The Big Finish

Ah to live the entrepreneurial dream, an experience that many speak of but few actually experience because of the high risk and rate of failure. We began like many groups with the frustration of developing a profitable idea, and creating a method of actually gathering that value. We started with several ideas in completely different areas of the market, from cleaning services to breakfast delivery, and settled on the laundry detergent business. We had to physically mix everything and hand grate all of the bar soap that went into our detergent, which were both processes that we could have improved in the long run. Secondly, we could have established a more controlled boxing method to ensure that we didn't lose any detergent in the creation process. These simple things would help increase efficiency and add value to our venture and thus increase the ease of the completion of the project. The hardest part of the project though by far was the selling of the product, which was without warning to our team, but the level of difficulty was surprising. If we got to start the project over, I think we would begin the selling of our product even earlier than we did, and try to push the sales as much as possible early in the semester to relieve stress down the stretch.

We spent a great deal of hours and labor creating our product, but more than anything we had to peddle, push, and sell the product hard throughout the entire semester. If I could make one recommendation to the future classes that are beginning the process, I would tell them to stay patient and diligent, because the sales are out there. Once you have made your choice, and begun the process, try and fail forward, as we have talked about in the class, and quickly to ensure that you can restructure or restrategize if necessary. Also, make sure you know your teammates and trust them, as much as that is possible after only a few weeks in class. This is a big part of why we have been so successful as a team and I know this could make the project much much harder for some newly forming teams.

Our road was long and the battles were tough, but we made it through and had a little money to show for our effort. After all of our effort, we only have a few products remaining that we haven't sold yet, and we have made more than $200 in profit, so we consider ourselves a business success.

We Made The Goal

We hit the $200 mark, and are still going up. We have several people interested in purchasing our product, and have orders to sell the last of the boxes we currently have. We plan on making a new batch to take home over break so we have a different market to sell to. Our goal is to sell another 20 boxes while we are home which will bring our total profit to over $300.
On the note of Sharp Shopper it does not seem like we will be able to sell our product in their store. We were never able to get in touch with the person that purchases the merchandise, so for the time being we will move on to other things.

Madisell Continues to Grow

This week started off rather slow with very poor sales on the Warren patio, but we started making some sales buy the end of the week. We did not make to many sales outside of Warren, and we feel this was partly due to not enough people knowing that we were going to be there and that it was not the best of locations. Although that we did not make to many sales while we were set up we were able to get some people's information to send them out some more on OVERLOAD. We also had people email us to purchase some of the product. We have gotten very close to the course foal of $200 profit and are planning to pass it this week. We are selling on the commons on Tuesday, and we are hoping that the increased foot traffic will bring us a good number of sales.
We are still trying to work with Sharp Shopper, but getting into contact with the necessary people has proven difficult. Madisell is very focused on finding new ways to get our product out there. We do not want to have to be out there selling the product every day, so currently we have been talking with a group member's sibling to expand our market. Currently we are looking at 4 people selling the product and those 4 will get a certain amount for every box that they sell. Madisell wants to help create younger entrepreneurs and feels this is a great outlet for the younger generation to get started in.
Also the person that we sold wholesale to earlier has contacted us and is interested in ordering at least another case soon.

Slow Week

This week we did not make any large number of sales. We sold 3 boxes all week. But while our sales were slow we have been trying to get into contact with Sharp Shopper to see if they would be interested in carrying some of our product in their store. Hopefully if all goes as planned we can start moving more towards wholesale and not have to worry about the individual sales. We have not quite gotten to the wholesale arena completely so we are still selling to individuals. We will be selling on the Warren patio this Tuesday from 11-2PM. And then again the following Tuesday on the commons from 11-2PM.

From Door-to-Door, to Wholesale

This past week Madisell started to do some serious selling. The week started with a table in the Showker Lobby, an ended with us shipping out a case or OVERLOAD to a client. The following pictures are of us selling OVERLOAD in Showker.



We got a lot of positive responses from people walking through the building. And over all had a very successful start to the week.

On Wednesday, Madisell went to Net Impacts event in TDU (Taylor Down Under). Net Impact gave us several minutes during a break to get up and explain our product to the audience. Unfortunately we did not get any pictures of this event, but we did end up with a list of people interested in introducing us to other groups throughout campus.

To finish the week on Friday we shipped out our first wholesale order to MD. We sent our client 20 boxes of OVERLOAD, as well as several samples. We hope this will be just the beginning of these type of sales for the company. The following pictures show both the samples that we sent as well as the box that was shipped out. He will be receiving the detergent Monday, and plans to begin selling it right away.

Production

Madisell made it's first large batch of detergent. The following pictures show some of the steps we have to go through.



First we have to prepare the soap, and turn it into a powder so it blends well with the other ingredients. Once we mix all of the ingredients together, it's time to start packaging.

We took our newly acquired boxes and started filling them with detergent. After a short period of time we had put all the detergent into boxes.

We have printed out instruction labels for the back of the box, and will soon be getting the front labels printed as soon as we decide on a logo for OVERLOAD.

OVERLOAD

Our boxes are out-for-delivery as of this morning. Madisell will be making a large batch of the detergent, which we will then package in our newly arrived boxes. On other news Madisell has decided on a name for our product, which is "OVERLOAD". There is a competition for designing a logo for the box, and the winner will receive a free box of OVERLOAD. Also we now have a Facebook page that people can folow us on, and find out when and where we will be selling. Click HERE to follow us on Facebook.