The Challenge. Every year, the Unreasonable Institute chooses 40-50 start-ups from hundreds of applicants around the world. Each finalist venture needs to raise $8,000 through crowdsourcing and only the first 25 to do it attend the Institute.

The Org That Did it First in 2011. One Earth Designs (OED) broke the Unreasonable Institute’s crowdsourcing record by raising $8,000 in just 22 days. OED works with rural Himalayan communities to incubate local innovation and entrepreneurship. We engage directly with villagers to co-design products and services such as clean decentralized energy generation and rural waste management programs.

The Strategy. In the beginning, we made lists. We wrote out names of friends, Tweeters, neighbors, and dignitaries and made projections about how much each group was likely to contribute. We reached out to our most ardent supporters first, getting them on board with the challenge we were facing and asking for their advice in crafting our message.

We strategically recruited friends and family from four different continents to serve as outreach hubs and shared marketing materials with them via Dropbox, a fantastic file sharing and syncing system. Our lifestyle of building friendships wherever we go and of being supportive of others’ work meant that our networks were full of individuals who were go-to people for information and guidance within their communities. As a result, news about our work and the Unreasonable Institute spread rapidly on an international scale.

Implementation. Our staff spent approximately 200 hours campaigning and our hub supporters spent countless more. Collectively, we sent around 1,500 emails and hundreds of Facebook and Twitter messages. We used HootSuite to automatically push tweets out around the clock while we either slept or worked on OED in parallel. All in all, we reached over 2,000 people and perhaps more through our extended networks!

Our initial estimates indicated that 90% of our supporters would only be able to contribute up to $50. During the first 2-weeks of our campaign, we focused on galvanizing this group using LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. In the last week of our campaign, we relied more heavily on personal emails and phone calls to donors we felt might contribute $100-$500.

Results & Lessons. The majority of the traffic to our Marketplace page came from Facebook. However, all of our serial supporters and larger donations were recruited through personal emails and phone calls. Our peak Twitter readership periods were between 12:00-14:00 both on the East Coast of the US and across Asia.

We had 168 total donations and 132 unique donors. As it turned out, 86% of our supporters contributed $1-$50. We raised $3,056 from these supporters. A small group of donors (both new and long-term) contributed $100-$500, summing to $4,944.

We raised 54% of the Marketplace funds in the first 21 days. During the 3rd week, however, we experienced a technical glitch that prevented part of our donor network from receiving our emails. Within 24 hours of fixing the problem (on Day 22), we received the remaining $3,650 we needed to complete the challenge. The power of email is still alive and well in today’s social media-dominated world!

Call to Action. There are many amazing ventures on the Unreasonable Marketplace who are challenged by hurdles far larger than ours. One entrepreneur travels 15km to access the Internet. Another has had to collect cash donations door-to-door because no one around owns a credit card. Join us in supporting these finalists to attend the Unreasonable Institute by mobilizing your networks and giving these entrepreneurs wings!

As an American, Daniel sees 3,000 ads a day. Why did he remember this one? What made it stick? And how can we replicate what made it successful in conveying our ideas to potential investors, mentors, board members, partners, and to the press?

Brothers Chip and Dan Heath wrote an entire book on the subject, titled Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (highly recommended). Their breakdown of conveying an idea unforgettably is the best I’ve seen. In fact, it’s even organized in a way that makes it hard to forget. The book is dedicated to explaining how to make use of the following 6 principles to convey an idea unforgettably. Here’s a rundown:

Principle 1: Simplicity. “A successful defense lawyers says, ‘If you argue ten points, even if each is a good point, when they get to the jury room they won’t remember any.’ To strip an idea down to its core, we must be masters of exclusion” (Made to Stick, p. 16). Focus on communicating one, core message. In the case of the “Got Milk?” ad above, it’s summarized in two words, clearly displayed at the end: “got milk?”

