Startup Weekend Blog

Our team made it a priority on Friday night to discuss our personal strengths and weaknesses, and gain an understanding of what each of us enjoyed the most. I think establishing this at the very start of our venture was a major benefit to our group dynamic and the way we divided tasks throughout the journey.

Three of our four group members were able to meet in person and work together face-to-face for the whole weekend. This was also a great benefit for us, as we could easily communicate and collaborate together. It helped a lot to be with the girls in person when we were brainstorming and pivoting our idea for our venture and MVP. It also helped us to be engaged in Zoom calls together and still be working while talking to mentors and other teams. 

The mission statement of MoonForce demonstrates the reasoning behind creating social media pages as our MVP. In order to empower women and provide them a supportive community online, we decided the most effective way forward was establishing a social media presence. While our end goal would have been to create an app, this was not realistic within our timeframe.

The social media platforms we decided to utilise were TikTok and Instagram. These were chosen due to their relevance and usage by the target audience. On Saturday the accounts were created, and by Sunday morning we had already started gaining a following on both platforms. This was how we decided to test and develop the MVP.

Throughout the course of the weekend, I was able to have mentoring sessions with some amazing business mentors. This was also the most valuable aspect of the weekend for me, the opportunity to meet so many talented individuals and become part of their networks. 

My session with Carin helped me to gain a deep understanding of establishing brand awareness with our target market and portraying the value proposition through the social media platforms. Carin told us that features such as Instagram Reels are very powerful for our target market because you can capture attention quickly and present information in an engaging way. We also discussed what types of posts would be most beneficial for our message, and learnt that if we wanted to provide education to our target market, we would have to weave this in with entertaining and light-hearted content. 

Margaux helped me realise where we needed to focus our efforts for the pitch. After explaining to her the idea of MoonForce, she commented on the revenue streams of the venture and how this is something that needs to be presented strongly. At that point, we hadn’t really focused on the revenue and viability of the venture. This was a major focus for us on Sunday.

The biggest learning stage for me was the customer validation stage. After reflecting on the weekend as a whole, I know that without spending time talking to the market and potential customers, we would have been heading down the wrong track.

Because our original product, Little Moon Packet, was a physical product designed for users of the pill, our survey questions revolved heavily around this. While we did alter the survey on Saturday morning, most of the responses had already come in on Friday night. The most useful question from the survey was “Would you be interested in an app integrated with your contraception journey? Why?”. This question provided insight into the market’s desire for an app, as well as additional comments and suggestions relating to what the market would like to see in a potential app. 

On Saturday morning, our team reviewed the survey results we have received from the market. We found that many girls were not as bothered about contraception packaging and sustainability as they were about the limited knowledge of alternatives to the pill. This was interesting to us and crucial to the product moving forward. We realised that Little Moon Packet may be successful to a very niche market, but many girls wouldn’t have incentive or motivation to use a more sustainable and reusable option. This led us to believe that the market really needed more education and support around contraception options and accessibility.

We immediately began brainstorming how this could link to sustainability and what MVP we could create to embody our vision. Renee helped us to realise that family planning was a major issue identified by the UN, and therefore contraception education was closely linked with sustainability.

The ultimate for our new venture would be to create an educational app and supportive community, where users could sync their period tracking apps and make use of peer and professional advice regarding contraception. This was a bit unreasonable as our MVP however, so we decided that we could establish a presence on Instagram and TikTok to begin building a following, putting out content and gaining traction to develop an app in the future. 

Going into Friday night, I had no intention to pitch an idea. My intentions for the weekend were to experience the process of starting a new venture. Throughout the day leading up to pitch night I had been brainstorming and trying to come up with a venture idea which was related to sustainability, but I couldn't seem to think of anything. Fast forward to pitch night, and I was feeling inspired by the event facilitators and the other event attendees. There were lots of amazing ideas being thrown around, and I really wanted to contribute something to the night. I got thinking about the sustainability of women's contraception packaging, an item which is purchased regularly and contains excessive amounts of packaging.