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My Interest
My Interest
I have a strong passion for emerging technology, mainly Blockchain Applications through Cryptography. Particularly in the realm of Smart Contracts and NFTs.
In addition, I have enjoy getting involve in the real estate scene in Singapore
About Myself
About Myself
Hello and Welcome to my Blog! My Name is Stevenson! Before I continue, Thank You for taking your time to learn more about me :)
A Quote That I Live By:
"We, individually, are responsible for everything in our lives, no matter the external circumstances. We don't always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret what happens to us, as well as how we respond" - Mark Manson
I am a Third Year Electrical and Electronics Engineering undergraduate, specialising in Data Intelligence and Processing under the Info-Communication Engineering Branch, at Nanyang Technological University.
I have been exposed to Entrepreneurship since young, as both my parents are Entrepreneurs themselves. As such, I have growth to appreciate the value that entrepreneurs bring to the world, using their creativity to formulate innovations that can improve the lives of the generation after them. The first step of my entrepreneur journey began during my first year in University, when I joined the introductory module, "Entrepreneurship & Marketing for New Ventures" as a unrestricted elective.
At the beginning of my third year, I joined the Minor in Entrepreneurship Program by Nanyang Technopreneur Centre. This blog serves as a reflection on my journey throughout this program.
I hope that you may find some value from my experiences :)
A Quote That I Live By:
25th September 2021
The First Introduction and face to face meeting we had we our mentor, Roderick. During that meeting, the formation of groups had to be confirmed and so I joined the group consisting of Jyn Yih, Nigel, Gabriel and Kelvin, who I had worked with during ET9132 to ET9134, as well as new faces Qi Qi and Richmond. During the session, we were encourage to generate as many ideas we could come up with and present it with Roderick and our peers from other groups, to gather their thoughts and whether our ideas that we have come up with were feasible. As a group, we consolidated our ideas and strengths, as well as getting to know each other. Collectively as a group, we agreed that communication between members will be essential, hence we made that one of our first few priorities in addition to idea generation
10th October 2021
Within the past fortnight, our idea generator kicked into high gear and we were outputting ideas rampantly. Finally we narrowed down to 2 mains ideas, which were Nigel's idea for a Terrarium DIY Kit, and Gabriel's Social Media Marketers for small businesses. Both ideas were then research in depth, covering the executional feasibility, financial feasibility and our value proposition just to name a few. Meanwhile, Qi Qi and I started working on crafting out the backbone and skeleton of our business plan that would be due on 15 October.
We met with Roderick on 10 October for a consultation to present to him our ideas to gather his feedback on the 2 ideas. It was then concluded that we would be go with Nigel's Terrarium DIY Kit idea as it was favored by Roderick in terms of the executional feasibility within the next 6 months.
After the consultation, our destination was clear and our team started writing up our business plan as well as putting together our Team blog to aid our presentation to Roderick and our fellow peers the coming Saturday.
These are certain principles that I follow when strategising our marketing efforts, which will set the tone throughout our journey
11th to 15th October 2021
In preparation for our Business Plan presentation, I took upon the role of developing our Marketing Plan. Understanding that good marketing can bring tremendous value to any venture, in the form of branding and revenue.
I worked on developing our differentiation measure from our competitors, as well as working on the fundamentals of the marketing mix. Furthermore, I work closely with the procurement team, supplying them the marketing research I have gathered to choose the best possible supplies for our product, given our circumstances.
16th October 2021
We came up with the name, Felix Natura, as our team's name. We presented our Terrarium DIY Kit to Roderick and our fellow peers. As for myself, I presented our Marketing Plan, which included how are we going to differentiate ourselves, as well as sharing the marketing mix and our road map. Roderick gave us some feedback and some things to take note of, mainly how are we going to successfully link the mental well being aspect with our products and market it to our consumers, as well as making sure that we have established key supply chain partners.
Moving forward, my task is to conduct the market research by gathering data from our targeted audience via survey, as well as conducting some on the ground work competitor analysis to understand from ground up the actual operations and putting my shoes in the consumers' perspective.
16th to 23rd October
Together with Qi Qi, we worked on creating the market survey, get an idea of general perception of terrariums. One thing that we took note is ensuring we're not receiving false positives. How we prevent that from happening is structuring our questions in to receive genuine answers, and filtering participants by their interest in our product. We came up with several marketing strategies that are in the pipeline.
