Unreasonable Institute
The 3 Pillars of Excellence: Availability, Affability, and Ability
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle
Wisdom from my Father. I called up my dad the other day just to say hi. He regaled me with a few exciting stories from the hospital, where he works as a neurologist. I asked him something I had never asked before: “What makes an excellent doctor in your opinion?” My dad said being an excellent doctor boiled down to three things: 1) availability, 2) affability, and 3) ability (in that order). It’s likely these 3 pillars aren’t only the makings of an excellent doctor, but an excellent entrepreneur and an excellent human being.
Being Available. With startup founders constantly clamoring for his investment dollars and entrepreneurial wisdom, Boulder-based venture capitalist Brad Feld is probably one of the busiest people around. Considering this, you’d think he’d be highly selective about who he speaks with, but he’ll actually talk to anyone for 15 minutes. Like a college professor, he holds regular office hours. Anyone can show up to pitch him on an idea, ask for his advice, or just chat. Of course, after the 15-minute conversation, he’ll be honest about whether he’s interested in having future conversations or not. Even still, because Brad is one of the most approachable VCs in Boulder, he’s also one the most reputable and best respected.
If he weren’t so approachable, he might not have such a remarkable reputation. As an illustration, a respected mentor introduced me to a certain impact investment fund (which will remain nameless). I sent them 4 heart-wrenching emails and they never responded. They’re undoubtedly busy, but even still, I felt ignored. I felt like this organization didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me whether it felt our collaboration would not be ” a good fit.” I’m left with pretty negative feelings about this group and won’t be contacting them again.
That feeling is exactly why the sort of openness to conversation is so important. It’s best captured by something Maya Angelou once said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I definitely don’t remember everything my dad said or did while I was growing up, but I definitely remember that he was at almost every one of my tennis matches, that he was never too busy to help me with my homework, and that he always supported me no matter what I wanted to do with my life. His ability to make people feel like he always has time for them is probably why patients keep coming back to him. And as an entrepreneur or VC, it’s probably why people will keep coming back to you.
Being Affable. Keen on learning a little bit more about how my dad does his job, I asked him if he gets tired of treating the same illnesses day after day. He said, “I do get a lot of the same cases, but I don’t get bored. That’s because I don’t treat an illness, I treat a person.” Because he treats his patients as people, my dad has been late to see most of his patients. But in over 20 years of practicing medicine, only 2 patients have complained about his tardiness, according to his receptionist. Why? Because my dad doesn’t see the 15-minute appointments his patients make with him as enough time to treat them like people. He might spend 45 minutes with one and show up late to his next appointment. But his next patient knows that she will get the same intensity of attention.
Hearing my dad say this reminded me of what my teammate Daniel Epstein always says: “business isn’t business, business is people.” Those who are truly successful in business are those who connect with others on a deep human level (see Daniel’s blog post on how to build genuine relationships).
In addition to being caring, one thing Daniel always reminds me of is that one of the best ways to connect with other human beings is to show that you too are a human being. That means being your quirky and unique self. I am always amused by Google’s annual April Fools’ Day antics. I love flying Southwest Airlines because the flight attendants sing songs instead of giving you the standard “this is how you fasten your seat belt” spiel. And as I explained in our last blog post, I will return to Northwestern University’s Global Engagement Summit as much as I can because it is comprised of a group of people who love having fun. That too keeps people coming back to you.
Being Able. In the end though, you’re unlikely to be available or affable if you aren’t good at what you do. Being competent gives you the confidence to be available and to be your quirky self. Brad Feld, Google, Southwest Airlines, and the Global Engagement Summit are not only approachable and likable, they show up and deliver. They find good people, they provide invaluable services, and they do both damn well, again and again and again.
If that’s not excellence, I don’t know what is.
Photo Credit: Temple Zenith
The Magical Draw of a Loving Team
The Incredible Global Engagement Summit. I just returned home from Northwestern University in Chicago, where I attend the Global Engagement Summit (GES), a 5-day training conference for young social entrepreneurs from around the world to learn how to put their ideas into action. The conference hosted 65 delegates from 20 countries and featured incredible speakers and mentors like Brian Bordainick from 9th Ward Field of Dreams (who, for the record, may be the most genuine and inspiring public speaker I’ve ever seen), Blair Miller from Acumen Fund, and Josh Nesbit from FrontlineSMS:Medic. But being a completely student-run organization with only 5 years under its belt, how does GES attract such high-caliber human beings year after year?
The answer may come from a short story I heard from Scott Sherman of the Transformative Action Institute.
One of You is the Messiah. Somewhere in Eastern Europe, long ago, a group of monks established a monastery. At first the monastery community was strong, but over time, it waned. Fewer monks were entering the fold. The townspeople, who once enjoyed coming to the monastery, rarely visited anymore. The monks grew concerned.
Just down the street from their monastery was a small synagogue that had become a thriving hub of community activity, drawing both Jews and non-Jews together for meals, service projects, and dialogues. The monks decided to approach the Rabbi of the Synagogue and ask for his insight help restore their community and save the monastery. So they invited him to pay them a visit.
