Entrepreneurship journey so far:
I enjoyed the journey of entrepreneurship which incorporate a variety of knowledges to apply technology, business, finance, marketing to real-life problem solving. I enjoyed working with my group which is very supportive and passionate about the project we're working on.
Highlights:
We nailed down the patent we want to work with quite early so we could had more time doing customer reviews, market research and explore the potential of the patent.
We designed our company logo and team logo!
Lowlights:
We had some trouble contacting our potential customers since we're a B2B startup. So we spent lots of time looking for opportunities to talk to people in the related fields.
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Weekly update 12
The journey is nearing it’s end. Do you think you’re ready?
We're pretty much ready with the contents and in the progress of simplify and beautify our deck. Some more details about financial table and money we're planning to raise need to be further discussed and finalized.
Team Dynamics
We have a great team dynamics when we gather up, discuss confusions and split the tasks.
Venture Dojo Feedback
Since people who are interested in entrepreneurship are very likely to join venture dojo and take courses on Venture Dojo in the future, an online forum or a social ecosystem can be a great v2.0 feature.
We're pretty much ready with the contents and in the progress of simplify and beautify our deck. Some more details about financial table and money we're planning to raise need to be further discussed and finalized.
Team Dynamics
We have a great team dynamics when we gather up, discuss confusions and split the tasks.
Venture Dojo Feedback
Since people who are interested in entrepreneurship are very likely to join venture dojo and take courses on Venture Dojo in the future, an online forum or a social ecosystem can be a great v2.0 feature.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Week11 update
What keeps you up at night regarding your project?
P&L form, TAM, SAM, SOM. We tried to do more researches to get more valuable and valid data for our five year P&L form and numbers for TAM SAM SOM. We looked into proxy and cloud security companies' annual financial reports to get reasonable references. This part took most of the time and efforts after we hammered down our business model and customer interviews.
What we're doing in the coming week?
Finalize P&L form and company timeline
Team Dynamics
We meet weekly to discuss the confusions and work hard towards the final pitch deck. We finalized out TAM SAM and SOM and broke the target market down to two phases.
Venture Dojo feedback
The contents are pretty well organized. The pace of the course is moderate. More real company cases based on the theory would be really helpful to understand and apply the theories in practice.
P&L form, TAM, SAM, SOM. We tried to do more researches to get more valuable and valid data for our five year P&L form and numbers for TAM SAM SOM. We looked into proxy and cloud security companies' annual financial reports to get reasonable references. This part took most of the time and efforts after we hammered down our business model and customer interviews.
What we're doing in the coming week?
Finalize P&L form and company timeline
Team Dynamics
We meet weekly to discuss the confusions and work hard towards the final pitch deck. We finalized out TAM SAM and SOM and broke the target market down to two phases.
Venture Dojo feedback
The contents are pretty well organized. The pace of the course is moderate. More real company cases based on the theory would be really helpful to understand and apply the theories in practice.
Tuesday, April 4, 2017
Week 10 Patent Analysis
Technology
Oblivious RAM (ORAM) software prevents attackers from determining which files (or portions of files) the client is accessing by concealing a client's access patterns to data residing in a cloud environment.
Elements & claims
1. A method of concealing access patterns to electronic data storage, the method comprising:
(a) within at least one server device configured for providing data storage services to at least one client, securely partitioning electronic data storage having N data blocks, each data block having a size of B bytes;
(b) wherein said electronic data storage is partitioned within a partitioning framework into a plurality of P smaller electronic data storage partitions having a size of N/P, and in which P is equal to √N data blocks;
(c) performing electronic data storage access concealment, in which each block is randomly assigned to any of the P partitions, and whenever a data block is accessed during data accesses for reading a data block or writing a data block by the client, the data block is logically removed from its current partition and logically assigned to a fresh random partition selected from all P partitions, with the client tracking which partition each block is associated with at any point of time; and (d) encrypting data by the client when data blocks are stored on the server; (e) wherein the client repeatedly sorts and shuffles subsets of said data blocks in each partition during data accesses.
21. A system for concealing access patterns to electronic data storage, the system comprising:
(a) at least one server configured for servicing at least one client with data storage services;
(b) at least one client configured for accessing said server for performing write and read accesses of data blocks from said server;
(c) wherein said server and said client are configured with a computer for executing programming for carrying out steps of access concealment, comprising:
(i) securely partitioning electronic data storage in said at least one server to have N data blocks having a size of B bytes;
(ii) wherein said electronic data storage is partitioned within a partitioning framework into a plurality of P smaller electronic data storage partitions having a size of N/P, and in which P is equal to equal to √N data blocks;
(iii) performing electronic data storage access concealment, in which each block is randomly assigned to any of the P partitions, and whenever a data block is accessed during data accesses for reading a data block or writing a data block by said client, the data block is logically removed from its current partition and logically assigned to a fresh random partition selected from all P partitions, with the client tracking which partition each block is associated with at any point of time; and
(iv) encrypting data by the client when data blocks are stored on the server;
(v) wherein the client repeatedly sorts and shuffles subsets of said data blocks in each partition during data accesses
Venture Dojo feedback
The website structure is pretty clear and easy to follow as it divides to course lists and user profile, thus users can easily get access to courses they register and track their progress as fast as possible.
