Hi guys.
I have a few concerns, perhaps you guys can help me with. =)
I feel that these are fundamental problems we need to solve, to convince anyone that our plan can work.
1. Nature of the company is still basically "match-making"
We find good people on both countries, and match them together. What other value do we add? If not, we are still acting as middlemen. And we know that middlemen are not very useful in this age. I find that it is a one time job. This means that we will never get repeat business from the same customer, since they can contact the Singapore hosts directly after that. Not only that, we will also lose the business of their friends too, since they can recommend their Singapore hosts directly too! They will save on the "unnecessary" expenses. Us.
2. Protecting our business
If our business is simply linking people up, how can we protect ourselves? Can other established companies do better and faster than us? How do we plan to keep our foothold, besides the speed advantage?
Cheers,
Jinrui
Monday, January 8, 2007
Ivan Lau See Chin
Hello Team,
Here's what we've discussed this afternoon at Chatterbox before I forget.
1. Our Business - after several meetings we have come to the following consensus.
a. Our Target Market - Young adult foreigners intending to tour Singapore on their own and experience Singaporean culture.
b. Our Product/Service - Customized, budget, travel planning and tour guide services
c. Our Unique Selling Point - Budget tour of Singapore (cut out travel agency, dell concept), Close relationship with customers(foreigners), Unique real experience of Singaporean way of life and culture (HDB home stay, visit to special places and events, lonely planet style).
Personal comments: Target market and business may seem small. Taking into account needs of the executive summary, we are focusing on the essence of what we want to sell and the most feasible target market (starting small from young adults) in order to convince the judges that our plan can work.
The underlying assumption is that there is a demand for our service across most or all foreigners of different backgrounds and age groups. And once we succeed in capturing young adults market, there will be no problem expanding into other age groups and different tourists.
I may have misinterpreted the contents of our discussion. In any case, please scrutinise our business summarized above for any major pitfalls and make sure you are comfortable with this idea. I hope we can agree upon this issue and finalise it by the our next meeting so as to allow time for our executive summary. Hence please think thru thoroughly and propose any final modifications by our next meeting.
2. Responsibilities and Job scope
Tenghui and Me > come up with unique locations and events; source for samples of executive summaries come up with a skeleton of the summary.
Felyna and Kelvin > recruitment of manpower, source for ideal board of directors
Jinrui and Biying > Exclusive of air tickets estimate the average daily expenses of tourists. Find out what is the price offered by travel agencies overseas (competition).
Ruth and Nagoor > propose ways to sell our business idea and market it to the masses. To deliver our service, liaise with Felyna and add on to her recruitment plan.
3. In order to make HDB stays possible. The following considerations must be addressed: security of the host family. Here are the proposed solns: make tourist place a deposit to the host family; draft a contract to be signed by the company and the host family to acknowledge the risks and discharge the company of responsiblities.
4. Pls think of interesting words for our team name so that we can pick and decide on a name by the next meeting!
That's all, pls visit the blog regularly and do post your comments.
Cheers,
Ivan
Here's what we've discussed this afternoon at Chatterbox before I forget.
1. Our Business - after several meetings we have come to the following consensus.
a. Our Target Market - Young adult foreigners intending to tour Singapore on their own and experience Singaporean culture.
b. Our Product/Service - Customized, budget, travel planning and tour guide services
c. Our Unique Selling Point - Budget tour of Singapore (cut out travel agency, dell concept), Close relationship with customers(foreigners), Unique real experience of Singaporean way of life and culture (HDB home stay, visit to special places and events, lonely planet style).
Personal comments: Target market and business may seem small. Taking into account needs of the executive summary, we are focusing on the essence of what we want to sell and the most feasible target market (starting small from young adults) in order to convince the judges that our plan can work.
The underlying assumption is that there is a demand for our service across most or all foreigners of different backgrounds and age groups. And once we succeed in capturing young adults market, there will be no problem expanding into other age groups and different tourists.
I may have misinterpreted the contents of our discussion. In any case, please scrutinise our business summarized above for any major pitfalls and make sure you are comfortable with this idea. I hope we can agree upon this issue and finalise it by the our next meeting so as to allow time for our executive summary. Hence please think thru thoroughly and propose any final modifications by our next meeting.
2. Responsibilities and Job scope
Tenghui and Me > come up with unique locations and events; source for samples of executive summaries come up with a skeleton of the summary.
Felyna and Kelvin > recruitment of manpower, source for ideal board of directors
Jinrui and Biying > Exclusive of air tickets estimate the average daily expenses of tourists. Find out what is the price offered by travel agencies overseas (competition).
