Team:Tec-Chihuahua/EntOverview
Entrepreneurship
Overview
As shown above, our project meets all the requirements from a social and political point of view as an ideal practice for Human practices (link). On the other hand, from an economic perspective by working in the area of entrepreneurship. This, in order to give a solution to the various problems affecting fruit growers when facing the disease known as fire blight. Achieving this by the formulation of a biocontrol product that is effective, affordable, and can be used by anyone in the world. That is the reason why we have emphasized on a functional prototype (minimum viable product, MVP), which was developed from the value propositions obtained after a thorough market study. Taking advantage of all of those situations where the customer is not satisfied using other products available in the market. Along with the comprehensive business plan presented down below, we have an operating technology, as well as a viable and innovative business model. Both will help us determine the viability of our project in a competitive industrial environment. For all of this, it was necessary to obtain a social, technical and economic validation before starting. Technical and economic validation was achieved based on a series of documents for the entrepreneurship area and interviews with different experts in so, but also with potential customers with a great impact on the Latin American apple market.
We are aware that founding a new company involves many challenges and leads to uncertainty and fear. However, we know that just a few teams from the past editions of iGEM have been set up as startups, although there are many projects with very innovative ideas, not only from a scientific point of view but also from the commercial point of view. Therefore, we work arduously to get a deeper understanding of what led us as a team to carry out our work in entrepreneurship.
Thanks to the most important entrepreneurship program in Mexico, presented by Parque Tecnológico Nova Orión and the Tecnológico de Monterrey Business Incubator, a methodology was developed that would ensure any startup to grow its idea in the best possible way ( link). Going beyond than just sharing our results, we obtained different tips for all iGEM teams that will complement each team´s project.
What were our key outcomes?
At the final stage of the project, we realized that a deep analysis should be implemented in order to notice the impact of our product as a solution of one of the most phytopathogenic diseases faced by farmers. We argued and got into the same path; there are some positive ways in which our project could be visualized. One of them, the development of a profitable business model that can be replicated by anyone thanks to the support of our mentors and by the application of the process involved with the lean method, canvas tool, and steeple format, just to mention a few.
We realized that laboratory tests were necessary to notice the biological impact that our biocontrol can cause, obtaining results that corroborate our theoretical fundament established at the beginning of the project. There is no doubt that small producers and well-established companies will be so beneficiated because the way in which they solve this problem is so inefficient/poor and also highly priced. That’s why Erwinions aims to decrease the investment of the agricultors offering a preventive alternative to avoid the presence of fire blight, therefore the use of corrective and highly priced products will not be necessary.
We are convinced that the efficiency provided by the existing companies will be improved by the use of our biocontrol because its design applies the fundament of the mosquito of malaria; Sterile Insect Technique SIT. Sterile-release methods are based on the distribution into the environment of large numbers of sterile insects. These insects compete against their wild counterparts; a wild female that mates a sterile male will have no viable progeny or fewer than she would otherwise have had, and so the next generation of the target population will tend to be smaller than it would otherwise have been. If a sufficient number of sterile insects can be released over a sufficient period of time, the target population will decline and collapse.
The long-term achievement we expect to accomplish attached to a profitable investment margin of 40% is a break even point after a year of sales, where we could remain in the market.
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Email: igemtecchihuahua@gmail.com
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