Week 12 - Wrap up of the course

EDIT:

The course staff asked us to include the poster, report and prototype to our blog. So here they are:

Poster:

Available as PDF: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4tDou44Z6x7Z0Z3Q1VvbTZRaW8

Report:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4tDou44Z6x7c0tZVE9QNnlCQVk

Prototype:

Available as apk-file in https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4tDou44Z6x7S3RjMDhhN01rRWs

Please use mobile phone to open the link and test the app.

Week 12

After the Grande finale it was time to took a deep breath and spent a while reading to exams. On Wednesday Matias finally broke up the silence and we started to write the final report as a group. In order to support the ideation process, Matias suggested to check the instructions that were sent by the course staff and he also urged everyone to check the form in mycourses. We dealt the responsibilities and the deadline was set to be 12pm on Friday.

On Friday afternoon it was nice to see at this point of the course that everyone did their part in time. When it comes to individual parts in the final report, everybody seemed to be satisfied with the course and the outcome we produced.

In short, the course was all together a success. We all learned a lot about electric cars and their infrastructure. It was especially pleasing to see that our idea was also executed by Elbnb during the course. We all think that it was useful to work in a cross disciplinary group, where nobody knew each other before the course. In addition we think that every group member learned about their area of responsibility, for example Matias about leading a group, Linda coding and app and Juuso doing a poster.

We want to thank all the stakeholders, course staff, interviewees and all the people that were involved to this project. We wish everybody a pleasant holiday. Maybe one day, our idea will actually see the light.. :)

- Team RuutuaEtsimassa

Week 11 - The grande finale

Week 11

At the end of the week 11, it was finally time for the grande finale. All the work we have done would culminate to one single 3 minute presentation and a poster. However, as the so called dress rehearsal went very well, we felt quite confident at the beginning of the week.

We all did our parts individually but we wanted to wait the feedback from Tuomo before making any major changes together. Once again Tuomo called our group leader Matias very promptly on Tuesday exactly at 12pm and gave some useful insight. The issues Tuomo recommended us to consider were as followed.

1) More excitement to presentation
2) More visual slides
3) Use our numbers and refer to sources we have used
4) Try to bring our concept and use of the app somehow together.

Points 1-3 were adopted straight away. Väinö promised to do new slides that turned out to be great. We rehearsed a few more times together and tried to be more excited and proud about what we have accomplished. Matias also made some minor changes to his part in order to include some key facts for example about the survey process.

Nevertheless, the fourth part was more difficult. We thought about different ways to unify our presentation. It proved to be that difficult that we had to abandon it. It was already Wednesday, our presentation was very fluent and we had no clear vision how to do it so we decided to stick with the old presentation. We had to just do it in more amazing way. In addition, in Presemo we got feedback that all the different names we used in dress rehearsal (group, project, app) were really confusing. Thus, we determined to use the name of our product, ParkIt, in every context.

The actual grande finale was only a very part of the job. Of course by far the most important one, but we had been practicing so much, that we just went to the stage and did everything as many times before. Juuso also made a really cool poster, that really stand out visually. All together, everything went really well and we were really pleased about what we achieved.

Our group presenting in the Grande finale

The event itself was a success. It was nice to visit all the stands and see what others have been doing, even though we had seen the presentations before once. It just felt sort of a festive occasion with the speak-up speaches from Stina, all the fuss, stands, microphones etc. that it was nice to took part.

At the end I have to admit this all feels a bit empty. First we did not even know each other, then we did this stuff together for weeks.. and now it is just over and everybody goes to their own direction.. Still, it was nice to work in group with many different backgrounds and many different skills. I hope that is visible considering the result as well.

There is still one week to go, when we will wrap up the course. So see you one more time!

Week 10 - Dress rehearsal

Week 10

Phuuuh... It is quite difficult to believe it is already week 10. Most of the actual work is done, now it is just time to present to all the others what we have done.

As been said, we had a clear vision what to present. Once again, we wanted to trust on each other so we practiced the divided parts on our own. We even wrote some of our lines to Google Drive, so all the others could see word by word what we were going to say. We also clocked all the parts in order to stay under the 3 minute deadline in the rehearsal.

Visually, we were pretty satisfied with our old slides so we planned to use them at least in the dress rehearsal. We finally came up a name to our app, ParkIt that is. Jani took some new screenshots to be used in the presentation. Otherwise, the beginning of the week was all Slush. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday... yep, Slush! However, I guess it was not that bad idea to see some pitches.

