Boba Lab: Build Your Own Boba. Your Way.
Boba Lab began with a familiar product and changed where the customer entered the process.
Instead of offering one predetermined drink, the students made customization part of the product. Customers could choose a base drink, add their preferred pearls or jelly and create a combination that felt like their own.
The team connected that idea to a priced menu, a recognizable brand, customer incentives and a market-facing sell sheet.
It then presented the offer alongside other student projects at Maker Market.
Boba Lab finished second in sales.
- Maker Market result
- Second place in sales
- Project type
- Customizable drink offer
- Brand
- Boba Lab
- Operating line
- Mix it. Pop it. Sip it.
- Customer choice
- Base drink plus pearls or jelly
- Advertised price range
- $2.50–$4.50 depending on the combination
- Sales mechanism
- Priced menu, customer incentives and QR-based ordering
- Role of AI
- Visual identity, logo and tagline support
Customer Choice Became the Opportunity
Build Week students begin by interviewing parents and peers.
They listen for repeated frustrations, products people already enjoy and features customers wish they could change. The objective is not to invent a product in isolation. It is to find an opportunity grounded in recognizable customer behaviour.
Boba Lab’s final offer addressed one clear opportunity: customers enjoy boba, but different people prefer different drinks, textures and combinations.
The team did not need to invent a new beverage category. It changed the experience of choosing the product.
Boba Lab separated the purchase into two simple decisions:
- Choose a drink.
- Choose an add-on.
This gave customers meaningful control without making the menu difficult to understand.
The value proposition became:
Try new combinations. Have fun creating something totally yours.
Building the Boba Lab Business Case
Customization created a stronger customer experience, but it also created a business problem the students had to solve.
Every base drink and add-on affected the final price. Each choice also carried a cost.
Through the Build Week business-case process, students learn to connect:
- the customer offer;
- ingredient and packaging costs;
- the advertised price;
- expected sales;
- revenue;
- and the margin remaining after direct costs.
That work helps students distinguish a product people like from an offer that can support itself.
For Boba Lab, the menu became the bridge between the customer experience and the money model.
The completed Boba Lab menu offered three base drinks:
| Base drink | Advertised price |
|---|---|
| Milk tea | $2.50 |
| Mango | $3.00 |
| Matcha | $3.50 |
Customers could then add:
| Add-on | Advertised price |
|---|---|
| Tapioca pearls | $0.50 |
| Strawberry pearls | $0.50 |
| Rainbow jelly | $1.00 |
The base drink established the starting price. The add-ons allowed customers to change both the product and the amount they would spend.
This gave the team more than one price point while keeping the ordering process visible and easy to follow.
The business case helped determine what the student should offer, how it should be priced and whether the numbers could work.
The menu work connects to financial literacy for young entrepreneurs: students learn how product choices, prices and costs shape the economics underneath an offer.
Turning the Business Case Into a Customer Offer
The Boba Lab sell sheet brought the product, prices and customer experience together in one market-facing offer.
It showed customers:
- the available drinks;
- the available add-ons;
- the price of each choice;
- how to create a combination;
- what incentives were being proposed;
- and how to order.
The team also proposed free stickers with the first two orders, a points system, local delivery and QR-based ordering.
These features gave Boba Lab a recognizable offer rather than a disconnected collection of drinks and toppings.
The sell sheet was the customer-facing expression of the decisions underneath it.
The Role of AI
The student selected the boba direction and the Boba Lab name.
AI helped explore the logo, visual identity and supporting tagline. It made the student’s direction visible and helped the offer look consistent across the sell sheet.
The customer offer, menu structure, prices and Maker Market decisions remained part of the student project.
What Boba Lab Learned at Maker Market
At Maker Market, every visitor had cash and several student projects competed for each purchase.
Boba Lab finished second in sales.
That result carried more weight than a compliment or a survey response. Customers encountered the offer, considered the menu and prices, compared Boba Lab with other student projects and decided whether to spend money.
The combination of a familiar product, meaningful customer choice, accessible pricing and a clear presentation competed effectively inside the market.
The result also gave the students a stronger set of questions for the next version:
- Which base drink attracted the most purchases?
- Which add-ons did customers choose?
- Which combinations produced the strongest margin?
- Did customers understand how to calculate the final price?
- Which incentives influenced the purchase decision?
- How could the menu become faster and easier to serve?
Second place was not separate from the learning. It was the result of connecting customer insight, product design, pricing and a clear market-facing offer.
From Interview to Market
Boba Lab demonstrates the full Build Week sequence.
The students began by investigating customer behaviour and product opportunities. They turned customization into the central product feature, built a priced menu, developed a recognizable identity and presented the offer through a market-facing sell sheet.
Customers then made decisions with cash.
The result was the second-highest sales performance at Maker Market.
More importantly, the students could use that result to decide what they would test, calculate and improve next.
Design it. Build it. Price it. Test it.