NTC Technopreneurship Programme 5 May 2016

Content:

- Planning for Financial Success

- Start-up business concept

- Funding

Process:

Today was the sixth lesson of the technopreneurship course held by Mr Chia. He thought us about financial planning, which is vital for success, start-up business concepts that can minimise financial costs, and ways to get funding for your business.

A financial plan is important as it allows you to gain a better understanding of potential financial risks and rewards associated with your start-up. It identifies the start-up costs and the needed funds to be acquired, and it is a plan to help guide your business decisions and monitor your results. One aspect of the financial plan is the financial statement.

A financial statement should consist of a balance sheet, an income statement, and a cash flow report.

A balance sheet is a reflection of how much the company owns, how much is owed to the company, and how much the company owes to both creditors and owners. It shows the company's assets, liabilities, and the owner's equity.

An income statement shows how much a company has made or lost for a given period of time, also known as net profit or net loss. It shows the amount of revenue made by the company and the expenses incurred by the company.

A cash flow report charts the cash that flows in and out of a business each month and projects the company's ability to meet its cash obligations on a monthly basis. It is perhaps the most important supporting document in the business plan and also serves as the most important tool the management has for contemplating and controlling the financial affairs of the enterprise.

Start-up business concept:

The business concept or model of a start-up can affect the start-up costs and the profitability of a start-up. Different business concepts or models can result in different needs, and some business concepts might incur more rental costs, salaries, maintenance costs, vehicle costs, and equipment costs than others. This can impact the profitability of the business as the operating costs can be higher. 

Apart from the financial statement, the financial plan should also consist of the sources of financing and an exit strategy.

Funding:

There are a few ways to gain funding, namely equity and non-equity funding. Equity funding is the giving away of company shares in exchange for money. Non-equity funding on the other hand, has three main methods. 

The first method is bootstrapping. Bootstrapping is to use minimal or only existing resources to operate the start-up. It can be done by using the money of the owner, or simply by doing a lot with little.

The second method is grants. Grants are money given by the government or organisations. The advantage of taking grants is that there is neither debt attached or equity lost through taking grants.

The third method is debt financing. It can be through credit, long-term loans, or loans from friends and family. This method will incur debt but they will not be equity involved.

Reflection:

This lesson has exposed me to the more financial side of setting up a business, which is easy to know but harder to understand as many of the finer points need a deeper knowledge of economics etc. It is indeed very complex to create a start-up and there is much knowledge needed to know how to run a business. I now look at entrepreneurs with a different view. I am also interested in different business models and the advantages of the different concepts in relation to operation as well as costs.

Personal Development;

Over the weekend I will research on the different business concepts in order to understand more deeply the relationship between the business concepts and the running of the business. I will try to find out more about the similarities between successful start-ups and the cause of the failure of start-ups so as to understand how to better create a start-up.

NTC Technopreneurship Programme 28 April 2016

Content:

- New Ventures Project Strategy

- Entrepreneurial marketing

- Marketing methods

Process:

Today was the fifth lesson of the technopreneurship programme by Mr Chia. We learnt about the strategies for setting up a new venture selling products, what marketing is, and how to do marketing.

One of the ways a new venture selling products can gain high success is being a disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovation describes a product that starts of with slow success but has sudden exponential growth. Competitors tend to ignore it at the start, not feeling that it is a threat, but are left behind in the end when they realise too late. Not only does the performance of the disruptive product increase over time, the prices also drop sharply, giving it huge success over its competitors. An example of this is the digital camera. The digital camera started  with very low performance and little success. Companies like Kodak ignored the potential of the digital camera. However, due to the advancements in technology, the performance of the digital camera increased quickly and it made film, along with companies like Kodak, obsolete.

As a new venture, it is good to be a disruptive innovation, but a business must always look out for potential disruptive innovations and prepare itself to remain relevant.

Another strategy for new ventures is the Blue Ocean Strategy. A Red Ocean Market refers to a market with many competitors , where these competitors compete by slashing their prices. A Blue Ocean Market, on the other hand, is a market with no other competitors, hence allowing the venture to price the products as they wish. The Blue Ocean Strategy suggests that an organisation should create a new demand in an uncontested market space, or a 'Blue Ocean', rather than compete head-to-head with other suppliers in an existing industry.

The Blue Ocean Strategy is the most suitable strategy for new ventures given very little resources, and it encourages the creation of value innovation.

Beyond having a good strategy, marketing is also a very important aspect of a venture.

