G92 Vision (2)

 #1 (For Progress)

Consider creating a ‘For Progress’ startup to improve the quality of life on this planet that is aligned with UN Sustainable Development Goals.

First, read about the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals here (https://sdgs.un.org/goals).

Next, go to the ‘For Progress’ tool here (https://FI.co/progress), and use it to find any Impact KPIs that are relevant to your current business Idea, writing all of the relevant iKPIs here.

If you can not find any relevant iKPIs and if you feel that you have a company that is designed to have a positive impact, then write a measurable metric for your success here and email it to [email protected].

If you are not pursuing a company with a positive impact or if you can not find a positive impact for your business, then write ‘Not For Progress’ and move to the next item.

Lastly, for each iKPIs that you have chosen or created, write a couple of sentences about how you could reach a million people or significantly influence the iKPI metric by building your business. (1 Hour)

1. Increase of real GDP per employed person in developing countries.
2. Increase in hourly earnings of female and male employees, youth and the disabled.
3. Increase of annual growth rate of real GDP per capita in developing countries.

The development center of our company is in Bulgaria, the country with lowest GDP in the European Union. Many companies in Bulgaria work in the SEO (search engine optimisation) are using copywriting techniques. Here they take existing text, they reformulate it, add images from their customers and “backlink” the texts to their customers. Similar work is done in many other developing countries.
Our mission: We want to automate this work.

Instead of writing texts manually, they shall now help in programming and automation in the backlink building process.
Ad 1) The automation raises real GDP  per capita.
Ad 2) The automation raises real GDP growth per capita.
Ad 3) This increases hourly earnings towards Western levels that do more “meaningful” work.

Both workers and customers and customers of customers are involved, therefore the impact may go into the millions.

S02S14S15S16

#2 Customer Problem

Identify your Main Customer Problem and any Alternative Customer Problems that you want to pursue in the Founder Institute. First, write your business idea as a Customer Problem in the Madlibs format, like here (https://FI.co/madlibs), and this will be your Main Customer Problem.

Next, take some time to reflect on at least two other Alternative Customer Problems that you are interested in, and write each additional Alternative Customer Problem in the Madlibs format.

The Alternative Customer Problems may have different customer segments, different ways to serve one customer segment or they may be a whole new idea, such as a ‘For Progress’ idea.

Then, for each of the three Customer Problems, write a sentence identifying one and only one metric that you will focus on to grow the business, similar to an iKPI from the ‘For Progress’ work.

Lastly, write a couple of sentences for each Customer Problem about how to scale the metric to reach a significant level, such as affecting the lives of at least 1 million people. (2 Hours)

#3 (Working Group Feedback)

Share each Customer Problem with your Working Group peers and ask for honest feedback and constructive criticism. Write a couple of sentences critiquing each of the Customer Problems of your Working Group peers, and then paste the content in the chat bubble by their name on your homepage under ‘Working Group,’ which will be public to the Group. Please be polite and brutally honest.

Read the feedback posted on you. Write one paragraph on what you have learned from the feedback, and what if anything you intend to change. (1 Hour)

Critique:
1 Health Data are sensitive data. You will find it hard to convince people to give you this data.
2 I consider that health data is mostly between doctor and patient without the involvement of a central data storage.
3 Competition might be strong when apps like to the Covid19 app will be developed. Possibly it is strong already today.

MAD LIBS 2 : My company, Pianca, is developing a mobile app to help people with elderly relatives or underage children keep track of their health situation with secure and user-friendly health data storage, sharing, and visualization.

Critique: This is very similar to MAD LIBS1. Same arguments apply.

MAD LIBS 3 : My company, Pianca, is developing a personal consulting service to help people who value their wellbeing have better health management by outsourcing the storage and interpretation of health data and the coordination with health practitioners.

Critique:
1 I like to idea of an independent second opinion.

URSPRUNG:

1st Customer segment
——————————
Responsible investors do not trust their banks anymore Gainwise is developing an independent marketplace for responsible investors who are annoyed by traditional banks to help restore the trust in financial institutions with a community-based, transparent and innovative way of investing.

