Entrepreneurial Startups

A new bike helmet won the James Dyson Award with its unique property. It is a foldable helmet made out of recyclable material. The idea is that the helmet will be storable in a vending machine, so riders don’t need to worry about carrying a bike helmet at all times.

The design of this helmet could be a starting point for other types of environmentally friendly, disposable products. The coating which is used in the helmet resists rain and moisture and is biodegradable. Therefore, it would also work on other appliances. I think this product contains a lot of innovative ideas and it costs less than $5.

There is an informative page about EcoHelmet on the James Dyson web page

There is an interesting art project on Kickstarter that merges a small Zen garden with a coffee table. The table is a soothing machine to watch, it draws circular patterns on sand, which is enclosed by a glass surface. The project has gained $1.9 million so far and had a lot of backers. I think this would be a great addition to a coffee shop. It could add a lot to the tranquil atmosphere and provide some entertainment for the customers as they are sipping their coffees. It could also attract customers out of interest into the shops. Of course, because it is magnetic, I am not sure if it would be wise to place a cell phone or wallet on this kind of table.

Recently on Youtube blog, there was an announcement about a virtual reality version of Youtube. The new application is available for Google’s headset, Daydream, and supports playing back virtual reality videos. Users say that the experience of watching a video this way is more immersive than watching it on a TV screen. Also, having no obstructions in the way makes the experience more engaging. The Daydream headset is a simple, and cheap virtual reality solution and currently only Google’s new phone Pixel supports it. With the help of Pixel’s motion sensors and fast graphics abilities, it should be possible to place the user in the middle of movies and other entertainment content such as concert videos and games. I think using phones for virtual reality video is a good idea, and combined with other technologies, could provide a new way for us to view images. Imagine using a drone while watching what it sees in VR, or being able to look around your house remotely with two cameras to check what your pets are doing. Google seems to have a good idea here.

IBM Watson for Genomics is a DNA analysis software running on the cloud. It can analyze genome data and estimate mechanisms behind tumors. Currently, researchers are training it to recognize how brain tumors, leukemia, and other cancer types work. IBM Watson is then going to help researchers by recognizing disease and genome information, going through the patient’s health record, comparing the case to literature, and finally, suggest the best treatment approaches. The article is here.
I think this is a significant step for cancer treatment. A typical doctor has very limited knowledge about maybe one type of cancer, even if he reads dozens of books and articles every day without sleeping. Compared to 50 million articles per second speed of Watson, this is next to nothing. Having Watson assist doctors by at least making a better assessment of the patient’s situation, while evaluating everything about a patient, would reduce wrong treatment and loss of life to a minimum. I hope eventually this is accessible to everyone and helps diagnose and cure other diseases without human error.

Tufts University researchers have developed a technique to use the stitches on a patient to monitor their health. The stitches used in the device are made from carbon nanotubes and contain a variety of chemicals. Each element lets the stitches detect a different property, such as temperature, strain on the tissue, or chemical balance. By combining a variety of these threads with a small circuit, doctors can monitor a patient’s status as long as the stitches stay in the operated area. This site contains more details on how the technology works.
I think this is an elegant technology. Once this technology is mature enough, a patient can be sent home after surgery. Her phone can then pick up vital signals from her body and send it to the hospital for monitoring. It also means no more expensive and bulky health monitor systems that have to stay with a patient for a long time, limiting the capacity of hospitals. It improves the quality of life and should hopefully make medical costs less over time, due to the simplicity of the technology.

The article by Will Grice from The Sun discusses the recent change that Netflix are making to enable customers to download content that they would be able to watch offline.
Listening to the founder Reed Hastings talk about learning and growing constantly with the consumers, I found it odd to read that Netflix held such a harsh position for few years by not allowing customers to download content for offline viewing. Even after Amazon Prime launched such service and customers repeatedly asked Netflix to follow, they held their position and didn’t agree to make the change.
Nevertheless, Netflix is working nowadays to implement the change in service and was finally convinced to allow offline viewing, which initially would include mainly original Netflix productions and will preserve the focus on the company’s main advantage.
Eventually the whole story of Netflix’s success is based on learning their surroundings, courageous actions and feedback.

In the business world all companies should watch and learn from companies like Netflix. New and established companies should develop strong basis of principles that would lead them but at the same time be willing to adept and change in order to stay vital. Entertainment companies, different services and even retailers should keep updating and learning from their customers’ feedback otherwise they would be vanished by the competition.

Netflix is getting an OFFLINE mode and it’s going to make a lot of people happy

http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Why-Netflix-Won-t-Let-You-Download-Offline-Viewing-84077.html

A new startup company co-founded by former Google employees, named Osmo, is building an augmented reality game to educate kids on running a simple business. Pizza Co. is the name of their latest game, and the company has previously developed similar games to teach programming, drawing, and math before it. The company website is here

The game makes the kids build different types of pizza from cardboard cutout pieces and handle payment and change. The Osmo camera on the iPad on which the game runs then picks up the shapes and gives animated feedback to the kids, teaching them math and shape recognition skills.

I think this is a smart idea, to educate kids about money and transactions in early ages. If they learn the necessary skills early on, they might grow into more responsible adults and have the simple understanding of how money and transactions work in business. It is an essential skill later on in life, and making it into a game which uses physical objects is as close as it can get to the real learning experience at young ages.

So the new playstation is about to come out, and this is the first ever game system in the untied states where all the games are virtual reality. Every time a new playstaion or xbox is released if you don’t buy it the day it comes out it will be sold out for months. Basically if you don’t camp outside your local game store, and be there the second the store opens you will not get the new playstation. I remember when the last playstation came out I waited in line for hour and once I was almost at the front I sold my spot in line to someone for $400. Also my friends dad who actually stayed on the line and bought the playstaion ended up selling it on ebay that very same day for $2000 dollars. It’s just crazy how much time and money people will spend just to be the first ones to use a product, and that alone can create opportunities for people to capitalize. I’m also concerned/excited that if virtual reality is now possible what other innovations may be following the release of the playstation VR.

I have been seeing a lot of stories lately of people raising money on this website called go fund me. So basically you go to this website post a blog describing what your cause is and how much money you need to achieve whatever your goal may be. People all over the world can donate money to your cause via paypal, and leave friendly messages. This is very innovative because literally anybody can start any cause or business, and actually make it a reality with no kind of experience nessesary. My friend Dblock made a Go Fund Me account to raise money for his friend who has cancer just to buy him his dream bike. He was able to raise the $700 dollars in less than 23 hours, and got his friend the bike he always wanted. Now he has a new goal where he is trying to raise 150 thousand in order to buy special bikes so that disabled children with limited mobility can ride bicycles. here is a link to the story behind his friend who had cancer.

 

In the past two weeks or so I ran into a story through social media about a guy that delivered his resume to potential employer inside a doughnuts box in order to catch their attention and create an “out-of-the-box” (J) experience to make sure he stands out when considering him for the job.

It made me think about us as aspiring entrepreneurs that will write probably more than one business plan throughout our career and what we can maybe do to make it unique and appealing to investors. I think that if we consider the resume example we can probably think of all sorts of exceptional ways to make our business plan more creative during this class and to make sure it stands out when we approach investors in the future.

 

These are the links to the resume story and two articles about creative business plan ideas:

https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/this-guy-hides-his-resume-in-boxes-of-donuts-to-score-job-interviews

https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/how-to-write-a-creative-business-plan-in/22923754275

http://www.wonderlass.com/blog/how-to-write-a-business-plan-for-creatives-a-free-template/