Road to Zuppify Final Presentation ....

Time passed so fast .....
It's already a month since we started the brainstorming to look for a business idea.

First of all, let’s quickly recap what we did during the last 4 weeks:

• We regularly had Skype meeting 4 times in a week even more to brainstorm the further steps that we need to doin order to develop our business idea
• We gathered 75 respondents from interviews and open questions surveys with founder of startups whom were located in several countries mainly from Bulgaria, Indonesia, Latin America, Netherlands, and other regions. 
• It was also a great opportunity to had two interviews with the experts who provided us helpful advices to further develop our idea and prototype. 
• Then, we came up with 4 Iterations on our  "Lean Canvas" business model. 

After last week’s brainstorming session and after we gathered all the insights from the interviews and open surveys, this is how Zuppify’s final canvas looks like.

Further, we are also happy to share what did we learn and what would be our next steps ahead for Zuppify .

What did we learn?

During the project, we not only got a lot of insights about the business but also about the virtual team dynamics. Here are some snippets about our key learning activities during the projects: 

• We learned how to evaluate a business idea without spending any money and running quick tests of ideas as Lean Canvas methodology suggests. And be opened to quickly pivot the idea if it is not validated.
• In order to state a clear differentiation from our competitors like Alibaba and other vertical search engines we will focus on bespoke manufacturing solutions.
• The development cost might not be too expensive however we will need a large workforce to update our database. This means that customer acquisition cost might be low. However, the cost to acquire manufactures is still unknown. 
• During this unexpected time where social isolation is mandatory, we learned how to work collaboratively in virtual teams. We found that while working virtually part of interaction is lost there are also advantages like being more productive during meetings as we stay focus on the tasks. Furthermore, it was easier for us to agree on timelines as we didn't need to commute from one place to another.

What would be Zuppify's next steps?

From the learning and research process we've been through in the previous week, we also thinking about the applicability of Zuppify for the next steps:

• We think that the current results of our idea is viable looking from the low customer acquisition cost due to the referrals. However, our next steps would be to increase the sample size to gather more data and further testing the key metrics.
• Hopefully, we can gain more understanding on the cost structure and further testing the pricing strategy especially for start-ups or SMEs
• Then, we will have to decide in which industry should we focus at the beginning stage of the business

Highlights from the final presentation

We're so happy to get and hear the feedback from the expert juries (Tommaso Troiani & Birgit Luijk) regarding our business idea. We highlight some key points from the juries: 

 " this is a good idea but you need to be so sure to start in the right place" - (Tommaso Troiani, 2020) 

 "find the way to ensure the quality of supplier credibility information for the next step! " - (Birgit Luijk , 2020)

Hearing those insight motivates us to think more and execute the idea properly in the next steps, Thank you for the great insight Tommaso & Birgit! 

We also want to express our deepest gratitude for our dearest lecturer, Luca . Thank you for being a very supportive and great lecturer during this course ... 

Last but not least, congratulations for all the team members, finally we did it! Thank you for the great work and looking forward to the next team work and finishing our final report!

Challenge X

Going Deeper and Further

For Challenge X, we retested and tested our most important and newest hypotheses based on acquired insights. In general, we focused on two areas:

1. Whether companies are experiencing difficulties in finding a supplier for custom-made orders (such as time and information-related difficulties).

2. Whether companies see Zuppify as an appropriate solution to the problem, and whether they are willing to pay €100 for a yearly subscription for mature companies or €10 per profile for younger companies.

To test these assumptions, we used a similiar method as last time. Firstly, we modified our portotype to reflect our renewed focus on custom-made suppliers ( https://youtu.be/0c9KNLVNo0E ). Afterwards, we got in touch with potential customers via interviews and surveys (See some of our interview footage here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1s_Dyk2lCX0BNYWdgMzU-MevBODZ95YhY ). In this round, we were able to gain 19 survey responses and 7 interviews. 

Hence, hereby snippets from our presentation to show our hypotheses and testing results:

In addition, we gained new insights for our idea:

1. 89% of our respondents would refer Zuppify to others. This may be a significant distribution channel.
2. Our pay per use model (10 Euro per view) is deemed to be too expensive in comparison to the yearly subscription model (even though younger companies find it too expensive too). 
3. Identified three key features: search filters, information on past suppliers' clients and ratings, and information credibility. 

Equipped with these results, we are ready to face the next challenge: the final presentation.

Feedback Prototyping

After we have our prototype ready, we decided to gain more insight through interviews and surveys. Due to the current condition, we're so happy that we have gathered 27 respondents for our prototype feedback. However, we still open for more feedback through the survey.  

