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09 Jan 2023 - 15 Jan 2023
Finals are fast approaching, that means our final pitch is just around the corner. Our components for final pitch is still aren’t polished. There are still some parts in our idea that we haven’t finalized or talked about. Again, the realization kicks in like how back-breaking managing a startup is. Going through all of these makes me appreciate those daring leaders and founders of startups that managed to navigate their way through rocky seas and waves. Sincerely, this is not an easy job. It requires big ideas and strong motivation to withstand.
The team is still currently testing out channels for our traction. In my opinion, this is the hardest part. I mean, it’s literally bringing out an idea to life. Everything that requires birthing to life requires a huge amount of effort, which reminds me of a quote from Hermann Hesse: “The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world.” Somehow, I see resemblances of the bird fighting its way out of the egg with startups. Stepping out of the comfort zone (staying stuck with ideas) is risky, but it helps you to grow. Was I able to fight my way out of the egg?
Having the opportunity to experience what it felt like to create a startup opened my eyes to several things. The topmost of that is how important it is having a strong backbone and support system, aka having a reliable team. Dapat gyud diay same mo ug frequency level, or kung dili, at least man lang gaka-complement ang inyong strengths and weaknesses with each other. If sa uban projects okay lang nga bahala’g dili ko makadepend nimo basta mabuhat ang project okay na, sa startups dili. Everyone in the team should be functional. Dapat naa’y macontribute. Dako na kaayo nga responsibilidad ang pagcreate ug startup, maong dapat responsible and willing ang tanan to contribute for their parts. Luckily, I’m grateful my team has each other’s back. Although I must admit we haven’t completely complemented each of our differences, still we managed to get through it.
Another thing, as someone who grew up with parents who are always venturing out on starting up businesses, it is also one of my wildest dreams to be able to establish one of my own (bisan tapulan ko ug dali ma-overwhelm, negosyante mindset gihapon). A business that’s unique, or at least something sustainable and high-earning. Thus, learning all of the lessons taught since week 1 greatly helped me mold and prepare my mind on what’s about to come if I choose the entrepreneurial life. I am a very “what-if” person, pero ani na subject makatuon gyud ka’g “Got an idea? Act it, and get it done”. One’s motivation, choices and decisions are very vital in the business world. Dili pwede ang “okay na”. Think outside the box!
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04 Jan 2023 - 08 Jan 2023
Finalizing our prototype as well as showing and demonstrating it to our potential customers/clients. While demonstrating the prototype, it seems that the clients are interested in it. Their common feedback was that the flow was okay, dili ra kaayo libog ug masabtan ra nila pag gamit, and they have no problem with it or whatsoever. One customer even asked us: “Unsa inyong paagi para ma-advertise ni ang app?” I think that signifies a major leap in our idea because that means they are interested in it. We also had to explain nga prototype sa lang to, dili pa final product because I think they were impressed with how real and executable the prototype looked like.
Having to witness impressed feedback from customers like this makes the tedious process of establishing startups seem bearable.
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05 Dec 2022 - 15 Dec 2022
Maybe I’m not an entrepreneur kind of person.
Or maybe I am but am just too lazy to be.
Starting a startup requires so much energy and so much passion in order for it to push through. I really thought that it was just idea-launch-finish. I was wrong, of course. A startup needs lots and lots and lots of market research, and understanding the trends, and data analyzation, and for starters like me… it’s overwhelming. Or is it, for now?
For an update, the team had decided that for our revenue stream, we would have 3% of every successful transaction from the sellers. We are also thinking about having advertising as a revenue in our startup idea. The more, the merrier right? But we’re still deciding on that matter. We’re focusing yet on commission/transaction fees.
Now if our calculations are correct (or at least, in the right track), our expected market size (TAM, SAM, SOM) would be:
TAM:
73M (There are 73M active internet users/e-commerce users in the Philippines, source: ITA)
SAM:
73M * 25% (There are 25% of users who buy groceries online, source: statista) = 18,250,000
SOM:
18,250,000 * 10% (We believe we can win 10% of SAM) = 1,825,000
Amazing? Amazing!! Calculating all of these made me realize how big a responsibility it is for creating and managing a startup. It’s so scary to fail, especially that you have gone through so much effort to build it all from scratch. But then, if we never fail, how would we ever learn?
A quote from Miss Marika’s lecture:
“But my hope was that when I failed, if I failed, I’d fail quickly, so I’d have enough time, enough years, to implement all the hard-won lessons. I wasn’t much for setting goals, but this goal kept flashing through my mind every day, until it became my internal chant: Fail fast.” –Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
Well, maybe I am an entrepreneur kind of person.
