The document discusses innovation in the social sector and how approaches like Lean Startup can be applied. It argues that in the social sector, the fear is not as much "perishing in the valley of death" as startups failing to achieve impact and ideas living on through endless planning and meetings without results. The document recommends seeking the "valley of death" by building something minimal to test ideas quickly with customers rather than extensive planning. It emphasizes talking directly to customers one-on-one to understand problems and test potential solutions through iterative prototypes until achieving product-market fit.

1. Innovation in
the Social
Sector
Read G Holman
Mar 22, 2019
v2 (work in progress)

3. Almost every startup
accelerator-related
presentation starts
with this graph

5. It’s very simple…

6. Time —>
Users—>
This is time moving forward

7. Time —>
Users—>
This is the number of
customers the startup
acquires (over time)

8. Time —>
Users—>
More users equates to more money!
And thus success in a for-profit environment

9. Time —>
Users—>
| —— “Valley of Death” ——|
This dip here is known as the “Valley of Death”.
Most don’t make it through this.
It’s where startups die. It’s where ideas perish.

10. Time —>
Users—>
| —— “Valley of Death” ——|
When converting this graph to the Social / Non-profit world,
people often just do this…

11. Time —>
Impact—>
| —— “Valley of Death” ——|
“Users/Money” is changed to “Impact”
When converting this graph to the Social / Non-profit world,
people often just do this…

12. But it’s not that
simple.

13. Time —>
Impact—>
| —— “Valley of Death” ——|
In the social sector,
there’s a fear bigger than perishing
in the valley of death…

14. Time —>
Impact—>
| —— “Valley of Death” ——|
In the social sector,
there’s a fear bigger than perishing
in the valley of death…
NOT DYING

15. Time —>
Impact—>
New ideas in the non-profit space
typically involve a lot of planning.

16. Time —>
Impact—>
New ideas in the non-profit space
typically involve a lot of planning.
Meetings. Planning. Meetings. Planning.

17. Time —>
Impact—>
New ideas in the non-profit space
typically involve a lot of planning.
Meetings. Planning. Meetings. Planning.
Conferences. Partnerships. Blog posts.

18. Time —>
Impact—>
We think about the future.
We may even keep raising more money.

19. Time —>
Impact—>
We think about the future.
We may even keep raising more money.
But there’s not much impact, if any at all :(

20. Time —>
Impact—>
Still the idea lives on.
With good enough slides (like these!)
with slick enough marketing materials,
with good enough connections,
the idea could live on forever.
It might even be called an initiative or something.

21. Startups efforts & new initiatives in the non-profit
(including gov’t) space require a different approach.
Rather than trying to avoid the valley of death…
We should seek it.
We should try to die. For only then will we know for
sure whether or not we were ever alive in the first
place.

22. So how do we do
that?

23. You may have heard of
these new “innovative”
methodologies and
disciplines

24. A slide re jargon.
Lean Startup — An engineering and business framework that aims to
reduce risk through iterative testing of business models and product
features. (More Silicon Valley in it’s approach.)
Human Centered Design / Design Thinking - A design and management
framework that brings to the forefront the human perspective and the lived
experience of the “customer”. (More anthropological in its approach.)
Lean Six Sigma — a set of tools and approaches for optimizing (reducing
waste in) a system. (Comes from Toyota.)
These are all great! I like them all. But they are different
disciplines with different jargons and methods and in their truest
form are mutually exclusive. Some people have very strong
opinions about which is better.
Disciplines

25. A slide re jargon.
Lean Startup — An engineering and business framework that aims to
reduce risk through iterative testing of business models and product
features. (More Silicon Valley in it’s approach.)
Human Centered Design / Design Thinking - A design and management
framework that brings to the forefront the human perspective and the lived
experience of the “customer”. (More anthropological in its approach.)
Lean Six Sigma — a set of tools and approaches for optimizing (reducing
waste in) a system. (Comes from Toyota.)
Disciplines
The important thing to know is that they all are the same at their core:
1. Identify who you are working with / for (the “customer”).
2. Talk to and get to know them.
3. Start small, test, and iterate from there.