In the phase of gathering our product prototype feedback, we formulated leap of faith assumptions and hypotheses for our first prototype. The results can be seen from the dashboards below:

Based on the interviews and surveys, the only hypothesis that rejected is the last hypothesis . Other than that, we found that almost all of the respondents agree on the fact that the prototype reflects our UVP (quick and easy search) and they are willing to use the platform to solve their problems on finding suppliers. So, we accepted all the hyphoteses except the last one.

Insights

From the interviews, we found some interesting insight as our pathways for the next development on our business idea:

Features
Respondents did not consider the adverts section a must-have solution. However, they would like to add information about the possibility of custom order in supplier’s profiles. From the interviewees we also got some insights about features that they would like to be added as filtering options related to location, producer/wholesaler, product category. Also, some respondents mentioned they would like to find information about possibility to ask for small orders.

Pricing Methods
Initially we asked if businesses would pay $100 in a yearly subscription to get full access information but it was rejected by 55% of the respondents. This gave as un interesting insight about the relationship age-price. In general, older companies agree on the pricing with little resistance while younger companies are more reluctant. Furthermore, some respondents suggest a pay-per-use option instead of an annual subscription.

What will we do next?

As we gathered all the feedback and advice from our potential customer and expert, we eager to always learn from them and re-adjust our lean canvas model to test further the most important assumption on our solution.

Lean Canvas (#3)

In our new version of lean canvas, we re-adjust three parts (problem, solution, and revenue streams) which we found that most of the respondents tends to face difficulties to find suppliers for custom made products which we do not realize in the previous assumptions. Then, we came up with the new solution to offer a new custom order information in the supplier's profile.  

Furthermore, we think it's essential to further test about the pricing strategy since we found that mature and younger companies have different preferences.We would like to test the subscription based model for the mature companies and pay-per-use for the younger companies. 

So excited to see how our business idea will evolve in the next Challenge X ! 

It's time for Social Networking

Yes!

Finally we did this challenge! 

We found it really challenging and yet very exciting to hear what they think about our business idea and lean canvas and get their valuable feedback. 

Without any further due, we will introduce you our interviewees: 

Advice #1

Steven Phelan

 (Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at Fayettevile State University)

One of our teammates, Ventsi, met Steven when he taught an entrepreneurship course as a visiting professor at University of Cologne. Ventsi approached him via LinkedIn and gratefully that Steven agreed to give us his 2 cents of advice. Besides being an academician, Steven has experience in a corporate job, has worked on a few of his own ventures and also attends angel investor meetings. Because of this, we believe him to be a perfect advisor for the execution part on our business idea. 

What we learn from his valuable insight? 

Steven expressed his concerns about our broad business idea, since a very broad platform will require a lot of workforce. He recommends we start with something narrower, more specific and then expand it. He also suggests that we use our expertise in different industries to our advantage.  

Advice #2

Raicho Dimov 

(Ex-banker with experience in new ventures)

Raicho Dimov is a past-colleague of Ventsi's father. He was a banker for many years and has previously worked on a payment service platform. We believe his substantial understanding of financials and experience in tech startups could give us important insights about how we could develop our platform and what our biggest cost drivers would be.

What we learn from his valuable insight? 

Raicho's advice was rather technical. He recommends two options which are either to build our own database or an algorithm to search for the information from other sources.The latter requires experts in the respective field to deliver a platform that brings the best interaction to our customers.

Based on the two advices, we will definitely consider narrowing our focus or pivoting our business model based on the results we get from our solution interview.

After such valuable feedback, we bet you are curious about how we iterate our business model! Don't worry, we will keep you updated... 

Prototyping... and Beyond (?)

Prototyping

This week, we decided to build a prototype to further test our idea. Based on our previous findings, we aim to use the prototype to test the following assumptions:

1. Our early adopters are young companies and companies with a diverse portfolio
2. Our pricing plan (100 Euro/year)
3. Whether our solution can solve the customers’ problems (finding information about suppliers, including those who are looking for specialized products)

To test those assumptions, we decided to make a video that visualizes how Zuppify works. Compared to developing a fully functioning app, this method allows us to learn about our idea at a faster rate and a minimum cost. This format also helps potential customers to get a better feel of the concept.

Our Prototype 

Next...

Our next challenge: using this prototype to gain new insights. Similar to last time, we decided to do a combination of interviews and surveys. However, this’d be more challenging than last time. In addition to the Corona pandemic, the Easter weekend make getting into contacts with businesses even harder. Yet, we are confident that we can overcome these constraints.

