This week we were assigned to start up a business with a group of five. We should come up with either a product or service related to fashion. Each of us chose the role that we wanted to be in charge with. Therefore, I became the sourcing director of this group, even though we were not sure what direction we were heading to.

I am the first one came up with an idea, which is eyelash extension. I do eyelash extension and make money from doing it. I was thinking that I can teach other members in our group how to do it. Also, customers can customize their false lashes in many styles, such as length, curl level and shape. However, some people don't like this idea.

We have came up with several idea. In this week, we got to meet out tutor, Rob and we told him our ideas. The first one is using second-hand tire to make shoes. The second one is to use 3D printer to make glasses. The last one is to create a designers' community, where they can show and sell their products. Rob gave us suggestions and feedback for all three ideas. However, we still needed some time to figure out which idea & concept best suits this project.

In week 3, the business idea of "Designer Avenue" officially launched. Even though at this stage, we haven't confirmed our platform's name yet. Our business concept: Online Fashion Platform to promote (market) and retail (sell) aspiring and post-graduate designers. These designers on our platform can communicate with one another, hence becoming a community. Potentially they could collaborate in the future.

In order to start up the business, each of us should do some primary research first. We created a survey and intended to spread it across the internet. Also we created the brand identity which I stated above. The most important thing that came to our mind is to give our platform a name. 

Brand name we came up with

1.Clique + Click = Cliq

2.Society + Fashion = Fociety

3.Fashion Monitor

4.Fashion + Connection = Fashnection

5.Designer Home / DHome

6.Designer Avenue

 We all liked the name Designer Home at first, unfortunately somebody else has registered with this name for a website already. So our final decision is "Designer Avenue".

Done with the primary research, we really need to get to the second stage of starting up the business. Gina is the company secretary, so one of her jobs is to make sure all of our activities have legal documents to support. We created the draft of Contract for designer recruitment and Non-disclouser agreement (NDA).

We met Rob again, and told him about our progress so far.He reminded us that we would be having a pitch very soon and we should have started preparing for our presentation. Also we need to confirm our brand name as soon as possible and register the domain name.

After meeting with Rob, all of us go with the name Designer Home. Unfortunately, someone else has registered a website with this name. So we quickly checked if Designer Avenue has been taken by other people or not. Luckily Designer Avenue is still available, and we took it immediately.

We were still missing several vital things such as company logo. So later in this week we created our company logo and guideline has been launched. Also we created an account with Crowdfund campus.

Each of us were assigned to created slides for their own role for the presentation coming up in this week. In order to present our business idea to the audience clearly and fully, we should not only present our business idea but also some solid evidence that shows this business is going to work. As a sourcing director I must at least find some designers who have wills to join us. Therefore we can show the tutors the products we might be able to sell on our platform. I have a few friends back in Shanghai, China, who have their own brand. I found two designers that are willing to be a part of us. The first brand is called Slimhoyawang and the second one is called NOS.

Fortunately, after all of the hard working, our project has been approved and we successfully received the one hundred pounds from UAL.

During the easter break, I met several designers in China and had meetings with them to tell them the benefits they will get once they join us. Also I had the chance to actually see their products in real life. At last, Hoyawang, the founder of Slimhoyawang decided to join us. I carried 24 t-shirts, 9 jacktes and 12 caps from his brand back to London. Meanwhile, Andrea has found three designers from Singapore and Malaysia. David found one designer from Korea. Their products are still on their way to London. After we all reunited in London, we started shooting our crowdfunding video and create business account for designer avenue. 

Crowdfunding Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGrjO28FrSA

We reached 290 pounds.

For the crowdfunding video, I am the only one who shows up in the video. It is just a quick introduction of what designer avenue is and asking for help and support from anybody who thinks our idea worths their money. We shot it at Andrea's place. Even though it was just a few lines that i got to say, we took almost three hours to finished the whole shooting. Because at first my face looks awkward and unconfident when I talk. Gigi showed me how to best present our concept in front of the camera. After a few misses, we think we got the best one for our crowdfunding campaign.

