Jinrui - A Few Concerns

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

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

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 =(

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/