26. So how do we do
that?

27. We’ll lean (pun intended)
towards lean startup approach
with some HCD built in

28. In the beginning there was no planning, people did whatever they
wanted. Then the idea of planning came along, and people started
to plan. This was good.
But overtime planning documents became very big ——————>
This is the now traditional approach. Develop a document!
But planning became an excuse for not doing things. And it got out
of hand. This is, however, the traditional approach used today.
Another slide re what’s hot.Lean Startup Tools

29. In the beginning there was no planning, people did whatever they
wanted. Then the idea of planning came along, and people started
to plan. This was good.
But overtime planning documents became very big ——————>
This is the now traditional approach. Develop a document!
But planning became an excuse for not doing things. And it got out
of hand. This is, however, the traditional approach used today.
The Business Model Canvas came along. It replaces this very big
document with a single piece of paper ————————————>
This helps reduce complexity and helps get to the core of things.
This canvas has been adopted by many folks. The Lean Canvas is
seen all over the place now.
Another slide re what’s hot.Lean Startup Tools

30. In the beginning there was no planning, people did whatever they
wanted. Then the idea of planning came along, and people started
to plan. This was good.
But overtime planning documents became very big ——————>
This is the now traditional approach. Develop a document!
But planning became an excuse for not doing things. And it got out
of hand. This is, however, the traditional approach used today.
The Business Model Canvas came along. It replaces this very big
document with a single piece of paper ————————————>
This helps reduce complexity and helps get to the core of things.
This canvas has been adopted by many folks. The Lean Canvas is
seen all over the place now.
But this proved too complex really, so this thing came along.
It’s called the Value Proposition Canvas ——————————>
It’s meant to help you get to the core of things
Another slide re what’s hot.Lean Startup Tools

31. In the beginning there was no planning, people did whatever they
wanted. Then the idea of planning came along, and people started
to plan. This was good.
But overtime planning documents became very big ——————>
This is the now traditional approach. Develop a document!
But planning became an excuse for not doing things. And it got out
of hand. This is, however, the traditional approach used today.
The Business Model Canvas came along. It replaces this very big
document with a single piece of paper ————————————>
This helps reduce complexity and helps get to the core of things.
This canvas has been adopted by many folks. The Lean Canvas is
seen all over the place now.
But this proved too complex really, so this thing came along.
It’s called the Value Proposition Canvas ——————————>
It’s meant to help you get to the core of things
But.. really that this is still too complex.
Another slide re what’s hot.Lean Startup Tools

32. Here’s the core of it. It’s quite simple. You need
build confidence in answering these questions:
•Who are you serving? (Who is your customer?)
•What problem are you trying to solve?

33. So how do we do
that?

34. Step 1: Find the customer
Step 2: Identify with their problem
Step 3: Identify a solution to their problem
Step 4: Identify a sustainable business model for
delivering the solution to more and more people with
the problem
This is the first thing to do.

35. So how do we do
that?

36. https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/8fuo5u/where_on_the_technological_adoption_curve_do_you/
This is someone who has the problem so bad that they are willing to have multiple
conversations with you, and they are willing and ready to take what you build, even if its ugly,
and use it because they have this problem SO BAD and they are willing and ready to try
anything to address it. They are happy you are in their life!

37. https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/8fuo5u/where_on_the_technological_adoption_curve_do_you/
You’re trying to find one of these people
This is someone who has the problem so bad that they are willing to have multiple
conversations with you, and they are willing and ready to take what you build, even if its ugly,
and use it because they have this problem SO BAD and they are willing and ready to try
anything to address it. They are happy you are in their life!

38. So how do we do
that?

39. You have conversations.
You talk to people, one-on-one. One-on-one convos > focus groups.
You may end up talking to 50 people before you find that one person. But you
keep talking to people. You can use data or whatever, but that is only to find the
people. Then you talk to them.
It’s that easy!
And yet you’re probably already nervous.

40. You have conversations.
You talk to people, one-on-one. One-on-one convos > focus groups.
You may end up talking to 50 people before you find that one person. But you
keep talking to people. You can use data or whatever, but that is only to find the
people. Then you talk to them.
It’s that easy!
And yet you’re probably already nervous.
• Won’t that take a lot of time?
• Wouldn’t it be more efficient to talk to many people at once?
• I’m an expert. Do I really need to talk to others?
• I thought “Lean” was supposed to take less time rather than more?

