Final Pitch Deck Individual Reflection – Daphne

At the start, Soup and Bread seemed like a pretty trivial company to work with. The spec framed soup and bread with no ~real~ problem to solve. But to understand problem areas, we had to build a more thorough understanding of the current state of the business. I was surprised that this actually made Soup and Bread particularly difficult to brainstorm for. We had almost too much creative liberty when identifying which problems needed solving. All we knew is that we needed to come up with a strategy to expand Soup and Bread. We also knew we needed to address the businesses existing problems, like how much of the existing infrastructure sucks (Square payment system, website, third party apps taking 25% commision). These were things that needed to be addressed before we could even think about expanding. 

We used these existing problems as an inspiration to drive our thinking and needfinding. Since our infrastructure is so poor, we never really considered expanding Soup and Bread globally. The interviews also gave us some interesting perspectives. I personally have never cared for soup and bread too much, so it was definitely rewarding to figure out how to talk for 20 minutes about it, and also keep the interviewee engaged.

When I was listening to the other pitches in the class, it further reminded me about how our company is unique. We don’t have a clear problem, so there are infinite possibilities for our solution. I think this is giving us an interesting perspective on how to probe customers for their opinions, and also how to address incoming problems preemptively rather than fixing existing ones. I’m also learning a lot about Oregon and the fast casual dining industry there! I’ve never traveled to Oregon, so now I feel inspired to try some of the places we looked at for competitive analysis if I ever go there. Ultimately, I’m really glad we got assigned to this company! It’s such a cute concept and I’m excited to help it succeed!