What is a market?
A market is a place where consumers' need for a product or service is met at the right price.

What is marketing?
Marketing is bringing a product into a market to meet the needs of customers.

Marketing vs Selling
Marketing includes selling. However, marketing starts even before a product is manufactured. Selling starts only after a product is manufactured.

How do we find a good marketing environment?
A good marketing environment must take into account the political, technological, economical, and social conditions of the area. These conditions must be understood for a business to be able to market within a suitable market, and also for the marketing of the business to be effective to the masses.

The four P's must also be considered to make a well-rounded, attractive, and effective marketing plan. 

Marketing method:

With the improvement of technology and the prevalence of the internet, the face of marketing has changed. From traditional media such as radio and TV advertisements, social media is becoming a more attractive and effective way to market. Marketing on social media incurs less cost, and can reach a larger or more specific target audience. 

Apart from lower cost, social media marketing has many other strengths too. Social Media marketing can have a viral effect, with netizens sharing the marketing product of the company. This further increases the speed and reach of marketing of the product, at little or no cost. An example of this is the Evian baby&me campaign, with the video going viral and capturing over 96M views on Youtube alone.

Social Media marketing can also capture the attention of the mainstream media, causing it to become more viral and reach more people. 

There are also social media sites that have a more focused audience, such as in art or music, and this can help you reach a more specialised audience.

Reflection: 

Today was a very eye opening session. I got exposed to many new terms for the first time, such as Blue Ocean Market or disruptive innovation. I got to understand the workings of disruptive innovation and this has made me very interested to find out more examples of disruptive innovation, as well as try to spot disruptive innovation that might still be in its infancy now. I am also interested in studying more about the mechanics of the market and the different techniques that companies employ to exploit or gain an advantage in a Red Ocean Market. I have been exposed prior to marketing using social media, and have been using it for projects or competitions like F1 in Schools. The notes given out by Mr Chia is extremely useful as it can remind me of how to make use of social media the most effectively.

Personal Development:

I will be using the weekends to research and learn more about how the market works, as well as find out about the different strategies employed by companies to gain an advantage in the competitive market. I will try to explore into deeper detail how to best use social media as a marketing tool, not as a business but just as a student or as a project group. 

NTC Technopreneurship Programme 21 April 2016

Content

- Crowdfunding

- Creating a successful crowdfunding campaign

Process:

Today was the fourth lesson of the technopreneurship course by Mr Chia. We learnt about the mechanics of crowdfunding and how to successfully make use of crowdfunding.

What is crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, today often performed via internet-mediated registries, but the concept can also be executed through mail-order subscriptions, benefit events, and other methods.

After creating a business model design and doing market research, the next step is to gain financial support to implement and kickstart the business. One such avenue is crowdfunding. There are two kinds of crowdfunding, rewards crowdfunding and equity crowdfunding:

Rewards crowdfunding:
Entrepreneurs pre-sell a product or service to launch a business concept without incurring debt or sacrificing equity/shares.

Equity crowdfunding:
The backer receives shares of a company in exchange for the money pledged.

Mr Chia also introduced us to several different crowdfunding websites, On these sides, entrepreneurs looking for funding create presentations to pre-sell their goods, and angel  investors go onto the sites to look at and possibly contribute to the projects. The investors will get different rewards based  on their amount of financial contribution. A few examples of popular crowdfunding sites are Kickstarter and Indigogo. Singapore also has its own crowdfunding platform, run by Starhub, called Crowdtivate.

Creating a successful crowdfunding campaign:
A crowdfunding campaign should contain a few components.

- Telling a story
- Building reward
- Promotion

It is also a good idea to launch a pre-campaign or to build an audience on social media before the actual campaign. This allows a larger audience to be aware of the project before it goes onto the crowdfunding website and also allows your audience to remain updated on your progress. This can increase the amount of funding that you can get during the actual campaign.

It is also important to take care of the legal matters and taxes. Revenue and donations from the crowdfunding campaign is taxable.

Entrepreneurs should do research and pick a suitable crowdfunding platform for their needs. Some platforms like Tubestart specialise in certain start-ups and hence have a more focused audience and investors.

Many entrepreneurs also make a mistake of setting the wrong funding goal, ending in failure. It is important to remember the costs of fulfilling rewards, legal costs, marketing costs, platform fees, and to set a cushion.