41. You have conversations.
You talk to people, one-on-one. One-on-one convos > focus groups.
You may end up talking to 50 people before you find that one person. But you
keep talking to people. You can use data or whatever, but that is only to find the
people. Then you talk to them.
It’s that easy!
And yet you’re probably already nervous.
• Won’t that take a lot of time? Yes
• Wouldn’t it be more efficient to talk to many people at once? You won’t learn as much.
• I’m an expert. Do I really need to talk to others? Yes
• I thought “Lean” was supposed to take less time rather than more? This is all about
mitigating risk, ensuring you’re not wasting time on the wrong problem.

42. Step 1: Find the customer
Step 2: Identify with their problem
Step 3: Identify a solution to their problem
Step 4: Identify a sustainable business model for
delivering the solution to more and more people with
the problem
Customer Validation is followed by Problem Validation: Does that
customer really have that problem?

43. So how do we do
that?

44. You have conversations.
(Yes, this again)
There are other methods that can be used here, many of them are good! But many of
them also require a bit of training and explaining. That makes things complicated.
Just talk to people.
Really, the world would be a better place is we just talked to more people. There is
indeed an art to having human conversations. Conversing is both natural and, because of
society and the nature of work these days, not.
You’ll screw up a bunch of times. It’s very vulnerable. But that’s all part of it.
In time you’ll get better and eventually pretty good.
This is why you need to do a lot of them.

45. Step 1: Find the customer
Step 2: Identify with their problem
Step 3: Identify a solution to their problem
Step 4: Identify a sustainable business model for
delivering the solution to more and more people with
the problem
Customer Validation and Problem Validation is followed by the
need to determine Problem-Solution Fit: Does your proposed
solution really address the problem that that customer has?

46. So how do we do
that?

47. A core principle + tactic
Build for 1
Rather than building for all potential
“customers”, just find one (or maybe a couple)
and build a thing just for that 1 (or maybe a
couple) person.
The goal becomes finding that 1 person! But
we’ve already talked about that.

48. A core principle + tactic
Build for 1 —> 7
Rather than building for all potential
“customers”, just find one (or maybe a couple)
and build a thing just for that 1 (or maybe a
couple) person.
Actually, the evidence shows (find source) that
talking to 7 of the right people will give you
about 80% of the content you need.
So you’re trying to find 7 individuals. The right
ones. And then you build a relationship with
them, develop business hypotheses, and test
those hypotheses with them.
The goal becomes finding that 1 person! But
we’ve already talked about that.

49. Types of Tests (a catalog)
Testing for Problem - Solution Fit
Testing for Product - Market Fit
Testing for Demand
UX Testing (Design optimization)

50. Types of Tests (a catalog)
Testing for Problem - Solution Fit
Testing for Product - Market Fit
Testing for Demand
UX Testing (Design optimization)
Does your proposed solution really address
the problem that that customer has?
We’ve talked about this one already but…
Here are a few ways to weave into the
conversations you’re having ways to answer
this question.

51. Types of Tests (a catalog)
Testing for Problem - Solution Fit
Testing for Product - Market Fit
Testing for Demand
UX Testing (Design optimization)
Iterations of increasing sophistication:
• Ask them what kind of solution they’d want.
Do they mention what you have in mind?
• Tell them about your idea and see how they
react. Note: video / in-person better than
phone.
• Show them a prototype and see how they
react. Screen sharing or in-person useful
here.
• Give them the thing and see how they react.
Best case scenario: they won’t want to give
it back!

52. Types of Tests (a catalog)
Testing for Problem - Solution Fit
Testing for Product - Market Fit
Testing for Demand
UX Testing (Design optimization)
Iterations of increasing sophistication:
• Ask them what kind of solution they’d want.
Do they mention what you have in mind?
• Tell them about your idea and see how they
react. Note: video / in-person better than
phone.
• Show them a prototype and see how they
react. Screen sharing or in-person useful
here.
• Give them the thing and see how they react.
Best case scenario: they won’t want to give
it back!
Prototyping is a
whole thing…

53. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional

54. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
These are formal, done “in the real world” and
require a validated product + lots of approvals.
Pilots are conducted per their design.

55. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
This is what we’ve been talking about thus far.
|— 3 months (at 50% time) is probably all that’s needed here —|

56. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
MVP = Minimally Viable Product
This is what it says it is! It’s a product (could be a program or
service) that works (is a viable sol’n to the problem identified)
in the smallest way way possible (aka: minimal).

57. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
MVP = Minimally Viable Product
This is what it says it is! It’s a product (could be a program or
service) that works (is a viable sol’n to the problem identified)
in the smallest way way possible (aka: minimal).
You are able to learn from your MVP.
Though, you are learning at every step of
the way so this is redundant.

58. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
MVP = Minimally Viable Product
This is what it says it is! It’s a product (could be a program or
service) that works (is a viable sol’n to the problem identified)
in the smallest way way possible (aka: minimal).
You know you’ve found MVP when you
give it to the customer and they don’t
want to give it back. Or they give you
money to have what you built.
You are able to learn from your MVP.
Though, you are learning at every step of
the way so this is redundant.

59. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
MVP = Minimally Viable Product
This is what it says it is! It’s a product (could be a program or
service) that works (is a viable sol’n to the problem identified)
in the smallest way way possible (aka: minimal).
You know you’ve found MVP when you
give it to the customer and they don’t
want to give it back. Or they give you
money to have what you built.
You are able to learn from your MVP.
Though, you are learning at every step of
the way so this is redundant.
Note: It’s very easy to build beyond MVP, to build a product (or
program or service) that has more than is needed. So sometimes
getting to MVP involves removing features before adding them.

60. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
MVP = Minimally Viable Product
An MVP is in its live environment. It might be a bit ugly, but it
could be sold right then and there.

61. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
Prototypes on the other hand are not in “live”
environments. They are dummy products
meant to communicate and test an idea.

62. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
“Rough & Ready” prototypes is one way of
describing really quick and dirty ones. These
probably take less than 20minutes to build.

63. Tools for making a Rough & Ready Prototype
• Pencil + Paper — seriously. Just sketch it out, even if it’s ugly.
• White Board + Marker — Take pictures of what you draw so that you can track the
evolution (also is a good way to capture things so you don’t loose all of the info)
• Your Wall + Stickies — ditto to the above.
• PowerPoint / Keynote – After pencil and paper, you may want to make more polished
versions. Use what you know!
• Story-Board / Journey Map – A drawing of each step in a process from the end-
users’ perspective.

64. You should not be outsourcing the work.
Building your solution (whatever it is you think it might be) is your job.
Problems arise when the people that know things — often called
“managers” — pass their information to people who do things — often
called “employees”. This divide between knowledge and work is
problematic in early exploratory projects.
Learning and doing are deeply intertwined.
Wisdom and screwing up are as well.
Don’t think you are above doing the work.
Also don’t think you can’t do the work. This is why we start small with
simple tools! Choose a tool that you can use.

65. Tools for making a Rough & Ready Prototype
• Pencil + Paper — seriously. Just sketch it out, even if it’s ugly.
• White Board + Marker — Take pictures of what you draw so that you can track the
evolution (also is a good way to capture things so you don’t loose all of the info)
• Your Wall + Stickies — ditto to the above.
• PowerPoint / Keynote – After pencil and paper, you may want to make more polished
versions. Use what you know!
• Story-Board / Journey Map – A drawing of each step in a process from the end-
users’ perspective.
slide repeated for emphasis

66. The final product may be a fancy website that requires developers.
You aren’t a developer, but you can draw pictures on a whiteboard.
The final product may be an analytics dashboard. You may be not be
data viz expert, but you might be decent at excel.
The final product may be redesigning a data-sharing process. You may
not be able to build data-sharing protocols, but you can write on post-
its, delineate the journey that a piece of data steps and have people
react to them.

67. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
Functional prototypes are probably a bit
polished. They also, by definition, function. That
is, you click a button and that button works!

68. Tools for making a Functional Prototype
• Chicken wire, magnets, and a system of pullies. Well… the point is that you
should use crafts and everyday things to try to build functionality into your prototype
if you can.
• Excel — Depending on what you’re doing, a simple Government-issued product like
Excel might be good enough
• PowerPoint + Hot Spots/Image maps — You can make your PPT mockups
clickable in order to create the illusion of a functional website or app.
• InVisionapp — a free website for more advanced website/app mockup and testing.
Requires assets (PPT slides, photoshop images, etc) to be created first.
• PowToon — a free website for creating quick videos to test messaging.
• Tableau — Can do fancy things but can also do very simply things. Create dummy
data if needed.

