I'm excited to finally be able to embark on my entrepreneurship journey. As a team, we crafted up various ideas entertaining the concepts of mystery shopping, antigen rapid test (ART) kit distribution, titanium bikes and more. It was heartening to see different members of the team talk about the ideas and topics they were passionate about. Through our discussions and consultations with Mr Roderick, I'm beginning to see what it means to be an entrepreneur as opposed to simply owning a business. We have yet to settle with a specific idea for now but it was a fruitful week of brainstorming which really challenged my ability to think critically. I think this venture (and module) will be beneficial in providing much insight and honing the skills I will need to properly execute a venture.

This week has been a week full of research and problem solving. As a team, we have made progress on how to go about realising our project. Through our analysis frameworks (SWOT, Porter's Five Forces) and research into how to market and assemble our inventory, I'm starting to feel more confident in our idea. I think the biggest hurdles we face now would be our LLP registration and grant application. I would be keen to look into other sources of funding as at this stage, we cannot guarantee our grant application will be approved/approved in time. Another issue our team will have to look at would be the inventory purchase plan. In order to maximise our profits, we have to be strategic with our supplier choice as we have to take into account the lead times for production, delivery, and minimum order quantities for each inventory. Furthermore, we will be setting up consultations with our Key Opinion Leaders. I look forward to hearing their input on our venture. In the meantime, our team will work to further fool-proof our business plan and look into some of the concerns Mr Roderick brought up during our presentation (i.e. marketing, culture considerations, inventory, etc). It has been an enjoyable week, I'm glad our team has made significant progress in our venture planning and are on track to execute our plans.

This week, our team held a meeting on the 30th of October to discuss our plans. Other than moving ahead with KOL engagements and refining our research on developmental milestones to facilitate our product choices, as a team, we have collectively decided to open an account under Aspire rather than WISE. This is because, upon further research, we have found Aspire to be compatible with WISE services (from wise.com website: "International payments are powered by Wise and can be made in 50+ currencies..."). As both these platforms are new to us, we felt the need to look further into the features of using these platforms in order to make the most informed decision. In comparison with local banks, Aspire offers cashback and rewards, and is compatible with accounting softwares like Xero, Quickbook, MYOB and more, which definitely appears as a value-add to Aspire users. As I was doing further research, I was skeptical about how newer platforms like Aspire fare in comparison to traditional 'platforms' i.e. local banks, as opening our business account under local banks like DBS would surely be the more secure option. Information I've found here and there about the drawbacks of using Aspire (unable to register UEN for PayNow, absence of checkbook) gave me food for thought, on whether these drawbacks are necessarily bad (considering checkbooks may not exactly be relevant today) and that there are appears to be way more restrictions that our team will face (given our situation) should we open an account with our local bank (i.e. minimum deposit, fall-below fee, etc). In a sense, I'm glad to learn about these now as it will definitely be good knowledge to have, even for future ventures.

Photo: Bank comparison research

Our first meeting with Ms Anthony went well. During the meeting, we presented her with our current business plans and proposals, to which she gave us valuable guidance on how to best proceed from here, including which milestones to look out for, and avenues to source for reliable information. After some discussion, our team decided to expand on our research on developmental milestones, with emphasis on aspects including Motor, Sensory, Communication, Socio-emotional, and Cognitive Milestones. Of the few takeaways we've had, one potential issue our team might face could include the re-grouping of age groups, which will change our original proposition of playbox versus age range. The expansion of our research also brings new concerns on our product cost, pricing and our brand value to customers. Our team still has quite a bit to do before we are able to settle with a quality product, however, I'm glad we were able to work well and complete our assigned tasks in time for our planned activities to proceed.

This week was rather quiet as all of us were busy with finals. I hope everyone's coping well, looking forward to our recce day next week, 2nd December 2021.

