Saturday and Sunday 10th-11th August

The long weekend of productivity continued as we rolled out of bed in time for the rugby.

Friday 9th August

This long weekend was taken by all as an official Postgraduate Diploma in Entrepreneurship holiday. No work was done. In fact absolutely nothing productive was attempted- other than venturing off the couch in order to make a carrot cake. 

Thursday 8th August

Despite promises being made by the class that we would boycott lectures for the day (well deserved), some of the more diligent members deviated from the plan and were a part of David Prillaiid’s 10 class lecture at 9am the next morning. Nonsense if you ask me.  However we all made the concerted effort to attend our Marketing Theory in Practice later in the day. Some of us more than others as Julia Paterson decided to arrive an hour early. Just to be sure she didn’t miss anything. Alison Andrews also even made an effort to look nice for the lecture applying as similar lipstick to the one she had been wearing the night before.

                                         We know what you did last night Murray and Mike 

Wednesday 7th August

EXHIBITION DAY

We arrived at 7am on campus, driving through what would be the first rain storm in weeks. ‘Forecast will be happy’ was the first thought on all of our minds (referring to one of the other groups who made raincoats made out of recyclable material). Kim and Sarah went to go sort out things with Evette to get our last few backpacks and buy things such as prestick etc from the shops as soon as they opened at 8am.

The rest of us were hard at work putting together the stall with what we could in the meantime while I simultaneously ran around making sure the rest of the details for on the day exhibition worked out such as the VIP, the ribbon cutter and our MC. Everything was going according to plan until the campus traffic department confused our parking with the carreer day VIPs and gave away our parking to them. This combined with the rain meant less VIPs than expected which was disappointing.

Our stall however was looking incredible, with newspaper on the sides and a flatscreen TV with a slideshow of our photoshoot running continuously. This together with our own outfits as we draped ourselves in proper Thrift attire (complete with fur coats and grandmothers shirts), we were ready to showcase our product for the first time to the market.

 Thrift Stall

The day ran smoothly for Thrift. Although we were nervous about not having a Card machine and the impact this may have had on our sales, we genuinely did not have one person even enquire if they could pay by card. This could have been helped by the fact that our stall was positioned directly next to the ATMs downstairs or just that R300 is now an acceptable amount of cash to have on hand.

It was exciting to be living the brand and the lessons we had learnt on sales techniques (“Always Be Closing”) and it was even more exciting to see the appreciation which the public had for the Thrift concept in general.

 

Teboho closing a sale

We sold over 50 backpacks in total which was, we felt, fantastic for a product priced at the point that it was and being brought into a new market.

At the closing of the exhibition at 4pm, there was much celebrations. The class took the leftover wine and made sure to put it to good use at our official afterparty.  Much fun was had by all. Especially Sarah Mills who despite insisting she didn’t like beer proceeded to drink it. And jump, on an egg.

Tuesday 6th August

Another day filled with meetings and preparation. The main excitement for the day being able to pick up the various designed posters, brochures and banners for the exhibition. Due to the rain, we weren’t able to put them onto any cars windscreens and students were less than obliging to take one from us.  However, soon they were all handed out, put up and folded and the committee were back on campus in the Leslie social in order to oversee the building of the exhibition stands from which we would be selling our products.

That’s when it all became very real.

With the stalls quickly set up and the various groups slowly coming in in order to prepare and decorate their stalls I was able to leave campus at around 7pm to go to Kim and Sarah’s house in order to return to Thrift matters and put together the finishing touches on our own stall.

We were able to hire three coat rails and black draping which we would use to hang and display the backpacks and cover the ugly white back of the stand. Our big ‘Thrift’ banner was stuck over the top and my moms Persian carpet was placed over the floor. The idea was to transform it into our very own little Thrift shop, with random clothing hanging from the back rail and a fur blanket over the table with our pottery cupcake money jar. The plan looked great in our heads however we quickly found out that true to Thrift style we had forgotten the details such as prestick, string etc. so we called it a night with the boys claiming that they would take care of everything and went to bed.

                                          Stall waiting to be transformed by some Thrift magic

Monday 5th August

If the countdown began last week, its only now when we are two days away did the weight of the clock begin to tick loud enough for us to hear. On the whole I would quite confidently say that we were nailing it for a Monday. Thrift had successfully made a total of 90 backpacks, with another 60 on their way. Our supplier, Evette, is a champion. Despite all of our struggles to get a manufacturer and the sleepless nights we went through, she was worth the wait. Just like we had first envisioned, every Thrift backpack is not just another place to store your books, but a one of a kind work of art.

We had our product and we had our general store design, the only challenge now was to bring it all together. 

