CS3216 : Week 13
Launch:
Phwee here we go! Received good responses from the laugnch as students were signing up but our efforts could have been more effective if we weren’t constrained by the deadlines. It would be more effective if the launch wasn’t too close to finals! Ok but we still manage to pull through and we need to be thankful for the deadlines because it got us moving and delivering.
Marketing:
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Promotion video
Thank you Sue Mae for helping with the video!
Pasting of posters at strategic locations
You’ll get what I mean when you see it. If not, it means that it’s not strategic enough.
Campaign:
Collaborated with the coffee roaster at AS8. For this campaign, we hid ExchangeBuddy’s poster in AS8 and got participants to guess it. The campaign was effective for the first 2 days but start to die out which made me worried.
Why isn’t the momentum continuing? How can it be more sustainable?
Thus, I decided to give Facebook Ads a try. It drew a few more shares but wasn’t worth the money spend.
Is it that the prize is not attractive enough or is it that Facebook posts dies after 1 or 2 days and the only way for it to be alive again is through re-share or Facebook ads?
If that’s the case, then I must say Facebook is smart because there is a tendency for campaigners to purchase ads to get their campaign running because of the amount of effort being place in organizing the campaign.
Overall, response was decently and we got good traction! And yeh! We managed to hit the user KPI assigned to us by our Prof 😀 .
STePs.
We’re achieved 3rd but it didn’t come easy! Lots of sleepy nights while the tech codes code and I plan and executed our marketing efforts. The week WAS CRAZY because I would have completed 4 modules that week with either an assignment submission or test or even both each day every day all day.
STePs is one of the biggest SOC event wherein top projects will be showcased to the public and it provided ExchangeBuddy with good exposure because there were relevant stakeholders who came for the event. It’s an entire half day of pitching and a good avenue to hone ourselves to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
So now as the course comes to an end…let’s reflect!
What went right?
TEAM! I strongly believe in this because ideas are plentiful but without a strong team, ideas are imaginations, not idealized.
Realigning everyone’s expectations and direction occasionally to keep everyone back on track.
What went wrong?
I’m sure most of us are aware of this
“lean” start-up methodology or heard about such “formats” when building a product.
Yeah, me too but when it comes to the real thing, it might not be as easy as it seems. This is because the “Greed” within us of wanting to build the best, the most comprehensive and most beautiful product.
However, after these few weeks of rampage hustling and discussions, I realized that we diverted from our core of starting simple and ending strong to starting complicated and ending it simple. We didn’t follow the lean start-up methodology and implemented too many features!
Dang, we should have just focused on one first, build it, test, iterate, good? If good, build next, test, iterate, good? Repeat….
Because of overlooking this aspect, my team did not having a decent life coding ExchangeBuddy and I feel responsible for it but I’m glad to have them because we managed to deliver a well-functioning ExchangeBuddy ! This experience has taught me a lot and I feel that I have overcome this greed after being whack-ed by it. As the old saying speaks, a lesson is never learned without a whip !
Overall thoughts:
I took a leap of faith in deciding to pursue CS3216. This is because I come from a non-tech background and this semester is important for me to maintain in the band of my honors degree. However, I told myself that this is the best chance to work with experts and to relinquish a goal that I have set for myself:
to build something not for the sake of building, but for the sake of creating value.
I do want to continue with ExchangeBuddy because I believe and treasure every effort the team have dedicated and I’ll be speaking with them soon. Of course, I would warmly welcome my classmates from CS3216 if any of them are interested to work on ExchangeBuddy or is interested to work towards building something REAL, USABLE, and up in the MARKET. I always believe that the
success or failure of a venture is determined by the strength of the team. In a team, it’s always about us, growing together, and accomplishing great things together!
Before I end off, I would like to thank Prof Colin for overseeing this module along with his awesome TAs who have provided guidance to us throughout this course. I would like to thank my teammates who have been with me because if NOT for them, I couldn’t have made it through CS3216.
Group Project 1: Irvin, Leon, Thant
Group Project 2: Emmanuel, Ryan, Kai Yi
Group Project 3: Ken, Ten, Han Ming
Final Project: Yan Hao, Han Ming, Kai Yi
Thank you guys for your understanding and support throughout this course. Lastly, I would like to thank my classmates too! I have met so many interesting and talented young minds and I’m sure that we will cross roads or might even work together someday!
With this, my CS3216 journey ended. It’s been an eCStactic journey.
Of course, this isn’t the end of everything….
