In this module I developed and created a business model for a new start-up company in a group. I worked alongside Luke and Esdras to complete this project and below is a weekly blog of how we created a business model and presented it within three months.
1st – 10th Oct
The first week consisted of forming the team and brainstorming initial ideas. We created our initial docs and folders to work from and started working on our initial ideas. The idea we decided on was to create an event style cultural hub where people could congregate and attend events where our venue would pop up. We held 3 teams meetings as a group and discussed our ideas. In the meantime we worked on the MVP – minimal viable product and SWOT analysis.
11th – 17th Oct
The second week was when we staring building on our ideas while also trying to find a way of simplifying it. We discussed with out lecturer how achievable our project would be and further developed out SWOT analysis and first draft of business model.
I brainstormed names such as: Interwave, Hub on Wheels, Cultural Hub, Art Drop, Jigsaw Cultural Hub and the tagline ‘Connecting locations of the city together’. The team were enthusiastic but also not sure about our main business idea. We set tasks for following week to create a manifesto and visual board each to push our idea further.
Tote bag we saw influenced our product consideration – https://shop.tate.org.uk/andy-warhol-campbells-soup-tote-bag/23701.html Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup tote bag.
18th – 24th Oct
By reassessing our company ideas, we decided to work simply on a VR event instead of over complicating the brief. We further brainstormed names (Jigsaw etc) but still weren’t convinced. Talked about having an online shop and music truck/bus. Had an appointment with Xavier to experience VR headsets and experienced VR properly as a group. We decided to focus purely on VR experience rather than a food truck concept.
25th – 31st Oct
We started planning for our first event as a group and prepared for the pitch. Unfortunately I caught COVID-19 on this week so wasn’t able to participate in the event as planned. I worked on creating the post-event survey online and used Eventbrite to create the event and the tickets. As a group we were in constant contact helping eachother out with various tasks such as booking the room & lights, thinking of what to include in the pitch etc.
There were some problems when inviting people to come to the event as it was to take place on a Friday morning so most students had lessons then. I only managed to find one person who was interested, however the rest of the team did not which meant the eventual turnout was less than hoped for.
First VR Event
The event was held in a studio on campus from 10.30 to 12.00. We had a projector with a futuristic moving image on repeat to set the right ambience. In the end we had 8 people turn up which was more than expected thanks to word-of-mouth invites. The customers gave very positive feedback and they recorded it on the survey I created prior to the event.
5 Minute Pitch
The pitch was given by my teammates as I was unable to attend due to illness. However I watched online and was able to give feedback after the call. The presentation was a bit shaky and my team didn’t give off the impression they were confident in the events company.
Our feedback from Ash/Shannie: VR functions Pitch wasn’t clear but great idea Build it out to be specific, is it kids party or business events? Weddings? Where is your best market? Will help define costs, audience etc.
Following from this we noted what we needed to improve on for next time and what we needed to be more clear on and to develop in our updated event prototype.
1st – 7th Nov
We had several group meetings to build up the business documents (SWOT etc). Discussed VR event, reflecting on our first prototype event and pitch and thinking about our target audiences.
We set tasks to complete throughout the week:
Katie – Manifesto and SWOT analysis and add info collected in lessons
Esdras – Business idea and model
Luke – Marketing and social plan with relevant channels – gathering assets etc
All – Create plan, template of event schedule and what to expect
Decided to document our meetings.
At this point we started to document our meetings better and began building up our Enterprise Plan document. We reflected more on the previous pitch and thought to have VR headsets in our hands.
We discussed locations for VR events, Argil sculpting, target Art/exhibits businesses, ‘Not my beautiful house’. Following on from this we bought tickets for a VR event called Other World in London Victoria.
8th – 14th Nov
As a team we went to an Otherworld VR experience in London Victoria to experience VR in a joint game environment. It wasn’t as good as we thought it was going to be due to technical issues and lack of guidance by the company employees. However knowing these faults in the organisation helped us to know what to avoid in our events.
Talked with the lecturer about our business plan and VR event. We then planned next step and another event the following week. After the lecture we went as a team to visit the venue ‘Not My Beautiful Home’ to get an idea of the space we might be working with. While we were there we asked about availability, the use of space, lighting options etc. During out visit, I took pictures so we could refer to them after the visit.
