My first InnovatED course at All Saints’ was $20 Boss, and I really enjoyed the experience. We were given $20 to run our own mock companies, complete with interviews, production, designing, and a long-awaited market day. I feel like the freedom we were given to create our companies based on our interests and strengths was what made the subject so enjoyable. I have learnt many skills related to economics, leadership, and marketing, and I feel this course has given me a taste of the real-life bustling business world.

Design Process

In starting our $20 Boss course, we first learnt the importance of how to empathise with a target audience. We were introduced to a bunch of quirky characters played by our teachers. We empathised with each of the character’s problems – whether it be arthritis or vegan cooking struggles – and tried to visualise a product that would help that specific person. In doing that, we followed the ‘Customer, need, insight’ process, in which we would define an idea that would solve a customer’s problem for a specific cause. This taught me the importance of having a very specific target audience, as with a wider target audience, a product’s effectiveness wouldn’t be as high as it has to accommodate to more peoples’ needs.

My business idea was based off my interests and skills, alongside an issue I was passionate about. First, I made a brainstorm of those things in the photo above to generate a few ideas for what my business might be. After some thinking, I came up with the idea of eco-friendly anime products, which birthed the marvellous ‘company’ of Econime! I collaborated with a fellow CEO – Angelina – who’s company was Japanese-Style Fans, which I thought worked perfect together with my idea as anime originates from Japanese culture.

I empathised with my target audience – anime and franchise fans. Fortunately, I am quite familiar with my target audience (I might consider myself a bit fanatic over anime and videogames), and I knew one thing that every fan wants are figurines or collectables to show off. The problem with this, however, is that these figurines are often made of plastic or other materials that are unfriendly to the environment.

One solution that involved my drawing skills are to sell figurines made of biodegradable materials such as paper and card. This solution works as it doesn’t compromise the quality of the artwork, and it saves the environment just a little bit in the process! Prototyping this was easy as I have already made a mock figurine for a gift even before I thought of the business idea. Going through the design process taught me how to make an idea the best I can, before putting it into action and making it reality.

Diary Logs

After every InnovatED session, we wrote down what we achieved towards our goal of building Econime. Please enjoy reading the outline of my InnovatED experience below!

Session 1: Today we planned our Scrum Sprint – a plan of each step of the way to create our business displayed in an organized fashion. We then allocated roles to maximize our time with each person’s strengths and weaknesses. After that, we simply started creating more prototypes and products – we drew and designed for the rest of the session.

Session 2: In this session, the main thing we did was receive our group’s 80 dollars. We had to present our costs and calculations for each product and our plan on how we are going to spend the money. After we received it, we continued production – finishing the drawings and designs from last week. (Angelina and Ashton were absent this session due to COVID.)

Session 3: In this session, our production was slightly impaired as two members (Me and Angelina) were absent. However we listened in online and communicated via Teams and OneNote. At the start, 2 guest speakers provided insight on how to effectively market; we took into account the logo and overall stall design and how we could improve according to the speeches. After that, Ashton, Amanda, and Angelina continued production by continuing to draw. I wrote the process of how to make the figures in the OneNote, then continued to draw. Finally, we all planned what we were going to achieve in the school holidays – our main focus is to continue production of the figures and fans.

Session 4: In this session, we went straight into production. I distributed tasks that needed to be completed according to the scrum sprint. Angelina drew some designs and worked on the poster for advertising. Amanda worked on making the stand for the collectables to be aesthetically appealing. Ashton drew a design for a figure. I then photocopied more of our original artworks for faster production and experimented with how we would present the products to the buyers (it was difficult as there were many printing and technology problems that had to be sorted out at Nexus). Finally, Angelina took the prints home to be laminated.

Session 5: In this session, we went straight into production. I experimented with paper bags for packaging but decided against it as it was taking to long and was too complicated. Instead, we planned to buy the bags and possibly stick our logo onto them in the future. Angelina laminated 3 drawings of each drawing, a total of 18 which took half of the first hour. Amanda was printing all of our drawings and logos. She turned the logos she turned into stickers which we will use as a backup plan. Amanda and Ashton cut the drawings to size, Angelina laminated them and then Amanda and Angelina cut the excess lamination sheet off. Ashton started to draw more small anime drawings.

Session 6: In this session we started the production process again. Previously we decided to buy some bags from a store instead of making them which we brought in for this session. The bags were aqua, blue, pink and yellow coloured, they are also made from paper. Amanda created stands for all the drawings. She also did all of our printing for the whole session which was quite a lot, she also assisted Angelina with a bit of the cutting out drawings.

