Wrapping Up

With only one week left, Cache and I kicked it up into high gear. We finalized our powerpoint, made two sketches for potential ad-campaigns, created 6 potential cellphone case designs and interviewed twenty more people.

This time around when we spoke to students and teachers around the school, we did not ask them what they were most concerned about (brain or reproductive organs) or if we should market with a humorous approach or a medical approach. We already have our answers for those two questions. Instead, we asked

1. What would get you to buy a RADY product?

2. What needs to be included in the products advertisements to make you feel confident about making a purchase?

After speaking to twenty new people we learned that (particularly for teenagers) the case should be super cute and also protective. The benefit of protection against heat would be seen as just an added bonus. Funny enough, adults felt that just the fact that the case can protect you from the harms of heat is enough. Because we are trying to reach out to working adults, we will take that latter approach.

For the second question, it was unanimous that all advertising should have a medical certification, should be backed by a doctor, and would want to have it featured and reviewed on a medical site.

Getting a certification is clearly key to RADY’s future success.

Because this is our penultimate class, we unfortunately don’t have the time to research this (and it would also have to come later after we had already produced the physical product).

If we were to continue, we would start searching for manufacturers, making a partnership with a doctor and then move in to pursuing certification.

Even though we can’t finish out completely, Cache and I have really learned a lot from our experiences with RADY. The main take-away? Starting your own business is hard! This is especially true for two teenage girls that have no medical background whatsoever. It’s hard because we don’t have any connections (yet!) nor money (yet!). But from all the difficulties that we encountered, we have learned how to navigate so that in the future, we may be more readily prepared.

Making Moves

I’m starting to get excited about RADY. It was tough at the beginning, looking around at the other groups in the room and seeing their visions become reality, while Cache and I were still plugged into our computers trying to figure out the basics. 

But now we have a solid game plan. We’ve talked to people around school, and at the grocery store too (my favorite spot for getting strangers’ opinions) to see if they are more concerned about their brain cells or reproductive cells, if they would be more attracted to a comical ad campaign or a one with a more serious tone, all while figuring out what age was showing interest, and what gender. 

Our solid plan (up to this point at least)? Brain cells, medical campaign, adult cell phone users.

With this in mind, we set off on our second round of interviewing. This time, we weren’t necessarily looking for advice but interviews that will take us a step closer to actually creating a physical product.

I tried to contact some cell phone case sellers based on Etsy.com. Unfortunately, phone numbers are not provided on their profiles. So I left an email inquiring about what manufacturer the seller uses to create their product. Eagerly awaiting a response.

While I was looking to move along with something physical, Cache was hard at work looking to get more information about the harms of heat emitted from cell phones, calling doctors and researchers at the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve.

Our plan for next time is going to be on the same track that we took this week: trying to find out how to actually create a physical product and the cost of doing this, finding potential partners, and calling up adults with a medical background who may be able to give us further insight into thermal harms. 

Rady, Set, Go!

Let us start up by saying, creating a start-up is hard. Where to begin? What questions to ask? Will it ever work?

Well Cache and I are ready to find out the answers to our growing list of questions. We decided to start researching the harms of cellphone use on cells and creating a cellphone case that could protect our bodies from the radiation. Ambitious topic, we now know.

While doing further research, talking to potential customers and resources at our school, we learned a few things that could hopefully help our company, Rady, take off.

What type of radiation should we focus on?:

Initially we thought that we would stop radio waves because they have such a high frequency. Obviously, that wouldn’t go over well because that would slow your service. Not good.

“Why don’t you focus on thermal radiation” our science teacher told us. “Heat is harmful to your bodies as well.”

Good thinking Mr. A. So now we are focusing on the harmful affects of heat and what materials we could use to create a cellphone case that absorbs heat before it reaches your body.

Should we advertise our product with humor or with medical facts and a more serious tone?

“Cell destruction is serious business” one person told us. “I would be more drawn to an ad that is backed by doctors and research.”

Serious it is.

We still have a ton more to do. Who is our main customer? Male or female? What age range? What materials are needed to create this case? How much will it cost? What manufacturer will we go through? What partners can we gain?

Back to work.

 

Boxcast in Review

Today was our final presentation on Boxcast, the live-streaming video company that we have been working with for the past two months or so. Gordon, the founder, came in and listened to us as we explained the progress we have made, from methods of contact, to the number of sales completed.

After our group, the Wild Card group, had finished speaking on how we believed that he could introduce Boxcast to yoga studios, allowing customers to view classes on the yoga studio’s website, Gordon commented on something that our group never focused on.

“I should definitely look into this. These seems very scalable” he said as he rubbed his chin, new plans clearly formulating in his mind.

Yes, actually yoga studios are very scalable, I realized. Our group never looked beyond our targets, and we should have. Yoga studios can turn different athletic classes. Spinning classes, Zumba, step aerobics, dance classes… I could go on.

Jordan saw this opportunity right away, we did not.

Why is that?

I don’t have a clear conclusion to this question, but I’m guessing that it all has to do with experience. Sure, we’ve worked with three companies now, but still that is nothing compared to the work Gordon has been playing with for the past three years.

The answer to success is just practice, practice, practice.

Photo from Pinterest

Laura: Business Founder

What I think electromagnetic waves look like

Guess what? I am now an entrepreneur.

All year I knew that eventually we would be expected to come up with our own original product, and then try and create a successful business from our little seed. I knew it was coming, and trust me, I’d been thinking, but nothing ever came to mind. Stupid things like “creating a drink that will make me tan forever” or “floating shoes” would pass through my sleep-deprived mind, but obviously, those ideas would never launch.

But then today, the final day to come up with an idea, Cache and I came up with one.

