pochulo

Always look forward.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

The Final PITCHHH!

The day has come and we are now in our final pitch. We learned and experience a lot of things that is so beneficial for us where we can use those knowledge in our future endeavors.

After months of validating the problem up to the last activity that we have in technopreneurship, we will pitch right now as if that we are pitching in front of investors who are very willing to invest money for the product that we have.

I am so grateful that I was able to experience this kind of scenario and simulations, to the Center of Entrepreneurship and Technology thank you so much for giving us student plenary sessions.

This one is one of my favorite journey in my college days, there are many eye opening discussions that I witnessed. To my group I am also so thankful that I have them because without them this techno journey that I have is boring and worthless, I will cherish this moment.

Our pitch went well, we were able to really explain the problem and the product and the team is compose, we are all able to answer the questions that is given to us and I am very proud of this achievement with this team.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

Pitch

One of the greatest thing that I learn from this subject is the pitching, where it is an art of story telling base on my own perspective. A good pitching should be an explosive one where you can really catch the ears of the listeners most especially the investors.

The pitching should be precise and emphasized in order for the pitch to be easily understood. From what I learn in this discussion is that the elements of a pitch are very important, a short but very detailed is very important.

Also, in the discussion I also learned the different types of pitching. The most important thing on a presentation its precision, no other details except to those very important key points, and the art of communicating is also very important in a pitch.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

Traction Metrics and Validation

After we launched our FB page, we can now see our metrics where we can see the data on all the engagements that we have and the reach of our FB page. Our page has a total of 109 likes and there are also reaction on our post.

In our Fb page we also conducted a survey about the willingness of the people who liked our page on using our platform, immediately after posting the survey, many people have responded. It is overwhelming sometimes because the page have grew in just a span of days and also our friends and family also shared the page to their friends.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

Traction and MVP Launching

Traction is very important, it is important for us to understand its importance for a startup, and we need to give attention to it. In the plenary discussion, Sir Bronson really explained , detail by detail all the traction channels that could potentially help our product and service grow.

In our bulls eye framework, we list down all the possible channels that we think can advertise our product, to help the product grow. In our top 6 channels, we include all those channels that we are familiar with, those channels that we think it can reach many people. Then in our top 3 channel, the top of the list is the existing platforms, because in those existing platforms especially social networking sites, we know that there are a lot of traffic in those platform and it is perfect for our product to get exposed.

Before we launch our Minimum Viable Product, we are still finishing our high fidelity prototype in order to have a better appearance and to make sure that it is user friendly. This MVP will serve as our initial product, enough to attract those potential customers.

We created a facebook page in order to launch our MVP in the platform in the hopes of getting engagements and to expose our product to the general public. But before we launch our page to the public, there are many things that we need to prepare, in that case somehow the team struggles a bit with deadlines with other subjects filing up and me personally really struggling to manage my time that's why the team is a bit late in launching the MVP.

Even though we are late in launching our MVP, the support that we receive for our product is very overwhelming.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

BMC

During the plenary discussion, I understand on how important really a business model is, it needs to be repeatable and scalable. As a startup it is really important to really know the value of our product and with that, we need to have consistency and easily adapt to changes, those are one of the factors that we really need to consider in order to create our business model canvas. This week, we are task to create our own Business Model Canvas, although it is quite hard to create a BMC which is consistent enough and reliable at the same where it can easily adapt especially in times of sudden influx of customers that our product will cater.

As the one who stands as the leader of the team, I quickly gathered the members and in every part in Business Model Canvass, anyone should have contribution for the model, any contribution that could benefit the team. We faced certain challenges while creating our Business Model Canvass, we really need to review some part of customer segments and value proposition, also, at this point it is important that we need to identify all the needed resources and other things in order for the business to be reliable and sustainable enough. We really asses all the important ingredients to our product like the resources that we should have and the approach that we are going to implement in order to make the customer happy and at the same time grow our market.

At this point also we were able to identify the potential cost like services and other things that is vital for the company to keep running and to be sustainable. Even though during the presentation of our BMC there are many inputs that we have that is questionable and any unnecessary things that we include inside the Business Model Canvass. But we are also thankful to Ma'am Yam as she highlighted all the wrong inputs that we have and with that we are able to really understand certain things. After the consultation, we immediately work on the revisions, research more and learn things in order to supplement all those wrong inputs that we have.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

Revenue

Revenue is very important in a business because without or small revenue means the business has failed. I remember before when I was still in my elementary, there is a one guy that always keeps telling me that it is better to have a business than working a full time regular job and I asked that guy "how to get money from business if you are also investing money to keep the business running?" Immediately he answered "That's why there is a revenue, for example you invest money to buy a product for 6 pesos each then you sell it for 10 pesos then if you sell 10 pcs then you gain 40 pesos aside from your initial investment", I remember that moment as I understand the concept of revenue for the first time.

