Disso progress: A chance to Pitch to investors

Hello people! Today was has been an extremely productive day, I've been working on my dissertation for 12 hours almost none stop and am now on 12k words. I was really focused and was just in that working mode from 9am listening to some relaxing/yoga music, I actually downloaded them today to keep myself focused and it actually worked. Oh btw well done to those who got their GCSEs results.

So what's been happening in past 3 weeks, I think it was three weeks ago since I last blogged. Anyways, here are the highlights:

• I contacted 2 healthy/food bloggers to test my MVP
• One of the bloggers  introduced me to her sister and her friend who is a massive foodie and a food blogger to test my MVP
• I also gave one sample to another class mate and to my mentor's fiancé
• I've completed all customer interviews, finally!

I really hope I will get a distinction for dissertation as this is the final chance to graduate with a distinction!!! Some of you may think does it matter what you get if you're considering of doing your own business? True the grade doesn't matter, but the fact I paid £10k for this course I would like to aim for the best. I remember in semester one, one of my lecturer told us not to stress about the courseworks because they are JUST courseworks. Lol.

The dissertation is due next Friday, seriously where did the time go?!! I know I keep saying that lol. Before handing the dissertation in there's a presentation on Wednesday which I think is 10% of our final mark. We will be marked by our mentor and supervisor. And that's not it, since this is an entrepreneurship course we get the chance to pitch our business ideas to investors on the same day. But... only 10 students get to pitch. During the presentation the mentors will decide who can pitch.

Initially, I wasn't sure if I should pitch because my business idea is such at an early stage. But my supervisor insisted ( she also pointed her finger at me) that I should pitch. Even if I'm not raising money, I will need to tell them I would be in the next few months. Exciting hey? I'm usually fine with presentations but I'm actually quite nervous already about the pitch, I think it's because this is the first time pitching and it is the real deal. Ok, I know I haven't even been picked yet. Actually this isn't the first time, I pitched at the E-challenge when I was doing Share N Wear.

Anyways, that's it for now. Thanks for reading. Good luck to you if you're also working on your dissertation.

Disso progress: A/B split testing

Hiya,  I cannot believe its August already! Holy Moly! My dissertation is due in 4 weeks but I have 3 weeks to write it. EEEKKK!! The last week will be the polishing part and preparing the presentation. I've started writing last week and have written 2500. But that's very little because the word count is 15,000. I got to push myself. I'm setting myself a target that will need to be met by Thursday and that is have written at least 6000 words. I've written out a schedule, finally, I've planned what I'll be writing and how many words on each day. Hopefully I will follow it.

As mentioned in my last post, I've been giving out the samples, the MVP, for people to try. I've sent out 5 so far but they are all to people I know. My other goal is to find about 5 strangers who are healthy food experts to test my MVP. So if that's you or know anyone will be interested PLEASE PLEASE leave a comment below this blog or tweet me or message me on Facebook.

A couple of my friends have sent me photos of their food using some of the stuff that I gave them. I'm so happy and excited that they all enjoyed it and sent me the photos. =D

My friend B made a pasta salad with the gluten free pasta and pumpkin seeds I gave her.

Here's another photo of her breakfast with some of the ingredients I gave her,baobab powder and chia seeds. 

The photos below are chocolate spelt pancakes which was a recipe I gave to them on try.

This one looks like a chocolate crumpet lol but its actually the chocolate soya spelt pancake. 

The feedback I got so far have been quite useful and positive. I've become more confident about this idea now. The best thing I've heard so far is that my friend went to Holland & Barratt straight away to get the full size of the products I gave her.  This reaction has validated one of my hypothesis!!! 

That's it for now.

Are you a healthy expert? Or do you like eating healthy? If you're interesting in testing my service, my business idea, MVP, whatever you want to call it, PLEASE PLEASE contact me! It doesn't take up much time, promise!

That extra mile to do my competitor analysis.

Hi guys,

Today's post is about my dissertation progress. This time I will talk a bit about how I'm doing my competitor analysis. 

Normally people will do a competitor analysis by researching on the Internet, conducting SWOT and/or PEST analysis. I have done those but I also became their customer to get a better view and understanding of their service and product. 

