Rough Presentations

Repetition is Key

This week in class, we did lots of small presentations to different groups and had them record us.  This was a bit difficult because at this point, we had not prepared a script and we were pretty much making it up as we went.  We did have a slide, but the slides did not truly represent what we had to say.  From our presentations, I think we recognized that Varsha and I were the best speakers; and the part of our presentations that was lacking was our got to market strategy and the coherence of what our patent is and why its important.

The Patent

We struggled to throughly explain our patent in a way that was understandable to a large, non-science based audience; and in addition we struggled to make our patent seem exciting and impactful.  We are having Nitin present that patent, and I am using my background in writing to help improve his audience engagement.

Learning More About Our Patent

What are we up to?

This week, our group focused on contacting professors and graduate students who were well versed in the technology of the patent.  We hoped that through our conversations we would be able to understand how the device works as a unit, and how we could market/price it.  After contacting and interviewing professors to learn more about the technology, we was able to gain clarity on the overall directionality of our business model. Meeting up with the professor, however, became a struggle as they were not available during their office hours. After following up with the professor,  we decided it might be more efficient to email our questions and they will get back to us. 

What did we learn?

Emailing the professor turned out to be helpful. The key takeaways from the professor's email was that there no similar system in the market that saves water,  recycles water, and generates energy at the same time. The best way to approach the pricing is to figure out the costs of these 3 individually and figure out how much an individual is ultimately saving. The panel uses solar photovoltaic technology and knowing that, we can determine the average cost of a solar panel for comparisons.  From our talks, we were able to better understand how to price our unit, and the difficulties that lie within it.

Week 11: What keeps you up at night regarding your project?

The Good

Overall, I feel like our product and plans are coming together well!  Things that I feel like we are doing well is our education plan, and product framing, which makes the product more appealing.  I feel like we understand the wants, needs and fears of our markets, but struggle to reach them.

The Bad

Currently, our go to market strategy is a bit muddled.  We are still struggling on what our distribution channel is and how we are going bring awareness to our product.  Thus far, our distribution channel would be an online website where orders can be placed and then delivered in bulk; unfortunately, we do not have the logistics for this are still not figured out.  Additionally, we still not have many ways to gain exposure for our project.  So far, we want to rely on trade shows to get out product "out there"; but we also think that making partnerships with smart homes companies would be very beneficial for us!

The Ugly

I think the part of our project that keeps me up the most at night is the financials.  I feel a bit kept out of the loop about whats going on about financials and even when some team mates try to explain them, I feel very confused.  Because of this, I try to contribute to the team as I am best suited to :)

Week 10: Our Patent

What is Our Patent?

Our patent was created by and it is integrated system of filtration, disinfection, and organic compound removal viable in small spaces, based on Solar Optics-Based Active Panels (Soap) For Greywater Reuse And Integrated Thermal (Grit) Building Control . The product is a set of panels placed inside the facade on the exterior walls of your home/building that is connected to the water system of your property. Those panels are composed of glass surfaces filled with nanoparticles that react with the sunlight to filter the water you are using every day. Besides recycling your water, our panels have the ability to act as a thermal mass. The disinfected water is stocked and heated up by the sun in the facades of your walls through the day allowing our system to control daily temperature swings by releasing the heated water under the slabs of the floor at night.

Why is it special, what are its claims?

Ultimately, this patent provides technology for an integrated greywater reuse and thermal control system that reduces water consumption and heating energy consumption. Currently, existing technologies address these problems through separate units but this patent ensures a combined unit. Additionally, most products on the market take up way too much space and cannot be commercially implemented into houses. This product claims to be functional without the need for large space and lots of pipes because of its ability to increase water flow.

Customer Interviews and Difficulties

Who did we reach?

Over the weekend, our team created a survey that we wanted to send to homeowners to see their willingness and interest in purchasing our product.  We also wanted to know if they had a similar product in the house and whether or not they found this useful.  We posted the survey in Facebook groups and were able to get about 15 responses! Unfortunately, these responses were a bit biased because most of the participants were Berkeley students.


What did I do?

Because our main objective is to sell our product to large construction companies, I thought it would be a good idea to reach out to contractors in the Bay Area.  I ended up contacting Anh Do, a private contractor that specializes in custom built houses.  From talking to him, I learned that many people in the Bay Area are very interested in green buildings and that a systems like this could be coupled with smart home technologies such as Nest!  He also mentioned how many new houses are starting to implement separate greywater and sewage plumbing; a big issue that our team that our team hoped to mitigate.

Rethinking Our Market and How We Are Going to Reach Them

What is our market?

The product we want to see, an integrated greywater filtration and thermoregulation system, is a resegmented market, and our product is very unique because no other companies are producing an integrated system.  Some issues with this type of market is the public's lack of awareness about what our product is and how it can benefit their lives.  Because a widespread project to educated mass consumers would be timely and costly, we decided to spend our time educating businesses such as home construction companies.

What is our distribution channel?

We plan on advertising our product at trade shows and by making inquiries at large construction companies such as KB Home.  We then plan to rent a large warehouse to store our panels until we are able to have a large bulk order from one of these companies makes a purchase.  We will then ship the panels in bulk to the desired location.  To sell the panels, we plan to have a clean website that provides purchase information as well as education as to why they should purchase the product.

Enter: Ecoflow

Who are we?

