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[ericjepherson]

BMC for the Problems We See 👀

Remember how problems and their solutions become businesses? But how “easy” is it to start a business?

It’s not EASY. As a student, it’s honestly overwhelming to be immersed in the professional field of start-ups. Having to interview people of different occupations just to gather information about their problems requires effort and time of course, especially that we are doing everything almost virtually. Those problems do not just let us create solutions, but they help us in painting the solution in a canvas. Crafted by the team, Business Model Canvas is an important visual and textual representation of what the business is about, what the business is aiming to solve, how the business will earn and more.

I have been to several workshops and I remember encountering this, the business model canvas. We also used this to fully realize what our solution or business is aiming to solve. It’s actually eye-friendly. You can easily find what you are looking for. It’s like a cheat sheet for the Q&A portions of the pitch.

On the lecture, everyone have their eyes glued on the screen during the BMC lecture because we were also informed that there will be a mini-pitching. There will be randomly-picked groups who will pitch their BMCs with the instructors of different blocks as judges. 

After the mini-pitch, we were also reminded of how important user/customer validation is in crafting the BMC. What will become of the BMC if the content is not validated? Uhm, probably it would be a bum. Validation (for me) will help in finding those hidden pain points and hidden opportunities that may help the BMC and the future business to thrive and to iteratively improve. 

Overall, the business model canvas aims to describe the rationale of the business, and the services that such aims to deliver to the stakeholders.

[ericjepherson]

Intellectual Property and the Tale of Two Laws

These two are commonly used in the business world. You’ll notice news when you scroll on Facebook about patent infringement (just like the mind-whopping $300M fine that Apple has to pay for such matter). But what is Intellectual Property? 

Intellectual Property is something that everyone, I mean EVERYONE should know about. Regardless of what field they’re in, it’s important to know about this. Intellectual Property may refer to the creations of the MIND. Be it inventions, or designs and everything. 

On our Technopreneurship lecture, they have shown us the importance of Intellectual Property, or IP. On start-ups, IPs provide protection against possible infringements, protection against exploitation. IPs also attract people. Having an IP makes you look cool (not literally) and attract customers or investors.

With IPs, patents and trademarks come together to help protect your IP. There are existing laws about this! Since our university mission and vission and our subject Technopreneurship has an alignment, we are to make a solution that would help the masses. 

Every technical solution of a problem can be patentable but in order for the solution to be patentable, the solution must be novel, gone through an inventive step, and must be industrially applicable.

Above all, an invention can be or may relate to the following:

1.     A product

2.     A process

3.     An improvement of a product or a process

What happens when an invention is patentable? Several rights are made available to the persons concerned. The Right to a Patent is a right that belongs to the inventor, his heirs or assigns. When two or more persons made an invention, the right to a patent shall belong to them jointly. In the case of coincidental inventions, First to File Rule is a right that will support either parties. Expounding First to File Rule, if two or more persons made the invention separately and independently, the inventor with the earliest filing date will have the right of a patent belong to him.

Enough about patents. How about trademarks? I have read more about the law of trademarks and I would like to also share what I think are the important parts of the law

The purpose of having law on trademarks is to prevent unfair competition by applying a test of consumer confusion and providing rights and remedies to the owner of the trademark. There are rights when the owner have their own trademarks and they are acquired through registration made validly on accordance with the provision of the law.

After the registration of a trademark, a Certificate of Registration will be given to the registrants. A certificate of registration of a mark shall be prima facie evidence of the validity of the registration, the registrant’s ownership of the mark, and of the registrant’s exclusive right to use the same in connection with the goods or services and those that are related thereto specified in the certificate. This certificate will give the owner the right to prevent all third parties not having the registrant’s consent from using the trademark on any of their deliverables (of which may inflict confusion to others if violated).

One of what the Law of Trademarks is aiming to avoid is unfair competition. What is unfair competition? Misled consumers, deception on trades and alteration of the company’s operation are one of the circumstances of unfair competition. The law of trademarks help every transaction and deliverable be easily investigated.

While being under these laws, your IP will be protected and if you are knowledgeable about these then you will be at good hands. Reading more about the relevant laws in protecting your IP will surely help on the protection. 

