Video website Innovation work
Creating an Org. that “NEEDS TO EXIST”
YOU can get users and funders interested if you…
Create value for a critical need
Make the world a better place
Do something different than what’s been done before (innovate)
You cannot (should not) ask the crowd to fund…
A me-too business (same as what already exists)
A business designed only to make you rich
A concept that will only have a minimal impact
Convince people your org. needs to exist and you will…
Encourage customers to do business with you
Motivate employees to work for you
Drive partners to do business with you
Inspire newspapers to write about you
If you did not have enough time working through the business model innovation assignments in the last class you can work on those exercises before coming to the content for this week.
On these slides we want to make sure that students understand these points – what the crowd will want to support and the competitive advantage that this can create. These concepts are described in great detail in the videos this week and next but you could discuss any of the examples or bring in new examples to explore.
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This final project is the culmination of the course
Final Kickstarter / Indiegogo Projects
This final project is really intended to bring together all the topics that have been covered in the course…
Fundamentally the idea they come up with needs to create value (it actually needs to do this for multiple stakeholders).
They have had a chance to generate a large number of ideas that can be the source or stimulus for this final concept
They have had a chance to learn how different types of innovation can differentiate and make an idea (even one that initially seems boring) unique or different (in fact multi-bottom-line is the last mechanism they will learn about to differentiate an idea – to make an idea that is somewhat me-too into something that is really interesting)
Finally, they should understand business models since a multi-bottom-line concept requires a unique business model to make it work.
This is a good time to emphasize that MOST OF THE IDEAS THEY CAME UP WITH FOR THE FIRST PROJECT ARE NOT INNOVATIVE ENOUGH TO GET FUNDED ON KICKSTARTER. This is their chance to come up with a more innovative idea (because they have the chance to innovate in the purpose, the business model, the way impact is achieved, etc…).
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Multiple Ideas
Types of Innovation
Business Models
Multi-Bottom-Line Concept
Value Creation
What is the ‘why’?
Who does this create value for?
How does this make the world better?
Who would believe this product ‘Needs to Exist’?
What is their business model (i.e., how do they make this scalable / economically sustainable)
Not expecting you to go through all of these (preview them to see which ones you like or select others) but want to reiterate the potential to combine purpose w/ a sustainable business model and show a number of successful projects that do this.
I always want to constantly remind the students – we are not looking for non-profits and they don’t need to save the rainforests or the whales. As long as they can convincingly argue that they can enhance some positive aspect of human nature or of society or somehow improve the world in any way then they might be on to something.
One thing to note: one of the things that seems to hold students back in this segment of the course is simply that they are cynical. Ironically the students basically don’t believe that anything can make the world better or that business can achieve a social good. Anyway, just something to watch out for.
We need students to understand that mutli-bottom-line ideas can do good and are more likely to get interest / funding.
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Video Pitch (2-4 minutes)
[not grading video quality; extra credit for effort]
Embedded in Web Pitch or posted unlisted to youtube / vimeo
Web Pitch (850 -1k words + imgs)
Can be Word, Weebly, PDF, etc… (not live or draft on Kickstarter)
NOT an essay or word document (should look like a Kickstarter or Indiegogo webpage and be compelling)
Include Reward Levels (be creative / link to company concept)
Final Kickstarter / Indiegogo Assignments
This is what they are actually submitting.
I am usually less concerned with the type of document they submit then with it looking like an interesting web-page-like pitch common on Indiegogo and Kickstarter. Some people still submit an essay but I take off for that.
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Content to cover / convey (across video & webpage):
Who your company is & Who you personally are
What you do & How you do it (and What $$$ will be used for)
Why you do it!!! (your purpose)
Evaluation / Grading
Creativity / Novelty (20 pts)
Overall Feasibility (20 pts)
Purpose / Idea ‘Needs to Exist’ (40 pts)
Clarity of Page, Video, Rewards (20 pts)
Final Kickstarter / Indiegogo Assignments
This is what is included and what is graded…
Emphasize the needs to exist (i.e., people will believe that the idea needs to exist and will want to be a part of making it happen).
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What is a Positive Impact?
Think broadly about impact / purpose…
>> Any positive aspect of Human Nature, Community, Society, Our Planet, etc…
…that you can create/enable more of can be an example of positive impact!
When they are coming to their final project I want them to think about something they are personally passionate about.
This might be something as simple as creating healthier high school wrestling environments (i.e., where kids don’t gain / lose weight around matches) where kids fashion or dance or whatever creates a healthier self-image and empowerment, etc… This is what the animated note is intended to showcase – anything that is positive about human nature or society that can be enabled or can have more of it created is viable for this project.
Finally, they need to keep in mind the innovation imperative (even if they are envisioning having a positive impact they cannot simply do something that others are already doing) as well as feasibility (they cannot simply say they are going to solve world hunger, they need to put together a reasonable version of doing this).
One of the main reasons that we push them towards multi-bottom-line is that there are millions of combinations of purpose and a sustainable business model – this is an unparalleled opportunity to be innovative.
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Business Models make this work
How do you do this?
Adding purpose to a business can seem insincere
Creating a business around a purpose can seem more genuine
You still need to innovate – others are likely already creating the same positive impact, so why does your idea ‘Need to Exist’?
The secret is in building an innovative multi-bottom-line business model
You can have a positive impact in any or all parts of the business model…
It is important for them to realize that they can create positive impact in each and every aspect of the business model.
