Redesigning Commerce: Fundraising to the Pitch

AIGA GAIN
REDESIGNING COMMERCE
Fundraising to the Pitch
AIGA Professional Development Workshop
October 22, 2014 @jenvandermeer
FUNDRAISING WORKSHOP AIGA 10 22 2014 @jenvandermeer

AGENDA FOR TODAY
2
2:30 – 2:45 Intros and business / org concepts
2:45 – 3:00 Business Model Canvas Intro
3:00 – 3:45 Fundraising
3:45 – 4:00 Break
4:00 – 5:00 Business Model Canvas Workshop
5:00 – 5:15 Art of the Pitch
5:15 – 6:00 Pitch Practice

FUNDRAISING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
WORKSHOP at AIGA’s GAIN CONFERENCE
3
Is your idea best suited for seed and angel funding, or should you
launch on Indiegogo first?
What about the values of bootstrapping?
What’s a social venture, and if you think you have one, are you better
structured as a for-profit, or not-for-profit, or B-Corp?
Or, perhaps your freelance design practice is ready to scale—what
kind of structure works best, and when is fundraising appropriate?
How you choose to launch will determine your destiny.
And if you’re founding an organization, you’ll spend much of your time
fundraising—and fundraising can be fun.

About Jen
REASON STREET
ORGANIC INC.
ECONOMIST
4
TECH ANALYST
MBA – HEC
MOM
ITP PITCHFEST
OPEN DATA
DRILLTEAM
LUMINARY
LABS
DACHIS
WEST VILLAGE
DESIGNERS
ACCORD
SYSTEMS
THINKING
SUBURBAN
CHILDHOOD
FROG DESIGN
SUSTAINABILITY
BA COMP
RELIGION

ABOUT YOU
YOU HAVE THE ENTHUSIASM, SKILLS AND
WORLDVIEW TO MAKE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO
SEE IN THE WORLD.
5

WHAT WILL STOP YOU
6
Incumbent thinking.
Unquestioned heuristics about how the business world works.
Mindless observance of guidelines and measures.
Low expectations.
Pessimism.
Despair.

WHAT WE WILL GIVE YOU
7
Lean and Business Model Canvas
Collaborative support
Pitch Practice

8
WHAT CAME BEFORE STEVE AND ERIC FUNDRAISING

FOR PROFIT, NON PROFIT OR SOMETHING ELSE?
9
V.

YOU USED TO HAVE TO PICK A LANE
10
FOR PROFIT
MAKE MONEY
NON PROFIT
DO GOOD
V.
“The social responsibility of corporations is to increase
profits.”
– Milton Friedman, 1970

NOW IT’S A PARADOX OF CHOICE
11
501 (c) 3
501 (c) 4
501 (c) 7
501 (c) 9
Social Enterprise
Social Impact
Social Business
Sustainable Enterprise
S Corp
LLC
C Corp
B Corp
Coop

YOU NO LONGER HAVE TO CHOOSE
12
NON PROFIT
with sustainable revenues
FOR PROFIT
out to change the world

KEY DIFFERENCES
13
NON PROFIT
• Defined to fulfill a mission
• Tax exempt
• Does not retain profits
• Does not distribute ownership
• Assets belong to organization
• Can’t use funds other than to
fulfill the mission for which it
was formed
FOR PROFIT
• Pays taxes on profit
• Can distribute ownership to
employees and investors
• Assets belong to the owners
• Can have a capital exit,
benefitting the owners of the
company

BOTH REQUIRE MONEY (& LOVE) TO SUSTAIN AND GROW
14
NON PROFIT
FOR PROFIT

FOR PROFIT
FUNDRAISING WORKSHOP AIGA 10 22 2014 @jenvandermeer 15

FOR PROFIT FUNDING SOURCES
16

FOR PROFIT FUNDING SOURCES
17

ARE YOU A STARTUP OR A SCALABLE STARTUP?
• “A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under
18
extreme uncertainty.” – Eric Ries
• “A startup is a company designed to grow fast.” – Paul Graham, Y Combinator
• For a company to grow bit, it has to make something a lot of people want. To reach
and serve all of those people.
• “A startup is a temporary organization formed to search for a scalable repeatable
business model.” – Steve Blank
• Most startups change their business model multiple times.
• A scalable startup is a special class of startup – world class team, large vision,
large target market, passionate belief and a reality distortion field.

