S2014.1 Team 6

Management 372 Sticker Company

The Venture Team
The Management 372 Sticker Co. was founded in 2014 by Zachary Conte and James Sullivan and 2 other team members who are no longer with The Management 372 Sticker Co. The idea was generated by James after considering using stickers for his COB 300 project. The designs were contributed by  Zac, James, and the 2 other team members. The stickers were designed for College of business students to show pride in the COB majors. The stickers are a representation of various sayings that COB students use and can relate to themselves. The MGT 372 Sticker Co. made $483 in profit through sticker sales alone.



MVP's
Management 372 Sticker Co. originally had 5 different sticker styles but chose to sell only the top 3 which were Showker Slave, COB LIFE (Purple), and COB 300 Survivor.

1. COB Life (Gold)

2. Showker Slave 

3. COB Life (Purple)

4. COB Who Owns You

5. COB 300 Survivor 

Innovation Questionstorming
The first question MGT 372 Sticker Co. asked was "What type of sayings/slogan do COB students associate themselves with?" The original slogans that were thought of are: "Showker Slave", "COB Life", "COB Who Owns You", and "COB 300 Survivor". With these slogans the MGT 372 Sticker Co. set out to interview and survey the COB students to see which slogans they liked the best.

Key Innovations
The Management 372 Sticker Company’s first shot at innovation was designing a colored visually appealing COB sticker. The MGT 372 Sticker Co. chose to innovate their stickers by using a local manufacturer in Harrisonburg called Sign Pro. By using Sign Pro the MGT 372 Sticker Co. was able to cut shipping costs and create a unique sticker that would represent COB students in Showker Hall. Another innovative technique used by MGT 372 was their selling technique. They set up at the Showker Table with a poster board and sold face-to-face to students in the COB. The selling process was short and simple.

The sales tactics used by Zac and James worked really well. They learned quickly that they could not wait for people to come up to them but rather go out and grab people's attention. The first line they would use is "Are you a business major", if they said yes then they would proceed with "How often are you in Showker", if they did not answer within the first 5 seconds, James or Zac would say then you are a Showker slave and hold up the Showker Slave sticker. This tactic worked great because the potential customers would be drawn in and start asking questions about the stickers.



During the semester the MGT 372 Sticker Co. found a picture of one of their stickers on the popular COB_problems twitter page.

Early Adopters
The Early Adopters of the COB stickers were their classmates. The next set of early adopters were the students in the College of Business. The students quickly realized that they could relate to the COB stickers and they started to purchase them.



Weekly Overview
Week 1: The first week of MGT 372 class was spent getting to know classmates and figuring out who wanted to work together throughout the semester.

Week 2: Zac and James had selected one of their classmates to join their group. Later on in the week they were approached by a new student who wanted to join the team. After letting him join the team they now had 4 members in their MGT 372 group.

Week 3: After brainstorming over the weekend the team met up in class and discussed their potential little bets. James brought up the idea of creating COB stickers, Zac thought of creating a heated snow shovel, group member #3 thought of selling cheese steaks in Showker hall, and group member #4 had no ideas.

Week 4: After reaching an agreement about designing COB stickers to sell throughout the semester, the team began to discuss potential designs.

Week 5: With multiple designs on the table the team set out to fine a manufacturer. First they checked Moxie but they were too expensive and could not differentiate the product to their specs. Next the group went to Sign Pro a local decal and sign store. Sign Pro was able to differentiate the stickers how they group wanted them and this is who they chose to produce their stickers.

Week 6: The group waited for their stickers to be produced from Sign Pro.

Week 7: Professor Wales gave the class a $50 sales challenge which the Management 372 Sticker Co. accomplished that goal within the first three days of sales.

Week 8: The group sold the remaining stickers of the first batch and prepared to put in another order.

Week 9: Spring Break. Group member #3 was supposed to get the stickers produced from a friend but was unable to do so.

Week 10: The group decided that it would be in the best interest to split up due to conflict that had been going on for the past 9 weeks. The profit from the stickers were split 4 ways and each member received $61.50. Zac and James stayed together and sold the COB stickers.

Week 11: This is the first week with just Zac and James as a team and with all the conflicts behind they were able to sell $175.00 worth of stickers in week 11.

Week of 4-6-14: Zac and James were able to sell $77.00 worth of stickers.

Week of 4-13-14: Zac and James were able to sell $102.00 worth of stickers.

Week of 4-20-14: Zac and James were able to sell $63.00 worth of stickers.

4-26-14: Last day of sales for the Management 372 Sticker Co. which Zac and James sold $141.00 worth of stickers.

Sober Rides
This semester Dr. Wales added a section called Hustle Related Venture due to the amount of money being made off of hustling. Zac took advantage of this and decided to sober drive for $10. This was beneficial to not only MGT 372 Sticker Co. but also the community by helping reduce the number of drunk drivers.

Lessons Learned
The Management 372 Entrepreneurship class has taught both Zac and James a bunch of lessons and has given them memories.

The overall lesson they learned is that failure is okay. It is better to fail fast so you have time to recreate your design. This semester MGT 372 Sticker Co. failed as a team and had some sticker designs that failed. They learned that business is business and when your business partners are holding you down and not pulling their weight it is okay to part ways for the success of your venture.

They also learned that trying to sell stickers to COB majors was a lot harder then they had expected. Zac and James were both able to take some valuable selling experience with them after this course.

To the future students of Dr. Wales MGT 372 Entrepreneurship class Zac and James would like to give you some advice:

1. Pick your team wisely, make sure you are compatible and have the same vision for the class

2. Choose a product that you will enjoy selling

3. Take as much from the class as you can because you never know when you will be able to use the information

Resources
Little Bets, Peter Sims

Nail It Then Scale It, Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom

Links
Instagram: http://instagram.com/mgt372stickers

Venture Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNlYGO_yd_E&feature=youtu.be