Mind Your Own Business; Session 1

For my chosen field option I got my first choice which allows me to become a part of a collaboration with other students from other courses to create our own small business. As today was our first session we were introduced to our team groups. My group consists of 4 other girls, 3 of which are international students which makes our team unique and multi-cultural. We have been asked to do 2 reflective posts per week on our group updates and progress as we only have 4 weeks to complete the whole section. We will have to sell our product within the university on the 13th of December followed by a formal presentation to a business to discuss further partnership. This will give us a chance to promote ourselves as young business representatives. As we will be selling our product within the christmas period and run-up to christmas we are marketing our product to be used as xmas gifts.

As a group we discusses our key values and listed the top 5 which we all agreed upon. Our agreed creative collective values are, Challenging Problems, Creativity, Growth, Co-Operation and Excitement. To combine these values within the company we brain-stormed on a company name which was fun, creative and reflected our qualities. After much thinking we decided to choose Paper Trail – your pathway to quality print. Paper Trail had come negative connotations when we discussed our company name with the field course, as a trail could suggest the waste left behind a product. But from this there was also a positive connotation of exploration, leaving behind a message and youthful curiosity.

After deciding the name we needed to assign each member a role within the team. The roles are as such;

Business Plan – Barbara

Finance – Myself

Marketing and Branding (Not Online) – Dwida

Manufacture and Making – Juliana

Online Social Media – Tiffany

After the basics were completed we went through the paperwork and what is expected of us and given a grant of £100 to support the start-up of our business. This will cover the costs of any prototyping, printing and materials needed including the final supply of products to sell. Managing the money will fall under the Finance role which I have been given, however I feel as a group we will equally agree on how the money will be spent.