As I found myself gasping for air beneath a sweaty, 220-pound training partner, a sudden epiphany struck me: Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) and entrepreneurship, two great passions of mine, share a lot more in common than I had thought. As a BJJ practitioner and serial entrepreneur, I’ve learned invaluable lessons from the mat that I try to incorporate into my professional life.
Risk-taking and Embracing the Unknown
In BJJ, you’re constantly facing uncertainty, whether it’s a new opponent, a vulnerable position, or a high-stakes competition. The same happens in the often-merciless world of entrepreneurship, where market conditions, competitors, and consumer preferences are always in flux. To succeed, you must learn to take calculated risks and embrace the unknown. It’s about stepping out of your comfort zone and charging headfirst into stormy waters.
Take, for example, the story of Peloton. When the founders started the company, they were entering a highly competitive fitness market, dominated by established players like gyms and traditional workout equipment manufacturers. They took a risk with their unconventional idea of combining fitness equipment with on-demand classes and ventured boldly into uncertainty. Today, Peloton is a household name and a game-changer in the fitness industry. This willingness to take risks and venture into uncharted territory is a hallmark of successful entrepreneurs.
Leverage and Strategy: The David and Goliath Principle
As smaller BJJ practitioners can attest, technique, strategy, and leverage are vital to overcome larger opponents. Similarly, in business, you’ll often face well-established goliaths dominating the market. The key to success? Outmaneuver them with agility, innovation, and resourcefulness. David didn’t defeat Goliath with brute force, he did it with a cunning strategy and a well-placed stone. In entrepreneurship, as in BJJ, it’s not always the strongest who win, but those who can adapt and leverage their strengths in the most effective way.
Consider the story of Wise (formerly TransferWise), a fintech startup that entered the money transfer market, dominated by heavyweights like Western Union and traditional banks. Instead of competing head-to-head with these giants, they leveraged a unique peer-to-peer transfer technology, transparent pricing, and a focus on customer experience to carve out a niche for themselves. Through smart strategy and leveraging their unique strengths, Wise became a disruptor in the industry and has revolutionized the way people send and receive money across borders.
The Power of Persistence and Patience
In BJJ, progress is slow and arduous. You’ll endure countless defeats and setbacks, but each one is an opportunity to learn and grow. The same holds true for entrepreneurship. No one becomes a titan of industry overnight. It takes time, dedication, and resilience to learn from your mistakes and forge a path to success. Embrace the grind, because every failure is a steppingstone to triumph.
Take the story of Slack, the popular team collaboration platform. Before Slack’s success, its founder Stewart Butterfield had endured multiple failed ventures, including a gaming startup called Glitch. However, instead of giving up, Butterfield and his team learned from their mistakes and pivoted, turning a small internal communication tool they had developed for Glitch into what we now know as Slack. Their persistence and patience in the face of setbacks led them to create a multi-billion-dollar company that’s become an essential tool for businesses worldwide.
Humility and Camaraderie: No One Succeeds Alone
BJJ has a unique way of humbling even the cockiest individuals. It teaches you to appreciate the skills and knowledge of your peers and mentors and you learn about the importance of growing together, as a team. You and your teammates literally share sweat and blood. Entrepreneurship is no different. Surround yourself with a solid team and create an environment of camaraderie and mutual growth. No one has all the answers, but together, you can tackle challenges that come your way.
Think about the success of Canva, the user-friendly graphic design platform. The company’s achievements, including simplifying design for millions of users and expanding its product offerings, would not have been possible without a team of dedicated designers, engineers, and support staff working together towards a common goal. By fostering a culture of camaraderie and collaboration, Canva has been able to democratize design and become a leader in its industry.
Adaptability: The Art of Pivoting
If there’s one thing you learn quickly in BJJ, it’s that the unexpected is always lurking around the corner. One moment, you’re in control, the next, you’re desperately defending a submission. Adaptability is crucial both on the mat and in the boardroom. Learn to pivot when faced with unforeseen obstacles and seize opportunities as they emerge. Staying agile and responsive to change can mean the difference between success and failure in the world of startups.
The story of Zoom is a prime example of adaptability in action. The company began as a video conferencing solution, competing with giants like Skype and Cisco Webex. However, as the world faced the COVID pandemic and remote work became the norm, Zoom pivoted to address the increasing demand for reliable video communication tools. Today, Zoom is a household name and has become an essential tool for businesses, schools, and families around the world. Had Zoom not been adaptable and responsive to change, it’s likely they would not have experienced the meteoric rise to success they enjoy today.
As a BJJ practitioner and entrepreneur, I can attest to the transformative power of these lessons. They’ve made me a more confident risk-taker, a better strategist, and an adaptive learner. So next time you’re grappling with the challenges of the business world, remember these insights from the mat. Embrace the lessons of Brazilian jiu-jitsu into your entrepreneurial journey — perhaps even by diving into a BJJ gym yourself.
Have you ever watched Shark Tank and wondered if a real pitch would be the same? Have you ever wished you were Mark Cuban or Lori Greiner to know how closing a deal would feel like? This is a sign for you to attend a real one! Let me, an amateur entrepreneur, show you what I found interesting in a real pitchfest.
Introduction
I recently participated in CONNECTpreneur’s Rocket Pitch + Power Networking, one of the world’s biggest pitchfests, with over 500 chief executives, including over 200 CEOs and founders, and approximately 200 angel investors and venture capitalists from all over the United States. The event includes not one but two online networking sessions and a “Rocket Pitch” segment with fascinating startups.
After the opening remarks, where I got to hear from the event’s host and founder, Tien Wong, there was the “Rocket Pitch” Showcase of 12 promising new tech companies. From the original group, I was particularly interested in two of them, Kinometrix and PetMetrics, based on the strength of their AI and technological involvement, the viability of their expansion plan, and the positive social impact they could have.
