#entr680

[itsraymct]

Semester 1 - Week 8 Blog: Income Statement + Cashflow for Creative Cultures:

Cashflow Statement:

Income Statement: 1st Quarter (of the year)

Back in Semester 1, I developed a hypothetical cashflow and income statement for Creative Cultures, to build scenarios of what the financial strategy of our startup could have looked like. I’d set the minimum amount of funding we’d need for our startup to $60,000 NZD. Our Cashflow identified our bottom-line as being in the red for about 3 months, before we’d break-even, as we expect sales to increase exponentially. This was supported by our income statement which showed the amount of customer’s we would acquire over each month of the quarter. In this case the income statement therefor helps validate the cashflow and forecasts our budget for the whole year. 

[itsraymct]

Studio III - Week 10: Creative Cultures - Branding/Marketing

Image Credit: Vaifoa Lam Sam

Branding/Marketing and Core Values:

I wanted to look at future scenarios for the branding of our company here at Creative Cultures, and utilizing different techniques that would promote our brand on a variety of platforms via website/blogs, social media, print, brochure or promotional material. Aswell as a business card or a electronic business card.  

I think this would a crucial step into the convergence of our ideas and core values that would ultimately help us compose the business plan of our project.

Reference:

Image created by my friend Vaifoa Lam Sam. 

[foxyorston]

With my new enrollment into ENTR680 I needed to spend some time splitting the project into two sections. ENTR680 learning outcomes and CTEC608 learning outcomes. With Lachlan’s assistance I split the workload into what was needed for the two assessments. We drew up a map on the whiteboard in order to visualise it.

ENTR680 will be the business model side of the project. Focusing on brand values, brand image and operations. How will we structure the business, what kind of partners or investors would be needed? By focusing on all the logistics and operations in this paper we are able to focus on the website interactions in studio.

CTEC680 will focus on the UX/UI side of things. How will the customer interact with our business? What will our cocktail boxes contain? How does the customer experience our product?

Splitting the focus into these two streams will enable us to more efficiently complete the project.

[tama-bct]

Case studies

I've looked at a few case studies that resonate with our current idea, Healthy communications, “a team of experts who specialise in planning, creating and implementing top-quality content for a range of health organisations and businesses,” managed the design and build of this 2014 Mental Health Foundation (MHF) website. 

In their case studies, they emphasised basing the website on short, engaging personal stories, this was something we also looked at doing with our original idea for projetfeelsgood.

We looked at having interviews and the ability for people to blog their experiences, As our intended users would be of a younger demographic we looked at utilizing other social media sites such as Instagram to further push awareness and give people a place to post positive stories.

http://healthycomms.co.nz/casestudies/

[tama-bct]

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

For studio last semester we created a website that looked at providing an online blogging service for people going through mental health issues. As the stigma around mental health is still rather negative, we wanted to give those that aren't comfortable expressing their situation a place where they can vent without fear of judgement. 

Projectfeelsgood was the domain name but it has lapsed(Broke student life tings). https://cadencehillier.wixsite.com/pjfg

Blogs about Projectfeelsgood

https://tama-bct.tumblr.com/post/185638722655/studio-documentation-index

For Entrepreneurship and Innovation, we want to further develop this idea into a Non-profit organisation to further address a serious issue. 

[blighbct]

Logo for Editor

Working on the editor design for busines paper, we have decided to go with a beach/ocean theme, as we feel it fits our concept quite well.

Below are some mock-up versions of the logo for our product.

I started with the one above, but feel like that image is quite common, and would rather have something that stands out about our product. Looking at other logos with a similar theme, I found the one below.

I really like the style of this logo, but I think what sells it to me is the animation. So I created another logo with the idea of animating it later on.

This logo is different, but I felt like there was something wrong about it. 

I asked Quentin what he thought, and he mentioned the fact that volcanoes are normally seen as quite destructive, which is pretty much the complete opposite of what we want our company to be about (as we want to cultivate creation).

I think to show creating I might have some plants growing on the land, and was thinking of maybe including some animals as well to make it more interesting. After the animation stops playing though, I want to make a simplified black and white logo that comes out of it.

[blighbct]

Business as Unusual

With four people working on our business pitch, the expectation set for us is higher then that given to others. This is understandable, but I didn’t realise that it meant not only producing a result that is well written, but to also produce a result with a lot of “polish” (in this context it is in regards to the visual aesthetics).

With this in mind, I created a short version of how our video pitch might play out, so that we can start working on it’s visuals and creating something more well done, and different then the norm.

Of course at the moment only I have written this, and since we are a four person team, we can create something a lot better by having all of us run through it and iterate upon.

I am looking forward to seeing what kind of video we end up creating, and seeing how creative we can be within the 40-50sec timeframe.

[markyeoh]

Business Plan

Over the break, as part of my catching up, I had to make a business plan for an assignment. Now with these assignments, it's usually hypothetical. But I've had enough of the hypothetical and want to work with something more real and relevant. Also I didn't have a lot of time to work with, especially when it comes to financial forecasting.

I decided to base the business plan on the company idea we as a group have thought about for a while now. By putting our ideas into paper and experimenting with the numbers, I was able to see clearly how everything works, and wouldn’t. 

Doing the market research was very informative, being able to get actual numbers and trends of the industry.

As with any start-up, the first two years I have forecasted with losses and low pay outs. I guess this document will help our members see that this is a commitment that will not see returns for the first few years. 

As for me, I got to see that there are a lot of benefits of a start-up but also a lot of risks and responsibilities.