Hello all,
As our final class approaches, this blog post will talk a little bit about my entrepreneurial journey and some of its biggest takeaways, as well as some of the highlights and lowlights of the class and the whole process. The class has really flown by - it seems like not too long ago that we were packed into a room in Giannini, and no we're hours away from doing our final run through in front of the class. I can say with certainty that I've learned a lot. I'll first be talking about the most important takeaways from the entrepreneurial journey.
Find the perfect balance between ideal and practical. I believe that a big part of the entrepreneurial journey is compromise. You're always going to have an "ideal" situation, an "ideal" product - given infinite time, resources, this is the best product you can design. But there are always restrictions. One of the big things we learned how to do was compromise between our ideal vision of the project and the vision that we could realistically create and implement. One big example of this was when we were debating about whether or not to choose CRISPR as our patent. On one hand, all of us were very excited about the visionary technology and what it could mean if it was developed further. On the other hand, that vision was many years of R&D and a lot of investments away from becoming a reality - not the best choice for a startup to tackle. And, in that case, we had to sacrifice our ideal choice for a more practical choice - a patent we were almost equally excited about, but one that was far more realistic. That's not to say you should always give up and pivot at the first sign of trouble, but I think it's important to go into the entrepreneurial journey with an open mind and the willingness to change or stand firm, given a certain situation.
You don't always have to meet all your deadlines, but you have to set them. To clarify, I am not saying that it's ok to miss deadlines because you're being lazy or because you choose not to do some work on time - that's a recipe for disaster. I do believe, however, that when something comes up, it's ok and even important to deviate from schedule. The key, however, is to HAVE a schedule in the first place, so you can always come back to it. For example, after switching patents, we fell 1-2 weeks behind every other team that had stuck to their initial ideas. We also fell behind on our customer surveys, because we spent a long time researching our patent and understanding the technology, reaching out to the research teams, etc. But I'd say these were both valuable "tangents," because we picked a more realistic patent and garnered an excellent understanding of our patent and the underlying technology, and that's helped us immensely in the process of creating the product and the pitch. But, we still had a schedule we were on, and we were able to get back to it. We have Rick and Tal to thank for this - they had set a schedule for the class, with benchmarks for what to get done every week. Many of the weeks, we didn't necessarily meet these benchmarks. But the fact that the schedule was there meant we had a mark to aspire to, with a hard deadline to have the deck done & the pitch ready. We worked harder and faster over the last few weeks to make up for lost time, and we are now ready with the deck and ready to present in today's class. If we hadn't had a schedule, with a hard stop date, we would have never actually gotten back on track.
Clear communication and delegation are vital to having good teamwork. The most efficient way to do a group project is to have open channels of communication, constant debate and discussion, and clear delegation/segmentation of tasks. At the beginning of the project, we definitely did not talk very often. As a result, no one knew exactly what they were supposed to do for a given week, and we ended up not working too efficiently. But as the semester progressed, we learned to have very clear delegation of tasks. We got into the habit of setting up a whiteboard or google doc in our virtual/in-person meetings, and we would list every task that needed to be accomplished and put someone's name next to it. By doing this, everyone knew what he/she was responsible for, and there was far more visibility and accountability. These are small, but vital processes that made our team more efficient.
Now, I will briefly look into some of the highs and lows of our project before wrapping up. I'd say the lows were primarily concentrated during times where we felt too far behind schedule or too overwhelmed with work. Specifically, right after we rejected the idea of a CRISPR-based product, I was worried about catching up to the rest of the class, and I was worried that our final pitch would suffer as a result of having less time to work on it. It was also concerning when we were struggling to get replies from different professors (especially the Berkeley team) to discuss their patents. However, I'd say that the lows were never too bad - I personally always had confidence that our team was talented and hardworking enough to succeed in the end. The highs were in the moments that everything came together - when we got excellent customer data supporting our product idea, when we finally put together our deck and did our first pitch, etc. These moments were pretty fulfilling, as they showed that all our hard work had come to fruition.
I would say that IEOR 185 has fulfilled my expectations and more. I signed up for this class because I wanted to learn real-life entrepreneurial skills, and I have been able to do that in a very hands-on way. I would definitely look to take another IEOR challenge lab class in the future.
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Private blog post 5 - What keeps you up at night regarding your project?