The Rabbi happily agreed and was shown around the monastery very hospitably, being treated to food and drink and every other comfort the monks could spare. At the end of his visit, the Rabbi collected his things and said, “Well my brothers, I really can’t say what the problem is. But I do know this for certain: one of you is the Messiah.” And uttering these words, he left.
The monks were astounded to hear the Messiah was among them. But without being able to know for sure who it was, they began to treat each other as though any one of them might be the Messiah. Within months, the monastery community was completely transformed. New monks joined. The local townspeople returned with generous contributions of food and money. It began to thrive.
The Power of a Loving Team. Perhaps the reason that GES attracts such incredible people every year is that its staff continues to treat every person on the team with a deep love, respect, and honor. “Before anything else, GES is a family,” Emily Kingsley-Ma, one of the GES staff, told me at the Summit’s annual Ethiopian food night.
The GES 2010 Staff
And even thought it’s a family that’s 80 people in size, every single member of the team, from its leaders to its newcomers, knows and celebrates everyone else. When you are around a team that loves each other, around a group of people who treat each other like any one of them could be the Messiah…you never want to leave. You want to invest, you want to advise, you want to come back again and again. And that’s the magic of GES.
Photo credit: Kalyan Varma and The GES Facebook Page
Big News for San Francisco Social Entrepreneurs!
A very exciting announcement from our partners at the Hub Bay Area!
About Hub SoMa Launch
On May 3rd, Hub Bay Area is opening an 8600 sq/ft work and event space for members at the SF Chronicle Building – one block from the Powell St BART station. The space features an art gallery curated by Intersection for the Arts along with several meeting rooms, large event spaces, a full kitchen/café, and more than 70 work stations. The space also holds 7 private offices held by social enterprises – SOCAP, Rubicon National, Exponent Partners, Investors Circle, Mercy Corps, Adaptive Edge, and Hull Family Enterprises.
Locally, Hub Bay Area consists of more than 320 social enterprises building and scaling solutions for change. Our first location is in Berkeley at The David Brower Center. As a member of Hub Bay Area, you will have access to Hub Berkeley, Hub SoMa, and more than 20 Hubs across five continents.
For info about Hub Bay Area and membership, please call us at (415) 624-5881 or email us at sanfrancisco.hosts@the-hub.net.
About 5&M Launch
Hub Bay Area and Intersection for the Arts are proud to announce our May 3rd launch of Hub SoMa and The 5M Gallery – located at The SF Chronicle Building at 5th and Mission St. TechShop will follow soon after with the opening of their SoMa location next door. Together, we are combining a workplace and toolset for changemakers, an integrated arts incubator, and a fully equipped community workshop.
Together, we are assembling diverse talent into a common space to generate new ideas and catalyze new models for change. The link between us is a shared vision to blend economic viability with social and environmental impact. The goal - help individuals and enterprises reach their goals faster, surrounded by a community that makes everyone smarter and more effective. Join us May 27 for our Hub SoMa Launch Celebration showcasing our collaborative local and global vision.
Are you one of India’s top social entrepreneurs?
Dasra Social-Impact is pleased to be on the lookout again for India’s next top social entrepreneurs. Whether you are a for-profit, non-profit or a hybrid, Dasra is looking for social entrepreneurs who want to make a step-change in their growth. Now in its 5th year, the program gives participants the opportunity to work closely with a diverse range of partners, who include Social-Impact International, Acumen Fund, HSBC Private Equity, Aavishkaar and McKinsey. CEOs and senior decision-makers work together over 9 months in an intensive professional development program that combines 3 week long intensive residential workshops, peer mentoring and access to capital through Village Capital, and real pitching opportunities and mentoring for some of the most exciting organizations in India and elsewhere. Deadline for applications is June 30, so start applying early! For more details see www.dasra.org/dasra-social-impact.htm.
Sparkseed Wins Financial Times Award!
Unreasonable Institute Pipeline Partner Sparkseed supports college-age social entrepreneurs with mentorship, capital, training, and technical support. Their amazing work has just been recognized by the Financial Times! Check out the press release below!
NEW YORK, NY (March 25, 2010) – Last night, the Financial Times Social Innovation Awards confirmed the rise of a new force: student innovation. The Social Innovation Awards present a forum for organizations to highlight their latest methods for addressing social needs and promoting better business. Though some of the largest and most well-known corporations were among those competing for recognition, a small non-profit, Sparkseed, went home with the prestigious Best Social Investment Strategy award.
Sparkseed uses a unique approach to help young risk-takers apply business principles to address the world’s toughest problems. Founder Mike Del Ponte guides Sparkseed in identifying, incubating, and investing in the next generation of social entrepreneurs.
As the recent success of Facebook demonstrates, college students can build revolutionary organizations with global impact. Sparkseed works to harness such capability to develop a new class of young entrepreneurs interested in social return on investment.
