chacenarillos-blog

[chacenarillos-blog]

Blog#14_4B

The last but not the least. This Technopreneurship course along with this blog I called Technological Excursion seem to meet the end. According to our instructor from the start, we will not have any written quizzes and exams. This blog serves as our quizzes and the pitching will be our term exam. The midterm and final term exam will be the team's pitching. And last Wednesday we have a normal lecture day with Mr. Bronson Mabulay since he already came back from the seminar.

 Technological Excursion

Since this is the last blog I've been posting, let me recall all the things we've been through this semester. Before starting the Technopreneurship, we undergo a test (much likely a personality test). When we got the results, most of us are comparing it to the other. Next, we got our first assignment, "The Rejection Therapy". I was paired with my teammate Ms. Eliza Jerica Muring. Sure it was a fun experience talking and asking something from strangers and then got rejected (hahaha). Then a few weeks later, we already started creating our own milestone. Later on, the ideation week came up. At first, we had the idea of creating a website for job seekers and companies who need employees. We already figured out what it looks like and how it works. Since then, after some research, we found out this specific site where it contains all what we need and what we expect to our website. It is known as "Kalibrr". We even tested it out ourselves and started thinking for another idea since it’s too broad.

 LabadaCDO.com

Our instructors said we must have 3 ideas to figure out for backups. Since the 1st one failed, we came up to 2nd one - The LabadaCDO.com. This idea was clearly a website for laundry shop owners and costumers. This time, we already started creating the site since it has the same concept of the 1st idea. We even conducted some surveys and validation in the nearby laundry shops and tallied their answers. UNFORTUNATELY, we're stuck on a traffic. Our idea was already taken by the other students from the other department. At first, we didn't give up too quick but much likely they are more capable than us when it comes to websites since they are from Computer Engineering Department and ceased on updating it.

 Cacao Pod Shredder Machine

But, it seems like Newgency is unstoppable, we created the 3rd idea. This time we use what we have learned from our field. And finally decided to design a machine. At first, we went everywhere for validation. After some research, we name it Agricultural Waste Shredder Machine, designed to shred agricultural waste such as rotten crops. But while we are on the middle of validation, we confirm another more specific name, Cacao Pod Shredder Machine, designed to shred cacao pods which is known for fungi content when not properly disposed. And so, we continue innovating it and probably presenting its prototype this coming pitching week.

 This is just a summary of what we have done, what we have experience and what we have learned in this course. Together with my team, Newgency will never stop innovating. This semester might end but the bond we have started will never be. We can’t afford to lose a member for the strength of the team is each individual member. Wait, is this already the end? I hope not. So see you again under this blinding light of the sun. Bye!

[chacenarillos-blog]

Blog#13_4B

Nah!!  Almost forgot to release an update. Blame no one. We’ve been busy this past weeks and until this time. Paper works, machines, quizzes, (what’s more?) FINAL EXAM, DEFENSE. It’s all running in my head. Can’t help but let’s work things out.

Technically, based on or milestone, 18th week and further are for the prototype, and yet it is. We’ve just finish the design and calculation and gone for fabrication. Unfortunately, we encounter a huge wall that blocks our way. Most of the shops are way too expensive than we expected. And the most suitable materials for the design isn’t available in the market.

As of the name itself and its purpose, shredder for the cacao pods must eventually follow the standards of the materials and its design to avoid failure. Right now, Newgency faces a financial crisis. We need support, financially and physically to sustain this startup. This team comprises of 4 students only. The reason why we were enduring every crisis is for the pitching sake. It is where we can gain supports for investments through funds and offers. No questions why most of the entrepreneurs make sure that the things they give in must be fruitful or shall I say they know how to deal with risk.

First and foremost, what we really need is to manage swiftly our time, deal with things we can’t avoid and give our total best. I can still remember the first quote we meet here, “Fail fast, Learn fast”. Every student here is risking everything for the sake of pitching. And likewise for testing our patience and knowledge for business and technology. And I shall say, count me in, even it takes to walk under the heat on the noonday sun.

