January 29, 2012
After meeting with our mentor, we carried out the site survey for the indoor positioning system. The effort serves two purposes: 1. Verifying accuracy of positioning systems 2. Understanding deployment considerations. The test continued until 1am. We also managed to squeeze in a meeting with an entrepreneur in the retail app. space to exchange ideas.
January 29, 2013
Quite a busy day. The highlight of the day was a meeting with our mentor, Mario of LightHaus. We had an extensive 2 hour discussion about different aspects of the solution. Our takeaway from the discussion:
Problem statement:
Brick and mortar retail stores face increasing competition from online stores as shoppers are attracted through promotions, e-coupons and better knowledge of products, prices. Customers shopping online have faster access to information about products including promotions and deals. Sites such as Amazon also provide intelligent recommendations based on user behavior. In order to compete with online stores, conventional retail stores need to provide comparable services and easy access to information to shoppers. Deals and information about products must be easily available to the retail store shopper. New forms of customer engagement that provide insights into needs, preferences and behavior of the shopper while in the store would allow retail stores to customize the shopping experience.
The ZThru value proposition for retailers:
1. Increase the basket size
2. Improve sales conversion rates
3. Improve customer shopping experience – better customer engagement
4. Customer analytics data
Value proposition for shoppers:
1. Save time
2. Save money
January 28, 2013
I met our lawyer in the morning and handed over our patent prosecution files. I made use of the opportunity to do a customer interview. She said she would certainly use a product navigation application. She visits Home Depot frequently and often finds it difficult to locate what she wants. I have always thought that lawyers would potentially be good advocates for this product – they think of billable hours.
Talking about lawyers, a former colleague of mine at RIM (now BlackBerry) said she would have privacy concerns in using ZipThru as a shopper. Something to think about. Perhaps, sufficient measures to safeguard privacy may be required to convince some shoppers to adopt the technology.
January 27, 2013
Pengfei and I carried out step 1 of our indoor-positioning tests today. The process is time-consuming and there is a learning curve. We have obtained some preliminary measurements and a better knowledge of deployment considerations. Not a great way to spend a Sunday, but the excitement was not missing.
January 25, 2013
Customer discovery
Our customer segments: retailers, product vendors, advertising agencies and the shopper. We expect the list to narrow down as the customer discovery progresses. Advertising agencies is an interesting addition to our list of customer segments. It was suggested to us by Brad Wheeler of UILO. It appears that product vendors hire ad agencies to determine their ad strategy – i.e. which mediums to use and how much. Something to explore.
After our meeting, I set out to meet our potential customers.
1. Dan, Store manager, SuperStore Richmond – response was positive
Armed with a mini-whiteboard, I stepped into SuperStore Richmond to meet the store manager. Fortunately, the store manager was available for a brief discussion. I explained our product quickly within a minute or two. He was interested in the product and thought that such a system would be quite useful, if deployed in his store. He also seemed interested in using the application as a shopper. I managed to get the contacts of the District Manager for Loblaws, who appears to be a decision maker.
2. Jason, Memory Express – very positive
Memory Express is a small electronics chain – they have 10 stores, half of which are in Alberta. This is a relatively small company and the key decision makers are apparently two individuals.
I spoke to Jason, the store manager who was enthusiastic about both the navigation and product advertising aspects of the application. We discussed the product for about half-an-hour. He enquired about the cost of deploying the service, when I asked him if he would recommend deploying our solution. He has promised to discuss the matter with the decision makers.
From the end-user perspective, he said he would use the application. Jason also suggested contacting Fry’s, a large electronics retailer in the U.S.
3. Later in the afternoon, I met John and Vahag, two salesmen at Futureshop. John would not comment on ZipThru due to company policy. Vahag seemed interested and said that he would use the application, if it was free. However, both the individuals are not decision makers. We will have to contact the Futureshop head office in Burnaby. That is going to be high on our list.
January 25, 2013
Today, we had a detailed discussion about our action plan and priorities. The action plan the next week (January 28th – Feb 2nd) is as follows:
1. Know the customer
– understand the workflow and buying process of the customer
– needs of the customer
– is the customer interested in the product?
– How much will they pay?
– will they allow network deployment inside the store?
