Week 8

It is crazy to think that this semester has almost came to an end. I have learned a lot and look forward to applying it to my future career.

This week I enjoyed the guest speaker in class. I always find it interesting to hear other people’s stories.

As with the Coup. For the past couple of weeks we have hit a dead spot and don’t know where we can move with it. The food laws are taking a lot out of our original value proposition because of this we have started to go to the drawing board again. I don’t think it is worth using a loop hole if it can potentionaly harm someone.

While on my investor interview he offerend up the idea of using resturants leftovers discounted and then split the profits. That way we are safe from food laws and the customers still have a good deal. It will be interesting to see how this works.

 

Week 7

Happy Thanksgiving! This week for Tuesday’s class I really enjoyed the opportunity to have an in depth look at marketing for a start up. The class discussion was really interesting and I enjoyed hearing everyone’s different view points on it. I think the greatest thing I learned from this discussion is that you need to make sure you find a specific target.

This next week I am excited to end out the semester strong and keep validating our business model.

 

Week 6

This week was a great week of getting things done. With the extended amount of group time during class our group was better able to get a grasp of what we need to do to stay strong till the end of the class.

For the rest of the semester we are planning to run tests with the app. We were able to secure a website slot and we can start developing a beta of the app. We then are going to start working with the culinary classes to see if we can get people in to start cooking. One of the main challenges that we are going to have with this app is making sure we are up on code.

This week I talked to Patrick from the Idaho State health department. He was one of the individuals who was in charge of creating the cottage food laws. I was able to talk to him about general food safety regulations and realized that there is going to be a lot that we are going to have to overcome to make sure this app is leagal and that no one gets sick.

After talking to Patrick, I am not comfortable with a discliamer on the front of the app. Food can get people sick and I don’t want to be the in the crossroad of someone breaking the law.

Excited for Thanksgiving and what we will get done next week.

 

Ashley

B383 Week 5

This week we began the process of creating our financial projections. Since switching our business concept the process of actually being able to sit down and project has gotten a whole lot easier.

While sitting in our group meeting this week I gained a better appreciation our team and our different personalities and strengths we bring. Each one of us can look at the same problem and see different pro, cons, problems, and solutions. This has made me want to slow down, listen, and want to make sure everyone has an opportunity to make a difference in the group.

This next week our team is going to work on setting up a website and trying to get people to register to our app. We are hoping that by doing this we will be able to gain enough data to validate some of our assumptions on our Trello account. We are excited to see where this is going to go.

 

B383 Week 4

This week our team made great progress in going through and finally nailing down our ideas for our business. Since the begginning of the class we have gone through 4 ideas. Each of these ideas had their own strengths and weaknesses but ultimately they all came up short because we either did not have the passion to follow through or there was no possible way to make money off of it.

As we sat down to put together our Mid-Term Team presentation the revenue issues became aparent to us caused us to pivot to a complete new realm of thought. The Coup has now become the resistance against fast food and take out. Why enjoy cheap alternatives when someone could make you a homecooked meal? This new idea will make reestablish the socialability and excitement from food. Also it will be a great way for individuals to earn a little extra cash.

With this idea there are a lot of different opstacles to it, but I believe if we can work through them we will be able to create something truely great.

At the end of class Friday I had a great reminder from Sam. We can always sit and do customer interview or we can take a jump in a go for it. In the coming weeks I think we are going to try to put together an video and hopefully post it to Kickstarter. This will be an easy way to see if our idea can truely work.

 

B383 Week 3

This week was very pivotable for our company. Throughout our pass/fail test we recieved a lot of positive feed back from our cusotmers and a lot of insights. Even after talking to these customers I still have a gut feeling that are product still isn’t solving a big enough need for the to opt on.

Thinking back to Nathan’s theory of passion driven marketing I realized that in order for our company to gain the virality that it needs to be successful we need something that people will gravitate to and share about to their friends becuase it is just that good. I do not see people doing this with a budgeting and coupon app. First off, no one likes to budget. It’s like ripping off a band aid. We don’t want to do it, but it must be done. Then theres couponing. Once again people like that idea of saving money, but they really don’t want to put in any work to doing it.