Last week I subscribed to one of my closest competitor and today I've received my first box through the post. I paid £10/ month. The box was small enough to fit through the post box which is quite convenient. 

Simply Cook is a startup that aims to make cooking easier by supplying "hard to find 'taste ingredients' and simple instructions." And to be honest, I actually like this idea lol. 

Inside the box was 4 other boxes that contained 3 'taste ingredients'. 

Each box contains a small pot of oil, stock and herbs/ spice.  

As mentioned earlier, there are 4 recipe cards. 

I haven't tried it out yet as I only got the box this morning, but will definitely try one or two recipes this week. I'm kind of excited to be honest. Lol I've basically just marketed them to you lol. But it's ok, sharing is caring. And every startup should support each other. Hehe 

I hope my effort will get me a distinction for my dissertation! 

How's you're dissertation going on? How are you doing you're competitor analysis? 

MVP created and testing

Hi guys, 

I am so excited about the MVP (minimum viable product) I made for my business idea/ dissertation. 

Here they are. I'm doing a A/B split test, as you can see I wrote A on one bag and B on the other. I've given it to 4 people so far! This photo was taken when I was in Pizza Express with my friend hence the menus lol. 

I spent about £50 on 9 items. Why so expensive? Well because they are all from planet organic, and you know organic products are always expensive. Why did I buy organic products? Because that's what my business idea is about. It was the chia seed that cost me the most, £14.99 for a big pack. But anyways this is just an MVP, in time I will look for a cheaper way to do it to increase the profit margin. 

When I gave them to my friends, they were all so excited. =D I'm giving them a week to try them out, then I will do a face to face interview with them to get feedback. 

I'm still looking for people to do the test. Anyone interested? :) 

Goals for next two weeks

Hi everyone, hope you're all enjoying this lovely hot weather. And for those who's also doing their dissertation, how is it going?

I just had a look at the calendar and counted the number of weeks left and OH MY WORLD!! 6 weeks left!!! I have very little time left. I haven't even written ONE word. Lol. But to make myself feel better, our dissertation is different to other dissertations. We have to do a lot of market research and tests before writing. Well that's an excuse really. =p

I was supposed to fill in a progress report on Friday, but totally forgot about it. I just did it though lol

Anyways, my next step is to do a demo of the service (MVP), A/B split test, create a landing page, and starting selling- as Rob Fitzpatrick, one of the mentors, has suggested. I almost forgot... and update my lean canvas!

The next goal is to get feedback from at least 5 people who tried the demo and maybe make £20 in the next 2 weeks? Lol. 

I also need to do some work for literature review, and start writing something! Researching is actually quite tiring. I spent 2 hours in the British Library last week and it wasn't easy. One because there were too much stuff available so you don't know where to start. Two it's just draining. 

That's it for now, thanks for reading. Blog later! 

Validated Initial Hypotheses

Hello people! Thanks for taking the time read my blog. The weather here in the UK is lovely, but can be a bit too hot to work on my dissertation. I haven't done much since my last post, I've just been sending out the survey and researching about the details of my competitors. I TRIED to do some reading on the customer development, the Steve Blank's book, Startup Manual Guide but didn't really happen. It's just too hot to work, my brain hasn't been working properly. Every time I sit by my desk, I just feel like 'can't be bothered, I'll do it later'. lol. I'm not making excuses. lol.

Anyhow I have managed to validate some of my initial hypotheses though.

Hypothesis #1

Not everyone one knows about all the benefits of the food they eat

Hypothesis #2

Some eat certain healthy food for the sake of eating healthy but are not sure the exact benefits

For hypotheses 1 and 2 I asked people 'Do you know all the benefits of the raw and dry ingredients that you add to your meals?', they had an option of;

- No, but I know they are healthy

- Yes, somewhat

- Yes, I know them very well. 

No one picked the last answer. 7 out of 13 chose the first option and 6 out of 13 chose the second. Thus it shows that my first two hypotheses are true. Only 13 people answered this question because I deleted this question later as some people said the survey was too long. 

Hypothesis #3 

When following a recipe there’s always at least one ingredient they don’t have because it’s uncommon.

Hypothesis #4

They always end up buying the uncommon ingredient and will only use it for that particular recipe or not often.