I am not as strict as some social impact folks who want every element of the business model to create positive value for stakeholders. However, we do want to avoid ideas in which the negative impacts outweigh the positives – for example, shipping ‘sustainable’ hemp around the world (using tons of oil in the process) is likely not going to create a sustainable company.
Ultimately, the more holistically they can think about impact the better.
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Coming up with a Kickstarter project
What are you passionate about / want to fix?
Adding purpose to a business can seem insincere
Creating a business around a purpose is likely more genuine
We are looking for multi-bottom line concepts (NOT non-profits)
Used forced association…
Bridge / Connect: purpose <> business idea / business model
Don’t forget Kickstarter / Indiegogo [implicit] constraints…
How much money would you need to launch? (don’t forget more projects fail when they ask for $50k+ / very few project in $250k+)
What can you give a person for $25-$250? (if main value / deliverable is offered at $1000 or more it shrinks your donor pool)
What will motivate people to want to give you $$$? (same question applies for any venture – what motivates people to be associated with you?, work for you?, buy from you?, write about you?)
We want to make sure that they are not simply selling T-shirts and donating a portion of the profits (although Ivory Ella a recent company launched by current students did this quite successfully because they combined great design, a cutting-edge cause—ivory poaching, and fantastic social media promotions). Anyway, most of these types of ideas make social impact seem like it is bolted on… we want integrated concepts that make sense.
Also, we want to emphasize that we are NOT looking for non-profits. We are looking for economically sustainable social impact concepts.
You can point out that they have a homework assignment about bullet #1 and we will do bullet #2 next week in class.
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You have a big advantage over past students – lots of support
Kickstarter School (huge amount of help to get you started)
http ://www.kickstarter.com/help/school/defining_your_project
Overall instructions / explanation for how it works:
http://www.kickstarter.com/start
http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq
http://www.kickstarter.com/help
http://www.kickstarter.com/blog
Practicalities- creating a good video (lighting / audio matter):
http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/creators-guide-to-video
http :// www.kickstarter.com/help/school/making_your_video
Also Google ‘how to make a good video’ ;)
FAQs & Helpful Guidelines
The kickstarter school in particular was added in the last year or so and gives them lots of support…
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Thinking about / Finding your Purpose
“Man is only great when he acts from passion.”
For today's aspiring entrepreneur, exploring avenues of creativity to find your passion is likely the quickest route to increase your chances of launching a successful business.
Some exercises to help…
Revisit your childhood. What did you love to do?
Make a "creativity board" and include pictures that inspire you
Make a list of people who are where you want to be
Start doing what you love, even without a business plan
Take a break from business thinking
Given that we started the semester with this we are revisiting this after the students have had much more time to think about this and work on their ideas.
It is still surprisingly difficult for some students to identify something they are passionate about.
Here are some tricks / hints for how to think about this.
Given that they have already come up with a few passions and dream jobs (next slide), if you wanted to take time you could have them write a few of these things on a piece of paper and reflect on to what extent their projects have wound up focusing on things that they are passionate about. However, generally speaking these are things for them to try on their own.
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Reflection & Updating: Finding your purpose (& your idea)…
List 5 or 6 things you care about (hobbies, activities, passion, things you would like to see fixed / improved)
Include WHY do you care about these things?
List 5 or 6 types of ventures you might like to run or work in (dream jobs / types of companies / forms of E-ship)
Include WHY do you like this type of company?
This is the homework they did for the first class. However, I think that many of them wound up working on random ideas. Those types of random ideas don’t work very well for the final project because there is no convincing argument that the “organization needs to exist”. Hopefully they have much better insights into their own passions by this point in the semester.
In the next class we will actually spend the entire time working in groups to use forced association to connect these and/or providing feedback to students who already have a concept they want to work on.
Reminder: Point out how important it is to understand why…
If you like kids because of their energy OR their curiosity OR their innocence OR their potential – in each case different ideas make that characteristic central and can encourage more of that in kids or the broader society… the student would come up with different ideas to enable each of these aspects of childhood or to draw on that inspiration to enable more of that for everyone!
Similarly understanding why they might want a certain type of business or venture… if they really would like to run a service company, or a product company, or a consulting company, a retail locations, or a relatively hands-off import company, etc… OR more specifically if they want to open a bakery or an IDEA-style product development company, or an insurance company, etc… (if they don’t know a type of company they can also think about things like whether they would like to work with a number of people, want to interact with customers on a day-to-day basis, etc… this can help them think of a type of company).
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Exercise: Generating Multi-Bottom-Line Business Concepts
List 5 or 6 things you care about (hobbies, activities, passion, things you would like to see fixed / improved)
Include WHY do you care about these things?
List 5 or 6 types of businesses you might like to run or work in (dream jobs / types of companies)
Include WHY do you like this type of company?
Discuss with your group…
As a group brainstorm about the intersection
(forced association task)
They did the top two boxes for homework at the start of the semester. You can do this forced association as an exercise in class (if none of them have ideas they could spend the whole class period doing this – 7 minutes or so per person will leave you a bit of time for discussion at the end).
Step 1: Write a passion on the left side of the paper – including “why” they are passionate about it.
Step 2: Write some dream jobs or ideal industry on the right side of the paper.
Step 3: The group should explore aspects that describe the area of passion.
Step 4: The group should explore aspects that describe the dream job / industry.
Step 5: The group should brainstorm about ideas that connect the two sides of the paper. It helps to explicitly think about (as a group) specific aspects on each side of the paper.
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