Jessaluo - Entrepreneurship Pathway

Certificates July 2020 Certificates Entrepreneurship Self-Assessments
, , , , ,
1

Week 1: July 15th

General Experience Summary Beginning this internship, I had no idea what it would entail and I wasn’t sure how it was going to pan out in a virtual environment. However, I have learned a lot already in one week from the Leads and I was able to gain skills in teamwork in the virtual setting. I did not know what a Business Model Canvas was nor did I know about the types of revenue streams. Already within one week, I have gained team building and bonding experience through icebreakers and project assignments as well as knowledge of BMC and revenue streams.

Overview of Things Learned:

Technical Area:

  • Business Model Canvas Introduction
  • Different types of revenue streams
  • Pricing strategies depending on cost vs value
  • Market Types that affect pricing

Tools:

  • Trello
  • Google Drive setup
  • Slack

Soft Skills:

  • Ice breakers–bonding
  • Scheduling and collaborating with team members both in different time zones than me
  • Teamwork and communications through Google Hangouts and Slack

Achievement Highlights

  • Successfully created BMC for Stem-Away and evaluated revenue streams
  • Combined multiple revenue streams into freemium model that Stephanie found intriguing

Meetings attended

  • Introductions-July 15th
  • Revenue Streams Meeting-July 16th
  • Incorporating Trello-July 18th
  • Subteam Meetings-July 19th, July 20th

Goals for the Upcoming Week

  • Finish and present revenue stream validation
  • Learn about competitive analysis
  • Do a competitive analysis for Stem-Away

Tasks Done

  • Schedule subteam meetings and add to calendar
  • Collaborate on BMC for Stem-Away
  • Collaborate on assumptions for revenue stream evaluation
  • Individually evaluate a recruitment subscription revenue stream model
  • Individually evaluate an advertising revenue stream model
  • Collaborate on discussing and evaluating a combination freemium revenue stream model
    Screen Shot 2020-09-07 at 1.54.03 PM
    Screen Shot 2020-09-07 at 1.54.03 PM859×948 278 KB
2

Week 2: July 22th

General Experience Summary In week 2, I was able to use some of my prior knowledge about competitive analysis to my advantage. I already knew about SWOT analysis, but I was able to gain more in-depth experience with the research of competitors and the new tools and formats that the leads provided. This week, I was able to take more charge in the project with the prior experience, creating a “template” of researched information for my team members to follow with their competitor research. The additions of the position map and the successful visual presentation were from the collaboration with my team as we began to familiarize our team habits and strengths among the group.

Overview of Things Learned:

Technical Area:

  • Learning about the business environment and how to evaluate it: Porter’s Five Forces Model, PEST analysis, market research options
  • Competitive advantage and the tools to evaluate it: positioning map, SWOT analysis

Tools:

  • Trello
  • Google Sheets
  • Google Docs
  • Google Slides
  • Jamboard
  • Slack

Soft Skills:

  • Communicating and commenting via Google platforms
  • Scheduling and collaborating with team members both in different time zones than me
  • Leading how to start with competitive analysis
  • Starting work to show and create template for other team members to follow

Achievement Highlights

  • Created “Most Innovative Presentation” for validating revenue streams
  • Looked into four total competitors out of a team of three
  • Created a presentation with minimal amount of words
  • Created multiple visuals on presentation to compare and contrast competitors with Stem-Away
  • Incorporated SCRUM into Trello board

Meetings attended

  • Subteam meeting for Week 1 material-July 22nd
  • Group Revenue Streams Presentations-July 23rd
  • Competitive Analysis Meeting-July 25th
  • Subteam Meetings-July 26th, July 27th, July 28th

Goals for the Upcoming Week

  • Finish up and present competitive analysis
  • Learn about marketing

Tasks Done

3

Week 3: July 29th

General Experience Summary This week, it was hard for me to grasp the concepts for basic marketing. I found the creative aspect of creating the marketing piece enjoyable but going through with brainstorming the social media calendar and the GTM strategies were hard to create and validate. I found it hard to see if we were doing the right thing or if it was the smartest way to go about marketing. However, I found comfort in my team member taking more of an initiative in the project and tried my best to support and take responsibility.

Overview of Things Learned:

Technical Area:

  • Marketing: Product Fit, Market Sizing, LTV and CAC, Market Strategy

Tools:

  • Canva
  • Trello
  • Google Sheets
  • Google Docs
  • Slack

Soft Skills:

  • Scheduling and collaborating with team members both in different time zones than me
  • Leading with finding resources for market analysis and social media calendar

Achievement Highlights

  • Create and present a visual but thorough competitive analysis presentation
  • Start social media calendar
  • Create a value matrix

Meetings attended

  • Subteam meeting for Week 2 material-July 31st, August 1st
  • Group Competitive Analysis Presentations-August 1st
  • Marketing Meeting-August 2nd
  • Subteam meetings-August 3rd, August 4th
  • Marketing Expert Katherine Elizabeth Meeting-August 4th

Goals for the Upcoming Week

  • Continue, finish up, and present marketing

Tasks Done

4

Week 4: August 5th

General Experience Summary This week was especially hard since I was on a road trip for 5 out of the 7 days with a very spotty internet connection. I had to learn how to allow the other team members discuss and tell me what to do rather than stressing and taking time out of my vacation to try and start everything. I felt very guilty the whole time, continuously messaging about what I can do to keep up with the project when it really wasn’t necessary. I ended up having to have the Project Lead tell me that it is okay to step back rather than wanting to help with everything in the project. Due to my absence, I was less knowledgeable about the information, and thankfully had very great team members who knew what to do.