As Del Ponte explains, “Students have the creativity, passion, and drive to address issues like climate change, poverty, and global health through novel ventures. But they often lack the means to turn outside -the-box thinking into ideas that yield social dividends. Arming this untapped brain trust with the right resources will have untold benefits for society.”
Sparkseed has supported 31 ventures since 2007 and will select ten more on 1 April. By leveraging an impressive network of partners, Sparkseed provides mentoring, skills training, executive coaching, and consulting to each of its student-led ventures. And by investing capital directly in the student ventures, Sparkseed provides validation and financial resources to best student ideas in hopes of yielding social returns and financial sustainability.
To learn more about Sparkseed and the ventures it supports, please visit www.sparkseed.org.
To contact Mike Del Ponte for information about the organization or for broader commentary on social innovation, please e-mail mike@sparkseed.org. Biography and high-resolution photos available upon request.
Apply for the Youth Action Net Global Fellowship!
YouthActionNet® Global Fellowship Program
A program of the International Youth Foundation, YouthActionNet® seeks to develop a new generation of socially conscious global citizens who create positive change in their communities, their countries, and the world. Each year, 20 young social entrepreneurs are selected as YouthActionNet® Global Fellows following a competitive application process. Supported by Nokia, the yearlong Global Fellowship includes skill-building, networking and resources and advocacy. Applicants must be 18-29 years old. Apply by April 9th, 2010 at YouthActionNet’s website.
Interview with For Impact Co-Founder: How to Raise $2 Billion
This may have been my favorite interview yet.
Last July, I had the pleasure of traveling to Columbus, Ohio to attend the For Impact Funding Bootcamp, a rigorous 2-day training program on how to raise the funds you need to make your vision a reality. My teammate Nikhil and I left utterly and completely inspired. That’s what Tom Suddes, the Co-Founder and Chief Evangelist of For Impact, and his team do best: inspire. If you combine that with the fact that Tom has made 6,000 asks in the past 35 years and started 19 companies of his own, you might be able to see why For Impact has helped organizations they work with raise over $2 billion in funds.
Now you know why we invited Tom and the For Impact team to be mentors at The Unreasonable Institute.
I hopped on Skype with Tom to drill him about how on earth you raise $2 billion and start 19 companies. Here’s what he had to say!
Video Interview Table of Contents:
- What’s your background and what is For Impact? (0:01-0:39)
- You’ve raised $2 billion in funds. How did you do that? (0:40-1:57)
- How many asks have you made? What have you learned from those asks? (1:58-3:52)
- What are 3 big reasons people don’t ask? (3:53-5:55)
- So then, what are the 3 keys to making an ask? (5:56-8:39)
- What advice do you have for aspiring social entrepreneurs? (8:40-10:51)
Thanks so much Tom! Learn more about For Impact at www.forimpact.org.
What 1% Means to an Unreasonable Fellow
With 17 fully supported Unreasonable Fellows and just a week left to support 8 more Unreasonable entrepreneurs I thought I would share a personal story. A good friend of mine did a remarkable thing, but she didn’t think much of it. If fact, she almost seemed embarrassed. At what was basically a whisper, she told me that she had supported two Unreasonable Finalists at the Finalists Marketplace. I basically shot out of my chair with excitement!
To her, giving the small amount that she did (be it $5 or $10 or even $50 – I am not sure) was not significant based on what the entrepreneurs at the Finalist Marketplace were trying to do to improve the world. I asked her if I could kindly shift her thinking. “Let’s say you sponsored just 1% of the cost for an Unreasonable Finalist to attend the Unreasonable Institute,” I told her. “Let me calculate what that translates into.”
“The goal at the Unreasonable Institute is for each entrepreneur to go on to improve the lives of at least 1,000,000 people. Pretend the entrepreneur fails at 90% of this goal. They will still have improved the lives of 100,000 people. If you can say you were just 1% of the reason that he or she came to the Unreasonable Institute and helped those 100,000 people, that’s 1,000 people that you have helped that entrepreneur reach. ”I would say helping 1,000 people IS significant and something you should be VERY proud of.”
She agreed.
Remember, enough 1%’s will add up to 100% and will send a brilliant, driven entrepreneur to the Unreasonable Institute where they will train to improve the lives of millions. In this last week we hope you visit http://UnreasonableFinalists.org and support an Unreasonable Finalist that you believe in.
With Unreasonable excitement,
Tyler Hartung and the Unreasonable Institute Team
How to Get the World to Give a Crap in 2 Weeks
It’s Jehan and Simon here from Who Gives A CrapTM: non-profit toilet paper supporting water sanitation in the developing world. A few weeks ago we reached the $6500 target to become the world’s first Unreasonable Fellows. As a result, the Unreasonable team invited us to guest blog on the topic “How to Get the World to Give a Crap in Two Weeks.” Looking back we realized our winning formula was Message + Plan + Luck – Sleep = $6500.
