The Scaling Up Of Our Startup Idea ‘’Youth Unity”
Youth Unity: a networking platform which aims to connect students from all around the globe.
From debating the functionality of our theoretical idea over a coffee break to releasing the beta version of our site, Youth Unity has indeed come a long way.
Started off with defining the simplest aspects and activities of our idea, we gradually dived deeper into the world of startup entrepreneurship, researching on potential competitors in the global market and finding our own innovative, key value proposition. The latter is mostly associated with constructing a platform whose content is produced by students, for students, all for free.
In the middle of our journey we created a ‘’map’’, the prototype of Youth Unity and its basic model of customer services and relationships management, which we shortly after digitized. This process helped us navigate ourselves later on, when we had to deal with the reality of creating a site.
Implementing our idea stopped being as ‘’romantic’’ when we received our first feedback on our project through online questionnaires, in-depth interviews and the famous speed dating and world café methodologies. The responses were positive, for the most part, emphasizing the inter connectivity Youth Unity will bring to students freely. However, we did receive a spoonful of criticism on the design of our digital demo and its user (un)friendly interface while others raised doubts about the safety of the users.
These responses helped shape our next steps as we proceeded to optimize the design of our internet platform, improve a few of its sections and give our brand logo a fresh makeover. Then, we created our official Facebook Page which shall serve as another communication channel and also another way to help us spread the word about Youth Unity on social media platforms.
Last but not least, the rest of the team members and I discussed about filling some gaps regarding our project in both theory and reality and how we can deliver a product that’s closer to our primary vision. These conversations were related to the safety of the users as well as the cost structure and finding ways to make profit.
And now, we make the last improvements and preparations of our presentation which will be pitched this Monday in front of our classmates.
