Category: Traction Journal Winter 2022

• Which class day did you gain the most traction…
  • on your venture projects?
    • I honestly cannot think of a specific one, I also think it is hard because I already had a good idea of what I was doing. I think showing up to class in general reminds me of my purpose for the project and pushes me to work more.
  • for your own personal growth?
    • During the E4 shift and share, when we did the the big 3 in our lives and tied it to our schedule. It really helped me realize the important things in my life and I think that was a very valuable lesson that allowed me to grow.
• At what point in the quarter did you feel the most empowered?
  • Doing my presentation and seeing everything with my project come together.
• Think back to a time when you felt the most challenged in this class? How did that challenge make you feel?
  • Made me feel tired, burnt out, and discouraged. It is important to let any of those things defeat you, always have to keep pushing forward.
• What content within the Learning Toolkit in the E&I website would you like to know more about?
  • I don’t think any of them 🙂 I think I have a pretty good understanding on the class work and the learning toolkit.

Reflect on your interview process.

• Drop a few of your questions here. 
  • “What are the biggest challenges people face within NFTs?”
  • “What makes a good utility?”
• What were some of the answers? 
  • “Filtering of honest vs paid information, lots of influencers in the space that are honest, but plenty that are just looking to pump their bags. It’s hard to go against the grain and sit something out when you see red flags not many others do.”
  • “Something that provides real value to the project. The utility needs to allow the NFT value to grow and provide legitimate revenue, that is the goal.”
• What did you learn?
  • These two questions gave me a lot of insight on what some of the biggest pains in the community are and what people really want to see for a utility.
• Do you feel like your interviews were successful? Why or why not?
  • Yes I do, I think my interview questions really helped me development empathy for my customer, I am also a customer which made it easier to relate and recognize the common issues people were reporting.
• What would you do differently next time?
  • I would have focused it more on how to start the project. Such as, when to open the discord? When to announce mint details? I now know these things, but it would have been better to know at the start.
• Ask your peers for feedback on your interview process and/or interview questions here.
  • Feedback in comments please!
• Outside of E&I this week.
  • Not a lot, just spent more time on the Pixies and got to go hiking one of the days.

Reflect on the the IDI workshop from Monday:

• My results did not really surprise me, it made me feel reassured I guess. It also just made me feel good about myself, over I thought it was very beneficial.

Reflect on your experience at the E4 Shift N Share presentations:

• I had never done mind mapping before that class, I am not sure about using it as a note taking form, but I found it interesting! I learn best visually for sure, always have been, it is easier for me to get hands on and look at things. I have a pretty strict time management method, I just keep everything in my notes and make sure I get done what I need to do every day. I have never felt imposter syndrome.
  
  Outside of E&I this week
• This week was a lot of fun and also very busy, I went out with my girlfriend on Valentines day and then just a lot of work for my NFT project and school.

• BMC
  • Reflecting on the BMC workshop, evaluate your journey.
    • I found it valuable. The workshop made me realize the importance of evaluating every aspect of my customer FIRST before doing anything else with a new venture. The customer makes the business.
  • what surprised you? How has it changed after the workshop? Where would you like to grow? How did the process go for you?
    • I was not too surprised, I was just interested. I never really knew the exact order of importance for the VPC, so it was a good learning experience.
• Arathi
  • What was your biggest takeaway?
    • Finding something you are truly passionate about and or get joy from. It is also okay to put yourself out there even if you fail.
  • What is coaching to you?
    • Helping someone out by giving them knowledge within a certain field, that will allow the student to succeed.
  • How has coaching worked for you in the program? Has it worked for you? If it hasn’t what would you love to see? What could it look like?
    • I do not think I have received too much coaching in the program. I do think I have gotten a lot of great feedback, and heard others opinions on certain aspects of a project that maybe I had not thought of before.

Outside of E&I this week

• Adam and I were lucky enough to go down to Seattle this weekend and participate in the annual Solana world tour, they had a 5 day long event in Seattle, we passed out over 300 designed QR codes for our project and got to demo our game at the main venue. You can watch the demo here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV-i7Gvi9yY&list=LL&index=1

Reflect on Jonathan Bremer’s presentation about Komodo Boat covers?

• I thought it was very cool to see someone branch off their career path to pursue their own venture. He is a very talented entrepreneur and it takes a lot of courage to give up your current job to pursue something with no guarantees.

Think back to Jonathan’s thoughts about the difference between a small business owner.

• Small business owners have a lot more to manage. The weight of the business is typically on 1 to 2 people, high risk and high stress.

As you may have noticed, the Value Proposition Canvas (VPC) is a very important piece in distilling interview data into something digestible and clear.

• The VPC is very helpful for me, it allows me to pin point exactly what I am offering and what my job is. Allows you to focus on what is most important in your venture. I do think after sometime the VPC does not serve a big purpose. Mostly used while brainstorming about a venture or trying to narrow down an idea.

As you plan out success for this quarter, what does that mean to you personally? With your team?

• Honestly not much at this time. I am almost done with my college career, and going into this quarter I do not feel overly stressed or feeling the need to plan for success. I feel that I have my plan for each quarter figured out by now.

Reflect on your experience at our field trip

• I was not able to join the field trip this week because I tested positive for covid.

What have I done this week outside of E&I

• not much, just stayed inside with covid and was able to get a lot of work done for school and my separate project.

Reflecting on your pitch and wrapping up Venture Project One

• How did it go?
  
  • With your team
    • Went great, we all have similar working styles, allowing us to complete our work in a timely manner.
  • With the evidence-based entrepreneurship skills
    • Very good and it was extremely easy, I think the brand we picked to rebrand was the most due for a rebrand, and our data showed that.
  • With discovering a new brand opportunity?
    • I had the idea, and Karhum worked for the company, so we were able to spot the opportunity very early on. WWU students deserve to know about this free service that they actually pay for through tuition.

What have you learned about yourself?

• That I like the rebrand VP1 rebrand more than I did before. Did not learn anything new about myself in that short time, just because I have been in the program for a while and learned more about myself through deeper work in my other projects.

From this learning, what will you carry forward into Venture Project Two?

• Nothing much, just keep on doing what I do every quarter and make sure to go above and beyond.

Why is this important to you?

• VP1 is important to me because it puts me on track/gets me ready for VP2.

What did I do this week outside of E&I?

• I hiked fragrance lake on Tuesday and then oyster dome on Friday, two of my housemates had their friends come up from Portland for the weekend which was fun.

How’s it going?

• Great, my school work load this quarter is not that bad, I spent the Christmas break getting everything prepared for my E5 venture and it feels to be all set up. With your team

With your team

• Everything is fine so far, we lost a team member, but that is alright.

With the evidence-based entrepreneurship skills

• pretty good, just the same stuff as every other quarter. Ask the right questions and collect data to justify your case.

With discovering a new brand opportunity?

• Excellent, we found a great opportunity to take advantage of for this rebrand.

Outside of E&I this week

• I did a lot of school work this past weekend and then went down to Palm Springs with my parents and girlfriend for the 3 day weekend.

• Share about your vision board. What did you observe?

For my vision board I put 2 photos. One of people graduating, and the other of someone pushing a big boulder up a hill. I posted these two photos because I am just at the end of my WWU career and I really need to push forward and finish strong.

• How do you define the word entrepreneur and what is your role in it?

For me, an entrepreneur is anyone who finds a problem and then creates a solution for that problem through whatever means possible. My role in entrepreneurship is to look for things that people struggle with everyday and try to fix it, or find ways to better something already existing.

• This week outside of e&i

My birthday was on January 5th which was fun and I am just getting settled back into my house in Bellingham.