We were lucky to have our some of our alumni speakers back as VIP judges for the Entrepreneur Academy final – Tina Dulieu, Jamie Mason, Emma Porter and Anish Vara, were the ‘Dragons’ along with Head of Business Mrs Azad and Mrs Monk.
The brief - You are required to create a product or service suitable for 16-21 year olds. The product or service can be tailored to either male, female or both. The product or service can be an invention or an innovation. There is no specific budget however you will be required to research and record costs. Your product or service should be something that can be used by individuals who attend college or university.
Our first pitch was from Philip, Lord and Charles with an idea for an app called ‘Flow’ which was designed to aid study skills by reading set texts aloud with no need for scrolling including voice recognition, an online dictionary and a text to speech option. The app would also be able to read images such as manga and graphic novels.
Fatiha, Zehrin, Jawaheer and Manaheel presented their idea which was an Interior Design app called ‘Everything You Need’. The idea of this was it would enable students to re-design their rooms at home or Uni utilising the app. There would also be the option for in-app purchases and discounts for longevity of using the app. The girls handed out a slick poster with a QR code for ease of access.
Tajus and Stefan’s proposal was for a product called ‘Krunch Klips’ – an adjustable gym clip. They had assessed that there was not much competition in the market at present and that they could produce the item relatively cheaply so as to maximise profit.
Next up was Ishraqur, Ephraim, Marcus and Yousef with their app – Capture Literature. This app would allow the user to scan any text and provide feedback, suggest improvements and give relevant information. They hoped to use social media and influencers to advertise their brand and were offering a one-week free trial.
All of our student teams presented very professionally and had considered their brief carefully to include:
- Project Vision - What have you been asked to do? Who is your target market? What is your plan?
- Product/Service - Need buy/want buy/fear buy? Product visual and branding/logo/sologan, description of purpose/use
- Market Research - Is there a need or want of your product? How do you know? What research informs this?
- Competition - similar items on the market?
- Unique Selling Point/ Niche market - what makes your product or service stand out?
- Marketing - How will you market your business? Social media? Endorsement? Why?
- Human resources - Who are your team members? Skills? Responsibilities? Strengths and weaknesses?
- Finance - market research on similar products, selling price, revenues, break even, profit or loss
- SWOT Analysis - Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats - according to your idea
Conclusion - Summarise why your idea is viable
After deliberation and discussion the judges were pleased to award first place to Fatiha, Zehrin, Jawaheer and Manaheel for their Interior Design app. Closely followed as runners-up by Tajus and Stefan with ‘Krunch Klips’. A fantastic afternoon with our students displaying all they had been taught by their entrepreneur experience over the last few months. Thank you to our alumni members for giving up your time to listen to the pitches and deciding on a winner.
