Category: Thoughts

Why is failure a good thing?

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Hello everyone! We are just about wrapping up the semester. But before we go, I just wanted to share my thoughts about failure and why is it (in most cases) a good thing. I just have a few takeaways that I would like to share and hope it would be of help to many of you reading this.

Most of the entrepreneurs or new startups are always afraid of one thing; Failing. They are afraid of investing too much time, effort and money in a venture or idea but end up failing and losing everything. But what many do not understand is that failing early in a venture or being unsuccessful is not the end of the road, but it could be a start of something better. Failure does not mean you wrap it up and do some mediocre because you are not good enough but it is simply a learning step in a long road ahead for success. Some points from my perspective about failure I would like to share are below:

  • The most important thing to understand is that failure is a learning experience. There is a very famous quote from Thomas Edison ” I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”. This quote to me summarizes failure. Think of it is an experience so you know what to do better the next time you try again.
  • Another thing is to not put all your investment and effort in an idea right away. You should always test the water first. That is why there are concepts like prototyping or soft launching. You need to see if the idea will get the same response as you are expecting before diving right in. This move will reduce the risk.
  • It does not matter if you enter the market first or if you have created a product that does not exist yet. Its all about executing it perfectly for it to be successful.
  • If you have received a not so positive response, do not let your pride or ego let you pursue it for a longer time. It is better to scrap the idea before risking big and come up with something new.
  • The market does not care about anyone. They only care about what suits them in terms of price and functionality of the product. In order to reduce the risk of failure, we need to focus on the failure by following the guidelines of design thinking so we have a better understanding of what the audience needs.

I would like to leave a quote from one of my old bosses and this quote has always remained stuck in my head because it is very inspirational. It goes “It is always better to take a wrong decision early than a right decision too late”.

Vision for Chai Shai!

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Hello everyone and Happy Thanksgiving to all celebrating!

So by now, me and my partner are pretty much set and confident with our product going forward and we firmly believe that it is a product that has its own market and could be an actual success, something that did not look possible going back a month.

After some more customer feedback and modifications to our design accordingly, we have created a product that will cater to specific consumers in the market. We have modified the product from just another machine offering chai through packed flavor pods to actually using the real open chai leaves and giving authentic flavor of the chai.

In my previous customer feedback, we realized that customers would not pay for a product if it offers the same taste that any other basic machine does through either tea bags or pods. They wanted the taste of actual open chai leaves. That is why we modified the product to focus on that core area.

Going forward, we have decided to create an infomercial/video explaining the product and focusing exactly on how and what this product will bring to the customers. After showing our video, we work on the feedback that we will receive from our classmates to review if they understood the product and focus on the positive and negatives to further fix/modify the video or the product.

These suggestions and minor changes will help us in our quest to making a viable product for the market!

Stay tuned for our infomercial and final look of the product!

Thoughts on Agile & Scrum

Agile– I prefer to look at Agile as a methodology that is used mainly for project or product management purposes. From my understanding, Agile is a methodology that is based on iterative and continuous developments. In other words, Agile is a process by which a team can manage a project by breaking it into several steps and teams. The advantage of using this process is that it makes the project easier to manage and control. I do not think Agile is restricted to only software development. It is a project management tool with different methodology that are and can be used in different industries as well.

The process involves the customers as well as the team members at each iteration of the process. It begins with the customer describing the kind of product they need and the team members working collaboratively in achieving the tasks and keeping a close check after each cycle interval. Breaking the cycle into different intervals makes it easier to analyze and overlook the process and is easier to find any discrepancies, if there are any during the process rather than at the end. The teams are divided with every team and their members focused on their specific roles rather than the entire project, thus making it not overwhelming.

Scrum– As explained very clearly in our article https://www.cprime.com/resources/what-is-agile-what-is-scrum/, Scrum is a subset of Agile. Being a part of the Agile methodology, Scrum basically provides the steps for using the framework effectively divided into collaborative teams. It defines the roles of the teams and divided the workload for effective results. Scrum describes a set of time, artifacts, and roles that work together to help teams structure and manage their work. The scrum makes the process simpler, gives you more control of the project, enables quick deliverables and room to improve, along with quick and less time driven changes or developments.

There are 3 main roles in the Scrum process; ScrumMaster, Product owner and Team. The ScrumMaster is the one in charge of running the process and making sure everything goes smoothly. The Product Owner buffers the Team from feature and bug-fix requests that come from many sources, and is the single point of contact for all questions about product requirements. The Team is a self-organizing and cross-functional group of people who do the hands-on work of developing and testing the product

For my own project for this class, I believe I can implement some aspects of Scrum rather than Agile because I am a one person team and breaking my project and following the steps of Scrum could to some extent be more beneficial for me.

Customer Feedback for Chai Shai!

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Hello all! Hope you are all doing well. This week I will elaborating my discussion with the targeted customer for whom I initially designed the product. The conversation was really helpful for me in evaluating the product design and the basic idea going forward.

