What has Demola Taught us?

This blog entry will be dedicated to tell about Demola’s and Business Kitchens in general, and what these great institutions have done for us. Business Kitchen is the place in Oulu for entrepreneurs and startups to work and hang out together, and we don't think there is another place for this purpose at least not one we're aware of. Demola is working inside Oulu Business Kitchen and its' goal is to bring companies and students closer to each other. For companies it offers rather cheap labour to innovate new ideas and solve their problems, as well as showcase the talents working in these teams. For students it offers interesting projects, contacts and place to show ones' abilities and skills. This and much more can be found from Demola’s website www.demola.fi.

Demola team. These guys has helped us a lot during our project. Thank you guys!

Now we will move on to more personal experiences about Demola during our project. First encounter with demola for me (Antti) was when they celebrated their first birthday in Oulu at university. They had cake and coffee and because Antti is into free stuff, he wanted to listen what they had to say. One thing led to another, and a week or two later I found myself from Sanoma accelerators' meeting. As said in the earlier entry there was free beer, and more than that interesting people. Thats one thing about Demola. You meet people that otherwise you would not meet. Plenty of people in Demola’s projects are foreign students so it’s good for your language and you can learn a lot about different cultures.

Since then Demola has kept me busy. I have tried to participate almost every activity there has been including

• Reflection meeting
• No Slide pitching
• Presentation skills by Demola
• Demola Jams

Reflection meetings are the most regularly occuring as they are usually held each thursday after the webinar. These meetings are meant to track our process, and make sure that assignments are clear to us. I think these meetings have been meaningful, although not too many people have been present in these meeting. It’s always good opportunity to see how other groups are doing and get some good advice and peer mediation on how to move forward.

Antti and Janne doing some serious participation in reflection meeting

Other than reflection meetings, and the fact that Antti uses the Business Kitchens facilities almost everyday, Demola has arranged us some interesting events. Pitching events of course are the highlight of the Demola programmes and an occasion to show off your project and progress to various people from demola and everyone else present in the pitching event. There is an entry about our no slide pitch written few weeks ago. Next week we will have our next pitch and probably some material about it will show up here in our blog during the next week.

Front line, suit up, No Slide Pitch

Demola’s presentation skills work shop was probably the best presentation workshop where I have been in. The focus was on developing our pitches and presenting on stage. This workshop was simply brilliant and enabled us to realise strengths and weaknesses of our presentations.

Demola Jam was held last weekend. Two guys Janne and Jere from Demola Tampere came over, and tried to help us in creating better demos and MVPs. They also refocused our actions from thinking and dreaming towards doing and trying things out. Sounds simple enough, but at least for our group it was a good thing to hear again. And again. Most of the times we repeat the same questions without actually doing anything to learn the answers. In Demola Jams we went out and did questionnaires for real people about our projects.

As we learnt in Demola Jams no one cares about your opinion. Didn't say anything about sisters though:

In conclusion, what we learnt from demola is a multiple of things. Besides the occasional food and drinks, Demola and Business Kitchen community has provided us with lots of support and events that have been very useful to develop our project and us as people. Thank You Demola! Keep it up.

Ps. Check how project is doing at www.thefairlabels.com or at our facebook page www.facebook.com/FairLabels

We are living interesting times right now

We haven't been posting anything in a while, but despite that there has been some serious business going on! We attended the Demola's presentation skills workshops, where we were able to develop and practice on our pitches. Also there was a Demola Jam -event, where two co-ordinators from Demola Tampere came here and gave us some awesome tips on how to develop our project. But first things first.

At last we got picture of the whole team!

The last webinar A.K.A Doomsday no. 1 took place yesterday and our team wasn't really sure what to expect. The end of the last week was a kind of a disappointment to us, because we didn't manage to give enough effort to our project. Well, at least Antti worked with our MVP all night long like a workaholic. The main thing that we accomplished was to get into the group of 20.

Got it?

The good thing was that we had been in the list of top invested ideas in Sanoma accelerator for a couple of weeks, and the idea had been mentioned in at least 3 or 4 times. Also our contact people from Sanoma and Demola poured us with confidence and assured us of the faith they had on us. At this point we were quite sure that we had all the tools to make it to the top20. But when Wednesday came, the distrust towards our idea came as well.

The due day of final voting was on Monday and big surprise, NONE of us remembered to give their votes (sorry for everyone about that!). The only criteria to get into the desired top 20 was to get enough those goddamn VOTES we didn't give (SORRY!). That made the Wednesday night super exiting, or terrifying depending on the point of view. But luckily our criteria was the first thing, lessening the nervousness and excitement. WE MADE IT TO THE  T O P  2 0!! And thanks to our votes of the best e-commerce idea (that's our idea, didn't see that was coming?) we made it to the top 10. And we were absolutely shocked.


