Here is a presentation I gave to my old club at UC Irvine about the journey I took in starting a nonprofit, and what I learned both personally and professionally. This includes lessons learned in starting a nonprofit and life lessons to take note. Hope it gives you value!
28. Chocolate-y Delicious! “ Chocolate can be as bitter as failure or as sweet as success; regardless we must look at it as delicious nonetheless."
How specific is specific?... If you were to go pay for advertising for the solution you built, and target it to the audience you mention in your problem, would it give you a positive ROI? Is it sufficient and necessary to say that the “target audience” you mentioned will face the problem and be desirous of your solution? Not all terminal patients will want to know about how to access experimental therapies – only those who wish to continue fighting will Moreover, not all terminal patients who want to continue fighting will PAY for your solution – who will? That is your target audience. Who is your product focused on helping, specifically? Who gets VALUE Who pays?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXO_ApjKPaI&feature=player_embedded What did I want? Did I want to help people in my grandfather’s and my situation (lack of knowledge)? Did I want to help myself given current circumstances (I know what CU is, but the problems still exist… moreover, if grandpa/I knew, we’d still face those problems)? Did I want to help people in general? 1 st thing is to discover what you want… and stick to it. Pretend you’re a baby and fixated on food. The only thing you want is a cookie… and that’s it. Decide what is your cookie. If any one mentions anything to you, you have to remain fixated on the cookie and ask yourself if doing X helps you get that cookie. I want to have fun and help people in the most strategic way, as well help myself in the most strategic way. I want to make the optimal choice given this goal and my constraints. Guess what, you will be learning your goals as you do this stuff. You will likely tell people you have this goal, but it will change… your motives will change many times throughout your life. But, when asked, you need to have an answer.
When you don’t know where you’re going, just go… You can always turn around. Just pay attention, form some defined hypothesis