Projects
Enforme: Business Plan and Report
We were asked to identify an opportunity, supporting this with research and experimentation. We were then asked to create a venture plan based on how this idea can be turned into a sustainable venture.
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The opportunity we identified centred around creating a new venture to solve the Wicked Problem of insufficient sleep. As a team we first set out to understand sleep as a practice and then explored a wide range of areas of which we could go into. Using psychology, neuroscience, and much research into habits, we wanted to understand the root of this issue.
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Our pitch:
Despite the growing trend of tracking fitness data such as daily steps or sleep patterns, people are often still left with a gap of how to personally improve upon these elements. We suggested an app that offers the "okay now what" to such quantitative information by transforming the individual’s fitness data into personalised advice that they can access with ease. This took data from smart watches, fitness apps and calendars to provide real-time advice. All advice was scientifically supported. Beginning with a focus on busy, burnt-out medical professionals, we offered an easy helping hand to navigate tiresome hours and changing shifts so that advice is given in bitesize chunks to improve one’s lifestyle, wellbeing, and habits. Feedback in the app was collected in an effortless manor, to reduce tedious time spent for our users filling out information. Machine learning was proposed to learn patterns of what our individual users like, advice and recipes etc. Advice was then tailored to them to the best of our ability, increasing efficient improvement.
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From this project I gained important knowledge of how to write a business plan, gaining understanding of revenue streams, financial forecasts, markets, and business strategies. I learned more about logo design and creating mock-ups of apps, exploring the intricacies of user experience design, and how to design for the ease of user navigation, based on a wealth of insights. We explored new techniques such as using cultural probes and futurist thinking. We became confident in conducting expert interviews and networking around the topic. I enjoyed taking a psychological research role as well as facilitating meetings, ideation, and explorative exercises.
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Pitching this business-plan to innovators in Bristol at an externally organised event was a particular highlight, especially when we were given such positive feedback and advice.
Case Study: Glossier
As part of my degree, I was required to do a case study exploring an aspect of innovation in practice. Since we were working on start-up at the same time, I wanted to explore reasons for and understand why 90% of start-ups fail (Ward, 2021). I am intrigued about the process in which start-ups become successful and can break into saturated markets. Therefore, I was curious to find out more about Glossier since they disrupted a saturated market of legacy brands with a nuanced strategy.
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This case study taught me the importance of creating a community around your business, to leverage its development with support and a following, whilst using this community through out to co-create and constantly iterate and improve your product/service. The idea of open innovation is a technique that I highly value, and I shall continue to implement in my projects. Moreover, when exploring how these companies continue to grow, and not lose momentum, I am now driven by the idea of using the flywheel approach and identifying areas in which friction can be reduced and momentum increased. I have also become versed in the theory of creating multiple flywheels for the success and sustainability of a company.
Marketing Plan
I thoroughly enjoyed creating this marketing plan, it has piqued my interest in being more involved in the marketing of businesses. We were asked to act as a marketing consultant for the company Islabikes. We were to identify a new product for Islabikes for future growth and a fully justified marketing campaign to launch it.
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I proposed an app, called Your Journey App, that is centred around motivating people to cycle using a rewards system based off the calculated impact of one’s activities. This app and the campaign aim to reduce carbon footprints and raise awareness for the environmental impact of other activities, to help individuals cut down their negative environmental impact. I proposed a campaign that centres around User Generated Content, creating a snowball effect of gaining more content creators and awareness, using the hashtag #Makeyourjourneycount. It incorporates a challenge that people use a calculator to calculate their activities into impact and share them – challenging others to beat them or do the same, spreading the hashtag. The key message conveyed was that with the support of Islabikes and their app, people could achieve a significant environmental impact.
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This project highlighted the extensive research that goes into marketing campaigns and the detail that you must be aware of. I really enjoyed the tool of coming at this project from a top down and bottom-up approach and establishing, with a PESTEL analysis, the macro-environmental factors that can impact a business. It was great to understand the impact of the campaign throughout the whole business with the value chain and the detail of my communications mix. I learned a lot, from delving into the customer focus of the plan, really understanding my target audience and their decision-making process.