[chacenarillos-blog]

Blog#12_4B

Journey never seems to stop that easy. For this week, our substitute teacher continues the updates and she gives us some task. As of Wednesday, she didn’t conduct any classes and just take the attendance. But she leaves us with some assignment we must pass next meeting. And give us time to figure the following in our group:

  Brochure

  Update

  Business Plan

 This task might be skeptical since she doesn’t give enough instructions. The brochure design was created by the two members of the team and the update was created by the other two. The brochure was given a business name of “PRO-SHREDS” under the organization of “NEWGENCY” (sounds classic). The update was also assigned to Miss Muring and Miss Magtajas since they organized the latest validation.

 Now for the business plan, as we all know, it is a written document that describes your business. It covers objectives, strategies, sales, marketing and financial forecasts. A business plan helps you to:

·         clarify your business idea

·         set out your goals

·         measure your progress

To wrap to up, it is more likely a business model with a milestone. So we work it and our teacher decided to let the class present it next meeting and give us another round on figuring our business plan.

 Everything’s in a rush. The deadline, the final exams, the pitching, they are all just fast approaching. Deadlines in schedule are closer than they appear. The sound of a ticking clock seems so fast than what we are doing. But what we need is a good team and a good decision by the team. The Newgency never stops finding good ways on bad situations and we will always be.

 “Don’t watch the clock: do what it does. Keep Going”                 - Sam Levenson

[chacenarillos-blog]

Blog#11_4B

This week seems so gloomy. Actually, ou guest lecturer has not come for the past weeks. They said he went for a seminar. And our instructor is taking a 2 month leave for some urgent things. So, things might get some changes compared to what we used to.

 Last Wednesday, our instructor came to the class but didn’t conduct any classes. She just waved goodbye and advice us to continue the things we already started. Also, since she’s taking her leave, she introduced to us her substitute teacher who will help us in our ideas - Dr. Liezl Jabile. She’s not new to us since she was our previous instructor in other subject. And so I hope things will get easy the way it is.

 Since, we did not have class, we continue the fabrication of some parts of the machine. Few weeks ago, I visited and canvassed for some materials to be used. We already have the material for the frame. Unfortunately, the tungsten carbide, which is used for blade, is not available in the market. So we will try to find again a material with same properties for the blade. And also, last Friday, our substitute teacher met us. She consulted and tried to checked the updates of our startups, and she also said she will get another updates next meeting so we’ll gonna work for it.

 Time management is one of the key to productivity. You need to manage your time to things that needs to be done. The Newgen_cy started dividing its remaining time not only for this but also for the other subjects who needs attention. We will going to get an update as soon as possible and work for another projects at hand.

 “Productivity is never an accident.. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.”               - Paul J. Meyer

[chacenarillos-blog]

Blog#10_4B

Updates, validation, visitation, failure, do it again. Those are the things we have faced this week. Actually, we haven't made it Claveria since we’re not sure if they have any cacao farms there. And so, we head back to Opol to interview the Department of Agriculture of the municipality.

 On our Wednesday meeting, we were asked about some update in Lombo. The two groups (that was us and the other) who went in Lombo and told everything we got there. And since we can't give any updates, our instructor let us went and interview the farmer at Opol. But another misfortune came; the farmer who supposed to be interviewed was attending another business. So, we just got his phone number and set another time for the interview.

 My team just waited for the opportunity, but seems like the opportunity can't wait to see us. We receive a call last Friday from the DA of Opol. They are ready for an interview. But since we a class, 2 people from our group and a representative from the other group went there.  And so we started the group discussion and plan for the group’s next action.

 This team decided to start the fabrication of the machine and hopefully this would bring success to everyone. Newgen_cy can’t stop bringing imaginations into innovations. Even if a hundred trials go along the way, setting our destination is what we need. Every trial and failure we get doesn't mean we are failure for the rest of our lives. Every person has its own capabilities and limitations. But sometimes In order to add our capabilities we exceed and go beyond our limits to see what we can do. See yah next week everyone. God Bless!

[chacenarillos-blog]

Blog#9_4B

The pitching/midterm week has ended same with the instramurals. After all of these activities, lets all face again the reality. Our meeting last Wednesday was supposedly use for discussion, but our guest lecturer didn't show up (maybe busy). So our instructor decided to discuss the scores with got during our pitching. And ended with some activity.

