Presentation Reflection (Final Blog Post)

I wanted to make my presentation honest. This was my ultimate goal for presenting and I didn't want any parts of it to seem blown up or try and make it seem like it was more than it was. I could have come out and said, "Oh, I'm going to change the world and end all hatred," and stuff like that, but its simply not true. So to purge my presentation of this, I wanted to make it unscripted. By unscripted I mean I didn't want to have a hard copy of what I was going to say so that I wouldn't be tempted to read off of cards, and so I could change what I could say each time. Also it eliminates forgetting my lines because there were no lines to remember.  

Another thing I wanted to do was use some of the talking and speaking techniques that I have learned from my dad. Enunciation and using the stage were the main two. I made it a goal to move my lips and use a loud and clear voice when presenting. I also tried to walk up and down the area that we got to fully get a feel for the stage and to get into what I was talking about more. Speaking with my hands and utilizing hand gestures keeps the crowd’s attention, and so that was also something I tried to do. 

Overall, I think that the presentation went pretty well. I didn’t stammer, the crowd giggled a couple of times, and I didn’t sugar coat any of my work so I think I did what i had to do. Now I think that the project well very well too. I already mentioned my original business plan and talked about how that one was wrong, and so I’m glad I realized that I needed to take my time and do it right. I can’t bs this project because I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing this project for me and so I can make something that I’m proud and can spread my message and what I think is important. 

I made good progress and I intend to continue making progress, changing and morphing along the way. Me and Arslan could go on to do big things, as long as we plan right, take the right advice, and make the correct moves. All of our planning and work should be seen and will be able to be bought in the next months or even weeks. So, check us out when we drop (winky face + gun finger + outdo music). 

Week Update 4

This update is going to be mainly about the conversation I had with Rich Sednak. I already talked about him in my past post, but I want to go into more detail including sharing the raw notes and lessons he told me would be important and essential for virtually any business. 

Here are the raw notes that I typed during the phone call: 

1. What's more important, the plan or the execution?

Rich Sednak - plan 10% , execution 90% 

Investors care about:

1. Ideas 

2. Market

3. Team most important because they will execute 

Investors care more about the team because the plan is subject to change. 

Every business plan is wrong!! - There are faults in the plan that aren't obvious 

Make sure that people want it 

Make money from other sources (Jorge and Nick) 

Tssprint.com 

So the first thing that I typed is a question that I’ve be accustom to asking people older than me and I get different and pretty interesting answers. Here I asked Rich and he replied that the execution is far more important. He said that the execution is 10 times more important than the plan. He said that this was the case because all plans are subject to change and that no plan should ever stay the same. He said to make sure that I made a plan that can be altered and changed so that it can fit whatever avenues we choose to pursue. He also chalked this proportion up to the fact that the plan can change, but the team won’t. The people that will be executing won’t change so you have to make sure that you are working with some one hungrier than you if you want to accomplish your goals. 

Then he began just giving me general ideas about what investors look for in potential businesses. He said that the three main things that they will look for in a business plan is a person who can generate and convey ideas in a clear and concise fashion. I’m good at speaking and explaining so I think I can present my ideas in an attractive and informative fashion if need be. Then investors look at the market. This includes competition, if it will grow, how it will be shifting in the future, what other factors influence it’s profitability, and things like this. Before an investor gets involved and puts their own money on the table they want to make sure that their dollars will grow. So they do their homework and gather all the information they can. I’ve already explained the importance of choosing a good team to work with, so I won’t go into that again. 

He then touched again on why plans evidently must change. He talked about hidden problems that you will run into and ones that you could never plan for. So your team gain must be versatile enough to adapt and change. Resistance to change is futile. 

And some thing that I was told by Aayush, my dad and rich was to make sure that we have an audience. To see this, we might take a tip from Rich and use a website where we send them our design and then we get a cut of the shirts they sell. We will get around a fifth of the money we could be getting, but this will give us an idea of the audience we will be catering to. 

And finally, we caught wind of another business in the school who will also be selling shirts. The people in charge of this are our friends Jorge and Nick. I got to talk to them and discovered they get each shirt made for about $15 - $16 per shirt. Then the mark up will be up to $40! It seems ridiculous to me, so I thought maybe we could get the shirts made for around $3 -$7 from our supplier, sell them to Jorge for around $10 - $12, and then have them save money while we make a couple dollars on the side for our use. Rich thought this was a great idea and definitely something we should do. 

So as you can see, Rich gave us some pretty useful advice that we will be able to use going forward. 

