Dragons Den, Chytrid BANG!

A few months ago I did a blog post on ‘Making a Business plan‘ with Chris Walker, but this time round we had to make a product that could be used as a business idea. This was a well needed break from the dissertation stressed that is in a month.

My group of 8 people that are mainly herpetologists came up with multiple interesting ideas, these included:

Pleistocene park – this is an interactive park where any scientists could work on bringing back extinct organisms such as the Mammoth, which is like Jurassic Park.
Glo-Trees – A science based way of reducing artificial light by producing a light based epiphyte (a plant that lives on another plant) that would produce natural light in streets.
Herp-e-dex – An idea inspired by the ‘pokedex’ from a children’s classic animated series and game Pokémon, which would categorise and identify amphibians and reptiles, as well as storing any new information on the organism.

In the end, we decided on a product that could be easily produced, marketed, and tested… this product is called Chytrid-BANG! Bang and the fungus is gone.

Fun fact: 60% of people don’t know what Chytrid fungus is

First simple logo that we produced

This product is a simple solution which is designed to kill the pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendropbatidis. It is a brand with a clear design that will target the deadly fungus, as well as other products to sell that will keep the business afloat.

After all the brain storming the logo’s, slogans, and the brand ideas to set out designing a clear business plan, crowdfunding video and a pitch to any potential investors. I was appointed to work on the presentation with another team member which could be pitched.

Fun Fact: Chytrid Fungus is particularly linked with the decline, and extinction of tropical amphibians

This is the business model canvas that we produce for our ideas into a real plan

My Opinion

Overall, I found this work shop a bit of a time waste as I don’t plan to make my own product. Making my own product could be hard to produce and sell on the market place, and can be very time consuming to make to produce the correct way. While chytrid fungus is deadly and is wiping out many amphibians species as it can be easily spread, it’s hard to detect who and what has it too.