Furthermore, we have to calculate the marketing expenses that will be conveyed to Jyn, our Chief Financial Officer. We had to make reasonable and rational choices, given the resources we have, and make the optimal decision that is in line with our short to mid term goal. Qi Qi and I had many fruitful conversations together and we ultimately agree that in the short term, our efforts should be mainly focused on building awareness of Felix Natura.
The next weeks ahead would be set in stone, and we will be setting our sights on the road ahead.
24th October 2021
We had a group meeting to update each other on our progress for the week. As a group, we acknowledged that it was essential for us to convene at least once a week to fill each other on our individual developments.
Collectively as a group, we reaffirm that communication between the our group members is of great importance. We made it clear as a group, to help one another out whenever we need assistance. We have divide into departments to as a functioning structure to improve our operational efficiency. Mainly:
Logistic / Procurement Team consisting of Nigel and Gabriel
Financial Team consisting of Jyn Yih
Technological Team consisting of Kelvin and Richmond
Marketing Team consisting of Qi Qi and myself
Even though I am assigned to the marketing team, I am involved in assisting the technological team by providing technical advice (from my background as a EEE undergraduate) and supplying research data gathered to the procurement supplies team to ensure that the supplies chosen are what consumers are looking out for etc.
25th to 31st October 2021
25th to 31st October 2021
I conducted our market analysis, which the main focus for this week is our competitor analysis. I visited workshops to understand what and how our competition are marketing and selling. I analysed what they did well, and what can be improved on by us. These are important knowledge to obtain as we do not want to be oblivious to our external environments.
I ordered our competitors product that is most similar to ours, and tried assembling one. I noted down some findings that I gathered while making the terrarium.
My End Product :)
30th October 2021
As part of our research for sourcing our materials, Jyn, Nigel, Richmond, Gabriel and I visited various Nurseries, which include Far East Flora, Ji Mei Flower as well as Island Landscape & Nursery.
My main focus of this trip was to conduct some sentimental analysis. These information will be useful in the coming weeks, which allows us to make more sensible and informed decisions.
Some of Areas of the sentimental analysis that I focused on were:
-What were the type of customers that were visiting each nursery
-Who are the targeted/segmented audience for each nursery
-What do the customers like about the nursery that their visiting,
-What were their purpose for visiting nursery (was it a festive season soon? what type of plants were they buying? what type of plants would millennials / gen z tend to purchase?
Some of the ideas that were brought up by Qi Qi, which served as some form of inspiration during our discussions
1st to 14th November 2021
During this period, I met up with Qi Qi more often to discuss more in detail for our marketing plan, in light of our busy examination schedule ahead. We have several late night calls and idea generation sessions, utilising all the information that both of us has gathered thus far.
Some of the things that we went through this period were:
Ideas and content for our social media pages to be set up in December
Marketing to a specific group of audience
Promotional video/post
Products that can complement the festive period that is up and coming e.g Christmas
15th November to 3rd December 2021
We held weekly group meetings to update each other on our various progress and milestones that we have achieved our the past weeks. Most of us are having examinations during this period, hence collectively as a group, we focused on assisting and covering one another, especially when someone has yet to end their examinations. During this period, I have came to realise that our team values goes beyond the venture itself, where we put our team mates needs and concern as priority.
As example would be those that have ended their examinations earlier covering for Qi Qi and I (since our exam ends the latest: first week of December for Qi Qi and 6 December for myself).
4th December 2021
We had consultation with Roderick as well as Adrian to update them on our progress so far.
Some of the key advise given to us by Roderick and Adrian were:
Who were we marketing on: first time buyers of terrarium or experienced ones?
Find a correlation between 2 interest groups : e.g ppl who like to run, will be more inclined to buy fitness trackers
What's the definition of success by roderick and adrian:
what is our kpi, it is better to sell to 10 strangers than to 30 friends?
Set the target by Adrian:
The Learning behind it more important than the results, it does not mean that we have failed if we did not reach our targets
$29 (Is this your fair price in your mind?)
Focus find the right price, then R&D will do what it can to make it profitable, work around the right price (profitability not main focus)
We must know what must work, testing, physiologically pricing, the situation when we are marketing affects the pricing
E.g physiologically pricing of product $20, but lets say next day gf birthday, would u pay $30 for the product
Focus on setting more tangible outcome
5th to 17th December 2021
A zoom meeting between Richmond, Kelvin, Qi Qi and myself as we discussed more in depth how we can integrated the website and marketing aspect together. This meeting also serves as a opportunity for us to be more familiar with each others work, with some friendly banter along the way :)
As a group, we took some time to internalise Roderick and Adrian's valuable advise. During this time is when we officially launched our Felix Natura Instagram and Facebook!