Potential Connects

Wow, a couple interesting things have occurred in the past two days. I got in contact with two more potential connects and my head is spinning! It's ridiculous! One lead I had to chase down and the other wanted to talk to me.

The first person was a man named Rich Sednak. He spoke for FBLA earlier in the year and was a judge at the last shark tank. I approached him there and got some of his information. I arranged a call for today at 4 and I'm going to get a little advice from him. He even runs this company that helps high school students start companies. Maybe Ashe will become one of them!

The second is a man that I've only come to know as Connor. I met him through my dad and he just called me about twenty minutes ago asking about the company. He asked about the name, who I am, what we are about at Ashe, and so I let him know. He was really interested in the idea and liked the back ground info and seemed interested to work with me. He owns his own clothing company and I think that he will be a good help to us! I got his number and so we should be meeting soon.

All this is really exciting and makes me feel like a real business man. I hope to work with them in the near future.

Comments Update

I just realized that I was commenting on posts without posting who I commented on. So here are the people from the various weeks:




Week 4: Alycia Lee, Arslan Amir, Catelyn Huang, and Trevor Bert






Week 3: Arslan Amir,  Kat Saddler, Nathan Leung, Toni McFarland






Week 1 & 2: Sarah Kollender, Jacob Cohen, Matt Autieri,  Helen Autieri

Updated Vlog

Here is the link to the blog for the week. I hope you all enjoy! (Please watch the whole thing)

ORIGINAL VLOG

ALTERNATE VLOG IS RIGHT HERE (Skip to 3:20 and 5:10 ;);)

Well This Is Awkward :/

It turns out that our logo can't be the knot that I hoped it could. It turns out that it's actually the command symbol on the mac keyboard and I feel like this would take away from the symbolic impact of the knot. It isn't a huge blow; it just means that I have to find another symbol or logo to represent the company. 

Week 3 Update

This week not too much has happened to be honest. I drew a few more shirts, posted them, and drew a pair of sweatpants (which is an outlet we are also thinking of pursuing as well) but that was practically it. We came to an agreement on the logo (which Arslan posted and I probably will right after this is up) which we decided should, also, be some cultural symbol. I stumbled across some symbols called the Adinkra symbols a while back, before the project, and thought that I could choose one to be the logo. The specific one we chose is called, “The Knot of Reconciliation” (#29 on this list). It represents a bond between two parties (us and the customer) and we are then in a mutually beneficial relationship. 

Another thing that happened just today was I began reaching out to a couple people who are already in the t-shirt business or were in the past. I recently began listening and reading up on a guy name Tai Lopez, a self made millionaire who preaches the importance of utilizing your currently established network. He’s had a TedX Talk and had some pretty interesting things to say. To follow this man’s advice, I scheduled a meeting during IE with Aayush Sanghrajka (I’m very sure you know him) so Arslan and I can get some advice from him on the future of the business. Beyond Aayush, my dad mentioned to me that he knows a guy that is already in the business and would be willing to meet up with me or Arslan and I and give us some advice. 

These people could turn us onto new people, new places to sell, a broader audience, a better advertiser, or a better method of producing the product. All of these would help, and no advice can hurt. To follow faulty advice would hurt. On top of these things, I read a couple articles about the importance of culture in our lives and how geometry plays a role into the design of clothes and architecture on Islamic art. I had some prior background knowledge, so nothing was too surprising. My readers, on the other hand, haven’t, and so I hoped to enlighten them on this little piece of knowledge. 

In the next week, we will place our first order of shirts, a test run, just to see what they’ll be like and why we’ll wear to the Talk which is 15 days away. Wish us luck! 

How the Muslims Made Art

My parents once donate some money to the making of a documentary dedicated to the beauty of Islamic art. I've always known that to be an artist you must be meticulous. Each piece of the painting and final product has a reason for it being there. But when I watched the film, I learned about the role that math and geometry played into not only architecture, but the art as well. The shapes that were used were symmetric, and the figures were proportionate to each other and each design that was displayed was more intricate and beautiful than the last. So here is a short article that I found on BBC about it. There is a lot more that goes the art, but this is just to hopefully intrigue you to explore for yourself.

Designs (No. 2)

Here are two more shirts that designed this week. They both, potentially, have the official font for the company written on them. It may change and it's not official yet, so these shirts may not look exactly the same. If you look at the more detailed shirt, you'll see that it contains a greek type curly print that you can find on cups, grails, and goblets. Its outlined with some basic dots and the whole shirt is symmetrical. I'll save the importance of symmetry for another post, but I know that it was something the Muslims were especially known for.