The spotlight shines this week on one of our newer members, Pamela, who has recently embarked on a new project called ECHO.
ECHO is a blockchain-based project which focuses mainly on the media and entertainment industry. The end product may come in the form of music, videos and/or digital media pieces, and the team is currently in the beginning stages of the project.
ECHO was like a “project reset” for me. After spending my first month in Col-Lab (a fish collagen project), I decided to leave Col-Lab and join the team of ECHO to look at fresh perspectives.
To use an analogy of a vehicle to describe where the team is at in this project, imagine building a car from scratch. The team has the required specifications of the capacity of this car, its expected potential and the desired horsepower. However, the car’s final appearance, how it was going to be designed, whether each individual technical piece would mesh smoothly with each other, is still in a process of discovery.
The team has identified 3 potential overseas markets that fit the bill of the given requirements. They are in the midst of validating these markets through surveys, interviews and secondary market research, with the current priority being our neighbouring Indonesia.
Some challenges the team is facing include their lack of understanding of the target market — especially in its differing culture and language contexts, and the lack of physical accessibility to the geographical location of these identified target markets during the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing travel lockdown. These factors make the “barrier of user empathy” higher as compared to a more familiar and/or accessible market.
That being said, ECHO will continue to seek alternative ways where we can validate these target markets despite the limitations. With our 3 potential markets validated, our team thinks we will be better able to make a decision on the focus market, have a clearer vision and begin designing our solution.
I can’t see the vision of this project clearly yet, but I’m excited to see where this journey of discovery takes our team. As to how the process of design thinking goes, we just have to trust the process.
Here’s to wishing Team ECHO (Pamela and Vanessa) all the best in this new project, as they continue their meticulous tasks of groundwork and refining their scope.
Until next week, this is VB18 signing off!