MessageShort and sweet. To keep our messaging clear, we created our own website – www.whogivesacrap.org – to act as the central ‘hub’ of our marketing campaign. This gave more of a target introduction to Who Gives A CrapTM (and an easier to remember URL) than our detailed profile on the marketplace. Our key messaging was: (1) Pledge now! (2) Help spread the word. (3) This is our concept, we need your help…in two sentences. (4) Go to our marketplace profile for more detail.
Give Something Back. Everything Who Gives A CrapTM will ever do is based on the fact that we don’t really appreciate a lot of the ‘traditional’ development aid fundraising tactics – images of sick children and people asking us for spare change really turn us off! We thought about what potential pledgers would appreciate and decided that we needed to give something back. Without a tangible product the best we could was a good dose of every bad pun in the book (it’s a crappy idea, this will never work in France but who gives a bidet, a quick re-crap, now for some toilet humor, …). We created funny videos, dreamt up humorous media stunts, created a toilet paper tagging Facebook campaign and dug up all sorts of strange and amazing toilet facts and photos from around the universe (mostly Asia!). Did you know the world’s largest toilet can be seen on Google maps satellite view?!
+ Plan
Launch Stage 1: Far, Wide and Impersonal. Due to the ever increasing weekly pledge limits, our launch plan was to create buzz using Twitter and the mainstream media in week 1 and then to engage with our (potentially more generous) personal networks in week 2. After having a HUGE prime time live TV stunt canceled just hours before going to air, the best we ended up with was this photo of Jehan (Simon in the background) in a big Melbourne newspaper:
Launch Stage 2: The Close To Home Push (Pun Intended). Despite our optimism, we didn’t end up raising much in Stage 1. But the hype amongst our family and friends made it much easier to approach them using Facebook and YouTube, and to create email content that would be more likely to go viral. We wrote a list of individuals to approach personally and emailed / Facebooked everyone else that we knew: email first, Facebook as a follow up. The individuals we approached personally were asked to become ‘pledge champions’ with the objective of finding 5-10 additional pledgers – this was responsible for raising thousands of dollars of pledges. Needless to say, we owe these guys BIG!
+ LuckIn hindsight we had a pretty good plan, but we were also very lucky for a few reasons: (1) We have strong personal networks with relatively high disposable income and near constant internet access. This really hit home when a friend in Malawi couldn’t pledge for 4 days (and eventually gave up) because her internet wasn’t fast enough. (2) We have contacts in lots of different areas of mainstream and sub-cultural media. (3) The economy was on our side – the Australian dollar is kicking some serious arse making pledges almost 1:1. (4) Our email campaign went relatively viral. Yes, this is mostly luck. We are still meeting strangers who received our mail out. (5) Finally, Melbourne’s Sri Lankan girls went unexpectedly crazy over the sight of Jehan’s bare legs.
- SleepWhat did we learn? (1) Don’t expect to get much sleep, or to ever complete that to do list. (2) Back lots of horses, some will fail and others will do better than expected. (3) Start earlier than you could ever think is necessary. Some of our ‘failures’ have turned into media ops that we’re now dealing with 6 weeks later. (4) Last but not least, prepare to be amazed by the generosity of both friends and strangers. All of it culminated in what was truly an amazing experience. The adrenaline (and coffee) made up for the over tiredness.
And that’s how you get the world to give a crap in 2 weeks!
Interview with Founder of W1SD0M: Matchmaking for Entrepreneurs and Investors
Startup enterprises face a great deal of difficulty not only obtaining the resources they need, but navigating their options to find the ideal investors, legal structures, and other resources. At the same time, investors and capital providers often struggle to find the entrepreneurs that fit their criteria and spend way too much time conducting due diligence. Fortunately, now there’s W1SD0M, an online matchmaking service for entrepreneurs and investors to connect with the people, capital, knowledge, and tools that best serve their needs. I chatted with Founder Greg Berry , one of our mentors and friends here in Boulder, Colorado, who shares a bit of his W1SD0M in this video.
Video Interview Table of Contents:
- What is W1SD0M? (0:01-0:42)
- What is an entrepreneur’s experience on W1SD0M? (0:43-2:52)
- How can W1SD0M serve investors? (2:53-3:37)
- What will W1SD0M’s user interface be like? (3:38-7:39)
- What advice do you have for aspiring social entrepreneurs? (7:40-8:24)
We raise our glasses to Greg Berry and the W1SD0M team for speaking with us about the innovative work they’re undertaking! Learn more at www.w1sd0m.net.
One of the Most Incorrect Statements in History
“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” – Elbert Hubbard
Here at the Unreasonable Institute, we are pretty happy to have the sort of open communication where we can handle and where we welcome critical feedback. You’ll routinely hear Unreasonable Institute President Daniel Epstein say “Here’s my idea. Now destroy it.” Still, as open as we want to be to criticism, one thing all of us have to consciously overcome is doubt. Wow, we hate doubt.