We set tasks for each of us to do over the weekend:
Katie – Risk, email Xavier for VR headset, survey, tickets, QR code generate
Esdras – Poster, marketing strategy (printing etc)
Luke – Email claire and ‘not my beautiful home. for event, music for the day and speakers, ask if they have projectors or book them out, set up instagram account
15th – 21st Nov
Over the weekend we hadn’t received any responses back from venues we had contacted the week before, this meant we were set back with out planning. I contacted the university and spoke to the Townhouse team who gave me the contact info for the manager of the venue. I sent an email to the library manager about the event.
After communicating via email with the library manager, I booked a viewing for the following day to see what facilities we could use.
On the 16th we had a VR session with our course tutor who took us through Rec Room on two headsets. We had difficulties with the internet connection so weren’t able to play any multiplayer games. To resolve this I suggested using our mobile hotspots, however we still couldn’t connect to group activities.
After this VR session, we went to meet the library manager who we spoke about the project to and who explained the facilities we could use for the event. Our preferred location was the Courtyard which is located near the entrance of the Townhouse building. It is an open space and was ideal for our event. We then forwarded a booking link to our lecturers to get permission to book the venue and then waited for news from the events team in Townhouse.
Second Event
The event was successful, we had 5 customers over three 45 minute hour slots which was better than expected. As a group we worked well together and were able to work to each-others strengths and abilities. The event started at 10.00am and we finished at 13.00. The most customers came towards the end as they were finishing their lectures around that time. A friend of mine was able to help with promoting the event around the Townhouse by attaching a poster to his back and encouraging people to come along/ scan our Instagram QR code to be kept in the loop for future events. This was very helpful and we managed to find customers just by walking around and speaking with them in person. Our lecturers attended the event for a bit to see how everything was going, and they were impressed by the set up and organisation.
Planning and holding this event tested our organisational skills and pushed us to work with a last minute response from the venue and late bookings from customers. Our biggest challenge was not knowing whether we would have a venue or not, as all of the companies we contacted didn’t get back to us. We managed to get this space as we went to the manager and her manager in person and she confirmed the use of space there and then.
We agreed to focus on the marketing and TLS part of the event for the next one as the venues proved to be very unpredictable.
Our instagram at this point gained lots of new followers which boosted our customer interest for our future event.
22nd – 28th Nov
On the 22nd we had an online Teams meeting as a three, where we worked on our competitor document and continued working on our finance model. We contacted venues for the following week but still didn’t receive any replies. We then decided we would book out one of the CCI studios for our next event so we would be sure to have a place to work with.
Later on in the week we had another meeting where we gathered the games we can offer as a company:
- Beat Saber
- The Creed Boxing
- Tutorial – First Steps
- Goliath – Experience
- Tilt Brush
- Fruit Ninja
We agreed on having our next event on the 8th of December so we would have time to gain customers and interest prior to the event. We decided our main MVP would be B2C and we would eventually offer B2B packages. After this, we distributed tasks among ourselves and organised to meet the following week in person to work on the documents together.
In the meantime I created checklists for us to complete over the next few weeks so we could see visually what we needed to achieve.
29th Nov – 5th Dec
Independently I completed the Risk Analysis section of the document and finished/ updated the SWOT Analysis. Filling out these documents allowed me to reflect on what we offer as a company and gave me ideas to bring to the group about the Manifesto section in our following meeting.
In the meantime I was in communication with our lecturers and venues for our final event. Due to the lack of response from our ideal spaces, we requested to use one of the KSA rooms instead which was free of charge and available to use.
On the 2nd, we worked as a group to complete different sections of the document such as:
-Insight, problem, solution
-Manifesto
-Packages
-Expenses
-Profit and Loss Spreadsheet
-Prepared posters with QR code for following day
We started creating the final document on Illustrator and then realised it would be easier on Canva due to the collaboration option.
I reached out the my lecturer to see if it would be possible to present our pitch on VR Mozilla Hubs and he responded very enthusiastically. I thought it would be a good ideas as the ‘dragons’ would get a sense of what we have to offer as a company through experience.
The following day I went to ask the student union for a card reader, but they very abruptly refused saying we needed to be a society to book one out. This meant we couldn’t use one for our third event. We then printed the posters and leaflets to put around the university campus and worked on the document and created packages for the event as a team.
Throughout the project I have taken the role of organising tasks and making sure deadlines are met as we were on a tight deadline. I suggested we write a list of the tasks to complete until the event and it put into perspective the workload we had to do.
After distributing the workload, we got stuck into our tasks and one of my main ones was creating the VR room on Spoke Mozilla hubs. I used a room I previously designed, changed the lighting and started prepping for where our presentation deck would go. The best part about the space is that you can press gravity and go underneath the sea.