(Find out how we'd actually do in the next post)

Week 2: Getting Out of the Building (Virtually)

Hypotheses Formulation

At the end of last week’s brainstorming sessions, we assumed that Zuppify’s platform would serve two customer segments: “buyers” (businesses looking to find suppliers) and “suppliers” (businesses looking to sell their product/services to other businesses). In addition, we made several assumptions regarding Zuppify’s business mechanisms (e.g. key metrics and cost). Here’s what we came up with:

Based on that, we formulated leap of faith assumptions and hypotheses. The results can be seen from our first dashboards:

   

Among them, the three most important assumptions to test are:

1. Reliable information is difficult to find and is often insufficient.
2. It is time-consuming to find new suppliers.
3. Businesses perform initial screening for suppliers online.

These assumptions are the cornerstones of Zuppify’s concept-helping businesses find suppliers. We did not include any from the supplier side as one of the most important to test as we were not optimistic about serving that segment. However, among them, we believe that "suppliers are on the lookout for new ways to find partners and customers" as the most important hypothesis to test on the suppliers' side. We also assumed that SMEs and early stage startups would be our early adopters as we assume that they have not settled on long-term suppliers yet.

“Getting Out of the Building”

The next step, as Steve Blank famously put, was “getting out of the building”. With the current health situation where we can’t even go out of our houses, finding customers to talk to seems impossible.  Especially since our targets are SMEs and early startups. Not a familiar terrain for students.

We put our heads together and planned a way to acquire customer insights under those conditions. We decided to interview business owners from our own network and distribute surveys online. We aimed to get responses from 10 companies.

To our surprise, our strategy worked better than expected. We gained insights from 30 companies from 6 different countries!

The diversity of our methods (and team members)

Analysis Time!

Now comes the challenging part, making sense of the responses. With a lot of acquired information, it took us quite a while to digest everything. In the end, we were able to accept/reject our hypotheses and acquired new insights on our idea:

Buyer's Side

A few key learning. First, we learned that our three main assumptions are correct (regarding the buyers' problems).  We also learned that our target customers are most likely young companies. We also realized the possibility for users to post adverts for specialized products. 

Supplier's Side

In regards to the suppliers' side, while our first hypothesis is confirmed, the interviewees generally mentioned that the problem is "nice to have". Hence, due to the lack of perceived opportunity, we decided to focus on the buyers side.

With these insights, we're ready to move on to next week's prototyping session.

Introducing Zuppify!

Zuppify

We are a team of four international students from different backgrounds. Despite the Corona pandemic, we are still passionately working (virtually) to find new opportunities. After a series of brainstorming sessions, we become interested in the idea of improving business processes. Particularly, in regards to finding new suppliers. We feel that businesses face a lot of hurdles in finding new suppliers (e.g. too much time and resources spent in this process). Hence, we decided to work on an idea called Zuppify-a platform that helps businesses find compatible suppliers effectively.

The idea came from one of our teammate’s struggles (Ventsi). He came up on a product that wasn’t available in Europe, and he had to quickly procure and sell the product while it was relevant. However, he wasn’t able to find enough contact information on suppliers of the said product fast enough and he got outspeed by others.

Team

Hanif

“Hanif is passionate about startups and finding new opportunities. After working at various startups, he came to love its passionate and dynamic environment. He then decided to continue his master study on Strategic Entrepreneurship to improve himself further. His passion lies in helping SMEs and startups develop further.”

Yana

“Hi! I’m Yana. I’m a part time entrepreneur and a full time MBA student. I have great interest in the social empowerment, innovation on SME, and digital marketing. I love to make creative stuff and experience new learning. Currently, I am working on the project that specialized in the event creator which motivated me to join Entrepreneurial Lab Course. I do believe that working with a diverse team will give me new idea and insight to create great project.”

Ventsi

“Ventsi is an AFM student from Bulgaria with a very strong interest in the stock market, venture capital and start-ups in general. He is currently working on a few of his own projects and decided to take the Entrepreneurial Lab course to gain a better understanding of what successful start-ups do, to acquire some experience and to meet potential partners. This combined with the fact that the course doesn't have a final exam is a win-win for him.”

Diane

“I am Diane from Peru full time MBA student and now exchange student at Erasmus. I have professional experience in Supply Chain. I am interested in entrepreneurship and innovative business that’s why I decided to take the Entrepreneurial Lab course. I consider it will help me to understand how start-ups work and what tools they can use. Also, I consider working in the course’s project will help me to develop creative skills.”

What’s this blog for?

Good question! We realize that our idea is built upon untested assumptions and there are a lot of things that we do not know about (including whether the problem exist in the first place). Hence, this blog will record our learning journey and consequently, improving Zuppify’s concept. This blog will be updated at least once a week with our newest findings, so watch this space!

Want to Take Part?

We are currently interested in talking with businesses (particularly SMEs and startups) to learn how they find new suppliers.  Hence, if you are interested to share some insights (and get updated on our idea), please kindly fill in the following survey: 

http://bit.ly/ELabform