In Slush, the startups had a slightly longer time to present but the situation is more or less the same. It was surprising how many things the best acts could include in a such a short time. In addition it was great to see all the group members once in a so called unofficial environment.

The Slush afterparty was epic whereas the wake-up in the next Friday morning was... well, not. However, we had no choice but to clear our throats and came to school early. We did the final touches and went through the presentation one more time before entering the hall. Fortunately the adrenaline boost wiped away the fatigue and the presentation went as planned. We were very pleased to see that other groups gave also positive feedback in Presemo.

Week 9 - Finishing the three P's (Presentation, Prototype, Poster)

Week 9

NOTE: REPOSTED 6th of December, while the picture was not visible for some reason

Week 9 was about finishing the 3 P's: Poster, Presentation and Prototype. Especially the presentation and the prototype had a tight deadline, since we wanted them to be 100% ready before the final practice on 2nd of December.

We discussed within our group about the presentation on week 8. We noticed that the concept was not 100% ready and clear as we were not able to give sufficient answer to all of the questions from audience. Especially the identification process was a crucial part of that. Also the lack of enthusiasm and storytelling were seen as problems.

Thus, Matias had one more meeting with Virta connect person who told about the RFI tags. She claimed that even most of the home chargers have a modem and a SIM so that identification with a tag would be feasible. We believed our expert and decided to use that technology as part of our process. Väinö also had a great idea about storytelling: We could describe the problems of both EV and charger owners and showcase how our app solves this problem and connect those consumers.

Our interviewee introduced how the clients use the Virta app. We decided to include the RFI tag.


We decided together the core frame of our presentation in our meeting as well. Väinö and Jani will do the storytelling and Matias rest of the 3 minute presentation. After the storytelling Matias will first tell about the concept, then show how our app works and the last slide will present in a nutshell why you should believe in our idea. Linda will continue working with the prototype and Väinö will do the poster. The course staff showed us a very good example of a great poster and we will definitely use that as a reference. Otherwise we will give free hands to Juuso, since he knows our concept and does that kind of things at work as well. We know it is going to be visually very spectacular!

Invitation to Grande Finale!

Dear students, companies, staff of Aalto University and other stakeholders:

You are most welcome to see the presentation of our "Airbnb" - styled solution for electric vehicles in the Grande Finale of SCI Project course. Our peer-to-peer concept is something that has not been done in Finland before and our results promising.

Our solution will help the EV drivers to find free charging stations and charger owners to easilly lease their poles for money through an easy-to-use app. Feel also free to visit our stand, where you are able to try the app and hear for example more about our business model and value proposition!

Week 8 (part 2/2) - Prototype and presentation

WEEK 8

On Friday we held one more presentation to some other groups. This time the presentation was more about the prototype, that we have been working with during the last week.

Linda and other Computer Science students did a great job while making an actual app, that for example uses google maps in order to provide a view of the available poles on map. Our prototype includes at the moment a login screen, a map, a possibility to search, examine and reserve charging stations plus a payment system and some other features like different side bars and menus to showcase the user interface.

Here are some screenshots of the UI:

The presentation

Our presentation including all the questions from the audience is available on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xihZux8qtOY&feature=youtu.be

As been told, Matias' computer broke up suddenly only hours before the show. Thus, we were not able to show any slides during the presentation, which was a shame.

However, all together the presantion went quite well. We had rehearsed our parts and what we wanted to say, so the speaking part went pretty smoothly, even though there were some difficulties at the beginning. We stated clearly who we are and what we do.

Still, it was a clear mistake to stand in front of the screen so that some of the audience could not see the presantion of the app. We focused too much on the functionalities and not the story and what was cool in the app. We also have to be more lively and practice the use of our body language.

The audience asked some really tough questions and we were not able to answer all of them very convincingly. In our opinion, we have to once more clarify our concept as a group, so issues like verification of the client are clear to all of us. Only after that we are also able to present to the audience. Tuomo gave an usefull advice as well: Sometimes our group should not try give an answer, especially if we are not sure about it. In those cases an answer like "We will figure it out" would be much safer and give a better image of our group.