Prior to the survey, I actually interviewed two people with slightly different questions. Hypothesis 3 and 4 were actually my very first hypotheses. I asked them what problems they have when following a recipe and both said having all the ingredients you need. There are ingredients or equipment you only need for that recipe and won't be using it again. Another thing, both of them loving cooking and baking. But I'm not sure if that will be my customer segment.

Hypothesis #5

find healthy products are more expensive than unhealthy food

Hypothesis #6

 7/10 people would like to have smaller sizes of food products 

In the survey I asked 'What annoys you or frustrates you the most when you're food shopping?', and quite a few people have mentioned healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food. Yes, bingo! Some people also mentioned about the size being too big if they are cooking for 1 to 2 people. Yes, bingo! So both hypothesis 5 and 6 have also been validated!!

That's 6 out of 14 hypothesis that has been validated, the rest I haven't tested them. That's my next step, I need to test all my initial hypotheses and then create new ones. I also need to define my segment and start building the MVP (minimal viable product). 

That's it for now. Update you later!!

My New Dissertation Idea aka Business Idea

Hi guys, in my previous post I mentioned that I've changed my dissertation topic to my own business idea. Why? What was wrong with the startup? Nothing really, I just had a eureka moment. However, it's not entirely original, it's a clone of another business but with different features.

Before changing it, I of course spoke to the head of department, Dave and my supervisor, Itxaso. Dave said its not too late but I probably won't be able to do lots of interviews. Itxaso loved my idea! That was a relief. Lol She told me not to waste my time on the startup and should do my own idea and carry on pursuing it after uni is over. I will as I've always wanted my own business.

You often hear people say turn your passion into a business. So based on my passion on healthy/well being and food I came up with an idea. It's a clone of Nutribox, Graze, Glossy box, Birch box and other product subscriptions business model. I haven't come up with a proper name yet, but our initial idea was 'Good Munch' but for the sake of SEO, my mentor Jack suggested the name should contain at least one key word that will inform people what the business is about in 3 seconds and appear in the top of the list in search engine. Anyway, I'll refer it to Good Munch in my blog posts for now.

So what exactly is it? I won't go into detail yet, hehe. You will know soon.

It's been about 2 weeks since I've changed the topic and so far I've sent out surveys, drawn canvases for Good Munch and the competitors and written out the initial hypotheses. A couple of people have said my survey is a bit too long, I cut some questions out. The reason it's long is because I'm doing it the short cut way, don't have the time to do face to face interviews. So I'm trying to get as much as I can from the surveys.

To encourage people to do the survey, I decided to give out 2 £20 amazon gift voucher. I will pick 2 winners at random on 22nd July. One of the voucher was given to me when I volunteered for TEDxUCL, lol. That's one voucher sorted lol. And guess what? I'm such a donut.  I forgot to add a field box for people to enter their email address or even a name for them to be entered for the prize draw. LOL. So I sent a message out on my Facebook telling them to give me their email address. But I've added it now. Here's one of the gift voucher.

The more research I do the more competition I find lol. But they aren't exactly the same though. I've found out that there a lot of healthy food online subscription businesses. All aim to provide convenience, save money and time. I found most of them through some of my favourite fitness blogs. As well as finding my competitors, I also learnt that each blogger is a channel to bring customers to the business. 

Changed my dissertation topic

Hi everyone! Just another update on my dissertation progress. I have changed the topic of my dissertation, I am going to work on my own business idea. I will talk about that in the next post. This post will be a highlight of the last few weeks with Glow and probably the last time I will be blogging about them.

Glow
In the past few weeks, I've been going to the mentor and supervisor sessions every Wednesday evening as usual. I've been doing a lot of interviews and I've been travelling a lot, well just around London. The furthest I've been is Heathrow airport terminal 5. 

About 3 weeks ago, I decided to change the customer segment, well not change but narrow it down. The decision was based on the feedback from professional working women (most saying they will not use mobile beauticians). So I thought of women with young children and women who lives in the suburb. My assumption is that women with young children would have to go through a lot of hassle and stress when going to the salon because they got to dress the children, put them in the pram, pack bag, push the pram into the salon. When they are in the salon, the children will get restless, cry and scream, etc. You get the gist. Basically no peace and they can't relax. If a mobile beautician was to go to their house, at least the mum don't need to dress the children, etc. Women living in the suburbs probably don't have much options in terms of salons and beauticians. They probably have to travel a distance for certain treatments. So it would be convenient for them if a mobile beautician visited them. 