Kinometrix
The company focuses on the one million patients’ fall risks in hospitals — a niche accident that necessitates the attention of authorities. Since this issue has been looked down upon and lacks subjective assessment or accurate risk measurements:
More than a third of the number results in severe injuries that lead to 11,000 deaths.
Cost ~$7,000 per fall due to higher discharge rates and long-term care facilities.
Cost ~$7B annually as total expenses to overcome these injuries.
“The very first requirement in a hospital is that it should do the sick no harm,” claimed Florence Nightingale, demonstrating one of the major outcome that Kinometrix is following to achieve.
What Kinometrics has to offer
Using 500,000 inpatient records, Kinometrix was invented as an automated AI-driven platform that can predict real-time patient falls with specific modules and machine learning algorithms.
The patent-pending system automatically extracts variables from EHR with the assistance of AI and delivers this data to EHR for further adapted recommendations and protocols. This bi-directional API allows for seamless workflow integration that reaches 98% accuracy.
Kinometrix’s application in practice.
The company aims to address pressure injuries and hospital-acquired infections in their future AI-driven applications, in which the market is projected to be $98B, including over 1 million licensed beds in US hospitals. The business profits from an annual fee of $480 per licensed bed with the upcoming separate potential new risk prediction modules updating with an additional fee.
Kinometrix’s prospective market.
While the company’s 2022 revenue is only over $50,000 with the current four investors, it is projected to reach $2.3M in 2023 and over $25M in 2025. It was seeking a financial fund of $750K in its Rocket Pitch series seed raise for enterprise readiness & integrations, sales support, and IP & regulatory.
Meet the Kinometrix Team.
PetMetrics
The company was founded by Dr. Gary Richter, the owner of award-winning Holistic Veterinary Care in Oakland, CA, and the founder of Ultimate Pet Nutrition supplements and food, which is currently holding over $50M in annual sales and over 400,000 loyal users.
What is PetMetrics?
PetMetrics is an broad-spectrum vital sign sensing platform using a wearable biometric sensor with a mobile app of AI data analytics licensed from NASA designed. The device’s AI/ML systems utilize the pet’s data while comparing it with other similar symptoms from other animals to provide an alert at the earliest signs of illness, protecting the pets and their parents from fatal transmitting diseases. It comes with a mission to:
Serve the growing need for a technology that allows easier and non-invasive detection of all pet diseases.
Lower the rate of late diagnosis, unqualified treatment options, and mortality rates.
A hardware device is expected to cost $100–200 with a SaaS subscription fee of $14.99 per month. Clipping this device on your pet’s collar and automatically receive all its needs.Why PetMetrix is competitive.
Since pet parents are often willing to spend to protect their loved ones, the market for this product is extremely inelastic: the US pet industry exceeds $100B annually, with the pet wearables market holding 22% CAGR. The company further targets the market of working dogs (in police and military departments) and even large animals such as horses and cattle.
In the Rocket Pitch seed round, the company desired a $1M SAFE note of $8M valuation with an 80% discount rate. The financial support would help the company execute appropriate plans for growing fast, reaching its expected break-even in 2024.
My takeaways
Twelve competitors presented their business, predominantly of which are related to technology and AI-driven. A rising trend in innovation and entrepreneurship is about using technology and digital tools to enhance the well-being of not only humans but also all the surrounding lives. I could expect that even the investors had a hard time deciding which company was the most promising because every single one was excellent.
I found it greatly interesting because of the “meeting” feature, in which any attendees, including me, can directly get in touch with the entrepreneurs or CEOs I desire via the breakout rooms or published information of the registrants — even I can become an investor! So many people who are just individual investors claim to get a profit out of their investment.
There is Investors’ Pollings to gather needs and wants from participated investors. It was pretty interesting as I could observe the current pattern and desires of investors when they declare their needs directly to the organization.
PetMetrics and Kinometrics are both potential companies with ambitious plans. However, it is still a challenge to seek such a large amount of financial support, which will limit their investors to only large companies or VCs rather than small and individual investors who hold a significant percentage of the participants of the Rocket Pitch fest.
This feels like Shark Tank in real life, in which I can be a Shark if I want to. I wish I had a chance to attend an in-person version of this monthly Pitchfest. So many lessons to learn and improve myself as an entrepreneur. Kudos to all the great work!
About CONNECTpreneurs:
CONNECTpreneur Forum is a global network including 25,000+ entrepreneurs, founders, CEO, venture capitalists and angel investors, CXOs, and many other business executives. The organization’s RocketPitch is the world’s biggest monthly pitchfest bringing together 800+ top founders, CEOs, investors, and business leaders for excellent networking through pitches of intriguing early-stage startups. The event is famous for the caliber of guests and participants and fascinating networking and programs, all of which combine to create unforgettable events and opportunities for our attendees and the value they receive from their sponsorship. Countless entrepreneurs, investors, and funders worldwide rely on the CONNECTpreneur team for guidance and assistance with capital raising, coaching, and other business needs.
This is Guest Blog post from CONNECTpreneur Coach and partner Ines LeBow.
Attracting investors to get your business funded is all about being unique, even if the product you’re presenting isn’t a new invention or innovation. Earlier this year, I highlighted 7 Factors for Startup Success based on the philosophies of Shark Tank star Mark Cuban.
He believes that you need to find a way to make at least one aspect of your product or service uniquely your own. You can do so by thinking about the special characteristics your product will have, to whom you will market it, and how you differentiate it from the entrenched competitors. Trying to be the same results in competition based on price, which is not how you want to compete.
In Mr. Cuban’s own words about being unique:
Creating opportunities means looking where others are not
and
When you’ve got 10,000 people trying to do the same thing, why would you want to be number 10,001?
Not Just Socks
Socks have been around for a long time. Even the athletic sock category has been pretty saturated, but that didn’t stop Bombas from their start-up business focused on making a better athletic sock. I covered the case of Bombas in an earlier article entitled 5 Keys to Convince Investors Your Product Can Make Money.
