Reflections

Reflections by group members:

Shane: This has been an enriching experience for me. Now that we know the essential elements of setting up a business, it helps us in our later life, when we are doing it for real. This process also allows us to correct whatever mistakes we make now, so that we know our mistakes and learn the correct way when we deal with VCs. One problem i think the group faced was our time management. With all the test during the past 2 weeks, we had very little time to meet up and complete what we needed to do. But in the end, we did it and that is what’s important.

Shao Jie: After the semi-finals, the group did not really meet up due to different commitments. Tests, EP3 and homework were some of the excuses, but in the end we were able to complete the project. This project has taught me many things, like managing the team as a leader, and I now realise what the real world is like. We could have improved on many aspects of our project but there were internal arguments now and then. This could have been avoided but we just have to live with these things. Being in EP, I hope I could improve on this project and venture into entrepreneurship.

Jia Ming: Joining EP 1 term later than my group mates, I was a burden more than a help at first. However, as the days gone by, I have learnt many things about entreprenurship and have been able to apply them into this project. I have found the going tough, and I cannot imagine what the situation is like in the real world. I feel that this project has been a success, but there were areas of improvement.

Kelvin: Sacrifice is very important in these type of projects, be it in sleep or EP3 commitments. Being an entrepreneur is tough, but it has been a wonderful experience. Our different schedules has made it very hard for us to meet up, thus most of our communication has been done through MSN. I think that this project has been a success and I would like the chance to do another project next year, learning from my current mistakes.

Jun Rong: Having first hand knowledge about the fertiliser market would have been better for the whole group, but these types of projects does have its limitations. However, the experienced that we have gained is invaluable as it allows us to have a chance to mingle around with the professionals

Before the finals

It is 1 day before the finals and we almost have everything done. Executive summary is done, the powerpoint is done, and the website has been uploaded. Now it is crunch time. The grade we get depends on our presentation tomorrow. It would just be like the real thing, presenting in front of external judges tomorrow. Hope we can do much better than the semis…

Day before PD semi-finals

The work is 90% complete, with only the powerpoint left to edit and a script to make. The last few days have all been about edting the powerpoint, and making sure that we have everything that the judges want. We have also taken the comments from the judges last round into consideration and improve on our powerpoint. A presentation during EP class about presentation skills has also helped us a lot. Now, it is all up to how we present tomorrow.

Reflections by group members

Jia Ming: After joining the Entrepreneurship Program in term 2, I was quite nervous at first. Economics seemed to be more difficult than trigonometry at that time, but I slowly started to fit in. As the group started out on the project, I was slightly left behind, but attempted to play my part, and contribute to the project. It was hard, especially with EP3 commitments and adjustment to the new program, but it was also interesting. I learnt that if you want something done well, you need to work together, and we should practice patience with one another, and accept ideas from all directions. However, I believe we were lacking in the area of communication. During the June holidays, it was rather difficult to communicate with one another, but we managed to pull through in the end. To do better in the future, is to establish various means to communicate better and easier with one another. This way, we will surely be successful.

 

 

Kelvin: Through this project, I have realized that sacrifice is necessary, be it in areas like time for homework or sleep. Room for improvement is definitely needed in areas like meeting up regularly to discuss our project. During the holidays, most of us have different schedules that makes it difficult for us to meet up. Thus, we would have to do most of the work during the new school term, which cuts into our busy schedule as well.

 

Shane: I feel that this has been an enriching experience. This project has taught me the basics of setting up a company and what is needed. Now I understand why adults say that they enjoy their school years better. As a young entrepreneur, I really look forward to more projects like these and challenge myself. However, not everything is perfect, and we could improve on some things. For example, meeting deadlines was quite a tough thing to do. There were always some people who did not do their part on time. Secondly, I think we have to meet up more often. Everyone only did their part and sent it to others for editing, but we need to discuss more often to get everyone’ opinion, this way we know how everyone thinks.

Shao Jie: It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come. From the first stages of planning and sourcing in early January till now,  we’ve already completed around 80% of our project. Of course, the process was a indeed a trudgy, dirt track; there were hiccups all along the journey. Due to different commitments during the June holidays, meeting up was not easy. Thus we decided to communicate via MSN, in which getting ideas across one another might be a problem.