After all this hard work this thing is starting to pay off and we are now a bit closer (about 200 ideas that is) to our Amsterdam trip. But before a bigger celebration we have to do some more things to get into the top 5, to be the group that is the best of the best. So from now on this is going to be nothing but hard work and pitche$. Like we like to say, make good pitches and money will follow!

The game is on.

Key to success ;)

Weekly assignments 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

We have been talking here a lot about the progress of our project and other things related to it, but one thing has been left without significant attention. They come once in a week and practically leads the way how to construct our idea to its final form. Yes, we are talking about our weekly assignments!

As soon as we attended in this program we got our first assignments. There have been already 5 assignments, one for each week and they are handled us during the weekly webinars on wednesdays (deadline is always on mondays, which is quite strict).

As stated in the first paragraph, the assignments are something that have been the tool to create and construct our ideas to the final product. The first kickoff-assignment kicked us straight to the point, we had to create 3 ideas each related to  E-commerce, advertising and ecosystem enhancement and write down problem hypothesis and riskiest assumption for each of those ideas. On the second assignment we had to consider the questions what is it, who is going to use it and why will it be used?

The second assignment cleared up the first, and we were able to refine our ideas after getting examples of good problem hypothesis and problem hypothesis which would need improvement.

At this point we worked as individuals, but in the third assignment we had to choose our best idea and make the first quick pitch for promoting it. The selection was not easy, because we had two good ideas and we could not make our minds which one would be “the one”. The competition was between Anttis “V-teach” and Jasmins “Life cycle assesment” and if you have read the previous posts, you might know whose idea won (SPOILER: Jazzy).

After we choose our final idea we had to think the MVP in assignment 4. This was simply just testing the behavior of the potential user and thinking of its value proposition, but on the other hand we had to create a prototype of our idea. So we made the first version of our website, which was also a really raw version... but the development is in progress.

Now the situation is that we got the idea, got it tested and even created a prototype of it. But one of the most interesting and quite crucial thing was considered in assignment 5: MONEY! So we had to think how we get our income and what is our cost structure.

NSP equals NO SLIDE PITCHING

BOOM! that was A   S - H - O - W! It was LEGEN- (don’t need to wait for it ‘cause the pitch was 2 minutes long)-DARY! Jasmin just rocked out on the stage. Now that you know what was the outcome, here’s a little story of how we got there.

J & J getting ready for sparring the pitch

All started a week and something ago, with a good ol’ traditional Rock-paper-scissors tournament about who will get the honour of pitching our idea. Jasmin beat Antti right there on the first round. And it was left between Janne and Jasmin. After the exciting final between Janne and Jasmin, Janne was able to break Jasmin’s scissors with the stone-cold rock. Well days went by, and about 5 days ago we started to actually prepare for the SHOW. We went and did something as a bit of an extravagant move, just to stand out and to be remembered. So we came up with a nice, simple flyer with our product name, and our landing page address.

Plan A

Antti is doing some managerial stuff

Two days before the act, we started to practice intensely. It started bit slowly but in the end of the day we were quite confident. We had trained Janne with methods not even Rocky Balboa had. We would still have two days anyways to make our show great. We should have had two days, BUT…. Someone not mentioning any names (Antti) doesn’t believe in having calendar, but is quite a charismatic/dominative nature, so no one is correcting that the pitch really is on thursday.  It was not.  Actually, Jasmin tried to tell the boys, but as she had a lot on her mind, and thought that the supposedly and self-proclaimed more “organized” unnamed team member (Antti) was on schedule. The Pitch was on Wednesday. So we had to pitch one day earlier than thought, due to confusion. No problem! We will have the whole day to figure this out, we have more than enough time. But there was another thing coming, that no one could foresee. Our pitcher (Janne) woke up with no voice. (NOOOO!)

Keep calm and #yolouluswag, so it was quickly decided that Jasmin would vouch in, and she got the honour of pitching our presentation. You would assume that she would get pretty nervous, but Antti sure was more nervous for her and especially for our T - E - A - M. She did get nervous in the end, after the multiple “we are gonna die”-scenes that Antti so kindly provided her with. One of them involving mental instability, one with clothing malfunctions, ranging all the way to natural disasters in the form of earthquakes. But we had a few hours to practice. We got so desperate that we even asked some strangers to watch the pitch, in order to get some outsider perspective and feedback. That was proven to be a good way to ensure that our message is clear enough and easy to understand. Some more practice, suiting up and then it was time to get on stage. In my opinion I think it went smoothly, and we were among the clearest pitches there was.

