Academy by Baytree Summary

Albeit online, the Academy by Baytree experience was a fantastic way to collaborate, learn and enhance my knowledge in creating a successful startup, with the skills and knowledge needed along the journey.

I collaborated with a team of 6 students (name was TEAM NURTURE!) where we had to creatively design a solution to a key problem.

We began by creating personas, and finding any pain points for these personas – which would help us design the key problems, challenges, goals and eventually, multiple solutions to these problems.

Subsequently, we began the process of filtering down to our best solution, which was a “Made by Students, for Students” social media-type app where students could post questions onto a channel, and then any student who replied with a fantastic and helpful answer would get a certain number of points, which could then be exchanged for various other gifts!

KEY PROBLEMS:

Learning/revising is boring for students 

Students struggle to maintain good health and wellbeing

Students work inefficiently

Throughout this process, we had constant encouragement and advice from Mr. Thobhani, Mr. Jain and many other professionals who have successfully created their own startups. I thoroughly enjoyed this process because I was able to develop and nurture several skills, such as KANBAN, Trello boards and Lean Canvases, to name a few.

Mr. Thobhani’s advice on expanding and contracting solutions was superb, as well as his wise words:

The cash management section of the work experience was brilliant, because Mr. Jain clearly explained why most startups fail – simply due to their poor cash management. Without cash, you have no business (harsh truth!). We learnt about structural cash (what you need to start) and operating cash (expenses to pay, lighting, office space, developing an app), and how cash and profit are different.

Finally, one of the most exciting parts of the work experience was learning about Branding from Mo. Why is branding important? Simply put, it creates an illusion by taking a consumer away from reality, and placing a symbolic representation in their mind. How to create a brand? Colour, Taglines, Non-literal imagery and VALUES.

• Branding requires courage
• Branding gives consumers confidence (they feel safe and secure)
• Branding facilitates choice (makes the choice easy and simple)
• Branding gives a barrier to entry (barriers to competition)

We are 25 times more influenced by our emotions than our expression of reality 

THANK YOU to Academy by Baytree

Very grateful to Mr. Mitul Thobhani, Mr. Manish Jain, Mr. Shakeel Dodhy & Mr. Mo Luthra for their advice & guidance in creating a startup and the processes needed to complete this successfully. It has most definitely helped me with my ideas for Bytes of Intelligence and any other ventures in my future career!

I would thoroughly recommend this Academy to any student looking to widen their horizons and learn more about the skills and motivation required for creating a successful startup. For more information, please email Mr. Thobhani or visit the Academy by Baytree website.