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.
Saturday, April 29, 2017
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.
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.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
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 :)
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 :)
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
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.
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 embarrassedThursday, March 2, 2017
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 1, 2017
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