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The End

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 Here is my final reflection and blog post of my Senior Project. I will probably go over some topics and ideas that I briefly touched upon in previous posts. The first thing I wanted to talk about was my inspiration for this project. As I mentioned earlier, me and Quinn decided to continue working on Estim8 because we enjoyed it during the fall. In the fall, we were both enrolled in an Entrepreneurial Studies class that our school offers. We were tasked with finding a problem in our lives that we could find a solution for. Because me and Quinn are high school students at a school that gives a lot of homework and major assignments, me and Quinn both knew how important but difficult time management is. We wanted to create something to improve students’ ability to manage time. In my opinion, a lot went well with the project and working with Paragon. Together, me and Quinn were able to create our business plan, our app design, our app functionality, our acquisition funnel, and much mor...
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Fun/Awkward Moments: Meetings and Buttons

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 During my senior project, me and Quinn were hard at work for the majority of the time we spent working at Paragon on Estim8. Because me and Quinn have been good friends for a while, it was easy to always keep it light while being productive.  Aside from the jokes, there were a few funny and awkward moments that made this experience memorable for me. The first funny moment we had was when we were working on our app functions and what we want Estim8 to be able to deliver to college students. It took us about two days of work (while working on other aspects of the business/app) to fully create what we envisioned for the future. I had worked out the entire realm of things ranging from our “Magic Scheduling” to things as simple as letting users create a profile. After me and Quinn completed the overview of the app’s function, we showed it to Mr. Ours to see what he thought about the app and if it was plausible. As soon as he finished reading through it all he told us how much he e...
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What I Would Change About My Current Senior Project

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 I have had a very rewarding experience throughout my senior project, and I have learned a lot. However, there are some aspects I wish I could have changed or done differently. I wish I had done more to get myself caught up to speed with the steps me and Quinn made during the Entre course. Me and Quinn, along with Audrey, did a lot of work to build a vision for Estim8 in the fall. Although a majority of the documents and things we did were for specific assignments and deadlines, a lot of that information could have been more of a guide for us. Because I did not take the time to review these different documents, it took me almost an entire day to get caught up and get in the right mindset to start working on our goals again. Another regret I have is pretty similar to the first one. I wish me and Quinn had continued to work on Estim8 in our spare time during the winter and early spring. Because Quinn and I both played basketball during the winter, and I have played baseball through...
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My Experience and Advice for Future Students

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  I can truly say that my Senior Project has been and will end up being a successful experience for me. I say that because of the new things I learned, and the way I’ve expanded deeply on things I already knew a little bit about. Although I am majoring in Political Science in college, I’ve always had an interest in the business world. More specifically, I’ve been interested in strategy and many different ways of analysis (industry, customer, competitive, etc.) Through Mr. Ours’ guidance and me and Quinn’s hard work, I’ve not only gotten a much stronger understanding of these business concepts, but I’ve been able to apply my learning directly to something me and Quinn have worked hard on for months. I’m certain that is why I feel so appreciative of these last few weeks, and the time and work spent here feels rewarding. I’ve been working on something that I was interested in and could see the fruit of my labor, so I was motivated to work harder. My current experience ties directly to...
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Business Plan and Magic Scheduling

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 At this point in my Senior Project, I feel me and Quinn are very close to reaching our current goal for Estim8. Over this past week, we’ve worked very hard to sharpen our business plan and all of its different aspects. Our business plan is a nine-page document that includes a business overview, the product overview, the app’s key features, our customer focus, the management team, success factors, financial highlights, Estim8’s history, our industry analysis, customer analysis, competitive analysis, our marketing plan, our operations plan, the milestones we want to reach, and much more. I’m going to explain more about the product overview and the app’s functions because that was the thing I spent the most time on throughout the week.  I’m sure I’ve said this in my blog already, but when me and Quinn decided to start Estim8, we derived the problem and solution from our own lives and the lives of people around us. Because we’ve both been at Hawken for a significant period of o...
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First Impressions and What We're Doing Now

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 Right now, I believe we are in a very good place. Because we spent a little more than two weeks in the fall working on Estim8, Quinn and I thought we had a strong idea of what we had to do when we got to Paragon. However, that was not the case. I missed the first day of the project because I had to take an AP Spanish exam, so I had to ask Quinn about the vibe he got from Paragon and Mr. Ours. He told me he was excited to work with Paragon, but we had our work cut out for us. This message from Quinn helped me get into the right mindset and motivate myself to be ready for anything. The first day I came into Paragon, we got right to work. I learned about how to make a “use case”, where you take the perspective of your different potential users and what they would want their app to do. I spent about an hour or so simply writing different use cases for students, professors, and parents, and it helped me gain a stronger sense of what parents would want Estim8 to do.  After I made d...
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Group Dynamics and Learning About Myself

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 Throughout the early stages of my senior project, I’ve started to learn the importance of having a strong, dedicated partner or team around you when creating a business. Luckily for me, my partner, Quinn is a great person to work with on this project. Quinn and I have known each other for about 5 years, but we only started to become really close friends this year through our Entrepreneurial Studies class. In our Entre class, me and Quinn worked on two different projects together, including Estim8. There, I learned that Quinn is laid back and funny, but he is also driven and analytical. Personally, I see myself having a lot of similar qualities, so it makes a great working environment where me and Quinn can laugh and have fun while working hard to achieve our goals. During our Entre class, we knew we had a solid idea, but we couldn’t do everything we wanted to because of limited time and different requirements we had to meet that didn’t really align with what we wanted to do. Howev...
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