Saturday, October 6. Our first MVP launch! We went out and began selling our first order of sunglasses. We were able to sell 12 pairs in an hour and a half at $8 a pair. The order cost us $52 for 24 pairs. After our first day of selling we were profitable! We were able to raise $37 for the American Cancer Society from 50% of our profits and donations we accepted. It was an awesome experience for us.
Sunday, October 7. We sold four more pairs of sunglasses to friends and friend of friends.
Monday, October 8. We met to go over our business model, customer discovery interviews, customer archetypes, and debrief on our first day of sales. We discovered that our customers could be broken into four segments:
- Adults/parents that bought a pair of sunglasses for themselves.
- Adults/parents that bought sunglasses for their kids, or for other people.
- Students who wanted to buy the sunglasses for themselves, because they liked them and the purpose behind our company.
- Students who seemed to only like our sunglasses because their parents were buying a pair for them or were pressured into getting a pair by their parents.
- The student segment who wanted a pair for themselves because they liked the sunglasses and/or the purpose behind our company is the most important segment for us. It is our and most accessible market segment for us. This segment will be our primary focus in future sales, because the parent market was exaggerated thanks to family weekend.
- In our business model our primary weakness is our partners. We still do not have a charity that we can work with in more ways than simply just sending them a check to them of the money we raised. We want a charity that we are able to directly work with and see the effects of that our contributions are making. That way we are able to show our customers that their support makes a difference. We want to create something that matters and not just throw money at a problem that a charity is trying to solve.
- When we presented our model to members of each team in class we mentioned our problem with not being able to find a charity that we could directly work with. Everyone we talked to suggested helping a local charity in Harrisonburg and using that to differentiate ourselves from all of the organizations that support national and global charities. This was a new idea to us and we decided to test this idea in our next round of customer interviews.
- After class we placed an order for 48 more sunglasses from our supplier. This order included 24 pairs just like our previous order along with a dozen aviators and a dozen vintage girl pairs. Our first 24 pairs were just the universal wayfarer style and could be worn by anyone. For our next order we wanted to experiment and see if different styles would work, because the wayfarer style is also the same style organizations give to people for free with their logo or something on them. We chose the two styles after asking over 20 customers, and all the members of teams that talked to us in class today. This new order cost us $122 dollars. We paid extra shipping to ensure we would get the new order before the next football games. We doubled our order to try to have enough inventory to last us more than just one week.
Wednesday, October 10. We contacted Mercy house about partnering with us as our new local charity. We decided to switch to a local charity, because they will be more willing to work with us and more appreciate of our work for them. Mercy House also has a thrift store that we could possibly put our products in and give us a new way of distributing our products. We chose Mercy House, because we had heard how they are very accepting and willing to work with those who support their cause. Learn more about Mercy House by visiting: http://themercyhouse.org/
Friday, October 12. Our new order of sunglasses arrived! We are now in the whole again, but have 56 pairs of sunglasses in our inventory. We are excited for our second big day of selling tomorrow. It will also be our first day of selling multiple styles.
Saturday, October 13. Football game number two and our second big day of selling! We were able to sell 20 pairs of sunglasses. This took out the rest of inventory from the first order, along with 12 pairs from our second order. This order all of our charity funds will go to the American Cancer Society, because that is what we told our customers it was going towards. When we were selling today we continued to use the American Cancer Society, because that was what Rachel chose to say and we wanted to keep it straight which charity it was going towards. The money we raise for our second order will still go towards the American Cancer Society, because of the way we are splitting our profits between us and our charity. Our next order will be our first order raised completely for Mercy House, We are excited to work with a local charity where we can see what our contributions' are going towards.
After selling 12 pairs of our second order we are only $26 away from being profitable off of that order. We still have 36 pairs remaining order which if we sell all of them at $8 a pair will put us at over $200 in revenue! We hope to sell the rest of inventory before the next home football game on October 27. We expect to do this by selling on campus at the commons on campus.
Sunday, October 7. We sold four more pairs of sunglasses to friends and friend of friends.
Monday, October 8. We met to go over our business model, customer discovery interviews, customer archetypes, and debrief on our first day of sales. We discovered that our customers could be broken into four segments:
- Adults/parents that bought a pair of sunglasses for themselves.
- Adults/parents that bought sunglasses for their kids, or for other people.
- Students who wanted to buy the sunglasses for themselves, because they liked them and the purpose behind our company.
- Students who seemed to only like our sunglasses because their parents were buying a pair for them or were pressured into getting a pair by their parents.
- The student segment who wanted a pair for themselves because they liked the sunglasses and/or the purpose behind our company is the most important segment for us. It is our and most accessible market segment for us. This segment will be our primary focus in future sales, because the parent market was exaggerated thanks to family weekend.
- In our business model our primary weakness is our partners. We still do not have a charity that we can work with in more ways than simply just sending them a check to them of the money we raised. We want a charity that we are able to directly work with and see the effects of that our contributions are making. That way we are able to show our customers that their support makes a difference. We want to create something that matters and not just throw money at a problem that a charity is trying to solve.
- When we presented our model to members of each team in class we mentioned our problem with not being able to find a charity that we could directly work with. Everyone we talked to suggested helping a local charity in Harrisonburg and using that to differentiate ourselves from all of the organizations that support national and global charities. This was a new idea to us and we decided to test this idea in our next round of customer interviews.
- After class we placed an order for 48 more sunglasses from our supplier. This order included 24 pairs just like our previous order along with a dozen aviators and a dozen vintage girl pairs. Our first 24 pairs were just the universal wayfarer style and could be worn by anyone. For our next order we wanted to experiment and see if different styles would work, because the wayfarer style is also the same style organizations give to people for free with their logo or something on them. We chose the two styles after asking over 20 customers, and all the members of teams that talked to us in class today. This new order cost us $122 dollars. We paid extra shipping to ensure we would get the new order before the next football games. We doubled our order to try to have enough inventory to last us more than just one week.
Wednesday, October 10. We contacted Mercy house about partnering with us as our new local charity. We decided to switch to a local charity, because they will be more willing to work with us and more appreciate of our work for them. Mercy House also has a thrift store that we could possibly put our products in and give us a new way of distributing our products. We chose Mercy House, because we had heard how they are very accepting and willing to work with those who support their cause. Learn more about Mercy House by visiting: http://themercyhouse.org/
Friday, October 12. Our new order of sunglasses arrived! We are now in the whole again, but have 56 pairs of sunglasses in our inventory. We are excited for our second big day of selling tomorrow. It will also be our first day of selling multiple styles.
Saturday, October 13. Football game number two and our second big day of selling! We were able to sell 20 pairs of sunglasses. This took out the rest of inventory from the first order, along with 12 pairs from our second order. This order all of our charity funds will go to the American Cancer Society, because that is what we told our customers it was going towards. When we were selling today we continued to use the American Cancer Society, because that was what Rachel chose to say and we wanted to keep it straight which charity it was going towards. The money we raise for our second order will still go towards the American Cancer Society, because of the way we are splitting our profits between us and our charity. Our next order will be our first order raised completely for Mercy House, We are excited to work with a local charity where we can see what our contributions' are going towards.
After selling 12 pairs of our second order we are only $26 away from being profitable off of that order. We still have 36 pairs remaining order which if we sell all of them at $8 a pair will put us at over $200 in revenue! We hope to sell the rest of inventory before the next home football game on October 27. We expect to do this by selling on campus at the commons on campus.
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