Maybe I just needed more time to learn.
.
.
References:
Adobomagazine - https://www.adobomagazine.com/philippine-news/insight-online-groceries-in-the-philippines-are-soaring-and-market-items-are-the-cheapest-in-sea-iprice/
ITA - https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/philippines-ecommerce
Statista - https://www.statista.com/statistics/1125430/philippines-e-commerce-activities-internet-users/?fbclid=IwAR1ETHNBP7UK9LfjhUrUNl7Bap4QxIgRof3W1DLzYtZJiq2c1u0HrmrtNPM
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28 Nov 2022 - 04 Dec 2022
We’ve started out the design (UI/UX) of our proposed idea. Since I have a bit of knowledge in using Figma, it is my task to design the UI/UX. Thoughts regarding the designing: it’s not easy. I really thought I could finish the whole design in just one day or less. The procedure was very time-consuming, and needs a lot of empathy and creative perspective. The first day was all about researching and brainstorming and looking up for inspiration or ideas to kickstart the designing. Again, it’s not easy. Especially that we need to consider how the users would be able to use our app smoothly.
Also, the team were having trouble with the user flow at first, which was also a hindrance with the design of the UI/UX. I didn’t know where to start the design. However, we managed to get it done, so after that we were able to design smoothly because we had a guide.
User Flow:
It was a mix of emotions while designing the prototype. Aside from it not being easy (I mean the technicalities of designing such as making sure the design is in cohesion or the alignments of the elements), I also have to make sure that it looks like a “running” application in order for our potential customers to be able to grasp our idea.
So far, after developing the prototype and testing it out to someone I knew, they regarded it as an impressive job and the flow was just understandable and not confusing.
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Nov 7, 2022 - Nov 13, 2022
The idea we focused on this week is Vegetal Market. This time, we made some changes with the idea. We crafted a new hypothesis, which is that the consumers (specifically those people who are too busy–or too old–to buy vegetables and fruits, and people who find it unsafe to buy in public markets, but still would opt to find more cheaper and convenient option to buy fresh vegetables and fruits) needed a platform where they could discover retailers they could easily order their vegetables and fruits from.
We primarily sought out to interview consumers that belong to the earlier explained category. Upon interview, we figured out that our hypothesis is correct. There is a similar response by our interviewed consumers, where they explained their wishes that they could order vegetables and fruits seamlessly without having to go out and waste time experiencing traffic or risk their safety. While doing the interviews with the consumers, I also share the same sentiment because when the pandemic struck, our way of buying groceries (specifically ordering vegetables, fruits, and cold meat) was to contact someone in the market and have it delivered to our doorstep. This was because we don’t want to risk going out and contract COVID-19 (especially that there are elderlies inside our home), and also there are times when the household is too busy doing chores that we don’t have time to go out and buy in the market. After the interviews with the consumers, we then interviewed the bulk retailers.
Also, at first, we thought that the supplier where the consumers would buy their orders would be the bulk retailers because they have more time to entertain them online, but upon going to Bulua Market and interviewing some vendors there, we figured out that they won’t be able to accept orders with minimum orders (below 5 kg) because “malugi sila”. The common response when we asked them if were they willing to entertain customers “nga ginagmay lang ang ginapalit” is that they wouldn’t be able to entertain them because “binulto ilang pagpamaligya didto” (“Wholesale man mi dani, kung mangita mo ug kanang mga ginagmay, didto mo sa mga naa sa Cogon o Carmen”). Thus after finding out the similar responses from the bulk retailers, the team decided to test our hypothesis to retailers that are found in Cogon and Carmen public markets.
During our interview with the retailers in Carmen Public Market, our hypothesis was validated by the retailers. We found out that there are times they experience that “mingaw ug walay gapamalit sa ilang tinda” in almost every week (they did not specify what day it was because “dili man mapredict kung unsa nga adlaw, basta kay by week naa jud adlaw nga mingaw kaayo ug walay gapamalit”. Additionally, we figured out that they also have a problem with the vendors at the sidewalk because “dili na gasulod dire ang mga customers, tas kami gabayad mi dani sa among pwesto pero gamay kaayo among halin”. We also asked them if were they willing to use an app similar to shopee where they could sell and extend their products to consumers, in which they replied “yes”, as long as “mabaligya lang gyud ilang mga gulay ug prutas”.
After the interviews that we did, the team finally decided that our target customers would be retailers and consumers. I think I am more confident with this idea.