As startup founders, you’re bound to face crippling doubt from both people who have no idea what they’re talking about and people who are experts. You’re putting yourself out there with an incredible idea, and no one is funding you. Possibly no one is even listening to you. It’s incredibly frustrating and it’s pretty difficult to “adapt the world to yourself” when you feel like you can’t bend the world to your will. So if you’re facing scathing skepticism, just keep these 3 stories in mind:
1) A German Greek Grammar teacher named Joseph Degenhart told the father of one his 7th grade students “It doesn’t matter what he does, he will never amount to anything.” That student was Albert Einstein.
2) A Management Professor at Yale told Fred Smith, a business student who wrote a paper proposing an overnight delivery service, “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C,’ the idea must be feasible.” Smith went on to start Fedex.
3) In 1962, The Decca Recording Company turned away a band looking to put together an album, saying “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” That band was The Beatles.
If someone tells you what you’re doing will never work…well, it just might be one of the most incorrect statements in history.
Attend the Opportunity Collaboration Conference for Free!
Cordes Foundation Fellowships provide opportunities for social entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders to participate as Delegates in the Opportunity Collaboration (a four-day strategic and problem-solving retreat between October 15 – 20 for nonprofit leaders, for-profit social entrepreneurs, funders and social investors) who for financial reasons are unable to attend. The hope and intent is to open doors, minds and networks for exceptional social entrepreneurs and nonprofit executives engaged in poverty alleviation and economic justice enterprises.
In total, 50 Cordes Fellows are selected through an international competition. Fellows participate fully in all aspects of the Opportunity Collaboration. In addition, Fellows may earn a certificate of completion awarded by the University of the Pacific Global Center for Social Entrepreneurship. This on-site professional training symposium covers areas critical to the success of organizations and individuals creating social impact and combating poverty.
Get all the information and apply to be a Cordes Fellow here. Deadline is April 15th, 2010.
8 Tips for Getting Major Media to Care About You
Unreasonable Institute Co-Founder Tyler Hartung has gotten the Unreasonable Institute some amazing blog coverage from Business Week, from Inc Magazine, and from the Wall Street Journal (twice). We asked him to share how he did it. Here’s what he had to say!
When I was recently asked what I did to get bloggers of some major publications to write about the Unreasonable Institute I said what any good entrepreneur would say, “I don’t know…I just did it.” After some reflection, I realized that there were about 8 things that helped me increase our chances of getting major media to care that I think can help you too.
1. Let Your Story Do the Work. In all honesty, when it comes to getting a major media source to write about your organization, its 10% about the effort you put in and 90% about the intrigue of the story itself – the key word here being story. No matter how amazing you think your organization is, it in-and-of itself is not usually worth writing about. Major media are looking for an event or a major announcement that can tell an intriguing story. It is within that context that people will hear of your organization.
2. Pique instead of Press Release. In my novice opinion press releases are useless (ok, maybe that is a little harsh – sorry, I never took a journalism class). You can imagine that folks in media get constantly bombarded with page long press releases and don’t read the majority of them. You will be much more effective by piquing someone’s interest with a concise, intriguing email. If you can adequately do so, and of course include a call to action, then they are more likely to contact you at which time you can tell them so much more than a press release ever could. Steve Strauss of USA Today discusses this point in depth in a post called “The (Almost) Surefire Method for Getting Publicity for Your Business.”
3. Contact low hanging fruit. There are an endless supply of journalists and bloggers that you could contact, so work smart by finding and contacting “low hanging fruit.” That is, contact writers who have a published stories about your organization’s industry or about similar topics, thus showing they might have a genuine interest in your story. Unreasonable Institute Mentor Lindsay Clinton of Intellecap suggested I search for articles written about major organizations within our industry. Another way is to have technology find these people for you by using some sort of an article/blog reader, like Google Reader or Google Alerts, that search for key words in newly published articles (my Google Alerts, for instance, send me emails with articles containing the words “social entrepreneur”).
4. Sleuth around for Contact Information. Considering the amount of organizations seeking media coverage, you can image that many folks in the media keep their contact information well-hidden. Be creative in finding ways to contact writers. I have done everything from finding their emails on their personal blogs and reaching them on Facebook to simply guessing an email address based on their organization’s name (note: this last one almost never worked!).
5. Be persistent. Some folks only cared what I had to say the second time I wrote them.
6. Play the numbers. Even if you contact 10 low hanging fruit, chances are maybe only one writer you contact will get back to you (and even that may not turn into an article). Now, if you contact 100 people….well, you can do the math.
7. Help them. Remember, their job is to get eyes on their articles. If they do write about you spread the word – its good for them and you!
8. And of course, always say thank you! Thanks to Steve of BusinessWeek, Donna of Inc. Magazine, and Ty and Durga of the Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch and India Chief Mentor.
So What? Follow these 8 tips and you’re likely to dramatically improve your chances of getting major media coverage for your organization!
Interviewing the Founder of Think Impact: Incubating Social Ventures in African Villages
It’s preposterous to think that you could incubate a social venture you were developing while living in an African village, receiving mentorship, training, funding, and working with the local community to get your venture off the ground. But in fact, that’s exactly what you could do as a Global Development Intern with Think Impact.
