Sunday, April 30, 2017
Week 14 Update
We've finalized our deck and filmed a video of our presentation here! We haven't memorized lines yet so you may be able to see us reading off the script-that'll be fixed before the presentation :) Feedback is welcome, and we're very excited to pitch on Tuesday. See you all then!
Monday, April 17, 2017
Week 12 Update
Last week in class, we met with Rick to further discuss our final business model and our first rough draft deck. We decided that we needed to keep both the hardware and the software as part of our product, especially since a large part of our value proposition and what differentiates us is that our device is always connected to a GPS and is able to give real-time alerts: basically, it won't fail during a natural disaster.
Our business model will still be B2B2C, except we'll be selling our products to alarm/insurance companies rather than cell phone service providers, and they will offer it to customers as part of a tiered package program. We'll be crunching the numbers this week to finalize the structure of this.
Finally, we hope to somehow get government regulation to include our technology in alarm systems across the country, as we feel that it's beneficial to have this sort of product in homes/offices/buildings/campuses.
Over the next few weeks, we'll mostly be finalizing our pitch deck in preparation for demo day. We'll be focusing on financials, deciding on a company name/logo, and our deck outline this week specifically.
Update: we decided on the name FALCON (First Alert Locating Catastrophe Over Network). Thoughts?
Also our pitch deck can be found here! We'll still be working on it over the next few weeks but feel free to leave us any comments or suggestions.
Our business model will still be B2B2C, except we'll be selling our products to alarm/insurance companies rather than cell phone service providers, and they will offer it to customers as part of a tiered package program. We'll be crunching the numbers this week to finalize the structure of this.
Finally, we hope to somehow get government regulation to include our technology in alarm systems across the country, as we feel that it's beneficial to have this sort of product in homes/offices/buildings/campuses.
Over the next few weeks, we'll mostly be finalizing our pitch deck in preparation for demo day. We'll be focusing on financials, deciding on a company name/logo, and our deck outline this week specifically.
Update: we decided on the name FALCON (First Alert Locating Catastrophe Over Network). Thoughts?
Also our pitch deck can be found here! We'll still be working on it over the next few weeks but feel free to leave us any comments or suggestions.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Week 11 Update
Customer Interviews Update: Using the survey we updated last week, we did 10 more customer interviews. We plan to publish results (when we have a good number of them) in our deck as supporting data.
What We Learned: This week in class we learned about the specifics on starting a company in the U.S., the different types of companies, and a bit on equity math. These are important for when it comes time to register a startup as an official company and figure out the legal means by which to do so.
Issues & Insights: This past week, we spoke to Tiffine and Rick to hammer out our business model. They both gave us some new things to think about, particularly how it might be difficult to tap into the hardware space. An issue is that our patent itself is about the hardware and software, and the latter is pretty much just to interpret the information provided by the former. They suggested changing our model to maybe one where we approach alarm companies and things like Nest to sell our software, but this would change our whole business model. We'll likely continue to flush out our B2B2C model first and explore this new option on the side. They also were against our subscription model and wanted an up-front tiered payment plan.
This Week/Plan: We worked on our first attempt at a pitch deck this week, the outline for which can be found here. With only a month left, things are speeding up! Our plan for the next few weeks will be to add to and perfect our deck before the final pitch date.
What We Learned: This week in class we learned about the specifics on starting a company in the U.S., the different types of companies, and a bit on equity math. These are important for when it comes time to register a startup as an official company and figure out the legal means by which to do so.
Issues & Insights: This past week, we spoke to Tiffine and Rick to hammer out our business model. They both gave us some new things to think about, particularly how it might be difficult to tap into the hardware space. An issue is that our patent itself is about the hardware and software, and the latter is pretty much just to interpret the information provided by the former. They suggested changing our model to maybe one where we approach alarm companies and things like Nest to sell our software, but this would change our whole business model. We'll likely continue to flush out our B2B2C model first and explore this new option on the side. They also were against our subscription model and wanted an up-front tiered payment plan.
