#labanee

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Learnings

There are lot of things we need to accomplish for the upcoming final pitching. One of it is making a final PowerPoint presentation, prototype, interviewing more potential customers, video presentation, compilation of all the presentation and the CD which is the copy for all the things we did for this subject. And we are now start making that requirements.

 For this week we did another interview to our potential customers. We ask if they are okay with the pricing we set for our product. By the way we have a subscription as our revenue stream and for those who will pay the product fully they will have 5% percent discount. And that price is already validated.Then after interviewing we start to finalize our BMC and our final presentation this coming Thursday. We also work for our prototype wherein we finalize and make sure that it function well. We also add some contents in our PowerPoint for our final pitching which is about the revenue streams. Well, as of now we just continue making those requirements and we are looking forward that we can finish all of this and practice for our final pitching.

To end this blog, I just want to share all of the knowledge I gain for this subject.

We have done a lot of things throughout this semester. We interviewed different types of people, make blogs, done pitching, present ordinary reports, and work as a team. And we cannot deny that with all of the things we did, we experience a lot difficulties and most especially rejection. But because of those experiences we learned a lot of lessons like:

1.     Facing our Fears

Ø I remembered that our first activity was rejection therapy. That activity made us a better person. A person who accept rejection and was never discouraged of being rejected instead she continue to convince that person to do such thing. And that is the character of an entrepreneur wherein she will always do her best to convince the customers to buy the product even there are lot of rejections being faced. She always continue to sell the product to the customers until she became a successful entrepreneur.

2.     Confidence

Ø In every presentations and interviews we did, my confidence grows. The first time we talk to people, we are scared of not being entertained. But at the time that we continue to talk to a lot of people I became more confident. It’s not easy to talk to people especially when you meet the angry people. Well, in terms presenting in front of a crowd, I also gain confidence. And those things we did made me more confident.

3.     Managing time

Ø There are lot of activities with this subject. Because of those activities, we learn to manage our time. We learn the value of time and we did all of our requirements on time.

4.     Critical thinking and creativity

Ø Since we did a lot of activities and assignments. Our critical thinking and creativity is being develop. In a way that when our instructor give us activity especially on thinking the problem that we are going to address and creating a product. We as a team at that time do a brainstorming of ideas on what product are we going to do. In every presentations we did weekly our critical thinking and creativity are practiced.

5.     Accept failures and accept suggestions of other people

Ø In our first idea, we experience failure. Our first idea didn’t work since our problem is not the problem of our customer segments. But instead being down we accept it and continue making a new idea. But that failure didn’t just end in our first idea but we also face it in our second idea. Well, because of the people and most especially to our instructor who encourage us to continue we did it. I learned that people around us are the big help of our success. We just need to listen to them. Accept their suggestion for your improvement. And because of the failures we faced I learned that we don’t need to fear failure but we should embraced it and accept it. It is a big contribution of your life for you to become a better person. We all know that we don’t need perfection because we need failure to make us a better person and learn a lot of things.

6.     Take risk

Ø I am afraid in taking risk especially when I know that it’s not worth risking for. In every idea we did, I am afraid that people and customers may not like our product. But because of this subject I learn to take risk. I learn that we don’t need to be scared presenting our ideas and share it to others. Because that the way for you to be known and successful.

7.     Unique

Ø All of us are afraid to be unique especially in terms of having a different answer among your other classmate. And I accept that weakness. But because of this subject I learn that being unique is your asset. Uniqueness is very important in business world.

 All of those things are the lesson that I learned and the aspects of myself that improved. And I’m happy that this semester is a fruitful one. And I would like to thank our instructor for giving us a wide knowledge and encouraging us to learn. To my groupmates who are always there throughout this semester, to my parents for giving me opportunity to study and most especially to God who always give me strength and knowledge to be able to accomplish all of the things needed to be done.

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[leslieabregana-blog]

Customer relations

Time management is really important. We need to manage our time in order to finish all of the requirements given to us. It is very useful not just for us students but also to other people specially those businessman. In business world, time is very important. Every second counts. You need to make every second valuable and never waste time with those things that are not important. Part of that time management is having time with yourself, work, friends, and family and most especially to God. That’s why we Teambangan practiced to manage our time.

