Rejection Challenge

This past week in class, we had a new activity to try out: The Rejection Challenge. Basically, we started with a small plastic box worth around 50 cents, and our goal as a team was to go out and try to trade up the box to get the most valuable product we could. At first, my team definitely dismissed the challenge as pretty silly- who would trade anything for a close-to-worthless box? Turns out many would,

We first went to MLK Student Union and talked to a few people at the front desk, explaining our challenge. They were actually eager to help and see what they could trade us. We ended up trading our box for a small mini stapler.

Next, we headed to the Equator coffee shop in the building, and were very surprised at how excited the barista was to help us. He offered us a mug initially, but we turned it down, realizing not many people would be willing to take a mug off our hands. Instead, we asked if we could get a pastry, and ended up with a muffin worth about $3.
 
Next, we thought about who would be willing to buy a muffin off of us and headed to GBC, realizing that people eating there would be the most likely to want a snack. We ended up trading our $3 muffin for $4 cash!
 
Lastly, we got a little creative and decided the best way to win the game was to end with something priceless...like a person! (More specifically, their time). They say time is money, and we did exactly that by trading in $4 cash for 5 min of time for someone to sit in our class. 
While some other groups got a little funny and creative (and close to cheating!!) as well, I thought this experience was fun and something cool to do in order to get closer to my group.

Market Needs

We were able to narrow down our patents to two of the five we initially sought to research.

The first is the Disaster Warning System, created by Professor Bloom in the Astronomy department. It's essentially a hardware device that can be installed in homes and buildings and provides natural disaster alerts via an accompanying phone app. The Professor already has a prototype installed in his home and when we reached out to him, said the app would just need to be created. We talked more about our findings in our group video. The market need for this product is pretty universal- Japan has a similar product, which is especially useful given their location and how susceptible they are to earthquakes and tsunamis. In the United States, I can imagine this being used by individual households in more dangerous areas- like at the top of hills and near fault lines. Also office buildings in busy areas as well as maybe large campuses like universities where hundreds could be affected by a disaster.


The second is the Traffic Monitoring System. Coming from a driving-heavy city like Los Angeles, I can definitely see the need for a technology that could direct users on alternate routes to avoid congestion, car accidents, and even just improve quality of life. The patent is called the Low Cost Highly Accurate Traffic Monitoring System, and would be valuable in all modern cities.

Picking Patents

Last class, we formed final groups and created a list of patents we would look into. I'm very excited to work more with my group, especially because all of us have such different backgrounds. We have two engineers, a biology major, and another business student like myself. When looking through our patents list to pick our top 5, we ran into some issues understanding the technology and applicability of some of them. For example, the energy patents were very cool but we had no idea of how they actually worked. I actually had to leave class early and wish I could've stayed to do the lego game! My team later told me more about it and it seemed like an interesting exercise.

We met up as a group on Tuesday and decided to vote on our top 5 out of the list we had and each person would write up a slide of that patent. I ended up picking the occupant-tracking fan that I had seen during the first week, as I think it's an applicable and feasible idea to form a company around. One of my team members is a civil engineer so it might be interesting to see how her ideas play into that.

It seems like our team is coming together and hopefully next week, we'll be able to pick a single patent that we all really like and get started on our startup idea!

Getting Excited

I've actually had some time to think about what makes for a good team over the last few year. A lot of us start with things like sports teams, class projects, and sometimes even just working with friends. For me, a good team is one that allows each person to do what they do best, even if this mean an unequal distribution of work. I think it's actually better in order for a team to grow and develop when everyone can specialize in a certain field, rather than wasting time doing a little of everything instead of a lot of one thing.

We looked at some different patents last week and I've come to realize I'm most excited about projects that can be applicable to daily life and that have a global scope. Products and services that I'd be able to use have a more personal touch and understanding. Applicability on a larger scale is what will let an idea grow and spread.

I'm looking forward to forming groups this week and seeing what exactly we'll decide to work on this semester.