FIP 39: Product Design and Market Fit with Charlie Nichols

Welcome the Finding Impact Podcast, hosted by Andy Narracott. On this podcast, you'll hear interviews with strategies, tactics and tips from guests who have out-sized knowledge or experience on a particular challenge facing social entrepreneurs. That's everything from raising capital and creating successful partnerships, to training a workforce and engaging with government. Also, customer service systems, assessing credit worthiness, revenue collection strategies, talent recruitment, reaching the next level of scale whilst maintaining quality, in-country manufacturing for your next product, prioritizing fundraising vs. competing demands, investing in staff and employee retention, and finally, strategy development. Join the community of social entrepreneurs helping each other to create a better world for our children.

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In this episode of the Finding Impact Podcast I talk to Juliana Proserpio, Co-founder and Chief Design Officer of Echos Innovation Lab, on using Design Thinking in the needfinding process. Juliana talks about her work at Echos Innovation Lab and how it supports organizations and entrepreneurs to use the design thinking mindset for accelerating cultural change and creating new services and business models to create desirable futures. On this podcast you will learn:  How Echos Innovation Lab has built a for-profit business that works with organizations to create and foster innovation initiatives, as well as building the design capability of individuals and organizations to create better and human-centered services through its School of Design Thinking. (01:30) Design thinking is a way to understand people and people's needs that helps develop solutions which address these needs better. The design thinking mindset is thus based on empathy, collaboration and experimentation. (02:37) The double-diamond methodology of design thinking that focusses on using divergence and convergence methods for expanding knowledge of user needs (also called "discovery process" or "empathetic research") and then converging ("synthesis") upon real needs and specific ideas or insights that create value for the user. (04:15) Tools for synthesizing, such as systems map, personas, etc., that can help in developing insights by understanding information patterns and interconnections. (11:30) Key suggestions on how to manage the ideation stage of design thinking by thinking about quantity and not necessarily only quality (“you can only get to an amazing idea once you get some absurd ideas”). (15:36) That design thinking is an iterative process where you ideate, prototype and test, while iterating and going back and forth between the various phases. (19:27) Why social entrepreneurs need to have creative confidence for re-imagining how the world can be, and how design thinking aids in developing creative confidence. (23:21) Advice for students and young founders looking to develop social ventures on how they can use design thinking to identify challenges within their communities ("near their doors") - acting locally, starting small, and helping create value within the community first, and then aim at creating bigger impact ("dream big and start small"). (24:55) About the School of Design Thinking at the Echos Innovation Lab, that helps individuals and organizations become better innovators through classroom programs and online courses on various design thinking topics. (26:30) Examples of participants in the design thinking courses (such as Insecta Shoes) who have applied design thinking to their needfinding process and how it has helped them deliver the desired outcomes. (28:44) Advice for first-time founders and social entrepreneurs to navigate the lockdown and the post COVID-19 situation - it is an opportunity for each one of us to re-design our world, where every assumption is being challenged, and the need for businesses to pivot their product or service in order to remain relevant. (30:52)  Resources from this episode:  Echos Innovation Lab website  Echos School of Design Thinking Insecta Shoes  Connect with Juliana:  LinkedIn Twitter 

FIP 129: Using Design Thinking in the Needfinding Process, with Juliana Proserpio of Echos Innovation Lab

I'm very honoured to speak to Jack Lowe this week. He's come on share lessons learnt throughout his 40 year career in microfinance and the startup world. Jack was asked to become CEO of BlueOrchard Investments in 2004 -- a microfinance fund that he grew from $40 million to close to $1 billion, stretching to 45 countries. It became the largest private microfinance lender in the world. Jack graduated from Stanford in 1965, joined McKinsey in 1969, and went on to grow a string of successful startups, from oil and gas to food distribution and restaurants. Jack is currently building another startup, Fit for Life Foundation, helping people stay active and age well. On this show you'll learn:  The fundamental difference between the business and non-profit sector (2.24) The experience of pitching the microfinance fund to pension funds, family offices and institutional investors (4.57) The two basic principles of fundraising (7.41) How to know when something's not working and to try something else (11.19) Professional intimacy and other insights from building teams (14.12) Using a network and calling on people for help and advice (18.45) Getting out of a tough spot and avoiding depression (24.15) Advice to his younger self (31.54) Why exercise and ageing well is the feature of Jack's next startup (36.31) 3 quick fire questions (44.08)  Links from this episode   Mckinsey Stanford University BlueOrchard   Get in touch with Jack  Jack Lowe on LinkedIn 