 Since we don’t want to waste time that’s why we really consume the available or free time that we have. For this week we’ve done a lot of thing like making prototype, interview to another potential customers for the additional data and we also made the activity given to us which is the PowerPoint presentation for next week. I will explain all of the things we did in details:

First, the materials needed for the prototype and the prototyping

Ø We as a team did a meeting in order to talk about the activity we needed to accomplish for this week. Then we first talk about the materials that we needed to finish our prototype. We do a list of the materials and started to do canvassing in different electronic stores in Cagayan De Oro. Since, we were not be able to buy all of the materials because it is not available here in Cagayan de Oro we need to order online. Then, we order it online but until now some of the materials we ordered were not delivered. We don’t want to waste time because we have a lot of things to do aside from this subject. So, our hacker finalize the codes or program needed for our system and the remaining two member made a house needed for the demonstration of our product. We buy some of the materials here in CDO so we install those available materials in our prototype house but it is not fully done because we wait for the other materials. But, we do our best to finish it next week.

Second, interviewing potential customer and channel partners

Ø We continued interviewing to our potential customers to ask some questions needed for our new idea which is the subscription. We already interview about it last week but we just continue it for this week in order to have more information or more suggestions from our potential customers since customer’s suggestion is very important. And for now we come up with an additional idea suggested by our customers which we find a very good idea. Then we also interviewed channel partners.

Third, the PowerPoint presentation

Ø For this week, we updated our BMC and change some of the information like the Customer relationship. Wherein we add the get, keep and grow. Then we also add some info in our customer segments. Since our instructor, Engr. Mabulay give some corrections in our value proposition, we work for it and change some data. Then, we also solve the Customer acquisition cost and the lifetime Value of the customers.

Lastly, we as a team conducted a meeting in order to talk about the final pitching and the remaining activity that we will going to comply for this subject. Well, we decided to divide the task needed. Our hacker is responsible for the codes or programs of our system, the hustler is assigned in interviewing more potential customers and the designer is for the design of the product. Then all of us will unite in making the video presentation and making the final pitching. We divided the works needed in order to accomplish the requirements on time.

 I’ve learn a lot of thing for this week. Especially about the time management. Then, part of my learnings is that we people should not be scared asking suggestions and ideas to other people because those people around you is the key for your success. Those people will give you more information and can advise you in everything. Then lastly, I learned that if all of you in a group are working together task will be easy and requirements will be done on time.

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Validating the product. (By using the subscription)

We fear rejection, want attention, crave affection, and dream of perfection. That is what reality happens. But, we people should not be scared of rejection because rejection will sometimes bring you to success.because every rejections bring lessons. We learned a lot of things because of failure and rejection.and that made as human.In every aspect of our life we want perfection but in reality we don't need to be perfect because we people sometimes need failure for us to be awaken from the dreams that is not possible. We need to fail to learn. Learn from the reality of life.

Last monday, we conducted a pitching for our product. And I must say that it was a successful one. I always say successful because I know in myself that in every thing that I do always put great effort in it and always do my best to have a great presentation.In our pitching we have 3 panelist who ask some questions about our product. They also give comments and suggestions for the improvement of our business start up. Mostly of them said that we got a great or a good product but it is not marketable since we have a higher price. But, they also give as suggestions on how our product be marketable and that is by using the subscription. Subscription, in a way that every month our customers will pay monthly with a certain amount until contract expires. And after the panelist give that suggestion to us we realize that it was a great idea that we will use subcription since that is the trend for now and most of the people are attracted of the lesser amount of money paid per month. Because people want to have a lesser amount of money to be paid per month compared to buy a certain product one time. Some of them discuss the advantage of paying monthly and paying fully.they said that if you pay the product fully you don't need to worry every month about your debt. But some of them also said that they want to pay monthly because they think that they only buy the product at a lower price.

To validate if subscription will really be profitable or if people wants it we interviewed some of the customers or household owners who reside in subdivision in sta cecilia. And we also interview again the previous customers in order to give them an update of our product. We introduce the new method of selling our product and mostly of them agreed that subscription is much good compared to other method.As of now, we were not be able to decide the specific price of our product per month because we are still interviewing more customers in order to assure if they want that way. We want to be sure that there will be lot of customers who will agree our way. We also ask them if they will be interested to buy the product if we will use subscription? And mostly of them said they are interested.as of now we don't know if we can get more profit with subscription than our first way but based on our interview subscription is more favorable or marketable than the first one.

We also updated our BMC since we want to have a subscription and there are also some of the information in the bmc that needs to be change. Then, we also calculate again the total cost that we will be needed to build the product.we calculate it because we change some of the cost that will be needed for the salary of workers or for other materials needed for installations.