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Oct 24, 2022 - Oct 30, 2022
This week, we interviewed a total of 18 individuals for AIttendance and Vegetal Market. Also this week, we finally decided to drop the Bionic Reading Application because we were having trouble finding potential customers with the idea. It’s better to focus on the other two ideas.
For AIttendance, it was like a breath of fresh air because majority that we interviewed had expressed that they found attendance-checking time-consuming. Since they are still under DepEd, most of them also had strategies used to check their students’ attendance, however one thing we found out during the interview is the constant mention of SF2 form.
“Beneficial gyud kaayo if automated ang attendance-checking plus muconvert dayon ug SF2 Form para sa amo.”
“Is it possible ba nga automated attendance-checking plus SF2 report after?”
Thus we noticed that the automated attendance-checking plus the auto-generation of the SF2 report was a leverage from the strategies the teachers use, because they might be using these strategies but would it auto-generate SF2 report for them? The result of this week’s series of interviews felt like a breakthrough.
We also conducted interviews for Vegetal Market, and this time, we went to Bulua Public Market, or what they call “Bagsakan”. These interviews are about the suppliers. It was a helluva kind of interview (and somewhat an adventure).
The first interviewee expressed that it was nice to have a platform where they could post their products especially that sometimes, they have trouble selling their products. Maghulat pa daw sila hangtud mahaponan didto, tas imake sure gyud nila na mahurot gyud nila ilang gibaligya.
Also, we made a mistake during the interviews because we’ve mentioned about the product solution instead of focusing on their problem. That’s why I noticed that majority of the suppliers we interviewed would just nod in agreement (feeling nako polite lang sila nag agree) and wala na kaayo’y ma-ingon the moment we’ve mentioned about the product solution (Vegetal Market). For instance, naa gyud to amo na-interview nga the moment nag mention akong kauban about sa Vegetal Market, ang iyang expression kay sarcastic kaayo. “Ay diay?”, “Mao ba kaha?”, “Ah sige” ingana iyang mga tinubagan. Feeling nako gatuo si ante nga mga scammer mi, mao basin ingato na dayon iyang tinubagan haha chour.
We also interviewed a supplier nga pinasingka mutubag. Upon asking asa pa siya lain gabagsak, nitubag siya ug “Diri ra lagi!” huhu, however she did express that it was a good idea to have that application “para dili nami mag sininggita dire mangita ug customer nga mupalit”. Also she added that she knew someone who utilized social media to garner customers to buy their paninda.
There’s still an ounce of doubt in me regarding on Vegetal Market. This time, I think it was because of the potential customers that we are aiming for, and also the questions that we were asking about them. I believe that the questions we were asking were more about whether the product solution was beneficial for them rather than asking about what was the problem they were facing and what solutions they tried just to ease the problem/pain. Also, after the interview, I doubted the viability of the product solution because I wasn’t assured that it was really a problem for them (both suppliers and resellers). I felt like it was just “nice to have” for them again. Moreover, I really don’t think that these suppliers and resellers should be our potential customers in this app, because if I was to put myself in the shoes of a reseller, I would rather go to Bagsakan just to make sure I am getting the best products to sell. Sure, it saves me time and money to buy through the app, but how am I able to be assured that the products that will be delivered to me are in good condition, and will be delivered to me right in time before I open my stall in the market to sell? As someone who is about to develop the app, I have a hard time answering that question. That’s why doubt sprouts in my gut like an unstoppable weed.
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Oct 17, 2022 - Oct 23, 2022
This week, we interviewed a total of 21 people for the AI attendance monitoring system and the new idea that we’ve come up with which is the Vegetal Market.
For the AI attendance monitoring system, I’ve interviewed 5 teachers in MOGCHS. It was a solo-flight interview because two of my team had other important personal tasks to do, while the other was late to arrive. We were scheduled to interview the teachers by 11:30 AM, and failing to arrive there before or on 11:30 AM would mean we wouldn’t be able to have another chance to interview the teachers again. Nevertheless, the interviews were recorded (as per consent) thus the team will be able to review the records for their own insights.
To summarize the interview with the teachers (these teachers are SHS TVL teachers), the majority had expressed that they really don’t have a problem with the attendance-checking since they’ve already used different strategies to check the attendance of their students. It seemed that most of them were already used to their strategies, and they’ve already found it effective. To quote the first teacher I interviewed: “I would rather use my old strategies that are already effective for me rather than buy a technology” (ouch sakit ma’am huhu). This kind of response was echoed through each of the teachers I interviewed, however one teacher asked me if we would build a technology that includes the auto-generation of SF2 report. I didn��t know what SF2 report was. Never heard of it yet, so I was reluctant to answer, but I kept it in mind. Maybe to add it as a feature (if ever the idea would be pushed through).