I asked my mentor's opinion and he thought they are good especially the latter. I told the founders but they weren't too keen on the latter and suggested women who travel a lot around the country. I told my mentor that they weren't too keen in women living in the suburbs, and he said to me "Keep an open and objective mind.  I think your segments are legit. The purpose of customer development is NOT to prove your hypothesis true (many founders do this).  It's to DISCOVER where your product fits in the market the best. "  

I have interviewed one mum and one women who travels a lot but not women who lives in suburb. Haven't got round doing it yet- well I won't be now, as I'm doing my own idea.From their feedback it seems mobile beauticians isn't a popular option at all. The mum said she wouldn't book a mobile beautician because she still wouldn't have peace. Her kids would still be running around. The women who travels a lot said she wouldn't need to book one while she is away because she will be getting her treatments done before her trip.

I've done about 17 interviews with professional working women, 1 mum and 1 women who travels a lot. 14/17 have said they won't book a mobile beautician as they like the salon experience. Therefore, according to the Lean Startup the founders should pivot because the problem is not big enough to be solved.

That's how I felt LOL.

Last week, I went to the supervisor session. I told her about my findings and she told me to tell the founders to abandon the whole idea of booking mobile beautician. (She wants me to tell them that!! See the facial expression on left) They should corporate with salons and get them to  integrate an express make over method in their menu. Glow will then create an app for women to book their appointment. Apparently there's an express make up service in Bank and its always packed at 5pm with professional working women.


On the same night, I emailed the founders and told them exactly what my supervisor said to me. I was a bit hesitant because I'm basically saying their idea sucks. Lol. Well, it's not a bad idea but maybe they haven't found their niche. One of the founders wanted to speak on the phone about it, so we did. She said she won't pivot because she wants some concrete evidence that shows this idea won't work. And they have spent a lot of money and time on the app (they've got mock ups), and it will be a waste if they abandon it now. They will release the app and if it doesn't work then it doesn't. Then they will pivot. The thing is, I thought she said she follows the Lean Startup and that is going against it really. Unless she meant they are going to release an MVP to test it then that makes sense. However, if 14/17 have said they won't book a mobile beautician then the founders are probably building something that customers don't need or want. It probably will end up being one of those apps that just sits in the screen and will be used once every 3 months or less often. Also, my supervisor is an investment analyst, she is good at identifying business opportunities so she may be right...

Nevertheless, I have learnt a lot from working with Glow. The interviews were good experience. I am more comfortable talking to people at different level and from different background- not that I was shy talking to strangers before but I am better at building rapport. I also learnt how to refine my question and prompt them. Also, I want to thank the founders for giving me the opportunity. I want to thank those who filled my survey and those who participated in the interviews. Many many thanks!

That's it for now! Thanks for reading. =)

Disso Progress: Interviews

Hi everyone.
I know I said I would try to write about my dissertation progress every week but failed to do so. Since my last post back in May, I have been doing interviews with end-users (professional women) and paying customers (beauticians).

These interviews are a lot harder than I thought, the hardest part is not interviewing them or finding someone to interview (I thought finding someone would be the hardest) but its arranging a time and day. I email them back and forth a few times and sometimes it can even take a few days to get a day and time arranged. I haven't really been looking for beauticians to interview, I've been focusing on end-users more and fortunately one of the founders is looking beauticians for me as she wants to do the interview with me too. That's good, founders should listen to the feedback themselves. So far we've only interviewed 1 beautician and I've interviewed 8 end-users, all of which are either the founder's colleagues/ friends, my friends, and my supervisor's friends. Some of these interviews were done in person but some were over the phone/skype.

In the first couple of weeks many of the interviewees suggested doing it on the phone as it was more convenient for them. My supervisor said I should suggest travelling to their work place so then maybe they would be more willing to meet. So I did and yes I was able to meet with the rest in person.

