jameow-irr-blog

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Finals...

This will be my last post about my journey  on making our start up.

For the whole semester, I learned a lot of things on making a start up. It was not that easy. You need to study how people behave in order your start up fit in.

You need to validate your start up so that if you’re going to launch your start up in the public, it will be a success and can fight against bigger business.

The team is already preparing for our pitch deck for the upcoming Demo day this October 22, 2018.

We were shooting for our promotional video and it was not easy too. We did take many times to make it right.

that’s all folks!

“You need to work in order to succeed.”

[jameow-irr-blog]

Getting Ready...

This week was really hectic week.

We have tons of projects to be done with in this week that’s why I updated my blog late. 

Anyways, Sweetify has been published. Unfortunately, we need to pay for our website to work with is full features.

Our Team meet up with one of our pastry chefs or one of our early adopter.

We meet her and let her try our website. She had some suggestions to change like the cake pricing. As she said, our website is cute and she likes it. ;)

We took note of the suggestion she mentioned and immediately change it.

Our team then prepared for our Revenue since we now know that each pastry chefs have 5-10 orders per month then we calculated it.

This week, I learned that the more costumer or order that our pastry chefs will be having the more revenue that we will have each year.

That’s for now folks. Stay tuned!.

[jameow-irr-blog]

Sweetifying Everything

Website is still on the process of making and Demo day is fast approaching.

This month will be loaded for us since there are tons of projects to make. This month will be a sleepless month.

Our team had a meeting for the layout of our website and its functionality.

We have a partial sample of our website. 

The Home Page.

The Order Page.

As for now, we finished half of it and our team are still trying to make this good as possible.

We evaluate first the design on what the customers need before it is publish or should be created.

Stay tuned for more update.

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Sweetify on going...

Today's blog is all about the development of Sweetify.

This week our instructor our professor is not around because he have some seminars to attend. He did not post anything on slack. 

The team continued to build our MVP. I was the one who develops the website. The rest of of my team gives me ideas on what to put in our website like cupcakes, sample of customize pastries, user profiles about our pastry chefs.

We contacted the pastry chefs about the price range so that we could put it in our Website.

I learned so much this week  like on how to create a website. 

Stay tuned pips!

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Sweetify on the go...

Last Tuesday, September 10, we presented our Channel Economic .

Our professor told us the revenue cost is not for the pastry chefs. He told us the the revenue cost is the cost in return of our expense.

On the next day, September 11, Wednesday. Our professor requested for make up class because he will be out of town by next week, so he gave us an assignment to update our revenue stream.

We gathered up to work on our revenue stream and our revenue diagram that to be pass today. We interviewed our pastry chefs if possible that we will have 10% as the middleman and they agree to it.

As for our Sweetify, its still on the process of making.

that’s all for now. stay tuned.

[jameow-irr-blog]

Finals

Its almost finals and many things are need to be done.

Last week we had a presentation about our user persona. We also presented our validation.

Our User are the mothers while the Decision Maker are the children, for they decided on what cake they wanted to have. Next the Economic Buyer are the parents. The Influencer and the Recommender are the kumare and the Saboteur are the relatives and friends.

Our user persona are the mommies who wanted to have their child’s birthday cake to be personalized and next our local pastry chefs. We asked them about their basic information like their full name, job, age and etc. 

We need to have background checking of our user persona especially our local pastry chefs. We need to have those information so that our economic buyer will surely trust our product.

Stay tuned for more Sweetify experience!! :)

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This week’s blog is about intramurals and site visitations.

We don’t have classes. We were out our classroom to have fun and enjoy at least for a while.

August 31, 2018 we are at Cepalco. We went to see their data center. Their equipments are really expensive. It is ranging up to 4 million pesos. Their data center is quiet advance because they do virtual routing for their online processes like online billing.

September 1, 2018 we went to Globe Telecom. They shared to us on how Globe Telecom started and how it works. Unlike Cepalco, Globe Telecome has bigger data center facilities and they have tons of switches there. 

After the site visit, our team  decided to have a meeting and answered the following assignments because next week we will have a 3 min. presentation. Well you’ll know what will happen next on my next blog.

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Pitch Deck

This week, we had various event that we encountered.

Last August 20, Monday. Pitching day. It is when our venture is going to be presented in front of the panels. 

We prepared our script ad presentation. I was so nervous since I’ll be the one who’s going to pitch. It was nerve wrecking. I usually get messed up in delivering due to so much nervousness. I sometimes forgot my lines.