I learned from this week that it is really important to accept suggestions and comments from other people in order to improve your product and to learn things from them.Sometimes we think that we already know everything and we dont need other people to help but tha real thing to do or the right thing to do is to ask help from other people and ask suggestions from them in order to have a better product. Because other people are great help for our success. We cannot attain success without other people.

[leslieabregana-blog]

WEEK OF PREPARATION

According to bill gates,”To win Big, You sometimes have to take risk.” We Teambangan have already sacrifices a lot come at this point. A point where we are now working for our success .Though we are far from that, we all know that we are really coming. Time will come that we will be able to say the word SUCCESS. Every week that we presented our reports, pitch, and data are part of our success and I’m happy to say that we really did great as a team. I am lucky being part of this team and having this right people. A right people who are really passionate and willing to take risk.

I will explain and narrate all of the things that we did this week. First, we have a forum, we as a team talk about the things that we will going to do for this week. Well, we continue memorizing our pitch and put some corrections in our slide. We try to practice talking or doing our pitch in order to know if we are really ready for the pitch this Monday. We try if our pitch really suit for 4 minutes presentation. And I think we got it. We cannot say that our presentation this coming Monday will be great, but we will do our best to have better.

Second thing we do is we conduct interview to our potential customers for additional information or data for the presentation. We try to ask household owners in subdivision if they are willing to pay for our product. And some of them say that they are but some are not. While doing our interview we first introduce our product and that is by trying to explain our product like we are doing pitch in order for them to understand what are our product and what problem are we addressing. We are using lay mans’ term in order for them to relate. Doing those interview is also a way for us in practicing our pitch. Then after introducing our product we ask them some questions. Well, some of them suggesting what are the best thing that we are going to do. Though we are already done calculating the cost of the product, we are still accepting suggestions for the improvement of our product because we all know we are not perfect. It is also important that there are those suggestions of our potential customers because they are the one who knows what they want and what are the things that need to be improve base on what they see or observe from the existing product they have or they see. I am happy that some of our interviewee are really amaze with our product and that made us more determined to continue this.

Lastly, we as a team talk about what are our plans not just this week but throughout our journey. We Think if how are we going to end up.If this product will be successful or not . We think of the possibilities. Then we also plan on where are we going to interview next week.

I am very thankful that we are given a much longer time to prepare for our pitch this week. Because of this time given to us, we became more prepared for our presentation and we are confident with it since we have a lot of time practicing. Because of this time we collected more helpful data for our presentation.

Through talking to our potential customers, I realize that being unique is one of your asset. If you have a unique product you will stand out. In our product we have a lot of competitors but one thing we did is that we find disadvantages of those existing product and made our advantage for us to stand out. It does not mean that if you have a lot of competitors you will not stand out, you just need to find ways in order for you to have advantage with them.

[leslieabregana-blog]

SECOND PITCHING

“There is no Success without hardships”, that quote made me more determined to continue and think for better idea in every presentations.

This is it! A week of preparations .We are busy preparing for our pitching. We’ve done a lot of things this week like making a best presentation, and finalizing the slides. It’s a quiet difficult for us since we have a lot of thing to do aside from this subject. And here it comes time management is important, and we are working that for now. For this week, we continued interviewing few customers to ask some questions about our product. And we as a team accept comments and ideas for the improvement of our product. Doing the task is a little bit hard for us because we as team really need to consider the thing that we are going to present in order to attract the investors and for our audience be able to understand the words or terms being use in the presentation. We also consider the content of our slides if it will really makes the investors understand what are we really selling and what problem are we solving. We also done research about our competitors and for our target market.

         I will start explaining how we do our presentation. Well, we consider first our audience which is our possible investors. We made a presentation which is understandable and we are ensuring that the audience may get easily what are we selling and presenting. Then, we shorten the words we used and putted pictures and diagrams for a better presentation. We calculated the total cost of the material that we needed to accomplish a product and also our possible profit.I will going to explain every slides we made and we make it.

         Slide 1: Team

We just put the picture of us and our specific role in our company the teambangan.

         Slide 2: Problem

                  We just put a pictures that will make the audience or to our possible investors picture out what our problem really is.

         Slide 3: Solution

                  We do this slides knowing what are we really solving and with that we did a solution. A solution that really brings changes.We did this slide by also using of pictures and a brief explainations.

         Slide 4: Product

                  With this slide we are ensuring that audience may get what our product really is. We let them picture out how our product really works and how effective this product will be. We made this slide using a collage.