Ruth and Nagoor > propose ways to sell our business idea and market it to the masses. To deliver our service, liaise with Felyna and add on to her recruitment plan.
3. In order to make HDB stays possible. The following considerations must be addressed: security of the host family. Here are the proposed solns: make tourist place a deposit to the host family; draft a contract to be signed by the company and the host family to acknowledge the risks and discharge the company of responsiblities.
4. Pls think of interesting words for our team name so that we can pick and decide on a name by the next meeting!
That's all, pls visit the blog regularly and do post your comments.
Cheers,
Ivan
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Felyna
Dear all,
I apologise for this tardy post. I was busy with my immediate cousin's wedding decorations as well as some production matters. =(
Here is what was decided at Meeting 3, 2/1/07 at Ah Teng's Bakery at Raffles Hotel. people present: Ruth, Jin Rui, Kelvin, Ivan and Felyna.
Roles
Head/Compiler: Ivan
Marketing: Nagoor and Ruth
- to check competition, carry out survey, research, how to package and how to price
Finance: Bing and Jin Rui
- What is our cost? Price? Profit?
- Be aware of problems and post
Logistics: Kelvin, Teng Hui, Felyna
- Recruitment, selection and training
- find out who can give guides?
and since i'm here might as well post abt next meeting as well.
Monday 8/1
4-6pm
Thanks! and apologies again for lateness =(
I apologise for this tardy post. I was busy with my immediate cousin's wedding decorations as well as some production matters. =(
Here is what was decided at Meeting 3, 2/1/07 at Ah Teng's Bakery at Raffles Hotel. people present: Ruth, Jin Rui, Kelvin, Ivan and Felyna.
Roles
Head/Compiler: Ivan
Marketing: Nagoor and Ruth
- to check competition, carry out survey, research, how to package and how to price
Finance: Bing and Jin Rui
- What is our cost? Price? Profit?
- Be aware of problems and post
Logistics: Kelvin, Teng Hui, Felyna
- Recruitment, selection and training
- find out who can give guides?
and since i'm here might as well post abt next meeting as well.
Monday 8/1
4-6pm
Thanks! and apologies again for lateness =(
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
ruth
hello!
gentle reminder for all to register and to start an account www.startup.com
NEXT MEETING
SAT 6 JAN 2007
10AM
/edit/ hi guys, actually the website is www.startup.org.sg :)
see you all on saturday!
biying/edit/
gentle reminder for all to register and to start an account www.startup.com
NEXT MEETING
SAT 6 JAN 2007
10AM
/edit/ hi guys, actually the website is www.startup.org.sg :)
see you all on saturday!
biying/edit/
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Reminder of 2nd Startup Competition Meeting
Hello pple,
Merry Christmas! May all of you be blessed with a beautiful and happy year ahead.
I will be going to Genting tonight and will only be back on thursday night so here's a reminder for our next meeting.
It will be on 29 Dec, fri, 10am to 12pm at chatterbox.
The objective of this meeting is to:
1. Establish individual roles and responsibilities in the project. (e.g. finance, secretariat, research, report compiling ... )
Hence pls prepare yourself by knowing what you can contribute to the team and thinking of the essential roles that are needed in the team so that we all can propose this during the meeting and establish the roles. (take note that you may pair up 2 pple to fulfil one role)
2. Finalise on the idea we will use for our business plan competition by discussing the ideas proposed.
To facilitate the discussion, pls read the ideas posted on our blog and highlight your main concerns for each of the ideas (i.e. which is the most impt task without which the idea will fail)
Last but not least, here's an interesting idea. Can we set up a restaurant that allows customers to dine in the dark? Apparently this will heighten the senses of smell and taste. It'll be a fun experience for the customers as well, although the execution will be quite tricky. I think this has been done in overseas already and should be feasible.
See you on Friday!
Cheers,
Ivan
Merry Christmas! May all of you be blessed with a beautiful and happy year ahead.
I will be going to Genting tonight and will only be back on thursday night so here's a reminder for our next meeting.
It will be on 29 Dec, fri, 10am to 12pm at chatterbox.