Principle 2: Unexpectedness. You hop on a plane, stow away your bags, and sit back. As you pull out of the gate, you hear the flight attendant’s voice on the intercom. This is  your cue to zone out. You’ve heard this speech a gazillion times before, so you pick up a magazine you don’t even care to read and start leafing through it. The flight attendant starts explaining the safety instructions:

If I could have your attention for a few moment, we sure would love to point out these safety features. If you haven’t been in an automobile since 1965, the proper way to fasten your seat belt is to slide the flat end into the buckle. To unfasten, lift up on the buckle and it will release. And as the song goes, there might be fifty ways to leave your lover, but there are only 6 ways to leave this aircraft: two forward exit doors, two over-wing removable window exists, and two aft exit doors. The location of each exit is clearly marked with signs over-head, as well as red and white disco lights along the floor of the aisle. Made ya look! (Made to Stick, pp. 64-65).

The flight attendant, Karen Wood in this case, grabs your attention simply because she breaks a pattern. The “Got Milk?” ad does the same thing when Mr. Miller loses his arms. Bottom line: make your pitch something your audience isn’t expecting.

Principle 3: Concreteness. Ideas need to be communicated with concrete images and with actionable statements. When I asked Daniel to describe a memorable advertisement, he said “the ad for milk where that old man’s arms get pulled out when he lifts a wheelbarrow.” That’s an image you’ll remember. What images can you paint in the mind of your audience that they can see clearly? The best example from the book: a jury is presented testimony that a mother takes good care of her son. The attorney defending the mother explains “She makes sure that her son brushes his teeth every night with his Darth Vader toothbrush.” The image of a kid using a Darth Vader toothbrush to clean his choppers resonates much more vividly with the jury than the image of conveyed by “She makes sure her son brushes his teeth every night.” And the jurors don’t forget this detail when they make their decision about the verdict.

Principle 4: Credibility. People have to believe your ideas. To gain credibility, you want your audience to be able to test your idea and see if it stands up to challenge. You can present statistics and charts, undoubtedly. But with limited time and the reputation hard numbers have for being dull, this might not always be the best approach. Dan and Chip Heath offer an excellent example of a simple statement that enabled the American public to test an idea without the use of figures. During the 1980 presidential race, Ronald Reagan could have used innumberable statistics to demonstrate that the incumbent President Carter’s economic policies had made things worse. He allowed voters to test his point for themselves by saying, “Before you vote, ask yourself if you are better off today than you were four years ago” (Made to Stick, p. 16).

Principle 5: Emotions. You want people to care about your ideas. If they care about you and care about what you’re trying to do, they won’t forget. In order to get them to care, you need to make them feel something. Statistics don’t do a good job of evoking actionable emotions. Usually, it’s one person’s story that does. One speech I will never forget from The Feast Conference a week and a half ago was delivered by Brian Bordainick, who concluded his relentlessly energetic speech with this sentiment: “I promise you one thing. We’ll either cross the finish line or I will collapse on the floor damn near trying.” People felt inspired. He got a standing ovation.

Principle 6: Stories. Back in Homer’s day, when there were no written scripts, knowledge was handed down from generation to generation in the form of stories. Why? Because they’re unbelievably memorable. Tell a story, particularly a personal one, and people will have a hard time forgetting. Even the “Got Milk?” ad above tells a short story with a memorable plot that drives home the core message. When was the last time you heard the story of Little Red Riding Hood? Probably not nearly as recently as you read the New York Times. Which do you remember better?

SUCCESs! Incidentally, the 6 principles outlined above fit the simple acronym “SUCCESs.” You won’t forget these 6 principles and if you use them, your audience won’t soon be forgetting you.

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 an excellent doctor in your opinion?” My dad said being an excellent doctor boiled down to three things: 1) availability, 2) affability, and 3) ability (in that order). It’s likely these 3 pillars aren’t only the makings of an excellent doctor, but an excellent entrepreneur and an excellent human being.

Being Available. With startup founders constantly clamoring for his investment dollars and entrepreneurial wisdom, Boulder-based venture capitalist Brad Feld is probably one of the busiest people around. Considering this, you’d think he’d be highly selective about who he speaks with, but he’ll actually talk to anyone for 15 minutes. Like a college professor, he holds regular office hours. Anyone can show up to pitch him on an idea, ask for his advice, or just chat. Of course, after the 15-minute conversation, he’ll be honest about whether he’s interested in having future conversations or not. Even still, because Brad is one of the most approachable VCs in Boulder, he’s also one the most reputable and best respected.