Session 7: Amanda made and attached all the stands for the figures. She sorted and printed all of our drawings and helped cut the drawings and card to the correct size. Angelina did lots of the cutting for the drawings, figures and the laminated drawings. I designed how our stall will look like and where the products will go, I also brought in the paper bags for packaging. Ashton brought in the logo stickers he designed on photocopy paper. He also designed 2 new drawings, one with colour, one with no colour. He also outlined and touched up on some of our other drawings.

The Week Before Market Day: During the week, the team took home all of the unfinished products. Everyday after school, we would spend our spare time making the products. This included photocopying, drawing, and making the figures. We organised roles for each person to focus on one aspect of marketing during the day. We prepared the float and the stall decorations along with our clothes. We communicated on teams and video-called to make sure everything was running well.

Market Day! In the morning when I got ready for school, I brought my anime shirt to wear (it had a print of Nezuko from Demon Slayer) and a simple headband to match the theme of our company. When I first arrived, the team had already started setting up the table. After setting up our stall, we were ready to start selling. The entire hour was super fun and the atmosphere felt so lively and bustling with everyone’s stalls and customers. We fulfilled our roles as we discussed previously – my role was to advertise our stall and bring customers to buy our products. It was a jam-packed hour – slightly stressful – but it was a very wholesome experience to spend with my friends. I would definitely want to do it again, and not to mention, at the time I am writing this, we made $339!

Profit Calculations

Production Process

My process to make a figure takes anywhere from about 10 minutes to hours based on the quality of the drawing. An upside of the process to made a product was that it was practically costless as the materials used per product were very cheap e.g. small amounts of paper, card, lamination and pencils.

First, I would generate an idea for a figure either to be either fanart of a popular franchise or a specific artwork commissioned by a customer. I would then start sketching small and rough thumbnail plans of what I want the final work to look like. Then, I go through my drawing process – sketching, inking, and colouring using various mediums. Finally I cut out the artwork and make it into a figure by attaching a stand and putting final touches such as lamination.

ASC Capabilities

During our $20 Boss experience, I believe we have used almost all, if not all the capabilities displayed on the ASC Capability Wheel.

• I used leadership in assuming the role of the CEO of our mock company, I got to guide my team of 3 in assigning tasks and making sure everything runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible.
• We used self-awareness in providing quality customer service when dealing with customers – I explained aspects of our company while maintaining politeness and friendliness, and I was persuasive without being pushy.
• We used organisation to always be on top of all the tasks that we needed to do as a team, and completing them before the date we aimed to finish them.
• We were resilient for the problems that arose and we didn’t let it affect our performance.
• We used creativity in going through the design and production process of our products and company.
• I was inquisitive in how I wanted to solve a problem I was passionate about.
• We used problem solving in the design process of our company, along with solving our (very few and minor) disputes within the team.
• We used collaboration in working harmoniously with our teammates.
• I was ethical during the process as we donated 10% of our profits to charity.
• We used effective communication by setting up an active Microsoft Teams chat, we voiced our concerns and ideas on how to improve our company.

What Went Well, What We Could’ve Done Better Next Time

I feel like in this experience, many things went well. For example, I greatly enjoyed the entire course – I got to express my creativity, earn some money, donate to charity, and talk to people and friends, all while doing one of my favourite hobbies – drawing anime characters! I believe we made a generous amount of profit and I learnt and enhanced a lot of my skills and capabilities mentioned above.

I think what we could’ve done better next time is to have more effective communication. I believe an increase in activeness on our Teams chat would’ve made production a lot more efficient as I would’ve had access to more ideas quicker. I also think in that time span we could’ve drawn more products. We could’ve also focused our art towards simpler (think Chibi style) artworks of very recognizable characters. This would make our stall appear to more franchise fans while also taking a shorter time to draw them. Another thing I might want to try in the future is digital drawing, as it is more efficient and eliminates the cost of materials such as pencils and ink.

Product Photos

Final Word

$20 Boss gives you a small taste into the busting real world of business, all while teaching valuable working, creativity and interpersonal skills. I would highly recommend this course to anyone who wants to take the role of an entrepreneur and earn some money, all while having a great time to express your creativity and talk with friends and the world around you.

Saskia Catalan

Make sure to visit our website! –> https://econime.carrd.co/# (Amanda made the website :D)