One of the tasks we were required to achieve in the module was to try and sell our comic book at the Business School at the Kingston Hill Campus. The target audience was our fellow students, and a number of judges that asked us questions and gave us points. Every participating team contributed £10, which went towards awarding the top 3 winners. The trade fair was an opportunity to evaluate our creativity in establishing a business idea and using entrepreneurial skills to make it succeed.

On the day of the trade fair, my team and I had arrived early to prepare our location and make sure everything is set up accordingly. We understood that to attract potential buyers to our stand, we needed a branding technique. Therefore, we decided to get matching t-shirts, printed with our logo, and a quote saying: “I’m not free until everyone is free, #jointheconversation”. The logo and quote represented our ideology in designing the comic book against abuse, and would be carried across all our social media platforms. By branding ourselves through the mentioned techniques, the students and judges were able to understand our message, and the value of what we were doing.

It was not easy approaching students and convincing them to visit our stand. Unfortunately, our comic book was not available during the trade fair, which further complicated matters because we were basically inviting them to give feedback on a product they had not seen. However, we decided to take the trade fair as an opportunity to get as much feedback and insight as possible so that we would create a relevant and appealing product to them. We requested all visitors to the stand to fill in a short questionnaire on their experiences with abuse, and expectations on the comic book. I would consider that activity as part of market research, which is very important for entrepreneurs because it helps them to understand the tastes and preferences of customers. With such information, they are able to deliver products and services that match the needs of the market.

Given that we did not have our comic book ready on the day of the trade fair, we put up a comic photo booth as an alternative in order to attract students to our stand. The photo booth would provide an idea of the prospective product that we were trying to create and develop expectation for the product amongst the customers. Finding an alternative taught me a very important lesson that entrepreneurs must be creative in finding solutions when some things do not work out as planned.

Unfortunately, our team did not win anything, probably because our product was not ready. We had ourselves to blame because it was our failure to agree on the contents of the book that delayed us from creating it.

From this experience, I got two lessons. First, it is important to always have your product ready and understand it well. Secondly, managing teams can be very challenging and especially in decision-making. I will use the insights I have learnt from the experience to improve my future entrepreneurial and leadership skills.