The 800 Initiative is rolling out programs to help minority firms better navigate the COVID-19 Pandemic.  For those of you who are rethinking your overall business there is Propel which takes firms through a design process for seeing what adjustments need to be made to your value delivery system and the business and operational capabilities to match. For those of you who are in the process or about to launch a new product/service, sales and marketing strategy, talent strategy, new customer focus, etc. there is the COVID-19 Sprint Program which is about helping you to design, build, and launch it. Start Co. is administering the programs with the support of the City of Memphis, Christian Brothers University, and Epicenter.  Together we are looking for a total of 30 minority firms to provide assistance to between now and the end of the year.  For those who are launching new solutions or have new operational components that need financial support, we are providing select firms support in the form of stipends/grants, etc. to go alongside the program.   Applications for both are open now: Propel- https://forms.gle/kZGkmYff7iV9sDgZ7 COVID-19 Sprint Program- https://forms.gle/VoGScBZiXUiJiDcB6 Or email info@neverstop.co for more information.

For those of us who work in economic and community development especially as it pertains to job creation, I have always felt that we don’t spend enough time talking about job destruction.  There are so many numbers posted about success with this many jobs or that many jobs, but never in context with what we are up against; and this is the number of jobs lost or destroyed.  This is not to say that job creation strategies are not good; they are, but are we being shortsighted when we don’t explore and learn, make adjustments, and strategize net job creation solutions?  I like to apply this as best we can to all areas in the community; have we considered what is being destroyed in our communities while measuring our value creation so that we can be better and strive for solutions that will beg more innovation and systems approaches?  The context for this blog series is Jewish Poverty, and we must better explore how to strive for net results. How many lives are being destroyed by poverty each year versus how many lives agencies are growing out of poverty? Sometimes we find ourselves in a never ending battle with no idea where the light at the end of the tunnel lies.  As we know Jewish poverty is increasing; something that most of the country is not paying attention to; those who don’t have a vested interest, I mean. The COVID-19 Pandemic has exacerbated social and civic destruction; and for those

Whether you are pitching a customer on your product or service or pitching to investors, there is no doubt that doing it virtually over video conferencing software is the new normal.  Yet it can be hard to make a human connection, transition smoothly, and anticipate technical challenges that you or your recipient will face when making your pitch.  This can lead to awkward moments and communication failures.  We asked folks in our startup ecosystem for any tips they had for pitching over video conferencing software.    Plan for Digital Murphy’s Law From JC Gray, Diatech Diabetic Technologies: “Assume that whatever can go wrong for you that is unique to pitching over the internet will go wrong at some point. Is your Bluetooth reliable? Is your internet fast enough for multiple video streams? Do you need an account to use the conference app platform? Make sure you have a couple of backups and plan Bs ready to go so you can hot swap with no show-stopping glitches to plague you. And then have grace when they do!”     Dry Runs are a Must From Lia Winter, Winter Innovations: “Get familiar with the platform you will be using before the pitch or meeting. Work with one of your teammates to do a dry run so that you’ll be a pro at screen sharing and switching between documents for the live session.”   Making eye contact virtually From Amber Hayes, SecondKeys: “It is hard to make eye contact through a virtual setting but

The Growth Wheel or the Startup Wheel as some like to call it is a powerful organizational tool that is important to use from time to time. It breaks down your business into 4 high level areas of Business Concept, Customer Relations, Operations, and Organization.  These four areas each have 5 subcategories that outline 20 total areas of the business that need to be looked in on from time to time.  We recommend doing a simple review of each area once a quarter and even assigning a ranking on a scale from 1-10 in terms of how you feel that area of the business is doing.  Some areas are ok to be weak in currently because it may not be critical to the success of the business.  However there are some areas you will be weak in that need attention; in these areas set a goal for where you want your ranking to be, what are you going to do to improve, and a time frame.  As your business moves forward priority areas today may not be the priority areas tomorrow, so you will have to adjust.   If you have never done this before it is a good spot check tool for your business, that usually creates long to do lists for you to complete.  If you have used this tool or something similar, you may want to revisit in light of the current COVID-19 environment.  We at Start Co. have used this for our business, and we saw

