Oh, Culture Team Blog

From the statements above, I think that the main thing we need to focus on in order to breakeven is decreasing our inventory cost. The inventory cost in February came from all the plastic sheets, cardboard backing, mailing envelopes etc. we ordered in bulk from overseas to fulfill our packaging requirements.

While this number decreased due to sales by the end of February, the opening inventory cost for March is still higher because we had to pre-order our weekly planners and thus, keep inventory. As such, if we can focus on reducing these numbers by having on-demand sales, we should be able to breakeven and start making a net profit in a couple of months.

Offline Distributions

We managed to get in touch with another cafe to run yet another booth on the 16th and 17th of March at Amber Ember. Have created some collaterals as the lead up to the event and we are running the ops and logs for the event.

As of now, we are using the booths as a main platform to test for the interest in stationery and would like to see how our target audience will respond to these products.

Meeting 20 (27/02/19)

Marketing: -

As we have more and more artworks (currently at 34), we are trying to leverage on the artworks that can be printed on other products other than just on papers as well. As such, we are in talks with PistiPrints and also other printing companies to see if we can have it printed on notebooks, planners, mugs and maybe stickers as well! Also, on the 9th and 10th of March, we will be participating as a vendor at Katong Square Lifestyle & Vintage Market March Edition. This is an event that is curated for lifestyle and vintage products. We will be trying out new verticals like planners, notebooks and possibly mugs at this event. Also, we planned to have a catalogue at the place so that people would be able to pre-order from our booth and we will send them the orders once the event is over! Will be excited to see how it turns out!

Consultation #2 (02/01/19)

During our consultation, Roderick mentioned that the speed that we are doing our business is still slow and also we have to do much more in order to get more sales. It won't be good that we just put up products on our website and just leave it be. Adrian also mentioned to us that this business will be difficult to execute but he suggested that we do videos to showcase our artists and to raise awareness about our website and our products to promote it. Without promotion, it'll be hard to get any sales. Currently, our team has finalized the packaging, got a few local artists onboard and have been marketing organically on Instagram. On the 17th of Feb, we will be doing a product shoot and a video shoot for our local artist so that we can showcase their stories on our website as well as on Instagram to acquire more consumers and hopefully be able to convert them into buyers.

Meeting 19 (28/01/19)

We are going launch in 6 days and also in anticipation of Chinese New Year. So far, we have gotten a few merchants collaborating with us and the operations and logistics is also finalized. We are all just finishing up the details on our website and making sure everything runs smoothly and seamlessly during our launch. We are really hoping that there will be sales from our art prints and we'll only know when we launch our business next week!

Meeting 18 (21/01/19)

So far, Gabby and Amrita have been busy scheduling meetings with potential local artists to collaborate with us. It was tiring because there were meetings after meetings each week. Our Instagram page has gained a number of followers as well; most of it from our own personal friends and some from the public as well! There were also a few local artists who followed our page! With regards to operations, Brannon has finalized the packaging and the 3rd-party courier service that we will be engaging for our business model. We are all doing out part to make sure everything is out proper before officially launching in February as we want to have as little hiccups as possible after the launch.

As discussed within our team, we have agreed that the artists who collaborate with us will receive a 30% commission based on the retail price of our products. This would entice local artists to work with us as they could earn a significant amount of money for each product/item sold! In the short run, we might lose out on our profit margins (don't worry, we are still earning!) but in the long run, we hope that this would enable more merchants to work with us and spread the word of Oh, Culture among their friends :)

Meeting 17 (14/01/19)

In today's meeting, we have gotten most of the work done for our preparation to launch. We got our mailing design ready that we will use on our packaging. Gabby and Amrita will also be meeting merchants that were interested in working with us this week. We have two weeks left to launch and we want to make sure that everything is well ironed out before we launch!

Meeting 16 (11/01/19)

Unfortunately, one of our team mates have decided to leave due to personal reasons. As such, we had to make do with what we have. During this meeting, we met up again to discuss about our commitments and our 'moving ahead' plan. Due to the lack of manpower and also the integrity of our brand, we have decided to just focus on art prints that would be locally designed by local artists. Right now, we will be launching it in Feb 2019 :)

Meeting 15 (21/12/18)

Currently, we still have not done our testing phase yet. Our products sourced were not up to our standards and we are still looking for products that represent us as Oh, Culture. However, products that were approved will be put up on Carousell & Facebook without any inventory so as to see what is the market demand of each products. It is quite worrying for us as we all have our own schedules and most of us are overseas. However, we are trying out best to get work done and make sure there is progress everyday, no matter how small it is.