FIP 128: The Elder Series with Jack Lowe of the Fit For Life Foundation

This episode is about the one thing that changes everything -- mindset. Or attitude. We're living in tough times, and often, our mindset, our attitude, our outlook, can hold us back. With fear, worry, panic, stress, all these different emotions entering our day at some point. All these things hold us back. But, with the understanding of how our minds work, and with the tools to shift our attitude, we can accept this new reality and choose to take action. I'm joined by Scott Roy, CEO of Whitten Roy Partnership. Scott is an expert in the art of selling and sales management. And since attitude is the most important component of successful selling, they are experts in attitude and how people can change their mindset to generate optimal results for their organisation. Listen to this episode to learn:  About the process you can take to shift your own attitude and the eBooklet that WRP are offering free to download on their website. Understand the different forms of attitude, from overwhelm to possibility, so you can recognise which you're in and then what you can do with it. We talk about for the four states of overwhelm, which are compulsion, obligation, survival and impossibility.  Compulsion: Panic buying is a form of compulsion. It's the feeling that you have to do things to fix this, to get ahead, to make it go away. It's an obsession. It saps alot of your energy. An example is having to watch the news, to not miss anything - to see how many people had died and what was happening next. The next state is obligation. This is where you're so overwhelmed and exhausted, that you give up on trying to change things, you just put up with it. Like you're now in quarantine, you complain about it, you moan about it to your friends, etc. There's not very much you can actually do, other than muddle your way through it Next is a state of survival, which is like running around like a headless chicken Next is a state of impossibility, when you think there's nothing you can do, you're frozen, and you hold up your hands in resignation.   To understand these states of overwhelm is to know how our mind works. It makes conclusions, demands and predictions, and we can interpret our thoughts through these lenses.  Conclusions: this is the worse crisis the world has ever known... Demands: this has to stop, things have to get back to normal, someone has to do something, I have to do something... Predictions: things will never be the same again, we will never recover from this, my business will never recover, things will be much harder...   Then, once you've understood these states of overwhelm, take some deep breaths, in through your nose for 4 seconds and out 4 seconds. Do this 3-4 times. Feel yourself settled. Then say out loud "This is really happening, we're in a pandemic, this is real. And I accept it." The next step is deciding what you're going to do about this. It's about choosing your response to those things you care about, rather than being led or blindly following an automatic response from your brain. And finally, the last step is aiming. Say "I want this because.... And I want that because I want..." and keep repeating this, and find what's possible. So in summary:  First step: Recognise youre in overwhelm. That you have to be transparent, not just show the brave face, but share your nervousness, that you're not feeling confident about the future. Second step: inquiry -- to understand why you're in overwhelm. What conclusions-demands-predictions am I making? Third step: generating brilliance -- to boldly and confidently choose what you're going to do about the situation, which is within your control.   WRP are offering free live public experiences throughout May. You can book or download the eBooklet by visiting the link below. Or you can get in touch and request a lead consultant lead your company through this free of charge.   "We can't make PPE. But we are experts on attitude and we know how people can change their mindset."  Resources from this episode:  Download the eBooklet and book a live public experience: wrpartnership.com/booklet  Connect with Scott:  connect@wrpartnership.com   

How to shift your attitude to perform at your best

James Mwangi of Dalberg Group on the podcast today. He's representing Safe Hands Kenya, a coalition of Kenyan businesses who've come together to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. They're distributing free hand sanitiser, soap, face masks and surface disinfectants to all Kenyans, as a first line of defence against COVID-19. Resources:  SafeHandsKenya.com @SafeHandsKenya on Twitter Safe Hands Kenya on YouTube 

FIP 126: How Business Can Respond to a Crisis with James Mwangi representing Safe Hands Kenya

Today's challenge is for those businesses who're seeing a temporary loss of revenue due to the COVID-19 crisis, but also anyone in the business of raising capital, and interested in different funding instruments. We've got Amanda Cotterman on the show, and we're talking about the fund she's raising, Equalife Capital's Africa Venture Debt COVID Recovery Fund. We help you understand whether this funding instrument is right for your enterprise or if you're a donor or investor, whether you might want to put some capital towards this fund.  What you'll learn on this episode:  Amanda works for Equalife Group. They're raising a $20M venture debt fund. It's for businesses that are revenue generating and cashflow positive, and have a specific revenue stream or they want to prove out a revenue stream to get a better valuation. The debt would need to be serviced. Examples of appropriate businesses include:-  Agriculture businesses e.g. a milk distribution business that pays farmers up front, before going to market A wholesale distributor in Rwanda, who buys from farmers, adds value to veg by cleaning and packaging, and sells to hospitality market.A FinTech factoring business, that pays against invoices.   Businesses that have a genuine liquidity issue are most suited to this fund, so there's good product market fit, there's a demand for their product, but it's just a matter of sourcing sufficient working capital to cover purchases in the short term. How the fund could be used to weather the COVID-19 storm:  Businesses might have seen a drop in revenue and need cash to weather the storm. They don't want to take on more equity.   Amanda has been an entrepreneur in Kenya for 9 years , working in an operational role with several ventures. She moved to Kenya after working in Asian markets with Morgan Stanley. With a deep understanding of financial instruments and the needs of African ventures, she saw the gap for debt to come in alongside venture capital. The debt can be useful where the venture has a profitable revenue stream and wants to demonstrate the potential to gain a higher valuation, but is struggling with cashflow. Shareholders don't want to dilute their shareholding by using equity to support with cashflow needs. The venture fund prices for the risk, so interest in the range of 5-10%.   Links to useful resources:  Check out: http://www.equalifegroup.com/ and click on Equalife Capital in the menu. Check out their LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/equalifecapital/  Connect with Amanda:  On LinkedIn 

FIP 39: Product Design and Market Fit with Charlie Nichols

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