The day started early for myself as not only did I have Thrift to think about but the entire running of the exhibition day. The committee met in the morning and we had a wonderfully productive meeting with some wonderfully productive people.

We then had a Thrift group meeting where we drew up the design for the stall, including a number of wildly creative and impractical ideas. The meeting was concluded with everyone going to do their relevant duties for the upcoming day. In comparison to cake sale, our planning was far better and resulted in no one wanting to die nor wanting to kill anyone in the days leading up to the event.

 Sunday, 4 August 2013

With the excitement finally starting to kick in there was a lot of buzz and hype in the group eagerly awaiting exhibition in the hope that our bags were going to sell very well. We went off to the shops and bought some hangers for the stall as well as collected our Thrift banner from Top Copy and bought an invoice book in order to keep track of the bags sold.

                                         Thrift banner

Saturday, 3 August 2013

With nothing left to do but sit and wait for the bags we decided to get going on the preparation of our stall for exhibition. Trying to stick with the Thrift theme was easy enough because we could pretty much turn anything into a Thrift vibe. We decided the best way to display the bags would be on clothing rails like you might find in a thrift store which would be ideal because they would be easily visible to the public and it would make it easier for us to monitor the sales of the bags collecting all the empty hangers from the bags that were sold.

Friday, 2 August 2013

We dropped off the leather at Evette at about 7 still hoping the bags would be ready by late this afternoon. Unfortunately when we arrived later we ran into a bit of an ordeal because the bags were still not ready because many of her workers had been sick that day and did not show up for work. This meant we might now only be able to collect the bags on Monday morning and put us all into a bit of a panic because if anything was to go wrong we weren’t going to be able to have the new batch on time.

Thursday, 1 August 2013

We ran into a slight issue today when we went to go and buy the buckle and adjusters for Evette, when we got to Woodheads they told us they were all out of bronze buckles and were not sure when they would be getting stock again. So we used implemented a little bit of bricolage and made do with the next best alternative which was to buy silver buckles and just kept our fingers crossed that it wouldn’t be too much of a train smash. We also collected our leather straps while we were at Woodheads because we had sent the in to get our thrift logo embossed on the one shoulder for all the new bags as we couldn’t do it for the previous ones because the embossing block was ready yet. The new straps looked awesome and very professional and all of us were overjoyed with the look of the.

The leather straps with the logo

Tuesday, 30 July 2013

We finally have our hands on some thrift back packs and they look awesome. It was the most rewarding feeling yesterday when we finally got to collect the bags because all the hard work, effort, long hours and pure dedication that went into getting this bag done finally paid off. Our bag was a success. I don’t think if our wildest dreams did we actually think we could pull this off but we did because we are baddy classic. We also broke the news to Evette about the extra bags and luckily she was more than happy to help us out. She has promised us that we will be able to collect the remaining 10 with the next 50 on Friday this week which might be cutting it fine but we have no other options if we want to have 150 bags at exhibition.

Monday, 29 July 2013

With exhibition just over a week away things were beginning to feel awfully stressful. At least we are off to Evette today to fetch the 90 bags that she has completed, she reckons the other 10 will be ready within the next week. However we also need to break it to her that we are going to need another 50 bags before exhibition which is next week Wednesday, not looking forward to that conversation but luckily Evette loves us and I’m sure she will do her best to help us out and get as many bags as possible to be ready by exhibition. We also have our directors meeting tonight which we have to be well prepared for. Kim’s chairing this week which I think she’s a little nervous for but we all know she’ll do fab. We haven’t met with the directors in a while so we have a lot of catching up to do, we need to inform them about Evette and how all the production is going as well as what our strategic plans are for the future of Thrift.

                                Dean and Murray's craziness before the Directors meeting

Sunday 21 July 2013

Today was a very relaxing day for us at Thrift. Not much happened in terms of business. Basically we had a few discussions about academics that are due on our group on Whatsapp to ensure that we stay ahead of schedule and that we are all on the same page. We have learnt how important it is to communicate with one another, communication unites the group and ensures that everyone is aware of what needs to be done therefore it eliminates stress and all those negative vibes, and just creates a positive group dynamic. 

Saturday 20 July 2013

Yesterday we went to drop of all the lining and Thrift clothing at Evette for her to start cutting. When we got there we realised she never had any of our other materials: buckles, leather etc. therefore Sarah and Kim spent the entire day getting all the necessary materials that Evette will need to make the 50 back packs she is giving us next week. Today we have learnt that in this kind of business you are going to have to sacrifice a few things, for instance today we wanted to go to movies with our friends but we knew that we needed to get things done, so we did not go to movies and ended up shopping for materials all day- you have got to be willing to give it your all if you want it to work.

