Creating an Org. that NEEDS TO EXIST”YOU can get users and fu.docx

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.
Chapter 1: Entrepreneurship
‹#›
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…).
‹#›
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.
‹#›
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.
‹#›
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).
‹#›
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.
‹#›
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.
‹#›
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.
‹#›
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…
‹#›
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
http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219709#ixzz2QdFiPgdO
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.
‹#›
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).
‹#›
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.
‹#›
Kickstarter Video Final Project (15%)
Each student will be responsible to build on ideas they have
generated throughout the course so far to create an idea that has
multiple impacts – that is economically sustainable but also
fulfills a greater purpose by achieving a social or environmental
impact and/or by enabling some positive aspect of our
humanity. Ultimately, we are looking for ideas that are
compelling enough that your peers, your professors, and the
public at large will think: THIS INNOVATION NEEDS TO
EXIST!
As you have likely noticed, it is difficult to come up with a

truly new-to-the-world product or service. Thus, although your
ultimate offering is likely to be a product or service, other
forms of innovation—process, management, or business
model—as well as multi-bottom-line impact innovations are
typically critical to making the idea novel and high-impact
enough to satisfy the ‘NEEDS TO EXIST’ criteria (not just
meh, it would be nice if this existed – something that absolutely
MUST be brought into existence).
As a platform to describe your idea we are using the format of
Kickstarter since this is the most popular crowdfunding
platform. The Kickstartarter community (the ‘crowd’), and other
funding courses for that matter, are looking for things that need
to exist. If you can make a compelling argument that your idea
needs to exist the Kickstarter community will fund your idea
into existence. This submission requires a Kickstarter style
video pitch and short webpage-like write-up (don’t worry
making a video is easier than you might think). As per the
syllabus you can work alone or in small groups (up to 3 people)
on this.
Kickstarter (kickstarter.com) is an example of a crowdfunding
platform. It may be a great way for some of you to eventually
get funding to launch one of your ideas as a business. These
short (2-4 minute) video pitches and visually-appealing
webpage-like write-ups help teach you to be clear, concise, and
practical while also making your ideas interesting and
compelling. This should really improve your elevator pitch (an
important skill for all innovative people and especially
entrepreneurs). You should plan to spend a good amount of time
on this project during the final few weeks of the semester.
Find Your Purpose!
This project is designed to help you find your purpose since
Kickstarter, like the rest of the world, supports ideas with

purpose more than those driven solely by profits! Your purpose
should be core to this Kickstarter business idea (i.e., linked to
the core capabilities of the organization you have
conceptualized – selling T-shirts and donating a portion of the
profits to xyz non-profit is not particularly creative or
innovative and will not get a high grade for this project). This is
the final creative challenge you undertake in this course –
identifying a double or triple bottom-line version of a company
or concept you would like to explore.
There are many good example videos on the site and the
following pages give some direction:
· Overall instructions / explanation for how it works:
http://www.kickstarter.com/start
· FAQ- All your questions will be answered:
http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq
· Also here: http://www.kickstarter.com/help /
http://www.kickstarter.com/blog
· Kickstarter School (really comprehensive advice section – just
added in 2012 so make the most of it):
http://www.kickstarter.com/help/school/defining_your_project
· Practicalities- creating a good video:
http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/creators-guide-to-video
For this assignments:
· Please post your video on Youtube as an unlisted video (these
do not show up in searches but can be easily viewed if a person
has the weblink):
http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answe
r=181547
· For the “webpage” you can use a free site like Weebly or
simply create a formatted / attractive document with images /
graphics in MS Word or something similar. It does not need to
be on the web, however, it should be formatted and visually
appealing (i.e., include pictures, diagrams, etc…) like a

webpage—this is not a report or whitepaper—use Kickstater as
a guide.
· I generally prefer that students do NOT create an actual
Kickstarter project (even a draft one) – we want to maintain the
reputation of Temple University and so it is critical that we do
not put half-baked projects out that might detract from the
impact of more developed projects.
At a minimum this project should include:
· Video (2-4 minutes)
· WebPage-like document (850 -1000 words + images)
· Reward Levels (usually 3 to 7 or so levels -- be creative and
link to company concept but also be realistic about what you
can provide at different costs… you can’t give a car away for
$50!)
· Content to cover / convey (across both video and webpage):
· Who your company is
· What you do
· How you do it
· Why you do it!!! (your purpose)
Grades for this assignment are based on:
· Creativity / Novelty (20 pts): Did student explain a creative,
new-to-the-world idea that leveraged macro-trends and modern
business models (10 pts)?
· Overall Feasibility (20 pts): Did student describe a clearly
explained and conceptualized Kickstarter-appropriate idea that
offered potential and had more strengths than limitations; was
economically feasible (i.e., the requested donations would help
launch the business); had few unexplored unknowns; and seems
to be free from unexplored, incorrect assumptions (10 pts)?
· Purpose / ‘Needs to Exist’ (40 pts): Did student provide
convincing arguments that this idea needs to exist in the world?
Have you motivated Kickstarter investors that they need to help
you launch this idea or new venture? Both innovative products /
services and novel multi-bottom-line business models (positive

impact) can accomplish this. However, it is often difficult to
come up with features or functionality that are truly new to the
world and it is frequently easier to connect purpose to a
business concept in a novel way.
· Clarity / Impact of Page, Video, Rewards (20 pts): Did the
video and webpage clearly convey: who the company is, what
they do, how they do it, and why they do it? Did they link
reward levels to the concept in question?

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