Critique:
I think that this is the main important segment/problem.
Banks only want their profit. Example: Equity return is 7% per year. Banks sell funds that take more than 2% per year plus initial fees, this reduces the yield to 4-5% per year. For non-equity, bond funds or mixed products, banks might charge the same percentage the products yields, which is a net return of 0.

2nd Customer segment
——————————
Young people are not attracted by the old-fashioned investment products Gainwise is developing an independent marketplace for young investors who are bored by the traditional way of banking to help them start building financial wealth with a community-based, transparent and mobile way of investing.

Critique:
I am missing the secret sauce, I would like to understand how you build this market place, how do you engage people?

3nd Customer segment
——————————
People who are willing to invest their savings are not knowledgeable enough Gainwise is developing an independent marketplace for people who want to invest their savings helping them to make informed decisions with direct access to professional investors and easy to understand content.

Critique:
Having direct access to professionals will make the product far more expensive.
This is particularly important in times of ETF.
I would exclude this segment or simply get some presentations and investment recommendations from these “experts”.

CUNO

Problem 1:
Our customers write software for entire fleets of Internet-connected devices, such as environmental sensors in industrial facilities. If major software bugs are discovered, or security flaws are found, costly recalls, technician trips to the field, or even outright replacement of the devices become necessary. Unless there is a reliable way to update the software via the Internet

Critique:
I really like the idea of addressing this problem, it becomes even more important with Covid19.
I see issues in the heterogeinity of the software that you want to update. Probably you have to focus on a particular segment.

Problem3:
My company Oberon microsystems is developing training and consulting material on secure embedded programming to help embedded software developers build trustworthy software with taking advantage of the Rust programming language’s safety guarantees and modularity.

Critique:
I really like the idea of addressing this problem, it becomes even more important with Covid19. Still I do not any secret sauce, how you would be better.

Customer segment 2: Authors extend their audience
I must more clearly articulate the flow of information from the author via our website to the different readers.
A flow diagram might be useful here.

Customer segment 4: I must make clear what we want to extract only pieces of information that are relevant for the news agency.

#4 (Listening to Feedback)

Practice listening to non-supportive feedback. Founders regularly fail due to a natural ‘confirmation bias,’ where information gets ignored that does not support a desired view. Meet independently with two Working Group peers.

Describe your favorite Customer Problem, and then ask the peer to elaborate for a couple of Minutes on one piece of negative feedback. Listen, without speaking, responding or defending. The person is helping you improve your business. When the feedback is finished, give the peer a one minute summary of their feedback, and ask them to rank your summary’s accuracy and completeness from 1 to 5 without a three, with 5 being fully accurate and complete.

If you did not achieve a 5, ask them to tell you how your summary fell short, and then ask the peer to elaborate for you on a different piece of negative feedback. Repeat this exercise until you receive a rating of a 5 from two peers. Write down a bulleted list for the peers that you spoke to, provide the number of times that it took to get to a rating of 5 with each peer, and write a couple of sentences for each peer about what you learned from each peer. (1 Hour)

LEARNINGS:

I shall focus more on the core engine, that extracts content in multiple formats from the internet.
The sessions showed that people did not understand this basis. However it is the basis for understanding the solutions for the different other customer segments

S25

#5 (Uniquely Qualified)

For each Customer Problem, write one paragraph on why you are uniquely qualified to work on the problem, which may include your education, your employment, your beliefs or your passions. Write a second self-reflective paragraph on why you believe that you will be able to run a business that focuses on the Customer Problem for the next 10 years. (1 Hour)

#6 (Product Progress)

For your Main Customer Problem, describe the product progress made to date. Provide a bulleted list of mockups, websites, apps, collateral, circuit diagrams, scale drawings, videos or recent product releases that you have built or are building. For each item, provide links and write a couple of sentences explaining how the item needs to be improved. (1 Hour)

#7 (Validation)