Get this: A company that sells cases for iphones, cellphones, ipads, and computers that stop the electromagnetic radiation from hurting the body and causing cancer.

How are we going to make this product? No idea (at the moment).

But hey, a business has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is the initial idea.

So I guess you can say step one is completed (which I think is a giant step). Wish us luck as we try to learn the basics of case architecture and the science behind the electromagnetic field.

Photo from Pinterest

The Benefits of Eaves-Dropping

Just listening in

For entrepreneurs, the main hurtle to climb is getting the word out on their product.  For me, although an aspiring entrepreneur, I am not currently trying to sell a fabulous idea. Instead, I am looking towards this summer and how I can be making some money.

Unfortunately, I have not won any of the internships at any of the companies we have worked with in class because I have never been in a winning group. So summer internship, not a possibility, and you know what? It’s not necessarily something that I would like to be doing anyways. I look at an internship and see a job. I will have plenty of opportunities for serious jobs and internships when I am in and out of college.

Instead of an internship, I would much rather do something where I am moving, talking to strangers and gaining an education that I will not receive in school. What I’m thinking is waitressing. I worked at Ben & Jerry’s last year, but unfortunately, the owner over-staffed, meaning that I, an employee who has only worked for a few months, do not have priority over the longer employed scoopers.

Working at a restaurant will allow me to do my little Nancy Drew act. Yeah, it’s probably an invasion of privacy and all, but who can’t help listening in to conversations? And when you’re surrounding by so many in one day, you just know you will learn little tidbits about strangers, allowing you to learn different perspectives.

Hopefully through eaves-dropping I can learn what the general public is interested in, what they want, what they don’t, and later apply this knowledge into starting a company that can accommodate many different types of costumers.

Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that I get a callback from an eatery soon!

Photo from Pinterest

Getting Through

Waiting

I think the greatest grit test that I have ever gone through is the one I am taking right now. College. It seems as if I’ve been taking this test for the past four years and I have one more question to answer but I just can’t figure it out.

So many of my friends have gotten into their schools. They wear their college shirts to school and talk about their rooming plans while I simply nod along.

A while back, before winter break, Ms. Cho told me that to keep her going while she was still living in Las Vegas, she kept a list of things she was looking forward to when she got to Cleveland including a nice house and a horse (if I recall correctly). And now look where she is. She’s gotten through the last bit of one of her grit tests of life and has been rewarded with the things she kept in mind. 

I thought this was a fabulous idea, but when I did it for myself, I found that I was becoming more and more impatient. So I’ve adapted the idea a bit. To improve my grittiness and help myself to keep going while I wait for an acceptance letter to Dream U, I thought I would make a list of the things that I am enjoying now and things that I should be focusing on now instead of overlooking and trying to peek into the future.

1. Girls’ Swimming winning states (15 years in a row!)

2. Reading as much as I can

3. Taking my senior bow tonight at our second to last musical performance

4. Being captain of the softball team

5. Learning how to cook

Photo from Pinterest

My Silly Little Idea (almost)!

Remember this post a while back when I talked about tattoos and how incredibly cool and stupid they are at the same time? I admire tattoos like a total nerd on Pinterest all the time but would never dare get one out of fear that I would get tired of it and slap myself on the forehead internally shouting “What where you thinking?!”

Why not have someone invent a tattoo that will last a year or two and have it disappear? Well, I came across this little sight called Tattly. Now it’s not exactly my idea. The tattoos only last about a week, but still. They’re fun tattoos that aren’t like the ones you got as a six year old at the county fair. Adult stick on tattoos you could say.

Tattly was started two years ago by Tina Roth Eisenberg who thought that the temporary tattoos at the time were poorly designed. So, she gathered a bunch of American artists to come up with body art. Now the company has over 250 different designs and ships their products all over the world. I find it amazing that so simple an idea, sparked by just a picky and non-important frustration could launch such a creative and successful business.

I just ordered two more tattoos from the site (this and this). I had previously gotten a tattoo that wraps around your wrist and looks like a classic braided friendship bracelet and when I went to go visit my friend in college, all of her colleagues thought that it was real! I felt so bad-ass. And I think that’s why I love them so much. They are cheap and I can trick people into thinking I was brave enough to get inked.

If only I had launched my idea first…

Video from Tattly.com

Rain Check?

Ms. Cho, I am sick. I really cannot write. I’m sorry.

Please Don’t Scare Me

Not feeling too hot

WebMD freaks me out. Many a times I have come up with a purple tinted cut, or a dizzying headache, typed in my symptoms on the medical site and gotten responses such as “Life Threatening” or “Contact you doctor immediately.”

For example, once I was out walking in the woods with my mother when I got this weird feeling. I’m not exactly sure how to describe it, but I just felt funky. As soon as I got home, I tried to describe what I had experienced. I waited for my diagnoses and you know what I got? Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia! Let’s hope not.

But alas, I still return to WebMD, trying to get answers to my many diseases.

Now why am I telling you all this? Am I trying to explain that I am a hypochondriac? No, I am not a hypochondriac (although my mom thinks I am). I am telling you this because today I woke up sick. Stomach pains, throbbing headache, runny nose… a typical cold I thought until I looked at myself in the mirror.

My eyelids were huge! And I mean so puffed up, I had not eyelid crease whatsoever. This my dear, has never occurred before.

WebMD, what’s my diagnosis?

Cluster Headaches apparently. Again, something scary. No “no need to worry” here.

Informational websites like Wikipedia and WebMd, I think are great. The allow people of this generation to grab what they need in just a matter of seconds as long as they have access to the internet. But are inventions such as these causing us more harm then good?

In my opinion, I think I should wain off the information of the internet and maybe call my doctor instead.

Photo from Pinterest