On Thursday, our team sat down and started talking through these problems. It was here I realized that because we weren’t solving a passion/ high level pain our start-up was halted. It wasn’t moving, we couldn’t nail down an exact revenue stream, and we were sort of losing a fire behind the original idea. Cue in the need for a pivot.

From here we starting going through what our customers were telling us and thinking what some pain points were. While we were doing this Ryan mentioned a high pain that he had regarding food and cooking. From here our team kept adding ideas on to develop something that has a clear revenue stream, something we are excited about, and is a passion/high pain for a lot of people. (Due to the lack of security on the web, Brother Crawford you are going to have to wait till Tuesday to know what it is).

I am excited to see where this pivot will take our group. This week has reminded me of IBC and the importance of being willing to make changes and listen to your gut when you know that a dead end is on the horizon.

-Ashley

B383 Week 2

When we first started this app we had in mind that it was going to be a coupon app. Since the beginning of the semester that has completely changed. Through the lessons and customer interviews we have learned that not a lot of people have a burning passion for couponing. Rather they would find it a convience if it was easy, but they are still not sure they would use it even then.

When are team gathered on Tuesday we decided to go back to the drawing board. Ryan showed us a technology that allows us to scan receipts in and create a grocery list with local prices. When talking with potential cusotmers this idea resonated better. Due to the more positive response and the class assignment due on Tuesday we have started create sketches and mock-ups of the app that we are going to start showing potentials to see where else we need to pivot.

For our test this week we are going to take our wireframe around to our customer segment of lazy college students who need to budget due to tight resources. During this test we will show 20 potential customers the app and ask a sample of the following questions.

1. Due you use a current budgeting system?
2. Do you keep your receipts after you go to the store?
3. Do you make a grocery list every week?
4. What would you change with the layout of this app?
5. What color do you think it should be?
6. What other features would you wish this app had?
7. Would you download this app?
8. If yes, would you give us your email?

Our pass/fail scenario will determine on how many emails we end recieving at the end of our sit downs.

With this experiment I hope to find people who will actively engage and honestly tell me what they like and what they don’t.

B383 Week 1

The Coup is making process.

This week we spent time diving in to truly understand what our customers want and if our idea can truly meet their needs. For our assignment we completed 10 customer interviews. These interviews proved to be very insightful and made our team pivot our overall idea to focusing on making it the easiest for the user.

During class on Thursday we were learned about developing customer personas. I really appreciated the feedback we got in class on Thursday about our different customer ideas.This allowed our team to come back together and really figure out whose pains we are trying to solve.

Overall, I was reminded how important it is to go out and talk to people about your idea. What you think will work will most likely never work without spending the time and effort about talking to those who you are going to try to sell to.

Excited to see what I will learn next week.

B250 9/26

This week in B250 the topics of focus were on Demand and Competition and Sourcing the Product. Before coming to class this week, I had no idea or how to use the Google Keyword Planner. After this week though, I understand and can see how beneficial it is for anyone wanting to see how competitive their product will be out in the market and how feasible an idea it will be. I also learned the importance of execution. It doesn’t matter how good the product is, if it is out of your price range or idea it is never going to work. Make sure to focus small and then grow as you see success in the industry or business.

These are my step by step notes on Wholesale Distributor’s:

How to Find a Wholesale Distributor

1. Understand your Industries and distribution channels
   1. Manufactures
   2. Importer/Exclusive Distributor
   3. Wholesale/Regional Distributor
   4. Jobbers
   5. START BY BUYING FROM SMALL WHOLESALERS AT HIGHER PRICES
2. Try the manufactures first
   1. Start at the source of the product that you want to sell.
3. Have a productive first contact with a wholesale supplier
   1. Make sure to not leave out Ebay.
4. Products
   1. Style
      1. Do you like how the product looks?
   2. Quality
      1. How well are the products made?
   3. Price
      1. Is this in your price range?
   4. Warnings about being Scammed

Be careful when buying in bulk, especially with companies like Alibaba. There have been many reports of scams, and bad quality. Make sure to order a sample before committing to purchasing a large quantity from anywhere. Once again be sure to buy small at first in order to make sure you won’t be out enormous amounts of money.