5 Tips for Starting a Business

Coming to the end of the process, we at EZ-Box realize much more than we did at the beginning of the process. To help out future entrepreneurs, here are 5 tips to starting your own business.

1) Create a business that will improve people's lives
Your business with have to be something that grabs people's attention. So make sure that people will actually want to buy your product or service, not a fad that's designed to break down or only appeal to a very small crowd.

2) Pick a catchy name
People need to remember your name. If people can't remember your name, then the business won't spread or will be completely forgotten, doomed to be confined to your garage or the corner of a decrepit strip mall. Pick a name that resonates with what your business is supplying so avoid names that might sound catchy and fun, but don't actually have anything to do with your business. Klunch might sound nice, but if your business is making pillows, the name doesn't fit.

3) Know your competition
It doesn't have to be a business that sells the same product as you. As long as there is a substitute for your product or service, there is competition. Once you know your competition, it's up to you to figure out ways to make your business better than the alternative. If people would rather choose something else than your product, then figure out a way to make your product more appealing.

4) Get feedback
No business is flawless. You make think that you have all your bases covered but chances are you don't and there are many flaws with your plan. It's hard to see these flaws from the perspective of the person who created the business, so pitch your idea to your friends, or better yet, a stranger and get their feedback.

5) Know your investors
Chances are that you don't have a couple hundred thousand or million dollars just lying around. Neither do I. So you're going to need to find someone who does. Find someone who could potentially be interested in your product, and once you do find out their likes and dislikes. Find out how you need to pitch to them. If your investor is all straight business then telling him a joke might not work, but giving him hard information about your business might. Vice versa, try lightening the mood if you think that your investor might like it. Do your research about them beforehand.

Surfit, an all new apparel Company

Introducing Surfit, Surfit an all new apparel company. We are a surfing and apparel company that is designated on designing clothes that deliver beach lifestyle to people across the country. 24.8% of Americans visit the beach every year thus having a very large market to sell to. As of now our design is in progress but we do have a general idea. The basis of the design will be a surfboard. The design within the surfboard will vary depending on the location you buy the shirt at. The designs could be exclusive to each beach, allowing the people who buy them so show support for the beach the attended. Surfit will also give people a sence of pride in the beach that they go to and be able to rep it.

We are currently working on our final business slide and try our best to catch up with all the other business plans in our class that are relatively more complete than ours. We will work on the design and produce a few shirts that we will initially sell in our school store, and from there we will expand.

 Real fas

Mama's Meals Goals

Since Mama'a Meals last blog post we have not accomplished much since then. We did have to write 20 hard questions for our business, then our class asked us some questions about our business and we struggled to answer a few of them. We are in the process of completing our prototype and still need to print our logo. Hopefully, within the next few days we will send the prototype out, but we still have to bring in the food and place the logo on the box. We are also going to try and finish our business plan by the end of this week.

First Quarter

Mama's Meals has come very far over the past quarter. The idea of having easy and healthy meals delivered to college students seems to be needed. As a group, we have figured out most of the little details, such as how much we will charge for the first box and our business name. However, we still have much to do. We still have to send our prototype and get feedback. Sending our prototype will give us an idea of what we need to improve on. Our logo is still in the process of being made, and we are deciding between two. Making the Canvas helped our team determine the main problem we were solving for college students is. So far it has been a productive quarter!

Plans for Mama's Meals

The beginning stages of our business have been very successful. We have accomplished many tasks, such as, coming up with a name, Mama's Meals, figuring out our MVP, and have just started coming up with options for our logo. I have drawn out three ideas for our logo and went around asking people which one they thought was the best because we want to choose a logo that stands out to people, so getting their opinions was an important part in choosing the correct one. Hopefully in the next few days we can complete our logo. Once our logo is complete my team and I will be sending out our first prototype box to one of our friends. I have been absent for a few of the classes, so my teammates had to do a few things without me. We hope that this positive trend continues!

