Category: Ventures

Hello! This quarter was a crazy one for sure. Who knew how much progress could happen in an online environment. I did not expect to get as much traction on my venture as I did but I’m super thankful that I put in the time/effort that this event needed. I really do think it will be successful and will open a whole new area of exploration for a lot of people.

The Sherwood Music Festival is a one-day event that will launch in the spring of 2021. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been no live music in the state of Washington (at least no legal live music). However, I miss it dearly, and I know for a fact (evidence-based research) that others in my city miss it too. Live music brings us life and joy and hope and a place to escape. It gives us a place to branch out, meet people, and be expressive. Our community hasn’t had that which is why I decided I needed to find a way to make a covid safe music festival…. and the best part is… its working!

My next steps are to continue this event in the best way I can, find a venue (gosh this is a CHALLENGE), get more donations, and make sure that I am following all WA State laws.

Please visit our website at: https://sherwoodmusicfestival.weebly.com/ – You’ll find all the information on the progress of the event, a place to donate, and if you want to apply to participate in the event!

 

Venture Project Two – Spring Quarter 2020 

Team: All E3 Students in the Program

This project was a challenging one. Our team was asked to host and plan an event that would bring together successful entrepreneurs and those currently learning about entrepreneurship. That in itself wasn’t a huge challenge, instead, the challenge was doing all of this during a global pandemic! Hosting an online event seemed to be the only solution to the issue of the pandemic. This is when Creators Collide finally began! It would be an event set up like a festival. There would be many sessions you could attend, all of which had differing entrepreneurs (such as musicians, artists, and local business owners). The whole event stayed on two platforms – zoom and discord.

The first thing we did was separate into smaller groups in order to organize the work. I decided that I’d work best in the outreach team and my partner was Schantell (she was a great person to work with). Our focus for the project was to find local/global entrepreneurs to present at our online event. There were three other team members in the outreach group; Tori, Evarosa, and Alyssa. They were focused more on local artists and did a great job finding live music for the event.

Day of the event had a slight hiccup at the start because WWU changed something in our Zoom settings which blocked our users from entering the rooms. This was fixed within an hour and the rest of the two-day event went relatively smoothly. There were some more troubles when we switched to using discord and the music’s sound quality was having some issues. The second day of the event did not have nearly as many viewers which was upsetting to us all.

I learned so much from this project! Most of what I experienced was how to work with a big team on a challenging event. The most difficult part was making sure we were all on the same page and knew our responsibilities. If we weren’t all sure of our end goal then a lot of storming occurred. Storming via zoom is a very hard task. Luckily we were able to find a shared goal (with the help of our mentors and teachers) and our event was a success!

Venture Project One – Spring Quarter 2020

Team: Jake Matson and Zosia Sherwood

For this project, Jake and I were asked to be creative coaches for the students doing the VP1 project. The prompt that the E1, E2, E4, and E6s had to follow was “recreate something to make it new and fresh. Take the same old same old physical product and reinvent it to add even more value to the customer.” This super simple prompt lead the VP1 teams to create some awesome new designs!

We had the pleasure of working with Team 1 and Team 4. Our main job was to ask open-ended questions and idea-generating questions in order to help the students create an awesome project. Something I learned as a coach was that our job was not to give them ideas, we are not consultants, but our job was meant more to help inspire them and show them that they had great ideas to expand upon. This was a bit of a challenge since we are part of the E&I community (Ideating is in our blood) but I think we progressively got better with every zoom meeting.

Jake and I got a well-rounded experience because we got to see what a very ‘on top of it’ and a more lax group looked like from the outside. Since we’ve each been part of groups like this before it really brought an emphasis to what our professors are seeing from us. Along with what should be the standard expectation of students in this class.

Overall, I think this was a great experience. Jake and I worked really hard to make sure our teams did the best they could (Team 4 won the pitch)! Our POA was really beneficial for keeping us organized, Teams was a great way to communicate with the other students in the class, Zoom was new and a great tool to have learned, and finally, we now have a base set of coaching skills that will be useful in multitudes of situations.