Hello all,
In today's blog post I will be talking about the prompt, "What keeps you up at night regarding your project?" I would say that, for the most part, I am very happy with the way our product has been put together. We have a TON of customer data - both through surveys we have done as well as customer data that we got from the UC Davis researchers, which justify that people would buy our product. We have also conducted good financial research to justify our P&L, as well as analyze competitor companies with similar wearables to understand what sells and what doesn't.
I would say my main concern with this product is the willingness of the subject - namely children - to wear the band. One major concern, that I have had since the beginning of the project, is the issue of privacy. Obviously this is more of a concern to older kids & adults (who would probably have the wearable uploading data to an app on their own phone, not a parent or guardian), but I still think younger children would feel uncomfortable with having their parents able to see exactly what they are seeing at every moment in the day. This is a major concern, because if the children stop wearing the product, the product will garner bad reviews and future parents will be hesitant to buy. We are trying to address this issue in our go-to-market strategy, where we have discussed different strategies for marketing (product placement in superhero movies, ads that appeal to children, etc.). It's a double edged sword - the whole point of our product is to give parents a deeper insight into their children's feelings, which they tend to keep silent. Obviously, children would show some resistance to having their parents see this information.
Ultimately, this is a valid concern, but I do not think it is something that cannot be appropriately addressed. With a strong marketing message that appeals to both kids and parents, many of these concerns should be assuaged. Additionally, the product will only fall flat in situations where kids are upset enough to defy their parents' orders and remove the wearable (which the parents would be made aware of). Given that this should theoretically be a small percent of our customer base, I have high hopes that this product would sell well, with high customer satisfaction in most cases.
In today's blog post I will be talking about the prompt, "What keeps you up at night regarding your project?" I would say that, for the most part, I am very happy with the way our product has been put together. We have a TON of customer data - both through surveys we have done as well as customer data that we got from the UC Davis researchers, which justify that people would buy our product. We have also conducted good financial research to justify our P&L, as well as analyze competitor companies with similar wearables to understand what sells and what doesn't.
I would say my main concern with this product is the willingness of the subject - namely children - to wear the band. One major concern, that I have had since the beginning of the project, is the issue of privacy. Obviously this is more of a concern to older kids & adults (who would probably have the wearable uploading data to an app on their own phone, not a parent or guardian), but I still think younger children would feel uncomfortable with having their parents able to see exactly what they are seeing at every moment in the day. This is a major concern, because if the children stop wearing the product, the product will garner bad reviews and future parents will be hesitant to buy. We are trying to address this issue in our go-to-market strategy, where we have discussed different strategies for marketing (product placement in superhero movies, ads that appeal to children, etc.). It's a double edged sword - the whole point of our product is to give parents a deeper insight into their children's feelings, which they tend to keep silent. Obviously, children would show some resistance to having their parents see this information.
Ultimately, this is a valid concern, but I do not think it is something that cannot be appropriately addressed. With a strong marketing message that appeals to both kids and parents, many of these concerns should be assuaged. Additionally, the product will only fall flat in situations where kids are upset enough to defy their parents' orders and remove the wearable (which the parents would be made aware of). Given that this should theoretically be a small percent of our customer base, I have high hopes that this product would sell well, with high customer satisfaction in most cases.
Thursday, April 20, 2017
Private blog post 6 - Are you ready?
Hello all,
As we approach the end of the semester and our project, this week's blog post will cover one question: "Are we ready?" Simply put, I believe we are.
Our team has put a lot of time and thinking into every part of this project - even including the selection of the patent(s). We bounced around CRISPR and then 1-2 other options before we selected these 2 patents. After we selected the patent, we didn't immediately start designing a product - we first ensured that we understood it. This process actually set us back a few weeks, in terms of keeping up with the class, but I believe it was invaluable. Collectively, we reached out to the Berkeley & Davis teams that built and designed these technologies, read several scientific articles, and watched YouTube videos that demonstrated live demos of the technology. Afterwards, we shared our findings with one another, and this ensured one important thing - each member of our team knew our patents like the back of their hand.
As our understanding of the technology matured, we carried out several customer interviews. Not only did we carry out our own customer surveys, we actually reached out to the Davis team to ask if they had any data here. This proved to be a huge boon, as their team sent us a customer survey report that assuaged some of our concerns - they showed, overwhelmingly, that surveyed people would be willing to buy a product based on this technology. Given that, we were able to design a product with a thorough understanding of how it works, and then provide justifiable financials to make it a reality.
