I’m currently taking a course called Ideation (MEME2614 for the interested ones), one of our assignments was coming up with an idea and answering some questions in different areas. The areas are: Idea, Industry, Market, Founder and Financial.

When you have an idea, or come up with something that might be innovative, there are so many things you forget to think about. Doing this assignment and being forced to answer the questions it makes you either believe in the idea even more or rethink it completely. The different areas all had 5 questions each. 5 questions seem easy to answer, but it wasn’t that easy after all. And at the same time, it makes you understand that there is more to think about than just the idea itself. Having a project plan and doing research are keys to making it work.

I appreciated this assignment, even though I struggled with it. And if you are interested in a fun course within entrepreneurship, this is the one to take, you won’t regret it!

Hi dear readers!

Just wanted to share with you about our exciting coffee business we set up in city a couple of weeks ago. We were a group of 6 colleagues, Robin Lindelius, Angelina Mallo, Marcus Olsson, Erik Wedin, Sara Österberg, and me, Johan Jonsson.  We had a lot of fun and got a nice experience within setting up a micro startup company. We managed to get sponsored by a engineering firm called Fexxet, they supplied us with coffee and the brewing equipment we needed for our sales and in return they got advertisement from us.

We initially started selling the coffee at Slussen, because of the high rate of people passing through. Later on we moved to Medborgarplatsen, because we noticed not enough people stopped to buy coffee at Slussen, probably due to the fact that everyone was in a hurry to get to work. 

Incidents that occurred were as follows: We gave a begging woman one cup for free, because we are good hearted. One cup was not payed for, because the customer said the payment was completed in Swish, but unfortunately it was not. We started selling each cup for 15 SEK, but decided to go down to 10 SEK when we noticed the demand for that price was very low.

Our results:

Costs: 61 SEK (paper cups 50 SEK, milk 11 SEK)
Income: 145 SEK
Profit: 84 SEK
ROI: 137%

Just finished reading two interesting articles on the subject of Opportunity Screening, very good reading for any potential entrepreneur with a few minutes to spare!

The first article was “The 2-Minute Opportunity Checklist for Entrepreneurs” by Daniel Isenberg. It captures key aspects worth pondering before you set off on your entrepreneurial quest. It entails quick and important questions every entrepreneur should ask themselves early on to avoid failure.

The article can be found here:
https://hbr.org/2010/03/the-2minute-opportunity-checkl

The second article was “How to Assess the Market Potential of your Idea” by Darren Dahl. This article is focused on how you can research the market potential for your thought of product or service in a short and effective way, whilst at the same time stressing the fact that you cannot possibly get all the data before you actually jump in to the fray yourself. Very good to get your mind thinking about what type of market research should be done in the initial phases of you start up.

The article can be found here:
https://www.inc.com/guides/201109/how-to-assess-the-market-potential-of-your-new-business-idea.html

Hi everyone!

Some of you might have already read about a couple of us taking the course going together to the same startup-event, StartUp Bar Stockholm, organized by ‘Starta och driva företag’ and I wanted to make a post sharing my experience and thoughts of the event with you.

This was my first time attending a startup-event and I have to say that it was very exciting and thrilling. As this was a new thing for me I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the event but my main focus was to go there and try something I haven’t tested before and also gain some knowledge from it.

The first thought that entered my mind upon entering the event was that the crowd there was a bit older and from different walks of life. There were all types of people there, from those looking for additional members to add to their startup to those looking to showcase their inventions and innovations. During the event I had the privilege to talk to many different people, one of them was a physician who was showcasing a laser device that he claims aids people’s recovery and helps with any type of pain one might feel in the body. He talked about how the use of this sort of device was very common among American athletes and that he was looking for a partner to help him with the distribution of this device. Another person that I talked to was a tech guy who was working on developing a very interesting and fun app that can be used for creating music.

All in all I had a very lovely time at this event, I got the chance to speak to a lot of new people and get inspired by so many of them. I think one of the main points that I will take with me from that event is that networking is a vital part of being an entrepreneur or actually it is important for everyone looking to further their career and create exciting opportunities. As I’ve mentioned earlier, this was my first time attending a startup-event and I really enjoyed it so I definitely want to go to many more of them in the future as well.

All of the attendees got to pick out stickers to wear that best described why they were attending the event

Thanks for reading! 🙂

Houda Abu Zeid

This weekend I tried the startup Bzzt. Bzzt is like a taxi company but cheaper, it cost 3 swedish öre each meter you go. The vehicle you go in is quite small, they call it a”pod taxi”, and it only fits 2 persons in addition to the driver. It is not as comfortable as a normal taxi but since you only go short distances with it it’s acceptable.

I think this is a really good choice in comparison to a normal taxi. One of the biggest pros being that it is environmetally friendly, the vehicle is electric and is charged with environmetal friendly electricity.

Searching for inspo? Then keep on reading !

There are so many inspiring free events that you can find on Facebook in Stockholm. It’s a great way to get inspired from different people with different backgrounds, broaden your network and find partners!

