Technopreneurship - Week 10 Pitching day and Impact Hub Manila
Last Monday, we had our pitching for DropBy. Aljoe was the one to pitch for the team. He wasn’t that prepared in pitching, sir Mabula said he needs improvement on pitching but at least he did his best to explain about DropBy. We also presented Muznah’s finished low fidelity work for DropBy. By the end of our pitch, sir Mabulay reminded us to reach at least 100 customers to be validated by the end of the semester.
On Tuesday, on our scheduled class, we didn’t meet because it was a holiday but he told us that we will have a make-up class on Saturday instead. We didn’t do much on Wednesday and Thursday for the reason of having our proposal defense on those said dates.
By Friday afternoon, there was a seminar by Impact Hub Manila held on the Performing Arts Theatre (PAT). Sir encouraged us to attend this event. The Impact Hub Manila introduced two startups to us, Cropital and Eight Media. Cropital was founded by Ruel Amparo. It was a crowdfunding platform for farmers. He presented his pitch deck very well. He shared to us his inspiring story on how he started his startup. He said that he was once like us. So, he started by making the problem clear that there is a problem on about 11 million farmers in the Philippines. There was a lack of funding and low productivity. These two thing kept on going on a cycle. As a result, the farmer will be in debt. Then, he presented on how cropital works. Cropital works by 1. Assess risks 2. Crowdfund 3. Support and 4. Grow. He said that they made and an impact by empowering farmers, increase in productivity and income. Lastly, he told us about the lessons he learned throughout his journey. The only thing you know is that your plan is flawed. Find the flow and plan for failure is what he advised. We should also know how to define the meaning of mistake, stupidity, failure and losing. He also said that we should toughen up. We have to know the inevitable and gain control by then. The next startup that was presented was Eight Media. Eight Media was founded by Gerald Castillo. He started by saying that he made a promise back in high school to never get employed. He shared to us the lessons he learned. He said that you should do what you love. What Gerald loves was tech and love for writing. He reminded us that business is about making money. Ideas are cheap, execution is the key. He stated a quote from Pablo Picasso, “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” He found a way and put his ideas into action. Then, the last lesson for him was to create your own luck. I didn’t quite understand of how eight media works but the important thing for me is that I learned his lessons on his journey of how he started.
On Saturday, I was a bit late for the class but Sir Mabulay talked about customer segments and different market types. He also discussed of the one case study on his validation board. It started first as electronic bicycle company that worked for 3 months selling the e-bike to students but only one e-bike was sold. There are four market types. These are existing market, re-segmented market, new market and clone market. The market that would most likely succeed is and existing market because the customers are known, the only problem you will be dealing is with your competitors. Among the four the least one to succeed is the new market because the customers are not known. It will take time to educate them about your product because you it is not easy for them to adapt fast. I learned that in making the validation board, you can’t always make it right. If you made a false assumption about the customer’s needs then you should consider pivoting.
That was all for my 10th week, I learned a lot of lessons gained from different startup founders and Dr. Ambrosio Cultura III for encouraging us that we can consider a path in entrepreneurship. I alos learned from the startup 101 class activity after the panel discussion. It was fun. Of course, I learned a lot from sir Mabulay’s class. Stay tuned as I update more weekly blogs for my Technopreneurship class. This is Dianne C. Yap of teamMabaylan. (~ ^ _ ^)~