Qi Qi is the main person handling our social media accounts, meanwhile I'll be working together with her to bring more interactive and engaging content for our followers. Furthermore, I will be at the forefront in charge of sales with the upcoming launch of our First official product!
18th December 2021
A collage of my contacts end products, as well as some of their instagram stories as part of our marketing efforts
As part of our soft launch of Felix Natura on social media, we connected some nano-influencers to help us with our launch. Qi Qi and I each contacted 5 different individuals each (total no. of nano influencers in this soft launch is 10).
On this day, we scheduled with our nano influencers to make deliveries to them personally. Jyn and Qi Qi did the deliveries for Qi Qi's contacts, while I did the deliveries personally for my contacts. Places that I travelled for the deliveries include, Woodlands, Sembawang, Bukit Gombak, Punggol and Pasir Ris.
Nigel, Jyn and I filming the video at NTC! We bumped into some of our friends in MiE Batch 59, and we shared with them our experience so far!
29th December 2021
As part of our efforts moving towards conducting Terrarium workshops in the coming future, Jyn, Nigel and myself were involved in creating an instruction video for our customers. The purpose of the video is give our Felix Natura customers a step-by-step detailed guide in a video format on the basics of Terrarium knowledge, how to assemble their product, as well as the aftercare aspect of the terrarium.
Jyn is the executive producer, Nigel is the creative director, and I served as the main lead/actor in the video :)
The process of filming the video was more challenging that we had anticipated, it involved many takes and reshoots, as well as some creative changes to how some frames we being shot. After a gruelling 8 to 9 hours of shoot, we managed to film only 70% of what we wanted for the video. Nigel and I will arrange another day to shoot the remaining part of the video.
In addition, we discussed on the direction and steps to take if we were to market this video for B2B use cases, and how our videos could serve as a marketing video in order to convince our potential customers on choosing Felix Natura as a partner!
Through this experience, I have gotten to be more involved in the operational side, familarising myself with the whole process of the venture
This is a snippet of presentation deck, of the flow of the workshop that we would be conducting :)
The video is expected to be between 4 to 5 mins long. Our focus of the video is to keep it concise, informative and interesting!
Full credits of the slides and our new Beautiful Felix Natura Logo (bottom right) goes to Nigel :)
1st to 7th January 2022
Our team gathered for our Felix Natura cohesion, to align our goals and course of action, as well as spending some time to strengthen our teams' relationship through bonding activities.
During the first week of January, I met up with Nigel to complete the filming for the workshop, picking up where we left off the previous time. After a days worth of grueling 10 hours filming and many takes on the video, Nigel and I had decided to scrap the whole idea. We attributed it to the flow and coherence of the flow, which would be suitable otherwise. Even though we have had a sunken cost of over 20 hours conceptualising and filming many takes, it was a step in the right direction as Nigel and I became more aware of what we wanted in the video in terms of the creativity aspect and how we wanted to present the video to the audience the way we intended to.
The conclusion we have reached, was that Nigel was to shoot the whole video in a single take, as compared to when I shot the video in separate parts, as well as adding in other creative ideas.
Our Felix Natura Cohesion Day :)
8th to 15th January 2022
Qi Qi and I came together over the period to work out our marketing plan leading up to the festive season in February. We opted for the divide and conquer approach, where Qi Qi would focus on the Instagram advertisement post and Dateidea.sg, where as I would focus more on the Targeted Ads and creating the Workshop for our future customers.
Apart from marketing, I have been also tasked with generating Sales volume by looking out for more Business to Business sales opportunities.
In addition, we have decided to list our products on Shopee to reach a wider customer base, on the side is a snippet of the visual view, which we would be listing very soon after we have confirm some of the final details.
16th to 28th January 2022
With Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year around the corner, Qi Qi and I are working on our marketing plan leading up to February. What we came up with, was that Qi Qi will look into developing further our social media as well as come up with more listings/ads for Dateidea.sg. focus while I will focus more on ads and the terrarium workshop I will look into developing further our social media as well as come up with more listings/ads for Dateidea.sg. I have been tasked to plan as the lead with Nigel, and to review and rehearse the workshop flow together with Kelvin, Richmond and Qi Qi.
Nigel, Qi Qi, Richmond, Gabriel, Kelvin and myself at the Terrarium workshop!
27th January 2022
In order to prepare ourselves for hosting our own Terrarium Workshops, we decided to participate in a workshop by an established Terrarium Business in order to be familiar with the operational flow and thought process.
