Presentation day

Yesterday we presented our lit reviews. Afterwards we developed our business idea through a workshop.

The critique I received for my presentation was mainly that it lacked a real focus. I needed to sell something better. I agree with this myself, in that I don’t think I really had a business or idea to sell or present, but merely findings relating to pretotyping and lean startup. Stephan also requested a more thorough and visual explanation of what pretotyping entailed. In hindsight, I think I should just have focused my presentation on explaining the concept of pretotyping, and spent all 5 minutes and all slides on that alone. I know that for next time.

Moving on I slowly realized that the focus of my lit review was not really appropriate for further work, that I was really interested in. I saw pretotyping and lean, more as methods to develop and use with another business idea. But the business idea itself was missing.

This brings me back to two projects I’ve been thinking about at earlier points. One I worked on as a project at my home university, but it never really turned out the way I wanted. The other is one I’ve discussed with my girlfriend.

The two ideas are:

• Memento – A product or service helping people create a physical object to pass on to loved ones. This physical object could be shaped with the customer(maybe using 3D scanning and printing) and could contain various curated data, such as audio, text and pictures, that could later be accessed by those in possession of the memento. This idea sprang from my earlier project Keepsake, which focused on capturing the story of important objects inside the object itself, so that people in possession of the object could access these stories at a later time.
• A product or service to help people come to terms with their inevitable end. This could entail mental support, but also help sorting out important matters such as will/testament, saying what you feel is important to say to your loved ones before you pass. A version of this could just encourage people to think about death and certain questions related to it.

I learned that some of the other students currently taking the capstone course, are working on the subject of death, so I might be able to find inspiration or cooperation with those students.

But first I will need to decide which idea to pursue further.