For your Main Customer Problem, write a bulleted list of the initiatives you underwent to prove the Customer Problem exists, including market testing, customer interviews, usage results and revenues. Provide links to any documents or work that you have completed for each initiative. Next to each initiative, write a few sentences on what you learned. (1 Hour)

#8 (Unknowns)

For your Main Customer Problem, write a paragraph that describes the gaps in your knowledge about your target customer and their needs. Provide a bulleted list of the actions that you need to take to thoroughly validate that the Main Customer Problem exists. For example, you may need to speak with more customers, you may want to get a letter of intent to purchase your solution or you may want to conduct a large consumer survey. (2 Hours)

#9 (Customer Interviews)

For each Customer Problem, speak with at least 3 individuals that have knowledge of the Customer Problem or may be potential customers themselves for a total of at least 9 interviews with at least 9 different individuals.

Look to further your Validation work and address any Unknowns that you have identified. Provide a bulleted list of Interview Questions for each Customer Problem based on this guide (https://FI.co/guides/initial).

Identify the different Initial Interview candidates, and set up a call or virtual meeting with each of them. For each interviewed individual, write their name and provide a bulleted list of the feedback and insights. If you have conducted Customer Interviews within the last 60 days, you can use the interviews that you have already done. (6 Hours)

• How to integrate our technology:
  1. Only high-quality sites allow for duplicate content
  2. Google does not know necessarily what the original is.
  3. Therefore we must use a technique called “spinning” that creates unique content out of duplicate content.
     it is a semantic-syntactic reformulation of the text
  4. After that the text must be reviewed
  5. For images this is an not issue; the software shall only rename the images name / Alt text.
  6. Very important: We need domains with higher authority, otherwise Google will consider as as spammers

1. 1. 1. #Segment2
         1) Marc Chandler.
         Retweets and likes our content, however he is not ready to pay for the services according to
         2) Several surveys have been prepared for further customers along with the Mailpoet campaign in #15 The List#Segment4: Reputation
         1) Wojtek Wroclacik
         Mentions the risk of illegally obtained content (e.g. via LinkedIn API). This data might not be stored, even internally.

 None

#10 (Plans)

For each Customer Problem, write a paragraph describing what your business will look like when it has $100 million in annual revenues. Outline the vision, the culture, the staffing and the main revenue stream. Underneath the paragraph, write a bulleted list of at least five high-level steps that need to happen for the business to reach $100 million in annual revenues. (2 Hours)

#11 (Failure)

Examine what might cause you to stop pursuing your business or the Customer Problem(s). Imagine a scenario where you would give up. Write a paragraph that describes your life circumstances and business circumstances that would cause you to stop. For example, you may spend all of your savings, you may lose an important personal relationship or you may not get enough customer demand. Then, for each Customer Problem, write a bulleted list of three circumstances that would cause the business to fail that are unique to the Customer Problem. (2 Hours)

• Get a first evaluation which customer segment to follow.
• If promising then I will search co-founders for certain segments.
• Customer Segment 1: EasyBacklinks
  If it is clear that Google will consider the articles as duplicate content despite our different measure to make it unique, then I would give upCustomer Segment 2: Authors
  If it is clear that authors and influencers are not ready to pay for the service, I would give give up.Customer Segment 3: Websites that use our author-specific tools
  If the income through the plugins and consultancy is low as compared to the effort that I personally must spend, then I would give up.Customer Segment 4 and 5: Reputation and News aggregation.
  The biggest risk is here the high competition that probably already exists.
  If entry barriers and competition are too big, then I would give up.