1st to 14th February 2022
With the experience gained in the previous weeks on the operational flow of how a Terrarium workshop should be conducted, Nigel and I are working on our upcoming workshop to be held on 2 March 2022. Furthermore, I am outreaching to other Local Universities relevant interest groups in the possibilities of working together to host more Terrarium workshops. I have also worked together with Qi Qi to set and discuss our KPIs that we would want to achieve for the coming months ahead.
Furthermore, I started utilising the meta business manager to run Chinese New Year themed ads, on Instagram Post created by Qi Qi, in line with the festive period. Our goal for this campaign is to increase our brand's awareness amongst our target audience, as well as broadcasting our festive themed products.
15th to 28th February 2022
With Chinese New Year coming to an end, I consolidated the results from the campaign that we had run. It is definitely a new experience for us and we picked up a few tricks along the way. The results we have gathered will be useful as we analyse and plan ahead for our next marketing campaign ahead.
We have the workshop upcoming that Nigel and myself are hosting. In preparation for the workshop, we'll have to confirm the operational flow and execution of the workshop, setting up the venue for the participants, as well as managing the logistical needs for the workshop.
2nd March 2022
Felix Natura x WePack Terrarium Workshop
Months of conceptualising and planning for our Terrarium Workshop with Nigel were finally actualised when we conducted a Corporate session with WePack. Unfortunately, out of all days, I contracted Covid-19 and had to be quarantined, hence I was unable to carry out the execution part with Nigel. Thankfully, Qi Qi and especially Richmond, stepped up and covered for me in my absence, which led to a plain sailing and successful workshop! My takeaway from this experience is that life is unpredictable and it doesn't always goes the way you have planned. However, we can learn to adapt to the situation and control our reaction it whatever curveball is thrown our way. And in this case, strong foundations of trust between our team has led to the success of this First Workshop!
1st Pic: Myself presenting Felix Natura Marketing Efforts since our inception
2nd Pic: Our Felix Natura Group Photo :)
9th March 2022
Business Show Case
The Business Showcase signifies the last stages of these module, however it is just the beginning of our entrepreneurial journey. Through the showcase, we presented our accomplishments, and our setbacks and our rocky journey to where we are today. Like I mentioned in my presentation ( picture on the left ), our journey is definitely not a bed of roses. When preparing for our business showcase, it also serves as a reflection on what we have done well, and especially where we could done better. Definitely a 15 minutes presentation does not allow to delve into more details, particularly since we have 7 people, but we made good use of the time through our succinct presentation.
After the showcase, we hanged around to converse more with our junior batch as well as to catch up with our own batch mates.
To end the night, NTC required each of the groups to give a 1 minute elevator speech about our product, in which I introduced Felix Natura and our products.
Final Thoughts and Reflections
With MiE coming to an end, I would like to start of by expressing my appreciation to Qian Wen and Karen, and other NTC staff, for their support throughout these few months. I would also like to express my appreciation to Roderick and Adrian for sharing their knowledge and constructively challenging us.
Most importantly, I would like to express my utmost gratitude to my Felix Natura group: Jyn, Nigel, Gabriel, Richmond, Kelvin and Qi Qi. The biggest takeaway is the friendship that we have forged, and for that, thank you guys and girl ;)
Apart from what I have mentioned already, there are other valuable lessons that I have picked up from this venture. This are all my personal thoughts, however I hope this may find helpful for you in someway.
One of the most valuable takeaways I have, is the notion of being customer / end user centric. Always put the customers’ needs and benefits at the priority, then it will lead to sales and eventually the profits will start kicking in. - My own interpretation of entrepreneurship does not necessarily mean starting a venture or a start-up right away. The skills and perseverance of entrepreneurship can be applied to many facets of our lives
Effective communication is without a doubt one of the most essential parts when working in a team. It is how we can share with each other ideas, thoughts, and feelings with one another. Without effective and structured forms of communication, it will certainly lead to the failure of an organisation. There were certain challenges in this domain, especially in a relatively large group - Due to difference in backgrounds and experiences, the same information could have been interpreted disparately from one another. As cliché as it sounds, we must try out best to understand and empathies with one another.
Do not be afraid to fail and always try and try again. You will definitely meet challenges along the way, you might even experience more failures before you find a little success in a certain area. Don't regret and lament that you tried and failed, because if you didn't actually try, you wouldn't know it will work, and who knows maybe it's just the wrong timing. The only certainty in life, is uncertainty.
May you find the strength and determinations to go thru whatever problems life throws towards you :)
Signing Off,
Stevenson
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