Meeting 14 (08/12/18)

After the consultation with Roderick, we had a meeting that night to discuss what we would be doing during the month of December. We have decided to do a pilot program to test our market and concurrently, to be able to gather feedback and start rolling out items that have demand from the market. Our stipulated deadline of our pilot program will be the end of this month where we will be holding an AAR for the pilot program to collate the feedback we will be gathering during the pilot program and sharing it with the team. Fahadh and Aruna will also be concurrently be setting up the website as soon as possible weeks before our official launch. We hope that through this pilot program, we would be able to gather as much feedback as possible and to learn as much as possible before we launch so as to minimize any setbacks that we might encounter in the future. Currently, we have divided ourselves into different roles for the pilot program.

Brannon - Operations & Logistics

Aruna - Social Media Marketing

Gabby - Marketing

Fahadh - Website development (For official launch)

Amrita - Finance

'May the odds be ever in your favor' - The Hunger Games

Meeting 13 (16/11/18)

Agenda:

1) Contracts (Amrita)

2) Merchant on-boarding process (Gabby)

3) Process flows & delivery (Brannon)

4) Website design mock-up (Aruna & Fahadh)

Amrita has finalized the contracts for the team members and also for the merchants that will be on-board with us. This will ensure that the contract for the artists and our company will be legal and in effect when we set ourselves up as a registered company. Gabby then went through the overview of the whole process from merchant sourcing to the delivery of product for the different departments such as supply chain, marketing, artist liaison, finance and tech. Next, Brannon went through the process for the artists to the suppliers and also have a list of potential 3rd party courier services that would help us to deliver our products. Aruna then went through the design of the website that she and Fahadh had done and their thought process behind the design. Overall, feedback were given and we really hope that things will go well for us :)

Meeting 12 (05/11/18)

Agenda:

1) Packaging Options (Brannon)

2) Process Flow (Artists to Oh, Culture) (Brannon)

3) Run through merchant pitch (Gabriela)

4) Run through pitch process (Gabriela)

5) KPIs and process flow + messaging for artists (Gabriela)

6) Copy Sheet (Progress) (Fahadh)

7) Product checklist (Fahadh)

8) Show completed contracts (Amrita)

In this week's meeting, we shared about the different packaging available for our products that we are going to distribute and discussed about the process flow from the artists to us. We also gave ourselves a KPI to hit every week where we have to source for 5 local designers that would be our potential collaborators/clients in the future. Amrita then went through with us on the contract that would minimize complications in the future should any of us decides to leave.

Looking at the timeline of our business project, we have roughly 4 months left before the end of this module. As such, we are a little worried about the timeline that we have as currently, our progress will be slower than before since the exam period is coming up. However, work will still be done concurrently and we hope to be able to tie down everything by the end of December before we launch in early January next year.

Meeting 11 (26/10/18)

Agenda:

1) Market Research Survey (Brannon & Amrita)

2) Progress Sheet (Aruna & Gabriela)

3) Copy Sheet and site map (Fahadh)

4) Merchant pitch (Aruna & Gabriela)

As we moved on to our new business idea, we evaluated what we have done and what could have been done better. As we felt that we rushed too quickly into our previous idea before, we have decided to properly do our market research survey (which is also part of the feasibility analysis). We want to have 2 identical forms to be done by students from ADM & WKW in NTU and the other form to be done when we go to arts events or any similar events. This is to ensure that we get really authentic and valuable survey results which will determine whether we make or break. We have learned that with any business idea, the key is to have the foundation built on proper and reliable grounds.

With regards to the progress sheet, we thought that it is a really good idea to be able to see what everyone is doing and to know our progress as a whole. Thus, we will be updating it regularly to make sure that we are on track.

Meeting 10 (20/10/18): Next steps post-presentation and submission

After the chat where we aligned ourselves on our individual responsibilities, these are the following roles that we will be adopting:

• Supply chain and operations: Brannon
• Finance and HR: Amrita
• Website and Technical: Fahadh
• Marketing, Branding, Advertising: Gabriela
• Liaison and customer/artist relationships: Aruna

We will be working on the following areas:

1. PRODUCTIVITY

We should ensure to the best of our abilities that we are able to meet timelines and provide quality work. As there have been instances where our misalignment caused delays, affecting other people's scope of work and timelines, we will be improving on this aspect. Hence, we will work on setting realistic timelines for ourselves and fulfilling it with quality production. We will also update our progress in a progressive way.