Week 11 was an eventful week. This week, we met with 3 of our experts (previously referred to as KOLs, our team has decided to revise our terminology use), Ms Fedore, Ms Belinda and Ms Shai. The meetings were productive and helped our team gain insight and new perspectives to not only future growth opportunities but also how to position our current product. One breakthrough we had was to base our product on the 'thematic experience', which I thought was rather neat and more ideal as compared to simply curating the box based on developmental milestones. By including DIY segments and activities which align with the theme of the box (i.e. Hungry Caterpillar + activities related to the book), there seems to be much more potential for future expansion for this venture, not to mention this concept will give our brand some sort of a differentiating factor as opposed to simply selling children toys. Our experts provided us with valuable advice and insight on our book choice (including book type e.g. literature books vs readers) and materials we should consider for our product. Following this direction (for our product idea), I feel more optimistic about our product. Our team has come a long way and I'm pleasantly surprised at how everything seems to be coming together well.

In other news, we have placed our orders for our box products just in time to enjoy discounts from the 12.12 sales. After quite some meticulous research, our team managed to bring our cost price down from over $40 to just about $37, subject to minor changes. While not the most ideal, our team recognises that given the various constraints (including delivery time), concluding our purchase at these prices was rather acceptable. This would prompt for a revision/re-evaluation of our selling price.

Also, as a further update to our account situation, the team had collectively settled on using a newly opened DBS multi-currency account (not transacted before) for our transactions for these 6 months, after which we will decide (with consideration for our funds/earnings) whether to open a formal Business Digital Account to continue our business or to continue our Aspire account opening. The reason being that Aspire requires documents including our constitution which we have yet to craft a formal copy of. As good business practice, I will be uploading the eStatements of the transactions under the account onto our team's drive. While it was not the most ideal decision (my personal preference is to keep personal accounts separate from business accounts for formality purposes), our entire team was on the same page that this was the better solution which would facilitate the completion of the transactions we wished to make during the week (and in the near future).

Overall, it was an eventful week. We have purchased most of the important things we needed (including our box products). I'm glad our team is making good progress and on track as per our planned timeline.

Photo: Simplified copy version of transaction and reimbursement status

In preparation for our upcoming activities, our team has completed our storyboarding. Most of our products have also arrived, including miscellaneous items including the box itself. I had gone down to the store location to pick up the boxes which was surprisingly big. It was ..fun.. strategising on how to carry the box back home and (*forward thinking*) to the next location where we would assemble our product. Nevertheless, I'm glad everything is finally coming together. I have also reached out to my contact, who has expressed interest in helping us out with the shoot. In order to ensure that the privacy of the kids and parents (participating in the shoot) is protected, we might have to make minor adjustments to our angles and storyboard plans. Moving ahead, we will be finalising the date(s) and time for the shoot. It is nearing the end of the year, when January arrives, our schedules might require more effort and compromise in order to coordinate our meeting days. But for now, our team will be meeting again on the 27th to assemble our boxes. It has been a good week, looking forward to the next.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone! :)

Photo: Huge, freshly collected, unfolded boxes

Week 15 was a pretty nerve-wrecking week, our team ended 2021 with the conception that we had secured our contact for the product shoot. However, I was unable to reach our original contact during the week to confirm our shoot date and time. Our group had to let go of this opportunity to pursue other options as we are under a time crunch and needed to explore other alternatives to ensure we stay on track our planned timeline. On Saturday night, our team convened to discuss our plans to proceed including our marketing plans. It appears we still have some work to do especially if we wish to push out a satisfactory marketing campaign. Moving forward, we will be splitting up our work for the coming week. I will be looking into potential micro-influencers we can engage, in line with our upcoming marketing plans. In addition, to support our future decision making, I will also be looking into our current market competitors' pricing strategy in order to determine the price at which we should price our product at, with consideration for our higher-than-ideal cost per box and the fact that our final product's value may be worth more than our original estimates. More comprehensive research is necessary in this aspect (+ pricing strategies) especially if we wish to include early bird discounts (still in the talks) for our box sales. It has been quite a week, there seems to be so much to do but I am optimistic we will pull through. Till next week.

