Starting Up — Tuesday, May 3, 2011 0:10
6 Principles for Making Your Pitch Unforgettable
The 3 Pillars of Excellence: Availability, Affability, and Ability
Thursday, April 28, 2011 17:52
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle Wisdom from my Father. I called up my dad the other day just to say hi. He regaled me with a few exciting stories from the hospital, where he works as a neurologist. I asked him something I had never asked before: “What makes [...]
How to Pitch to Investors Unreasonably Well
Wednesday, March 9, 2011 10:00
Next week, I’ll find myself in front of 200 Angel Investors for about 30 minutes. Although I’ve pitched many ideas before, I thought that for this post, I might search out a bit of advice from seasoned professionals on how to best approach the situation. That’s when roommate and Unreasonable Institute Co-Founder Daniel Epstein walked into my room and dropped [...]
3 Reasons to Be Humble: People, Agility, and Growth
Friday, February 18, 2011 11:15
“If only I had a little humility, I’d be perfect.” -Ted Turner To develop our selection process here at the Unreasonable Institute, we surveyed a number of well-reputed investors with good track records for selecting successful entrepreneurs. We asked them: “What single characteristic is most likely to predict failure in entrepreneurs?” The answer we got time and time again, especially [...]
6 Characteristics of Successful Social Entrepreneurs
Tuesday, November 30, 2010 11:00
David Bornstein’s How to Change the World features one of my favorite syntheses of the traits social entrepreneurs require to achieve success. Bornstein conducted extensive research, surveying countless social entrepreneurs across the world to determine what sets apart good social entrepreneurs from “highly successful” social entrepreneurs. Here are the six characteristics that set excellent social entrepreneurs apart:
Delivering the Perfect Powerpoint
Tuesday, October 5, 2010 6:20
“When Cicero spoke, men marveled. When Caesar spoke, men marched.” -Anonymous Inspiring people to action through oration is among the most important skills to hone as a social entrepreneur. And while not always required or even optimal, putting together a highly-compelling powerpoint to go along with your scintillating talk will help you drive the point home. One of the best [...]
The Keys to Unreasonably Good Tweeting
Thursday, September 30, 2010 3:26
You run a start-up social venture. You need a supportive network. You need marketing. You need to connect with your industry’s guru. And you need it all now, conveniently, and free. Two years ago, you’d be totally unreasonable. Now, you just hop on twitter. Not taking advantage of all that twitter has to offer is probably one of the biggest [...]
How to Get the World to Give a Crap in 2 Weeks
Monday, March 15, 2010 11:00
It’s Jehan and Simon here from Who Gives A CrapTM: non-profit toilet paper supporting water sanitation in the developing world. A few weeks ago we reached the $6500 target to become the world’s first Unreasonable Fellows. As a result, the Unreasonable team invited us to guest blog on the topic “How to Get the World to Give a Crap in [...]
A Genuine Question: Where are the Women?
Monday, February 22, 2010 13:11
I’ll be the first to admit that the Unreasonable Institute team is all male. Okay, that’s not much of an admission, but it’s true. We’ve spent a lot of time introspecting as to the reason for that (not about why we’re male, but why there aren’t any females on the team). But even after all that reflecting, we weren’t sure [...]
3 Steps to Recovering from Public Failure: Fail Fast, Admit it Fast, Fix it Fast
Monday, February 1, 2010 11:09
“My reputation grows with every failure.” -George Bernard Shaw This past week, we here at the Unreasonable Institute experienced our first full-fledged and very public failure as an organization. We launched our Finalist Marketplace, the online platform where the first 25 of our 35 finalists to raise the $6,500 are selected to attend the Unreasonable Institute. Unfortunately, the launch of the [...]