Our turns were drawn. We were the 8th presentor. 

When it was our turn, I honestly got weak knees. I really don’t know what to do.

Our professor and and his guest judge was there to critic us. Well it was sad because there are questions thrown that were hard to answer.

Their main concern is how would our venture defeat Facebook. We all know that Facebook is a well-established venture and it is hard to beat.

After the presentation, as we got out the room, our faces are all lifeless. We were stunned totally by the questions. Then there, we concluded that we need further validations.

August 24, Friday. I don’t know if this is part of a lecture series but it was a very exciting event, I say. Every single speech and stories that those CEO's  have told us, was inspiring. 

The CEO of Cropital, Sir Ruel Amparo, was one of the speaker. He shared to us his life experience on how did Cropital grow from a seed until they gain profit to it. 

Then the CEO of 8 Media. 

The CEO of Eight Media, Sir Gerald Castillo, has a very interesting life. He even shared to us all his failures and success in life. He had many venture ideas yet some of it failed. It shows that failures and rejections did not stop him. He was determined until Eight Media. 

And lastly, the very fun part of this lecture series was where Sir Carlo Valencia stood in the stage. He gave us activities. 

His activity, mainly was for us to know who are our costumers. There, we truly did understood that those ‘OKAYS’ that we received form our interviews are just equivalent to capital NO. 

During the activity, I realized that when we created our venture, we really don’t know what is really the problem. If there was a problem found, is that problem was really the issue of our costumer or it was just an assumption?

This lecture series had me thinking and thought of pivoting our venture. But we need some advice from our professor.

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Pitcher’s Pitch

This week, Our professor asked our validation report. We did not know that every BMC update, there will be a corresponding pictures for validation.

So my team mates went to interview potential costumers. We interviewed 10 people. 8 out 10 people thought that our venture is good, and 2 out of 10 answered that they knew somebody who can bake personalized cakes.

We emailed pictures as proof to our validation. 

The next day, our professor replied our message that was sent to him. it was stated:

“From your photos, do you think your potential customer’s office is at the mall? Do not interview random people.”

August 18, Saturday. My team mate went to one of our local pastry chef, Ms Verna, if she is willing to be part of our venture. She also have some recommendations for our venture. On the other hand the rest of us prepared our presentation for this Monday’s Pitching. 

Pitching is never been easy. You need to be prepare in order to properly deliver it in front of the panels. We need a pitch that would convince them.

Today, our class practiced on how to pitch for tomorrow. It is nerve wracking.

That’s all for tonight folks. Sorry for late update. ;)

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Midterm Week

Midterm week, students are preparing for their exams.

Our professor gave us an assignment about pain and gain. We need to know the pains and the gains of our venture. 

So this week, me and my group mates had a meeting. We discussed the pains that our potential costumer is having ,the reason why we are making this venture. As we had in our previous interviews, in the user’s side, looking for personalized cakes in a lower price is difficult for them, that’s one thing. Secondly, it is hassle for them to look for cake shops that offers personalized cakes. As for the local pastry chef’s side, it is a pain for then to have additional costumer.

After the discussion, we want validity on our gathered pains. we asked several potential costumers if it is true that looking foe personalized cakes in lower price is easy, they all have the same answer, “no”. Then we asked our pastry chef’s that, having more costumer to buy their product is easy, they said, no, you need to have more acquaintances to have more costumer, you need to be known by many. 

[jameow-irr-blog]

Looking for Validations

This week, me and my group mates had a meeting on how to have more user validation since we did not meet with our professor because he had a seminar to attend.

Our professor asked us, last week, if our local pastry chefs will still be working with us in the future. He even told us “What if Streetby comes in? How sure are you that your venture is still be standing? What if your local pastry chefs will work with Streetby but not with your venture? How will you solve that?” We were stunned by those questions. We suddenly realized that every thing that our professor asked was true. We weren’t able to answered his questions. 

That’s why, during our meeting, we decided to add something in our venture. We thought of having some perks that our local pastry chef will stay with us. we planned to offer them some Loyalty Grant.

We asked our local pastry chefs for their loyalty if they are willing to stay, they answered YES.

[jameow-irr-blog]

Go Team

This week, our professor asked our class to create a Business Model Canvas or what we called the BMC.

Me and my group mates decided to make a BMC of our venture the Sweetify.