If he weren’t so approachable, he might not have such a remarkable reputation. As an illustration, a respected mentor introduced me to a certain impact investment fund (which will remain nameless). I sent them 4 heart-wrenching emails and they never responded. They’re undoubtedly busy, but even still, I felt ignored. I felt like this organization didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me whether it felt our collaboration would not be ” a good fit.” I’m left with pretty negative feelings about this group and won’t be contacting them again.

That feeling is exactly why the sort of openness to conversation is so important. It’s best captured by something Maya Angelou once said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I definitely don’t remember everything my dad said or did while I was growing up, but I definitely remember that he was at almost every one of my tennis matches, that he was never too busy to help me with my homework, and that he always supported me no matter what I wanted to do with my life. His ability to make people feel like he always has time for them is probably why patients keep coming back to him. And as an entrepreneur or VC, it’s probably why people will keep coming back to you.

Being Affable. Keen on learning a little bit more about how my dad does his job, I asked him if he gets tired of treating the same illnesses day after day. He said, “I do get a lot of the same cases, but I don’t get bored. That’s because I don’t treat an illness, I treat a person.” Because he treats his patients as people, my dad has been late to see most of his patients. But in over 20 years of practicing medicine, only 2 patients have complained about his tardiness, according to his receptionist. Why? Because my dad doesn’t see the 15-minute appointments his patients make with him as enough time to treat them like people. He might spend 45 minutes with one and show up late to his next appointment. But his next patient knows that she will get the same intensity of attention.

Hearing my dad say this reminded me of what my teammate Daniel Epstein always says: “business isn’t business, business is people.” Those who are truly successful in business are those who connect with others on a deep human level (see Daniel’s blog post on how to build genuine relationships).

In addition to being caring, one thing Daniel always reminds me of is that one of the best ways to connect with other human beings is to show that you too are a human being. That means being your quirky and unique self. I am always amused by Google’s annual April Fools’ Day antics. I love flying Southwest Airlines because the flight attendants sing songs instead of giving you the standard “this is how you fasten your seat belt” spiel. And as I explained in our last blog post, I will return to Northwestern University’s Global Engagement Summit as much as I can because it is comprised of a group of people who love having fun. That too keeps people coming back to you.

Being Able. In the end though, you’re unlikely to be available or affable if you aren’t good at what you do. Being competent gives you the confidence to be available and to be your quirky self. Brad Feld, Google, Southwest Airlines, and the Global Engagement Summit are not only approachable and likable, they show up and deliver. They find good people, they provide invaluable services, and they do both damn well, again and again and again.

If that’s not excellence, I don’t know what is.

Photo Credit: Jonas Hansel

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 Guy Kawasaki’s book, Art of the Start into my hands. Like Daniel advised, I read through it and I’m convinced that if you ever plan on starting anything, you should read this book too.  Although the book is a little outdated as it was published 5 years ago, it is still filled with invaluable advice for any entrepreneur.

Guy offers plenty of relevant advice for the startup process in general, but I really enjoyed the chapter titled The Art of Pitching.  In it, Guy offers a lot of great advice, much of which I will utilize when I’m pitching to a room full of investors next week.  I will highlight here what I believe are the most useful points that Guy makes in regards to The Art of Pitching.

Explain Yourself in the First Minute. The one question your audience is wondering while you’re sharing your life story in the first few minutes of your presentation is “What does your organization do?” As Guy suggests, “Do everyone a favor: Answer that question in the first minute.” Once your audience understands what your organization does, they’ll be able to give you their focused attention. I couldn’t agree more. If you can get this done in the first 30 seconds, you are doing something right.

Answer the Little Person on Your Shoulder. Imagine that there’s a little person sitting on your shoulder during presentations, asking you “So what?” every time you say something. The best way to answer that little man’s question is by giving examples that illustrate the significance of a claim.  Utilize the simple phrasing; “for instance…” to offer concrete examples.

Know Your Audience. Before the pitch, learn who you are pitching to and what is important to them. What are the most important things your audience wants to know? What issues and landmines (tough questions or concerns) should you be prepared to address? What does their organization do? If they are investors, what do they like to invest in?  Speak to these questions in your pitch and tell the audience why it is you are meeting their wants, desires, or needs.