During the announcing of our scores, some of the group got more twos than fours and some got equal amount of four and two. For the group who got more two, they are suggested for pivoting and might think for new idea. And for the groups who got same number of fours and twos, they need to work for the number of question given during pitching. As for our group who got equal score, we need to validated and answer the questions given to us. And the most effective solution we've got is to visit another cacao farms.

Our instructor made us write our plans, place to visit, and the questions we might use for validation. And one of the place we visit is the Lombo, Alubijid Misamis Oriental since one of our classmate suggested for the said place. The place was really far that we need to spend a couple of hours to get there. And unfortunately, the residence of the place said that they haven't started planting a cacao (what?!). What they have is only a coffee farm which made us decided to go back.

This visitation may failed but it took our team to decided for another place to visit. Aside from Opol, Misamis Oriental, we will be visiting (if approved) Claveria, Misamis Oriental. But this is still tentative because even though we already know that there some cacao farms in that place, we need to double check it so it happen again like what happen in Lombo. Our team might be so stressed spending our time and everything for this project. But come on, we are students and as a student we need to do our responsiblities.

During the announcing of our scores, some of the group got more twos than fours and some got equal amount of four and two. For the group who got more two, they are suggested for pivoting and might think for new idea. And for the groups who got same number of fours and twos, they need to work for the number of question given during pitching. As for our group who got equal score, we need to validated and answer the questions given to us. And the most effective solution we've got is to visit another cacao farms.

Our instructor made us write our plans, place to visit, and the questions we might use for validation. And one of the place we visit is the Lombo, Alubijid Misamis Oriental since one of our classmate suggested for the said place. The place was really far that we need to spend a couple of hours to get there. And unfortunately, the residence of the place said that they haven't started planting a cacao (what?!). What they have is only a coffee farm which made us decided to go back.

This visitation may failed but it took our team to decided for another place to visit. Aside from Opol, Misamis Oriental, we will be visiting (if approved) Claveria, Misamis Oriental. But this is still tentative because even though we already know that there some cacao farms in that place, we need to double check it so it happen again like what happen in Lombo. Our team might be so stressed spending our time and everything for this project. But come on, we are students and as a student we need to do our responsiblities.

[chacenarillos-blog]

Tech101 - Blog No. 8

Week 10

 Finally, our hard work was paid off. This week was our midterm for Technopreneurship course. And eventually our midterm exam was equivalent to the pitching of our low fi product. The preparation of the said event was not easy. Conducting consecutive research and validations are needed to acquire more data, and so we did it.

When pitching day has arrived, nervous and butterflies on my stomach never goes out. But, forget about it. Once you're team is called to present your product, be confident enough so won't ruin your presentation. The pitching goes well. You can always answer the jury if you know well about your product. And thanks to our hustler since she's the one who manage to answer most of the questions.

After the pitching, on our second meeting which is Friday, our school conducted a special event which is delivered by a known group of startup incubators – Elevate National Roadshow.  The event was an opportunity for those aspiring startups. Learning from the successful startup CEO’s of Cropital and Eight Media was quite helpful. Knowing their histories, sacrifices and risks they face reminds me of all the time we spent together building our own startup. But unfortunately, it was interrupted by our class, so we haven’t joined the workshop.

It was so fun, stressful, hard, opportunity giver and everything. We have done so much, as a team. Working with people you can learn from is part of great experience. Were still in the middle, we don’t know what we might face someday. Building our own startup is not easy, but the time we spent together is worth it. Things might get awry but Newgency can still find a solution. Since our jury needs more validation of our product, we will going to visit another farms. This is going to be a great journey, I promise.

 Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. – Henry Ford

[chacenarillos-blog]

Tech101 - Blog No. 7

Week #8

Nearly forgot my duty to update this blog. We got hectic schedule. Since midterm week has arrived, tons of paper works badly need my time. We only even meet with this Technopreneurship on Wednesday. But at that short period of time, our instructor continued discussing about the next step of our startup.

 Since our labada startup/idea was on a critical state, we already started planning to change our idea. First, we consider on focusing our team with forming an idea which suits to our profession than programming. It took some sleepless night to decide. Finally, we came up with designing a machine which is to be called Agricultural Waste Shredder Machine. And lately, we conducted some survey/validation to Opol, Misamis Oriental since we've heard they are blessed with agricultural goods.