Friday 19 July 2013

Today we have dedicated an entire day to go Thrift shopping. We are going to go to all the charity shops around Cape Town to search for Thrift items, because they are not open on the weekend and Evette needs them today. We also dropped all the lining at Evette today because she works in a production line, therefore today she will have cut all the lining for our back packs. We have learnt that hard work pays off, and nothing ever happens by sitting around and waiting.

Thrift items at a Hospice Shop  

Thursday 18 July 2013

Today Sam, Sarah and Kim went back to Evette to collect the prototype. When we arrived at Evette’s workshop in Woodstock she showed us the prototype she developed and we loved it, so now it is time to talk business. Evette has agreed to charge us R50.00 per backpack, which is a cost we are very pleased with as we expected it to be a lot higher. We informed Evette of our deadline: we want 150 Thrift back packs by the 7 August 2013 (our exhibition). Evette agreed to this. Evette promised us that in a week’s time she will have 50 back packs ready and waiting for us, so we are going to have to wait and see. But we are so excited that e found a CMT! Finally the production of Thrift begins! We have learnt how important it is to remain positive and to not give up, we had less than a month to produce these back packs without a CMT- and because of our positivity, we will achieve this goal.

Wednesday 17 July 2013

Today we met with the CMT Daniela who actually referred us to her friend who is also a CMT, Evette. So Sam, Sarah and Kim went to Woodstock to meet with Evette, they informed her of Thrift and what we are all about and showed her our prototype. Evette loved our concept and our back packs and was really keen to work with us, so what we have done is left her our prototype to work with so that she can make us a prototype to allow us to see how she sews, what she can do, how long it will take her and how much it will cost.  Therefore she said that by tomorrow she will hopefully have the prototype all ready for us so we can go from there. We learnt that it is so important to be very precise with employees; we gave Evette strict guidelines for our back packs to ensure that they are the best of quality. 

Evette Fashions factory

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Yesterday Sam, Sarah and Kim drove to learn to earn to see if we could hopefully work with them in production of our back packs. We got to learn to earn and they were extremely helpful, the lady took us on a tour of the campus to give us a general overview of what they are all about so that if we did work with them, we would understand fully what learn to earn stands for. we then met with the lady who is in charge of the production, she said that they could definitely help us but they would need to make a prototype of our back packs to see how long it would take them to make it, how much it would cost etc. therefore yesterday was a good day, we made progress and we are just waiting for an email from learn to earn to inform us of what it would cost us to work with them. Today, we are setting up a meeting with Daniela for tomorrow so that we can see what she has to offer us, even if we like learn to earn AND Daniela- at this stage we will employ them both because we have such a little bit of time left. We learnt today that if you actually go out there and start to do something and come up with solutions to your problems by being proactive, good things do actually happen!

Monday 15 July 2013

It has been a lovely long vacation for most of us at Thrift, but third term has come and it is time to get back into reality. Nothing has been done in terms of production this vacation; we still do not have anyone to make our backpacks for us. Therefore today we are going to meet with learn to earn to see if they will be able to help us make our Thrift backpacks. Sam has also been in contact with a CMT called Daniella- who we are hoping to meet this week too. At this stage we are extremely stressed and feel very unprepared, this is not a good feeling, through this process we have really learnt to manage our time properly and plan ahead because now we have left this all to the last minute and we do not have anyone to make our back packs for us. So hopefully the meeting with learn to earn goes well today, after all, exhibition is less than a month away.

Thrift logo on a Cape Town sign

12 May 2013

12 May 2013

Reflection on our Genesis journey

Sundays are always short and I do not why or maybe it is just the thought that tomorrow is Monday. I cannot believe that this Sunday is actually the last one before the second term ends. Wow indeed time flies. It feels like yesterday when I came to Cape Town for the first time, not knowing what to expect. I remember going to the Genesis workshops during the orientation and Stuart telling us that this course is very intense, that we had limited resources of money, energy and time. At that time I really do not think I understood what he meant, maybe it’s because I was still in honey moon face and excited about doing this course. Then slowly reality started to sink in my mind. Truly it has been very challenging, tears have been shed, tensions have been high, and emotions have been running high. I am still shocked that I survived until now.

So what made it worth staying and endure all this stress?

Wow. This is a very interesting question.

I think it’s because we have such an amazing group. We really get along together and we do not actually have any conflict or anything like that.

