Working on our start-up, we’ve been gradually adding elements to create value and really work through the steps that real entrepreneurs go through. Today’s lesson consisted of learning about the lean start-up method and the business canvas. We took all the topics that we learned about and exercised those methods on our own product. The business model that we worked with was very similar to the tasks that we did in Management 150 at school first semester, but the difference here was, instead of doing the whole process over the course of a semester, we did everything in a fraction of a day.

Something I learned today is that we all have so much more potential than we think. Instead of second-guessing oneself, it’s important to just try things even if failing is an option. We had to work together in our teams with people we may not have interacted with before this summer and we had to get a lot of work done in a little amount of time. After seeing that we are capable of this, I got a surge of confidence. It sounds like a cliché, but if we put our minds to it and really put in the effort, a lot more than we think can get done.

It’s also very inspiring to see the works of others. In this class, we are presenting everyday our new findings and updating the class. This introduces a type of healthy competition to the groups. Instead of doing the bare minimum as many students do in some group projects, each student is striving to do their best so that their group and their idea looks good in front of everyone. The ability to be the one advertising your product makes you put so much more of yourself into the work behind it. I can now better understand the ways of entrepreneurs since I now understand their connection to the products. It really is their baby. We want people on board, we want people to give us feedback, and overall we want them to use it when it’s finished.

One thing that really gave me satisfaction in the work that we’ve done today, was hearing people talk about my group’s product. Having our peers say how useful it would be or how perfect it would be in a certain context is motivation in a sense. Knowing that it is a viable product drives me to do so much more with this. And who knows, maybe we will be able to take this all the way.