We prepared Cartolina, sticky notes and markers to make our BMC.

Our Key Partners are the local pastry chefs. in our Costumer Segment, there are two: the Local pastry chef and the User, since out venture is a two sided marketing.  We decided that our venture will be a website as a channel to our user and pastry chefs.

After doing a BMC our professor wanted to make a digitized version of our BMC.

In our digitized version of our BMC, we had little changes to it after we conducted an interview the day after tomorrow.

During the interview we asked some various questions if that possible costumer is having a hard time looking for Personalized cakes. In total, 5 out of 7 is having a hard time looking for shops that could personalized cakes and 2 out of 7 is not having a hard time because they knew somebody that could bake and do personalized cakes.

we came up another solution that we could recruit more pastry chefs from the user’s acquaintances.  

July 27, Friday. We presented our digitized and improved BMC. Unfortunately, one of our member was sick. We were not complete that day. Supposedly, he should be  the one that was going to present to our professor for he was our Hustler that day.

As we had our presentation, our professor has a concern regarding to our venture proposal’s foundation. He wanted us to validate more to make it solid in future process.

As for today, July 28, Or professor tentatively approved our proposal. It may not be a 100 percent approved but its a step.

( / =  3=)/ - JM

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One of our Competitor?

This week our professor introduced to us about doing things that don’t scale. It was explained that we need to try things manually. Interact with our costumers and trying to see the common pain points of our possible costumers. 

20th of July, at Performing Arts Theater. We were invited to join a lecture series in which the CEO of Streetby was the speaker, Sir Ronald Rhey Miñoza.

Last presentation were asked by our professor if Streetby is our competitor. We grabbed the opportunity to asked. One of my colleague, grabbed the mic and asked. “ We have a project in our Technopreneurship subject and it is about pastries. And we have local pastry chefs as our client. We were trying to help not just them but also their costumers who are having a hard time looking for personalized cakes. Our professor asked if Streetby is one of our competitor?”. There was an uproar after the question was asked. Sir Miñoza answered “No. But if your tying to to create that startup, we could complement if you’re going to pursue it.” Me and my colleagues looked at each other and smiled. Maybe, this will answer one of our professors concern about our startup.

21st of July, we received a mail from our Professor. It was stated 

“ problem not clearly defined. solution is not clearly define precisely because problem is not defined properly. And if you're providing online business solutions to pastry chefs, then you're directly competing with streetby. Is this an app or website? see me next week. ”

Well its true. The problem statement in our powerpoint presentation is not clear. Well, we will see our professor next week to clarify things so that our proposal will be approved. We can do this! :)

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Questions

For those who are going to read my blog, let me ask you this: Have you ever felt that feeling agitated? Well I did.

 Last week, We were asked to do rejection therapy. We need to ask random people. And this week, we were tasked to interview 8 random people. Asking to random people is nerve-racking but I need to overcome that feeling in order to be a better person. My mom once said, “Nganong dili mn ka mangutana? Mura mag wai grado.” that line gave me courage to speak out my opinions.

 We asked 8 random costumers if would they try out our application if ever will be created or made. Some declined to be interview but some agreed.

 During the interview, 2 men and 7 women, aged 30 - 40, agreed to our use our proposed application. Well it could not be prevented that there will be no rejection. In every question we asked, there was 2 out of 3 were answered no.

 As for this week, I learned that being rejected is normal. As what my professor said that in business, rejection is normal so we don’t need to worry if you were rejected.

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“A bona fide brainstorming.”

M.I.A. KimCabs :)

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“Any Idea?”

      This week is Ideation week. My groupmates and I had was brainstorming for the whole week. Yes, for the whole 1 week.

       I could say that thinking of ideas for start-ups is not easy as I imagined. I am pretty amazed on how did those start-ups became successful. So, me and my groupmates had a meeting on what to do or what will be the concept of our start up. We all have settled down and we began asking each other “Any Idea?”. We came up with 2 ideas as for now.

       First, we had this typical online shopping where we help out those sellers that post their item on social medias. It’s not that good for we have strong competitors. If we will pursue this, I’m sure this start-up will not succeed in a long-run.

       Next, Picture Perfect as what we named it. It is a website where those people who are having a hard time on what they want for their company or home to look like. This website will have a list of all interior designers and architects and their designs. The client will look for designs and contact the owner of the design that they have chosen. As for now, we still don’t know if we have present competitors for it.

 Well, that’s for now. :*