From the weekly discussion one of the things that I understand is to really have a revenue model where it can indeed gives you more income. Formulating an ideal and perfect revenue model of our product is one of the challenging task that I encounter during the final term where there are many factors that we need to consider in order to come up with one. One of the things that we did as a team is to research about the revenue system of the competitors where it serves as our basis for making our model. Since our product is like a socio economics where we value the sellers and we wanted to grow their market, that's also one of the factors to consider and we need to come up a way where they pay for our platform for a lower price. What we are trying to achieve here is a win win situation for the customers and also for us, to come up with a model we to unleash the business minded side of us in order to think a feasible idea.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

Who are the competitors?

Competition is very important in a market where it can help businesses to grow and find more opportunities for expansion and more quality products and services. There are already existing and more established companies in our market since our concept is already existing and most of the general public uses this kind of services in almost everyday of their life. As a startup trying to enter the market where this established companies is already competing with each other, take note not just a company, but multiple companies.

For this we need to have a great strategy on how we can compete with those established brands, as a team we really need to be composed and dedicated. It is important for us to really find that uniqueness that we have compared to those existing products, with our unique features it is considered as our edge from those companies. In our case Grab Food, Food Panda is considered as our competitors since we offer similar services to the customers, also included in our competitors is the homegrown Streetby. Although we display different products in our platforms, but still we offer the same services to the customers. The existing users of their platform can be our potential first customers because they are more familiar with this kind of service and that's why it is really important that we have our unique characteristics from the existing platforms.

In this week's discussion, Sir Franch really emphasized the importance of the uniqueness of our products because this can transcend us and gives us superiority to our competitors. There are a lot of insights that I gain from the discussion regarding creating competitive advantage. With this week's activity we were able to really know the unique features of our products that can potentially gives us an edge towards our competitors.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

The TAM, SAM and SOM

It is really important to identify the market for our product, during midterm we already validated the problem that exist but the question now is do we really have the market? how big is our market is? or is there an opportunity with those numbers?

During this week the task is to really identify the size of our market, with this it is very important that we already know our customer segments because, with our customer segments we will be able to know who are our potential customers and how big they are in terms of numbers. During the weekly discussions, I learned that we need to asses the market, identify their population but we must also put in mind that general population is not a good idea to include or to put in our TAM or the Total Available Market. It is really important to really identify a specific characteristics of the potential customers to really know who they are.

In order to accomplish our weekly activity, since our products is an e commerce platform where it can be accessed with the use of a smartphone. Using the available data we make an assumption of the total population of adult in CDO since the product or the platform will be based in CDO, after calculating we already come up our TAM or the Total Available Market. The result is somewhat a huge number, with that, we need to trim down this data in order to get our SAM or the Serviceable Available Market. Since our concept is already existing and there are already many people using those products, we calculated the total population of adult smartphone user in CDO and afterwards we further trimmed down the data and lastly our SOM or the Served Obtainable Market is the total population of users of food delivery app in CDO.

The assessment of the team is that, with those numbers there is an opportunity and we can further grow those assumptions that we have in order to obtain more potential customers of the platform.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

The Midterm Pitch.

The midterm pitch is here and everyone is so excited and nervous at the same time. The team is prepared and we had some small meeting and preparations before heading to the zoom conference. After weeks of validation, now we will discuss the findings of those validation with panelist listening to our ideas and giving critique. Almost everyone in the class is nervous and this time it is also the opportunity for us to hear the ideas of our classmates and also learn from their ideas and findings during the weeks of validating. We come out there and prepared, we are confident with our presentation and as well the findings of our validation. From the past pitching competition that I experienced, this one is very different from those, we need to convince the panelist regarding how marketable our idea or is there really an existing problem on that particular market or it just our imaginary ideas only, but again, we are prepared and excited.

I am looking forward to the feedbacks of the panelist, because I know that there are things that we need to consider that we may not still discover yet. We need to consider also the feedbacks of the panelist because they know how things works and they have a lot of experience and knowledge when it regards to this things. Feedbacks is very important because feedbacks can help improve the idea.