In conclusion, we let you decide for yourself. Here's a video of the pitch.

Getting a Hang of It (About time..)

This has been an ultimately busy week containing ups and downs and all ranges of emotions. The most important thing is that we got our project back on track, and it can be said that we have been working more intensively than ever before.

The HUGE "to-do" list

The unexpected shock was at this week webinar where we noticed that our idea was rated as “out of scope”. That was a real bomb!! It got us to stop on our tracks and re-think our idea over. We also managed to make it more clear to the whole team of what exactly should we be looking at and from what perspective, and where should it evolve to. Again we contacted Sandra who gave us some great advice. After the last Skype call we had a more clarified vision about how we shall continue.

The validation canvas

Janne taking a closer look

Post-its, Post-its, Post-its

The action took place right away and we decided the final form of our product. We also started to develop a prototype of a website to our product and the first version was ready by the same day. We ended up forming an MVP, which can be seen in:

http://yolouluswag.wix.com/fair-labels

We also formed a questionnaire, which is currently available:


https://docs.google.com/forms/d/122EKQ5m80ONg0Xlko9KMWVMPRIQDzsn850Zyl2Nx-I4/viewform

Go and take a look! :)

And at the end of friday we received an email which stated that our idea is in scope! That was a huge relief and the greatest thing is that for now on we can fully concentrate fully on our idea developement. 

THE e-mail

Time to rest..

Getting back on track

Last week and half our team have been bit lost with our project, but still there is some progress to report. We decided to focus on one idea that we think is our strongest: project name "life cycle assessment". We have also been able to clarify some aspects about this. Some practicalities such as playbook (project plan that is) and contract issues has been taken care off. We have been able to fulfill given assignments on time and just today had meeting with Sandra via skype. So things could definitely be worse.

"This needs some serious action..." 

Still there is room for improvement. We haven't been able to but as much working hours to our project as we did earlier weeks. Just two days ago we were able to do our first questionnaires and publish them. Also creating a minimum viable product has been somewhat painful so far.

...And the action took place

There is sight of light at the end of the tunnel though. First of all we still have time. Almost one month before first elimination round is done and the 10 best ideas chosen. Pressure is rising steadily, but no panic, not yet at least! Second good sign is that after yesterday’s webinar and skype call with our mentor Sandra, we have been able to but some things together.  We now have much better vision about doing tests and using and creating minimum viable products (MVPs) than we did  before. Third and the most important thing is that we are getting our spirit back. No time to be grumpy and feel sorry for ourselves, now it's time to start some S E R I O U S   A C T I O N and raise stakes, if we are going get Amsterdam to win this thing.

Our goal is clear and we have chosen our best project. If the witch of our team doesn't put us into an oven too soon I think we have a really good shot of making it.

Working can be sometimes quite tiring

"You should now move your focus on your teamwork rather than other amusements. Regards: Your bank card"

Our team mascot

As all excellent teams, we also have a mascot. It is a gorilla, which we infamously named Late. He’s a celebrity himself. Late helps us with our assignments, and provides us safety and support. He always roots for us, and keeps our meetings on track.

Late not happy with us discovering his hidden banana

Late's hidden banana

At the same time however, apes are the most innovative animals on the planet and come up with many creative ways to entertain each other and find shelter and nutrition for themselves. Our team including late, is dedicated to eating everything edible in sight.

Our team's boost = tea

Then, a little bit about our team habits. We like to drink a lot of tea while we muse upon great ideas. We calculated to have drank already 500 cups of tea whilst working on this project. Our main interaction happens through face-to-face communication, and hence we have created a secret greeting between the team members. Other outlets of communication include skype and watsapp. The usage of watsapp has been detrimental for the functioning of our ideas, and watsapp has been “ringing off the hook”.

Late's sleeping tree

In the Business Kitchen, the Demola space in Oulu, we have conquered an office room for ourselves. The truth of the matter is no one else has been in the room so far, hence the conquering…

Besides all happy games, we have had some major philosophical conflicts within our team. The conflict has evolved around one subject mainly, whether life beyond this project should affect our teamwork. Antti strongly believes that our lives beyond the accelerator programme should not affect our teamwork. He believes school comes second, whilst Jasmin believes that it’s the other way round. Janne falls in between, what ever that may be? We do think this needs urgently to be solved, and we think a sword tournament is the way to go. Pictures to be posted by Janne, if he survives.

  

Late displaying some SWAG 

Late watching over our ideas

We also have created a couple of “inside” jokes. The inside jokes mainly deal with Jasmin being the only woman in our team. Within the team we have accused her of sorcery, as she continues to fatten us up by buying or baking sweets.

Sometimes it gets pretty exhausting..