Reflection:
I have previously been exposed to crowdfunding before, but not in this level of depth. I feel that crowdfunding is a very good community to support entrepreneurs and encourage innovation in the world. I will definitely be visiting crowdfunding sites frequently from now on as it allows me to keep up-to-date with the latest inventions and innovations. I can spot different and unique business models there, learn how to sell products more convincingly and understand the products and the way the people think to innovate and create them.

Personal Development:
I will be researching on my own the psychology and design behind creating convincing presentations. This is already applicable now as we frequently have projects or competitions that require us to present. Being an aspiring engineer, it might also be useful if I manage to create a product or start-up in the future. I will also research on how to best harness the power and potential of social media for marketing.

NTC Technopreneurship Programme 14 April 2016

Content:

- Business Model Design

- Business Model Canvas

Process:

It was the third lesson of the technopreneurship course by Mr Chia. Today's lesson was about business model design and how to make use of a business model canvas.

What is a business model?

A business model is a description of the operations of a business including the components of the business, the functions of the business, and the revenues and expenses that the business generates. There are different types of business models, such as a franchise, a company selling products, or a company selling a service. Each of these different business models have their own needs.

Product:

- Branding
For a company selling a product, it is important to establish a brand for the product. Branding of a product consists of many different aspects as can be seen in the picture below. It is the unique image and reputation of the product or company and is extremely instrumental for success.

An example of a company with successful branding is Coca Cola:

Coke’s strength is that is always finds a way to connect with its current customers. The brand has had to make a lot of changes since 1886 to keep up with their audience, including changing their logo over the years to become more modern and thinking of creative campaigns to keep up with the times.

The best example of a successful Coca-Cola campaign was their 2012 Super Bowl commercial. Coke is always very forward thinking about how to create a brand that can relate to their audience. Their commercials pictured two polar bears: one rooting for the New York Giants, and the other rooting for the New England Patriots. The commercials that would play depended on who was winning the game. This is a great example of how the 125-year-old brand is still able to stay current.

Marketing takeaway: Relate to your audience and connect with your customers.

Service:

- Knowledge and experience

Knowledge and experience is necessary because it is the basis of selling a service. To be able to provide a good service, the technical know-how is extremely important. It is the crux of your service and it can determine your quality of service, and the success and failure of your company.

- Labour

Another need when selling a service is additional labour compared to selling a product. Labour is needed to be able to offer services to the consumer. In some cases, it can be human labour or in other cases, machinery. An example of such is a tuition center, which has to hire teachers to conduct lessons and sell the service of teaching.

Real World Examples:

Several companies seem like they sell services or products, but it can be the opposite of what it seems. Companies can be creative and innovative in their business model, setting them apart from the rest.

When Xerox created the photocopier, not many companies could afford to buy it. Hence, Xerox turned from selling a product to a service, placing their photocopiers in office for free. Companies would pay based on the amount of pages printed, and leasing and servicing would be provided by Xerox at no cost.

- Business Model Canvas

The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management and lean startup template for developing new or documenting existing business models. It is a visual chart with elements describing a firm's or product's value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances. It assists firms in aligning their activities by illustrating potential trade-offs.

Mr Chia also introduced us to the Business Model Canvas, which is used as a template to plan businesses. The template is filled with many different categories with many questions to fill. This allows us to look and set up a business model from many different perspectives, not missing out any major part of the business model that could potentially prove fatal.

Reflection:

In this lesson, I have realised that there is much more to business that i originally thought. I was exposed to more of the running of a business and it is not as shallow and easy as it seems to run a business. I was also exposed to the many ways business make themselves stand out and end up  more successful than other similar ones. It has inspired me to think and find out more deeply about brands and businesses we see daily, because many of them have a different business model to what it seems. An example of this is Macdonald's. Many, including me in the past, thought that it was a food-and-beverage business. However, much to my surprise, it actually is a real estate business. Many of the business we see in our lives have unique business models we usually do not assume they have. However, after we  research and learn about them, our perspective on the world is greatly changes, just like our assumptions of their business model has. 

Personal Development:

I am also aware about personal branding of a person, and after this talk, it has influenced me to further learn and understand personal branding. It is a very important skill to have and to know, and I feel that it can be applicable for me in the future too. Having good personal branding can allow prospective employers and others to get a better idea of you and hence it can increase your chances of landing a job or scholarship etc. I will attempt to learn about and might embark on personal branding after this lesson.

NTC Technopreneurship Programme 7 April 2016

Content

- How do we innovate?