However to be honest, during the interview, I felt a little hopeless due to the responses. The main hypothesis was that attendance-checking (especially the manual method) is time-consuming. The teachers I’ve interviewed did agree that it is time-consuming especially if there are a lot of students inside the classroom, however they already have strategies that are effective for them (i.e, class beadle or seat plan), so that has alleviated their pain already. Additionally, they were skeptical about the technology because 1) if it needs internet connection, 2) the privacy of students, and 3) if it is truly convenient for them. For instance, one teacher expressed that if it is used by technology and she would have to download it through her phone, then it meant she would have to scan her students one by one by using her phone. For her, that was more inconvenient and she would rather use her technique of checking the attendance rather than our technology. To be honest, her answer made sense, but it felt like a salt in the wound type of response. After the interview, on the ride home, there’s nothing else better than to get drenched in the rain (aka the scene in the sad movies). Would we still pursue this or not? But we were still scheduled to interview other teachers from my mom’s school. There’s so much to look forward to.
Nevertheless, the inputs/responses of the teachers I interviewed meant a lot, even though the majority had expressed that the attendance-checking wasn’t a problem to them anymore.
The next interview we did were the interviews for Vegetal Market. We interviewed the vendors in Cogon Public Market. To be honest, while doing interviews I really don’t know what was going on. I let my team take over this one because I was not feeling well and I wasn’t able to truly understand the scope of this new idea they’ve managed to come up with. This week was really rough with our team, especially because I already told them what happened during the interviews for the first idea.
To explain it, the idea with Vegetal Market was that it was for Suppliers and Resellers. The hypothesis is that Resellers have a problem with finding and contacting suppliers for the products they are selling (i.e vegetables and fruits), thus the solution is to provide an application (similar like shopee and lazada) where they can browse and contact the suppliers to supply their products. However, upon interviewing with the resellers, we’ve figured out that the majority of the resellers go to Bagsakan to buy for their supplies. I also noticed that they were skeptical with the idea of having a shopee-like platform where they can contact their suppliers because 1) they are too busy to use smartphones daw, and 2) they wouldn’t be able to choose whether the product they were ordering is in good quality or not. Although majority had expressed that it was a good idea to have a platform where they could contact their suppliers online, I really think that our solution was just “good to have” for them, but not something they truly desire. Something in my gut was telling me that the idea needs a little revision, but I couldn’t point out exactly what needs to be revised.
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Oct 10, 2022 - Oct 16, 2022
This week, we interviewed a total of 10 potential customers for our different proposed ideas. Majority of the interviews are for idea 2 and 3, but we sidelined interviewing for idea 1.
There was a particular interviewee for idea 1 that said that seems to be just okay with everything (and I can’t decide whether it’s a good thing or not). He just said that he didn’t mind about whether the attendance-checking was time-consuming for him or not, and he was just fine with it whether the attendance takes long to finish. I think he wasn’t time conscious anyway to make him consider that attendance was time-consuming, or maybe he was uninterested with the interview because he gives us short replies every time we ask him a question.
The next idea that we did interviews was for idea 2. Since we decided to add readers in our scope for potential customers, we also focused on interviewing some readers. Even though some did agree that the Bionic Reading Application was okay and that it made them concentrate on reading those texts with modification, still the majority does not agree with the solution we’re trying to come up with. One particular comment from an interviewee (which, by the way, is a reader) after we let her read two different paragraphs (one with plain text and the other with modified text) was that she was overwhelmed while reading the modified one. Majority had spoken that they were more comfortable reading the plain text, and it helps them to focus more using the plain text more. However, the majority we interviewed were readers and not people with neurodivergent minds.
When we interviewed a potential customer who’s actually diagnosed with ADHD, he said that he was able to concentrate more in reading using the modified text rather than the plain one, thus making the team think that maybe we were asking around with the wrong people. Were we?
A team member also commented that maybe there was something wrong with the questions that we were asking. Upon reflection, I do think she was right. The questions probe more for the functionalities like “Do you have trouble reading through small fonts/texts?” but we never asked if the customer had trouble staying focused with what they were reading, and if we were able to relieve their pain of not being able to stay focused with their readings through the use of our proposed solution. And again, maybe we were barking at the wrong tree.
We also interviewed for idea 3, and upon doing so, the majority still disagreed that they find our solution beneficial. The usual response was that it was a hassle for them to use the solution, especially that it requires internet connection for them to be able to use it, considering that they are from rural areas where internet connection is not stable. Since the majority of the feedback was negative, the team decided to drop the idea from the list.