Keep Your Pitch Short & Your Powerpoint Simple. “I’ve never heard a pitch that was too short,” reveals Guy. A good pitch should pique curiosity and invite follow-up questions from your audience. Keep your powerpoint simple to this effect: keep it to 10 slides, 20 minutes, and make it “sticky.” (We wrote a post on how to make an idea / presentation sticky in this previous post).  Below, I’ve outlined how Guy advises you to structure your powerpoint to investors.  This structure is great, but there is always room for creativity on your part:

1. Title – organization name, your name and title, and contact information
2. Problem – what’s the pain you’re trying to alleviate?
3. Solution – how do you alleviate this pain?
4. Business Model – how do you make money?
5. Underlying Magic – what’s your secret sauce?
6. Marketing & Sales – how will you reach your customers?
7. Competition – who else does what you do?
8. Management Team – who are the key players in your organization?
9. Financial Projections & Key Metrics – what’s your financial forecast and how will you measure your efforts?
10. Current Status, Accomplishments, Timeline & Use of Funds – How are things going and what do you expect in the near future?

Set the Stage. When you are presenting, whatever happens during the presentation (whether good or bad), including technical glitches, it’s your fault. So be prepared for the worst-case scenario. If you have them, bring multiple laptops, your own projector, a USB drive with your presentation, e-mail your presentation to yourself, and bring handouts in case you can’t get your powerpoint to work. Most importantly though, know your presentation well enough that you don’t need the powerpoint. Your powerpoint should be nothing more than an enhancement to your pitch.

Let One Person Do the Talking. If your team is on the stage, let the CEO / President / Executive Director do 80% of the talking. Other team members can present one or two slides on their specific expertise. Often times it is even more effective just to have one person on the stage.  For the pitch I’ll be giving next week, we decided that I should run the entire presentation because we only have 10 minutes on stage.

Get to 1,000 Feet and Stay There. Neither fly too high with your pitch nor get mired in details. Stay above the ground, but still think about tactics. “Provide enough detail to prove you can deliver and enough aerial view to prove you have a vision.”

Pitch Constantly. Most people need to practice their pitch 25 times to feel really comfortable with it. I hope to practice a few times in front of our dog, Kaya. Keeping her attention for 10 minutes will be a good test of how compelling my pitch is.

Be Comfortable, Be Yourself, Be Passionate. Guy never directly touches on this in this chapter of his book, but this is critical to your success.  Don’t be afraid to show people how passionate and obsessed you are with the venture that you are pitching.  In fact, this is something every investor is going to look for.  Furthermore, always remember that at the end of the day the investor is investing in you and not just your idea.  Make certain you know your pitch well enough and have practiced it enough times that you can be yourself on stage. An investor would rather invest in a great entrepreneur with a descent idea than an mediocre entrepreneur with a great idea.

Other Resources:

Canaan Partners and PopTech designed an excellent slideshow detailing the important parts of pitching. I recommend blowing it up to Full-Screen so you can read it. But it’s got everything you need to know! Check it out:

A Tale of Two Pitches – Entrepreneur turned VC Mark Suster tells two stories of entrepreneurs who pitched to him – one a 10 out of 10 and one a total flop.

Angel Funding Advice – Mark Suster overviews how to pitch to angels, with whom you should do it, and how to find angels who will listen.

David S. Rose on pitching to VCs – Pitch Coash David Rose gives a 15-minute TED talk on the 10 things you want to convey to a VC

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 from the good folks at TechStars: ego. Humility, therefore, is paramount to being a successful social entrepreneur and something we search for in our Fellows.

Here are 3 reasons why entrepreneurs should strive to be humble.

1. Genuine curiosity in others. As we learn in the famous fable, “The Lion and the Mouse,” you never know how someone can be of service to you, no matter how they initially appear. That’s why, as Unreasonable Institute President Daniel Epstein blogged, that one of the keys to developing powerful relationships with other people is to treat them like they are the “Messiah in the Room.” Humility, or in this case, the belief that you have something to learn from whomever is sitting across the table from you, is crucial to having this genuine curiosity in other people. One of the things that I admire most about International Development Enterprises (IDE) founder Paul Polak is his willingness to learn from anyone, even illiterate women earning less than a dollar a day. In fact, in a video interview we conducted with him a few weeks ago, he cites this curiosity in what the poor had to say as one of the most important reasons why IDE has been able to lift over 19 million farmers earning less than a dollar a day out of poverty (Full Disclosure: Paul Polak is an Unreasonable Institute mentor).

