It was an incredible end to this module! It was a truly eye-opening experience to be able to conduct this business for six months. I felt proud of myself and my incredible team to showcase something worthy for the business showcase.

Since the presentation was just around the corner, I started working on the financial documents such as the P&L, cash flow and the balance sheet. I had to look into tiny details such as the payment transaction fees to calculate the cost of goods sold. I worked on various parts of the presentation and I tried to keep it concise. We actually ran into a problem where our QR code stopped working as the hosting website had made the qr code expired but I quickly solved the problem by activating the free account, however, it only has a limited number of scans.

My family got tested positive for covid hence I wasn't able to attend physical meetings and we did the meetings through zoom. I was tasked to look for gifts that we can give for the buddy campaign giveaway. I looked through various online platforms to look for trending stuff to give the giveaway winners. Additionally, I had consulted with Aruna for the transaction fees of the instalment payment gateway Atome and we agreed their fees were reasonable. On the influencer end, we managed to get a reply but our budget was too limited to entertain the influencer's cost. We planned as a team to release the google ad which Aruna designed but I decided to pause it after nine days as I saw that we were not getting a good return in investment. However, we have plans to resume it with a better-optimised ad in the future. We were actually contacted by a ecommerce aggregator called Una Brands. Me and Nila were quite excited to get on the call but we decided that we would do it after the presentation.

Saraca Store & Marketing

Aruna designed the flyers that we had planned to distribute within NTU halls. As the person in charge of the financials, I decided that we should only print 200 flyers as opposed to 400 at the start as I wanted to make sure it was proper. Nila had then introduced Saraca Store to the group, the initiative by the hall committee in Saraca hall to encourage entrepreneurs in NTU by providing them with a platform for the businesses to gain exposure from NTU students. It was a key opportunity that we took eagerly. However, it was still a challenge to get the whole product ready by the time the store opened hence we rushed everything, from the marketing materials to the instructional QR code. Aruna had to edit the flyer design to include the Saraca store and I agreed to print in a higher quantity as we need to get the word out as soon as possible. The store only lasts for about 2 and a half weeks, I quickly worked on the QR code for the instructional menu, printed & laminated the marketing materials and displayed it in the store. Additionally, I worked on packing the product so that 4 of the fully packaged product will be on display for the students to take a look at. I suggested that we should give a student discount for those who choose to buy it from the Saraca store as I believed that it was crucial to make the students feel like this is the best deal possible as it is through a student-led initiative. Usually, student-led initiatives in NTU comes at a subsidized price and I wanted to capitalize on that. We decided to give a 5 dollar discount on our cups which is roughly 17% off the usual price. I checked in on the store once or twice to see the crowd level and engagement.

Team

We had a little discussion on a particular Instagram post idea about menstrual cup usage's superiority over other products and we were discussing whether it would come off as arrogant as a brand. It basically portrays pad users as "peasants" but it was meant to be satirical. I was for it as it was edgy and in the end, we decided that it was okay for the time being as we still have not expanded our product line yet to products such as eco-friendly pads.

Influencers

Me and Deen researched various influencers that we believe would work well with our brand and compiled a comprehensive list.

Packaging

The packaging size I had originally bought was too small. This came off as a shock as in the official SingPost post it mentioned that it would be big enough for our package. I had to buy new sizes of the poly mailer at the last minute to send our first two orders as it was getting delayed. I had to write down the address manually but we had planned to print it out later on.

We had the photo shoot today and it was a fun experience but the photos didn't turn out as good as we anticipated. They were blurry as we didn't make full use of the lighting equipment and we didn't exactly know how to use the camera right. The learning point was to know when to hire a professional. On the other hand, we managed to gather quite the following for our Instagram page. I shared the Dawn cups Instagram posts quite intensely for a week and I managed to inspire/convince a few of my friends to follow the Instagram page.

I carried on my task to research trending music, videos and skits on Tik Tok and started looking for influencers for us to message to get brand deals for our business as this is paramount to get more eyeballs on us and learn something new. I had planned a logistics workflow on how Deen and me were going to transport the lighting equipment to and from Aruna's house and discussed it with the team. This was important as I didn't want to spend additional money on delivery and late fees due to a shortage of manpower. I had sent the team a video of the lighting equipment to ensure that the whole team was familiar with the setup hence causing lesser delays.

I looked into the delivery options and I chose to use the small size poly mailer with the bubble wrap. We had a meeting with Deen's sister in law who was a digital marketing expert and she gave us useful tips on SEO, tik tok and Facebook/Instagram advertisement. This meeting taught us to try to find our unique selling point in order for us to leverage it when we promote the business. A similar issue was brought up in a meeting with Roderick earlier- The need to find something that is unique to help our business stand out from the other menstrual cup brand.

These few days involved critiquing the design of the stickers and a few captions for our Instagram page. We had a meeting and I was tasked to look into Tik-Tok trends, SEO. and the logistics of the lighting equipment collection to and fro from Aruna's house. WE MADE OUR VERY FIRST SALE TODAY AS WELL! However, it was Aruna's friend but it got the ball rolling. It was exciting to receive the news that someone actually wanted to buy from us. This was thrilling and encouraged the whole team to work hard.

We had decided that looking at local suppliers was futile and we chose an option we found in shopee. We decided that we rather just print stickers to paste on a full white box that we can buy cheaply from Shopee rather than buying 500 boxes and having to wait months to receive them. We ordered only 20 samples of the box first to double-check the quality and aesthetics.

