> Get the right kind of music going, it's time to focus 😎 ## Brainstorming ### Topic %%What is the big idea you're thinking about? Why are you writing this? %% ### References %%Are there any existing notes, resources, or experiences that come to mind related to the topic? For each thing, why is it related and how can it be helpful? %% - Research - [Research Insights](https://www.notion.so/Research-Insights-a6cead99cf1447aa8680155c59f94c97) - [Persona](https://www.notion.so/Personas-THE-MAIN-ONE-348ed4edd39e43adb2d089c20761708a) - Figma user feedback - General interview, round 1 - Organization interview, round 2 #### Criteria - Quality of expression of interest - Quality of idea (a real market and need must be identified and backed up) - Quality of application - Completion of the [SPARK canvas course](https://author.sfu.ca/content/sfu/chang-institute/Programs/spark.html) - Feedback from a [Mentor Meet](https://www.sfu.ca/chang-institute/Programs/mentor-meet.html) mentor Selected finalists will be invited to virtually present their pitch on **November 13**. ### Brain Dump %% Write out any other thoughts that come to mind, then create a cognitive scaffolding that combines your references and brain dump. Break it down into branches and sub-ideas for further elaboration %% ## 4\. Team Information ## 3\. Company Information - [x] review it all 🆔 cbzphk 📅 2024-10-31 ⏫ - [ ] add figma files - [x] create demo video - Tacos - Easily - [ ] add people's information - [ ] share with team - [ ] problem statements should focus on what was discovered through user feedback ##### 9. Company Name Goldfish Notes ##### 10. Describe your product or service Goldfish Notes is a note-taking app for lazy people. Using AI, we enhance each step of the note-taking experience: effortlessly speak your thoughts into cleaned ideal formats, which are automatically organized and easily retrievable through advanced AI search algorithms. ##### 11. What problem does your product/service solve? How does it solve that problem? A lot of people dump their thoughts into their notes, but they want it to be organized without large effort on their end. - Manual typing is time-consuming - Voice recording is a faster option, but is currently not adopted due to friction in having to manually filter out filler words and irrelevant thoughts into ideal formats for their thoughts - From user interviews, people feel overwhelmed and burdened with having to manually choose how to organize their notes using traditional methods (folders, tags). As the amount of notes you have grows and time passes, it's easy for us to forget relevant notes we have made, leading to these hidden notes never being resurfaced. - With AI, we can automatically categorize their thoughts based on their custom organization structure. We can create searching methods that retrieve information more reliably than human memory through technologies like semantic search, which then can become naturally adopted through interfaces like search bars and chat bots. Just like how neurons in our brain naturally remember information through connections with relevant ideas, we can remind them of these relevant notes through a bubble map view where note sizes are based on their similarity. ##### 12. Who are the people or companies that will pay for your product/service? - Creatives and entrepreneurs who need a way to quickly capture and collect their diverse ideas - Knowledge workers who need to reliably organize and retrieve information for their deliverables - Neurodiverse individuals who struggle to remember and manage their thoughts due to the limitations of their working memory and executive function ##### 13. What data do you have that suggests people are willing to pay for you to solve this problem? Other AI-powered note-taking voice apps are recently finding success, with one (voicenotes.com) hitting $100,000 USD in less then a year. A venture solving a similar problem in which I previously worked for was making $1000 MRR and was sold for $20,000 USD. I have experience in this market creating digital products that have made $87,500 in revenue — I have developed trust with these 850+ customers for helping them enhance their note-taking workflows. ##### 14. How do your potential customers/users solve this problem today? People type their thoughts and ideas into traditional apps like Apple Notes, but find it effortful to organize them into folders and tags. Due to this friction, resurfacing their thoughts later on because of a limitations of keyword search. Note-taking eventually becomes cumbersome as they have to manually organize and find their notes. ##### 15. What unique insight, innovation, or advantage do you have compared to your competition? Advantages include: - connections with the thought leaders in personal knowledge management like Tiago Forte, Nick Milo, etc. - an online presence - 19,000+ subscribers on my YouTube channel (@itsjohnmavrick) focused on note-taking using digital apps and AI technology, with a monthly average of ~60,000 views and ~300 subscribers - have mentors who can help me (CEO of a well-known productivity app, as well as an ex-Y Combinator technical co-founder) ##### 16. Why do you think your business will be successful? Validated research from existing pain points and customers. Already have a team of 5 (2 designers, 3 developers). Feature differentiation from other AI note-taking apps: - Automatically cleaning your thoughts and transcriptions into ideal formats without having to manually do it yourself, unlike other apps that require manual user choice - Experimenting with new ways to approach the way we navigate and retrieve our notes (bubble map view to highlight related notes, semantic search, etc.) - App's design will preserve their familiarity of apps and methods they already use like Apple Notes ##### 17. How will your venture make money? Please mention your basic revenue model and main cost drivers. Revenue Model: B2C subscription model with tiered pricing (e.g., Free, Premium, Pro) Key premium features: Advanced AI transcription, most recent AI generation Main Cost Drivers: AI Infrastructure: OpenAI and Gemini API costs for transcription text generation, and vector embeddings Cloud Infrastructure: Server costs, database hosting (Supabase) Operations: Domain, apple developer account User Acquisition: Marketing and customer acquisition costs (paid adds, subscriptions for content creation) ##### 18. What progress have you made to date? - Validated and identified customer pain points and behavior which we used to create mockups to solve these problems - Done market research and competitive analysis to find ways we can differentiate from existing solutions - In less than a month, we have finished a working MVP for the AI transcription and cleaning feature available on both android and iOS, to which we are starting user testing on Saturday. Our established project management and planning systems for our upcoming milestones across all founders and roles has given me confidence in our collaboration and producitivty. ##### 19. If you have a business plan, business model canvas, demo video, or other supporting documents please