my speed dating and World Cafe methodology experience
Monday 30/4.18 we practiced in class “Ad discovery and creative lab” two methodologies ,Speed dating and World café methodology, that helped us find new ways how to move forward with our startup projects.
“speed dating”:We began with speed dating method. There were three roles: 1) the pitcher, who was the one to present the main idea of our start up. 2) the questioner , who was asking two questions and giving 1 top advice to the pitching person of another start up team. And last but not least 3) the observer ,who gave feedback to both pitching person and the questioner -feedback person. We only had three minutes to present and three minutes to ask question and give feedback… which was very little time, and that was the most challenging part.
what is our startup: We are the “The Chocomists”… “The alchemists of chocolate” and our start up is called “El Mejor: the best chocolate of all” . We are chocolate lovers and makers and our fundamental idea is to take down the myth that chocolate is unhealthy. We produce chocolate based on raw cocoa bean and other high quality ingredients. Our target Group are diabetics and people with health issues. We produce chocolates that are sweetend with stevia, which makes them suitable for diabetics.
the experience fast-dating pitching to your peers: It was an extraordinary and unusual experience, really strange and new for us . It’ s an experience that a start up member should have absolutely , because you meet a lot of new people and you have to explain your idea and help them to understand. As a startup you are going to face a lot of challenges, especially if you want to grow your business, so this was a very good practice. It’s not an easy task but by pitching to different peer-students you learn a) how important it is to speak as simply as possible, so you’d be understood and that you have his attention and that youρ don’t listener is not bored. b)How to focus on what really matters … because in such a task startuppers don’t have much time… After talking to every group I noticed that you can’t approach everyone the same way. I also noticed that not everyone had the same reaction to our idea,that they had different questions and gave a different advice.By responding to questions and feedback: I learned to listen at my questioner very closely and then answer to him as clear as possible . As for the feedback part, I found it quite helpful for my start up ,because it really works as a piece of advice from a person that doesn’t participate in your idea and sees things from a different point of view. On the other hand, by asking questions and giving feedback to others, I was able to find out what it was missing from his idea and help him.
About the world cafe: changing tables and meeting new startup fellow-students founders
World -café was also a very useful experience. Not only we came in touch with people from different startups ,but we found as a team useful tips that could help us if we want to expand our startup. For example, there where lot of questions and feedback about the product’s cost and how we’re going to promote it on the market… They told us that our product shouldn’t be very expensive, because people with health issues usually have lot of health care expenses, and a high price is going to prevent them from buying our chocolate. This was something that we haven’t thought up until this conversation. Other questions were about our main target group or the usability of our product and about the flavor and if it really makes a different from all the other chocolate that are already at the market. Most of our dater tasted our chocolate prototype during the conversations and they were pretty positive and enjoyed the taste of it. Through those methods we came one step closer to acknowledge how to fill the gaps that we found in our projects.