This week, our team finally finalized our company name and which patent we wanted to go with.  We decided to go with the greywater filtration system that is integrated with thermal regulation for our patent; and we decided that the name "ecoflow" was best for our company.  We really liked the patent because it seemed very easy to sell to business and we feel like we could actually be making an impact on the world/environment.

Branding!

This week, I was in charge of creating a company brand and logo!  To start off, I wanted to think of the core impacts and values of our product, as well as the image that we wanted to portray to the world.  I felt that water, the sun, and maybe something "eco-friendly" were the best options for creating our logo.  I made a few sketches of possible logos, and our team narrowed it down to the one including the sun and the waves.  For the primary and secondary color of our brand, we wanted to use  a bluish green and a yellow.  Personally, I think aesthetic makes a product more appealing and so I felt like I should put a lot of effort into creating a nice brand :)

Team Feedback

Who's doing what?

This week, our team was able to decide our roles!  For my role, our team decided to appoint me as CTO because I have had the most interaction with the professors and graduate students who created our patent.  Nitin was named CEO because he seems to be leading our team and making strong delegation actions.  Lei Wong is head of operations because of her background in civil engineering.

How am I working with our team?

As CTO, I'm working really closely with Lei Wong because she is a civil engineering major and can provide specific insights that I wouldn't think about, or that I overlook.  I report to Nitin with my findings and specific features that I think we could implement to make our product more appealing.  Niels is in charge of finance so we often come to him so ask about the feasibility of things, and whether or not we can implement certain features.

The Rejection Challenge

What is the "rejection challenge"?

This week, we had an interesting task for which we played a game called Rejection Challenge. Each team started with a plastic box and had to make trades to see what people would trade and can we end up with something of more worth. The Rejection Challenge was very interesting because I was curious to see two things: one, what would people be willing to trade and two, over the course of the one hour, how valuable of an item can we get.

What did we do?

When we got our first item, I had the idea to ask the girl scouts to trade the box for a box of cookies, if i bought two boxes from them.  From there we went to the library where we thought that we could find a lot of students who would be willing to want the cookies.  After asking around for a bit, our team's strategy was to split up after receiving a few boxes of girl scout cookies so we could maximize items within the time slot.  We ended up with a 10 dollar gift card, a water bottle, and other items,

What did we learn?

It's interesting to see how value of items is subjective as it changes from one person to another. It was also eye opening to see some more shy members of the team be more out going and asking questions.  I think the most important thing that we learned was how to approach strangers and ask for things without being embarrassed

Update on Team!

So far, our team has been working pretty well!  We all understand the general direction we all want to take and make sure to hear everyone's ideas out.

The Team Meetings

Our team has met up about 4 times so far, and each time we have made strides in choosing a final project and have finally narrowed our options down to two.  The first meetings were more logistical and we just assigned who does what, but as of late, we have been being more collaborative and speaking our minds.  In this collaborative environment, everyone feels more comfortable and we are able to understand each others ideas.  We have narrowed down our projects to focus on a possible two patents: a patent regarding cyanobacteria conversion of ethanol and a greywater filtration system.

Issues that our Team is Facing

Currently the entire team is excited to start planning our project, but we have met the barrier of having limited information about what the patents are about.  We have all repeatedly sent emails to the respective professors, but we haven't been able to actually meet up with any.  Unfortunately the greywater filtration professor has not responded and the cyanobacteria professor was unable to meet the past week.

Market Needs and Unique Value Proposition

LE' GO

"I'm gonna pick up the pieces

And build a Lego house

When things go wrong we can knock it down"

INSTRUCTIONS

At the beginning of the game our team was split into two smaller teams, one team was "engineer based" and the other was more miscellaneous.  The instructions for the game were pretty vague, but everyone just played along and didn't really ask any questions.  After the teams separated, we were given papers with lego images and asked to write instructions to the other team on how to build them.

THE GAME

For the game I was placed on the miscellaneous team which consisted of a pre-business major, an IDS and me an MCB & Media Studies major.  My team was given a picture of a lego formula 1 car.  We initially tried to write out steps by focusing on specific parts, but decided to give more broad instructions about the separate parts of the car.  As it became increasingly difficult to give instructions, we just said it was a race car. Additionally we tried to give a link to what the car looked like.  When we got the bag of legos we realized that the parts were all random and that the instructions that were given wouldn't work.  As a result, we just improvised to follow the instructions of what our other team said.

WHAT I LEARNED

From the game I learned to use my resources to the best of my capabilities and in context of the situation.  Additionally, I came to understand that the end results don't always turn out as expected or as planned, but I should always try my best to make a product.

Introductions and Insights for this Course

Hey there! I'm Nicholas, but I go by Nick, an aspiring UI/UX Designer who is currently pursuing degrees in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Media Studies.  From a young age, I was always interested in creating things, from small meaningless sketches to Lego empires.  In high school I fell in love with biology.  I loved learning about the ins and outs of the Earth's creations and how they interact with each other.  I was never exposed to other interests until the second semester of the sophomore year.  I began dabbling in design and felt as though it was something I could do for the rest of my life.

Ideally, I would love to be apart of a tech company as a UI/UX design intern this summer and eventually secure a a job in the same field after graduation.  As for my final project I would love to have a company that can expose young children to the joys of technology.  Although its been done before, and seems cliche, I feel that this cause is something that will be beneficial for the future generations and want to make sure I can put my stamp on it.