I also think that all the BIC and Genesis workshops have really helped me to understand how the “real world” operates. They taught me that being an entrepreneur is about making things happen; therefore you cannot be afraid of challenges or criticism. I remember Stuart saying that as entrepreneurs we have to make things happen and should not be afraid of taking risks. So with each workshop I was getting stronger and stronger as an entrepreneur and started to see that what tries to kill me can only make me stronger. I have also learned about the principle of being proactive which I read in one of my readings.  I learned that being proactive is about taking responsibility, it is about living in circle of influence rather that circle of concern. My favourite quote on being proactive is “between a stimulus and response, a man has a freedom to choose”.

 Anyway, it has been very interesting journey so far. In terms of our group everything has been fine so far. We are the group that broke the record of winning both Cake Sale 1 and 2. Our Genesis product is amazing and now with the potential of getting a cheaper manufacturer, who knows we might the win the Genesis trophy at the end of the year.

That is all for this week. Happy Mother’s day to all amazing mothers

 

 

11 May 2013

11 May 2013

Taking it easy today

After such a stress day yesterday, I decide to take it easy today in order to recover from yesterday. Nothing really happened today in terms of our Genesis project.  I think the only exciting thing that happened today was when Dean posted a message on our group WhatsApp chat that he had a meeting with the owner of a certain clothing factory (which I would not mention) and he told has the owner is very much keen to do business with us at such low cost compared to other manufacturer we have tried to contact. He said already set up a meeting with him for us to go to his factory on Tuesday.  I was quite happy about this progress the team is making. Dean is such a legend, he always make things happen. Thank Dean for taking the initiative to do this for the team.

What I have learned today can be summarised in this quote

10 May 2013

10 May 2013

What a stressful day!!

I really don’t where to start simply because I am very tired as I am typing right now due to the hectic day I had. Today was truly a test of character in me. Sam and I have been appointed by the group to be the editors of the group and the way we do it is that work gets delegated to each member in advance and then we will have our own “proposed deadline” at least two days before the actual hand-in deadline.  This is done so that we can have time to edit everything and then submit on time. We usually have meeting to try to discuss who is doing what and give any relevant information if required to ensure that everyone understand what is expected of them and that we are all on the same page.

As usual, for the market research assignment, we try to do the same except that people were not paying attention in order to understand what they are supposed to be done.  This assignment was due today, so it means that the each group member was supposed to submit their part to either Sam or I by Wednesday. However not everyone submitted their work, which meant that we could not finish to compile the report and as the results we found ourselves this morning with only half of the report been done.  This was very stress for me as I don’t like working under unnecessary pressure, as it meant that Sam and I have to bunk lectures (which I hate doing). So everything was very stressful.

The way we delegate work is based on what each member is comfortable with, as we learned in our workshops that we should focus on each other’s strength not weakness. So you can imagine how difficult it was for me having to right some parts that I am not very good at. It was very stressful indeed, having to sit in front of the computer the whole day and having limited resources in term time and energy, it was not fun at all.

So this is what this stressful experience has taught me.

Clearly define the role and responsibility of each group member

 

We failed to clearly define the roles and responsibilities for each member especially with regards to assignments. Therefore when things go wrong like today, there was no set measure of holding those who did not submit their part accountable. And this created a lot of stress for me and unhealthy working environment which could have led to group conflicts. Therefore this issue needs to be addresses on our next meeting to avoid a situation like this from happening again.  We need to set out new SMART role and responsibility that will clearly define each group member’s role and responsibility, expectation from them, deadline to deliver such and consequence that will results in failing to deliver them.

Communication

I have also learned that we had a poor communication and we also do not listen to each especially during the group meetings. As the result there was a lot of misunderstanding. Clear and effective communication is very vital especially when working in a group as it this reduced tension and eliminated unnecessary stress of not knowing what would be happening. Even though we have a WhatsApp group, Vula tab, group G-mail account, we still fail to communicate effectively. So this is other issue that has to be bought to the table during our meeting on Monday.

Anyway that is it for today. On a lighter note, well done to our group, especially Shea, Murray and Dean, for such a good presentation in ES today. Well done guys, you made us proud. Winning!!!

8 May 2013

08 May 2013

Justin Bieber takes over

JB is here and taking over PGdip class by storm. So it means that whatever happens today will revolve around him, pity I am not a fan of him but group is very much in love with him especially Shea, Sarah and Kim. They have been waiting eagerly for his concert and now that he is finally here, they are in cloud nine.  The excuse was JB concert comes once in the blue moon but Genesis to here to stay. But there was nothing much to be done anyway for Genesis today, so I guess the timing for JB was right. It was so funny how the other group during ES presentation today recognised Justin was one of the creative entrepreneurs of our time.

The only thing that we need to finalise as a group is the Directors meeting tomorrow to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Murray is going to be our Chairperson for this meeting and I    exciting about this directors meeting because we going to have it in one of our directors boardroom, so we get to experience the “real world".

Anyway that is it for now.