This Week/Plan: We worked on our first attempt at a pitch deck this week, the outline for which can be found here. With only a month left, things are speeding up! Our plan for the next few weeks will be to add to and perfect our deck before the final pitch date.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Week 10 Update
Customer Interviews: In total, we have conducted 15 customer interviews. We additionally, have updated our survey with the help of Professor Rasmussen who advised us to make it more open-ended so we will get optimal feedback. We are going to send the survey out to email lists that Professor Rasmussen said he will provide us with because after posting the original survey in Berkeley's Facebook pages, we realize that students are not the best indicators of who will buy this product. The product is more for families and older individuals with a steady income.
What did you learn?
This week in class, we explored some "silly patents" that Professor Levian showed us, such as a dog dust cover. We learned that not all patents are as useful and relevant (compared to the ones the groups in our class have chosen to look at) as others. We also saw how patent law comes into play when competitors try to slightly change a part of a device, product, or idea, in order to avoid violating intellectual property restrictions.
Issues and Insights
For our patent, we learned that we'd have to narrow down our business model canvas and look deeper into pricing for our device and subscription model. In order to exactly price the product, we'll have to consider COGS and any additional expenses that our middle man, which consists of phone companies, will incur. We are additionally thinking of developing a "family plan" as well to reach more customers and provide an incentive for more people to try the application.
Plan for the next 2 weeks? Originally we were creating and B2C business and directly targeting the consumer. However, after giving it a lot of thought we have decided that the best way to market this business would be to make it a B2B2C company. In doing so we now need to figure out how much a provider like Comcast or AT&T would charge us to be part of their service. Additionally, we have many other costs to figure out. We need to see how much materials will cost and what it will cost to manufacture our product. This will help us figure out how much we can sell our product for. Additionally, we need to see how much it will be to be tied to the emergency network software.
Our updated value proposition canvas is here.
Our business development canvas is here.
What did you learn?
This week in class, we explored some "silly patents" that Professor Levian showed us, such as a dog dust cover. We learned that not all patents are as useful and relevant (compared to the ones the groups in our class have chosen to look at) as others. We also saw how patent law comes into play when competitors try to slightly change a part of a device, product, or idea, in order to avoid violating intellectual property restrictions.
Issues and Insights
For our patent, we learned that we'd have to narrow down our business model canvas and look deeper into pricing for our device and subscription model. In order to exactly price the product, we'll have to consider COGS and any additional expenses that our middle man, which consists of phone companies, will incur. We are additionally thinking of developing a "family plan" as well to reach more customers and provide an incentive for more people to try the application.
Plan for the next 2 weeks? Originally we were creating and B2C business and directly targeting the consumer. However, after giving it a lot of thought we have decided that the best way to market this business would be to make it a B2B2C company. In doing so we now need to figure out how much a provider like Comcast or AT&T would charge us to be part of their service. Additionally, we have many other costs to figure out. We need to see how much materials will cost and what it will cost to manufacture our product. This will help us figure out how much we can sell our product for. Additionally, we need to see how much it will be to be tied to the emergency network software.
Our updated value proposition canvas is here.
Our business development canvas is here.
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Week 8 Update
This week we discussed the business model we feel most comfortable pursuing and concluded that we are leaning towards B2C or B2B2C. Our qualms with B2B2C is learning how to a) appeal to and b) conduct business with huge phone service companies (AT&T, Verizon) or universities. On the other hand, the concern with B2C is gaining as much traction as we would selling to customers with B2B2C.
We also worked on our customer survey, which is ready and due to go live tomorrow. We've decided to share to a broad audience, but included questions on age, income stability, and home ownership so we can sort through customers easily to learn our market. We also asked about the "pains" aspect of natural disasters to figure out how much of an inconvenience they're really viewed as in a general population.
Unfortunately, we received no response from the inventor when asked for a second meeting, but will continue reaching out to him, particularly because we ourselves have a few questions on optimizing the software behind the product.
Our upcoming goals are to wrap up the customer research end for now, to work on a "prototype" of the software (i.e. designing an app or whatever it may be), and to figure out how to approach a B2B2C model. After these steps are done, we can loop back to customer surveys or research to continue improving our idea.
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