The Speed Dating of “Meme Factory”
In our times, more and more experts tend to characterize start-up companies as the “future” of the business world. In fact, start-up companies are growing up with an enviable rhythm in the last decade. As a result, specialists often show their interest in collaborating with brand-new start-up projects.
One, easy, low-cost and innovative way to predict the preferences of the potential buyers is the “speed dating” method of presentation. As part of the course “Marketing & PR Studies”, which specializes in the creation of “rising” start-up companies, we used the method of “speed dating”. This tool can be easily described as a whole experience, from which we got a better understanding of what the customers really want. In this process, each person is flipping between three roles. First of all, he or she is pitching to one of his or her peers, who is a member of a different team/ start-up company, in order to get more information about their products. Then, the person asks some questions (usually two or three) and gives “top” advice to the member of the other team, that they had pitched. The person can also act as an observer, who gives advice and feedback both to the questioner and to the member that answers the questions.
Our start-up company is called “The Meme Factory”. After research, we found that in the era of meme culture and social media communication, there is no, specified in memes, app or site, which is based in Greece. The main idea of our start-up company is that people, especially the younger ones, will be able to create their own memes in an easy and quick way and share their creations with other apps of social media communication. Furthermore, our users can search the meme they are looking for by keywords, catchphrases and tags, because our app provides them a large database of memes.
The whole project begins with the pitching to one of our peers. Someone has to start the conversation, and in this case that “someone” was a member of our team. So, at the beginning, we had the role of questioning the other team what their product is, the main goal of their company, and also how they can evolve their output in the future. Despite the initial hesitation, this experience was innovative and very helpful, because we understood, by this method of stimulation, how to connect with potential partners, collaborators or customers. We learnt many new ways of how to start a debate and get the information, we initially wanted — and that’s very important for a company, that wants to consolidate in the company field. Moreover, this experience could be described as a cool way to communicate and create a supporting group to our ideas and, why not, to our future projects.
By asking critical questions, I understood what the key points of each project were. I also learnt how to persuade the potential customers to try our services and our application. Plus, I believe that the feedback session helped both of the teams to improve their services.
Then, we flipped roles, and it was our turn our answer the questions we had been asked by the members of the other team. In a few minutes, we had to give specific answers and partially the main information for our project. For example, what is the target group of “Meme Factory?”. This step was very helpful to our survey, as we understood better the people on the other side of the table. We were informed about the possible desires of our customers, what our clients probably expect from our application. Furthermore, this step is a perfect opportunity to take notes and “broaden” your horizons, to get quickly new and unexpected ideas. For example, to evolve the application with a new feature, that hadn’t crossed our mind. Every little detail should be written down. Τhat’s the amazing advantage of taking feedback on real-time.
Another significant role is the role of the “observer”. Although it seems an easy one, I believe this is the most crucial and important role of the “Speed Dating” process. As an observer, I had the opportunity to watch the conversation between the pitcher and the questioner and take notes, while paying full attention to the speakers. In my opinion, the most important thing of being an observer, is that I learnt how to share knowledge and give useful feedback to each team. The feedback had to do with both the products and the presentation. Furthermore, this role helped me to realize not only what the pros and cons of each start-up company are, but also how I can help the teams to overcome their difficulties.
One more methodology we used was the “World Café”. This method has five steps:
«Setting, Welcome and Introduction, Small Group Rounds, Questions and Harvest.»
To be honest, it was a brand-new experience for me, as I hadn’t heard about it before. By participating in this format, I understood better what the most important take outs for my application are, and also what I had to I do in order to gather more users. For instance, after this kind of debate, we decided to add a new feature to our app, the section of “Daily Meme Story”, in which we will not only share the meme of the day, but also each meme of the day will be dedicated to a crucial event that took place at exactly the same day years ago.
In the end, the whole process was really useful, unique and important for all the groups. It is a cool way to learn new “stuff” about the world of start-up companies. For example, I heard about new companies, that we can collaborate with and come out with a great result. Moreover, I realised what the key points for our company should be and focus on what matters most. By participating to this format, a member of a company can eavesdrop the preferences of the customers, better understand what is possible and what it should be done in the future. It also allows the creator to learn about the unpredictabe consequences of each business - move and clarify the main goal of the application. The creator can connect with people, who think big and “out of the box” .
It is an amazing process that confirms the saying: “The long we talk to the customers, the more we connect with them”.
“Nick Kontomitros, The Meme Factory”
