sparkweekly

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WEEK 6

Unfortunately, I couldn't attend class this week due to ongoing illness, which limited my ability to review the week's content. However, my friends mentioned that the topic covered was the business model canvas. Despite my current health condition, I'm committed to catching up and thoroughly reviewing the material before the next class.

Aaaaand I will not be rating this class :(

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Week 5 - Prototyping

The class started with a guest lecture from Sangeetha Mulchandani. She's a startup founder and she talked to us about her journey and how she ventured into entrepreneurship. She shared how she pre-totyped (yes, pretotyping not prototyping) for her startups and explained to us about her ongoing startup prototyping ( in which isaac is a part too). Pretotyping is different to prototyping in the sense we pretotype a idea not a product in its early stages. This could be done with a zero to minumum cost to get an idea about how responsive the target audience is. and a prototype is the product in its ealry stages, it could be a rough sketch or a trial website. these prototypes can be tested and then based on the feedback recieved improvements can be made.

Then we learned about the product-solution fit. we dived intot hus topic with a small activity. Issac gave us two real life scenarios of tom and linda. They had two specific problems. Tom wanted to nudge men to go to the doctors more while Linda whon was a teacher wanted to introdue indigenous perspectives in schools. we were supposed to discuss the ways that these concerns can be tackled as groups.

To further understand this concept we did the marshmellow challenge! The goal is to build the tallest free-standing structure with the given tools. And the tools we were given were some spaghetti sticks, one marshmellow, a stripe of cellotape and a bit of thread. it was a fun challnege and we went through as much stress as much fun we had while doing it.

overall I'll rate this class 8/10

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WEEK 4

This week, I couldn't attend class due to illness, so my friends briefed me on the lesson, and I reviewed the slides myself. As a result, this update will be very brief.

Here's my understanding of the week's content:

The key takeaway is the importance of identifying the genuine needs and wants of customers, as opposed to what they may think they should want. Additionally, the class also delved into the art of conducting effective interviews. A well-structured interview, with carefully crafted questions, is more likely to yield honest and valuable insights from customers. Furthermore, it's crucial to understand that the process of conducting these interviews and experiments is the real reward, not just the final results. Throughout the class, Isaac had illustrated these concepts through various activities and practical examples.

This week's tasks for our project were twofold: firstly, to define our primary customers and identify the challenges they face, and secondly, to compile an alternative list of potential customers and their associated problems.

I'm gonna give this class 3/10 because I couldnt attend.

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WEEK 3

Since I was late I missed the first bit of the class. we were all supposed to be in a group by the strat of this week but however most of the class hadn't gotten around to it. So Issac had asked if everyone was okay making groups according to how they were seated and everyone had agreed. I of course missed this part since I was late. Me not knowing what had trasnpired in the class went and sat with my friends in my usual seat. I was more than delighted to know that I was in a team with them.

One of the topics for this week was customers. Now what makes a customer? there are three key factors thta describes customers 1- they are intrigued and motivated 2- they are a decision maker 3- they are making a purchase. We also learned the difference between a customer, end users and beneficieries. We also learned that customers can be divided into categories based on demographics and psycohgraphics and how important it is to understand the targeted customers for a certain product for it to succeed.

Another valuable insight we've gained is the constant presence of triggering events in our daily lives, which in turn generate various tasks or jobs that need to be addressed. Consider the instance when your stomach starts grumbling in the middle of the day, prompting you to have lunch. These triggers play a pivotal role in defining the context that shapes the tasks we undertake. Typically, as humans, we develop routines or habits, like having lunch at a particular time on weekdays, until a significant trigger disrupts this pattern, such as our favorite restaurant closing down.

Furthermore, it's crucial to distinguish between needs and wants. Needs represent fundamental requirements or necessities, while wants are desires or preferences that may not be essential. For instance, if we embrace the notion that "every time someone complains, they are identifying a market need," we'll find ourselves inundated with an endless array of potential market needs. Our responsibility lies in identifying and addressing the high-value problems among these needs.

During our sessions, we engaged in activities aimed at identifying high-value problems for various groups of people, including politicians, nurses, and new mothers of twins. These exercises encouraged us to brainstorm and pinpoint problems that we would be passionate about addressing, issues that have personally been on our minds. It was an enjoyable and thought-provoking experience for me, as I relish the opportunity to explore and contribute to finding solutions for meaningful challenges.

I rate this class a 9/10 ( simply because I loved my group )

[sparkweekly]

WEEK 2

I Started this blog to keep a track of my progress in one of the units im doing for my course this trimester. Its a industry expereinece unit called startup ideation.

During the first weeek our tutor Isaac gave us little activities so we can understand the unit better and also get to know each other in class.

Today we were asked to write down anything thta was on our mind and were asked todo the five whys as a group. Even though it seemed pointless at frist once we did it actually strated making sense. The five whys helps us understand the underlying problems of our random thoughts or our actions. Then Isaac told us the story of Errol McKeller. That was a great exmaple for the eight word mission statements. we also had to think of any causes we want support or work on an dthen come up with a mission statement. That was very interesting. Then we had to comne up with things that are concerns in the society or anything thta is a concern for me and put all the sticky notes in the white board so the everyone in the class can see and get to know people with similar concerns. so that making groups become easier. The topic for this class was design thinking and from what iunderstood design thinking is a mindset or an approach to slove a problem or innovate centred around humans. for example how tony stark came up with the iron man suit is a great example of design thinking. How he did trial and error over and voer throuout the years to come up with the final suit.

Later in the class we learned aboput the problem tree. We had to selct one of the causes we put down on the sticky notes and come up with the bottom and the top parts of the tree. we chose parking in public places in melbourne as our problem. below is a attched photo of our problrm tree.

All in all it was good three hours spent learning about design tnhinking and about various concerns and problems of people.

I give it a 8/10