EBS STARTUP BLOG: PART 2 – “Let’s get the wheels rolling”

Markus: “The first home assignments showed us fast, that seven people mean seven opinions, seven schedules, seven characters and not always seven contributors. It’s too much. I sometimes had a feeling that planning the meeting took actually more time than the meeting itself. During one meeting we had, there were me, Christopher, Loreta and Gustav, we understood that we can do the same job as good quality as we could with the seven of us. Four is a better number in any way- everyone fits in one car, with seven people one should be in the luggage and the other one should be jogging next to the car or something. Well, yeah, it would be difficult.

So, for some reason I thought that I am such an awesome communicator, that I can take the responsibilities of letting the other three in our team know of our plans. Ehh…. It turned very emotional. Because we are all very good friends, it wasn’t easy at all. Some of the members take it quite easily when they are let go from the team but with some others the very opposite. I myself am the second option, which means that it was very emotional for me for quite some time.

 

Here are some thoughts that helped me during this responsibility, which might be helpful for someone else too:

1. It wasn’t my personal but the whole teams decision and “you don’t shoot the messenger”.
2. This decision is not personal towards anyone instead if focuses on maximizing the firm’s development.
3. If he’s a “tough guy” he’ll understand.

 

It has been done and I’m feeling blue. For a second, I had a feeling that I’m a bad person and I will lose friends and popularity like this. But coming back to the third suggestion then fortunately all of them were tough guys and after a little while they understood and got over it. “

 

TEAM

We will now take a moment to have a look at those four, whose combination defines our Blog’s Team. Let them introduce themselves:

Christopher – “Still waters run deep; always helpful and polite. I keep a low profile and good relationships with friends and acquaintances are very important to me. I love order in small details and expect that from others also. I like diversity, but I can adapt to activities which are tedious and are routine-heavy.”

Loreta – “I’m an entrepreneurial and determined 19-year-old girl. I’m always kind and helpful. I’m conscientious in everything that I do and I always give my best. My main hobbies are tennis, football and downhill skiing and snowboarding during winter.

Gustav – “Peace lover, who wakes up when rest of the world is still sleeping. During early hours of mornings you can often find me in the gym, where I gather energy for the rest of the day. My other hobbies would include technology and machines and everything exiting related to them. Usually I’m impatient, but determined to achieve my goals. Otherwise a calm and helpful chap, who usually never says “No” to a quick game of golf or some other active activities.

Markus – “Young and hungry. Sometimes irrationally confident. But the world and its opportunities are open to those who are bold. I love having control and responsibility to not become a victim of life. I’m not scared to fail and learn. When I stop learning I will stop growing. Growing and development is everything to me!”

 

LET’S GET TO WORK!

Loreta:

“Sooo, with every team member’s motivation high, we are ready to take action. We agreed on our first meeting and soon we were sitting in the third floor meeting room of EBS, around a big round table. Our spirit is ready and the excitement for new challenges is huge. Hold up! But where do we even begin? There seemed to be so many topics that needed to be solved and discussed, what to talk about at first. Even just beginning with the meeting seemed difficult. Everyone started making different suggestions, where to begin. “So, the name. What will be the name of our company?”, “No-no, first you should set the roles of team members, who, what, where and when will do?”, “Listen, at first we should consider every aspect and function of the application and what will be the structure overall.”, “Wait, how can we even begin before talking over and analyzing the idea’s problems and possible solutions?”- That’s how the mess looked like during our first meeting. But after reading the topics one by one we finally put together our first big plan and big goals. Our main goal is to use the city space more efficiently and to make new parking spaces as a result. We want to make it to every bigger European city with our app.

By our second meeting everything was much clearer. We knew why we came together and what the topics at hand would be. We discussed the essence of our brand and clarified who we are as a firm and how do we differ from others. As a result, we answered the question: “who are we?” In a unified discussion we realized that characteristic of our app is simplicity, cleanliness and sustainability. Our priorities are the comprehensibility and user-friendliness of our app. We understood that we are not making yet another parking app but instead we are on a mission. A mission to clean the cityscape of cars and as a result increasing safety.

A little bit about our name drama. How do you develop a firm if you can’t even name it? This is where our name suggestion time started. You could say that the suggestions were all over the place: Carmel, Locspot, ParknGo, Locar, Repa, Pare, Parkrent and the list goes on. Everyone obviously had their own favorites and we couldn’t come to an agreement on it. We gave ourselves some thinking time until the next meeting.

On our third meeting we continued the search for the greatest name. To our surprise, we still couldn’t agree on any specific name option. Instead we continued with mapping problems. Problems included cars that are overdue their rent time, marking of the parking spots, all sorts of questions regarding gate opening devices etc. At that moment it felt as if the problems are appearing from all directions but as always, every problem has a solution. Even if at first it feels like the solutions are hiding defiantly, it still has to be found determinately. Since we couldn’t solve the flood of problems in one meeting, we agreed upon doing a thorough home assignment for the next meeting. We would write down all of the questions that pop to our heads and all of the possible solutions to then discuss them through altogether.”

 

There is a slight method forming from the chaos. However, the road from a fog-filled valley up to the peak is who knows how long. What goals would the team set to maintain their course and what difficulties shall they occur along the way? We will see!