Business Ideas & Opportunities

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  BS2293: Business Ideas & Opportunities

  Individual Reflective Report

  Student Number: 1610826

   Word count: 1556

Executive Summary

This report will cover the process of evaluating, generating, selecting and implementing of our product. It will also cover the prototyping and testing phase, which includes customer discovery and validation, the overall performance of our team, and a self-reflection comprising of my contributions, strengths and weaknesses.

Our final product, IBolt, is essentially a dual function cable. It has an auto cut off feature, called long life charging that stops current from flowing to your phone once fully charged, which protects your phone and saves energy. This mode is intended for people who charge their phones overnight. The 2nd function, called boost charging allows your phone to charge faster when plugged into a computer. This works by stopping your phone from syncing its data with the computer, thus all the current is focused on charging the phone. A blue and red light will appear indicating long life charging and boost charging mode respectively. To deactivate the modes, press the switch again and the light will disappear, making it a regular charger.

Other features of IBolt that we have found desirable to consumers based on the market research we have done are a wide variety of colours to choose from and a braided exterior for durability.

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction1

1.1 Purpose of report1

    2.0 The creative process1

2.1 Generating knowledge and awareness1

    2.2 Generating ideas1

    2.3 Idea evaluation…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………2

   3.0 Prototyping and testing……………..…………………………………………………………………………………………….2

   3.1 Customer discovery……………………………………………………….……………………………………………………….2-3

   3.2 Building a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)………………………………………………………………………….…….4

   3.3 Customer validation…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….…4-5

   4.0 Team performance.....……..………………………………………………………………………………………………….……5

   4.1 Distribution of roles……………………………………………………………………………………………………………….….5

   4.2 Team evaluation (Trade fair)……………………………………………………………………………………………………..5

   5.0 Self-reflection………………………………………………………..…………………………………………………………………6

   5.1 Contribution……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..6

   5.2 Individual performance/ strengths and weaknesses………………………………………………………………...6

   6.0 Conclusion……………………………………..………………………………………………………….…………………………….6

   References…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..7-8

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Purpose of report

The purpose of this report is to illustrate the creative process we took to come up with our idea, how we analysed its feasibility through customer discovery and validation and the steps we took during the prototyping and testing phase. It also covers briefly on the trade fair, and a reflection of our individual and team’s performance, my strengths and weaknesses as well as my contributions to the team.

2.0 The creative process

Before the formulation of our idea, we went through the creative process.  

2.1 Generating knowledge and awareness

“A prerequisite to all creative processes is the generation of awareness of different ideas and ways of doing things through reading and travelling widely, talking with different people with different views about the world.” (Burns, Paul 2011). With reference to this, our group had a creative advantage as we all came from different parts of the world; Russia, Greece, Singapore and Scotland. Our group first identified and discuss problems we faced in our own daily lives or inconveniences that exists in our own countries or cultural backgrounds.

2.2 Generating ideas

Using one of Bolton & Thompson search processes, (Bolton, B. and Thompson, J., 2000) we identified a common problem we all faced,  and our group came up with the idea of a mobile application for university students, where you can check examination timetables, school events, clubs outings, and even organise your own events on a forum. However, this idea was quickly shot down as upon further research, other universities in Scotland like Aberdeen University already have their own mobile application on the market for their students. Thus, we went back to the incubation process. At our next group meeting, Angus, our selected group leader brought up a very interesting problem, poor battery life of smartphones. The problem came about when his friend was complaining about how his iPhone kept dying very quickly, even though he charges it fully overnight before leaving the house.