Hello!

I am Say Xian, a Year 4 Mathematical Science student at Nanyang Technological University.

Email: sleong028@ntuentrepreneur.org

29 April 2020

When we first started this, we wanted to do a tracing application that will be use for the current Covid-19 situation. However, when we were exploring the idea, a Singapore tracing application was out and we had to change our idea.

We thought of doing DIY kits and succulents. After further discussion, we decide to focus on the idea of succulents. We came up with a rough business proposal on this, source for the supplier and calculated the cost of doing this idea. We also source for different suppliers so that we can minimize our cost. As there are quite a few companies selling succulents, we need to be ours unique. We thought of buying cute pots and mini figurines to make it unique and hopefully it will be attractive for the consumers.

The current circuit breaker measures implement as a result of the current Covid 19 situation, we decide to pivot our business so that our business can survive if the circuit breaker extends. We saw a problem with the type of resources that students received. As now students are asked to do home based learning, they do not have access to more resources and we aim to change this situation. We came up with the idea of homework assistance where students can post a questions they faced when doing their homework in a Telegram group and there will be tutors to help them.

It was a roller-coaster ride for all of us. About 10 hours left to submit our business plan, one of our group mates told us that he has decided to defer this module. It was unexpected and the other group mates were shocked by him. We got together to discuss what should we do next. after losing a good team member. After some discussion, the rest decided to continue. I am thankful to my other group mates who decided to continue this journey.

Due to the current situation, there is a lot of uncertainty in starting a business right now as the economy is not as good as previous years. Although there is uncertainty but if you never try, you will never know. We hope that we will be overcome any problems faced and be able to sustain our business for long.

It was demoralizing as there isn't anyone who sign up for our trials or our services. I feel that most children already have tuition and they are not willingly to try something. After our consultation, we realize that we could have market ourselves in a different way. It will be hard to convince people who already have tuition to use our service. We should have focus more on trying out our idea instead of selling our services. We are not an established tuition center so it will be hard to fight with other competitors. We decided to approach charity organizations and ask them if we can work with them to teach the children for free. This will be a good way for us to try out and gather feedback to improve our service. We will also be able to gather testimonials from those who tried our services as I feel that word of mouth is one of the best way to market our business. Especially tuition centers, parents will tend to ask around for recommendation of where to send their children for tuition. We will change our approach in reaching out to the public and hopefully we will be able to gain some students soon.

After changing our plan, we email many different community centers and charity organisations, asking if we can work with them to give free tuition to the children. Sadly, the community centers did not response to our email but there were a few charity organisations replied to us! There is one organisation that promote about us in their Instagram page. Our team also managed to ask people to try our service out. It is a good experience for us to test out our methodology and see where can we improve.