         Slide 5: Target Market

                   This slide is quiet hard since we do a research on the total household population living in a subdivision in the Philippines. We do assumption on the possible number of household population in subdivision who are interested of our product .Then we calculated our SOM using those assumption by multiplying it to .5% wherein we all know that we have a competitors and multiply it again to the price of the product we are selling.

         Slide 6: Competition

                  This is also one of the hardest thing because we did a research on what are the existing company who solve the same problem we had. And not just that. We also do a research on what are the product that those company are selling and what are their way of selling it .And we come up that there are those company that have online transaction and have an expensive product.

         Slide 7: Economics

                  We include in this slide the breakdown of the total cost of the material that we are going to use for the completion of the product. Then, we calculated also our possible profit.

         Slide 8: Ask

                  We calculated the possible amount of money that we needed for the startup for 3 months. We really think this slide well since this is very important in order for our possible investors aware of what we want for our startup.

         Slide 9: Traction

                  This slide is also hard since you need to think for an estimation. You are going to have an assumption for the possible sale of that product yearly.

         Slide 10: Summary

                  We made this slide remarkable. We made a tagline in order for our customer remember us. And we also put our contact number for an easy access.

Making those all presentation is not really easy you have to do a lot of research in order to come up a better presentation. And we are still continuing doing our script for our presentation this Monday. We really do our best because we want to have a better and remarkable presentation.

”There are no secrets of success. It’s is the result of preparation, hardwork and learning from failure.” That is what we are doing now we are preparing, doing our best and learning our failure from our past presentation for our upcoming SUCCESS. And we are happy doing it now.

[leslieabregana-blog]

Pitching

David Rockefeller said “ Success in business requires training ,discipline and hardwork. ” That quote made me think that all the things we did from the previous week is really part of our success as a group .I know that we are far from what they said success but we as a team are determined that for the near future we will be one of the successful entrepreneur in the world.

         For this week, we made a slides for our pitching for the next meeting and we really find it hard, since you have to think what is the best thing to do in order to attract investors and also customers. We need to consider a lot of things like making catchy phrases and most importantly making a whole slides that can fit for just a limited time. And we as a team exchange ideas on how we can accomplish that task. We are not just doing a slides for pitching but we also did a computation for our cost, revenue and profit. And for me it is very hard because you are not just computing it directly you have consider the price of the materials that you are going to use, the expenses for making the product and think for your possible profit . You need to consider those things because you are not just doing this business to lost money, you are doing this to make money out of it. But, the most important thing we did for this week was finalizing the circuit, the features and its functionality.

         We are instructed to interview some of the resellers in order for us to get some ideas:

Question 1: How they handle customers?

Answer: They said that in talking to customers you need to control yourself, avoid arguing to them because you may lost your potential customers. Let the customers talk and show some respect to them and show them that you really care. And most importantly don’t make promises that you can’t keep.

Question 2:  How they introduce their product to their customers?

Answer: They don’t introduce your product directly you need to build connections with your customer first. And if your talk got more interesting that’s the time that you are going to introduce the product. But, there are instances that they introduce the product first and do some back up phrases to convince them buy the product.

Question 3: What are their strategies on making their customers buy their product?

Answer: there are lot of strategies they do like making your product more interesting. Doing a best pitching to convince the customers well. Assure that the product really solve the problem they have. And by showing to them the features of the product.

Question 4: How they overcome failure?

Answer: Mistakes will happen, things will spiral out of your control, and deadlines will be missed. Yes, it will hurt, and yes, you’re allowed to be sad, but that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. You are not going to fail all the time, sometimes you just need to put a greater effort in order to succeed. They are just always positive.

Question 5: How hard it is doing that kind of job?

Answer: According to them it is really hard since they meet different kind of customers like angry customers and you need to make some strategy to make them buy the product. But the most important thing to convince customer is by building good relationship with them.

Question 6: What are the advantages they get with that type of channel among others?

Answer: They can introduce the product and explain the product well. You are going to meet them personally and get to know their interest since it is very important considering you are going to target first the interest of the person and after that start thinking of an idea on how you are going to sell the product to them

 Through our interview with those resellers we conclude that it is not really easy doing their jobs since you are going to encounter different kind of customers and there are lot of challenges doing that kind of job. Like what Steve Jobs said that “ Customers don’t measure how hard you tried. They measure you on what you deliver “, that is why we really do our best to deliver a product with a good quality and a product that is really effective in terms of resolving the problem we addresses. And we hope as a team that we can do that job successfully through learning from those people we interviewed.