- Customer Development

- The Lean Startup framework

Process:

Today was the second lesson of the technopreneurship programme held by Mr Chia. First, we started off appropriately with learning about one of the most important skills, not just in setting up a startup but in life as well, the skill of innovating.

How do we innovate?
Innovation is the thinking of and establishment of new ideas, methods or product. As Mr Chia said, one of the main problems faced by most people is that they set limit or thought confinements for themselves. These assumptions limit the thinking of the individual as they will hence streamline their thoughts along these false and unnecessary assumptions.

Why do people assume and how do we deal with it?
Only when we know why we assume, then we can learn how to get rid of our assumptions. Making assumptions are part of the human survival instinct. Making assumptions is an innate habit in all humans that have kept us alive. This same tool which makes us more efficient makes us less innovative as well. We have to learn and understand the situations in which we assume so that we can avoid doing so and thus innovate.

However, when we innovate, we must also be realistic. To innovate is commonly known as to 'think out of the box'. This box refers to the assumptions we make when we meet a problem. However, what is not commonly told is that another box exists. This box is the box of real world constraints. Our solutions must be practical. There are things we are unable to compromise, such as the laws of physics. To innovate, we must think outside our box of assumptions and within the box of real world constraints. Sometimes, this space can be extremely small and hence, it is often necessary to perservere before finding success.

Being able to innovate is not enough. We must have the knowledge of entrepreneurship to successfully put our innovation into effect. In this lesson, we started off by learning about customer development and value proposition.

There are four phases to customer development:
- Customer Discovery
- Customer Validation
- Customer Creation
- Company Building

He also told us about the 'Lean Startup' model, used by companies to improve their idea or product.

The objective is to accelerate this feedback loop with minimum resources.

The first step of of the Customer Development framework is Customer Discovery.

Customer Discovery is finding out more about the wants of the customer, hence allowing the company to adjust its products or services to the tastes of the consumer.

The next step is Customer Validation

This step is a presentation to customers, so that the customers will be able to understand what you are doing, and hence give feedback or decide whether to support you. There is a validation board for companies to present their ideas or products:

Most importantly, our ideas or products must have good value propositions in order for them to be attractive. 

Reflection:

I find the part about innovation extremely useful and applicable in my life, even from this point in time. Many a time, I find myself unable to come up with innovative ideas or solutions. Upon reflection, I do realise that it is often my assumptions that cause such problems. I will keep Mr Chia's advice in mind when I approach problems in the future. Although the rest of the lesson is not yet currently applicable, I will also keep them in mind as it might be useful for me in the future still.

Personal Development:

After this lesson, I have gained an interest in entrepreneurship. Over the weekends, I will be exploring on my own the basics of starting, as well as maintaining, a start-up. I will also try to explore the relationship between the Singapore Government and start-ups, as well as the impacts of start-ups on the economy. I hope that through this, I will be able to broaden my horizons and understand more about entrepreneurship.

NTC Technopreneurship Programme 31 March 2016

Content:

- Self introduction by speaker

- Learning from Success and Failure

- What is entrepreneurship?

Process:

It was the first lesson of the programme, which would last for a term. It was our first time meeting the speaker, Mr Roderick Chia. He first started with a self-introduction, which impressed me alot. Mr Roderick Chia is an extremely successful man by many means, having come from a humble background to winning a total of 5 Tan Kah Kee Young Inventors' Awards. I could not wait to learn from this man and had many burning questions in my mind. How did he get the innovation to create solutions? How did he find support and means to work on his projects? How did his successes work out? I was determined to get into the mind of such a prestiged speaker and to learn from his experiences.

Learning from success and failure

The first lesson he taught us was: Not all problems are worth solving. Mr Chia explained that in his many successes, most in fact turned out to be failures in their own different ways. I was perplexed by this statement but not long after, I was able to understand where he was coming from.
Is there a diminishing need for solution?
Many problems exist today. However, some of the problems might no longer exist in the near future due to the improvements in technology. Improvements in technology can alter our lifestyles and cause some current goods or habits to be redundant and out of date. The solutions to such problems will soon be redundant just as the problems are, and your success will not make an impact. A personal example of Mr Chia was when he created an ellipse compass. Soon enough, there was no more need for an ellipse compass due to the increasing prevalence of computers, and Mr Chia's invention became redundant as well.