They invested a lot of time and effort into identifying what made athletes, fitness junkies, hikers, runners, speed walkers, and other heavy users of athletic hosiery disappointed, frustrated, and annoyed about their existing sock of choice. They designed and produced their socks to address those issues, conducting significant product testing to ensure the user feedback hit the bullseye.
Successful Close
If you are an early Shark Tank devotee, you’ll know that the founders of Bombas went on the show and left with $200,000 in funding. That’s right…$200,000 of someone else’s money to launch an athletic sock. So it wasn’t about an exciting new technology product but about a unique take on a product for which there was already a defined, established market with committed customers who are continually looking to improve the equipment and accessories they use to perform their activity.
So what is unique about your product? Perhaps you can approach real-life users who are enthusiasts and get their perspective on the unique benefits your product offers. Often, it’s the little things that make the biggest impact to your target audience, which translates to how you differentiate yourself to potential investors.
Recently, I was interviewed by the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation about The Big Idea CONNECTpreneur Forum, of which they are a sponsor. Following is the transcript of the interview. I have been a Board Member of this tremendous organization for the past 4 years.
CONNECTpreneur recently entered our 9th year. To date, we have hosted 47 events, the last 4 being “virtual” events. Over 20,000 business leaders, investors, and entrepreneurs from around the world have attended our events. Our website is connectpreneur.org. Please check us out!
THE BIG IDEA
CONNECTPRENEUR FORUM
IN CONVERSATION WITH TIEN WONG, CEO, OPUS8, AND
FOUNDER & HOST, CONNECTPRENEUR
Get to know CONNECTpreneur, a unique forum which attracts the region’s top entrepreneurs, investors, innovators and game changers. Organizers of the top tech and investor networking events in the region.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO MAKE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN BUSINESS LEADERS OF ALL STRIPES – CEOS, VCS AND ANGELS – TO EARLY STAGE COMPANIES?
Not just for early stage companies, but all businesses of all sizes, the old adage, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” still applies very relevantly. People want to do business with people. Early stage companies, in particular, have many needs: capital, talent, customers, vendors, partners, product development, marketing, etc. and having a large and deep network gives an entrepreneur a huge advantage in the marketplace, for obvious reasons. There is a proven correlation between the size and quality of one’s network, and one’s overall success — in entrepreneurship and most endeavors.
WHAT IS THE SECRET SAUCE THAT MAKES CONNECTPRENEUR A TOP TECH NETWORKING EVENT IN THE REGION?
It’s our ability to attract the region’s top entrepreneurs, investors, innovators and game changers. We pride ourselves on organizing the top tech and investor networking events in Montgomery County and the Washington region as a whole. We think that the reason that over 70% of our surveyed attendees rate CONNECTpreneur as the “number one” tech and networking event in the Mid-Atlantic region is because of the high quality and seniority of our attendees, which is unprecedented. Over 20% of our attendees are accredited angel investors or VCs, over half are CEOs and founders, and we intentionally keep the ratio of service providers as low as possible. This makes for more meaningful connectivity among the participants.
HOW DOES CONNECTPRENEUR SUPPORT FEMALE ENTREPRENEURS AND ENTREPRENEURS OF COLOR?
CONNECTpreneur is very intentional about providing a diverse set of presenters and speakers in our programming. Our community of entrepreneurs and investors is highly diverse, and our selection committee is very tuned in to the benefits of gender and cultural diversity. We actively work with and partner with local, regional, and national players who share our values of “double bottom line” ethics which value social impact as well as financial gain. Some of our partners include Maryland Tech Council, TEDCO, Startup Grind, Founder Institute, Halcyon and Conscious Venture Labs to name a few.
WHY IS MONTGOMERY COUNTY A GOOD LOCATION FOR AN INNOVATIVE STARTUP COMPANY? AND, WHAT’S YOUR BEST ADVICE FOR SUCCESS?
Montgomery County is a top tier County nationally for startups, and that’s evidenced by numerous awesome success stories. MoCo has a tremendously educated talent base, world class government institutions, top schools, and a large base of angel and high net worth private investors who can provide seed funding. The best advice for success is to understand thoroughly your customer and their needs and pain points very deeply. That way you can get to “product market fit” more quickly, de-risk your opportunity, and be more capital efficient. Too many companies get enamored with their product and design, or culture, or getting media coverage whereas the true essence of any successful business is to provide excellent products and solutions to its customers and sell into their markets like crazy.
WHAT ARE SOME UNIQUE CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EARLY STAGE COMPANY THAT SPARK YOUR INTEREST TO EXTEND AN INVITE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE FORUM?
We are looking for presenting companies which have truly disruptive ideas, products and/or solutions which could be sold into huge markets. And of course, the most important criteria are the quality, expertise, and coachability of the founding team. We have had presenters from all kinds of sectors including life sciences, cyber, telecom, blockchain, wireless, mobility, e-commerce, marketplaces, fintech, medical devices, IoT, etc.
Learn more about CONNECTpreneur at our website: connectpreneur.org
This is a Guest blog post from Jeff Cherry, Founder and Managing Partner of The Conscious Venture Fund and Founding Partner of The Laudato Si Startup Challenge. He is a tech CEO and mentor, investor, philanthropist, and community builder.
What comes next?
I recently listened to a thought-provoking episode of the TED Radio Hour on NPR entitled What We Value. Its premise was that this economic and societal crisis in which we find ourselves is accelerating the move towards a new set of values when it comes to the practice of capitalism. Those of us in the social impact and Conscious Capitalism space are heartened to see this discussion gaining momentum, but the question remains: How will capitalism change now that the unhealthy state of business and our major societal institutions have been laid bare?