Our presentation is buttery smooth, and it's also a wonderful moment since the panelist praised it. I admit that we're not the best presenters, and our presentation isn't flawless, but being praised by the panelist is already a win. Because of that we are more inspired to strive for more, the moral of the team is very high and because of this it builds our confidence.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

Preparing for Midterm Pitch

After weeks of validating the idea, now we finally validated that in our idea there is a problem that exist. Its been tough but as well a great journey not just for me but for us as a team where we learned many things in regards to validating our idea because we are not creating this solution for our self but this solution is intended and specially made for our target customers who usually experiences this pains. Although I know that there are a lot of factors that we need to discover in regards to our idea, we need to go out to our comfort zone and also, I know this coming final term it will be challenging because we need to gather more precious data in order ensure that this idea that we have is feasible and as well people really needs or people is willing to use our solution.

Based on what I've learnt so far, the presentation during the pitch must be crisp and always to the point. Preparing our pitch presentation is critical; we must ensure that our information is concise and to the point; we must include all of the most crucial points so that the panelists do not waste time reading from our power point. I already joined pitching competitions before, but creating a startup idea and pitch it in front of a set of panelist is very different from the usual competition where the participants will make solution that could benefit the community, because in a startup idea there are a lot of factors in the market that the must consider.

As the midterm pitch is fast approaching, the team is preparing and practiced all the possible questions that we may encounter from the panelist. Self confidence is crucial in order for the pitch to be delivered well, and for me I trust my team and I know our hustlers can deliver the pitch smoothly.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

Validate, Validate

During this week, week number 6 there are a lot of happenings in this week, from our last consultation with the instructor for the week 5's responses from our target customers, the instructor suggested that in order to validate the idea because in week 5 we already confirmed that there is a problem exist in our chosen idea, in this week we need also to validate how literate the market vendors in using smartphones where smartphone is the vital link of our idea to deliver the solution to our target customers. It was also an amazing experience during this week because the team planned to meet up together and gather responses in a particular place or market, for me it was my first time teaming up with this individuals and also, it is my first time to be with them for a long period of time and talk about our ideas in person. But in order to make this week an amazing one, the team needed to plan things up in order to avoid any certainties.

The team formulated a new set of questions that is related on the literacy of the market vendors in using smartphone, this interview is very crucial because this will validated if the market vendors is capable in using smartphone and also it is crucial for the app's design because we need to base the design of the app based on what mobile application usually the market vendors use in order for them to easily adapt to the navigation flow and how the interface looks like. In regards to the market that we are targeting, we initially choose a place in brgy. Iponan where there is a small marketplace there, the reason why we chose that place is simply because we expected a very crowded and busy environment if we choose either Carmen or Cogon public market. During the interview we didn't expect the difficulties on getting respondents in the actual market because some of the vendors is busy and is either afraid to us, one of our member purchases some items in order to convinced them and also like a token of respect to them for giving their insights and time despite of how busy they are.

One of the highlight for me in this interview is one of our respondent talks about its frustration because one of the vendor in that place already adapted selling in facebook, she discussed their that sometimes her customers/friends is not buying products from her, simply because they already ordered from one the vendor their who adapted selling in facebook. Also, the one thing that I really liked about this week's task is I realized the difference between interviewing the respondents virtually and in person interview, also, the bond of the team is getting stronger because of this week's task because we had the chance to bond, talk and exchange ideas personally and for me I'm looking forward for more things like this where everything is done in person. Overall it was a great experience for me.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

Customer Discovery

In week 4 we formulate the hypothesis and the questionnaire, but our hypothesis is not correct, the way we construct it is not an ideal. Then the team gathered again and came up with new set of hypothesis following the if then format, as well as the adviser/instructor suggested that we need to gather more insights from customers, that means that we will identify and interview new respondents using our questionnaire that we created. This time the team is very determined to have more insights from the target customers because the team is not satisfied with the week 4's answers of the respondents. This time the team gathered around 6 respondents, three respondents each for each customer type.

Because of the COVID 19 pandemic, the team opted to use google meet to interview the respondents in order to ensure the safety of the team and as well to our respondents. During the interview sessions, we found out the different struggles of the respondents and we can also relate to them because some of them are still students. One of the AHA moment of this interview sessions are the struggle of the respondents especially how the traffic affects them and how frustrating it is where it consumes more time especially to those people that is very busy with their daily life.

But the very best part of this week's interview are the answers from the vendors, it was great to hear their thoughts to hear their story about their struggle in the market and the impact of this pandemic in their sector. We all know that everyone is affected in this pandemic even if you are rich or poor no one is excused, but listening to them we can feel the struggle and how badly they are affected with this pandemic especially the small vendors. To wrap this week up it was one of the great session that we have so far, we really understand well their sentiments and the team is looking forward to have this king of interview again.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

Interview here, Interview there.