#12 (Market Analysis)

Make sure you know your chosen market. Provide a bulleted list of at least 10 Keywords that would be used to find news and competitors. Use these Keywords to search on multiple search engines, multiple app stores, AngelList, CrunchBase, Linkedin and other distribution or discovery platforms to see what is out there and how it is described. Provide a bulleted list of the 10 most interesting Resources that you discovered for the Customer Problem, which may include blogs, personalities, research organizations or partners. (1 Hour)

• Improve SEO / your ranking
• Better seo ranking in WordPress
• Off-page optimisation
• Obtain backlinks
• SEO Tools
• Seo Agency
• Seo services
• Satelite website
• Blog network
• Spinning software
• Gather content
• Automatisation of creating content
• Duplicate contentResources:
  
• Search Engine Land.
• Neil Patel.
• Search Engine Roundtable.
• The Moz Blog.
• Tubular Insights.
• Search Engine Journal.
• Backlinko.
• Search Engine Watch.

#13 (Competitor Analysis)

Make sure you know your main competitors. Select the top 10 competitors discovered through your Market Analysis work and your pre-existing knowledge of the market. List each competitor, grouped by logical categories, along with a link to their website. Write two to three bullet points about each competitor, remembering to search for the latest news about each of them. If you have not already, set up an alert service to notify you when articles are published on each competitor who you feel is a direct threat. (1 Hour)

beware that the competitors of segment2 are potential clients of
Segment3: “Promote Author Tools”

#14 (Office Hours)

Go to https://FI.co/ohours and schedule Office Hours with at least one Local Leader or Mentor for this week or next to discuss the progress that you have made on the business and to review any questions that you have.Please ensure that your timezone is set correctly at the top of the page. (30 Minutes)

#15 (The List)

set up an email mailing list solution with a professional email template. Secure at least 10 people for The List from your contacts who you will provide updates on your business to, and request support from, throughout the program. Write a few sentences to describe the solution that you have chosen with a link to your sample email template. (1 Hour)

customer segment:  authors and influencers

Link to solution here

#16 (Hotseat Pitch)

Review and update your 1 minute pitch. Describe the idea in one sentence using the Madlibs format (http://fi.co/madlibs), and then include any Validation work that you have done as well as any Market and Competitor Analysis and feedback from Customer Interviews. Video yourself giving your best Hotseat pitch, and upload the video online as unlisted and accessible. Paste the link to the unlisted video in the assignment here and also paste the link in the field on your homepage under Weekly Pitch. (30 Minutes)

Director Feedback

Hi George, so, good work, I see you put a lot of effort into it and are progressing well, this is great. Now, of course my role is to challenge you and push you out of comfort zone, so this is what this feedback is for…and it will be up to you to reflect on it and to consider it, or not. My biggest concern: I don’t understand the problem/pain point you are addressing. Nor do I understand who has the problem, and how you might make money with it. I have not doubt, you have all the skills to master this from a technical point of view. So I will not debate this. But what I question is how you are making yourself “relevant” to others. When I listen to your pitch I get lost after 10secs as it lacks the ability to dramatise a problem or challenge that somebody has…and you are there to solve it and save them big money/time, or bring them a specific advantage over others. Why would somebody care for what you do? Why would somebody pay for what you do? Who is that? Why? Why would they believe you? What sets you apart and makes you better/different? Can you give simple, down to earth explanations? To be honest, I think you are up to something very interesting, but you are too focused on the solution/technical part and simply lack making yourself “indispensable” from an economic/business point of view. Dramatize the size of the problem you address. Focus on one use-case and show how much benefit your bring to the customer. Show how many use-cases there are, and thus how you can scale this platform. And show how you make money. I absolutely believe that when you step it up massively on the “business side” you will have a unique and great product offer that really could very interesting…you just need to “sell it” properly and make the right story line. This is where you need to work over the next couple of weeks to step it up. But I know you will make. Use the directors and mentors to “validate” and test your storyline, reach out to customers to fully understand their pain points…and you will have a great business case!! Keep it up!! Best, Daniel