The objective of this meeting is to:
1. Establish individual roles and responsibilities in the project. (e.g. finance, secretariat, research, report compiling ... )
Hence pls prepare yourself by knowing what you can contribute to the team and thinking of the essential roles that are needed in the team so that we all can propose this during the meeting and establish the roles. (take note that you may pair up 2 pple to fulfil one role)
2. Finalise on the idea we will use for our business plan competition by discussing the ideas proposed.
To facilitate the discussion, pls read the ideas posted on our blog and highlight your main concerns for each of the ideas (i.e. which is the most impt task without which the idea will fail)
Last but not least, here's an interesting idea. Can we set up a restaurant that allows customers to dine in the dark? Apparently this will heighten the senses of smell and taste. It'll be a fun experience for the customers as well, although the execution will be quite tricky. I think this has been done in overseas already and should be feasible.
See you on Friday!
Cheers,
Ivan
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
My idea 3-Improvised and personalised wheelchairs
There was once when i was walking on the streets and saw a malay old man struggling to move his wheelchair because his hands were tired.I attribute this idea to him and people whom i've seen who lack both arms and legs.
The problem with normal wheelchairs is that it is tiring for the owners to use them especially if they are elderly.So,i suggest we use button and battery operated electric chairs.Electric chairs do exist in the market but are not very convenient due to their bulkiness and other limitation properties.Can any engineering major think of making them lighter?And these electric chairs are certainly not useful for arm-lacking people .For these people,we can have buttons accessible near their mouth area so that they can move their wheelchairs using a pen held by their lip muscles.
And the second problem is as such.Physiotherapists warn that the movement of muscles is necessary for a person's good health and survival.There was one a physiotherapist told me that her patient died because she was unable to make him work his muscles and the muscle cells started "dying" out..I was thinking if we could incooperate OSIM like muscle excercising machines to the wheelchairs because the users cannot use their non-moving limps.
Heh,what you all think?Am sorry for posting so many times.I couldn't attend the previous meeting so i thought i'd post them so i cld have some comments.
The problem with normal wheelchairs is that it is tiring for the owners to use them especially if they are elderly.So,i suggest we use button and battery operated electric chairs.Electric chairs do exist in the market but are not very convenient due to their bulkiness and other limitation properties.Can any engineering major think of making them lighter?And these electric chairs are certainly not useful for arm-lacking people .For these people,we can have buttons accessible near their mouth area so that they can move their wheelchairs using a pen held by their lip muscles.
And the second problem is as such.Physiotherapists warn that the movement of muscles is necessary for a person's good health and survival.There was one a physiotherapist told me that her patient died because she was unable to make him work his muscles and the muscle cells started "dying" out..I was thinking if we could incooperate OSIM like muscle excercising machines to the wheelchairs because the users cannot use their non-moving limps.
Heh,what you all think?Am sorry for posting so many times.I couldn't attend the previous meeting so i thought i'd post them so i cld have some comments.
My idea-2:Operation agency
Nagoor here:
There are 2 important groups in any retail business-operations and sales.Presently,companies focus on sales more ie.they recruit sales staff more than operations staff.What operations employees do is things like ordering stock,returning dead stocks,replenishing and arranging stocks,deciding how products are displayed and making sure the outlets look attractive and neat.And companies need coaching and education for both sales and operations staff.
So i was thinking if we could hold workshops for operations staff on -eg,housekeeping skills(like front facing and displaying product items,checking their expiry dates,manufacturing dates) because many of these staff are o level and n level graduates .They,therefore, need special courses before they do operations jobs.This would ensure in professionalism in each retail outlet.And we can have partnership with Ngee Ann Poly and NUS Business school to include some of their information on operations services durign our workshops.And we charge the employee companies for us to hold courses for them.
Likewise,we can hold programmes for the sales staff as well.Note that these courses are theory and hands on practice based.And we can go to companies regularly to check on staff's performance after attending these courses and hold higher level courses if they can pass the beginner's stage.
There are 2 important groups in any retail business-operations and sales.Presently,companies focus on sales more ie.they recruit sales staff more than operations staff.What operations employees do is things like ordering stock,returning dead stocks,replenishing and arranging stocks,deciding how products are displayed and making sure the outlets look attractive and neat.And companies need coaching and education for both sales and operations staff.
So i was thinking if we could hold workshops for operations staff on -eg,housekeeping skills(like front facing and displaying product items,checking their expiry dates,manufacturing dates) because many of these staff are o level and n level graduates .They,therefore, need special courses before they do operations jobs.This would ensure in professionalism in each retail outlet.And we can have partnership with Ngee Ann Poly and NUS Business school to include some of their information on operations services durign our workshops.And we charge the employee companies for us to hold courses for them.
Likewise,we can hold programmes for the sales staff as well.Note that these courses are theory and hands on practice based.And we can go to companies regularly to check on staff's performance after attending these courses and hold higher level courses if they can pass the beginner's stage.
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