There are many indications that this shift was in the offing far before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. Although late to the game, the statement released by the Business Roundtable in August 2019 signaled a transformative move away from the outdated notion of shareholder primacy and towards a more human and effective form of business. It certainly garnered the attention of the press. And others in the business mainstream who had been either unaware or hostile to the market forces driving this change, are now finding it hard to ignore discussions of stakeholder management and whether business should have a broader role in society.
These ever-expanding discussions about the purpose of business in society are now taking place in the context of what does a return to “normal” look like in the economy. And a growing sentiment that the normal we were experiencing — where greed, inequity, declining living standards, crony capitalism, rent-seeking, regulatory capture, share buy-backs, corporate welfare and environmental depletion were the norm — isn’t in fact normal. Nor a state of being for which we should collectively yearn. As you might imagine, I agree.
The challenge we face now then, is how do we actually execute on this new idea? Many people talk about business for good and changing the purpose of the firm. But in the real world of competitive advantage, pricing models, customer needs, shareholder demands, supplier, employee and community relationships, knowing what to do is hard. We speak to entrepreneurs all the time who are philosophically aligned with a new narrative about business. They can cite anecdotes about others who have been successful, and they lack a cognitive frame that they can use to build an organization that embodies this day-in and day-out.
I’ve written at length about why I believe a focus on stakeholders in business and capitalism needs to replace the old story. In this article, the first of a two-part series, I’ll describe a framework to begin the journey to business as an institute of societal well-being: Or Human Capitalism.
The New Narrative of Business in Society: Human Capitalism What does a new story about the practice of business and capitalism look like in practical terms?
In order to fully bring this new narrative to life, I believe we need to re-define the purpose of business as a societal institution. Then, we need to translate that definition into tools that real entrepreneurs and executives can use every day to guide how they formulate strategy, individual decision making and implementation.
When a new cohort of the Conscious Venture Lab convenes, I ask a question to frame the work we’ll be doing over the ensuing 16-weeks: “What kind of world could we create if investors, executives and entrepreneurs cared as much about people as they care about profit?” It isn’t a question I expect any of the teams to answer outright. It’s a rhetorical challenge to think about how these ideas impact their businesses and the broader society.
Over the last few months, I’ve reframed that question: What kind of world could we create if we decided our first duty in business was to simply care for each other? This is the essence of Human Capitalism.
This version of the question doesn’t pit people against profit, which I believe is a false construct. Instead, it captures the meaning we’re all experiencing in this moment: can we be a complete society if the overarching purpose of business is only to increase profits and not primarily to improve the human condition? Both of these questions are variations of the age-old investigation of “What is a business for?” Academics, economists, politicians, social scientists and businesspeople have been asking this question for decades, if not longer.
Liesel Pritzker Simmons, co-founder of the impact investing firm Bluehaven Initiative, has said, “A crisis gives us an excuse to have conviction earlier.” What we are experiencing in this moment has emphasized how interconnected we are as a society and as a world. It has emphasized the importance of health as a public imperative. The importance of economic, community and personal resiliency as interdependent societal imperatives to which individuals and all societal institutions, even businesses, need to contribute. This crisis is bringing along those who may not have reached a level of conviction to move to a more human form of capitalism had things stayed … normal.
In this new reality it’s clear that the question about what type of world we want to create can no longer remain abstract or rhetorical. The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the truth, that a focus on our interdependent well-being is necessary for society’s survival. Succeed together or fail together the choice is ours, but we can no longer hide behind a narrative that separates individual financial self-interest from our mutual survival.
In the post-COVID world, the new narrative of business in society is a narrative about authentic caring, societal resilience and collective well-being.
Practical Ways to Integrate Human Capitalism Herb Kelleher, the legendary founder of Southwest Airlines, once said, “The business of business is people — yesterday, today and forever….” But what does it actually mean to structure your business around people? What can you do tomorrow to transform the structure of your business, respond to this new reality and become the type of leader that society needs?
Caring is Job 1: Above all there is one thing leaders must do first in order to be successful in this new world: They must actually care! To be clear, leaders who embrace the idea of caring for stakeholders as a core value and primary motivation for running a business will be well-positioned to succeed in this new world. They’ll be more able to execute on the ideas described later in this article and more likely to attract talent, customers and investors in a post-COVID world of business as a vital instrument of society.
At first this seems obvious and perhaps, some would say, no different than the status quo. But the nuance of authentically treating employees, suppliers, customers and communities as individuals deserving of your care for their own sake, as opposed to primarily as fodder for creating returns is critically important. Not only to how your company will be perceived, but authentic caring — or the lack thereof — will have a tremendous impact on your competitive performance. People understand instinctively if you are treating them fairly simply as a form of manipulation for other ends. And, unless you’ve created a true culture of caring in your organization, you’ll be tempted to abandon that care when it comes into conflict with your “real goals.” The best leaders however will understand this simple truth: how we think about creating financial value is now, more than ever, clearly tied to the way we create societal value. Authentically caring is a key component of this new narrative.
“What wins in the marketplace is that you are responsible for taking care of everyone who encounters your organization” Tom Gardner: CEO and Co-Founder, The Motley Fool
With that as our foundation, there are two things that every leader can do to build caring into the operational DNA of their business:
First, adopt a specific set of guiding principals about what it means to care for each other in service of societal well-being. And second,
Institute a practical business operating system that provides a framework for living into those guiding principals.
Here in Part-1, I’ll discuss a set of guiding principles we’ve created at the Conscious Venture Lab to help entrepreneurs execute upon these cultures of caring.
Guiding Principles: The Five Promises of Collective Well-Being In order to seed this new culture of caring into the DNA of your operations, it is crucially important that you articulate and codify a set of guiding principles that the entire company can use to organize your thought processes and create operating norms, policies, procedures and metrics that will keep your culture on track in good times and in challenging times…like during a pandemic.
Companies that will lead us into a more effective model of capitalism and a future of broadly-shared prosperity have structured their business to deliver on what I call The Five Promises of Collective Well-Being, through which we vow to use business to make the world:
More just,
More joyous,
More equitable,
More sustainable and
More prosperous for all.