As what Kuya Kim said: “Ligtas ang may alam!”

[ericjepherson]

A cup of coffee and a chika

Of course, in order to realize a solution we must find the problem. What would be there to solve anyway if there’s no problem?

In identifying their problems, we can directly ask what their problem is but could it be effectively to immediately ask unsa ilahang gilisoran sa kuan?

To spark a good conversation about one’s everyday activity, work or problems should be smooth sailing. It’s also good to let them feel that we are just casually talking to them and not interviewing them for academic compliance.

On our lecture about validating the problems, there were tips that were given to us. One main point that caught my attention was to only listen to the other person. Only listen and never suggest something. Dig deep on their hobbies, their lifestyle and eventually you will find the problem slipping out on their mouths without forcing them or directly asking them about what their problem is. 

Directly asking for what their problems are is so common and it is not really that effective (for me) I mean in terms of casual conversation. If need be then we could ask them directly, but its better to have a cup of coffee, sit and talk about their lifestyle and their work where their potential problem could be residing.

NEVER suggest a solution but only ASK what they have already tried.

This is also one common mistake, because suggesting a solution would only force the conversation to go one-way in contrast of letting them talk about the solution they have tried, we can grasp a bigger picture of what they want to have, the features that they want to have, and of course the problem itself.

That lecture made me reflect on what we should have done on our previous projects, but it is not too late. 

[ericjepherson]

Okay teammates let’s now get in formation

If Beyonce could get the ladies in formation, students should also get their teammates in formation. 

To form a team is not easy. For me, forming a team should be somehow what we call distributed. The roles should be distributed according to the roles that they are willing to take. So in order to do that, one must know oneself other than the other.

This is why getting-to-know-yous are important. Personality quizzes are also so helpful to realize oneself. These help in the formation of the team, and of course communication. What is a team when there is no communication?

Being assigned to a team with unfamiliar people is awkward but sparking a conversation can lead to knowing them. Their favorite movies and music could tell a lot about their personalities, their stories and experiences could raise a good sign about their leadership and work ethics. Those conversations would make us want to be with them in a team, and they could also be our buddies. 

A team is like a machine, a part should be working so that another part can work. So everyone should be working, together. Despite the differences, everyone should be working. That’s my favorite part of being on a team, to be immersed in a diverse environment where people have different talents and skills.

On our team for this semester’s Technopreneurship, we are all introverts. Three INFJs and one ISTJ. Trust me we did not cheat on the quiz haha. I like my team because they believe in theirselves. They chose who they want to be, to be the hipsters, the hustler and the hacker. Well, I’m a hacker. I have been passionate in learning and coding and you know what the YouTube programming channels say, learn and code. I volunteered to be the hacker of the team because I believe it’s the avenue for aspiring developers like me to learn more and teach others what I know. 

Our hipster is walay kurat. Their art direction is very nice and we are glad of their confidence, as well as our hustlers. Our two hustlers are both inquisitive and have a-vocabulary-level-that-i-wish-i-had talent. Sana all.

Well, there is still more to explore on my teammates and I am willing to witness their talents within this semester especially on our Technopreneurship course. What would will it be next time? Maybe they are also hackers after all, I mean I do know that they can be a hacker but time will time if they will actually volunteer to become the hacker of the team. Either way, we will help each other no matter our roles. <3 

[ericjepherson]

Find it, strike it

Remember this scene on Kill Bill Volume 2? That’s Beatrix trying to get out of the coffin. But why is she doing “that” with her hand? 

By the way, for those who don’t know, Kill Bill is an action movie with two volumes both release in the year 2004. It’s one of my favorite movies.

Now what is Beatrix really trying to do here? On Volume 2, we have seen Beatrix train with this horrifying instructor of hers. One of her training is to punch a wood and making sure she breaks it.

But why that position before trying to punch the wood? Maybe it’s her focusing on the wood and its potential weak point. By repeatedly punching it, its weak point becomes weaker, thus penetrable and easy to punch.

What’s with this Kill Bill thingy? When we had our lecture about idea generation on technopreneurship, these particular scenes popped in my head. It’s almost identical; finding a weak point. In entrepreneurship, its going to be finding the pain points.