2. Agile Development. We learned from our first video interview with Elnor Rozenrot of Innosight Ventures that 90% of successful ventures start out with the wrong business plan (Full Disclosure: Elnor Rozenrot is an Unreasonable Institute mentor). Successful entrepreneurs, therefore, don’t become too attached to the way in which they create impact but to the ultimate impact they want to create (with the exception of values, like non-violence for Gandhi). Altering course, even after tremendous time and energy has been spent in developing a strategy, requires an ability to admit mistakes and a need for change that stems from humility.

3. Honesty and Growth. Here at the Unreasonable Institute, we pride ourselves on being able to answer even the most difficult questions thrown at us. We either a) produce the right response or b) say we don’t know the answer. And the latter response has been one of the single most important catalysts for developing trusting relationships with others and for our growth as an organization. We take that growth really seriously. Daniel instituted a policy of militant transparency, where we hold each other to fully admitting when we make mistakes or drop the ball so that as a team, we can identify why and work to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future. We also work hard to do this personally so we can grow as individuals. One of the best examples I’ve seen of the disciplined, personal reflection it takes to develop as an entrepreneur comes from FORGE Founder and Unreasonable Institute mentor Kjerstin Erickson, in her blog post entitled “Things I Suck At.”

So What? Genuine relationships, agile development, and growth are vital to entrepreneurial excellence and humility is key to having all three. For some tips on how to be humble, check out Three Ways to Keep Your Ego in Check by John Baldoni of Harvard Business Publishing and How to Be Humble from wikiHow.

Willingness to Self-Correct. Elnor Rozenrot of Innosight Ventures told us in the very first interview for this blog that 90% of successful ventures start out with the wrong business plan. The ones that succeed, therefore, must alter course. “It takes a combination of hard-headedness, humility, and courage to stop and say, ‘This isn’t working’ or ‘Our assumptions were wrong,’ particularly when your funding is contingent on carrying out a preauthorized plan. However, the entrepreneur’s inclination to self-correct stems from the attachment to a goal rather than to a particular approach or plan” (p. 234).

Willingness to Share Credit. “There is no limit to what you can achieve if you don’t care who gets the credit,” explains Bornstein. One of the best examples I’ve heard comes from Ashoka Fellow of the Year David Kuria of Kenya, Founder of IkoToilet. Kuria built hygienic and affordable toilets for the 1 million slumdwellers of Kibera (a district of Nairobi, Kenya) but found that government regulations would make it difficult to expand his efforts. So he put the City Council of Nairobi’s logo on all Ikotoilets he constructed, which made people feel like the government was responding to their needs. The government was happy to take the credit and became very supportive of Kuria’s Ikotoilet, lifting barriers for expansion. In fact, to give my teammates here at the Unreasonable Institute an opportunity to be excellent, I routinely take credit for their work.

Willingness to Break Free of Established Structure. The word “entrepreneur” comes from French, originally meaning “to take into one’s own hands.” Excellent social entrepreneurs, therefore, do not depend on traditional avenues for creating social impact (e.g. government, religious institutions) and blaze their own paths for creating impact.

Willingness to Cross Disciplinary Boundaries. Highly successful social entrepreneurs not only escape established structures, they also combine thinking and resources from different disciplines to achieve their intended goal. “Indeed,” explains Bornstein, “one of the primary functions of the social entrepreneur is to serve as a kind of social alchemist: to create new social compounds; to gather people’s ideas, experiences, skills, and resources in configurations that society is not naturally aligned to produce” (p. 236).

Willingness to Work Quietly. Many social entrepreneurs are recognized only after working for years on their ideas in relative obscurity. Bornstein cites a a thought from Jean Monnet, who orchestrated the European Unification: there are those who want to “do something” and those who want to “be someone.” Those few who create deep impact more often fall into the former category.