The second lesson he taught us: Do you have the ability to bring the solution to the market? An invention would turn out to make little impact on the lives of people if it could not be brought to the market, even if it is extremely useful and revolutionary. When creating an item, we should not only focus on the product, but on the ultimate end in mind: bringing it to most people to impact lives. Hence, not only should we create a working product, we must create one that is simple to manufacture and can be reproduced on a large scale to increase accessibility to people. If our product cannot play a part in the peoples' lives and are just hidden in a workshop, where is the success in our product?

The third lesson: Would the anticipated problem ultimately surface? Thinking back to the first lesson, many of us would try to predict future problems and create solutions, to avoid creating redundant solutions with diminishing need. So did Mr Chia, but Mr Chia met yet another failure. The anticipated problem did not surface and hence his invention was also redundant again.

When trying to innovate and create solutions, we should always think back to the three lessons above to ensure that we are on the right track. But how do we identify a problem worth solving?

We need to:

Understand our strengths and weaknesses
We have to understand our strengths and weaknesses before we start a project. This is to prevent us from embarking on a project we are unable to complete, which will take up our time pointlessly. It will also allow us to understand our capabilities so we can successfully embark on a project we can complete. Understanding our strengths and weaknesses can allow us to work on our weaknesses and improve ourselves.

Understand the resources we have or can obtain
This is also for us to embark on a project we can complete, and not one where we will be unable to complete due to limitations in resources.

What is your passion, hobby, interest, skill etc?
Without interest or passion, we will not have motivation to push through and eventually succeed.

What is the value proposition of the solution and how big a problem are you solving?
Developing strong value propositions not only makes it easier to connect with target audiences but it establishes a foundation upon which a company's marketing and sales activities can be built upon. It also provides employees with a consistent and cohesive way to talk about what they are doing.

What is the trend of the market globally?
We have to understand the global trend to create a product that will be accepted by the public and can be marketed and sold well.

Sources of inspiration
For an inventor looking for sources of inspiration or support, he or she can turn to:
Crowdfunding sites
Concept Design
Interest Groups
and many other sources too.

Reflection:

I find it very meaningful that the school is inventing a speaker to give us talks on these content. These knowledge can be very useful not just in our future, but also currently. For example, for our CID4+ these year, we create products to help solve problems in society. We can constantly refer to the lessons given to us by the speaker to evaluate our own work and it can be used to ensure that we stay on the right track, not creating solutions that would be redundant in the future or creating projects we cannot achieve. These lessons can not just be integrated into our CID, but our lives as well. Before doing anything, we should create a framework for ourselves to evaluate the impact of our actions so that we can do the right things. We can create a thought framework for ourselves that can help us in thinking and learning too. Having a framework can help us in many ways by self-regulating our thoughts and actions.

Personal Development:
Personally, I will retain and use the knowledge I have learnt from this talk in multiple facets of my life as I believe that it can be helpful to me. It is a rare opportunity to have such a successful speaker present to us and share his invaluable knowledge. Another point that the speaker pointed out was that we should look for a problem before finding a solution, and not look for a problem with a solution in mind. Talking to Mr Zhou, I had realised that it was the exact mistake my team had made with our first proposal. We had the solution, the creation of the glow with UV light, and we sought to fit our solutions inside problems which did not exist in real life, such as the need for a UV clock. The lesson has definitely taught me alot and I look forward to the next few lessons.

Flappy Bird Scratch Task

Content:

- Computational thinking (understanding the logic of the codes)

- Creation of own Flappy Bird game using sprites, backgrounds and sounds provided

- Creation of own sprites, modifications to game etc.

Process:

For this task, the teachers introduced us to Scratch, a game programming program. What first caught my interest in Scratch was the way the coding was carried out. Instead of the conventional typing in lines of codes, Scratch codes are actually put into individual blocks. The blocks then can be dragged onto the script of an individual sprite and connected to other blocks, eventually forming a string of code for that particular sprite. A string of connected blocks of code is shown in the image below:

 This string of code is actually made up of 4 blocks of code. As we can see, it is much more convenient and easy to use this than to type lines of codes. These blocks are all already provided and only dragging and dropping of the codes in the correct order is needed. Less debugging needs to be done as there is no sytax that must be followed in this case.