STAGES OF INVESTMENT CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS
19

NOT ALL NEW COMPANIES ARE GROWTH STARTUPS
NEW COMPANIES FORMED IN 2012
Retail Store
Service:
Business
Service
13%
20
Consulting
29%
Services: Other
17%
Technology:
Internet
14%
Real Estate
14%
13%
Source: Kaufman foundation, Legal Zoom Startup Environment Index 2012

NOT ALL COMPANIES ARE GROWTH STARTUPS
NEW COMPANIES FORMED IN 2012
Retail Store
Service:
Business
Service
13%
21
Consulting
29%
Services: Other
17%
Technology:
Internet
14%
Real Estate
14%
13%
Source: Kaufman foundation, Legal Zoom Startup Environment Index 2012

FOR PROFIT HYBRIDS
22
• SOCIAL ENTERPRISE: Social or environmental
purpose, may be willing to limit scale opportunities
to meet more local goals, or directly serve the
need.
• B-CORPS: A type of social enterprise that also
agrees to transparently share financial results.
• SOCIAL BUSINESSES (Yunnus): For profits that
reinvest to meet a social need.
• SOCIAL IMPACT GROWTH: Aiming for scale and
for social/environmental outcomes, and high
growth returns to investors.
Source:
http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/
in_search_of_the_hybrid_ideal

NON PROFIT

NON PROFIT FUNDING SOURCES
24

NON PROFIT FUNDING SOURCES
25

SCALE IS ALL THE RAGE IN NON PROFITS
26
• The average founding year of the 10 largest U.S.
non profits is 1903
• Not for profits are one of the U.S.’s fastest growing
sectors, which grew 60% to more than 1MM
organizations from 1999 to 2011
• How more recent organizations got big:
1. Developed funding in one concentrated source
rather than across diverse sources
2. Found a funding source that was a natural match
to their mission and beneficiaries
3. Built a professional organization and structure
around this funding model
“The jury is out on whether
scaling organizations will
translate into scaling impact.
There is an emerging set of
questions about how to scale
links to local community
engagement, which may be the
linchpin of lasting social
change.”
-Bridgespan Group
Source: http://www.bridgespan.org/Publications-and-Tools/Funding-Strategy/Why-More-Nonprofits-Are-Getting-Bigger.aspx#.U6RblY1dU7s

WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM
SOURCES OF REVENUE FOR REPORTING
PUBLIC CHARITIES, 2009
Fees for Services
& Goods from
Private
Contributions
13%
Government
27
Fees for Services
& Goods from
Private Sources
53%
Other
2%
Grants
9%
Government
23%
Source: The Nonprofit Sector in Brief, 2011. National Center for Charitable Statistics, The Urban Institute

STILL DON’T KNOW WHICH WAY TO GO?
28
$
NON PROFIT
FOR PROFIT
V.
$
WHAT DO I DO FIRST?

WHERE TO START? CUSTOMER DISCOVERY
29
• Lean startup, lean
launchpad (the focus of the
next few classes, and the
approach in class)
• Form a hypothesis about how
you will grow
• Define your total
addressable market, or the
size of your total addressable
beneficiaries
• Business model canvas
• Validate your early hypothesis
• Test and learn

30
WHAT CAME BEFORE STEVE AND ERIC LEAN + VALUE
PROPOSITIONS

STARTUPS AS THE ORGANISM OF CHANGE
THE FOUNDERS DEFINE THE PRODUCT VISION AND
THEN USE CUSTOMER DISCOVERY TO FIND
CUSTOMERS AND A MARKET FOR THAT VISION.
-Steve Blank, The Startup Owner’s Manual

