This Term in Innovate Ed, we had a chance to start and run a business with $20 boss. We were showed a video that gave us an insight that $20 boss is a nationally wide program to help students learn about business management. It taught me about teamwork, problem-solving and lots of other important capabilities.

I initially taught that $20 boss was going to be a fun experience and it would teach us a lot about skills on how to manage a business well. I started by creating a team with some of my friends. We had a theme that we would be making some type of accessory ranging from keychains to jewellery. We followed the steps of planning and making our pitch.

I thought that running a business would be a simple thing because of the higher budget we were allowed. Once we started, we brainstormed a few ideas for our business. After that we were starting to make our pitch. I found it difficult to concentrate because my heart wasn’t really into the idea. When we first pitched, we didn’t pass. We couldn’t pass our second pitch either. We all decided to quit $20 boss because we didn’t think it’d be that hard.

I would do things more differently because I didn’t spend enough time planning or coming up with an idea why I wanted to do the product I wanted to make. I didn’t think of a reason why I wanted to make the product. If I did this project again, I would’ve thought about why I wanted to make our product.

I think I was best at the IDEATE part of Design Thinking because I gave lots of ideas to the group when we initially started brainstorming. I thought of beeswax wraps, cleaning, jewellery and keychains. Our group eventually used jewellery as our final product.

I think that I was the worst at Empathising because I didn’t really think about what our customers would want to buy. We didn’t ask anyone if they would buy our product and just went and pitched.

Collaboration and creativity were my two other strongest capabilities that I relied on the most. I used collaboration because I worked well with my group members to come up with ideas for our business. I used creativity because I came up with several ideas of our business which was the one we ended up pitching at first.

I think I could’ve improved on empathy the most because I didn’t think what consumers would’ve had wanted to buy. We were first planning to give 10% of our profits to help pets who don’t have a home. But I thought after we failed our first pitch where that connected into our product. Our buyers wouldn’t understand what the purpose of our product was.

The capability that I struggled with was empathy. I could’ve asked people what they thought of the product. I could’ve also put myself in the buyers’ shoes and thought if I saw that product on sale, would I want to buy it. I can definitely work to improve my empathy skills to better my capabilities.