It has been an extremely tough and busy week. Creating a e-commerce based platform is hard. When we don't have a physical store, our website is the only thing that can attract customers and present our idea and concept. 

We gather images and shot the products in details. We used Wix to design our online website because it is easy and free. 

 After all the legal documents are issued, I sent out contracts and NDA to designers and went through each regulation and step with them. 

First offline sale has been made in local market place in London, Pimlico.

Total sales made: 200 pound

Duration of the market: 5 hours

It is a huge thing for us because it proves that our business is making profit and will get better even more in the future. Additionally, later in the week, since our website has officially launched, a order has been made through our platform and we are ready to ship the product. In the meantime, some more stocks arrived from our designers in countries outside the UK. Then we continue the shooting of new products arrived.

Every successful business went through the steps of advertising. In this week, we started to work on our social media marketing strategies. We created accounts on Weibo ( Chinese version of Twitter), Instagram and Facebook. People can to know our recent activities and details information about who we are and what our products are. Gigi is in charged of the Instagram account. As a sourcing director I provided detailed information of each product, so that she can put it in the caption along with the image she posts. 

There's a lot of fashion groups on Facebook, so i messaged them our website link and gave them a brief introduction of "Designer Avenue", also told them that they can join us  any designers want to sell their products on the platform. Sadly nobody replies me. 

At this time, we have basically completed all stages for starting up a business. All we need to do is keep on doing advertising on Instagram and use our own social network to increase the awareness of "Designer Avenue". 

Our Instagram followers has reached 200 and we received several likes on every photo we post. Everyone is happy with the layout of our Instagram page. It looks simple but also creative at the same time.

I sent the evidence of our progress to the designers in order to make them feel even more confident about themselves and also our team. I feel like "Designer Avenue" is a place that our group created for those who truly love fashion and design to find a sense of belonging. 

We continue selling our products both online and offline. Some offline sales were purchased by our friends and some are just strangers.

In next Thursday, we will have one day in Spitalfields Market to sell the products. We need to get all of our products labeled in price and materials are made. I decided I will bring my own clothes rack to the market to display Slimhoyawang's Caps and also some other products. 

We visited several markets in London before and we think if we get one more day to sell our products in a market, it will greatly increase our sales before 2nd of June. So we emailed the office of Camden Market's head office and we get the approval from them.

We had a meeting on Wednesday to finalized everything for Thursday in Spitalfields Market. I feel really excited because it is my first time experiencing such thing like this. 

I woke up really early in the morning and took a huge luggage to fit in all the products. I arrived there at around 9AM. We started to set up our own little shop. Sticking the logo of "Designer Avenue" on every single shopping bag and struggling how to display our products in the most attractive ways. 

We made some sales through out the days. But as far as what I observes, Spitalfields Market is not the best place to sell our products because of the price point. Some of our products are quite cheap, but some are pretty expensive. For instance, the zipper jacket costs 80 pounds per jacket. A lot of people went by and told us that this jacket is really unique and well designed, however when they know they price, they walked away. I would say personally this jacket worth even more than 80 pounds, because of it's good quality. But in the rest of the Spitalfields Market, merchants don't have very high quality goods, therefore their products are much more cheaper then ours.

To sum up, it was a really good experience for students like us studying fashion management. And we really look forward to selling day 2 in Candem Market, though all of us were exhausted.

On Friday, i woke up early as well and got ready for all the things we need for Camden Market. Gigi, Gina and I arrived first and we went to the office to get a table for us to sell. We got a comparatively bigger table then yesterday. When i was trying to set up the clothes rack, the women from other table wouldn't allow me to do so because she says it is blocking her customers way. I really realized what it is like to survive in such a competitive market. 

Link to our website: https://designeravenue.wixsite.com/home