The course search bar on top of the course page is slightly too wide which can block part of the video and affect the viewing experience.
Home page's design is decent and clean.
The videos can't load successfully.
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
Week 9 Personal Blog
What did I want to do this last week?
Conducted customer interviews, read "Business Model Generation" and figure out business model
What did I learn?
Learn to use the resources nearby. I conducted face to face interviews with CEOs of two big data startups I'm currently working for. One is called Tesloop which provides city to city travel in Teslas, another is called CognitiveLeap which aims to improve brain health worldwide. They both have to deal with lots of data everyday but are also lack of funding to hire security engineers. In this case, our product would be their first choice - agile and cheap.
Issues?
I also reached to technical directors/senior security engineers in big data and analytics companies on LinkedIn, but didn't hear back yet. I'll keep tracking of these potential customers.
What am I planning to do this coming week?
1.Keep track of potential customers on LinkedIn
2.Think more about channels, key activities, key partnerships
3. Sketch the mockup using Balsamiq
Conducted customer interviews, read "Business Model Generation" and figure out business model
What did I learn?
Learn to use the resources nearby. I conducted face to face interviews with CEOs of two big data startups I'm currently working for. One is called Tesloop which provides city to city travel in Teslas, another is called CognitiveLeap which aims to improve brain health worldwide. They both have to deal with lots of data everyday but are also lack of funding to hire security engineers. In this case, our product would be their first choice - agile and cheap.
Issues?
I also reached to technical directors/senior security engineers in big data and analytics companies on LinkedIn, but didn't hear back yet. I'll keep tracking of these potential customers.
What am I planning to do this coming week?
1.Keep track of potential customers on LinkedIn
2.Think more about channels, key activities, key partnerships
3. Sketch the mockup using Balsamiq
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
Week 8 Personal Blog
What did I want to do this last week?
Conducted customer interviews & surveys, finalized value proposition canvas.
What did I learn?
It's harder to conduct customer interviews for B2B than for B2C. Instead of getting customers data from online surveys, we need to reach out to representatives of the companies we're targeting and sometimes we can't get replies at all. I reached out to two senior security engineers but didn't get response. But we never know what we'll finally get from this process so it's still worth a shot.
Issues?
Since the product we're marketing is a relatively abstract product. The reliability and effect are kind of hard to prove to the customers right away, so doing UX testing on MVP is hard to implement in real life.
What am I planning to do this coming week?
Try to figure out how to make a MVP or other alternatives we can use to better show the product. Dig deeper into business model for the product.
Team Dynamic:
We split tasks and good collaboration over all. We also make sure everyone is on the same page as we move forward.
Conducted customer interviews & surveys, finalized value proposition canvas.
What did I learn?
It's harder to conduct customer interviews for B2B than for B2C. Instead of getting customers data from online surveys, we need to reach out to representatives of the companies we're targeting and sometimes we can't get replies at all. I reached out to two senior security engineers but didn't get response. But we never know what we'll finally get from this process so it's still worth a shot.
Issues?
Since the product we're marketing is a relatively abstract product. The reliability and effect are kind of hard to prove to the customers right away, so doing UX testing on MVP is hard to implement in real life.
What am I planning to do this coming week?
Try to figure out how to make a MVP or other alternatives we can use to better show the product. Dig deeper into business model for the product.
Team Dynamic:
We split tasks and good collaboration over all. We also make sure everyone is on the same page as we move forward.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Week 7 Personal Blog
What did I want to do this last week?
Settle down primary business model with my team, find our primary customers and hook up with them if possible.
What did I learn?
I learned that it's very important to get a clear understanding of the product value proposition before diving in to figure out the customers. A product or startup that doesn't kill user's pain or create new gains in the industry can't be a good startup. And such startup is harder to survive and scale.
Issues?
Our primary customers are medium size companies and any companies that have recently established their cloud-based storage. Since we're B2B type startup, it's kind of hard to contact other companies and get feedback if such an abstract software isn't available in the market yet.
What am I planning to do this coming week?
We'll narrow down our customer lists and make online surveys/mockup which can give us helpful feedbacks and reach out to our customers.
Team Dynamic:
Good collaboration and we make sure everyone is on the same page as we move forward
Settle down primary business model with my team, find our primary customers and hook up with them if possible.
What did I learn?
I learned that it's very important to get a clear understanding of the product value proposition before diving in to figure out the customers. A product or startup that doesn't kill user's pain or create new gains in the industry can't be a good startup. And such startup is harder to survive and scale.
Issues?
Our primary customers are medium size companies and any companies that have recently established their cloud-based storage. Since we're B2B type startup, it's kind of hard to contact other companies and get feedback if such an abstract software isn't available in the market yet.
What am I planning to do this coming week?
We'll narrow down our customer lists and make online surveys/mockup which can give us helpful feedbacks and reach out to our customers.
Team Dynamic:
Good collaboration and we make sure everyone is on the same page as we move forward
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