This project was excellent for teaching me the details, tools and techniques that are pertinent for marketing. This case study revealed to me that going against the grain can be the key to success if you are focused on your audience. It taught me that marketing does not have to be about pushing your product, but can be based around your values, creating your community accordingly and letting your community be key drivers and co-creators in all you do.
Share Holder Report
SimVenture
From my enjoyment of experiences and learnings about marketing, I decided to adopt the role of sales and marketing director for this project.
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This assignment asked us, as a team, to create a venture shareholder report. This report was based off our work on a simulation of launching and growing a bike company.
This project was incredible for revealing to me how intertwined each part of a business is, with every decision effecting each segment. It really highlighted to me the reality of being able to balance decisions and predict and forecast the impacts of decisions. I had to use the data from each quarter to analyse their impacts on company success, work out what strategies were most efficient, and which were least. I learned the importance of tracking iterations, so that change in performance could be attributed to certain decisions, to learn from them, rather than changing lots of factors at once. It was also important to really understand the significance of a company’s role in a dynamic market, and how to adjust strategies accordingly.
Consultancy Report
Rising Arts Agency
As part of my degree, I undertook a consultancy unit. We were given a brief by our client, Rising Arts Agency, to understand how they could better connect with young people and expose them to better opportunities in the Arts sector. Rising Arts Agency is a community for young people to mobilise radical change and to support them in opportunities in the arts sector.
We pitched to Rising Arts and provided them with a report consisting of increasing recruitment and implementing innovative ways to maintain membership. This was a sustainable recruitment and guerrilla marketing campaign.
For this we carried out vigorous research, starting with the clients themselves, working out the issue, what attempts had been made before. We conducted many interviews, creating journey maps and prototypes. We liaised with our client for feedback throughout our exploration, synthesis, and ideation.
In this project I adopted the psychology research role understanding what it is that attracts people to things and why and what it is that underpins the behaviour of loyalty and remaining with an organisation. This research was the foundation of our family system that proposed as a method of retaining members.
We were delighted by the enthusiasm of Rising Arts to implement our suggestions. We also received high praise for the relationship we had built with our client.
Consultancy: The Social Innovation Program
Burges and Salmon, Bristol Hub,
My Future, My Choice
I was thrilled to be selected for The Social Innovation Program (SIP) alongside my degree. This program has heightened my desire to do more work for social causes.
The SIP brings together students to develop their consultancy skills and help their community by providing solutions for challenges faced by local social enterprises. The program provides additional consultancy training and mentoring. Each team is given a brief by a charity and has eight weeks to put together a report and pitch, based on findings, to detail their findings and solutions.
My team were given a brief by our client My Future, My Choice. My Future my choice is a charity that provides innovative educational services to children in skills that inspire and equip them for success and happiness, particularly in opportunities available to them in the future. Our brief was focused on rebranding and marketing My Future My Choice surplus products to new audiences, to produce income for the charity.
Exploring opportunities, we conducted lots of research and gathered data. We liaised with and researched our client throughout to ensure that all our decisions were in line with their values, were feasible, of benefit and were actionable. We analysed the products and our research, working out what audiences they would be best for and how best to brand them accordingly. It was interesting to learn more about marketing, especially the techniques to market successfully on social media. With this research we collated a social media marketing guide specific to our client.
I led my team through the design systems thinking process and introduced them to a range of innovation techniques and methods. This experience was a great way to see in myself, the learnings of my degree come to life, to the extent that I could teach others them too.
I took a lead on branding, facilitating exploration workshops. I was delighted to challenge myself in developing my skills and understanding of logo design. I conducted a lot of research, particularly into conveying messages through design and colour psychology, whilst ensuring that the company was reflected appropriately. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the techniques and tricks of logo design and branding to enhance brand success.
We were delighted that our client was enthusiastic about our pitch and was keen to implement our suggestions and refer to our research. Furthermore, I was thrilled to be awarded best presenter at the pitches.
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