Links

Reading

• How to Get Startup IdeasPaul Graham of Y Combinator explains how to look at startup ideation as an exercise in finding problems, not solutions.
• Checklist: 10 Rules for a Great Startup IdeaEven though it’s trendy in startups to say that ideas mean nothing and execution means everything, the reality is much less binary and much more nuanced. For example, even the world’s best en…
• How-How DiagramThe How-How Diagram breaks down a problem by repeatedly asking ‘How?’
• Focus on the Problem, Not the SolutionPost from Dave McClure on why it is crucial to focus on the “problem” rather than the “solution”.
• How to Pick Startup IdeasSlava Akhmechet (Co-Founder of RethinkDB) outlines several things to consider when picking a startup idea: Competition, Advantage, Story, Exceptions, Self-Deception, and Intuition.
• 5 Step Method to Come Up with a Startup Idea (Quora Thread)A thorough, step-by-step process to come up with great startup ideas.
• Notes from Peter Thiel’s Stanford “Startup 101” ClassBlake Masters, a student in Peter Thiel’s Startup 101 Class at Stanford, took meticulous notes on “how to build the future”.

Required

• The Idea GuideKey insights to ensure that you have a good idea. Find reasons to kill your ideas, not keep them. If you can’t find any facts to kill them, you are 1% closer to validating it.
• The Startup Madlibs One-Sentence Pitch TemplateA fool-proof template to pitch your startup ideas in one sentence.
• The Initial Customer Development Interview GuideA simple framework to start interviewing potential customers, before you tackle more thorough customer development later on.
• Don’t Pivot on the Purpose of Your StartupAn article and video by Adeo Ressi explaining the importance of establishing a clear vision for your company.

Resources

• NetvibesNetvibes is the all-in-one dashboard intelligence platform for real-time social media monitoring, social analytics, brand sentiment, reputation management, team management, company intranets and community portals.
• Video: Types of Business Ideas | Product Design | UdacityLearn from Udacity and Google in our FREE Product Design course and check out the Tech Entrepreneur Nanodegree program! ►►► http://bit.ly/Tech-Entrepreneur-N…
• Video: How to Choose Business Ideas | Product Design | UdacityLearn from Udacity and Google in our FREE Product Design course and check out the Tech Entrepreneur Nanodegree program! ►►► http://bit.ly/Tech-Entrepreneur-N…
• FeedlyFeedly connects you to the information and knowledge you care about. We help you get more out of you work, education, hobbies and interests. The feedly platform lets you discover sources of quality content, follow and read everything those sources publish with ease and organize everything in one place.
• TinyLetterA free, simple tool to create email newsletters and lists for personal use.
• Google DocsCreate a new document and edit with others at the same time — from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.
• Google AlertsMonitor the Web for interesting new content
• CrunchBaseCrunchBase is the definitive database of the startup ecosystem. The Business Graph connects companies, people, products & events to provide data that you need.
• Step Change – The Purpose of PurposeA purpose-led business always starts with why. Download Step Change’s presentation on purpose-led businesses here.
• MindfulTextBuild a mindfulness and meditation practice to support your entrepreneur journey.
• How to Identify Clear Business OpportunitiesHere’s a guide to be sure you and your team are pursuing great business opportunities.
• Weebly

Submitted

• Strategyzer | Business Model CanvasEnterprises and smaller companies use our platform and services to more clearly understand customers, create better products, and grow businesses.
• Google Forms: Free Online Surveys for Personal UseCreate a new survey and edit it with others at the same time. Choose from a variety of pre-made themes or create your own. Free with a Google account.
• VISION Bucharest 2020 Alex Cernatescu
• VISION Bucharest 2020 Alex Cernatescu Part 2
• VISION Bucharest 2020 Gabriel Paunescu Q&A
• Validating Vision – Gabriel PaunescuVision
• VISION Bucharest 2020 Calin Lupsan
• VISION Bucharest 2020 Cristian Munteanu
• VISION Bucharest 2020 Cristian Munteanu Part 2
• VISION Bucharest 2020 Gabriel Paunescu Part 2
• VISION Bucharest 2020 Gabriel Paunescu
• iCloudSign in to iCloud to access your photos, videos, documents, notes, contacts, and more. Use your Apple ID or create a new account to start using Apple services.
• Cristian Munteanu_How to come up with great ideas for a startup.pptx
• Vision & Validation – Founders Institute Week 1.pdf