I firmly believe it is impossible to pitch an idea to someone else unless you understand that idea yourself. It's the same thing with pitching a product - and we understand and know this product incredibly well, and I think that's going to allow us to succeed in our pitch and in our Q&A. Our journey was a bit rocky at times, but now, as we finish up the deck and shore up the final holes in our presentation, I can say with confidence that we are ready.
As we approach the end of the semester and our project, this week's blog post will cover one question: "Are we ready?" Simply put, I believe we are.
Our team has put a lot of time and thinking into every part of this project - even including the selection of the patent(s). We bounced around CRISPR and then 1-2 other options before we selected these 2 patents. After we selected the patent, we didn't immediately start designing a product - we first ensured that we understood it. This process actually set us back a few weeks, in terms of keeping up with the class, but I believe it was invaluable. Collectively, we reached out to the Berkeley & Davis teams that built and designed these technologies, read several scientific articles, and watched YouTube videos that demonstrated live demos of the technology. Afterwards, we shared our findings with one another, and this ensured one important thing - each member of our team knew our patents like the back of their hand.
As our understanding of the technology matured, we carried out several customer interviews. Not only did we carry out our own customer surveys, we actually reached out to the Davis team to ask if they had any data here. This proved to be a huge boon, as their team sent us a customer survey report that assuaged some of our concerns - they showed, overwhelmingly, that surveyed people would be willing to buy a product based on this technology. Given that, we were able to design a product with a thorough understanding of how it works, and then provide justifiable financials to make it a reality.
I firmly believe it is impossible to pitch an idea to someone else unless you understand that idea yourself. It's the same thing with pitching a product - and we understand and know this product incredibly well, and I think that's going to allow us to succeed in our pitch and in our Q&A. Our journey was a bit rocky at times, but now, as we finish up the deck and shore up the final holes in our presentation, I can say with confidence that we are ready.
Thursday, April 13, 2017
Private blog post 4 - Details about our Patent
Our patent is a wearable tech device that monitors sweat, heart rate, temperature, and other factors in order to track the body's sympathetic and parasympathetic pathways and display the person's response to stimuli. The patent is for a fabric that stretches over a certain part of the body - currently it is designed to be a glove, but our research shows that a strap that goes across the palm and then the wrist would also be technologically feasible. The band uses a technology called GSR - galvanized skin reading - in order to measure the body's response to different stimuli using an electric current. It also measures skin resistance and sweat resistance, both of which change when a person is exposed to various stimuli that increase put stress on the body. This tech is very very sensitive to even small changes - one video we watched showed that it can pick up even small disturbances - a person who was wearing it was lightly punched on the arm, and the graph showed a spike, indicating the body's reaction. This makes it extremely feasible as a device to track a person's mental/emotional health throughout the day, as it can pick up on even subtle moments of stress/reaction in people.
This patent is still pending, so we cannot list the claims in details.
The business potential of this patent is simple - we are essentially selling information about how the human body responds to various stimuli throughout the day, and there are a number of parties that would be interested in using that information for some benefit. The first types of customers would be those who would use it to improve their own health or the health of a loved one. This category would include people who have kids or loved ones with mental health illnesses like PTSD or autism. This device was actually designed for people with ASD for a few reasons - one important one being that people with autism often have episodes of panic or stress. However, leading up these episodes, there are several telltale signs (increased heart rate, elevated stress levels, changes in sweat, etc.) that could be tracked by this technology. Thus, parents, teachers, or even people with ASD themselves could notice when such an episode was going to occur and take steps to prevent it. It can be similarly used for people with PTSD. The second types of customers would be hospitals and mental health rehabilitation facilities - they can use this type of product to better track and provide care for all of their patients. The final market we could expand into is the media/advertising market. Companies, film producers, etc. can have test subjects wear the band and then display different types of advertisements, media, and track the subjects response. This would be a more effective way for them to determine what kind of imagery elicits a positive response in people, and, therefore, more effectively sells products.
This patent is still pending, so we cannot list the claims in details.