Good Morning, The goal of Customer Discovery is to determine or reaffirm the parameters that will lead to success or even greater success in business.  It supports the launch of new products, services, and/or businesses. COVID-19 is making us rethink everything especially in terms of who was our customer before, our customer now, and who will be our customer when the country reopens. If the answer is “I don’t know” or “my customer has changed or shifted”, this begs the question of should your product or service shift to better meet them where they are. Essentially business owners must discover what business, product, or service they should be building or adjusting to save time and money.  Customer discovery (talking to the customers you serve or plan to serve to inform the product or service delivery) helps mitigate premature execution and waste, which can lead to failure for most businesses. Most of you have ideas right now on what to do, but have you talked to any customers about it?   3 States of Discovery Probable success: A good indicator of probable success is significant, meaningful, and positive feedback during the customer discovery process. Probable failure: A good indicator of probable failure is when a business owner is unable to attract the interest of many potential customers or draws negative feedback and doesn’t adjust the product or service. It is acceptable to “fail fast” in the discovery process because failing is an opportunity to rethink ideas and attempt a strong comeback. Stasis/Uncertainty:

In the Business Model Canvas blog we posted last week, you learned or revisited the nine building blocks for your business.  The left hand side of the canvas was about outlining the key activities, key resources, and key partnerships needed to deliver your value proposition to your customer.  The Operating Model Canvas brings more structure by forcing you to outline and think through operations in terms of your relationship with suppliers, locations, information systems, management systems, your organization of people, and how all of this contributes or detracts from your process for building and delivering your service.  Operatingmodelcanvas.com does a great job of outlining all  of this, and we have conjoined the business model canvas and the operating model canvas for easier canvassing and thinking. Operating Model Canvas- https://operatingmodelcanvas.com/ Businesses must rank how they think their suppliers, locations of conducting business activity, information systems, management systems, and organizational structure affect their process for delivering value.  Many times these areas are slowing down your service delivery and not making it better.  Some things you cannot control but others you can; and for those, you must prioritize them and start turning them into positive contributors.  This requires time and money so it is good to timeline out what you will tackle making sure you have the resources needed.

For existing businesses and startups alike, there is always difficulty in getting your business organized with clarity so that owners can simply think and strategize.  Having a process to do this is extremely important.  The 9 building blocks of the Business Model Canvas is helpful for doing this at the highest levels.  First one must understand what we mean by business model:   “A Business Model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value.” – Business Model Generation by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur   Far too often we just jump right to the service or product that we are going to deliver, without ensuring that it actually provides value to a paying customer.  For you existing businesses: “When was the last time you actually asked your clients to describe the value you are creating?”  “Have you documented this and applied it to your product, service, and how you now market?”   It’s always interesting to me when businesses create strong value, but are still marketing from a value proposition standpoint when in actuality they can be marketing their specific value created in terms of increased revenue, lower costs, efficiency, or customer satisfaction using real numbers.   For those of us who need to think through this, it is helpful to use the Business Model Canvas and start from scratch.  You should always start with your customer segments, how many do you have, and have you created a profile or defining characteristics of the customer who

Over the next few weeks, we will be posting content with the theme “Rethinking Everything.” In light of COVID-19 and the new hurdles we face daily, we hope this helps as you revisit the way you operate your business! Typically we spend time having companies think through risk before they launch and several times each year throughout the lifetime of the business.  It was one thing to do a competitive analysis, which covers specific threats, it’s another to plan for things that could score a fatal blow to the company or put the business on the decline.  The below link to the article “The Startup Entrepreneur’s Guide to Risk Management,” does a great job of outlining this from the nuisance risks, ignorable risks, insurable risks, and especially the company killers.  I really like the fact that the article recommends organizing your company killers into a table that outlines what you are up against and what specifically you’re going to do about it. Creating this table for your firm is a good exercise we have businesses do to make sure they are thinking through the following things:   Risk factor What type of risk is it? The likelihood it will happen The consequences as a result What are your mitigation tactics? What is it going to cost you to mitigate (time, money, resources, opportunity)? What is the current status of the situation?   Usually dealing with one critical risk is a handful and they can include: market, financial, technology and operational,