link them here using Google Drive, DropBox, SFU Vault, etc. Figma mockups Demo video https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_DcldiPQQznSfNbesEF3FeD0HTlyeTyE/view?usp=drive_link ##### 20. Why did you pick this idea to work on? I consider myself a part of each target demographic mentioned in question #12, and see the benefit of using this new AI technology first-hand for my every day situations. Modern technologies and tools for thought have helped me overcome my ADHD through the power of extended cognition. However, the workflows and apps I use are too robust for the average person, so I want to make these technologies and capabilities more accessible and practical. ##### 21. What convinced you to apply to eCoop? - The day-in-the-life Instagram reels were really helpful in seeing a real-life showcase on how this opportunity can benefit my entrepreneurial growth. Ever since I started my first internship with the SFU Co-op program - Salary will go to the ongoing costs we have for operations and development, and will let us pay for services that will help us scale and grow - Mentorship can help me navigate the initial uncertainty of our first launch - Connecting with like-minded peers exploring non-related ventures can help me find unique approaches and solutions not commonly found in the SaaS demographic ##### 22. What key activities for your venture do you plan to focus on during eCoop? - App development - complete our three remaining milestones and have our app officially released on the app store - Creating and executing on a marketing plan using my existing audience and target customers ##### 23. What are the goals for you and your venture by the end of eCoop? - Finish the four milestone roadmap outlined to release the app in beta - Milestone 1 (already finished, user testing in progress) - voice recording - transcription - auto titling - summarization/cleaning (1 option) - editing - Milestone 2 (development in progress) - semantic search - summary (multiple options) & improvements - adding typed notes - adding note to an existing note - merging notes - multi-select deletion - apply high fidelity styling - Milestone 3 - Milestones - Phone widgets - Bubble map - Showing similar notes - marketing content (website/social) - Payment - Obsidian/notion integration - Milestone 4 - AI automatic organization - Watch apps - Hit $1000 MRR by initially leveraging my existing audience and connections, then expanding our target markets ##### 24. What are your long-term goals as an entrepreneur? Become a generalist founder with a wide skillset capable of nurturing my curiosities. To find ways of leveraging emerging AI technology as tools we can use with intention to augment our cognition based on research from cognitive science and human potential. My goal is to empower people with my creations, whether it be apps or media, so they can achieve their creative and intellectual potential in highly personalized ways. ##### 25. For each founder please provide: Name, role in the company, email address, LinkedIn profile, and SFU affiliation John Mavrick Reyes, SFU student, mostly front-end development but also do work related to back-end, operations, product management, and in the future marketing. [email protected] https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-mavrick-reyes Ivan Song, designer, focuses on product design, product direction, UI design and conducting user interviews/testing. [email protected] https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivansong3/ Rebecca is another designer focuses on product design, UI design and conducting user interviews/testing. Carmen is the main front-end developer with previous experience creating enterprise-ready software at Mastercard. [email protected] https://www.linkedin.com/in/carmenli01 Gabriel is the main back-end developer, SFU graduate, with prior internship experience. [email protected] https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriel-ko-705313213 ##### 26. What skills does each founder bring to the team? John: - Front-end internship experience from SFU co-op (Excelar Technologies, SAP) - Co-founder at previous note-taking apps (Fleeting Notes) - Product design and mangement (product manager at Linking Your Thinking) - content creation and marketing (YouTube channel, email marketing) - years of research and experience in the personal knowledge management and tools for thought space - creating note-taking products people pay for ($87,500 in revenue from two digital products) Ivan is the idea founder and is the one who assembled the team. His focus has been on creating the app designs and conducting user, which has been refined through his internships like SAP. Rebecca is another designer that is also working on UI design and user interviews. Carmen is the main front-end developer with previous experience creating enterprise-ready software at Mastercard. Gabriel is the main back-end developer with relevant experience from SFU internships. ##### 27. How does each founder contribute to the strategic direction of the company? Designers contribute to gaining a clearer understanding of user needs and pain points to create the best solutions, and developers explore the emerging capabilities of AI to bring it to fruition. We all also have our own unique perspectives, so during our weekly meetings we take the time to review our weekly scopes and plans to make sure we stay aligned with our milestones. ##### 28. Are you currently working on any other ventures? If so please state your time commitment per week for this other venture. I am not working on any other ventures, but I do have the following responsibilities: - My personal brand (no required commitments, but time spent making videos to market the app can be beneficial) - Product manager at Linking Your Thinking https://www.linkingyourthinking.com/, but it is contract-based so there is not always work and projects take up <14 hours a week ##### 29. Will you require lab access during your eCo-op work term? If yes, please describe the type of lab work you plan to conduct. Also, if you are unable to gain lab access do you have a backup plan for work you could do in an office environment during your eCo-op work term? No. ##### 30. Are you comfortable leading presentations (e.g. classes, clubs, events) on behalf of Chang Institute and the eCo-op program? I think it depends on the subject matter and size of audience. However, I am a content creator so I would be willing to help with creating media to promote the eCo-op program to spread awareness for people like me. ##### 31. How did you hear about eCoop? Email, but personal entrepreneurial interest is what led me to research on what SFU offers. ## Organized Ideas %% A place to start your rough (or maybe even final) draft. What writing framework or checklist best works to guide you towards your ideal finished product? %% - Avid note-takers who want to frictionlessly capture their everyday thoughts and knowledge before integrating it into their long-term knowledge management apps like Notion and Obsidian ## Potential Outputs %% What can I use these ideas for? Content, new notes, etc. %%