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Idea Generation
Business showcase
Business showcase
1 September 2021
Attended the showcase to look at seniors' success/difficulties in their venture implementation. Following the showcase, I've tried to think of ideas which could be feasible for my own venture (so that hopefully when presenting the showcase with my team, we will not have a failed venture!!! - though there are still learning points from it).
First few meetings
First few meetings
Takeaways: The thought process towards evaluating if a business idea was feasible or not (e.g., considering our timeline & roles).
25 September 2021
ET9135 is where we'd come together and build a business from scratch (something I've been looking forward to and a huge driver of why I wanted to join MiE).
Today, we were introduced to our mentor, Mr Roderick. He gave us recommendations on our ideas proposed as well as shared in class some very useful points. For instance, our thought process and how we can use that to evaluate the feasible of our ideas and problems we could potentially face from the ideas proposed.
2 October 2021
My team continued to brainstorm for more ideas. However, we were all struggling to come up with a sound business idea for this project. Hence, we decided to each do some research, try to come up with more ideas and present it to one another during our next meeting.
List of ideas from excel
Next meeting
Next meeting
9 October 2021
Since our first meeting, my team and I have been meeting up a lot to discuss what business idea we should embark upon. We created an excel sheet on the different ideas we had in mind and a google document to expand more on all of our thoughts. For instance, we discussed how we would execute the ideas, timeline, roles, and financial projections. Then, we met up to discuss all the ideas' pros and cons and voted for them.
Our top idea was to empower more home-based businesses to do well since most home-based businesses do not have expertise in the social media market. Hence, we will identify businesses that are not doing well but have the potential and then enter to help build their home-based businesses to a suitable scale. With this, we can a cut of everything (e.g., royalties/a small fee) and eventually integrate these businesses into a single platform.
After several long debates and consultations with Professor Chia, we realised that narrowing down this business idea would be good. My concern was mainly on our strategy, as Professor Chia mentioned that building from 0 to 1 will be complex until we can complete a whole ecosystem (i.e., we will need a good strategy). My solution was to target small online bakeries selling on Instagram. Because these businesses are not popular although already establishing a presence, we can help to provide additional outreach - marketing these businesses. Then, to create value for them, we can help them with the logistics portion (e.g., we can help collect their cakes at a particular time and deliver to customers, so they only need to focus on baking their goods). We will be having a zoom call with Professor Chia tomorrow to seek his advice.
Update!
Update!
10 October 2021
Professor Chia felt that our other idea, Terrarium, was more feasible. After some discussion with my team, we've decided to go ahead with it! My team members are all pretty diverse in terms of expertise so we've delegated our tasks for the upcoming proposal accordingly.
Overall, what I've learned was to:
Let go of originality
There are countless businesses today that already exist (and it is possible to not think of an idea first). Many people try very hard to think of a unique business idea when they should be focusing on how to be better, rather than how to be different. Mr Roderick brought up to us in class how your idea does not have to be "fantastic". He mentioned that if an idea is bad but markets will, it can sell. But, if an idea is great but has bad marketing, it will be hard to succeed. If an idea is good, there will be competition or there will soon be. Facebook was not the first social network. Thus, it is important to ask how we can put our own stamp on a product/industry. I believe that this mentality will help to free up more ideas and enable me to be more receptive on potential proposed ideas.
Experiment with 'maybe ideas'
Sometimes, the best ideas sound less promising at first only to become brilliant in the execution. I've learnt to challenge myself to find the heart of a "maybe idea", to try it out and improve it on the ground. Often, the biggest barrier to success is the fear of taking that first step. I'm glad to be able to have an opportunity to do a project that enables me to jump straight in, experiment and see where it takes me! :)
Use my skillset
Another thing Mr Roderick mentioned in class was how far more likely we are able to make our idea a success, and that is for us to focus on skills we already have. I'm thankful that my team and I all come from diverse backgrounds (e.g., public policy/engineering/computer science/business/accountancy) so we can all better leverage on our skillsets to make this business a successful one.
Another takeaway: Selecting an idea together as a group was not easy as each of us may have a preference for an idea.
My group had a lot of discussions on the different ideas proposed. But what helped was that we had an anonymous voting process and went ahead with the idea which most of us are into considering our roles, time and finances.
After it all, Felix Natura was born - DIY Terrarium kits which targets plant lovers as well as people who are into home decor.
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