And YES, today, we did do a smoothie competition for the first time, with the idea of trying flavors, meeting clients requirements, and selecting different ingredients in order to create the very best smoothie; the one we would probably start off with in the smoothie business we will be creating: "THE SPOT". Honestly, it was much more than just a competition; it was a learning experience. Just a quick recap. As the days for the competition got closer, everything went crazy. We were not sure what flavor to select, what ingredients to buy, the quantities we had to include, and most importantly how we wanted the smoothie to look. After days of planning we came up with "THE CLASSIC" a smoothie that blended banana, milk, and strawberry, to serve the judges palates with Peru's greatest delicacies. It was actually fun, the idea behind the competition was exciting, we were pumped up about the smoothies, the presentation, and having an authentic audience that most likely would also be the same when he had a true smoothie business. |
On your mark, get set, go! The race had began, we placed the fruits in the blender, the milk, the ice, and we hit on the power button. As the fruits were blending themselves, I had a hodgepodge of ideas in mind; it felt as if I was blending ideas, instead of blending fresh healthy fruits. Many thoughts were starting to pop up, and most, certainly related to the competition. I started to mix up my mind with ideas of "The Lean Startup", class discussion, the smoothie competition, and even comments from people outside the IA; it was quite exciting. | |
So as I mentioned above, our smoothie was a failure. The fruit was not blended enough and the texture was too thick, the banana over-dominated the strawberry flavor, and we didn't take any hygiene precautions when preparing the smoothie, such as avoiding touching the fruits without gloves. But here's the important part; in this case we actually did learn. We recognized the WHY of our failure, the errors we made, and we had evidence that our smoothie was not as good as we thought so. This was the highest point of the competition, the realization that even if all the planning we did resulted to be a waste of time because our smoothie was not spectacular, without that planning there would have been absolutely NO LEARNING. |