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TITLE of Company or Mentoring Area:
Entrepreneurship in the New Media Industry (eg “games for kids” … or “Vancouver opera”)
MENTOR:
FLORENCE LEUNG
MENTOR contact:
Florence.leung@peerfx.com (company url: www.peerfx.com)
Industry area: emphasis is not on the industry but whether there is a market need/want for the product you design.
OVERVIEW:
Everyday when you walk into any store you are faced with choosing probably one or two products out of a 50,000-product selection. Have you thought about how our minds are programmed to become aware or a product/brand and subsequently decide which brand/product we want to buy? The challenge is to design something that the market truly needs and will fork money for, not just something cool.
PROJECT or Industry Area GOALS:
The end-goal is to design a service/product that has profit potential. The means to this end are as follows:
- Identify a market opportunity through extensive research to indicate potential market need.
- Designing the product/service
- Testing to get feedback on initial version of the service/product.
- Revise it and devise a marketing plan to connect the finished service/product with your market – in order for someone to buy, they first need to know about it.
PROJECT or Company DESCRIPTION:
Totally open-ended.
IMAGE[s] or URLs that exemplify project concept or research area:
Example: SKYPE
This is a product that targeted a market need at the time it was launched; people were traveling around the world for work and needed a cheap method to stay in touch with friends and family. SKYPE was and still is the answer. It was innovative to use a new medium to connect people – the Internet AND they made it funky as well – see screen capture of site design.
DELIVERABLES:
An idea the team LOVES (trust me the rest of your project will be a lot easier if this is the case), status reports (either bi-weekly or monthly), design requirements document, initial and revised versions of prototype, executive summary/business plan, getting the service to market.
SKILLS REQUIRED:
CURIOSITY – required to develop a good product.
Whatever skills are required to make the idea happen.