The business potential of this patent is simple - we are essentially selling information about how the human body responds to various stimuli throughout the day, and there are a number of parties that would be interested in using that information for some benefit. The first types of customers would be those who would use it to improve their own health or the health of a loved one. This category would include people who have kids or loved ones with mental health illnesses like PTSD or autism. This device was actually designed for people with ASD for a few reasons - one important one being that people with autism often have episodes of panic or stress. However, leading up these episodes, there are several telltale signs (increased heart rate, elevated stress levels, changes in sweat, etc.) that could be tracked by this technology. Thus, parents, teachers, or even people with ASD themselves could notice when such an episode was going to occur and take steps to prevent it. It can be similarly used for people with PTSD. The second types of customers would be hospitals and mental health rehabilitation facilities - they can use this type of product to better track and provide care for all of their patients. The final market we could expand into is the media/advertising market. Companies, film producers, etc. can have test subjects wear the band and then display different types of advertisements, media, and track the subjects response. This would be a more effective way for them to determine what kind of imagery elicits a positive response in people, and, therefore, more effectively sells products.
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Private Blog Post 3
Hello all,
One of the big decisions our team needs to make this week is deciding which market we want to expand into initially. We are considering 4 major options - people with autism and other mental health illnesses, media/business who would use it to see emotional responses to advertising, and the general population, where it would just serve as a tool for people to track their mental and emotional health. We would also have to make the decision to either simply sell the product to a large distributer company that would then handle it, or to make, market, and sell the product ourselves.
After our discussion with Rick, we concluded that we would spend some more time doing research, mostly in the form of learning more about each of these markets and talking to people in them, but ultimately, as we were advised, if that didn't lead us to one obvious choice, we plan to just pick the option that we're most passionate about. I personally feel most excited about introducing the product as a device to help people with mental illnesses and then ultimately expanding it to the general population. In the entrepreneurial spirit, I'd also prefer to maintain and grow the company, rather than sell to a tech giant for immediate profit.
In terms of our team work and schedule, we are currently looking to pick a weekend in which we can meet and hammer out the final presentation. Scheduling has been a concern for us, as the weekends following spring break look pretty busy for some of our members. Another issue that is vital to address moving forward is splitting up roles for our final pitch - we have yet to fully organize and segment the rest of the tasks on our to-do list. Looking to accomplish this in the coming weeks.
One of the big decisions our team needs to make this week is deciding which market we want to expand into initially. We are considering 4 major options - people with autism and other mental health illnesses, media/business who would use it to see emotional responses to advertising, and the general population, where it would just serve as a tool for people to track their mental and emotional health. We would also have to make the decision to either simply sell the product to a large distributer company that would then handle it, or to make, market, and sell the product ourselves.
After our discussion with Rick, we concluded that we would spend some more time doing research, mostly in the form of learning more about each of these markets and talking to people in them, but ultimately, as we were advised, if that didn't lead us to one obvious choice, we plan to just pick the option that we're most passionate about. I personally feel most excited about introducing the product as a device to help people with mental illnesses and then ultimately expanding it to the general population. In the entrepreneurial spirit, I'd also prefer to maintain and grow the company, rather than sell to a tech giant for immediate profit.
In terms of our team work and schedule, we are currently looking to pick a weekend in which we can meet and hammer out the final presentation. Scheduling has been a concern for us, as the weekends following spring break look pretty busy for some of our members. Another issue that is vital to address moving forward is splitting up roles for our final pitch - we have yet to fully organize and segment the rest of the tasks on our to-do list. Looking to accomplish this in the coming weeks.
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Private Blog Post 3
Hello all,
Just going to be covering another update of what our team accomplished last week! I think we are very solidly caught up, given that we decided to shift away from our first chosen patent, CRISPR, at a pretty late stage. We are combining two patents in order to make our product now - one that reads sweat levels and another that monitors physiological changes. Our goal is to create a device that can be used for people with mental health issues or problems like autism, in order to better track how they respond to stimuli and provide recommendations for how they can lead a more stress-free, healthy life. However, we'll talk more about that in our team blog - right now, I'm going to focus more on an update of how our team is doing and what steps we are taking.
In this week, we had a lot of discussions about what kind of product we want to make. We had a team-wide video call in which we discussed different product ideas, and we mulled over the decision of how we want to introduce this product to consumers - we're leaning towards starting with people with health issues and then expanding it to the whole population once the product has gained consumer trust. We also briefly pondered the idea of b2b vs b2c, but more on that later. Currently, we are finalizing our value proposition canvas and also hashing out our customer survey/interview questions. Next on the agenda is carrying out those interviews to get a better idea of how to shape/design the product and how to market it. We haven't addressed it as a team yet, but I personally have done a bit of digging and had some trouble trying to find out our preliminary SAM/SOM for this idea, so that's something I'm planning on discussing with the group in this week's meeting.