Let’s examine each principle:
Business as a path to a More Just society: Leaders who are best at this will work to create social justice by structuring their organizations to level the playing field and authentically create access to opportunity for all those in their ecosystem who want to contribute.
Conscious Venture Lab and SHIFT Ventures portfolio companies Hungry Harvest and R3 Score have built this promise into their business models, which drives impact and returns.
Hungry Harvest creates a more just world by providing fresh food to communities that wouldn’t otherwise have access to it and dignified work opportunities to people in need. As a result, they create scores of “Harvest Heroes” who loyally buy wholesome food from the company that otherwise would have gone to waste. In the process they have increase sales by more than 34,000% over the last 4 years.
R3Score creates a more just world by providing a dignified return to civil society for millions of formerly incarcerated Americans and allowing banks a way to engage with people they would otherwise ignore. Thereby expanding the banks’ customer base, putting financial assets to work that would otherwise lay fallow and giving the 1-in-3 Americans with a criminal record the opportunity to build a new life.
Business as a path to a More Joyous life: Leaders who bring more joy into the world will do so by focusing on a combination of the quality of the human interactions in their operations, eliminating misery as a core aspect of their business and/or creating products that bring authentic joy to more lives.
One of my personal favorite companies, Union Square Hospitality Group, uses a culture of caring and enlightened hospitality to bring joy to employees, customers and suppliers alike.
Startup Aqus Water, that was a part of the Vatican Laudato Si Challenge in 2017, has created a product that puts “three years of clean water in the palm of (the) hand(s)” of people in places where lack of clean water has been causing extreme hardship for centuries. With more than 780 MM people in the world lacking access to clean water, bringing joy will undoubtedly bring prosperity to many.
Business as a path to More Equitable communities: When leaders focus on creating a mutual exchange of value between all stakeholders, they move their organizations away from the negative consequences of shareholder primacy and create more equitable communities for everyone. Paradoxically, an equitable approach to business, or removing the shareholder blinders, often creates new paths to greater value for shareholders.
Greyston Bakery in Yonkers New York is a pioneer of open hiring. They create a more equitable world by focusing not on the tyranny of weeding people out in the hiring process but by providing the dignity of work to anyone who wants it.
Here in Baltimore, Jacob Hsu and his company Catalyte have created an entirely new way of identifying undervalued individuals who have the aptitude to become exceptional engineers. Creating new paths to equity and unleashing massive financial potential for communities, his clients and the company.
Business as a path to a More Sustainable world: The winning leaders of the new narrative think and plan for the long-term. They understand that sustainability in every sense is the key to enduring organizational health. They establish a circle of growth for the planet, the people who serve or are served by the organization and the organization itself.
Billion-dollar clothing company Patagonia has rejected the world of “fast fashion” by creating high quality, long-lasting products and offering a repair and reuse program to discourage customers from buying things they don’t need.
Business as a path to a More Prosperous existence for us all: The best leaders view value creation with a polarity, or both/and mindset. They actively look to create real wealth for employees, customers, communities, suppliers and shareholders. They work to manage the polarity of creating value for all stakeholders by asking themselves questions like: “How do we simultaneously achieve the upside of paying our employees as much as possible, and, the upside of creating great returns for shareholders?” This is in contrast to shareholder value leaders who see all stakeholder relationships as tradeoffs that need to be solved for the benefit of shareholders.
Starbucks has fed more than 10 million people through its FoodShare program, redoubled its commitment to eliminate gender pay equity gaps, and committed to becoming “… resource positive — storing more carbon than we emit, eliminating waste and providing more clean fresh water than we use …” — all while rewarding shareholders handsomely — even during the coronavirus pandemic.
Why Human CAPITALISM? In Part-2 of this series I will discuss how the tenets of Conscious Capitalism and stakeholder management will allow organizations to clear the clutter and build these principles into everyday operations.
For now, a note before we end to my main audience: The Skeptics:
I spend the majority of every waking hour thinking about how to support entrepreneurs who have previously been neglected and who are creating world changing companies despite the immense hurdles they face. I also spend a majority of that time thinking about how to invest on behalf of my limited partners in a way that will create exceptional returns. I am a capitalist who believes capitalism can and should be practiced in a way that unleashes its power to elevate all humanity. That we can create a more humane form of commerce and human cooperation. What I am suggesting is that capitalism, like any man-made system, must evolve as society evolves. To paraphrase my friend and mentor Ed Freeman, professor at the Darden School at The University of Virginia, the alternative to capitalism as we know it today is not socialism, but a better, more human form of capitalism.
For those who would push back on these ideas as leaving shareholders behind and giving away profits I would simply ask you to suspend disbelief for a bit. Take a few minutes to think not about what you might lose, but about what you might gain. What kind of world could we create if we decided our first duty in business was to care for each other? Look around…I think that time has come.
Jeff Cherry, is CEO and Managing Partner of SHIFT Ventures, and Founder & Executive Director of Conscious Venture Lab, an award-winning and internationally recognized early stage accelerator. He is also Founder and Managing Partner of The Conscious Venture Fund and Founding Partner of The Laudato Si Startup Challenge. Jeff is a pioneer in conscious capitalism and double bottom-line investing. He can be reached at jcherry@consciousventurelab.com.
This is a Guest blog post from Thomas Ma, an awesome up and coming entrepreneur whom I have had the pleasure of watching grow these past few years. He is the LA-based Co-Founder of Sapphire Apps Media. This is great reading for any young person or aspiring entrepreneur. Lots of lessons learned. Enjoy!!
I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was heading home from my last final of the semester to wrap up my junior year in college.
I had no internships lined up, and no idea what I wanted to do with my life. All of my friends had internships and it seemed they had their professional career figured out.