In the following days I updated the Risk Analysis section, adding the VR risks previously missed out. Then I created a sheet taking about long term plans for the company and then continued planning the room for the presentation. We booked out the headsets to use at home, so I also took advantage of this and downloaded the games for the event and practised navigating with the software. Both Luke and I struggled with some of the game features and with internet issues during this stage.
We worked on our financial Profit and Loss sheet and had external guidance from a business connection who advised us optimise our model.
6th – 12th Dec
Luke and I tested headsets functionality at NMBH – checking internet etc. We then printed more waiver forms for event day the following day.
Third Event
The event took place at Not My Beautiful House in Kingston where we were eventually, after a lot of emails, able to book out a space in the venue. We advertised the event across socials Instagram and Facebook, and put posters up around the KSA university campus.
The event was advertised a week before it happened where we contacted many people across social groups and platforms. Unfortunately, due to time period many people were too busy to come due to deadlines and work commitments. However some said they would come by word of mouth and they came, despite sending the booking link.
After an hour we started to attract attention from the NMBH visitors and had two initial customers. Due to Esdras unfortunately having issues with arriving, we only had access of two headsets with demo games. Then following this we had 5 more customers (7 in total). This event was successful with a good turn out and we attracted new audiences.
After the event we went through tasks to complete for the rest of the week and the weekend. This helped us understand the quantity of work we had left to complete and our timeframe.
Following the event we gathered and analysed the data as a team and made sure to update our appendix with the updated information. I suggested for us to write a list of tasks that were still needed to complete and distribute the tasks between ourselves. We used a shared task list throughout the start-up creation so we always knew what we needed to do.
The tasks that I completed were updating the Appendix (added screenshots of communication with external clients etc), Market analysis with quantitative and qualitative research, updated Current market and competitors with a write-up and more.
13th – 19th Dec
While preparing the documents individually, we also met up as a team for regular meetings so we were aligned on the tasks to be completed. These meetings were also used to prepare and practise for our final pitch which was on the 17th of December.
I primarily occupied myself with preparing the virtual space for the presentation on Mozilla Hubs. Below you can find the scene that I worked on which was an adaptation of a project I created on Spoke the previous year.
Initially I added many objects to make the scene immersive and space-like, however when it came to exporting the scene onto Mozilla, I realised the project size was too big so I had to reduce it by taking out many objects. This meant the scene was much more minimal that I would have liked it to have been, however my team said it looked better as it was less cluttered. When I showed my lecturers the scene they were impressed and loved how it had been transformed. I have greatly enjoyed using Mozilla Hubs for creating scenes such as this.
One of my tutors mentioned that with the VR Headsets some of the materials are compromised so the judges wouldn’t have been able to see the scene as we can see it on other devices. Apart from this, the VR Escape presentation looked very visually pleasing and immersive. I also worked on what the user would see throughout the experience so that the journey would be guided and easy to follow. Learning about these basic curation techniques was very useful and I have gained experience in thinking about the customer journey and object placement.
After this we prepared as a team for the pitch and gave each other constructive criticism in order to optimise our presentation.
Final Pitch
We arrived early to prepare for the pitch in VR, set up the headsets in advance and practised briefly what we were going to say. The pitch went very well and our tutor was impressed with what we produced and presented as a team. We were also very pleased with how it went and felt confident throughout the process.
The pitch lasted 20 minutes but we felt as though it lasted a lot less time as we had so much to say. Aside from this, we spoke very clearly and were able to cover the majority of the pitch within the timeframe.
Reflection
The VR Escape Culturepreneurship module was very exciting and rewarding to work on as I had the chance to work within a productive team while setting up an innovative and future-looking Start Up. This project tested my organisation and people skills especially while working with my team and communicating with external contacts. I learnt how when creating events, the more you contact venues the more likely they will reply. When I contacted multiple venues I had a better chance of getting the result I wanted. My administration skills came in handy when it came to communicating with multiple contacts. I also learnt to be flexible and being willing to adapt during different stages of the project and found that the more we held ourselves accountable to each other, the better organised and aligned we were.
Alongside creating this start-up we were also studying about the Metaverse and new technologies that are being used and integrated into companies today (such as the use of VR and 3D product creation). Learning about these innovations has allowed us to change our approach to VR and the technological world. Our start-up creation has shown us that it is possible to bring an idea to life and to bridge this gap in the market for our customers to be aware of and connected to the (not so distant) future.
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