LEAN LAUNCHPAD:
LEAN LAUNCHPAD SIMULATES ENTREPRENEURSHIP
BY REQUIRING FOUNDERS TO GET OUT OF THE
BUILDING…AND INTO THEIR CUSTOMER’S WORLD.
32
Customer
Discovery
Customer
Creation
Customer
Validation
Company
Building
Pivot
FLIPPED CLASSROOM

33
LEAN LAUNCHPAD: BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS

KEY PARTNERS KEY ACTIVITIES VALUE PROPOSITIONS
CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIPS
What key activities do our value
propositions require?
Our distribution channels?
Customer relationships?
Revenue Streams?
KEY RESOURCES
How do we get, keep, and grow
customers?
Which customer relationships
have we established?
How are they integrated with
the rest of our business model?
How costly are they?
CHANNELS
Who are our key partners?
Who are our key suppliers?
Which key resources are we
acquiring from our partners?
Which key activities do our
partners perform?
What value do we deliver to the
customer?
Which one of our customers’
problems are we helping to
solve?
What bundles of products and
services are we offering to each
segment?
Which customer needs are we
satisfying?
What is the minimum viable
product?
What key resources do our
value propositions require?
Revenue Streams?
Through which channels do our
customer segments want to be
reached?
How do other companies reach
them now?
Which ones work best?
Which ones are most cost-effective
How are we integrating them
with customer routines?
COST STRUCTURE REVENUE STREAMS
CUSTOMER
SEGMENTS
For whom are we creating
value?
Who are our most important
customers?
What are the customer
archetypes?
What are the most important costs inherent to our business model?
Which key resources are most expensive?
Which key activities are most expensive?
For what value are our customers really willing to pay?
For what do they currently play?
What is the revenue model?
What are the pricing tactics?
SOURCE: www.businessmodelgeneration.com//canvas | Canvas concepts developed by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.

CUSTOMER DISCOVERY
What is your product or service?
How does it differ from other concepts or businesses in the market?
Why will people want it?
Who is the competition and how does your customer view these competitive offerings?
Where’s the market?
What’s the minimum feature set?
What’s the market type?
What was your inspiration?
What assumptions drove you to this?
What unique insight do you have into the market dynamics or or new technology that
makes this a fresh opportunity?

THE SHIFT: FROM PUSH AND MARKET TO CUSTOMER
DEVELOPMENT
THE CUSTOMER DEVELOPMENT MODEL
STOP STOP STOP
- The Four Steps to the Customer Epiphany by Steve Blank
Customer
Discovery
Customer
Creation
Customer
Validation
Company
Building
Pivot
Concept/Seed
Product
Development
Alpha/Beta
Test
Launch/
1st Ship
• Create marcom
materials
• Create positioning
• Hire PR agency
• Early buzz
• Create demand
• Launch event
• “Branding”
36
THE PUSH AND MARKET MODEL

FIRST CAME STEVE
The Customer Development
process changes the way startups
are built
Startups are not smaller versions of
large companies
A startup as a “temporary
organization designed to search for
a repeatable and scalable business
model”
Co-founded 8 startups.
1996: E.piphany | 1998: $3.4 MM sales |
1999: IPO raised $72 MM
Author of Four Steps to the Epiphany, Startup
Owner’s Manual
37

THEN CAME ERIC
CONTINUOUS CUSTOMER
INTERACTION
A STARTUP IS AN
EXPERIMENT
A HYPOTHESIS TO BE
TESTED
ASSUME CUSTOMER AND
FEATURES ARE
UNKNOWNS
LOW BURN BY DESIGN
ARE WE ON THE PATH TO A
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS
Founded IMVU
Parallels between Lean and Agile, caught fire in the
startup community for software businesses, particularly
mobile and SaaS models.
38

WHAT CAME BEFORE STEVE AND ERIC
LEAN MANUFACTURING
TOTAL QUALITY
MANAGEMENT
KANBAN
CONTINUOUS
IMPROVEMENT
AGILE
39

DESIGN RESEARCH
(Ethnography)
DESIGN THINKING
(IDEO, Dschool)
AGILE AND LEAN INFLUENCES
40