As my friend Tanya wrote in the blog we found the information about the StartUp Bar at Best Western and hotel. I recommend you guys to go, they have more upcoming events:

4 Oct: StartUp Bar Stockholm 

https://www.facebook.com/events/1959593377589638/?acontext=%7B%22source%22%3A5%2C%22page_id_source%22%3A617894338286329%2C%22action_history%22%3A[%7B%22surface%22%3A%22page%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22main_list%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22%7B%5C%22page_id%5C%22%3A617894338286329%2C%5C%22tour_id%5C%22%3Anull%7D%22%7D]%2C%22has_source%22%3Atrue%7D

I thought I could share some information about other events that I found interesting :

21 Sep: SUP46 Masterclass – How to Start a Startup by Founder Institute

https://www.facebook.com/events/1942657369327748/?acontext=%7B%22ref%22%3A%2244%22%2C%22unit_ref%22%3A%22related_events%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22[%7B%5C%22surface%5C%22%3A%5C%22permalink%5C%22%2C%5C%22mechanism%5C%22%3A%5C%22RHC%5C%22%2C%5C%22extra_data%5C%22%3A[]%7D]%22%7D

27 Sep: Startup Tour Stockholm

https://www.facebook.com/events/1412633575481448/?acontext=%7B%22ref%22%3A%2244%22%2C%22unit_ref%22%3A%22related_events%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22%5B%7B%5C%22surface%5C%22%3A%5C%22permalink%5C%22%2C%5C%22mechanism%5C%22%3A%5C%22RHC%5C%22%2C%5C%22extra_data%5C%22%3A%5B%5D%7D%5D%22%7D

3 Oct: SUP46 FemTech #8

https://www.facebook.com/events/166536547233219/?acontext=%7B%22ref%22%3A%2223%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22null%22%7D

Hope to see you there! 🙂

/Farzana

Yesterday I used the startup Karma.

It is an app for preventing food to be wasted. Restaurants, grocery stores, cafés etc. can connect to this app and give an discount fresh food that has not been sold during the day.

Then you clan click on the specific food and “book it” so you can collect it in a given time.

I think this is a really smart App that more people and restaurants should be using and I can really recommend it!

One problem I find with the app is the bad quality of the map and the web app in general. The map get stuck when you try to move and the app is really slow.

The founders should maybe also go out and reach more businesses to join or make the businesses that already have joined to use it more frequently. It is not much food to be “saved” each day and I think it is a lot more that can be advertised for.

Karma make their profit by taking a percentage of each sold item for each business. This might be a reason for the business not selling all their food on the app. A possible solution might be to take a fee to connect to the app or a monthly fee, so the businesses will join and once they are in, they will sell out all their leftovers for the day!

Så fungerar Karma

Hello everyone

Last week, we were given the task of selling coffee at a public place and to be honest, we were skeptical at first about how will it go. Initially our team (Me, Pallav, Suvansh and Saksham) had decided to sell coffee at the Stockholm University in one of the weekdays. However, after much discussion, we decided to sell coffee at Lappis- the famous student accommodation of Stockholm.

We chose Saturday morning as an ideal time to sell coffee due to the fact that people (read students) generally tend to return home tired on a Friday night and the first thing they would want on a Saturday morning will be some coffee! Also, with so many students in Lappis, we felt we could attract a wider range of people there than in any other place.

Since me, Pallav and Suvansh are part of KTH Formula Student team, we saved quite a lot of money in arranging the thermos, cups and milk (from the garrage). The only thing which we had to buy was the coffee and we already had sugar cubes in the kitchen!

As per the guidelines, we accordingly set the price of the coffee as 5 SEK and accepted cash/swish.

We had only four people in the first one hour, but a change in strategy which included accepting payment by pant (cans) worked for us and after 3 hours we had sold 23 cups in total!

Little microeconomics from our venture-

Price of the coffee– 56 SEK
Other prices (milk, table, thermos, cups)– 0 SEK

Price of 1 cup– 5 SEK
No. of cups sold– 23
Price of 23 cups– 115 SEK

Total profit– 59 SEK.

It turned out to be quite a good experience and much better than what we had thought of initially. If you are from Lappis and want to make some money, you know what to do!

Thanks for reading.

Sourjya Chowdhury

Hello everyone! I just wanted to share with you guys about my experience i had at a start up event.

On 6/9, me and some of the other course members went to an startup event that was held at Best Western and hotel in Stockholm. It was an event where people who would like to start a company, or have already started companys could meet and mingle. It was very fun actually, i was a little bit nervous at the beginning because all of the people there was 30 years or older and i felt so little and young. But it also made me realise that I dont need to panic if i want to be an entrepreneur, I have lots of time ahead of me.

At first people were a little shy but then after a while we started talking to alot of people. Most of the them were looking for a partner and others were there to get inspiration. I met I guy who had developed a music app for children and he was from Britain and he was at the event looking for a partner. Another guy sold a laser device that was supposed to took away pain from you body and he sold it to clinics. He was also looking for partner to join his team. Another guy i met was from France and he wanted to start something own. But he didn’t have any idea and he was at the event looking for inspiration.

A good advice I got from a guy at the event was that if you want to be an entrepreneur then start with something you are really good at. That’s when you are going to succeed. And he also told me that i can’t fear failure, because some people need a couple of failures to succeed.

To sum it up, the event was very helpful and fun and it made me realise that networking is important. And if you want to be an entrepreneur then you have to leave your comfortzone.

Have a nice day everyone! 🙂

//Tanya Syed