Final dragon’s den

On twenty-seventh March, we had final dragon’s den to compete with all the young enterprise teams in Kingston university which is a nervous and exciting event to the MACErs. All the MACErs had kept practising for the final battle.

But, I got a serious headache on that day…

Yes, I dressed up a suit, but feeling really ill! (maybe it just showed how nervous I was… )

Afterwards, the dragon’s den began…

le petit sac was the forth team on that day. After hundreds of practices, we did good in the pitching. There are something we learned  from this. For example, we need to react appropriately when others challenge the product and some revises should be done in the future which are better stitching and making the clutch more easier to transform to a fancy bag. When the tough task finished… we feel so relaxed. 🙂

After the final DRAGON’S DEN, Kingston university picked ten teams to have another 2 minutes pitching to all the judges and other participants. And the MACErs got three tickets to attend the second round: HERO, Helping hand and… le petit sac! Of course we have prepared for the second round:

le petit sac in Kingston university

It was a fresh experience to had another really quick pitching in a short time. I think one task in this pitching is just to show our USP (unique selling point); the other one is… to make the audiences LAUGH 🙂 (it is usually my main job). One idea is enough to the audiences who already had a tiring day. In addition, presenting in a humorous way dose not mean you should like a joker. On the contrary,  you should looks serious and confident (I already tried my best and hope the outcome is good enough). By observing other teams, I found that as a young entrepreneur, flexibility in choosing your clothes and the style of presentation is crucial. For example, le petit sac is a luxurious brand. We dressed up with the red handkerchief to match our product (we apply red to all of the images in branding) as well as another team is selling the book for kids. Colourful wear and vivid pitching style is suitable to the product for children. Dressing formally is no longer the only option. 🙂

 

 

 

Heading to London!

Thursday 3 April 2014. Celebrate Enterprise

It is  an annual event in Kingston university to celebrate success and achievement in entrepreneurship and enterprise. Also, Best Young Enterprise Teams 2014 would be announced in this ceremony.

Ruby McGregor Smith, the CEO of  MITIE, shared her experiences and ideas with the new entrepreneurs for encouraging them to create new businesses. However, there was filled with nervous atmosphere in the ceremony (Or they felt dizzy). All the young entrepreneurs expected to know who the winner is…  

 

Finally… le petit sac MADE IT !!!

 

We won two awards:

• Best Young Enterprise Team 2014– lepetit shares this award with Bookworm. We are the two teams which will represent Kingston university to final Young Enterprise competition in May in Canary Wharf (on the other word, we won’t have the Easter holiday…).  
• Dragons Den £3,000 Seed Money 2014- It means we have money to develop our business, refine the product and expect to take back our investments ( It is really a big money for us).

I learn many skills during the process such as turning ideas into business, communications between team mates from different countries and making excellent presentation. There is no fashion designer in our team, owing to this, we make efforts on refining the smart clutch by communicating with the designers. It spent us a lot of time and money to find the appropriate supports especially in a foreign country. Secondary, we come from three different countries as well as endure the pressures from learning and life. In the process, we worked seriously, also, had serious arguments between us. But we dealt with them with a mature attitude. Moreover, Judy, the manager in le petit sac, she is a great presenter who shows me how to make persuasive and attractive pitching.

Now, we have new task-Heading to London for winning the final young enterprise award. It is stressful but exciting to see the best young entrepreneurs in the UK. We will have full supports from Kingston university. With their assistances and non-stop training, it is optimistic to have a great outcome!

GO! le petit sac 🙂

Bye-bye Easter holiday and keep working on… 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dragon’s den x Dragons’ den

This was an unusual day…

 

Something seemed come out in the sky.

Internet in Kingston Hill was crashed; there was no cash in my pocket. This accident deprived me of the right to buy a cup of latte! 😦

and… Mark kept feeding sweets to us in his class in the morning. 😀

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It’s because that…

Dragons’ den was coming!

The show imitated the real Dragons’ den made by BBC to gave MACErs a chance to pitch our business to the investors. Each team could gain valuable feedbacks from the investors after presenting twice to two different group of them in four minutes.

First round

The first round was a disaster! I made many mistakes such as ignorance of key points and no eye contact resulted from feeling too nervous in my presentation. Thanks to my lovely teammate did good job in the pitching. So we still got good grades in the first part.

Second round 

It’s time to make up everything! This time, the body language is good, time control is good and the interaction is good as well. 🙂 The investors focused on our product and we have discussion about the function of le petit sac in this part. Even Judy took off her heels in front of the investors and put them into our foldable bag to show le petit sac combines with elegant and functional.  

Feedback

These are the feedbacks in terms of marketing and branding.

£ Focus on the sales peaks for the investments of advertising. e.g. Xmas and Valentines day.

£ Exposing in fashion magazines and fashion online platforms.  

£ Selling in shops. e.g. Top Shop and Accessories.

£ To cooperate with ballerina to improve the benefits of le petit sac.

£ Register of le petit sac. 

  

15” clips in Instagram

we got video material for our website! 😛

Congrats!

le petit sac and Shenny won the best presentation and best business idea! “Practice makes perfect” Thanks to Judy, Ruie and Mohamed. You are amazing! As Judy said, we still have miles to go. Let’s keep making our product better. 😀

 

Michael Wolff + Wally Olins = Wolff Olins

He is Michael Wolff…

 ©http://www.theguardian.com

He is Wally Olins…

©http://www.designcontest.com

Today it is MACErs’ show time to present our business pitches and branding strategies to Wolff Olins. Thanks Melissa Andrada , Rejane Dal Bello and Andre Campbell for hearing our presentations and providing feedback to MACErs.

Let’s get it started!

After uncounted rehearsals last night, the MACErs gathered at King’s cross station… Yes! there is a platform to Hogwarts School 🙂 

Platform 9¾

 

We queued for heading to the magic world. Different from other tourists, we took a picture together with the luggage van instead of pushing it. Hmm…it seemed like the typical visitors more 😛

MACErs in Maze

Thanks to get lost on the way to Wolff Olins. We saw many beautiful scene. Also thanks to google map, we arrived on time!

Are you oKAY? 

                                       by Rejane Dal Bello 

 It’s Kay!

Yes, It’s me. Thanks to Rejane’s joke. You made me feel less stressful in my part. I was responsible to the opening/ending, persona and journey. I tried to present more convincing and vivid. Hoping that I was not too exaggerated.   

 It’s Judy!

Our boss, Judy, has a brilliant skill in management. In the pitch, she explained the marketing strategies of le petit sac.

 It’s Ruie!

She is Ruei. A talented young lady in design who responses to the part of product. Described the structure of le petit sac.

Feedback

 Melissa Andrada , Rejane Dal Bello and Andre Campbell

The main suggestion is that we should consider about how to create more benefit to consumers such as solving the problem of barefoot on the street in order to develop the value of our product.

Done!!!

 

Actually, it was just 04:30pm.

Thanks Corrine. It is another great experience to present our ideas to a big company. I really learn a lot in the two pitches (include last week in class). Let’s do more preparation to the dragon’s den !

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 It’s worth to have a drink after a tough day 🙂