KANBAN
The Kanban Method respects the human condition. People resist change for emotional
reasons. When change affects their self-image, self-esteem, or position with a social
group, people will resist and the resistance will be emotional.
The Kanban Method adopts the Zen Buddhism concept that "water goes around the rock."
Hence, it focuses on changes that can be made without invoking emotional
resistance, while visualization and limiting work-in-progress raise awareness of deeper
issues allowing for an emotional engagement that helps to overcome resistance.
41

STEP 1: CUSTOMER DISCOVERY
Customer discovery translates a founding team’s vision for the company
into a hypothesis about each component of the business model and
creates a set of experiments to test each hypothesis.
Customer discovery is not about collecting features lists from prospective
customers or running lots of focus groups.
42

ESTIMATE YOUR TOTAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET
Total addressable
market
Served
available
market
• Total addressable: how big is the universe?
• Served available market: how many can I reach with my sales channel?
• Target market: who will be the most likely buyers?
Target market
43

LEAN LAUNCHPAD: GET OUT OF THE BUILDING:
Customer
Discovery
Customer
Creation
Customer
Validation
Company
Building
Pivot

45

WHAT IS IT
Product?
Service?
Ecosystem?
All?

WHAT IS YOUR INTENTION?
Your team values
Your vision
Why do you want to do this?
Then find a segment, a market, and a value proposition that fulfills this vision.

VALUE PROPOSITION
Value Proposition Canvas – Osterwalder

VALUE PROPOSITION CANVAS

PAIN DRIVEN DESIGN
“Design is not art. Design should solve a problem for humans. We can find the
problems that we’re causing for humans by looking for pain points. Usability testing helps
us understand the very obvious pain that we’re causing for users, which is fantastic. But
beyond discovering user pain in our products, we should be doing user research on
various demographics and understanding what in their lives is causing them pain.”
Laura Klein, UX for Lean Startups

WHY PAIN????
As a customer, it has to hurt enough that you would go out of your way to pay for
it.
It has to feel way better than staying the course, stasis, or inertia (which make
people sometimes feel warm, and comfortable, and your thing scary, and risky).

THE PAIN IN PAIN-DRIVEN DESIGN
How do you move beyond superficial needs?
How do you know when someone is telling the truth?
How do you get to unspoken, deeper needs?

VISIBLE: IN AWARENESS
IN CONSCIOUSNESS
PAIN DRIVEN DESIGN
Artifacts
Expressed Needs
Behavior
HIDDEN, INVISIBLE:
OUT OF CONSCIOUSNESS
Norms
Beliefs Assumptions
Values
Plans
Traditions
Attitudes

WAYS OF EXPLAINING REALITY: SYSTEMS THINKING
PAIN DRIVEN DESIGN EVENTS What just happened?
PATTERNS What’s been happening?
TRENDS What are the
common forces at
play?
STRUCTURES How do processes
and organization
impact?
MENTAL MODELS
How does our
thinking allow this to
persist

GET OUT OF THE
BUILDING, AND
OBSERVE

FUNDRAISING WORKSHOP AIGA 10 22 2014 @jenvandermeer GO HERE

AND HERE

AND HERE
AND HERE

GETTING READY FOR
CUSTOMER DISCOVERY

AND, GO OUT AND TALK TO PEOPLE:
PREPARING FOR AN INTERVIEW
Customer development IS different than ethnography or design research inquiry –
You are NOT a neutral observer. While you can practice the art of neutral observation,
you, as a founder, are making contact with your first potential customers.
We’re going to start wide, and expansive, and go deep, getting to deeply unmet needs.
But we will be quickly moving to understand the business model that will feed your vision.

THE BRAIN DUMP
Convene a brain dump.
Get what’s in everyone’s heads out on the table.
Assumptions, expectations, closely held beliefs, perspectives, hypotheses.
Contradictions are inevitable, and become great fodder for hypotheses to test on your
business model canvas.
“Think about it as a transitional ritual of unburdening, like men emptying their pockets of
keys, change, and wallet as soon as they return home.”
– Adapted from Steve Portigal, Interviewing Users.

