On the second day of the Training Phase of The Execution, participants went through an innovative (and highly entertaining) User Interface and Rapid Prototyping workshop, given by Penguin Cube. (You can check out what it looked like here). In addition, Samer Karam of Seeqnce introduced the concept of the Minimum Viable Product. Finally, the evening was concluded with a legal overview of the investment component of the competition and its various modalities.

What were each team’s impressions and how do they feel after the second day of the Training Phase? Let’s take a look:

Team 1: Red Drops In Lebanon

As you can see, we developed a given product (washing machine) according to the workshop guidelines given by Peguin Cube. We projected ourselves as being an 8 year old with a washing machine. What does he need it to do? Why will he want to have it? & how will we develop it in an attractive way? Those are questions that Tammam Yamout guided us through to help us configure a targeted product. We ended up with “Pamela the washing machine”! A face shaped machine, with a mouth serving to fit the clothes in. Its nose acts as the soap filler, its right eye helps set the temperature in relative adjectives & the kid has to twirl its left eye to start it. A toy/washing machine that the kids will love playing with & which the mums will appreciate its initiation to the tasks they normally do! During day 2 workshop, we also had an intervention on MVP (Minimum Viable Product) by the MVP Samer Karam!

Looking forward to the hard core weekend of The Execution!!

 

Team 2: 3a Taree2ak

Today we learned that there are many basic principles a start-up team must apply in order to get a solid base of what they have, and to determine the weaknesses and strengths of their product. Among them, you have the basic design of your project: Who your market is, what it wants from your product, what that product will deliver and how realistically it can do so. Also, we were introduced to the three by three principles, advice that will make us feel less guilty about “cheating”.

 

Team 3: Saafer

The 2nd day @Seeqnce workshop was really exciting and motivating. The first part, which included the “Washing Machine” exercise, was a lot of fun. The way the groups had to push their creativity further and at the same time stay down to earth was a key to put us in the mood of getting started with our idea. The second part of the workshop, which was a lecture on the business/ financial aspects of the project, was the back to reality spot. It shed a light on legal matters, how to avoid fraud, and gave a transparent view of the Seeqnce – Cedrus Ventures agreement. All in all, the learning experience we’re getting at #TheExecution surpassed our expectations.

 

Team 4: 7ader.info

In the Workshop day 2 we learned to apply the Seeqnce 3×3 Principle for 7ader.info and that opened our minds to a new way to envision product creation. And if the first version of Gmail was literally written in a day then we can do it too. MVP concept rocks!!

“Good artists copy, great artists steal ” Wowwww!!!

 

Team 5: Global Team

Workshop #2 held at Seeqnce was a blast! A very important interaction lecture was made with the title “Design thinking and Rapid Prototyping” in which we had a fun, yet also went through a beneficial exercise on how to design a washing machine. Then, we were introduced to an interesting strategy: “MVP” (Minimum Viable Product).  Believe me this is something you should know about, IT IS AMAZING!!! At last legal issues were introduced to us.

We can’t wait to see what Seeqnce and Cedrus Ventures have for us in the upcoming workshops.

 

Team 6: SmartCode

Thanks to Penguin Cube that gave us an amazing workshop during the 2nd training session of “The Execution” where we were asked to design and do rapid prototyping of a washing machine. Our washing machine, “Robinsa”, has a voice interaction tool that guides the user throughout the process, targeting 70 year old widowed men that have sight problems and other issues. Then we drew a scenario and a schema of our super washing machine. Next, A very interesting and important topic was discussed by Samer Karam, founder of Seeqnce: The “Minimum Viable Product”, illustrated through an improvised “3×3 Principles Theory” ( 3 features, 3 tests and 3 shortcuts). We ended up having more than 10 questions as deliverables for Thursday. Finally, an overview was given on some contract, investment and legal issues by Seeqnce, Cedrus Ventures and in the presence of lawyers. It was quite an amazing and FUN night Looking forward to session 3.

 

Team 7: Collabrotouch

We learned a lot on the second day! The workshop was divided into 3 sessions. The first one was about Design Thinking and Rapid Prototyping given by Tammam Yamout from PenguinCube. We learned how to define the target audience, what we want the application to do, how the application should behave, and what limitations we might face during development. The second and third sessions were given by Samer Karam from Seeqnce. We learned how to make our application a minimum viable product by reducing the number of features to 3 yet still be interesting for the investor. We were also introduced to the legal conditions and terms of the Execution program. Overall, it was very fruitful and we can’t wait for today’s workshop.

Thank you Seeqnce! Thank you Cedrus Ventures!

 

Team 8: Custom Dreams

During today’s workshop at Seeqnce we have had the opportunity to meet T-Boss and Koby from PenguinCube where we interactively learned the importance of prototyping rather than building the whole product upfront. After that, Samer of Seeqnce took over to talk to us about MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and the 3×3 Principles (features, tests, shortcuts). That was followed by the legalities of The Execution competition where, amazingly, Samer the CEO of Seeqnce took the time to explain things thoroughly. All of that gave us a better vision of what Custom Dreams is about and how Seeqnce and The Execution are here to take us to that next step.

 

Team 9: The Dream Matchers

Designing the user interface is something very essential to think about while developing any product that involves user interaction. Designing a washing-machine to be used by a dog is quite a challenge, but it is not that hard of a task when we understand the needs and the expectations of our users! The Dream Matcher is a social website that allows for a lot of interaction between the user and the system, and among users themselves. Our next challenge is to apply what we learnt in today’s workshop to The Dream Matcher.

 

Team 10: The Penguins

Today was a great experience on learning how people think and design user interfaces and the difference between what we think of, what people need, taking into account technical limitations. Finally, the Minimum Viable Product concept was introduced, which is a great approach to sketch something really fast that can be tested against user acceptance and feasibility.

 

Team 11: Mario Bros

Day 2 of the workshops dealt with design and “Minimal Viable Product”. The design bit was fun, in that we were working on a light-hearted exercise that taught us real concepts that we should pay attention to when putting together our product. Who knew washing machines were so fun! The second workshop was a bit more serious in that it dealt with how to better execute our startup, and also what to expect if we win. Two more days to go until The Execution really begins, we can feel the excitement in the air!

Washing Machine Exercise: We were tasked with designing a washing machine’s user interface, targeting a specific user. We chose the character Barney Gumble from the popular TV show, The Simpsons. Barney is a drunk slob, and hygiene is not a paramount concern to him so we needed to incentivize the washing activity. First, the act was made as simple as possible: all that is required is that Barney throws his laundry and yells “catch!” for the catcher’s glove connected to the machine to catch it and put it in the washing. There, it would be cleaned, dried, folded and put away. Seeing as Barney’s wardrobe is limited, there is no need to have different settings on the machine, and the amount of detergent used would be automatically added. We also spiked his detergent with a bit of an aphrodisiac to attract the ladies, further incentivizing the action for him. The washing machine interface was designed purely with Barney in mind, and we think it would be a terrific drunken purchase that he would be too busy drinking to regret.

Want to feel the spirit of all these exceptionally motivated and energetic guys? Check out our Facebook photo album: The Execution Startup Competition – Training Phase: Workshop2.