We had a meeting today to discuss the ads strategy, the Instagram social media management and google Adwords. I had taken up the task to explore different packaging options with Deen as we had not decided on our packaging option yet. This was a time-sensitive task as CNY was upon us and we didn't want that to delay our packaging arrival time. I researched a few options but a lot of them were affected by CNY and MOQ. Deen had managed to call a few suppliers as well, while Nila and Aruna looked for Shopee options that we can make use of. We were only looking for 50-100 pcs of customisable rectangle/square packaging. However, there was a high MOQ and long lead time for all the local options, so we focused on Shopee options. We brainstormed ideas for the advertisement and we took the direction of keeping the ad less informational and more eye-grabbing. However, we had not decided on where we would display the ad. The lighting equipment was decided as per my suggestion. We had rented a full lighting package from renticolous for one full day. It was a good deal and we could take numerous shots with the different artificial light settings instead of relying on natural light

We had a meeting today to sort out and debrief some issues that happened during the photoshoot. We also talked about having a proper product photoshoot, later on, to post for the product photo on the website. We had discussed the camera, studio, and accessory options required to make it happen. We decided that the photo studio might be too expensive according to my research as one photo itself was costing us 30 dollars. We decided that we can do it in a homemade photo studio in one of our homes. Deen suggested that he can borrow his brother's camera, hence we didn't need to rent that out. I was tasked to find out how to use Deen's brother's camera, the set up of our product photoshoot, the lighting options, accessories and to set up a mood board. I looked into renting out a studio, but due to lack of experience in the studio, I decided not to as we might not have time to figure everything in 1 or 2 hours.

Today was the day of the photoshoot and I had gotten up quite early. I wasn't able to use public transport to get to marina barrage that early as I lived far away, so I took a cab there. I was quite nervous and excited at the same time as this was our first photo shoot. The models were very friendly and were cooperative. Aruna led the direction of the poses while I and Deen supported her in the logistics. I was trying to get the models to feel comfortable with the company as we would also like for them to vouch for our brand in the future. The photos turned out great and we ended up getting content for a few weeks to post for our Instagram as well as the website.

We had a meeting on the 20th of Dec regarding the photoshoot. We had discussed the theme/colour of the outfits of our models, location, logistics of the day as well as the props needed. I started enquiring about photographers on platforms like Upwork and fiver but I had not gotten a good response yet, so we went with an established but slightly expensive photographer. I had contacted one of my friends who had modelled in photoshoots before to help us out with the Dawn Cups photoshoot. We talked back and forth with details and the direction of the photoshoot. I was pleased that my friend Winnie was so excited to be part of this project even though we only paid for her transport, food and one menstrual cup as compensation. This only cost the team about 35ish dollars which is a lot cheaper than hiring a freelance model for 3-4 hours. It was a good opportunity for us to catch up and it was an overall pleasant interaction. Aruna had contacted her friends as well and we finalized three models and one photographer for the day. We made a telegram group to distribute the information and also take in queries from the models before the photoshoot. It was efficient and made the models feel at ease.

We had a meeting today to discuss the pouch options and the exploration of email marketing. Nila travelled to India during December, so she took advantage of the sellers in that country and sourced for a cheap and quality pouch in India itself. I suggested that for Mailchimp email marketing purposes, we can use another e-commerce website building platform than Webflow. Me and Aruna came to a conclusion that we can use Squarespace and we had also found a student discount, This was a cost-effective and more convenient site builder than Webflow. I continued researching more on Mailchimp and how we can send automated emails and garner more people to our email list. It was quite an interesting task to find how exactly we can attract customers and provide them with the required knowledge and care to make the purchase through email marketing.

Today was the day of the consultation. We had a meeting with Roderick and Adrian. We had useful insights and harsh truths to reflect on after the meeting. My main takeaway was how to maximize learning in this module and a reminder to be more pragmatic in the business. Nila created all the social media accounts and I was excited to share it with a few of the people around me.

The payment was made to the American wholesaler and the products are currently being shipped to my address. I am relived that we are going to have the product on our hand after weeks of researching and discussions. I am really glad we went with the American manufacturers as that is very important for the customers to know that it is a reliable product. Even though it is 3-4 times more expensive than Chinese suppliers, I think we made the right choice.

I had spent these days to find a supplier for the menstrual cup who was not from China as I thought a Chinese product maybe not have credibility as compared to other countries such as the USA, Japan or Germany, I went to search the depths of the internet to source for a relatively cheap supplier that can accommodate to our required product specifications and also has a reasonable minimum order quantity. This was a hard task as the wholesaler options for menstrual cup outside of China was scarce. The other team members had suggested a few suppliers as well, which I took note off. I had gone through numerous pages of google searches to collate a list that contained sellers from Germany,Italy,USA and New Zealand. After a thorough evaluation of the material specifications, prices, moq as a team we decided to go with an American manufacturer.

Fruitful discussions took place during the meeting on the 22nd of October. I took on the task of buying the custom domain address and the email in order for us to sound credible to the various parties that we would be liaising through email. I took on the task to find suppliers that were not from China as I realised that the credibility of the product is very important. I looked into sellers from other regions and some of them looked promising. There was a particular american manufacturer that got back to me through email and we had discussed the requirements for the menstrual cup. However, the cost was a lot higher than anticipated, hence we are still in discussion.

I believe that we all put in a lot of work in the two days leading to the presentation day. The day of the presentation was slightly nerve-wracking as I wasn't sure whether my financial projections were realistic enough. I was keen on completing this presentation and actually moving on to making the business. I was confident that our presentation was going to arouse a lot of questions due to the nature of our product. The questions we had received from group 2 were some of the things we had considered in our own discussions hence we were prepared to answer them. A few takeaways from the meeting was to start early on our wholesale purchase, be able to conduct credibility checks on the manufacturers and finally be more realistic in the effort needed to start the business.