Challenge 1

Following the session with the guest lecturer last Wednesday, we decided to start testing our hypothesis, which assumed that Penn students prefer to buy and sell goods on a Penn-centralized website rather than on external websites, such as Craigslist, eBay, etc. In order to test our hypothesis, we created a survey, quickMVP landing page, and a Facebook page.

Our results:

Survey

• 41 participants
• 95% of participants prefer to sell items on a Penn-Centralized website, and 100% would prefer to buy on a Penn-centralized website
• 93% would sell furniture, while 78% would sell household items, and only 51% would sell clothing
• 82% would buy furniture, while 62% would buy household items, and only 28% would buy clothing

Facebook

• 72 likes
• 727 Total Reach
• 82 People Engaged (Likes, Comments, Shares)

QuickMVP

• 27 people signed up for the service
• 125 unique visitors

We started to use the Lean Method (Build, Measure, Learn) in order to figure out what people are most interested in and how we can continue to develop our ideas. Because we had trouble creating the website, we decided to build an MVP in the meantime to gauge people’s interest and get initial feedback. This revealed that we had 125 unique visitors, showing that many have become aware of our venture. Moreover, the comments we received were all positive, confirming an interest in the idea. However, only 27 people signed-up so we decided to increase our reach through social media. We created a Facebook page containing more pictures and information. We used this platform to send out our survey as well. After getting results back from our survey, we were pleased to find that a large majority would prefer to buy and sell goods on a Penn-centralized website. This was the validation we needed to prove that our idea has a market and can be successful. However, we realized the need to add an additional question that asked whether or not people thought this hub was needed. Additionally, after analyzing the results, we decided to only focus on the exchange of furniture and household items. The survey results also revealed that people were interested in selling and buying textbooks despite the existence of Penn Book Bazaar. Another reason we found it difficult to start the website was that we wanted to include too many features (eg. buying, selling, renting, user-ratings). Using the Lean Method, we learned to prioritize the main services we want to facilitate – buying and selling. We now have a basic website set-up (www.pennmarketplace.moonfruit.com) and we hope to continually improve it.

Because of the setbacks we encountered, we decided to simplify our approach for this venture in order to move forward with the project. Here we see how the Marshmallow activity done during lecture is reflected on our microventure. Instead of spending even more time discussing how to create a website that would function perfectly, we decided to test our service and its potential success given the basics. We’ve come to realize that instead of avoiding setbacks, we should be open to accepting obstacles that come our way and innovating ways to solve these problems. Not only will this allow us to progress, but this will also serve as a learning experience for our team in developing our resilience in a sector not known for its tremendous stability.

Given the chance to start over, we definitely would have done things at a faster pace. We would have gotten started with setting up our website sooner despite the uncertainty regarding how it would turn out given our minimal skills in creating websites. Moreover, our team would have asked for feedback from the entire class sooner so that we could have collected more answers for our survey, allowing us to evaluate statistics more accurately.

Despite what we have been through so far, we remain determined in making Penn Marketplace a reliable hub for students to exchange goods more quickly, especially given the enthusiasm we have received thus far.