There were also internal arguments every now and then. There were members in our group who were very obstinate and unwilling to coorperate with the rest of us. But this is just part and parcel of project working, and probably life. For now, our concentration should be put into our oratory skills so that we can attract the judges (and VC) into recognising our product.

With the downs, there are also the ups. This project really thought me a lot. Marketing was not as easy as it seems. And the Entreprenuership Program, for that matter, holds a lot more value than what meets the eye. We need a sustainable and scalable market, together with a sound product, to make our project a success. Essentially, we are venturing into the science research, product innovation and also the marketing field of entrepreneurship, which really is a great deal of work.

Jun Rong: It could be better if we have first-hand knowledge about the fertilizer market by approaching agricultural firms and companies.

 

However, from this project, we have gained quite a head start about fertilizers and we hope that this knowledge can be applied to our daily life and our future endeavors.

 

Moreover, experience we gained in the company making allow us to have an earlier chance to mingle around with professional examples. 

 

 

Progress

Met up with our mentor today. He gave us very valuable tips on improving our website, what to put and what not to put. We took his advice and edited the stuff at home. Everyone had a part to play in this and we were done by 10pm. Now it is just left with the compilation.

Preparation for semi-finals

Over the past 2 months, we have completed at least 75% of our project.

May: After the exams, we sat down and assigned tasks for the june holidays (e.g. designing website, financial plan etc.)

June holidays: A lot of research was done on the farmer’s pain points. Although we did not meet up, we communicated a lot via MSN. The designing of the website was started as well. By the time school was about to reopen, we had a basic design of our webpage, with the product positioning, market analysis and competitor analysis done.

T3 Wk1: Met up after school one day to discuss on further allocation of work. The financial plan, business model and most of the website was done by then.

T3 Wk2: Did some touch-ups over the weekend and arranged a meeting with our mentor.

Results

The results of the projects day preliminry round have come out, and we ARE THROUGH TO THE SEMI-FINALS!!

This means a lot more hard work, research and hopefully, all of these pay off and we advance to the finals

Preliminary round

Today was our projects day prelims. However, we had EP lessons with Mr Isaac Koh yesterday, and he told us that we needed to do more research on the FARMER’S needs. The whole group also agreed that we were too product-oriented after listening to his presentation, thus the need to change the focus of our product. So we did some last-minute research in the night and we were quite confident of passing the preliminary round.

Today’s presentation went quite well, apart from some little problems in pronounciation. The judges also told us that the sum we needed was too small, and we needed to improve on that part to make it more realistic. We were also told to do some more research on the farmer’s pain points to make it more customer-oriented by addressing them with our presentation.

Overall, we did quite well and we thought it was good enough to go into the semi-finals.

Projects Day!!!

This post will be on the process to the prelims.

Mid January to Early February

We were told that it was compulsory to do a cat 10(entrepreneurship) project. Our team: Shao Jie (leader), Jun Rong, Kelvin and Shane, was formed 

Mid to Late February

- Came up with 2 ideas, the keraliser and a waterproof shoe. We decided on keraliser in the end because it was safe and had scientific evidence.

March holidays

- Started doing research on our product. We found important components of fertiliser and the components of keratin. We sent our 1st draft of our powerpoint to our mentor as well.

18/3

- Met up with our mentor. He told us to research on the market, our competitors, future R&D and asked us to work very closely with the group.

20/3

-The group which did the project last year agreeed to let us use their project, Jun Rong is working closely with them. A new member, Jia Ming, joined our group.

22/3 – 23/3

- Did a second draft of our powerpoint and sent it to mentor.

25/3

- Met up with our mentor again, did the planning for the arrangement of our slides together and he asked us to rearrange it and send it to him.

26/3

-Did our 1st elevator pitch draft and our 3rd powerpoint draft. Sent it to mentor.

27/3

-Mentor sent an email back to our leader, Shao Jie. Our elevator pitch needed some editing and our colour combination for our powerpoint was not that good. Edited those problems that night. We also settled what we were going to do for the prelims itself. Jia Ming would be doing the elevator pitch (with Jun Rong and Shane as back-up), while Shao Jie and Kelvin would present.