Target Customer: My wife

Questioner: Me (Saad)

Scenario: Romantic Candle Light Dinner (At home- Not so romantic actually)

*Beginning the conversation*

Question 1: How often do you make chai? Is it always the way you want it to be?

Answer: Once or twice a day. Most of the time, yes. Sometimes it is undercooked or overcooked but for me personally it is fine. My husband is the best and makes the best chai (She might have said that last line).

Question 2: Do you ever feel like you get frustrated when your chai is not right? 

Answer: Yes, when I’m really craving for one and it does not turn out right. But it rarely ever happens, mainly because I have been making chai for years now. I have experimented a lot before finally finding the right mix. It gets frustrating when I have to make chai for a large number of people. It gets tricky then cause a lot of the times the proportion of water and leaf is not right. And when that is correct, I sometimes face the problem of over or under cooking it.

Question 3: But you are content with the way your chai turns out for yourself individually? Your proportion and cooking time is good for you? 

Answer: Yes, I feel content and am happy with the way my chai turns out, most of the time. Sometimes it does not but I change things up next time to make sure I do it right. It is not that complicated, it is all about experimenting.

Feedback until now: There isn’t such a problem but rather an inconvenience. The customer doe not feel like the rare occasion when the chai does not turn out right is a problem as she addresses it and fixes it the next time. It is an inconvenience but not a problem. The problem sometimes is when making it for a larger group.

Question 4: Why do you have a problem making chai for a larger group? 

Answer: The problem with larger groups is finding the right proportion of leaf and water and a bigger problem is knowing when the chai is completed.

Question 5: What do you consider a large group? 

Answer: 4 or more people.

Question 6: Have you ever looked for a solution to this issue? Maybe a machine? 

Answer: There are no machines for chai like there are for coffee. Coffee is easier to make because you just need the right temperature for it. That is why there are coffee machines are everywhere. Where as brewing chai is a different process. It is a little time consuming and every brand or leaf brews a different way. That is why there are machines for teabags but not for open leaf.

Question 7: So you have not looked for an alternate solution? Or a method you prefer to use to try to achieve consistency? 

Answer: I have a designated spoon to pour leaf in the water and a water pouring jug. This has brought in more consistency in terms of getting the proportion correct. Other than that, no I have not because there are not alternatives to the way I make my chai.

Question 8: Is there any other inconvenience you receive while making chai? 

Answer: Not really, I love making and drinking my chai with my husband. He is the best (Again, maybe she said that). The only little issue is the time it takes to make it sometimes. And you have to pay attention to it while you are making it. So if I am late for work sometimes, it gets a little frustrating. If there was a machine like a coffee maker, that I just press the button and it prepares my chai while I get ready for work, that would be great, But I don’t think a machine like that could work cause there is no consistent taste for chai. Everyone likes it differently brewed according to their taste.

Question 9: Hypothetically speaking, if there were a machine that would make chai the way you like yours with open leaf, would you be interested in it? 

Answer: I am not sure, it would depend on how much it costs. I might be but I also like making my chai myself, so I am not sure.

Scenario: Going to wash the dishes now

*End of Conversation*

Feedback and thoughts: 

This was an interesting conversation and really gave me the right insights about the product. One thing is for sure, she really loves me as she keeps mentioning it during the conversation but as for the product, her problem is not really a problem but rather an inconvenience. The issue mainly is when making it for a larger group (not always) and the bigger issue is time consumption, especially when she is running late.

My product as of now does not seem to be addressing any of those issues. The customer does not seem too bothered with occasional under cooking of the chai. She would rather have a solution that would deal with larger groups or save her time.

But it just got me thinking, it does affect her sometimes but that is because she cooks chai quiet often. She has been for years and experimented a lot before finally getting right. But if there is someone new or someone who does not cook it often or someone who loves chai but does not know the right way to cook it, would my product be better suited for that audience?

For now, I will be working on an idea to try and work on a device that would work as a machine to save up time. And since people like it a certain way, i.e. strong, medium or light, it will have those options incorporated as well. This way the customer can just press the button and the chai will brew while they can work on their stuff instead of paying attention or waiting.

A different problem that came up was the disposing of the tea leaves after the chai is ready. Maybe some kind of reusable tea leaves or composite instead of throwing it away.

Lets go back to the drawing board and try to address these problems that I have learnt from the conversation.

Stay tuned for updates on this project!

 

What is Innovation?

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How would you define innovation? Innovation nowadays is used very casually in companies. Every company tries to showcase themselves as an innovative company and every applicant emphasizes on them being very innovative. But it feels more like the word innovation is very overused and its purpose is not fulfilled.

Innovation does not mean coming up with a new or creative idea all the time. For me innovation means outside the box thinking. It could be a new idea, something that does not currently exist or it could also simply be an idea of doing something that already exists in a better, more efficient way. Innovation could be an improvement in a current system, anew way of doing things or it could also be introducing something new entirely. In basic sense, innovation simply implied to thinking differently from the conventional mindset.