So far from the interviews with the end-users, most of them have said they don't use mobile beauticians and wouldn't use them unless they know them or recommended by someone. This is because of trust, inviting someone to your house is quite personal so you have to trust that person. Most said they go to salon for the experience and want to feel pampered but if they come to your house you don't have the experience. Some said they would only book a mobile beautician for a special occasion like hen party.

As well as doing interviews, I've also sent out some surveys to some Facebook friends. I don't really like this but I guess this is another way to get feedback. I don't like it because you can't prompt them and they may not understand the question. Some people have skipped most of the important questions which is really annoying. I'm not sure if its because they don't understand it or they can't think of any answers. Last time I checked, 7 people did the survey and 5 people skipped majority of the questions! Not good.

Anyways, I got another 2 interviews this week one with an end-user and another with a beauticians. Thanks for reading.

Dissertation take off!

Hey bloggers, readers, colleagues, friends, and everyone else.
I am going to try and blog at least once a week on the progress of my dissertation. In fact Itxaso did recommend blogging to keep track of the progress. In my previous post I mentioned that I'm working with a beauty startup called Glow for my dissertation and because they haven't conducted the customer development I will help them do that for my dissertation.

I am actually quite excited because all the theory and tools I've learnt from this course I can apply them.  So I will try to apply every single step and tools; customer development process, lean startup (build-measure-learn, canvases, etc. However, I won't be posting the canvases every week because I don't think the girls would like me exposing their business strategy or structure on the internet like this lol. I will mention some results of the hypotheses, what I've been up to and what I've learnt.

To start off this dissertation I will be using Ash Maurya's Lean Canvas to distill the essence of Glow onto one page. I chose the Lean Canvas instead of the Business Model Canvas because Ash Maurya adjusted his canvas for startups before product/market fit which is the case of Glow. This step of mapping out the hypotheses onto a canvas is also the first step of customer  that Steve Blank's ruled out in his 'The Startup Owner's Manual', except he mentions using the Business Model Canvas.

After mapping it all out, I will be discussing it with my mentor. Then I guess the next step is to write out a script, using the Ash Maury's guidelines, for interviewing potential customers. And yes, I will get 'outside the building' as Steve Blank strongly emphasizes. Okie dokes, that's it for now. I'll be back! Thanks for reading.

My Dissertation topic

Hi guys! It's been a month since I blogged here at Startup at 24. I have been revising...or shall I say TRYING to revise for my exams coming up in May. I've written a timetable to make sure I fit everything in, I hope I will follow it lol. I have 4 exams so that's not too bad and the good thing is they are spread out.

Anyways, the main thing I wanted to talk about is my dissertation topic. I have sorted it out! Itxaso is a well connected person, she has tonnes of contacts from different industries. I said I want to do my dissertation on health or beauty and she helped me find a beauty startup called Glow. (Its a mobile app that connects beauticians and customers - won't tell you the full details yet) She made an introduction for me via email to the founders. They are two girls, Thais and Kaska, who previously studied at Imperial college for their MBA (I don't remember the exact name of the degree, I think its Innovation entrepreneurship), and Itxaso was one of the guest lecturers there which is how she met them.

I've met with Thais last week to discuss about the stage of their startup and what I could do my dissertation on at the same time that could help them. They have developed a mobile app MVP however they have not gone through the customer development; testing hypotheses, interviewing customers, etc. She said Imperial does not teach the same methodology as UCL- Imperial doesn't teach about the lean startup- so she doesn't really know about the customer development process. Therefore we both decided that I could be working on the customer development side of their startup. I will be meeting Kaska this week, didn't get to meet her last week as she was away.

I am actually looking forward in working with them because I am working on something that I am passionate about lol. Everything I'm doing at UCL is just 10 times better than at Westminster! I'm not talking in terms of reputation, its obvious the reputation is a lot better lol. I'm talking in terms of the things I'm doing. I didn't really enjoy studying Criminology and Economics, I only studied it because I went through clearing and didn't know what else to study. I only enjoyed half of the modules we studied back then. My dissertation topic back then was although my choice but wasn't my biggest passion, I did something about the music industry. But fingers crossed hopefully I will do well in this dissertation and will earn me some big opportunities after I graduate.

Thanks for reading, I'll be back very soon!