It is now day 2 here at the Acorn Aspirations Accelerator. So the day started at Central Working. At the beginning of the session we had an inspiring talk from a 16-year-old entrepreneur called Itay Pincas. He talked about his life as an app developer, tech entrepreneur and digital adviser. He described his love of technology and how he learned coding and showed us the apps he created. His entrepreneurial journey started at the age of 10 when he started to learn to code. He came up with an idea that he was passionate about, searched on Google and found mentors, which eventually led him to create his first app called My Quick Fingers. He is now working on many things, for example he recently did a TED talk in Jerusalem and was listed in Forbes’ 30 under 30 list in Israel! One of the key things that I have learned from this amazing talk is what to do and what not to do when you have an idea. Things you must not do when working on an idea include rejecting or criticising ideas. To develop an idea is to work as a team, set deadlines, use mentors and, most importantly, to make it fun and enjoy the journey!
The second thing we did today was continue with the design sprint we started yesterday, this time applying it to our ideas. My group is working on a Virtual Reality Escape Room. This involves solving educational puzzles and questions related to a certain subject. However, one of the problems we have faced is thinking of a problem. This workshop helped our group think about actual problems people face and to look at them from different perspectives, such as teachers, parents and students.
In the design sprint workshop, Andy and Dave talked about finding the problem and the solution. They used an example of problem statements and solutions. Also we used “When______ I need ________so that_______.” This is so we can understand a problem from a customer’s perspective. One crucial point I learned is the key communication between a customer and a company. There was a case study of how Facebook Messenger interacted with their customers to improve their app. The problem was that users were not sure when their friends were online or when they are going to send their messages. The solution was to display the Messenger sign whenever a person is online. Communication with your customers is crucial when building an idea!
Towards the end of the day, we had a talk on business by Max Kelly. He is the managing director of Techstars London, which helps entrepreneurs build their companies. Max said it’s important to think about the pain of your target audience and what they are going through when developing an idea. In my group, we focused on the pain of three types of audiences: parents, teachers and students. From the student’s perspective the pain might be a dry and unexciting experience that can lead to lower engagement in the classroom. Another key point from Max’s talk is that entrepreneurship can be difficult and many startups fail. But he also said the amazing thing about being an entrepreneur is the journey itself, not the outcome.
By Leslie Sarango
Also published on Medium.