Entrepreneurship | The Pope and the CEO

Questions for a startup company to answer

Some questions I found useful over the years: Do you currently have any revenue? If not, when do you expect to and how will you get it? Do you have any customers? If not, what is the plan to acquire them and why will they buy from you? Do you plan on being profitable? If so, when and how are you going to be profitable? How many months are funded? What is your burn rate? How many rounds of funding have taken place and how many more are anticipated before profitability? What’s your start-up exit strategy ? Are you planning on going public or being acquired? If so, when, who and why? What is unique about the technology, service? Why won’t your competitor eat your lunch tomorrow? Is the key technology patented? if not, is it patentable? How much would it cost to do so and is it worth it to patent it? Do you have trademarks for the company and product names? What questions would you add to this?
Why Amish Businesses Don’t Fail

For prosperity to take hold and businesses to prosper, two key ingredients are required: freedom and virtue. Freedom is often spoken of, and relatively straightforward to define. It consists of political, economic, and religious freedom, the rule of law, property rights and some form of accountable government. Virtue is less often talked about, but just as important to a prosperous society. Imagine a business person without the courage to prudently assume risk, or without the temperance or restraint to act wisely and deliberately. And what would a business look like without faith, hope, and love? We cannot sustainably have prosperity without virtuous people. The school of virtue for most people is their Church, Temple, or Mosque. Religion and spirituality teach self restraint, delayed gratification, prudence, honesty and love of neighbor. If we want a prosperous society with strong businesses, we do well to encourage people to practice their faith at work. Not primarily in the sense of proselytizing, but in terms of bringing their virtue and values to their work. It is not only good for the work environment, but it’s good for business. One denomination that does this very well is the Amish. There have recently been two features… Read more
Bad Charity?

One of our Pioneers of Prosperity Award winners told me that her key competitor is charity. She provides youngsters with the opportunity to sell T Shirts in Kenya. This represents for many of them a lifeline and a key entry into a working career. They invest their money in buying an inventory and setting up their own business and many of them were able to scale their small business to considerable size. But, she said every time a shipment of donated clothing arrives, the business goes flat. You can’t beat a free Tshirt. Many an aspiring young entrepreneur has lost their meager savings invested in a small business due to their having to compete with our free charity offerings. Sometime our actions have unintended consequences. That is why it is important not to just have a hear for the poor but also have a mind for the poor. Time Magazine has an article concerning this very issue: does charity harm the recipients? One person they interviewed saw our charity in this way: “Africa is the greatest dumping ground on the planet. Everything is dumped here.” … How about that for an on-the-ground perspective on economic aid?! Humanitarian Aid is a… Read more
The brand, the package, the story and the worldview

I have seen countless great products that do not sell due to bad packaging. Especially products from startups or emerging markets suffer from this: All the effort goes into the product and the packaging is a mere afterthought and does not do justice to the story behind the product – it does not tell the story to the potential buyer. Seth Godin recently had a great blog post on this very topic. Here are some of my favorite excerpts: Madecasse has a lot going for it. It’s delicious chocolate. It’s made in Africa (the only imported chocolate made on the continent with local beans). The guys who make it are doing good work and are nice as well. The question I asked them is, “does your packaging do its job?” I don’t think the job of packaging is to please your boss. I think you must please the retailer, but most of all, attract and delight and sell to the browsing, uncommitted new customer. …among people who haven’t bought, but might, understand that every one of them starts with a worldview. What are the beliefs and expectations and biases they have about the world? …no package can optimize for all… Read more
Essay Competition for Faith Based Enterprise Solutions To Poverty

We at the SEVEN Fund have just announced our latest essay competition: The S.E.VEN Fund (SEVEN) is pleased to announce its 2010-11 Essay Competition in partnership with the Washington DC-based Center For Interfaith Action on Global Poverty (CIFA). We are seeking essays on enterprise solutions to poverty from around the globe that are faith-based, faith-inspired, or interfaith efforts. The competition will award two (2) prizes of US $5,000. The submission deadline is October 15, 2010 at midnight Eastern Standard Time (EST). Winners will be announced on December 15, 2010. I encourage everyone to either compete in this or to send this to someone whose story you think should be told. I hope that the contributions will result in a wonderful book on this topic.
Cool Business

The key to economic prosperity is to build a sustainable, growing business. Here is a story I read in an essay by Roland Hoksbergen, an economist from Calvin College, that describes the power of a scalable business model in emerging markets: (The book is called, “Economic Justice in a Flat World: Christian Perspectives on Globalization,” Edited by Steven L. Rundle, Paternoster 2009, 201-221. The essay is entitled “Transformational Development: The Role of Christian NGOs in SME Development.”) “Madame Lefèvre began a small Popsicle business in Haiti about ten years ago. She began with one freezer and sold out of her house. Today, she operates a business with 22 freezers, 40 employees in the factory and 500 merchants. Through this business, Mme. Lefèvre has affected her community by creating jobs that sustain hundreds of families in Port-au-Prince. Empowering others through employment, Mme. Lefèvre has helped individuals rise from poverty through work. When poor people knock on her door and ask for money, Mme. Lefèvre gives them some Popsicles and tells them to go out and sell. The next day they pay for a new load of Popsicles from their sales the day before. Of her over 500 merchants, most arrive each… Read more