Nope not me. No one called me back. Since it was the last day, I decided to take one final stop at the college career center to see if they could help me out.
This is when I bumped into one of my friend at the career center and we started talking. Suddenly I started to get all these ideas in my head.
From that moment, I went back to my apartment, and continued to carve out my idea. I didn’t stop. I put 100% into it from that day. Of course it started out slowly. I had a lot to learn.
One Fun Fact:
It took me from May 9, 2015 — April 2017 before I had my own company bank account. That’s nearly 2 years!
In light of this 5 year mark, I wanted to put time and share what I would do today especially in this pandemic. My hope is to get other people to progress with their own journey. This advice is good for any type of industry.
Chapters:
1. Marketing yourself on upwork.com
2. Building out your network
3. Be vulnerable and share your journey
4. Learning a New Skill
5. Tools that you should know about
6. Outsourcing Talent
7. Digital Marketing
8. Building your digital brand
1. Create an upwork.com account to market yourself
Study other people in your industry. If you are into consulting, you look up consulting on upwork.com
Look at the following:
Hourly rate, $ they’ve earned, success rate, and country their from.
In this case, Kim has a great profile. He has a high success rate and over 6 figures earned.
Here’s his profile:
Look at is his hourly rate, title and what he is putting in his summary. It’s clear that he’s getting reached a lot.
Below his profile is his work history. Study how much he has earned and how much people are paying him.
Do this for 5–10 of the top earners int his category. This is the benchmark.
Try your best to optimize your profile so that it matches up with some of the best on Upwork. When you apply, at least you will stand out.
As you build your account in the beginning, it’s going to be tough. You’re going to have to be relentless. This means applying to as many jobs as you can. It may even mean not making a lot of $ to build up your profile.
Review and job success rate is critical to standing out as an applicant.
2. Build out your network
When starting out, it’s critical that you have a network. In order to thrive in what you do, you have to surround yourself with like minded people. These are the people who you will hang out with the most and learn from. You will also progress with these people and it’s amazing to celebrate milestones together and also being there for one another when things don’t go as planned.
If you don’t have a business network, it’s okay 🙂 I will share some of the things that I would recommend.
Before you build your network:
Make sure to optimize your social media profile with what you do. That includes Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, etc…
This way people get a sense of what you do when you connect with you.
Here are a few places you can find events or meet people:
The strategy applies to all the platforms below: When you join the platform, go to the search bar and enter keywords that relate to your niche. If you were in fitness, you could try wellness, health, fitness, coaching etc.
Facebook Group:
Eventbrite (Tons of free online events)
Meetup:
Linkedin
Instagram DM (search out hashtags in your industry and engage with people)
If you join a new group, read what members are posting. Engage with their post if you like it, and add them as a friend.
If they accept you as a friend, shoot them a compliment and let them know you liked their post. If they respond, ask if they are interested in connecting with you via zoom.
While on zoom, spend time genuinely getting to know the person.
Things you can talk about:
How covid has impacted you
Your background on how you started
Sharing what you’re passionate about
Favorite books
Why you started
The purpose of this is to build your own network. If people genuinely get to know you, they’ll support you. You never know who they know.
After you connect, you continue to stay in touch with them and invite them to events that you hear about.
As you continue to evolve your network, you will have access to more events.
This strategy can even be applied to zoom hangouts. To engage on zoom, you can send them a private message and use the same strategy.
In the space of creating your own brand, showing up is half the battle. You have to show up and build your network every day. Make it a goal to fill up your entire calendar with zoom events and zoom meetings.
Things to avoid at networking events:
1. Don’t ask the “what do you do” question. That’s straight to the point of what they do and it shows you don’t even want to get to know them for who they are
2. To be efficient with your time, you can state that you have 30 minutes or whatever at the beginning.
3. Don’t talk too much about yourself unless people ask you questions. If you talk a lot, you’ll never be able to learn about the other person. You have to make the other person feel special that you are talking to.
A small recap on networking:
If you are starting out, you can do the following to ensure you progress every week.
Start off by booking one event per day on your calendar
Make a goal of how many zoom connect meetings you want to take. Maybe in the beginning, make a goal to meet 5 people per week and then scale up.
If you meet someone and share common interest, offer to collaborate with them. You can collaborate by co hosting a happy hour with your joint network. This way you meet more people and so does your new friend.
If you are able to host events, you become the go to person for that event. People will get to hear you. This way you expand your network at a faster pace.
If you host great events, make sure to do it on a weekly bases. As you host more events, people will bring their own network.
3. Be vulnerable and share your journey
When I started, I used to take a selfie photo everyday of my Starbucks cup or wherever I was at in the world. I’d post most of the stories on Linkedin.
I wanted to show people what the journey was like. Overtime, I was able to build more followers because people liked hearing my story.
The reason for doing this is because it builds your digital brand. The more people know about you, the more they can potentially help you.
One networking tip here is to connect with people who like your post. Right away you have something in common.
4. Continue to learn
One of my favorite podcast to listen to is NPR how I built this by Guy Raz. It has stories from some of the great entrepreneurs in the world.
It’s nice to hear how someone started and made traction.
Read articles on medium.com especially the entrepreneurship articles
Stay active in the reddit entrepreneur community. A lot of people post insightful advice on there, and it’s an easy way to connect with a small group
When you make your job listing, you want to have the following:
-Catchy Header (study other people)
Clear instructions on exactly what you want and keeping it short and brief
Follow up questions that the applicant should respond to
Here are some I recommend:
What is your hourly rate
What is your working hours
Have you read the instruction? If so, how much and how long would it take to complete
Do you have a portfolio?
All the questions above help filter out who is a good candidate and who isn’t.
If you like their answers, you can give them a small paid tester. If they pass it, you can give them a larger project.
Always let people know if they do good work that you will have more projects for them.
When you find someone you like, you can add them to your roster.
