The beginning of travel.active

travel.active for active travellers

Although I didn’t initially choose Leadership and Innovation, it soon become the class that looked towards the most. The class really enabled me to get hands on with the learning, which meant starting a business.

For this project, we were able to access $50 per person if we pitched a business that has potential. This is a bigger budget from the $20 BOSS ($20 per student to create a business) that we were used to. Meaning that we were also intrusted in making a business of a higher quality and one that can sustain itself in the future.

Thanks to Mr Mayhills, we utilised the Microsoft Planner to ensure that we don’t slack off and use our time wisely.

Initial Planning

We made Ikigai ( a Japanese concept that means “your reason for living”) to figure out the direction in which we should head in. This really helped to narrow down the type of business I was looking to create.

This was a new process to me as I have never done an Ikigai before, but I was really able to find a business idea in which I would actually be happy in doing.

Samantha Smith and I had planned to work together before we started doing the Ikigai. Our Ikigai’s were very similar, meaning that our interests overlap and we wouldn’t be bored while working on a business together.

What to Offer?

We knew that we wanted to target the sporting industry, but didn’t know what to do or what would be needed. So we brainstormed resulting in a the long but informative discussion. We used some of our personal experience to figure out what we might offer to the sporting world. Samantha suggested a southing product made out of Aloe Vera as she usually gets sunburnt when rowing. Finally realising that we would need to either make products that consumers can use on their skin or a pouch that they can take anywhere with them not both. After re-evaluation, a easy to use and aesthetically pleasing pouch would be fit for us to focus on.

While creating a OneNote collaboration page, I accidentally made a typo resulting in it being the business’ temporary name.

Product Design

Now that the direction of the business was chosen, we now needed a product to put out. While looking at pouches on the internet, we picked up the best features of each and noted the areas where it was lacking so we wouldn’t make the same mistake. We also noted that many people carry their phones with them wherever they go, so a separate compartment was made to accommodate most phones.

Many different sketches were made before deciding on what type of pouch we were looking for.

Our next priority was to find a decent fabric to go along with the cool and trendy style. Looking through many different websites and types of fabric, we decided on the leather look fabric.

After getting a rough idea on how our pouch was to look like, the next step was to actually make a template that we can use.

We also had to take into account that the pouch needs to be big enough to hold all essentials to active life but also be compact enough to carry easily. Once we found the balance, everything else fell into place.

Re-branding of KiTS

Thanks to Mr Mayhills, Samantha and I were able to create a better name and a logo to match our business. When deciding the name, we needed to ensure that when consumers saw our name they instantly knew industry we belong to.

Cost Prediction

Once deciding on the materials and where to source them from, we made a projected overview of what our budgeting would look like.

We used this to figure out if our business was going to be too expensive to run.

Summary

This process has taught me that everything takes patience, dedication and a clear direction in which to head to. Without this travel.active may have never been made. It also gave me an insight into how things are run in a business and a lot of things done are actually planning before the actual final product can be made.