This past weekend, I went to the Ashoka U Conference in Washington, D.C. and sat next to the ever convivial Saul Garlick, Think Impact’s Founder & Executive Director. After the conference, Saul invited me to his offices in D.C. and filled me in on the incredible opportunity of Think Impact’s Global Development Internship, an 8-week village homestay and social venture incubation program for top social entrepreneurs. Applications for the Global Development Internship close on February 28, 2010 for this summer. So watch this inspiring video interview with Saul and fill out an application form ASAP!
Video Interview Table of Contents:
- What is Think Impact? (0:01-0:53)
- What is the Global Development Internship? (0:54-1:16)
- What would my experience be as a Global Development Intern? (1:17-5:13)
- What are some of the projects that have come out of Think Impact? (5:14-6:06)
- In one sentence, what would you say to convince someone to apply for the Global Development Internship? (6:07-6:43)
- What advice do you have for aspiring social entrepreneurs? (6:44-7:17)
Thanks to Saul Garlick for this interview! Applications for the Global Development Internship by February 28! Check out www.thinkimpact.org to learn more.
A Genuine Question: Where are the Women?
I’ll be the first to admit that the Unreasonable Institute team is all male. Okay, that’s not much of an admission, but it’s true. We’ve spent a lot of time introspecting as to the reason for that (not about why we’re male, but why there aren’t any females on the team). But even after all that reflecting, we weren’t sure of the reason. All of us on the Unreasonable team went to the University of Colorado in Boulder and three of us were best friends before we started the organization. So the team organically materialized out of our conversations and all of our personal passions. But it incidentally did so without women.
Women involved with the Unreasonable Institute. And now we ask this question because it may have had some effect on the number of women entrepreneurs we can attract to the Unreasonable Institute. Here are a few stats on the matter:
- Of the 284 applications we received for the Unreasonable Institute, 97 (34%) were female
- 8 of 26 of our mentors are female (31%)
- 11 of our 33 finalists are women (33%)
A lot of people I’ve talked to (both women and men) suggest that these numbers are high, arguing there just aren’t as many female entrepreneurs and male entrepreneurs (a contention the data and my personal observation appear to support). But the question is then why aren’t their as many female entrepreneurs as male entrepreneurs? Are women simply less likely to start their own ventures? Are women facing discrimination in areas outside the entrepreneurial space, like in education, that are obstacles to their being entrepreneurs?
The Data on Women Entrepreneurs. Apparently not. Vivek Wadhwa wrote a great post in Tech Crunch entitled “Silicon Valley: You and Some of Your VC’s Have a Gender Problem” highlighting data from a recent Kauffman Foundation study (being release in the spring) on this very subject. He indicates that the study’s analysis of 549 startups concluded the following:
Women entrepreneurs were as highly educated as their male counterparts
, had the same early interest in starting their own business, and learned the same valuable lessons from their work experience and from prior successes and failures. The only real difference was that women put a higher value on their business partners and on their personal and professional networks.
Is it that women are less competent than men? Quite to the contrary. An analysis performed by Cindy Padnos, managing director of Illuminate Ventures, showed that women are more capital-efficient than the norm and that venture-backed companies run by a woman had annual revenues that were 12 percent higher and used an average of one-third less committed capital. Women-led high-tech startups have lower failure rates than those led by men. And organizations that are the most inclusive of women in top management achieve 35% higher return on equity and 34% better total return to shareholders than do their peers.
Considering this information, it would seem that it’s not the quality of women or their drive as entrepreneurs that keeps them from participation in the field, but something else.
What can we do? Especially considering Vivek Wadhwa’s contention that “we’re holding back the most productive half of our population,” what else can we do to encourage the involvement and participation of women entrepreneurs as a space and at the Unreasonable Institute?
Interviewing Root Change Founder: Discovering Pattern Breaking Innovation
A major challenge that incubators like the Unreasonable Institute and investors the world over face is finding social entrepreneurs deserving of capital, marketing, and other support important for launching and scaling their impact. Root Change, a social enterprise focused on finding pattern-breaking social enterprises, finds these disruptive innovators through an innovative crowdsourcing platform called the Social Enterprise Stock Exchange. The general public can trade virtual currency on this stock exchange, effectively predicting which ventures are most likely to be successful. The platform also allows ventures traded on the exchange to gain public notoriety and connections with seed capital and other support vital to their creating impact. And this is only one part of Root Change’s grand undertaking. I visited the wonderful Root Change team at their offices in northeast Washington, D.C. yesterday and shared a thrilling conversation with Co-Founder Evan Bloom. Hear him describe his team’s inspiring work below!
Video Interview Table of Contents:
- What is Root Change? (0:01-1:22)
- What services does Root Change provide entrepreneurs? (1:23-3:41)
- What has been Root Change’s impact to date? (3:42-7:38)
- What advice do you have for aspiring social entrepreneurs? (7:39-9:39)
Tremendous thanks to Evan Bloom for filming this interview! Learn more about Root Change at www.rootchange.org.