In terms of team cohesion, I think it's going really well - we are having good and productive meetings, and, for the most part, everything is going according to schedule.
Just going to be covering another update of what our team accomplished last week! I think we are very solidly caught up, given that we decided to shift away from our first chosen patent, CRISPR, at a pretty late stage. We are combining two patents in order to make our product now - one that reads sweat levels and another that monitors physiological changes. Our goal is to create a device that can be used for people with mental health issues or problems like autism, in order to better track how they respond to stimuli and provide recommendations for how they can lead a more stress-free, healthy life. However, we'll talk more about that in our team blog - right now, I'm going to focus more on an update of how our team is doing and what steps we are taking.
In this week, we had a lot of discussions about what kind of product we want to make. We had a team-wide video call in which we discussed different product ideas, and we mulled over the decision of how we want to introduce this product to consumers - we're leaning towards starting with people with health issues and then expanding it to the whole population once the product has gained consumer trust. We also briefly pondered the idea of b2b vs b2c, but more on that later. Currently, we are finalizing our value proposition canvas and also hashing out our customer survey/interview questions. Next on the agenda is carrying out those interviews to get a better idea of how to shape/design the product and how to market it. We haven't addressed it as a team yet, but I personally have done a bit of digging and had some trouble trying to find out our preliminary SAM/SOM for this idea, so that's something I'm planning on discussing with the group in this week's meeting.
In terms of team cohesion, I think it's going really well - we are having good and productive meetings, and, for the most part, everything is going according to schedule.
Thursday, March 9, 2017
Private Blog Post 2 - Update
Hello,
In this week's private blog post, I will just be talking a little more about where our team is, what we hope to accomplish in the coming week, and some personal updates.
As I mentioned in my public blog, our team is making some major changes to our project idea - mainly that we're switching away from the patent idea we were set on doing before. For a number of reasons, as I have mentioned in my other post, we will not be working on CRISPR. In terms of our schedule, this puts us in a bit of a time crunch moving forward, but we have a solid plan to make sure we hit the ground running. Right now we are still in the stage of selecting a new patent - Early Warning Systems seems like a very popular idea, but we are still looking - and this weekend we plan to have a workday to get ourselves up to speed. The plan is to spend a full day just doing a lot of background research and creating our Value Proposition and MVP - we will also be collecting and parsing through customer surveys to design the product more efficiently. I think our goal is to get to the stage that every other group, having selected a project a week ago, is at right now, so that we are on track with the pace of the class.
I think one quality of our group is that we are all perfectionists, and while that is very positive in terms of quality of work, sometimes I believe it slows us down on deadlines. I personally suffer from this as well - I spend too much time deciding and laying out my ideas before I get to work, as I want the work to be something perfect. I think one skill that we will learn over time is being more receptive to factors like time as opposed to the final product - you can't always churn out a perfect result, but rather the best result that you have the resources to produce (helicopter/car Lego project!). For example, I would say we are definitely spending more time than the average team picking a patent idea - while that is good, we also need to make sure we have that idea nailed down by this week, instead of indefinitely researching for the best project.
Personally, I think I am definitely getting more involved in this project as the weeks progress. At the beginning it was a lot of just digesting information - now we are actually taking what we learned and putting it to use in a very practical way, which is exactly what I was looking forward to when I signed up for this class. I also think I have a much better understanding of patent law now than I did earlier - I re-read the notes to prep for the quiz and picked up a lot of stuff that I missed in lecture. Overall, I'd say things are looking up. We have a bit of catching-up to do, but I'm confident we can make it.
In this week's private blog post, I will just be talking a little more about where our team is, what we hope to accomplish in the coming week, and some personal updates.
As I mentioned in my public blog, our team is making some major changes to our project idea - mainly that we're switching away from the patent idea we were set on doing before. For a number of reasons, as I have mentioned in my other post, we will not be working on CRISPR. In terms of our schedule, this puts us in a bit of a time crunch moving forward, but we have a solid plan to make sure we hit the ground running. Right now we are still in the stage of selecting a new patent - Early Warning Systems seems like a very popular idea, but we are still looking - and this weekend we plan to have a workday to get ourselves up to speed. The plan is to spend a full day just doing a lot of background research and creating our Value Proposition and MVP - we will also be collecting and parsing through customer surveys to design the product more efficiently. I think our goal is to get to the stage that every other group, having selected a project a week ago, is at right now, so that we are on track with the pace of the class.