Venture Project Two – Winter Quarter 2020

Team: Tori Corkum, Evarosa Perry, Zosia Sherwood, Drew Vidano.

Our team worked with a company called Thrifty as business consultants. Thrifty hopes to bring a sense of freedom for all body sizes and all ethnicities. This company also hopes to stay updated in fashion in order to hold fun events for the local Bellingham community.

In the beginning, we ideated and thought we should help Levi (the owner of Thrifty) create a spring fashion show. After we met with Levi we realized that we needed to pivot out thinking and should focus more on the basics such as a BMC. The reason for this was that Thrifty was a brand new company and really needed help getting the groundwork established.

From there we found two main ideas that needed to be addressed: the relationships between Levi and the models and Levi and the artists. We began by developing contracts for Levi as examples for what he should expect from the volunteers and what the volunteers expect from him as the company owner. After doing all the research and development we had the biggest pivot of this project. It happened the day before we did our practice pitch but it was best for the team’s true end goal (simply to consult). We had been very focused on providing Levi with a product and forgot that our purpose was only to consult with him. In the end, our team’s pitch won the first round and did a great final pitch with the whole class!

This project taught me how to use a SWOT analysis, a PESTLE analysis, BMC, BIC, and a storyboard. These are important features in the entrepreneurship world. I personally also learned how to establish our team strengths and weaknesses; this was helpful when we needed to go through the process of storming and norming.

Goals: Our main goal for this VP2 project was to help Levi set up the groundwork in his professional relationships. We had a very big emphasis on professionalism and even suggested he take a class on the subject. We developed contracts that we sent directly to Levi and asked him to please work with a lawyer to ensure the contracts are legal and just.

Venture Project One – Winter Quarter 2020

Team: Allie Bowe, Lacoya Reny, Zosia Sherwood, Soleia Weisenburger.

After ideation, a survey, and multiple pre & post interviews we chose to rename the Entrepreneurship and Innovation program, Aspire. We picked this name because of its definition; to “direct one’s hopes or ambitions toward achieving something”. My team designed the logo as a lightbulb to represent that we will hold onto the old IDEA institute within the previous students and to show that we are growing from the old institute we show flowers growing out of the lightbulb. The tagline we developed was “radical innovation through collaboration”.

Goals: My team really wanted to make sure to include what the institute represented before it was closed because this still means a lot to the past students and the instructors. I personally believe that we should not forget our past but learn from it. We also wanted to make something that was refreshing and that would draw in students from all sorts of majors.

Venture Project Two – Fall Quarter 2019

Team: Adele Houston, Marius Schmitt, Ella Schroth, Zosia Sherwood.

This project was a challenge for each team member but in the end, it came together well! I personally learned a lot about group work, leadership, patience, BICs, BMCs, business reports, how to design a 5-minute pitch, and understanding how important competitors are. The main idea about our product is that it’s “by students for students”; meaning that the reviews on the app are from students so you know it is a relevant review for you as another student.

Goals: We really wanted to make a platform that was built for students at WWU. Our beachhead customer being newer students but this can also be used by any student who wants knowledge on local events. We really wanted to bring students together, make sure small events could be found (especially if they are thrown by students – like a band), and create a supportive place for WWU students to go.

Venture Project One – Fall Quarter 2019

Team: Johanna Grief, Adele Houston, Jono Warren, Zosia Sherwood.

We created a game called Lickety Split. The games beachhead customer is students who are new to Western, specifically who live in the dorms on campus, and RAs who need activities for residents. The game worked as follows: All the players play one round of would you rather (this separates the players into two groups), then each team is given a challenge such as playing Simon Says, then they start over and the people to that get to 10 points first win!

Goals: We wanted to create a game that would help new students make friends and could be used by the RA’s to help the new students as well. We thought our game was perfect for this because while you play you always have a new team!