 The validation went well, but since they have more cacao plantation, we choose to name it Cacao Pods' Shredder Machine. What's with machine? Well, according to our survey, cacao farmers who threw cacao pods right after harvest suffer from fungi developed in the pods. To solve that problem, the machine will shred the cacao pods into pieces. Moreover, according to recent studies, cacao pods release some gaseous element called methane. Methane is a flammable gaseous hydrocarbon that is a product of decomposition of organic matter and of the carbonization of coal and is used as a fuel. This fact might give us some idea to add in our machine. We just need some time to plan for the design.

 The team decided to continue the researches and gather the information needed. Now, what we have learned from the lessons we encounter this week is that you’ll never find success unless you work hard for it. Hard work may not always guarantee success but success is not possible without hard work. And again, let me share this quote I’ve just read from Tumblr:

“Stay patient, stay calm, stay determined, stay focused, and most of all – trust your journey” – Purple, Tumblr

[chacenarillos-blog]

Tech101 - Blog No. 6

Week #7

Accepting the fact and letting go is a choice and is not quitting. As a matter of fact, doing these things might give you choices, chances, and changes. Last week, we already know that the idea we are fighting is the same with the CPE students which gives us reason to let them pursue it since they know more about codes and programming than us. And now, we are still skeptical about our decisions. ‘Cause everything’s putting us on dead ends.

This week, on our meeting on Wednesday, our instructor gives us some advices about our ideas since some of the groups are totally rejected. Even though our idea was not directly rejected, we can already see what it might end up. Our instructor also gives us some reminders and rewrites our original business model canvass (BMC) on the bond paper. Aside from our activity that day, we also started finding possible new ideas.

The Friday meeting was quite fruitful since the class was given some extra knowledge through watching videos. The videos talk about the real risk of customer discovery and explain the BMC. And guess who the speaker is – it’s Steve Blank. As far as I know, Steve Blank is one of the most remarkable men in terms of entrepreneurship. Blank is recognized for developing the Customer Development method. The concept details a scientific approach that can be applied by startups and entrepreneurs to improve their products success by developing a better understanding of customers’ problems/needs as well as the other hypotheses necessary to build a commercial successful company. And so much for the videos.

The choices we are making are a great deal that we’re putting our time and patience. Life is about choices. We choose to get chances to develop changes. We choose things depending on our reasons. You are free to make your choices but you are not free to choose the consequences but the other times a wrong choice brings us to right places. And as I end this blog let me leave this saying:

 “To the student I would say “life is principally multiple choices, but at the end there’s a tough essay question”.”  - Robert Brault

[chacenarillos-blog]

Tech101 - Blog No.5

Week #6

“The key to customer discovery is to get out of the building and learn from real potential customers.”  This quote came from the lecture slide that our instructor shown to us. We only have Friday to meet up since Wednesday meeting was used for M.E. General Assembly. Now, our primary concern is that our idea was held out since the other course came up with the same idea also. And maybe we should give it to them since they know more about codes and etc.

Since we’ve tried interviewing random customers last week, we made some adjustments. This week, we’ve changed few things in our website since the results on the survey was not so relevant to the website we design. But these changes might not be useful now since our instructor already give some comments and remarks. Aside from the changes we brought, this week, we are tasked to create our own idea’s BMC or Business Model Canvas.

Business Model Canvas (BMC) is usually a chart that shows the strategic management and activities you projected to your startup. Just like companies and known startups such as Facebook, we also created our BMC showing our product's value proposition, infrastructure, customers, finances and the like. Business Model Canvas helps on tracking your startup progress. It helps to narrow down your plans, process and gives you way to mark the goal in no time. Next week, we will present our idea’s BMC together with the other group. But sad to say, we need to narrow down our ideas and open up for plan B.

Planning and thinking in advance is not a bad step to take. Usually, people who plan first and then put it into action makes their task manageable. Success doesn’t just happen, it is planned. But if you keep on planning and tend to overthink, things might go in a wrong way.  Our team decided to give a try for a new idea that we might use some skills we have especially in our field. But, let me remind you what I said last week “Life is all learning process, only if you learn”. 

“Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning” – Winston Churchill

[chacenarillos-blog]

Tech101 - Blog No.4

Week #5

Classes, surveys, lecture series, motivation, startup. The most productive week has ended. Productive? Of course, we say productive when we’re doing or working hard and getting good results. And as for now, I shall say, we are quite productive, not on our projects, but for the things we have done that we are still up on this time. Classes seemed to be more essential on traipsing our plans. It is the hint provider that brings us to the next level.

Get Motivated

Last week, our instructor invited us to a lecture series that will be conducted on our university to showcase a success of a startup. It is an opportunity for us to heed and get informed on how to experience such success. And it is also a great chance to meet the CEO of the successful startup named “StreetBy”, it’s non other than Mr. Ronald Rhey Miñoza. He shared to us what are the journeys and pain points before arriving today. He talked about the team formation, the ideation, decision, first batch hiring and the founders which only started by 3 of them that eventually become 39 and growing.

“What’s important is the shared values of the team and the vision” - Ronald Rhey Miñoza, Streetby CEO

This is what we need: determination, mental attitude, hard work and focus, goal and take risk, keep learning, resourceful, have faith and pray.

 Now, let me talk about the update of our startup. Last week we present our proposal and shared our milestone. Our instructor said that it would be useless if we create a startup that doesn’t even answer our main problem or create meaningless features. We test our hypothesis and started a survey. We ask random customers and interviewed laundry shops owners near our university. We ask them if they are agree on featuring there store in our website and all of them agreed. But when we ask if they had delivery services, only 1 out of 4 offers a delivery service but they haven’t launched it yet for some reason. Therefore, most of well-known and large laundry shops in CDO offers a delivery services.

As a team we decided to visit some large laundry shops in CDO. What have we done this week is part of our learning, may it be success or failure. As sir Miñoza said, “Life is about learning”. Things can change. Life is all learning process, only if you learn. That short lecture series leaves engravings deep down in our minds and hearts.  But what we should no forget is “Success is not a destination, it’s a journey”.

[chacenarillos-blog]

Tech101 - Blog No.3

Fourth week of Technopreneurship. Fourth week of hardwork, patience, brainstorming and planning. In our milestone, the fourth week must be the strategic planning and researching, that's after the 3rd week which is the presentation and approval of ideas. Unfortunately, we haven't met with our instructors last week, so the approval was moved to this week. Since, we haven't met with our instructors, it's an oppurtunity for us to work with the approval presentation and strategic planning, that's why we are prepared enough to present our idea.

The strategic planning have started. We've been researching for our related startups or competitors. Each of them has its own principles and services. All we need to do is find the things they lack and use it as one of our services. Now that we already change our startup and it become a laundry shop website, we change also our design so that costumers and laundry shop owners would fit in. Even though this idea was not yet approved, I already started building the website. One of our problem now is that, we haven't conducted our survey that's why we're still doubtful how to organize the site.

The website

Let me introduce you to our website. We haven't decided yet for the name but we temporarily call it Labada CDO. I already started planning for the features of this website and Shirlyn Magtajas also started for the design while Jerex Itum was developing a mobile app. Why build this website? Well, of course, people, especially those who are living in the city, are having difficulties on time-management and one reason you need to spend time is washing your clothes. There's a solution, call someone to clean your clothes, but can you really trust them? What if you're on duty and need to leave your house? And there comes another solution, call some nearby laundry shop, they pick your clothes, wash it on time, and deliver it to you with no hassle. We build this website so that busy people will have more access on the laundry shops they want to visit. They just need to look for the services the shop offers online and call them. Its way more accessible.

What can you see in the website? The purpose of the startup is to have an online laundry shop finder. People would not leave their houses to find one. Two major features of this website is the Owner button and Customer button. The laundry shop owner can post and update the services of his/her shop and the customer can look for any laundry shop they want. But, since this is just a starting website, we limit the place, we are only available inside Cagayan de Oro area. In this way, we can help people find a good laundry shop that suits there need. The next step we will be taking is visiting or conducting a survey on customers and laundry shop owners. And also, we are developing a mobile app.

[chacenarillos-blog]

Tech101 - Blog No.2

Another week to write on this blog and now another trial has been put to an end - its "presenting our milestone". This week has been conquered. It may takes a lot of time preparing and brainstorming to organize our milestone. We even take on research to put properly the sequence of our plans but we can't stop facing difficulties. Our milestone was done before we present it to the class and this is how it goes.