I think one quality of our group is that we are all perfectionists, and while that is very positive in terms of quality of work, sometimes I believe it slows us down on deadlines. I personally suffer from this as well - I spend too much time deciding and laying out my ideas before I get to work, as I want the work to be something perfect. I think one skill that we will learn over time is being more receptive to factors like time as opposed to the final product - you can't always churn out a perfect result, but rather the best result that you have the resources to produce (helicopter/car Lego project!). For example, I would say we are definitely spending more time than the average team picking a patent idea - while that is good, we also need to make sure we have that idea nailed down by this week, instead of indefinitely researching for the best project.
Personally, I think I am definitely getting more involved in this project as the weeks progress. At the beginning it was a lot of just digesting information - now we are actually taking what we learned and putting it to use in a very practical way, which is exactly what I was looking forward to when I signed up for this class. I also think I have a much better understanding of patent law now than I did earlier - I re-read the notes to prep for the quiz and picked up a lot of stuff that I missed in lecture. Overall, I'd say things are looking up. We have a bit of catching-up to do, but I'm confident we can make it.
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Private Blog Post 1 - Overview of Team Cohesion/Dynamic
Hello,
This will be my first private blog post, and I will be talking briefly about our team and how it is coming together.
Overall, I'd say our team is off to a strong start in terms of cohesion. We all get along quite well, and we have enjoyed the time that we have spent together so far. During the 1.5 hour rejection activity, we had a lot of down time in periods when we were walking from one end of campus to the other, looking for trades or coming up with ideas. During this time, we got to know each other a little better, and we had a lot of fun talking, not only about the box trades or the project, but just on the level of a friendly conversation. I think my team members are smart and committed, and I look forward to continuing to work with them. Everyone also seems to be pretty open-minded - I mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts that this is one of the things I really value in people I work with. That's definitely something I've been happy with, as I'm sure it will allow us to have many more good, open discussions in the coming weeks.
The main area of improvement that I can see going forward is in the frequency of our meeting/communication. In the last few weeks - I, myself, am also responsible for this - many of us have been bogged down with midterms, illness, work, etc., and we haven't been able to meet outside of class very often in order to discuss our project. However, we maintain decent communication through our group text, in terms of reminding one another of deadlines and any information we need going forward. We were able to successfully organize and carry out our faculty meeting in this manner. However, I do think we need to spend more time meeting face-to-face, as I believe it allows us to work more efficiently as a team. I think it would be valuable, moving forward, to split the work based on our roles in the company, dole out individual assignments, and then come together in team meetings to discuss/present our findings and then work as a group for the parts of the project that require collaboration. In this fashion, I think we can work more efficiently moving forward.
Overall, I am very happy with the way my team is coming together, and I'm looking forward to working with them!
This will be my first private blog post, and I will be talking briefly about our team and how it is coming together.
Overall, I'd say our team is off to a strong start in terms of cohesion. We all get along quite well, and we have enjoyed the time that we have spent together so far. During the 1.5 hour rejection activity, we had a lot of down time in periods when we were walking from one end of campus to the other, looking for trades or coming up with ideas. During this time, we got to know each other a little better, and we had a lot of fun talking, not only about the box trades or the project, but just on the level of a friendly conversation. I think my team members are smart and committed, and I look forward to continuing to work with them. Everyone also seems to be pretty open-minded - I mentioned in one of my earlier blog posts that this is one of the things I really value in people I work with. That's definitely something I've been happy with, as I'm sure it will allow us to have many more good, open discussions in the coming weeks.
The main area of improvement that I can see going forward is in the frequency of our meeting/communication. In the last few weeks - I, myself, am also responsible for this - many of us have been bogged down with midterms, illness, work, etc., and we haven't been able to meet outside of class very often in order to discuss our project. However, we maintain decent communication through our group text, in terms of reminding one another of deadlines and any information we need going forward. We were able to successfully organize and carry out our faculty meeting in this manner. However, I do think we need to spend more time meeting face-to-face, as I believe it allows us to work more efficiently as a team. I think it would be valuable, moving forward, to split the work based on our roles in the company, dole out individual assignments, and then come together in team meetings to discuss/present our findings and then work as a group for the parts of the project that require collaboration. In this fashion, I think we can work more efficiently moving forward.
Overall, I am very happy with the way my team is coming together, and I'm looking forward to working with them!
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