Structuring Meetings

Sorry for the delay. Graduated college yesterday, so been a bit busy. But we back!

So, starting January 2015, our last semester of college, May and I decided to get to work and see what we can make of our idea of a better run food ordering and delivery platform. Think GrubHub meets Uber, and you have what would eventually become Morph.

We decided to commit to one meeting a week. Setting it up as a constant in our calender, every Monday at 11am in Cafe McColl, helped make it a real responsibility that we could not take loosely.

We first divided our roles based on our skills and interests. I would do all the 'business stuff'. We need to continue talking to customers, learning about the market, answering the problems we faced in the Pitch Party, gathering data, learning about competitors, etc. And May would take care of the designs. All of our PowerPoint decks, the logo, and- most importantly- our wire frames for the app we were going to build. This worked out great for me, as my design skills (clearly not inspired by my many years of art classes) are at a sore minimum, while May did not have the time to devote to all that needed to be done on the business end.

At the end of each meeting, we would make a list of goals for the week. We wrote these down- each of us recorded what the other would need to do- to keep ourselves accountable. We would spend the week working hard on getting our parts done, believing in each others' commitment enough to feel responsible to ourselves, the company, and each other to get our own work done to a level of excellence.

The start of each meeting was a checklist of all we had accomplished. We went over May's designs and discussed what needed to be developed or fixed. We discussed my progress, and assessed holes in our business plan and research. We were honest, candid, and critiqued fully. Because if we are not honest with our business partner, how can we ever expect to actually improve?

These meetings were superb, because they kept us moving. We set goals for the next week, the next month, and the next half-year. We worked towards these goals as well as we could, and adjusted them as needed. We helped each other in our tasks, were honest with mistakes, and celebratory of our successes. We helped each other move forward every day, and transitioned Morph from a cute idea to a true high-potential concept. I am very proud of what May and I were able to accomplish. No matter how Morph ends up, we worked our hardest, and I confidently say that we were supremely dedicated, and had an absolute blast working on Morph.

These meetings were also instrumental in helping to prepare our team for the Carolina Challenge, UNC's premier entrepreneurship competition. Once we applied and were accepted, our goals began to tailor themselves to the needs of the competition. My next post will be about how we prepared for the Challenge, and how we progressed through the competition for a (fairly) successful ending.

Adios and much love,

A