Learning to operate a digital product

Things worth noting down.

In the past two weeks, I've been trying very hard on the marketing strategy adoption for our newborn platform "Dadafish". It's basically to solve the market place chicken and egg problem in a more cost-efficient manner.

We start from the teacher acquisition:

1. Location based Door to Door marketing(visit physical store based on locations). 
2. Vertical domain marketing approach(research 2-3 subdomains and find the relevant hosts to host classes on Dadafish)

So far, we've got quite a number of classes ongoing, ranging from arts/crafts, language, cooking, sports. For the time being, we focus a lot on language and arts/crafts. Classes coming in the next few weeks:

1. Classes conducted this week:

• Japanese writing class

• Chinese class for complete beginners

• Flower arrangement class 

2. Class conducting next week:

• Japanese writing class
• French language exchange for complete beginners(3 groups)
• French language exchange for immediate level(1 group)
• Chinese language course for complete beginners

3. Class conducting the week after:

• Japanese language course(trial) for complete beginners
• German language course(trial) for complete beginners
• Turkish Ebru painting class.

4. Class conducting

• Spanish language course(trial) for complete beginners
• Italian language course(trial) for complete beginners

Classes under discussion:

• Chocolate tasting workshops(Two workshops)
• Coffee workshops(Two workshops)
• Wooden craftsman workshops(1 workshop)
• Wine tasting workshop
• Yoga workshop
• Cooking and Baking workshops

For student acquisition, it's harder.

As an online platform, the digital marketing approach would be really important.

It initially started from our own personal connections and meetups.
1. Wechat groups
2. NUS alumni/student group
3. Meetups

Now we are also exploring

• Facebook/Instagram/Twitter marketing
• Medium post writing
• SEO

It seems that the face to face appointment approach is so far the most effective approach in acquiring teachers. Meetups is so far the most important channel we have for students acquisition.


Things motivated me this week:

1. I visited a cafe named Oriole. It's very encouraging to share with them about our concepts and values. It was a really nice match.

2. Our new French friend flew all the way from Paris to SG on his culture journey. We never know each other before he flew over. I asked him: "Why do you trust me even before you meet me?" He says the same question should also go to me as well. We just trust each other. He shared his thoughts about Travel and Tourism from two philosophers.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: "Travel in order to learn more." from the book "Emile or On Education".

There is also Montaigne who says that : "There is an art of traveling", there is a huge difference between "Tourism and Traveling".

3. Mr. Tan, who's a floweriest in Raffles Hotel. He's holding his Kenzans(Japanese flower arrangement equipment) which accompany him for more than 40 years. He shared his experience with me which is really inspiring. He's really interested in Flower Arrangement. He learnt after his NS and fell in love with it ever since. Then he went to Japan to learn it more properly and later also to Taiwan when a western floweriest came to teach. However, he didn't pick Flower Arrangement as his career in the beginning as it'll be "too tiring" according to other people. After working on other careers for 10 years, his cannot stop following his heart to work with flowers. Though it can be tiring, he decided to work full-timely with flowers. Now he's doing really good, but he thinks that he should be doing it 10 years earlier. He'll definitely have more energy and do better.