I had the pleasure to have one to one calls with 4 entrepreneurs between 14 march 2020 and 15 march 2020. Overall, all the project leaders have made a very good progress. Here are the details:
Meeting 1: @mohamed75 Colex (Egypt)
Overall Mohamed has made a very good progress since the beginning of OCI Lab program.
Here is a description of the progress made so far:
- The customer discovery has been correctly done and the problem and solution have been validated with the customer segment, i.e. Poultry farmers who need the product to save money given the high cost of electricity and the burden related to gaz bottles.
- Colax has created an MVP of a new product that will be used by residents. The prototype has been tested and adjusted.
- Colax has received an order of 50 units and they need money to rent a workshop and to buy some raw material to start making the quantity ordered.
- Patents request have been submitted.
- Marketing remains a weak spot. The good thing is that Mohamed is aware of the issue and they started working of the brand, logo and products’ packaging. More efforts should be dedicated to preparing a marketing strategy.
Meeting 2: @saif.eddine.laalej Zelij Invent
Customer discovery has been conducted which allows to validate the problem and the solution and to narrow the target market by getting rid of the government and focusing on architects and real estate companies.
A manual prototype was created as well as the molds however, the machine is not yet created due to funding problems, which prevented the team from being able to create the first machine made prototype and to test it.
In this respect, Zelij received an order to equip a new parking.
Overall Saifeedine and his team made a good progress both in the technical and business sides. Next steps will be to get an international certification to be able to sell the product and abroad.
We discussed the next actions that will be undertaken and we agreed that Saifeddine will update the action plan taking into account the progress made so far.
Meeting 3: @HadeerGhareeb Didi Asks
Haddeer and her team made a good progress and almost all the actions in the action plan have been done according to the indicated deadlines.
The customer discovery is done during a big event on female entrepreneurship attended by more than 6000 people. The target customer segments, i.e. young active adults, is validated and their problem and solution as well. They have identified another customer segment, i.e. university students. However, a different product should be created with different questions and a lower price.
100 copies of the game have been printed and the packaging improved.
We discussed the marketing strategy. According to Haddeer, offline marketing is the best way to reach the target customers however due to Corona Virus threat; all the actions planned are postponed. We discussed how she can take advantage from the situation and use the social media to promote her product including using other social media such as Instagram to reach the target audience.
Meeting 4: @Hsan Haddar Lexi Aka Spellit
The prototype has been created and it’s currently being tested in a dyslexia center. The risk related to corona virus spread prevented Hssan and his team from attending the test, however they will get a feedback as well as video recording that would help them refining the prototype.
Also, the good thing is that they have received a preorder of 40 units. The revenue model is also very interesting. In addition to the main game, customers can buy new add-on modules.
Currently funding is a real issue. The team needs the money to pay the prototype development fees and to proceed with the go to market strategy. In this respect, I advised Hssan to work on the product branding, community management of the FB Page and how to articulate the different actions of the marketing strategy.