If you master the ability to outsource, you can scale a creative agency. This means you can find clients who need a service. An example is if you had a bunch of designers you liked, you can market yourself as a creative agency who does graphics.
Add your creators work to your portfolio. Show people your work. Find clients who are willing to pay.
Once you find clients who are willing to pay, you give the work to the person you liked.
Recap for Agency via Outsourcing
Find talent
Test talent. If their good, add them to your roster
Show case their work
Find clients who are in need
If client is in need, then they will pay you for the services.
Give the project to the remote person. Make sure they meet your deadlines
7. Digital Marketing:
Learn how to run paid media ads on Facebook.
Steps I would suggest:
Start to do a deep dive on free courses that they offer online
Once you learn one platform, you can figure out other platforms such as Snapchat etc..
A few advice:
Start small when you run Facebook ads campaigns. Learn how to track your ROI (return on investment)
At the end of the day, your goal should be to make profit.
Study your competitors advertisement through the Facebook tool. You can look up every single company and what ads they run.
8. Building your digital brand
I never envisioned myself as a live fitness coach, but I found a new passion.
What started out as an opportunity to learn turned into something that I look forward to every week.
I had no idea what it was like to coach. I wanted to change that. To build a great brand, I wanted to learn everything. The coaches are important. They are the ones leading the tribe for ~1 hour.
—
My first class had 4 people. My second class had 4 people.
Week 2: Started to get 10–15 people for my two class
Week 3: Averaged 30 people for my two classes. This time people are referring their friends and family to join.
I love this because it’s so fun to see people enjoying something that I teach and having them bring their friends.
Take a look at the Eventbrite photo. Eventbrite drove over 100 users to my listing.
Eventbrite drove over 100 email sign ups to my fitness class. Facebook drove ~30 and I spent about $150.
Here’s how you can build out your digital brand throughout this pandemic
List your events on the following platforms:
Meetup (Yes you have to pay $30 group fee, but you will gain users over time. Study other groups in your niche and optimize your group title)
List your events on all the builtin websites. They have cities in Austin, NYC, Chicago, etc. It’s FREE!
List your event on Facebook Events. Make a page. This is the group I made:
Facebook
Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.
OPTIMIZE the keywords. They give you 10 for a reason. Think of words people would search if it was someone looking to attend your online class.
Leverage all the keywords in the main title
State the time, timezone, day, and date in the header
Find a clear stock photo that stands out. I use Unsplash.
Add questions they have to answer. In my eventbrite, I ask people where they come from. I also suggest they join my Facebook fitness community.
Facebook Groups are key! It reaches more people. If you post an event, you are able to invite every single member in the group.
—
Nurturing your audience:
Engage with people before class. Ask them where they are from
Throughout your class find a way to get users to engage. In my fitness class we do virtual high fives and fist bumps
Bring people together after the event. At my events, we take a group photo online
Reach out to people who attended your class and thank them. They’ll appreciate it
Remember people’s first name. Especially if they come back.
Livestream your events. This way more people have access.
—
Why you should build out a digital brand:
People can learn about you. If they like what you do, they will come back. If they continue to come back, they will bring friends to join them. Overtime, this is your fan base that supports you. It’s important that you are able to identify your super fans.
My hope is that this will give you the small push to get you started.
No matter what happens, be proud of what you do. Do things because you want to. Don’t do it because of someone else telling you what they want for you. It’s your journey. Make sure you can smile and have fun with your choice.
If you are looking for a good community to join, this is the one I created:
Sapphire Stories: A Community of Passionate Doers
Community of Doers who are pursuing their passion. Our goal is to connect and inspire you with your own journey. Follow…
Demonstrating to investors that your business model is sustainable, especially in times of uncertainty or jarring disruption, like we’re facing now with the Coronavirus pandemic, can give you the edge you need to get funded. In my previous article, “Now’s the Time to Get Your Business Funded: Coronavirus Edition,” I highlighted the fact that savvy investors are still looking for great investment opportunities. Those great opportunities include investing in both the idea and the one with whom the idea originated.
Pitch Sustainability In Any Market
As part of your funding story and pitch deck, it is important in today’s environment to present the ways in which you can navigate operating the business and even excelling despite quarantines and partial lockdowns being in place. Some sustainability concepts to consider include:
Business Model – Where does your business reside along the industry vertical or value chain?
Sales Model – How do you interact with and sell to customers (i.e., brick-and-mortar, direct sales, e-commerce)
Organization Model – What is the composition of your workforce? Do you require staff to be on premises? Are you dependent on contractors or outsourced partners?
Product or Service Offering – Is your offering something that will be of value during a major disruptive social or economic event?
Materials Supply – Will shutdowns like we are experiencing now impact your ability to obtain the raw materials, inputs, and supplies required to deliver your product to market?
Expertise – Who on your leadership team or advisory board has the experience and expertise in helping organizations navigate through crises and times of instability?
Finances and Cost Structure – Do you have a lean enough cost structure and a good enough understanding of the financials to ensure a proper runway for funding to growth?
Employee and Customer Sentiment – Do you have a clear understanding of the mindset your target customer has during “regular” times versus during a crisis like we’re facing today? What about your employees…do you know how a crisis will impact their ability to effectively deliver for your customers?
New Marketing or Channel Opportunities – Have you explored changes you can make to your product offering, pricing, payment terms, customer segments, delivery methods, marketing strategies, partnerships, and co-branding initiatives that would better meet the needs of the market during a crisis?
Investors want to invest in people with great ideas, but even more so with those who understand how to bring those great ideas to the market, whatever condition that market is in, successfully. Show them that you and your team have that expertise as part of your funding story and pitch deck. Now is the time, because if not now, when?
To learn more on how to create an epic fundraising story for digital presentations to investors, contact me for a complimentary consultation by phone at 314-578-0958 or by email at ilebow@transformationsolutions.pro.
