$20 dollar boss is a nationwide program that tries to get younger students into the business world by allowing them to create their own proper running business. For my group and I, we started well but as the project went on we were starting to lose passion in our product and this project. We decided to stop the $20 boss and move on to the different options for our next destination in Innovat[ED]. We lacked drive to continue on with our project and we were struggling to gain the motivation and belief in our product.
Initially, my group and I were stumped as to what to do and at the end of the second lesson after nearly two hours trying to think of something we came up with a product we thought would be good, a recycled plastic basketball rebounder. We first thought this would work perfectly and we thought it was going to take off, all until we found out it was already a thing and would be expensive to make. We worked hard to come up with a new product and came up with acrylic key chains in the schools colours for sports, houses and many more things. We started to lack drive and belief and were starting to want to opt out of the project.
Things changed at around one week before pitching week. We finished our pitch feeling proud however not right about doing it and we were not feeling like we actually should have done the pitch. We now have finished our debating on whether to keep going and decided to take other routes in Innovat[ED] and to stop doing our project in $20 boss.
If I was to do this again then I would probably chose either a better product and a better choice of time to start cracking down because we only started doing proper work in the 3rd week for some reason because we were unsure of what to do, unsure of how to start and not quite in the right head space. I would want to research products already made, research price of materials and what alternatives we could have for our failed attempts in making products.
Design thinking is something that I can be good at sometimes and bad at other times. The part of the process that I believe I am best at would be the creativity when my brain is on and I decide to crack down and get my work done. I am able to think of designs for different products and how to make it better and new or innovating. I try to make different designs and ways to make things differently.
The part I feel that I could improve on and I struggle with is the define part where I have to put all of the parts of my project together and define my terms and outcomes that the path we take will show us. This includes defining problems which sometimes can be difficult for me because it can be hard to put my finger on what the actual problem is.
I was able to use my creativity skills to work hard to create another product and create different parts and ways to make my product including laser cutting and some other not so strong ideas. I used my innovation skills to innovate making different ways to create the final design even though we didn’t go through with out project after the pitch. I was still able to use these two capabilities to create our idea and method to make our product or good.
I believe I could improve on organisation to make it easier for my group and I to work on the project. I would have been able to have the things I needed in the right place instead of my group and I having to re-do our things and planning sheets because my group members and I lost the document or piece of paper. I can improve on this by making folders in my computer and getting some folders or plastic sleeves for the different periods.
Even though I wasn’t motivated and didn’t want to continue this project I still was able to learn some valuable skills and tricks to keep as my life goes on. I learnt about project management and was able to learn how to lead and manage a team during a big project with planning, teaching and even learning as a leader. I was able to learn how to use my creativity skills in different projects throughout my life.
My $20 Boss project was unsuccessful however it was a good learning opportunity and made me understand business and entrepreneurship more.