69. If you can iterate with fancy tech, then go forth!
If you can’t, then iterate with less fancy tech!
Use whatever allows you to build quickly, learn quickly, iterate quickly.
Quickly = 15minutes or less

70. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
The idea is to start with simple tools and slowly
work your way up in sophistication as your
conversations (and tests) grow in sophistication.

71. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
If you are learning you are doing it right. If you
are changing directions dramatically, this is all
good. Do it now! Rather than later.

72. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
This is all what we can call (simply) Testing.
Nothing formal. No n-values and statistical
significance here. Just small little experiments.

73. • Think-aloud Testing – Give your product/innovation to the end-
user(s) and ask them to accomplish a certain task but to verbalize
their mind while they work to do so. Don’t help them! The whole idea
is to understand their behaviors so that you can tweak the design to
make it easier for them to use the next time you give it to them.
• Just give it to them to use for a week. When you’re ready, just
hand it off and see what happens. This is the ultimate test. If it’s
good enough, then they’ll not just play with it but they’ll actually
begin to adopt it into their workflow. If it’s really good, they won’t
want to give it back! This is when you know you’ve hit jackpot (aka
MPV).
A couple early-stage testing concepts
At some point in your end-user conversations, and once you have an early version of your
solution, you’ll want to test that solution with them. These tests increase in sophistication.

74. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
At some point you are confident in your solution
because your tests demonstrate that you have
built something your users need (not want).

75. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
This is huge! You may polish the product at this
point, round out the edges so to speak, so that
it’s ready for the bigger test.

76. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
Next up: You design and implement a formal
pilot. Most know what this is. But note: A pilot is
not a big step if the early-stages are done right.

77. Another slide re jargon.More on the idea of Testing
MVP
Prototypes
PilotEarly-stage (pre-pilot) Testing Scale
Rough & Ready
Functional
Post-pilot, the growth iterations continue..

78. (that’s all for now.
this is a work in progress.)

79. Customer — Used generically.
End-user - The person using the thing your building. This is the most important
person to get to know!
Stakeholder — Not an end-user but in the ecosystem that you’re operating in. This
is a fairly generic term. The following could all be described as stakeholders.
Influence/Expert - Not an end-user but perhaps knows a lot about what end-users
go through, has domain expertise, etc
Competitor/Sabotuer/Skeptic - This is someone who doesn’t necessarily want
you to succeed.
Beneficiary - not the person you’re serving directly, but the person you’re trying to
have impact on, down-stream.
Payer - the person paying for the thing you’re building. May or may not be the end-
user. In most non-profit work, it’s NOT the end-user.
Decision Maker — the person who decides whether or not to buy and/or use the
think you’re building. Sometimes the same as an above, but not always
Another slide on jargon.Types of People in an Ecosystem

80. Customer — Used generically.
End-user - The person using the thing your building. This is the most important
person to get to know!
Stakeholder — Not an end-user but in the ecosystem that you’re operating in. This
is a fairly generic term. The following could all be described as stakeholders.
Influence/Expert - Not an end-user but perhaps knows a lot about what end-users
go through, has domain expertise, etc
Competitor/Sabotuer/Skeptic - This is someone who doesn’t necessarily want
you to succeed.
Beneficiary - not the person you’re serving directly, but the person you’re trying to
have impact on, down-stream.
Payer - the person paying for the thing you’re building. May or may not be the end-
user. In most non-profit work, it’s NOT the end-user.
Decision Maker — the person who decides whether or not to buy and/or use the
think you’re building. Sometimes the same as an above, but not always
Most people spend too much time thinking about all of these people.
Involves lots of thinking, planning, meetings, post-its, etc…
While it’s good to think about these various personas,
the one that matters the most — especially in the very early days — is the end-user.
(Or end-users.)
These are the people with the problem you’re trying to solve. Or at you think they have a problem
that you’re trying to solve…
So spend most of your time figuring out how to talk to and get to know these folks first.
Everything else is likely to fall into place if you truly understand their problems and truly build a
thing that helps them.
Types of People in an Ecosystem Another slide on jargon.