As for idea 1, the team is still pushing it through, however we need more validation from teachers because they are the ones who will surely use the solution. Last few interviews were focused on the students while we waited for the go-signals from different school heads.
As for idea 2, we still need to focus on interviewing people with neurodivergent brains rather than people who like to read. My assumption is that (based from the recent interview with someone who has ADHD) readers would rather prefer reading plain texts because they have normal and organized thinking patterns unlike neurodivergent brain people.
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Oct 03, 2022 - Oct 09, 2022
This week, we've approached only a total of 8 interviewees to validate our ideas with.
I wasn't able to join any physical interviews because I was experiencing coughs and colds, so I just had to listen through the recordings. One thing that I thought about not being able to join the interviews is that it felt like I missed a lot of happenings. It felt different to be able to observe the reactions or hear the interviewee's expressing their opinions physically. I appreciated the importance of conducting these interviews face-to-face.
The ideas focused through this week’s interviews were idea 2 and 3, much specifically idea 3. While preparing for some quick interviews, we also decided to add/expand our target potential customers for idea 2. We thought of adding readers in the potential customers, because we were thinking that maybe the modified text (Bionic Reading like this) might be enticing and can add focus for readers and people with neurodivergent minds alike. Potential customer 1 for Bionic Reading Application said they do find the app interesting and can be a great help, especially if it has functionalities for studying like highlighting. As of the modified text, they weren't sure about it, but they could give it a try. This potential customer interviewed is an avid reader, but does not have a neurodivergent mind/qualities.
As per interviewing the target customers for idea 3, the majority of people we interviewed does not agree with the solution we proposed. Potential customer 1 (and also almost everyone we interviewed) said that even though it is a problem for them that they live far from hospitals, they find it more reliable to go to a doctor physically rather than through an app. Moreover, they find it a hassle to have to connect through the internet or use mobile data to be able to use the app. The potential customers also echoed the same thought that there are also quicker ways to contact the hospitals, in case of emergencies.
There were 7 customers interviewed for idea 3, and 1 customer for idea 2. The team decides to conduct more interviews for idea 3, and if majority does not still validate the problem by next week, we will decide to drop the idea from our list.
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Sep 26, 2022 - Oct 02, 2022
We've approached a total of 10 interviewees to validate our ideas from, and these are my train of thoughts after interviewing and observing the interviewees.
We started off the first interview with a friend of mine that I fortunately met on campus. He was reluctant at first to participate in the interview seeing that it was documented, but somehow I managed to persuade him by giving off details about the project and sharing about the problem that we are trying to validate for. Somehow, I kinda think that it was a bad idea to head up the interviewees about the product. I had (honestly) explained to him what the product was, kinda led him to think similarly to us, thus making me doubtful whether he truly found attendance-checking through roll call/manually a hassle way of checking attendance. Or maybe he truly thought that it was a hassle? His thoughts and reasons about the problem seem to be true to life. I also thought that maybe he was a bit biased because we were friends, and felt obligated to agree with our idea.
Regardless, in the next interview, we made sure that the next potential customer and the validation was from someone we never knew. We tried as much as possible to not lead the interviewee or introduce the product to them. There were some changes in the question as we try to get more comfortable facing and asking people about their thoughts and validation, but still we focused with the goal of asking the interviewees: Do you think this is a problem?
Since we're focusing first on the first idea, which is the AI Attendance Monitoring System, we've focused on the potential customers which are the students and teachers. Throughout the interviews, which consisted primarily of students, the majority had agreed that manual attendance-checking (roll call) is hassle and time-consuming. One particular interviewee said, and I quote verbatim: "What if ang time sa pag roll call sa names kay pang discuss sa klase para taas2 ang time sa pagdiscuss?"
Some did express that they don't think the attendance-checking is a hassle, and were somehow skeptical with the efficiency of the system. Someone also pointed out when we asked them about their attendance being automatically erased if they cut class (through the act of going out of the room), "What if nag CR lang? Mawala lugar diretso ang attendance?" We haven't thought of that instance. This is something that we should consider if we ever decide to push through this product. But what I thought was that, if the student comes back after going from the restroom, shouldn't the system recognize them back and add them again to the list of attendance?
We also interviewed someone whose answers did not relate with the question, and were inconsistent with their stance. They were against the problem assumption at first, but then they suddenly agreed after we've asked them if it is possible that they think the solution was convenient for them (being that the attendance-checking is automated). I realized that it is important to ask questions to people who were mentally and physically present, and at the same time, to interview and ask the right people according to the topic.
After the interviews, the team decided to push through and continue more validation from the potential customers.
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