I loved the entire process of receiving FurFuel’s profile, reading through its financials, figuring out how to grow the company through innovating as a team, and then presenting our findings during the pitch. My favorite part was interviewing people at Stanford Shopping Center; meeting dog owners and comparing empirical or anecdotal data with the statistics we found online made me feel excited to continue working on this project. I forgot sometimes that we were not actually working for a real company, because I felt like our team was genuinely solving a problem and coming up with a realistic product based on our research.
I did feel like there was not enough clarity on the motivation for the pitch presentations and a lack of guidance on the expectations of the presentation. For example, my team was not sure if we were supposed to act like we were asking for outside investment, if our product was supposed to be proposed as a launch for next quarter, and how in-depth we needed to be when it came to our research. One recommendation I would make is that our sections could be more effective at clearing up any confusions or reinforcing important topics during lectures. One example is if we had time apportioned for covering any questions anyone has or giving status updates from each team. Additionally, if teams could also cross-collaborate on activities, I assume that would have evoked some new ideas or questions regarding our pitch.