2. Identify the customer segments
3. Meet with our mentor from LightHaus.
4. Test accuracy of the indoor positioning system
5. Arrange for patent prosecution.
January 18, 2013
The UBC LeanLauchPad workshop #1: I am so glad that I joined the program. It was great listening to insights, hearing about ideas and experiences of the other teams and of course, having the opportunity to present our MVP-in-making.
We appreciate the feedback we received regarding the ZipThru platform and these views will certainly shape our way forward. We have decided that knowing customer needs and how they operate is going to be our highest priority. We are presently targeting large retail stores, it would be necessary to get introduced to decision makers at these organizations. We are also thinking of speaking to some of the smaller, independent retailers in Vancouver.
After the workshop, we had a training session with a partner company, a technology company based in California, which provides an API needed for our navigation product. We have arranged a test venue to conduct a test to assess performance of the location API. The test is a two-step process – the first step will be held on Saturday, January 26th.
January 19, 2013
Woke up early today after sleeping only 4hrs for the last couple of days. Fresh with insights gained at the first LeanLaunch Pad workshop, I decided to work in earnest on knowing the potential customer. But first, we need to strengthen our team from the present team of two. We are looking for a mobile application developer to help us speed things up. We have applied to FounderDating.com. Hope to hear from them soon.
I discovered that one of my previous colleagues at the Research In Motion knows a senior executive at a large grocery store in the US. I have requested an introduction. Most retail stores are closed on Saturday. I’ll have to start earlier in the week.
January 23, 2013
Customer discover day! Finished a class on International Law at noon and set out to meet potential customers today.
I had a nice chat with Mario of LighHaus, who is our mentor. It was quite encouraging and he expressed confidence in our idea. We plan to meet within a week to discuss details regarding the customer segments and possible partnerships that may need to be explored.
I visited a few retail stores and spoke to store managers at these stores today. Henry, the Store Manager on duty at IKEA Richmond was enthusiastic about the product search and navigation aspects of ZipThru. He also appeared to be impressed by the advertising possibilities. Apparently, each IKEA store has an IT professional managing the local IT infrastructure. This is not a key decision maker, but someone who can provide valuable feedback nevertheless. Key sales decisions are made at the central office in Ontario. For starters, I will be contacting the IT professional at IKEA Richmond to get his opinion.
When I visit stores like IKEA, I try to take some time strolling around and observing customer behavior. I hit upon a customer, Ben a real estate investor, who seemed to be a little lost in the warehouse downstairs. I asked him if he would be interested in a retail store navigation mobile application that would help him locate products faster. Ben initially seemed to be a little wary and suggested that his daughter, who uses mobile application often, might use it. He became more interested when I mentioned that ZThru would allow him to view other products that were on sale in the aisle where we were standing. Ben would use the application as long as it was not priced at around 1000 dollars.
On to Home Depot. I met the Asst. Store Manager, who seemed more interested in highlighting that Home Depot earned billions of dollars in revenue last year. He seemed quite concerned that ZThru would potentially render hundreds of his store associates redundant. As expected, all sales and IT decision at Home Depot are made at the central office in Toronto or at the head office in the U.S. There are no local IT professionals at each store. Sales information is apparently stored centrally using SAP.
After speaking to store managers, I get the impression that it might be better to reach out to decision makers at the IT departments at head offices. However, the staff on the ground can provide useful feedback
Next on target was Whole Foods in Vancouver. At Whole Foods, my efforts were directed to obtaining end-user feedback. I met two customers, one of whom said that she would be interested in using the application at a larger store. Apparently, Whole Foods is small enough for customers to find most of what they want without much of a search. Generally, I do think that sample size was small. I got distracted by an Apricot-Blueberry cake at the bakery counter.
On the way home, I hopped into the neighboring Save-on-foods. Nice store, I enjoy shopping there every week. I met one person in the aisle who seemed not to be in much of a hurry. Tom, a Mechanical Engineer at BC Hydro, said that he would certainly use the ZThru application, if it was free. He would consider using it if it was a paid application. He seemed genuinely interested in how the application would work as he often finds it difficult to locate some products in the store. Having received enough positive feedback for the day, I headed back home. More on Friday.