This past week in ENTP 311 revolved around the remaining days of the Sprint Google Venture process in addition to a discussion on business development. Hip Hop Connections particularly found the Sprint process to be an eye opener when it comes to further development of the business. In terms of the Sprint process, our business is currently still in the mapping phase where ideas are being sorted out. Having a set step-by-step guide to really kick starting the business will help the startup team sort out the different ideas and find the one or ones that best suit our mission. By going through the sketching step, it will allow the team to have a better grasp of one another’s ideas and how they view Hip Hop Connection’s direction. We can then go to the decision portion of the process where we will have a set of coherent ideas that could give the business better direction. The hardest portion of this whole process for us would probably be the prototype portion given we are offering more or less a service rather than a certain product. Therefore, an exact prototype of our service will be more abstract than anything else, which may prove difficult to explain. The final portion of the sprint process, however, may prove to be the most natural for the team given potential customer interviews are the barometer of changing desires when it comes to service oriented businesses. The interviews will allow us to act accordingly so that the startup can better fulfill the wishes of potential customers. The team would certainly then gear itself toward customer development, which focuses much more on the opinion of customers, which is not the case for traditional product development. Traditional product development involves less interaction with customers, which may prove to be disastrous for businesses that offer a service. If the company assumes the service will appeal to customers well, then the business may not adjust accordingly should the product not garner much consumer interest. The customer product development gains the opinions of various potential customers, which allows the business to make changes that align the product or service with the wants of their target consumers. Plus, an environment where evolution of the product is encouraged will equate to a business more willing to change, which will prove to be advantageous for businesses should follow the hearts of their potential customers. Customer product development is very much like an experiment where a hypothesis is created and then tested to see if the hypothesis is correct, partially correct, or incorrect. This leads to data collection and the making of conclusions, which will assist in maintaining or changing the product before it heads to market. With traditional development, the product is made and assumptions are made about the target market and changes are made accordingly. The product is then placed onto market. In a sense, perhaps the major difference between the costumer development method versus the traditional method pertains to the varying usage of the scientific method found in each method. The customer development technique involves a complete process using almost all of the basic steps of the scientific method. The traditional technique, on the other hand, hardly uses the fundamental steps in the scientific method. Because the startup team would use the customer development process, we would interact with customers via surveys, focus groups, and personal interviews. The surveys would be given to those listening or experiencing our prototype and would include questions pertaining to their interest in hip hop, their opinion on the prototype, and how they experience hip hop in their daily life. The focus group would again involve similar questions, except people in a focus group can interact with the questioner or with other people who were selected. The personal interviews would involve targeting what we believe to be our target customers and asking how hip hop occurs in their life. Furthermore, we would ask personal questions such as age, future goals, and friendship groups.