INTRODUCE, BE HONEST, ORIENT, GIVE CONTEXT
Introduce yourself and any associates (note takers, equipment operators, unseen
observers)
Obtain consent / agreement to be interviewed, recorded, photographed
Discuss: use a note taker or an audio recorder. Be sure to tell participants about it. (Don’t
conceal a recording devices). And know when to go off the record to get the backstory.
1. Why we're here: Introduce the purpose of the conversation
2. Explain freedoms (let’s stop at this time, ask questions, take a break, etc)
3. Explain time constraints (we have only 30 mins, 45 mins, an hour, today)
4. Provide an overview of what will happen (I will walk beside you, I will watch you do
XYZ)
5. Explain briefly what you'd like to hear about (Tell me what you're thinking, doing,
looking for, etc)
-Ajay Revels, Polite Machines

SHOW ME AROUND: OPEN ENDED TOUR
Who (who are we observing)
What (what are they doing)
How (how are they doing it)
Why (are they doing it)
When (are they doing it) From: Ajay Revels

HOW TO AVOID LEADING QUESTIONS
Agree with me: Leading questions
• Interviewer wants a specific agreement
• Question narrows the focus of the conversation
• Typically Yes / No or Agree/ Disagree or Choice #1 vs Choice #2
• Examples/ leading question:
– The city is doing a great job of managing the subway aren't they?
– Given that you're a stay-at-home-mom, you agree that women shouldn't work?
– This app has a high rating so you'd expect it to work well, correct?
-Ajay Revels, Polite Machines

65
WHAT CAME BEFORE STEVE AND ERIC BUSINESS MODEL
CANVAS

KEY PARTNERS KEY ACTIVITIES VALUE PROPOSITIONS
CUSTOMER
RELATIONSHIPS
What key activities do our value
propositions require?
Revenue Streams?
KEY RESOURCES
How do we get, keep, and grow
customers?
Which customer relationships
have we established?
How are they integrated with
the rest of our business model?
How costly are they?
CHANNELS
Who are our key partners?
Who are our key suppliers?
Which key resources are we
acquiring from our partners?
Which key activities do our
partners perform?
What value do we deliver to the
customer?
Which one of our customers’
problems are we helping to
solve?
What bundles of products and
services are we offering to each
segment?
Which customer needs are we
satisfying?
What is the minimum viable
product?
What key resources do our
value propositions require?
Revenue Streams?
Through which channels do our
customer segments want to be
reached?
How do other companies reach
them now?
Which ones work best?
Which ones are most cost-effective
How are we integrating them
with customer routines?
COST STRUCTURE REVENUE STREAMS
CUSTOMER
SEGMENTS
For whom are we creating
value?
Who are our most important
customers?
What are the customer
archetypes?
What are the most important costs inherent to our business model?
Which key resources are most expensive?
Which key activities are most expensive?
For what value are our customers really willing to pay?
For what do they currently play?
What is the revenue model?
What are the pricing tactics?
SOURCE: www.businessmodelgeneration.com//canvas | Canvas concepts developed by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.

67
WHAT CAME BEFORE STEVE AND ERIC THE PITCH

YOUR INTRO AT A DINNER PARTY
What/who.
Why now?
Why you?

YOU GET A FULL 5 MINUTES
Vision?
Who are you?
Market Opportunity?
Pain you are solving for?
How you’ll get there?
The Ask.

YOU GET A FULL 10-20 MINUTES
Who are you?
What’s your quick description/pitch?
What pain are you solving for?
Who else is attempting to solve for this pain? (Market Opportunity?)
How will you kill the pain?
What special sauce do you have?
What’s your model?
How will you get, keep and grow customers?
What metrics will drive your business?
Who is the larger team?
How will you spend the money you are asking for?
What core hypotheses will you test?

71
WHAT CAME BEFORE STEVE AND ERIC
THANK YOU
Jen van der Meer
@jenvandermeer
jenvandermeer.org

Redesigning Commerce: Fundraising to the Pitch

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