 We've been tasked, each group, to have one member to present our milestone that shows our plan for the whole semester. Actually, it's kinda difficult displaying our milestone since our startup was not that finish. First, our startup plan was not yet approved by our instructors and second, we have no clue how and where to begin. Now, we are the first group chosen to present our milestone for the whole semester. So, we appointed Eliza Muring to represent our group since she was our hustler.

 Our Milestone

Since we're finish with the first and second week, we moved forward on the third week of our milestone. This week is the presentation/approval of our ideas. On our fourth week will be our strategic researching and organizing our plans to compete on our related startups. Fifth week will be data gathering and canvass of materials. Our sixth to eighth weeks will be the forming of our prototype for testing. The ninth week will be the testing of our prototype on the random costumers, study the data we've collected from them and compare the results.

 After the test, on the tenth week, we will be reorganizing our thoughts and solutions for unsatisfied costumers. The eleventh week will be the finalizing of our prototype with the adjustments. And on the following week will be the pitching and developing of our startup. Unfortunately, after we present this milestone, our instructor discourages us on our job hunting platform since this is more on programming which is not our forte. This problem is another matter to deal with. But they suggested to try to find ideas/startups that very uses less programming. This week is more on researching for another ideas. We're wasting no time and I'm sure more better ideas and startups will appear before us.

[chacenarillos-blog]

Tech101 - Blog No.1

"Fail fast, Learn fast". It's been a week since we started our Technopreneurship Course. We've been tasked to create our own technology and sell it. It might be hard for us to work on things that are almost out of our grounds, especially programming, that we greatly needed. Nevertheless, we need to collaborate and do this. This week is the ideation week. It means the capacity or act of formulating ideas. Actually, this week is the 2nd week of meeting. Since we already started the ideation on the 1st week, this week came to be the research week and to hear the mechanics of a startup. This is how it goes.

 Our journey.

On the ideation week, we arise with the idea of resolving the issue of unemployment. One of the issue we badly faced today. When we came up with this idea, we started to intercommunicate on how and what are the possible solution to the said issue. We bring on the concept of an agency approach. But when it’s time to organize the idea, we stop on the point thinking it was to broad. But the along the way, we open up with another similar idea which is still the agency approach in a website/app. In this week, we talked about the mechanics of a startup. We even take time for another round of brainstorming and planning. We also have another plans for our product since this week, mechanics of a startup was introduced.

 The Idea

In order to build a firm startup, the basic questions must be answered. First is, what is the idea? Our idea is a job hunting platform that helps find the best job for you, it is our best way to find a job for unemployed people. We came up with such idea when most people find it hard on getting a proper job in our city. Next, who are you affecting? This job hunting platform is a specialized kind of job hunting system. It is not only for unemployed but also for those employer who are in need of employee and likewise. This platform will help you adjust on the hiring process, it is now called "effortless search" for jobseekers.

 Now let’s talk about the how would it happen and who are the competitors. Just like the other modern job hunting platform, we will use a website or mobile app to hire people. They just need to search for the job they want and know the requirement needed. And lastly, the competitors. And just as expected, we already have competitors like Jostreet, Kalibrr and Jobfinder. This sites are already known for their services like Jostreet, they help in hiring people internationally especially those who have merits and suited for big companies. Kalibrr with its 2-in-1 major features, the company/employer who needs a person and a person who needs a job. And lastly, the jobfinder, who gives sites for job seekers. Through this competitors, we build our own design using what they lack. Instead of hiring people to work internationally, we hire people to work on their own city. We offer jobs just like in need of yaya and house helper. In this way, we minimize the rate of unemployment by giving those jobless yayas, carpenters, etc., a job opportunity. Now, we're starting to conceptualize our own procedure and tactics and another better ideas to rise. We even came up with a corn kernel stripper, a mechanical system to strip off corn kernels and a laundry shop app.

 Reflection.

"Passion first, startup second". Our imagination encircles the world, whatever problems we may face, “gagawan natin nang startup yan". Even though we are risking everything on this project, time, money, everything, in the end we know that it’s worth the risk. We can be a founder, storyteller and a good companion to our teammates. This course helps us expose our skills.