#0 Kick-off: Every start is difficult!

Hello world,

and welcome to the official blog of Backjag! We are a team of five master students from the Rotterdam School of Management (Alessandro, Yann and Sara are Strategic Entrepreneurship students, while Marco and Sung are studying Strategic Management), who are currently participating in the Entrepreneurial Lab course. Although we have very different backgrounds and fields of interest, there is one thing that we have in common: we all believe that Backjag has the potential to become something really great and we are ready to make this happen.

However, our first idea was something totally different, so we better start to shortly tell you, what has happened during the first week of the Lab. J

The Museum App

Our first idea originated from Alessandro, who is happen to be a big fan of art and culture. Ale loves visiting museums and other exhibitions, but doesn’t want to spend that much on expensive entrance fees and can’t stand the crowd during peak times. As a student, his budget is tight, but he also has a flexible schedule, which lead him to a possible solution: wouldn’t it be amazing if he could find a way to visit exhibitions on off-peak days for a reduced price?

As we could all relate to this pain, we decided to work on this idea and see how far we can get… and this is how the concept of “USEUM” was born.

“USEUM” would have been a platform for moderate art and culture enthusiasts who are often discouraged by the expensive entrance fees but would be willing to visit and discover new cultural attractions (e.g. museums, art galleries, other exhibitions). One the one hand, "USEUM" would have provided information, discounted tickets and the possibility to meet like-minded people to consumers. On the other hand, it would have enabled cultural institutions to sell tickets on an on-demand basis and to attract new visitors that otherwise would be hard to reach. 

The first version of the BMC

After the first two lectures, we started to work on this idea. We created the first initial version of the Business Model Canvas (BMC) and Value Proposition Canvas (VPC), conducted a short research about the museum market in the Netherlands and went out to talk about the concept with museum visitors to three different museums in Rotterdam. Unfortunately, our customer survey has shown that our potential user base would have been too small and not active enough to profitably operate a ticketing app, since most of the respondents go to a museum less than once per month, and that many people were not able to rearrange their schedule because of their job or studies. However, the visitors we interviewed reported the lack of information about exhibitions, especially small ones, and seemed to be open to hanging out with other museum fans, so we started to think about a solution with a social focus. After discussing the different opportunities for 4 hours on Monday, we found that the market is not lucrative enough, the traction wouldn't be enough to monetize on the app, and we would have been offering an unclear value proposition, so we decided to drop the idea.

Change of plans...

So we were there, 5 days before the first challenge and had to start everything over. But luckily, we had a Plan B from the beginning: Yann and Sara were on the founding team of Backjag, the 2-in-1 rain jacket and bag, in the Opportunity Creation course. Since only two members of the original team decided to take the Entrepreneurial Lab and the project has been kept on ice for a couple of months, it wasn't our first priority to continue working on the idea, but after some discussion we decided to restart working on Backjag.

But wait: what is this Backjag exactly?

The Backjag is a rain jacket that can be turned into a simple bag within a minute. Users gain the advantage of combining a jacket and a bag to reduce the struggle of carrying both items separately. The use of straps, belts and velcro make the switching process from jacket to bag (and vice versa) quick and easy. In addition, the well-placed inside pockets ensure that the user does not have to rearrange any items when switching between the 2 functions and that all belongings in the jacket are at any time safe yet easily accessible.  The Backjag thus allows the customer to be well-equipped for bad weather, have his hands free and his belongings stored safely, all at the same time. 

So far so good, what's next?

In the next post we will share our initial BMC and VPC so that you can get a more detailed overview of the idea. Also, we will tell you about our first meeting with our potential customers and the results of our market research.