We created a Value Proposition Canvas and a Business Thesis template during last week's activity, and now it's time to really get to know our customer during this week's activity. This week, I understood how vital it is to develop a relationship with the target customer, because the team is having trouble discovering people who are selling in the market, which is one of our target customers is public market sellers. But before the actual interview phase, the team gathered and brainstormed to formulate hypothesis which is our assumption towards the effectiveness of our solution to the customer, and to be honest this took a lot of time because the team really examining all the possibilities and after that the come up with the interview question to really know the pains of our target customers.

After formulating the interview questions, at this point the team interviewed people, in our case we interviewed two types of user, the consumer and the sellers. Although sometimes it is frustrating because the respondents is very minimal with their answers(hahaha), but as what the instructor said the customer's pain is very important, we do not create our own solution, but we create solution based on the pains of the customers, and for me that was an eye opener I realized at that point that the solution the we are making is pointless if we base our solution on our own rather than from the customer's pain. The interview is smooth we gain a lot of insights from the respondents and sometimes we relate from them especially in their frustration with the traffic, overall the first interview session for the customer discovery was fun and great and the team is hoping for more insights and hinanakits of the customers in the coming interview sessions.

The team's moral is very high for the coming weeks and we are more eager to discover our customers.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

Discovering the Customer

In my own perspective, in order to effectively and efficiently solve any kind of problems is to really understand the factors that really affects the affected entities. In this week's lecture I gain more informative insights regarding discovering the customers where it is important in our journey in this course. Creating a solution or particularly creating a product to address a problem does not rely only on the creative idea of the creator alone, but relating and discovering the pain of the target customer is really important before integrating it with the proposed solution, validating the idea is very important to really examine if the problem really exist or do people really suffer from that phenomenon.

In this week's activity we are task to create a value proposition canvas to really discover the customer's pains in their journey buying goods for their consumption, by talking to some people we discovered the struggles of the people with different walks in life the struggle when buying goods in the market and somehow we do relate also, but we discovered different factors that impacts their pains when buying goods. After creating observing the target customer we then created a design that is base on the customers' gains, pains. The important thing that I really learned in week 3 is that the customer is the vital piece of a product, we can't just ignore them but we need to observe and understand the different factors that really affects them, idea or a solution is really simple to generate, but to generate an efficient solution that is also sustainable at the same time is really challenging because we need to form a relationship with the target customer and at the same time relate to their struggles and understand them more.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

New Beginning with Hardworking Team

Finding a group with excellent characteristics and with whom it is simple to form chemistry is tough for an introverted person who only limits himself to his own circle. I recognize that this journey will be difficult, so I need to be with someone who will understand and whom I can trust and create a good relationship with. Communication is the key to building a strong relationship. In order for us to form a strong team, we need constant, free-flowing communication. Deciding who will be a part of the team is difficult because there are certain roles that every member must fit together with their skill set and desire based on the discussion.

I gained a lot of insights from the lecture on team formation, especially in terms of forming the team and other issues. My experience in selecting my groupmates has been pretty challenging; some people have asked me to join them, and I have also asked others to join me, until I eventually found a group with whom I am comfortable and in which I can focus. I also applied some mechanics that I learned during the discussion, I met with my group then there I learned a lot of things about them, there strengths and knowledge that will be initial for assigning our different roles base on our skillsets. Right now I am happy with my group and I hope that we will grow together and build a strong friendship that could last for a life time, we are ready mentally and physically with this journey.

[pochulo-tidor-blog]

Insightful Introduction.

Technopreneurship may astonish and pique your interest just by reading the name of the course. From the standpoint of an engineering student inside me, the combination of technology and entrepreneurship seems intriguing, but it also has the potential to be boring due to the phrase "Entrepreneurship." However, as the conversation progresses, I realize that many of the big tech businesses, or should we say mainstays of tech innovation, are aligned with or tied to technopreneurship. I've been a fan of technological advancements for many years, ever since I first learned to read, because I believe that they will help humanity as a whole and even make the world a better place.

Taking the personality test is one of the exercises in week one of Tech 101, and it has given me a lot of insight into myself based on the findings because some attributes are accurate and others are not. I learned a lot about myself from the personality test, which could be useful for my self-improvement, from the personality test it also shows that I am a Logistician. Aside from personality we also took the Berkeley Innovation Index Test to measure how innovative our mind is.

Returning to the first week's topic, while the instructors lecture, I gain numerous insights from the lecture and I am also inspired to develop ideas that aren't just for the Profitability, but also a notion that has the potential to have a significant social impact. The first week of this course seems to be interesting base on what I experienced, with this I am more eager to learn more and be inspired with this course.