Sarath is a graduating Mechanical Engineering student who specialises in design and has experience on an array of design and manufacturing softwares like Photoshop, SolidWorks, AutoCAD and CATiA. Having graduated with a Diploma in Aerospace Electronics from Singapore Polytechnic, he also has strong electrical and electronics fundamentals. He is known for being a strong and meticulous leader.

This was a teaser done by me for the new release which we have been talking about. We are still in talks with each other and the supplier regarding the various earring designs which would be our second product in the Mulan series.

The 1st week of school just came to an end and so did HYDRA's pre-order promotion. The poster I created was sent out via text and socials to our audience on Friday night. I also re-kindled my potential customers who were on the fence the previous time I engaged them. This end of promotion helped me to push my sales up by another 12 people. Thus, standing at a total individual sales of 27 bracelets. I'm also proud to say that I have the highest sales amongst my peers and that was only possible due to the skills imparted in me by all the MiE professors, my past experiences and my network.

Creating HYDRA and coming this far surely hasn't been easy especially with my whole vacation back in the RSAF, under the NDP2019 OS while also juggling my Final Year Project in school. I had to make sure to keep the designing and marketing efforts effective for our sales and also deliver as many personal sales as possible. Furthermore for the last 2 weeks, I had to manage the marketing all by myself as Kai was unable to commit due to his intern and orientation camp. Thus, I will surely admit that it was never easy but I'm glad that we have come this far and have helped one another to keep things rolling.

In the coming week, I'll be meeting up with my clients to deliver the merchandises they have ordered and also thank them for their support. With the successful closure of the promotion, I've also talked to my team about expanding out Mulan line with a new product. Currently, we are still in talks on the product and will soon come to a decision on this matter.

It was a super tiring yet a fruitful and successful week with NDP19. This week's update isn't really about HYDRA instead it is about NDP. As part of the NDP Parade & Ceremony Organising Secretariat (P&C OS), it was really rewarding for me to see how all our effort and planning unfolded this week for the actual show to the people of Singapore and the international community. It has never been easy to be part of an organising team but the experiences and memories gained from such experiences can never be bought or taught and I will truly cherish them. I am sure that I'll be able to use these skills which I've picked up from the last 3 months in NDP's P&C OS in the future ahead of me.

After the whole show, my colleagues and I went for the post show reception where we enjoyed the company of the NDP family with a great tasting spread. These were some of the photos that were taken during the event as shown on the left.

With NDP and my Vacational Attachment (VA) coming to an end and school starting next week, its time to focus on my last semester in NTU, FYP and MiE. The current update for HYDRA would be the arrival of our shipment this coming week and that would mean that by next week we will be able to deliver the goods to our customers.

Let the semester begin!

It is reaching NDP19 and school is going to start in a weeks time. I have come a long way in my Vacational Attachment with NDP19 Organising Secretariat, MiE and FYP. It hasn't been easy but I have persevered through the whole situation. As of now I have personally closed 16 sales for HYDRA and have the highest sales in my team. I am really thankful for my friends and family for their support in spreading the word about our Mulan bracelets. I am also thankful for all my previous experiences and MiE professors for imparting the right knowledge in me for pitching to my customers/ potential customers.

I've also talked to the team about our options on what we can do after MiE. These 2 options I've came up with is based on our financials I've tabulated. I've also attached HYDRA's cashflow statement under our financial statement tab in this site. The 2 ads attached on the left are the posts I've made this week in our socials.

Looking forward to the week ahead.

Cheers!

This whole past week has been about marketing through various means and successfully getting across to the customers. As of now I've confirmed 14 sales all by myself and 8 of which has been closed with cash settlement. I'm really looking forward to the weeks ahead to pump my numbers up. I also took this opportunity to talk to old friends about HYDRA and also catch up with them, and certainly my effort paid off when some of them came forward to buy the bracelets. It was really heartwarming to see such gestures from old friends and colleagues. I was taken-back and appreciative of their support. I've really understood the power of having the right network through this journey, thus far.

I've also updated our financials with our expenses and sales, and I've confirmed that we will achieve our breakeven point when each of us close 11 sales each.

Meanwhile, Kai and I have continued to create content on our Instagram page and stories. Some of my work this week is as shown on the left of this post.

On the other hand, NDP is nearing and that means soon my Vacational Attachment (VA) with the RSAF will be coming to an end and school will be starting. This whole journey has been tiring with having to manage my Final Year Project, VA and MiE. However, I've taken this whole experience positively and have learnt to manage my tight schedule well by delivering all that I've have said to deliver in a timely manner.

As of now, things are looking good with the sales, marketing and pitching.

Godspeed!