Go Kart Week Two Reflection

      The second week of our new business plan has ended. In this week, we successfully completed our first pitch in front of a group of teacher judges. We also worked on our business canvas, which is a thorough business plan for successfully starting up a business. 

      However, we are still facing the trouble of developing the app prototype and contact some stores to get them connected with our app. We also need to receive feedbacks from the surveys that we delivered to a lot of people.

      We will keep working on our business idea and try our best to prepared for the first official pitch, which is significant if we want to further develop our idea.

      Here is a link that lists out five of the best grocery store apps out there. We will analyze them and try to develop a more convenient app based on the comments on these five apps.

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/grocery-shopping-apps-save-time-money/story?id=19715447

The Beginnings of a Smart Bottle

This week I started the research process for my business idea, a smart bottle that will track your water intake throughout the day. Since there are already a couple of companies selling these kinds of bottles my main goal is to make something more affordable and appealing. But before I do that I'll have to research the competitors businesses, such as manufacturing costs and profits. I'm currently struggling to find this information, but I'm not giving up yet!

Hungry Huskies comes to an end

In the beginning, Hungry Huskies was launched with $150 we received from our funders, the Flint Hill administration. We bought all inventory for $128 at Costco. Over the three times we sold, we earned about $150 dollars. We learned that when you are running a business within the restrictions of a bigger organization it is hard to operate as you please. As a business we had to make a lot of sacrifices to conform to the rules and restrictions of our school. We had to operate around the schedule of Flint Hill, which drastically limited our operations. It also made our business inconsistent because of surprise town and class meetings. From this, our team learned that in order to be truly successful in the business world you must be independent. If a business is independent they are not limited by another organization's rules and schedule. Another problem we ran into was when trying to launch a service where students could order snacks ahead of time to be delivered to them. We were faced with space restrictions and the logistics of money being left in boxes unattended. Because of this, that part of the business was never able to launch. The best advice we have for future entrepreneurs is to be flexible and not to limit themselves to running in one defined area. The best businesses are those that solve a problem. Our advice is to find a problem that is faced by many because a limited market could limits your business's success. We also would advise future entrepreneurs to be passionate about the message and purpose of their business. If you are passionate about your business you are more likely to work hard for its success. In conclusion, Hungry Huskies is happy with our ending and hopes that future entrepreneurs are able to learn from our failures and success to thrive in the field of business! 

Hungry Huskies hopes that all the future entrepreneurs CHANGE THE WORLD!!!!

The Grind

Recently, we have been very busy prepping for our opening. We just ordered the food, drinks and materials we will need to run successfully! On thursday April 2nd, we presented our business pitch to some members from the school including our headmaster, business reps and other adults. Our presentation went very well and we finally received an answer about the igloo. The leadership board has come up with an idea to work with the parents association by possibly offering a 10 day trial to figure out if everything would work with regard to sharing The Igloo with The Grind Coffee Shop. We have our coffee machines, hot water carriers here and our other inventory is being shipped to the school this week. We have decided that we want to open this coming week. We pivoted from our original idea to open immediately after spring break and decided it would be more efficient if we opened by next week. We are also working on reorganizing our business pitch to turn into a more efficient document to give the leadership board. When ordering our food, we realized that with some companies we can subscribe to their supplies and gain discounts in the future with reordering our supplies. The bottom picture below is our logo that we created for The Grind. We have decided to have our logo printed out and placed on each of our cups, but want to wait until we create some profit to make this investment. The picture on the top is a list of our profit and purchase prices, along with an overall average profit from our intended inventory.

Husky BuyPass Update

This week our goal is to refine our business plan. Last week we pitched our business to a panel of school administrators. We received feedback and many questions arose during the pitch. For example, what would make it successful? Or why would an investor invest in our business? Our next step is to finalize the the business plan, especially the marketing strategy and launch date. The launch of our website and educating the community about our business are the two most important parts in the success in the start-up of Husky BuyPass.

Website Update:
Our website is still under construction but an image of a prototype is posted below.