Student Advice
2022-2024
Please find below a long list of wise reflections from students that participated in the Phoenix Nest project in the past.
Social Enterprise
"Communication with your teammates is perhaps most crucial well when deciding the basic ideas of your social enterprise. At that point, everyone needs to understand the intention." - 81B, 2023
Make sure you have a realistic target audience that wants to buy or use your product or service. - 83F, 2024
"Choose a project that connects with our 'closer community' to create better work." - 81C, 2023
"Work hard in the beginning so that you have a good foundation for the rest of the project and know what your target is." - 81E, 2023
"Your product should be easy to prototype." - 82A, 2023
"Focus on a unique selling proposition. Remove unnecessary ideas/areas of your enterprise that can make things complicated." - 82D
"Create a project that encourages 'good behaviour' to our community." - 83A, 2023
"Have clear ideas on how you want to spend the $2,000 prize money exactly." - 83B, 2023
"For your product to be appealing, you have to explain how your product specifically applies to your target market. For this you need to do research." - 83C, 2023
"The social enterprise must have room to expand its business. Have stretch goals." - 84E, 2023
"Find adults that can help and support you in the project. They will be the best sources of inspiration and information." - 85C, 2023
Advice from individual designers
Build on something that already exists - Anh Thy
All the small parts that make up a social enterprise determine its impact. Everything matters - Buti
Base your idea off a very specific community needs - Allison
There is a fine line between being creative and thinking realistically - Dan
First research what your target community really needs, then research what is already there then design - Laibao
Target a very specific community - JP
Learn from other organisations working on the same social issue - GiYeon
Pitch
Make sure the basic idea of your business is crystal clear to the judges: What do you sell? When? how? To whom exactly? and finally why (who/what benefits)? 85B, 2024
Keep it simple. If you talk about details ... you will get difficult questions about details. 85A, 2024
"Be sure to include statistics to support your motive for your social enterprise." - 81B, 2023
"Practice your script together as a group so you have the right timing and chemistry." - 81E, 2023
"Don’t stress too much when giving the presentation. Everybody in the audience understands that it is hard to do a presentation in "front of lots of people and it’s already amazing you are on the stage, so they won’t care if you make a mistake" - 82C, 2023
"Have detailed research, completely understand your project so you are able to answer the judging questions" - 84A, 2023
"Present information from reliable sources to strengthen your pitch." - 84B, 2023
"Don't leave any gaps in your reasoning because the judges will pick up on them" - 84D, 2023
"Memorize the script so instead of just reading off the note cards you can engage with the judges." - 85D, 2023
"Make sure all team members understand all aspects of the enterprise." - 85E, 2023
Advice from individual designers
What impresses investors in a pitch most is the idea and whether it is feasible and simple - Phong 85B, 2023
Every investor appreciates good data and statistics - Murphy 84E, 2023
Teamwork
"make sure that everyone is engaged, and has opportunities to express their opinions." - 81B, 2023
"Assign each other work at the end of each class so that there is a balanced amount of work for everyone." - 82A, 2023
"Help each other when they don’t understand a task." - 83D, 2023
"Having someone be a sort of team leader is ok. It helps organize the team to make sure everyone is on track and everything is getting done." - 84A, 2023
"Do not be afraid to speak up in your group and do not be too sensitive to feedback or advice. Feedback is not a threat." - 84E, 2023
"Distribute the work equally between team members, adapting the tasks to better suit the skills and strengths of each team member." - 85A, 2023
"A good way to keep in contact with your team is to create a group chat or somewhere where your team can easily connect with each other." - 85C, 2023
Advice from individual designers
"It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed." – Napolean Hill
"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself." – Henry Ford
"Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up." – Oliver Wendell Holmes
"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else." – Booker T. Washington
"Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean." – Ryunosuke Satoro
"Success is best when it's shared." – Howard Schultz