By Alaina Randolph and Suhani Ramchandra
Dear Codeista,
Bloom is a 4-day virtual startup competition for high schoolers that aims to close the gender barrier in tech. We both had the wonderful opportunity of taking part in this makeathon and spice up our quarantine! Although business is a pathway we hope to pursue in the future, we never had the hands-on experience that we received from bloom. For the first time we built an entire business from scratch- all in 4 days!
Beyond this we had the opportunity to research the education industry and understand the twists and turns of how it must adapt to the changes of students needs, especially with the integration on technology during the pandemic. This is where we found the roots of our business. As resourceful the industry might seem, it doesn't place enough importance on business, a major component of the economy. To combat this we created Business Bound, a mobile application that offers resources and mentorship opportunities to students interested in business. As we like to say "Let us help you take leaps and bounds in your business education!"
Day 1
OPENING DAY! We listened to Ms. Nita Singh Kaushal speak about her initiative, Miss CEO, where she empowers young women through mentorship and leadership opportunities. This was such an inspiring talk and really set us up for the day! After this we went straight to brainstorming trying to find problems that faced the world of work and productivity, and then planning how the next few days would go. Once we narrowed down our idea, we created a Google Doc outlining what each of us would do and how fast we would have it done. The outline proved to be really helpful in meeting the deadline.
Pro tip: ALWAYS make a plan. Even having a basic outline of what you plan on doing is fine. Having a plan means staying organized and building a basic structure of how you want your project to progress.
Day 2
Today we finished the bulk of our startup by identifying key features of our prototype and going through the nitty-gritty statistics and trends of the education industry. We tuned into a business plan workshop where we sharpened our business savvy skills! The rest of the day was spent grinding on our business plan, pitch deck, and prototype. There was also a major downside. Today Alaina got "injured" playing soccer. It was an issue with her hip flexor, but after treating that at home, she was able to finish most of the framework for the app in Unity. Although she wasn't too pleased with what she did, she didn't know how else to put our idea into a visual that she would have liked. Nevertheless, the final product was still something that made us proud.
Pro tip: Take time in building your brand. It all matters: logo, tagline, and even your color scheme. Suhani spent most of her time developing the business aspects of the business, but made the fundamental mistake of rushing through the logo. Although it was able to get our message through, she could have made it more appealing and meaningful to the brand. Make sure all the elements of your startup come together to tell a story!
Day 3
Today was much lighter. We were able to complete the prototype, business plan, slide deck, and script so that we could have something to go by for our presentation. Then came actually recording the video and submitting the presentation minutes before it was due. We love that last-minute grind! Check out some slides from our slide deck below.
Although we didn't win, we really enjoyed the experience and "stress" it put us through. It made us think about how and what we could contribute to the business sphere. Apart from all the technical details, the most important lesson we learned from this was to get out of your comfort zone and try something new.
We want to specially thank the amazing organizers Trishala, Anika, and Mihika, for making this such a memorable experience. We never saw ourselves entering the entrepreneurial realm and here we were watching our own business bloom!
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