2. SAMPLING

As it is important for us to understand our customers in a proper way, we will be working on getting feedback from our sample group, doing a feasibility and post-shopping customer experience evaluation based off certain audiences. Some of the factors we will take into account is location of the customer – which might affect delivery timing, type of products, size of customers order, customer profile, and which customers fall within certain time frames. This will be run during our pilot test as we will seek to improve on our products and output.

3. FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS

This is one of the most important parts of the entire thing, where we need to understand the key stakeholders in this business model – the merchants and the customer.

Hence, working on launching soon, we will have to fulfil the following task list :

• Branding
• Merchant pitch
• Website
• Feasibility survey
• Contract and agreements for stakeholders
• Account management list
• Output list (on deliverables and collaterals needed with checklist)

Meeting 9 (19/10/18)

Our agendas for our 9th meeting were:

1) Present individual part on the business report

2) Give feedback and thoughts after everyone has finished presenting

To prepare ourselves for the business plan presentation, we presented to one another the same as to how we will present for the business plan presentation and gave feedback and thoughts on the individual parts that we have done. This is to ensure that everyone is aligned. It is to also tie down any loose ends that we might have from our sides individually.

Meeting 8 (15/10/18) - A very sad day for Oh, Culture

Meeting 7 (12/10/18)

Our agendas for our 7th meeting were:

1) Discussion on our focus of our unique selling point

a. Focus on selling based on design or selling based on a social cause

We realized that we were doing focusing on both things at once: selling our tote bags based on design and also based on a social cause. We realized that we should only focus on one. But, selling based on design will make us just another company selling tote bags and selling based on a social cause will be too much hassle to connect to local artists and to pitch to them.

Meeting 6 (05/09/18)

Meeting 5 (28/09/18)

Our agendas for our 5th meeting were:

1) Brand book

2) Name cards confirmation

3) Artist pitch (For the artists)

4) Theme pitch

5) Business plan

6) Finalization of artists for our first theme (up to 3 artists)

7) Production/Output checklist sheet

As our business idea started to materialize, there were increasingly more and more things to be churned out and to be done within a short period of time. We learned that whatever roles that we assumed, the tasks would all ultimately be affected by one another. We also wanted to set up a strong foundation for ourselves so that we would be able to carry on forward with our business.

Meeting 4 (21/09/18)

Our agendas for our 4th meeting were:

1) Discuss business plan

2) Update on suppliers

3) Update on branding

4) Update on artist liaison and allocation of how to proceed

5) Update on commission models

6) Update budget, registration of company and formalities

Based on the tasks that were allocated to us individually, we updated each other on the progress of our work so that we can give each other comments and any other suggestions.

Meeting 3 (11/09/18)

Our agendas for our 3rd meeting were:

1) Determine the type of company

2) Create financial forecasts

3) Release timeline and how many designers/products are we working with and launching

4) Prep B2B/Business plan slides for pitch

5) Alignment and sharing of logistics

As usual, we would take some time to update on each other on the work that we have done and also to get everybody aligned with what everyone is doing. We discussed intensively on our business idea and how we want to go about launching it. Before the meeting ended, we were all tasked with different things to do before meeting up again.

Meeting 2 (28/08/18)

Our agendas for our 2nd meeting were:

1) Clamp down on a single business idea

2) Delegate and allocate responsibilities

3) Create a timeline and lead up for the following weeks

4) Start thinking about branding and production

5) Budget discussion

During this second meeting, each of us presented our own business idea and pitched to one another. We gave our opinions and our thoughts on each individual idea and mark out those that would not be viable or exciting to do. We finally decided on selling clothes that are locally designed and with enamel pins on it. We then tapped on our strengths and weaknesses to delegate work and assume roles that we think we would most likely to be good at.

Meeting 1 (13/08/18)

During the first meet-up, we had a brainstorm session where we just churn out every idea that we have.

Fahadh: An app that connects people & tasks. But they are not limited to easy tasks and it can be like moving furniture etc.

Amrita: Due to the lack of late night food, we want to come up with healthy snacks. However, the concerns would be the manpower for preparation, vending machines to cater to students and personalised ingredients. We also thought about having telegram chat for our users. There might be delivery charges if we liaise with 3rd party delivery providers.

Gabriela: Selling clothes with pins or iron-on patches. The quality must be good and with a good colour selection. However, we must have a good story behind them.

Aruna: To have a fashionable tracker that has a bluetooth module and GPS that can be placed in or on your valuable belongings

Brannon (Boon Long): Creating products and accessories using recycled plastic such as coasters, containers, earrings and any other stuff that we can think of.

However, we can't decide on the spot so we decided to go back and research on our own ideas and look out for:

1) Benefits

2) Business Model

3) Market Research

4) Customers Profiles

5) Competitors/Substitutes