Of course, we cannot find pain points if we are not able to identify the users and the idea that will to a certain or potential problem that the users are facing. 

On our lecture, technopreneurs must seek the pain points before making sagad on ideating more of the solution. Pain points are important because I believe those will help the technopreneurs on imagining the features of the solution that will of course solve the intended user’s problems.

Just like Beatrix, technopreneurs should be trained on how to realize their goals through pain points. Ugh, that sure looks painful, that wood punching yeah.

[ericjepherson]

My favorite game...

It’s just amazing how our favorite games teach us the simple things in life. One of my favorite games is Super Mario Bros. It marked the start of my gaming years and my love for classic games. We used to play that game with my father on FamiCom. We can’t deny how iconic this game was on the 1980s, hence the reason why it’s also my father’s favorite game. Now let’s talk about what this game taught us.

The Super Mario Bros. was designed to be a self-learned game. The creator did not include a tutorial because he wants us to explore it ourselves. We didn’t know that that first Goomba was a rather hostile character of the game. We didn’t know that it would hurt Mario and Luigi. The Koopas, the Super Mushroom, Piranha Plants, the pits and pipes? We didn’t know what they could do until we interacted with them. After several game overs, we now know what Mario must do to rescue Princess Peach from Bowser. Now some of you might say "Jeff we know you're a huge fan of classic games, but what are you trying to say?”

It's the basic things in life that we do: to try and try again to learn, to discover, to appreciate and to overcome. We couldn’t appreciate for-loops until we tried to use them for displaying numbers 1 to 100 with just a line or two of codes. What did we get from that? We learned for-loops could come in handy anytime. It’s not about “I should have used for-loops before”, but it’s about how we could utilize for-loops to solve problems next time.

To dig deep on what I am really trying to say, watch this insightful TED talk by a former NASA engineer. It’s about how this Italian plumber reflected the things we do in our lives, the try and learn things. Who is this Italian plumber anyway?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vJRopau0g0

[ericjepherson]

What would a person say about oneself?

"Can you tell us about yourself?"

A very familiar question, yet so hard to answer. This question sparks a lot of thoughts (at least on my end) because if you know yourself, you feel confident and can answer that question like a hot knife through butter, or you could feel guilty because you can't answer that question.

It's awful that you can't really answer a question in which its answer must talk about you, and must be answered by you.

That question is kind of hard for me to answer, but answering self-assessment quizzes and reading more about my results made the knife a little warm to cut through that butter. Nonetheless, it helped me discover myself more!

I'm actually a big fan of self-assessment quizzes. A fact about me: I was formerly an ENTJ, but now I'm an INFJ.

INFJs are advocates. They aim to help other people, to bring positivity to others, to realize a solution to solve a problem that would help the universe (if possible), and many selfless-traits. If you are familiar with Veronica Roth's The Divergent Series, INFJs kinda belong to the faction of Abnegation..... and Candor. Candor? Why? On the said novel series, the faction of Candor deals with justice. They hold trials, and let's just say.... they're the justice seekers. INFJs are also justice seekers. As what 16personalities.com said, there's not a day that INFJs won't help someone in trouble, someone dealing with unfairness, or injustice.

INFJs are helpful. Yeah it might sound narcissist but I actually kind of realized it myself, that I am of such. I was... let's say... napapa-dilat mata talaga when I read "INFJs often help others that they tend to forget about themselves" on my result. I was attacked in a good way. The result literally told me that I should also check on my self often just as how I often check on others.

One of my enrolled course in this semester is called Technopreneurship. It’s entrepreneurship on the field of technology. People and students engaged in this field (for me) will have their inner entrepreneurs be trained to be innovative, creative, communicative, and to be a problem solver. When I saw this subject to be enrolled on my semester, I thought about how fun this course will be. I am always in for courses that encourages collaboration.

As a first requirement of the mentioned course, I took another test, which is called the Berkley Innovation Index, only to find out that I am high in diversity and resilience. I can also see that collaboration and belief is also at my highs. I believe my highs are an advantage to innovate and communicate with other people. The really do somehow align on what the course wants from a technopreneur... or does it?

We are still on our first week though, so there’s still more to stay tuned for and ideas from other people to witness.