My Mother, The Dalai Lama, and Why Social Entrepreneurs Do What They Do
“If you want to be happy, practice compassion. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.” -The Dalai Lama
Undoubtedly, one of the primary drives in human life is the quest for happiness. But what makes us happy and how can we stay that way? It’s likely that my own mother and the Dalai Lama have some answers.
My mother. My mother is one of the happiest human beings I’ve ever met. It might have something to do with the fact that when I was little, I insisted on doing my own laundry. But unable to reach the washing machine, I gathered up my clothes and some soap and dropped it all in the toilet (which I then flushed to replicate a standard spin cycle). Since those days, however, my mom taught me how to wash clothes outside the toilet, and I’m proud to report that now, at the age of 23, I’m capable of doing my own laundry.
But what does this have to do with happiness? My mother, an anesthesiologist by training, spent her whole life dedicated to the happiness of her three children. She never forgot to feed us, never missed driving us to soccer practice or singing lessons, never failed to push us to be our best, and never once complained.
The Dalai Lama on Happiness. The reason that she may be so happy, having had to deal with all our childhood demands, might have something to do with the Dalai Lama’s take on happiness, which Unreasonable Institute partner-in-crime Daniel Epstein shared with me. His view is that deep, resounding happiness comes only from making others deeply, resoundingly happy. That’s what my mom did her whole life for her children.
But I might tag on to that an important view for social entrepreneurs: deep, resounding happiness not only comes from making others, deeply resoundingly happy, but from enabling others to make themselves deeply, resoundingly happy. This is what mothers do after all. I can do my own laundry. I can feed myself. I can drive myself wherever I need to go. My mom has raised me not to need her, to create my own happiness (that’s not to say though, that I don’t still go to her for advice, love, and wish she were around when I’m sick).
So What? The Dalai Lama believes that being happy every day is simple: instead of waking up each morning and wondering how to make it a great day, we ought to wake up each morning and think about how we can make it a great day for someone else. My mom did this every day of her life. Social entrepreneurs do too. So here’s to people like my mother all over the world. They’re the reason that happiness exists.
Interview with FORGE Founder: 70,000 Refugees Revitalizing African Communities
By the end of 2006, over 9.4 million Africans have been displaced by war. These refugees often seek asylum in temporary settlements erected by the international community to find food. But on a trip to Dukwi Refugee Camp in Botswana, then 20-year old Kjerstin Erickson discovered that instead of passing through camps for 3-4 weeks and obtaining what they need to rebuild their lives, many refugees remain stuck in camps for between 15-30 years. ”Whole generations of people lost everything in their lives, were stuck in a camp, couldn’t leave, couldn’t work, couldn’t access more than a 5th grade education, and were really being punished for the fact that they had chosen peace over war,” she explains. “This was such an obvious tragedy to me but also one with such an obvious solution: those who do choose peace over war should actually be empowered through that decision and through that choice to build better lives. Refugees could be a piece of the solution to how a country will rebuild after its been torn apart by conflict.” It was exactly this insight that prompted Kjerstin to launch FORGE, an organization enabling African refugees themselves to reconstruct their post-conflict communities, in 2003.
I’ve been incredibly lucky to share several conversations with Kjerstin and have always been deeply inspired by her relentless dedication to FORGE. Heck, she dropped out of Stanford her junior year to devote herself full-time (and then some) to the organization. We consider it a tremendous honor that she is a mentor at the Unreasonable Institute and every chance I have to speak with her is one in which I learn so much about not only the struggles that African refugees face, but also about what it means to be a truly good human being. That’s why I’m sharing the 10-minute Skype conversation we had with the world just below. Check it out!
Video Interview Table of Contents:
- What is FORGE in 30 seconds? (0:01-0:32)
- How does FORGE measure its impact? (0:33-4:23)
- What has been the key to reaching over 70,000 refugees? (4:24-6:00)
- How do you overcome power differentials with refugees in order to have honest conversations? (6:01-8:16)
- What advice do you have for aspiring social entrepreneurs? (8:17-9:50)
Our most sincere thanks goes to Kjerstin Erickson for taking the time to share her insights and her story with us! To learn more about FORGE, visit www.forgenow.org.
3 Steps to Recovering from Public Failure: Fail Fast, Admit it Fast, Fix it Fast
“My reputation grows with every failure.” -George Bernard Shaw
This past week, we here at the Unreasonable Institute experienced our first full-fledged and very public failure as an organization. We launched our Finalist Marketplace, the online platform where the first 25 of our 35 finalists to raise the $6,500 are selected to attend the Unreasonable Institute. Unfortunately, the launch of the marketplace on January 25 was accompanied by a number of serious technical glitches that lost both the Unreasonable Institute and our finalists a good deal of credibility with online visitors. The experience has been emotionally difficult as we received a flood of emails from frustrated sponsors and finalists (rightfully so), but also a very educational and inspiring one. This blog post is a summary of the most important things we’ve learned from the experience.