Starting from Wednesday, Kai and I have took turns to constantly post on our Instagram page to keep our audience engaged while raising our brand awareness amongst the people. Yes, Kai have also come aboard to design ads. On top of posting and sharing the story on the HYDRA account, we all have also shared the content on our own insta-stories to attract more attention from our respective follower base. Kai posted on Wed and Thurs while I will be posting today and tomorrow. These are the 2 ads i've created for today and tomorrow. These ads were created with the photos we gathered from the photoshoot last week. I'm thrilled to see how our daily post on social media is going to make a difference with our launch and pre-orders which is coming real soon.

Since we will only be meeting on Sunday as a team to see the samples and talk about the sample photos and release advert. I gathered that it would only be right to release one more advert before the sample release so as to keep the masses engaged while also explaining to them the meaning behind the Mulan series. I also came out with the tagline: Feel the class. Be empowered. Be Mulan.

For the past few days, Kai has been in contact with the suppliers regarding the quotes and deals. To make things clearer for him and for us, I sent out a group of questions in our Whatsapp group which we would need answers to from the suppliers, in order to choose the right supplier to work with for this venture. Questions regarding price, MOQ, additional service cost (packaging and engraving), expected date of delivery and cost of delivery.

He was only able to get all the information we required from the supplier earlier today. Thus, we had a Skype meeting just now to decide on our supplier and our plans moving forward.

Looks like we are set and ready to go. Tomorrow is the first consultation with Roderick, so let's see how it goes and we shall move forward from there.

Today, I reviewed the collated market survey results and made sense of the figures. We were able to gain a total of 73 responses through the survey. These responses were mainly from our proposed target audience of millennials.

The respondents chose the bracelet's design as the most important trait during a purchase, the price as the second most important and material as the third most important. Following that, I was able to simplify the previously shortlisted 8 design options available to our respondents into the top 3 favoured designs. It was also found out that more than one-third of the respondents would purchase their best rated design amongst the 8 designs for $20 to $30 and one-sixth of them would purchase their best design for $30 to $40.

With all these results, now we will discuss as a team and choose the design to be manufactured. By mid next week we would have confirmed our order with the supplier and would start on the next course of action which would be the marketing campaign.

3rd Font Logo Design

Today, we had a Skype meeting as a full team where we shortlisted the designs for the market survey. We also talked about the questions we plan to post in the survey to get an unbiased sensing from our target audience. With all that said, I took up the tasking of creating the market survey while Kai took up the tasking of calling the suppliers and Jia Hui took up the tasking of updating the team blog for this session.

I've just completed the creation of the market survey form and will need to wait for Kai to get some nice up-close product photos from the suppliers to add into the survey for design ranking purposes.

We are currently within the projected timeline. If all goes well and Kai is able to get the photos from the supplier by tomorrow, we will start to dish out the market survey to the masses by Saturday.

Another session of designing to pen down my ideas. Crazy and tight schedule but I would say rendering is satisfying, especially when the design comes to life.

It is going to be 2am soon... I better stop for today and get some sleep as I have a long and early day ahead.

Goodnight.

I'm sleepy...

As Kai was getting in contact with the supplier, it was about time for me to start the rendering of the bracelets and it was especially tiring due to my schedule. With my return back to the airbase and being tasked to join the NDP 2019 committee, the workload was just piling up and I was only able to start on the renders once I got back home. I stayed up till 3am to get these designs and logo out but I'm glad to see the end results.

Its been some time since I last rendered but it was relatively easy for me to start all these designs from scratch as I had these ideas flowing in my head so it was just a matter of drawing line by line and creating layer by layer on my iPad Pro with the help of the Apple pencil.

I would say that these renders are still raw as they still lack light reflection and shadow which are the 2 components which makes a render look real. However, they do have enough details for us to communicate the design with the supplier. Thus, this would suffice for now.

With finals having come to an end this semester, it is now time for me to do my due diligence by updating this blog.

In this past month, my team and I have met both online and offline to settle on an idea for our MiE Business venture. We were originally a team of 7 and then in the midst of the process, the team decided to split to be more efficient and effective in decision making. Thus, Kar Aik, Jia Hui and I joined together to form this team called HYDRA.

Our initial idea was to do an emergency charging bracelet which would allow the user to charge his/her phone when needed, however, after searching online and consulting with Roderick, we decided to put that idea behind us and possibly look into that in phase 2 (if we plan to continue after ET9135A). Considering the amount of time we would have to ideate, produce, market and start selling, we lowered our expectation and decided to work on a charging cable bracelet. With that on our agenda, we worked tirelessly to finish up the proposal and website in the midst of other submissions and tests.

After the presentation of HYDRA to Roderick and the rest of my batch-mates, we got comments from Roderick which would be critical for our upcoming actions in this business venture.

Therefore, on my way back home that day, I started to think more about our idea and started to be more observant to my surroundings; to be specific the number of people who wear bracelets. I've already spoken to my team about this matter and we have come to the conclusion of working on this matter after our finals.

Currently, I'm waiting for them to end their finals...