Eventually, I also enjoyed using scratch as it had a user-friendly interface that was easy to understand and interact with. Each element of the game, such as the characters and the pipe in this case, is known as a sprite in Scratch. Upon creation of each sprite, the sprites will be placed on a toolbar as shown:

As we can see, the sprites are organised very clearly in the toolbar and it is easy to select the sprites by just clicking on it in the toolbar. In the picture, we can see that the pipe is selected. Upon selection of an individual sprite, 3 more tabs will appear, namely the script, costumes and sound. The script is the place where the strings of code as seen above are located at and the codes in the string of the particular sprite only runs for that sprite individually. The costumes tab includes several costumes of the sprite. This can be used to help us create an animation effect such as the flapping of the wings or randomise the appeareance of costumes such as that of the pipe. The costumes of the sprite is also controlled by the blocks of code found in the script of that sprite. As for the sound tab, sound clips for the sprite can be included and controlled in the script.

With the instructions given by the teachers and the easy-to-use interface of Scratch, I was able to quite easily complete the initial task of replicating the Flappy Bird game. Then, Mr Zhou challenged us to modify and improve the game on our own. This was slightly harder as it meant that we had to  be creative, and had to be able to transform our intended outcome into strings of working code. I also adjusted with the magnitude of the boost function and the acceleration of gravity to ensure a smoother gameplay. Some of the modifications I added include the switching of Flappy bird to Pacman and back at several time intervals, moving clouds from the right to the left of the screen, and synchronising the time so that the score would be added as the character passes the pipe instead of as the pipe is deleted.

For the Pacman, I added two extra images: one of Pacman with mouth open and one with Pacman with his mouth closed as the costumes to the Flapppy Bird sprite. After a set amount of time, the Flappy Bird will be replaced by the Pacman. Just like the Flappy Bird will have its wings show the illusion of flapping, the Pacman will have its mouth opening and closing repeatedly.

For the cloud, I created a new sprite, and ran a set of codes similar to that of the pipe. The cloud which is hidden outside the screen would be repeatedly cloned and the clones would move from the right to the left, deleted at the end.


Reflection:
Apart from the convenience offered by Scratch, the blocks-of-code system in Scratch also allows us to better understand code logic and improve our computational thinking. For the strings of codes to run right, the blocks of codes must be put in the right order, which requires computational thinking and an understanding of code logic. Deep thought and close attention must also be given to certain strings of codes that will run interactions between sprites. As the sprites are coded individually, messages must be sent and received between sprites for the intended outcome to occur. This will require us to code logically and meticulously to avoid mistakes. For a beginner, I feel that Scratch is definitely a good programme for learning. The neat,easy-to-use interface and the block coding system will aid the beginner in maintaining his or her own project well. It will also develop skills in the beginner while allow them to bypass more complications along the way such as wrong use of syntax which may hinder their learning.

Personal Development:

Prior to this task, I have also personally embarked on a Stencyl game project on my own. Stencyl is another game programming tool that is similar to Scratch. The sprites have seperate scripts, sounds etc, just like Scratch. The codes are also in blocks that will be connected, similar to Scratch. Personally I prefer Scratch as I feel that the interface of Scratch is still neater than that of Stencyl. However, having used Stencyl definitely helped me pick up Scratch more easily and hence I was able to complete the task rather quickly. Not just did this task help me learn alot, I also enjoyed the process as well. From here, I would try to embark on several 2D game projects on my own as well. Currently, I am trying to learn 3D game-making on the Unity engine too.

About Flappy Bird:

Flappy Bird is a 2013 mobile game, developed by Vietnam-based developer Nguyễn Hà Đông^[2][3] (Dong Nguyen) and published by .GEARS Studios, a small, independent game developer also based in Vietnam.^[4] The game is a side-scroller where the player controls a bird, attempting to fly between rows of green pipes without hitting them. The developer created the game over several days, using a bird protagonist which he had designed for a cancelled game in 2012.

The game was released in May 2013 but received a sudden rise in popularity in early 2014. It was criticized for its level of difficulty and alleged plagiarism in graphics and game mechanics, while other reviewers found it addictive. At the end of January 2014, it was the most downloaded free game in the iOS App Store. During this period, its developer claimed that Flappy Bird was earning $50,000 a day from in-app advertisements as well as sales.

Flappy Bird was removed from both Apple's App Store and Google Play by its creator on February 10, 2014, due to guilt over what he considered to be its addictive nature and overuse. The game's popularity and sudden removal caused phones with it pre-installed to be put up for sale for high prices over the Internet.^[5][6][7] Games similar to Flappy Bird became popular on the iTunes App Store in the wake of its removal, and both Apple and Google have removed games from their app stores for being too similar to the original. The game has also been distributed through unofficial channels on multiple platforms.

The game below is only created for educational purposes. Credit goes to the original creator or the 'Flappy Bird' game.