During week 9 we will develop our app and code some more features to it. It is also time to think about the presentation, the poster and other such things. This week was a really tough one, including all the technical difficulties. Hopefully next week will be a bit better and what would a better way to start it than go and buy a new laptop!

- Matias

Week 8 (part 1/2) - Business model

WEEK 8

We have been discussing a little about the revenue logic through the blog posts. However, we wanted to wrap it all up into one single picture. So before we discuss about the events during week 8, here are our business model and revenue logic explained:

Revenue logic: 

Picture 6: Potential revenue logic:

Our revenue logic is based on the value we give to our customers and stakeholders. These values are showcased by arrows in the picture 6

Car manafacturers: Our app makes using an EV easier, since it helps the owners to find the free charging stations efficiently. Thus, it makes owning an EV a more tempting option and could increase the revenue of the EV owners if they provide access to our app via smart phone or integrate it to the driving computer

EV Owners: Our app helps EV owners to find free charging stations, which is felt to be difficult at the moment. By providing a system that is easy to use and makes for example payment possible, our app gives them a great value.

EV charger owners: Our app helps EV charger owners to lease their plugs while they do not use one themselves. Thus, our app helps them to gain money which has a direct value to the EV charger owners.

Based on the value we provide, in our opinion there are three potential ways to generate money from the three actors:

Car manufacturers: Car manufacturers could pay a license fee for us, in order to make our service available to all their customers

EV owners: We could be able to generate money from the users either by showing them adds or different types of payments like access to a premium model.

EV Charger owners: We will take a small fee of every transaction to generate revenue. (Main source of revenue!)

-> The core of our revenue logic is to make a freemium app that has a wide customer base and get a somewhat 30% fee of every transaction. 

Business model canvas:

Our business model is provided through the same link used in blog post 6:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1sn7YicEVp8jHiKhCFaiN-oSQ3neebo4puXeuhX2-2CE/edit#slide=id.p3


Key partners: Our key partners are car manufacturers, EV charging station manufacturers and public sector. Both types of manufacturers provide parts of the essential infrastructure. By co-operating with them, we could find new potential customers and get usefull insight about for technical issues related to loading the EV:s (experience icon in the previous picture). Public sector is also very important partner, since they could provide for example subsidies in order to enhance EV driving, or other type of support.

Key activities: Our key activity should not be forgotten! We are foremost an intermediator between EV driver and owner of the charging station. Our mission is to bring these two parts together, nothing else!

Key resources: First of all, one key resource is the wide customer base. Noone wants to use an app of only 10 or 20 poles. Then we have to be able to use the location data of the car and the poles to bring them together. Futhermore, while the app is all about the user experience, an user-friendly user interface is a key resource to the success.

Cost structure: Our running costs are low, as we don't have to do much after the launch. Our service should be coded so well, that there are no bugs or any other failures and the service could more or less to run on its own. Of course we need some staff to work around the tech support and development, in order to develop the service and answer customers inquiries.

Customer relations: Our customer relations are based on the active presence in social media. Social media is an efficient way to reach the targeted group and does not cost much, that is very important issue for a small startup. As been said, an active collaboration with the stakeholders is equally important, since the app requires not only customers but infrastructure to work.

Customer Segments: As been named, our three customer segments are EV owners, EV charger owners and car manufacturers, of which the two before mentioned are much more likelier.

Channel: Our app will be available for free in different app stores. In the future EV manufacturers might want to include it directly to their EV:s

Value Proposition and Revenue Stream: These two have been discussed thoroughly in the previous section.

The size of the business

At the moment, the cost of loading an EV could be something around 2€ per 100 kilometres. Because of the amount of EV:s is low at the moment in Finland, our app would not be very big business instantly. In addition, our comission has to be reasonable. For example Virta takes rough 30% of every transaction, which means we would propably get fees that are on average 1-2€ or even less per loading. In order to get the first clients, our app has to be more or less a freemium version so the payments from the EV drivers would not generate much money either.

However, since the concept is great and the amount of EV:s will propably sharply rise in the future, our idea could be a perfect startupp for 3-5 persons. Once the team gets a reasonable amount of customers into the app, in our opinion it would rise the interest of huge car manufacturers. B2B - type pricing model would generate much more revenue. Also, there is always a possibility to lauch the app abroad as well. So it is fair to say, that our concept has at least some potential to become a medium sized business. However, we wanted to be realistic and not base our revenue logic to assumptions.