Fail Fast. You may have read VC Jim Estill’s post “Fail Fast, Fail Often, Fail Cheap” which explains we ought to encourage risk-taking and failure in organizations to promote innovation. We have certainly taken the post to heart at the Unreasonable Institute, perhaps pushing toward achieving goals that were realistically out of our reach and the particular talents of our team. Without tremendous familiarity with the kind of website programming it would require to build it, we set out to design an online marketplace in a few months for a couple thousand dollars, and about 65% of it went right. Comparing the platform to similar online marketplaces, it should have cost about $200,000, taken years to build, and functioned perfectly (especially when people are contributing funds to support entrepreneurs). But, as Don Dodge writes in his recent post about how Google sets goals, “achieving 65% of the impossible is better than 100% of the ordinary.” Once this platform functions, it could enable entrepreneurs from every walk of life and every corner of the globe to securely raise the funds the need to attend the Unreasonable Institute at no cost to themselves, while garnering hundreds of supporters around the world. It could be expanded to a social investment marketplace to provide these entrepreneurs access to capital even after the Unreasonable Institute and be used by many organizations on an international scale to crowdfund promising, high-impact social ventures. We’re en route to realizing this vision, learning, as Thomas Edison said, the many ways that don’t work on our way to discovering what does work.
Admit it Fast. In the meanwhile, there’s no denying the negative consequences of our ambition. We dramatically failed to deliver what we promised in front of at least 8,000 people (who’d set up sponsor accounts on our Finalist Marketplace). Some of the problems with our marketplace, largely due to unexpectedly high traffic and holes in backend programming, included the fact that sponsors were making pledges to entrepreneurs on the marketplace that just flat out did not show up. Sponsors were also able to (though we were supposed to ensure that they could not) make multiple donations to the same entrepreneur. Many visitors reported to us that the online marketplace was difficult to navigate and that the user-experience was confusing and frustrating. There’s no excuse: we simply can’t put out a marketplace riddled with this many issues when 35 incredible entrepreneurs have rallied hundreds, even thousands, of their supporters around the globe to support them via this platform in good faith. Our team has never hit such a low.
But as Robert Frost reminds us, “The best way out is always through.” So we sent an email to every single user explaining the situation and the fact that it was completely our own misjudgments that this online marketplace that was far less than perfect. The reaction was truly surprising: people were understanding. One sponsor who had expressed frustration with our marketplace in the past told us our admission of failure restored her faith in our organization. Others offered words of encouragement through a difficult time. One of our finalists even sent us Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” to help give us some perspective (I highly recommend you read it right now). We were amazed to see the same group of people we had frustrated profoundly respond to our open admission of failure with support and encouragement. We, learned, therefore, that openly admitting failure or weakness, as on a personal level, can show the human side of an organization and thus improve its relationship with the public. So long as you make it right as soon as possible.
Fix It Fast. While the support of the finalists and sponsors on the site has been incredibly inspiring and helpful, if we fail to produce a function marketplace again, we will lose credibility with them permanently. So we’ve taken specific steps to solicit and respond to all the feedback we’ve received (especially from our customers: the 35 entrepreneurs who are our finalists). We’ve acquired a new PHP programmer who’s tightening up the backend of the marketplace. We’ve integrated Amazon Payment Systems for secure and verified payments. We’ve adjusted the flow and organization of the site to make the experience more user-friendly and intuitive. Bottom line: we failed, but we’ve been doing everything we possibly can, working day and night, to get this marketplace fully functional. And we’re delighted to report that it is now up and running at http://unreasonableinstitute.org/finalists!
So What? Failure happens. And publicly too. But if handled with integrity and transparency, it cannot only be a tremendous learning opportunity, but a chance to form deeper human connections with your customers / beneficiaries and better serve their needs. All of us here firmly believe that we will be better off for this experience in the long-run because, as our homeboy George Bernard Shaw says, “…reputation grows with every failure.”
Interview with Criterion Ventures Founder: Legal Structures for Social Ventures
For social enterprises persistently searching for creative solutions to the world’s greatest challenges, legal structure often seems more of a hindrance than a help. The law does not yet seem prepared for a new breed of ventures who mix business and impact and social ventures suffer for it. But worry not! Criterion Ventures, which launches, incubates, and scales social ventures that create a better world, has deployed something called Structure Labs. Structure Labs provides social ventures the opportunity to explore available legal structures, empowering them to navigate complex legal frameworks to find the legal structure that makes their desired impact possible. Criterion Ventures Founder and President Joy Anderson was kind enough to chat with me over Skype and tell me all about Structure Labs. To be frank, I’d never been so excited to discuss about legal frameworks. Check it out!
Video Interview Table of Contents:
- What is Structure Labs? (0:01-2:09)
- What would my experience be like if I came to Structure Labs? (2:10-4:14)
- Why should I come to Structure Labs instead of going to a lawyer? (4:15-7:39)
- What is the greatest legal need of the social enterprise space? (7:40-8:35)
- What advice do you have for aspiring social entrepreneurs? (8:36-10:56)
Many thanks to Joy Anderson for filling us in on Structure Labs! Learn more at www.criterionventures.com.
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