2 February 2019

Update and Review Session with Mentors

Today our team was scheduled for a meet-up session in the morning with our mentor Roderick Chia. The meet-up session was mainly to update on the key highlights in our ongoing business. Thus, our team planned to review on the following aspects:

• Summary of Participated Event
• Product Development
• Finance
• Sustainability

On reaching NTC, we noticed that we would be addressing two mentors Mr Adrian Chye and Mr Roderick Chia.

Summary of Participated Events

Along with a short recap of our business idea, we provided a summary of the events we have participated thus far to indicate that we have explored various target markets such as:

• Neighborhood / Heartland Mall - White Sands Shopping Centre
• Corporate - OCBC
• Seasonal gift buyers during Christmas - City Square Mall
• Tourists - Katong Square
• Design based buyers - Mox Parade at SOTA
• Students - NTU COHASS Day

Product Development

We shared on the new products and services that we had launched / experimented which are the hand painted terracotta pots and DIY (Do-It-Yourself) terrariums that we have implemented during our events at City Square Mall, Katong Square and SOTA and the responses that we have gained from the sales.

With that, we were open to the questions from the mentors before touching on our major expenses incurred.

Our mentor Roderick Chia expressed his interest to view some of our designs of the terracotta pots . After showing him some of our designs, he questioned us on how receptive the market was on this idea. We responded by stating that based on our experience from the events that we promoted the terracotta pots, the pots did not seem to attract a large crowd as we anticipated. Thus, we felt that the idea was not feasible for us to carry on. He pointed out that from his perspective it looked like normal potted plants. However, he felt that it was good that we ventured on to try out this idea.

Subsequently, we moved on to elaborate about the SOTA event and the promotion of our DIY concept. We added that in comparison to all our previous events participated, SOTA seemed to be the most promising event till now. He also implied that SOTA is a good place for implementing such concepts.

Finance

The next area of discussion was on the status of our finance in terms of profit and loss. We reflected that our major expenses were mainly from wages and transport which still pose a challenge to us. He suggested that if wages were a huge part of the cost acquired,we should reduce our making time by recruiting manpower or obtain help from external parties. Before concluding the finance aspect, we were inquired about the profit margin by mentor Adrian Chye and also about the pricing if this was going to be our venture for a long period. We responded by saying that taking into consideration that our profit margin was 67.5% after taking into account the man hours and the occasional promotions we gave, this will allow us to sustain in the long run.

Sustainability

We informed both the mentors that we just stepped foot onto the Carousell platform and are still exploring the digital marketing area. We were advised by mentor Adrian Chye to look into the Funzing and Lhoko platforms which promoted startups that organise workshops such as DIY concepts. We were also told to research about these platforms to learn about how they charge and their revenue model to know if they could potentially benefit us in our venture.

End of the Meeting

With that, before we ended the session, our team was told to prepare for the final presentation and share our developments during the Business Showcase.

After Action Review (AAR)

After the meeting, our team had a discussion to review the session and discuss on our next course of action in the business. In the discussion, we decided to utilize our Carousell platform to a greater extent by promoting the DIY concept in it. Furthermore, as valentines day is around the corner, it may attract the potential gift buyers.

New Responsibilities

Cheryl and Cleo

• Collating information and preparing for the Pitch Deck
• Designing order form template for the online platform
• Finding possible ways to expand our business in the digital market

Shiju and Shun kai

• Facilitate our Taobao order
• Get into depth research on Lhoko and Funzing
• Stock taking on the current supplies and replenish the stock if necessary

Ram and Jia Xin

• Photo taking of our products to post on the Carousell and Instagram platform
• Researching on competitors within Carousell
• Coming up with a suitable pricing range for promoting our DIY and terrariums in Carousell and Order Form