Ines LeBow is the CEO, Transformation Executive for ETS. She is a known catalyst for business operations, bringing 30+ years of hands-on experience. Ines has a long history of being recruited into senior executive roles to improve the execution of business operations and to drive revenue growth. You can see her LinkedIn Profile at http://www.linkedin.com/in/ineslebow, view the ETS website at http://www.transformationsolutions.pro, or email her directly at ilebow@transformationsolutions.pro.
Doug Humphrey, CEO of JETCO Research and Founder of DIGEX and Cidera, will moderate the Panel of Venture Capitalists and Angel Investors.
Sid Banerjee, Founder and CEO of Clarabridge, will talk about his company’s story, growth, and bright prospects for the future.
The Big Idea CONNECTpreneur Forums are quarterly gatherings of 300+ of the DC Region’s TOP Entrepreneurs, Business Leaders, CXOs, Angels, and VCs.
The event is regarded by many as “The Best Networking Event in DC.” InTheCapital calls CONNECTpreneur a “NETWORKING JACKPOT” of the DC Region’s TOP Entrepreneurs, Business Leaders, CXOs, Angels, and VCs.
Presented by appnetic, Tech 2000 and LORE Systems, this UNIQUE EVENT is like NONE OTHER in our region, because of the high quality of its attendees, speakers and presenters.
And YES, the networking is unprecedented!
Program Highlights:
We expect 300 business leaders, includng 175+ CEOs & Founders, as well as 60+ angels & VCs
Heavy NETWORKING before, during, and after the event
The venue is the Tysons Corner Marriott in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. A plated breakfast is included. CONNECTpreneur is a quarterly networking mashup, which has been attended by over 2500 business leaders in the past 3 years. We expect another SELL OUT crowd, so there will be no on-site registration.
Presented by LORE Systems and Tech 2000, Inc., this UNIQUE EVENT is like NONE OTHER in our region, because of the high quality of our attendees, speakers and presenters.
Program Highlights:
We expect 250 business leaders, includng 150+ CEOs & Founders, as well as 60+ angels & VCs
Conversation and BOOK SIGNING with SETH GOLDMAN, Co-Founder and TeaEO of HONEST TEA
Attendees will receive a COMPLIMENTARY copy of Seth’s brand new book,Mission in a Bottle
All-Star Panel of INVESTORS
SHOWCASE of Emerging tech companies
Heavy NETWORKING before, during, and after the event
The venue is the Tysons Corner Marriott in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia.
A plated breakfast is included.
CONNECTpreneuris a quarterly networking mashup, which has been attended by over 1200 business leaders in the past 18 months. This event promises to be our best one yet!
10:15 – 11:05 am – FIRESIDE CHAT with SETH GOLDMAN, Co-Founder and “TeaEO” of HONEST TEA; Co-Author, MISSION IN A BOTTLE, The Honest Guide to Doing Business Differently – and Succeeding
11:05 – SETH GOLDMAN BOOK SIGNING and NETWORKING
Attendees will receive a complimentary copy of MISSION IN A BOTTLE
EXPECTED INVESTOR PARTICIPANTS (partial list):
We expect 60+ angel and VC investors including Grotech, Novak Biddle, Core Capital, New Atlantic Ventures, Edison Ventures, Updata, Saratoga Investment Corp., DFW Capital Partners, Farragut Capital, Revolution Ventures, CIT, New Markets Venture Partners, Leeds Novamark, Maryland Venture Fund, TEDCO, DFW Capital, BluVenture Investors, 1776 / K Street Capital, Acceleprise, US Boston, VentureCross Partners, Berman Enterprises, Dingman Center Angels, Neuberger & Co. Ventures, Saratoga Investment Corp., Multiplier Capital, McLean Capital, Angel Venture Forum, Endeavor DC, National Capital Companies, Enhanced Capital, MTECH Ventures, Mosaic Capital, Opus8, Starise Ventures, Blue Heron Capital, Duncaster Investments, Private Capital Network, Next-Stage Development Group, Lancaster Angel Network, Harrell Partners, Stanford Venture Advisors, MD Center for Entrepreneurship, Great Falls Capital, Hafezi Capital, and Keiretsu Forum.
The Big Idea CONNECTpreneur FALL Forum is a “NETWORKING MASHUP” of 210+ of the DC Region’s TOP Entrepreneurs, Business Leaders, CXOs, Angels, and VCs. Most of the attendees are “INVITATION ONLY,” and we are limiting service provider participation in order to maximize the experience for our Attendees and Sponsors.
Presented by LORE Systems, this UNIQUE EVENT is like NONE OTHER in our region, due to the high quality of our attendees and participants, as well as our program and unprecedented networking.
Come see what happens when you put a group of “A List” business leaders and entrepreneurs in one room for a few hours!
Program Highlights:
Over 210 attendees, includng 120+ CEOs/Presidents and 40 angels/VCs
Over 120 CEOs/Presidents, plus 40+ angel and VC investors including New Enterprise Associates, Novak Biddle, Core Capital, CIT, Blu Venture Investors, Blue Water Capital, Dingman Center Angels, Neuberger & Co. Ventures, Saratoga Investment Corp., Washington DC Archangels, Angel Venture Forum, Fortify.vc, Endeavor DC, Maryland Venture Fund, National Capital Companies, Enhanced Capital, White Hall Capital, MTECH Ventures, Mosaic Capital, Opus8, VentureCross Partners, McLean Capital, Starise Ventures, Blue Heron Capital, Duncaster Investments, Private Capital Network, Next-Stage Development Group, Berman Enterprises, Grindstone Partners, Next Stage Development Group, Atlantic Capital Group, Lancaster Angel Network, Harrell Partners, Stanford Venture Advisors, MD Center for Entrepreneurship, Skada Capital, Great Falls Capital, Bayberry Capital, Hafezi Capital, Keiretsu Forum, and CADRE.
WINNING IDEAS - Tien Wong's Blog 