Our team held a very productive meeting this week. Some of the contents discussed include:

• Marketing - Influencer content, A/B Testing discussion

• Design - Booklet finalisation

• Finance - Invoice and Order Form

• Inventory - Purchased batch #2

Though the meeting lasted into the AM, I am glad we had many things sorted out, which will help us move forward with ease. The next few weeks will be critical for us as we will finally get to see how our efforts pay off. I'm looking forward to seeing how everything unfolds. No doubt, it is going to be a busy few weeks ahead as we will officially be starting sales on the 29th of January. There is still a bit of uncertainty as to how well we will fare in terms of sales and audience receptiveness to our brand, however, I'm certain our team has done our best in laying a strong foundation through research and active discussion on the various aspects of this project to arrive at where we are now. The past few weeks was a slight bit rough, which led me to question if this was the right project for me; right team; right time. Nevertheless, I'm glad as a team, we persevered. Things seem to be looking up for now. I am especially glad that I got to play to my strengths in terms of creativity to help with creative input for the activity titles and I look forward to opportunities in future where I will be able to effectively integrate my strengths in creative production and strategic planning to help boost our startup further. At this point, I have to say that it was not easy getting everything together (for the rest of the team too), as we have to juggle academics and other commitments alongside this project, but this will always be a memory I'll remember because it taught me a lot, both technical skills and soft skills wise. This experience wouldn't be the same otherwise, so for now, I'm glad all's going good. Till next week.

Our team made some progress this week. We have officially begun the execution of the highlight of our marketing plan -- paid advertisements. Our team held a meeting on Friday night to refine our budgeting and other details of our marketing plan. It was a rather productive session as we managed to finalise the budget, post roster and miscellaneous details of our plan for the rest of February (e.g. post content). Other things that we've checked this week include the delivery of our promotional box to one of the micro-influencers we've contacted. It was rather assuring to see her positive posts about our box on her IG story. Moving ahead, we will still continue accepting orders. We have since received our first order, which is rather exciting, another milestone achieved. We will be contacting the customer and hopefully settle the transaction by the end of the next week (order was received on Friday night). Some things that I've managed to check off the to-do list (especially finance related) include:

• Invoice Creation

• Order Confirmation (OC) Creation

• Generation of Invoice and OC for first customer order

• Completed outstanding reimbursements

• Updated Financial Statements

• LinkTree Creation

• Caption for Monday's post

Overall, I'm currently feeling optimistic about our project. Personally, I hope that I'll be able to keep up with my responsibilities especially in the weeks to come as mid-terms are fast approaching. Special thanks to the team for being such wonderful partners, (in no particular order + just noting the main things for the week), to Dan who went to deliver the box to our micro-influencer, to Kerrianne who worked so hard on the marketing videos, to Nandika for helping to liaise with our micro-influencer and to Grace for drafting up our marketing and media buy plans. Hopefully next week will bring even better news and more developments. Till next week! Stay safe everyone.

For Image Carousel: For full view of the Invoice and Order Confirmation attachments, please click on individual images. Thank you.

This week was quite a quiet week. Apart from stressing over midterms and presentations, I am starting to get worried that our price point might not be right. Over recess week, I will be reviewing our marketing expenses and consolidating the financial statements for the past 6 months. I hope that we can push out a promotional deal for our box soon, to test the market's response while also working on our ads and influencer marketing. There were some trends that I have noted relating to the LinkTree engagements (where we linked our order placement form) which I think will be interesting to analyse further. However, I still have midterms which extend till recess week so hopefully I will have more time to work on this project once midterms end. Till next week.

This week, our team's main focus is on the presentation for our Business Showcase next week. Time really flies. I spent most of the time dedicated to MiE this week to reconcile the bank balances (especially marketing ad costs), checking our expenses, and updating the financial statements. (Sidetrack: It really gave me much to think about in terms of applying what I learnt during formal curriculum outside MiE to real life (e.g. +shares stuff too).)

It kind of feels like a bittersweet ending. While we still have plans for Little Dipper in the near future, it's quite something that we've come so far and I think all of us have had good takeaways from this experience. I'm incredibly lucky to be able to share this experience with this team and I hope this experience has been worthwhile for all of us. But more on this in next week's entry..

For now, I've noticed some unsettling insights from our LinkTree which again points to the possibility that our price point might need some revision. We will be speaking on this during our presentation. This isn't the end..