Overview of Things Learned:

Technical Area:

  • LinkedIn Marketing and other platforms
  • SEO
  • Customer Surveys

Tools:

  • Trello
  • Google Drive
  • Slack
  • Typeform
  • Google Sheets

Soft Skills:

  • Collaborating with team members without video meetings (completely through Slack)
  • Taking responsibility for work done while being unavailable

Achievement Highlights

Meetings attended

  • Subteam meetings-August 5th, August 6th, August 11th
  • Group GTM Marketing Strategy Presentations-August 7th

Goals for the Upcoming Week

Continue, finish up, and present advanced marketing

Tasks Done

5

Week 5: August 12th

General Experience Summary This week, I was able to exercise more creativity with coming up with ideas of how to go about the pitch deck and elevator pitch presentations. My team members and I tossed ideas to each other many times trying to figure out the best way to go about it. We are trying our best to go with a storyline for the presentation to make it interesting and appealing to the audience. Additionally, the webinars presented by Vrinda have been helpful with making me think about my own ideas for a startup and how to go about it with different processes and tools.

Overview of Things Learned:

Technical Area:

  • Pitch decks
  • Elevator Pitches
  • Conducting good customer surveys
  • Webinar: Ideation

Tools:

  • Typeform
  • Trello
  • Google Drive
  • Slack
  • Google Slides

Soft Skills:

  • Collaborating with team members through time conflicts
  • Managing the points to include for the strict pitch deck presentation
  • Scheduling meetings and taking initiative with task clarifications

Achievement Highlights

Meetings attended

  • 1-1 with Vrinda-August 12th
  • Subteam Meetings-August 12th, August 13th, August 16th, August 17th, August 18th
  • Keyword planning strategy with Vrinda-August 13th
  • Group Advanced Marketing Presentations-August 14th
  • Webinar: Ideation with Vrinda-August 18th
  • SEO with Katie-August 18th

Goals for the Upcoming Week

Continue, finish up, and present pitch deck, elevator pitch, and customer survey results

Tasks Done

  • Looked at pitch deck and elevator pitch examples
  • Put all the culminating information on one presentation
  • Brainstorm and figure out how to present revenue streams
6

Week 6: August 19th

General Experience Summary As our final week, I had a lot of time with my team members to consolidate what we have done the last few weeks and create a successful final presentation. We really worked on creativity and focusing on the idea of pitching a story rather than just a summary. Additionally, this week was little more problematic since two of us were moving into our college dorms and the other already started school, making meetings shorter and scheduled differently. However, I enjoyed the process of this week since it allowed me to reflect on everything we’ve done as well as bring in some of my marketing skills in pitching over the phone to create our deliverables. Another part of this week that was great was the extra mini-webinars that focus on ideation.

Overview of Things Learned:

Technical Area:

  • Webinar: Starting a Startup
  • How to use LinkedIn
  • Marketing piece creation and evaluation
  • Accounting and Corporate Finance

Tools:

  • Typeform
  • Trello
  • Google Drive
  • Slack
  • Google Slides

Soft Skills:

  • Collaborated with team members through school starting and move ins
  • Scheduling meetings
  • Taking initiative with sending out the customer survey
  • Practiced marketing with presenting elevator pitch and collaborating on pitch deck presentation and customer survey analysis

Achievement Highlights

  • Successfully presented elevator pitch, pitch deck, and customer survey analysis (https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ShnnPuIBHV7F_avlIxTW0n50hMpW9K4Jzl7OuBz5eJc/edit?usp=sharing)
  • Had good key points in the elevator pitch: “We can guarantee the best candidates bested suited for your company’s needs”
  • Shown impressive competitor analysis position map and the key differentiator of Stem-Away
  • Shown good Instagram carousel ad for companies
  • Provided good customer questions differentiating whether students would return in the same pathway in lead roles or return in other pathways

Meetings attended

  • Subteam meetings-August 20th, August 21st, August 22nd
  • Webinar: Starting a Startup with Vrinda-August 19th
  • Talk with Stephanie about LinkedIn-August 19th
  • Final group presentation: elevator pitch, pitch deck, customer survey-August 23rd

Goals for the Upcoming Week

  • Finish up pitch deck and work on presenting it as a story
  • Analyze customer survey results
  • Create an elevator pitch

Tasks Done

7

Final Reflection
I had my final elevator pitch and pitch deck presentation yesterday, concluding all the work done during my entrepreneurship internship with Stem-Away. Leaving the last meeting, I had a final look back on my experience.

Reflecting on the past 6 weeks, I have learned so many different things ranging from entrepreneurship and business topics to technical tools. I was pretty hesitant about how the internship will pan out in the virtual environment, but it definitely surpassed my expectations! I was able to connect with students across the world, work closely with others from different backgrounds, and gain project management skills.

The topics I learned were the business model canvas, revenue stream validation, in-depth competitive analysis with SWOT analysis and position mapping, GTM marketing strategies, social media calendar marketing planning, search engine optimization, pitch decks, elevator pitches, and conducting customer survey analysis.

Some of the technical tools I was able to practice and use were Trello, Slack, and Google Drive.

Overall, this internship had allowed me to develop an entrepreneurial mindset to pursue my future startup endeavors as well as gain so many connections with students from India and across the US.