The winning strategy in any business startup is thinking big and starting small, and we are now doing that kind of strategy. We all know that we maybe in a dark area for now but I know in myself light will really come to us.

[leslieabregana-blog]

“The Channel :Direct selling “      ( Home security system )

We are done with our target customers, persona and our value proposition and now we are down to the channel. Before we come up with this different results, we first interview our valued customer segments. Thus, the result is that;

              Our channel is direct selling because when we interviewed different home owners and establishments in subdivision, some of them are really curious about our product, some of them really want to see the product first and want to know its functionality. That is why we want direct selling in order for our product to be exposed to people and in order to demonstrate to them its functionality and also to make them understand its importance and advantage among other security system. We want to have a customer interaction and know their feedback with our product personally in order for us to get some additional ideas on improving such product before we will start to have a bigger company. Direct selling is really effective for us especially that our product is home security system it really needs a personal interaction in order to explain well about our product.

           We also interviewed security guards in a subdivision since our product is connected to the guard house in order to hear some of the information and ideas.  We try to ask them if what are the things they did in order for them to have a better security? Then they said that they do “robing” in the area and they really ask those people who enter the subdivision to have a logbook especially those unusual people, but they said that those things are not enough since most of the “kawatan” are very wise. We also ask them if they have any existing security system in the area? Then, they said that they have a CCTV but mostly they cannot point out or recognize those intruder seen in the camera. They have the same answer with those people we interview last time that CCTV can only record what happen, they want to have a security system that can take an action on or before the crime happened .After that, we introduce to them our product and its features and they find it quite interesting and they want to have that certain product in the subdivision where they work since it is very useful in their area.

           All in all based on our interview, we can say that most of the customer segments are really interested with our product and willing to buy it in near future. And we also try to ask them what are their bases in buying such product and they said that the quality for them is the most important especially with that kind of product. Cost for them is just the secondary bases in buying a product and that is why we change our value proposition to a good quality.

           I learned that you really need to build connections with your customer segment. You need to do something to make them trust you and trust your product. While having a long time talking other about your product, you need to make them believe that your product is really effective and good compared to those existing one. The longer you talk to your customer the greater the chance that you are going to convince them to buy the certain product. When we introduce our product to them, they are really curious to our product. Since we have the same problem with most of our customer segments it’s easy for us to introduce our product and sell this to them. We all know that there are already lot of existing product that address the same problem that we have but did something more which is innovation in order to have a greater advantage among others. Then as a result lot of them say they are interested and that makes us more passionate and willing to finish this project. We also made a channel diagram for this week and base on that we must say that we may get a greater profit for it.

[leslieabregana-blog]

Home Security System (about the customer)

Before I talk about the persona I will talk first about why do most of the houses or subdivisions uses CCTV instead of burglar alarm?Well,when we interview those people who live in subdivisions and ask that certain question, they said that CCTV really helps a lot specially that they are not always in their houses most of the time. It will record what really happens in the area. They have a proof if there will be anything that happens in their area,while when they use burglar alarm, they cannot monitor it because they are not always in their houses and they can't have a proof.But some also said that cctv is not that really effective as well, because we interview also those houses that did'nt have a cctv or any security system then they said that cctv will record and can see the intruder but most of the intruder are not afraid of cctv. Then, we introduce our product then they said that ("pag may alarm, medyo matatakot yong magnanakaw dahil pag may sounds mag hehessitate yong magnanakaw.,matataranta siya at possible hindi na matutuloy yong plano niya.). That's why we made an action,we improve our product .instead of just having an alarm we will also put an camera module wherein if there is someone who will input wrong password the camera will take a picture of that certain person then it will also alarm and I will just remind that this door lock with pin is ressetable.

After improving our product we interview again another people in the subdivisions and introduce our product then some of them said that it is a nice product but they are not sure if they can afford it but they are really curious on our product. We can see that they are interested but the cost really made them hessitate to buy a certain product. That's why we will do our best that this product will be affordable and effective also. Then, they also made some suggestions that we may improve for our products.

About the persona most of the family that we interview, Mother is always the one that decide if they will buy the certain product.She just consult to his husband and children if they like it then if they like it the mother will buy the certain product.

I learned that in a family, when they buy a certain product they consulted every member of the family if they like the product or not. But it depends on the product they buy because if it is appliances or anything that is for home mother is always the one that will be followed.