Strong Ethical Impetus. Highly-successful Social entrepreneurs aren’t fueled by a drive to become famous or build a fortune, but a desire to restore justice in society, to address social problems. And this motivation comes down to a clear sense of what is right and what is wrong. This “ethical impetus” is not only evident in the work of successful social entrepreneurs, but also in how they live their lives.

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”
I’ve never liked this age-old adage because it polarizes a phenomenon too complex to be black and white.  Really, it’s about how you treat the people you know and don’t know.  It’s about being excited and confident about what you do know and honest about what you don’t know.  And if you don’t know someone, ideally this blog post will allow you to approach and get to know anyone.

The 7 To Do’s

1.  The person you are talking to is the Messiah in the room

Have you ever talked with someone whose eyes are constantly flitting around the room?  It’s awful. Why? Because as Robert Frost said, “We all have an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”  Looking around the room signals that there is something or someone more interesting than the person you’re talking to.  One of the most important keys to building powerful relationships is never to avert your eyes when you are talking with someone else.  Holding eye contact, even amidst a bustling room or people chatting nearby enables you to be fully present in your conversations and shows the other person how important they are to you.  You never know who you are meeting and who or what they may know. Assume, therefore, that the person you are conversing with is the momentary messiah. Focus in on them and allow yourself to be genuinely intrigued.

2.  Listen & Learn.  Then Speak.

You would be shocked at how common it is for people to jump headlong into their agenda in conversations without learning anything about the person they are talking to.  If someone asks me what I do, I immediately throw the question back at them with a comment along the lines of, “I’m excited to tell you about the projects I’m working on, but I’m much more fascinated to learn about what you do and why you do it…etc.” When you meet someone, never start by talking about yourself.  Ask them not just what they do (they always get asked that), ask them why they do what they do and how they got to be doing what they do (i.e. their story).  This will allow you to listen and to identify their interests, passions, and what excites them.  Inevitably, if they like you, they will ask what about you.  Now you can speak to their interests and passions. You always want to connect on a human level (not just a professional level) and the key is to understand stories and interests.  Learn what gets them excited and then get them excited.  It’s just that simple.

3.  Be Vulnerable

Your greatest strength in establishing powerful relationships is to be honest about your greatest weaknesses. We have been socially-conditioned to worry about what others will think when we share our failures, sincere thoughts, and what we don’t know with them. The truth is that these moments of vulnerability are the very moments when we connect most with other people. We connect deeply with people who have struggled, who are insecure about something, or who have failed because we’ve all been there. People are also much more likely to find you credible when you’re honest up-front about the risks of your venture or when you answer “I honestly don’t know the answer” to a question instead of trying to come up with a clever defense on the spot. It’s not only okay to be vulnerable, it’s crucial.

4.  Isn’t Networking Slimy?

When we think about networking, words like slimy often come to mind. We think of people who cleverly manipulate others to get what they want.  Instead, Keith Ferrazzi, who has been called the greatest networker in the world and is the author of “Never Eat Alone,” defines networking as “sharing my knowledge and resources, time and energy, friends and associates, and empathy and compassion in a continual effort to provide value to others, while coincidentally increasing my own.” In other words, you should be seeing how you can help other people achieve their full potential. It’s not about what you can get from others; it’s about how much you can give to them. It’s not about asking “How can you help me?” It’s about the great scene in Jerry McGuire, where Tom Cruise is on his hands and knees, repeatedly asking a simple question, “How can I help you? Help me help you!” Relationships are built on trust. You gain trust by helping others, not by asking what they can do for you. Over time, your generosity will come back to you (but don’t keep score).

5.  You Have to Make the Ask (no excuses):

One of the most important rules of building relationships and networking is simply to ask.  It all boils down to being truthful.  If someone can really help you with something, do not be hesitant to ask. Indeed, most people are reluctant to ask for money, for advice, or for anything that could help them to a realized dream. When you ask for help, and if you do so genuinely, the worst anyone will say is “no.” Then you are no worse off than if you hadn’t asked for help at all! Even if the person across the table from you can’t help, there is always one more question to ask (possibly the most important): “Do you know anyone who may be excited about what we are doing or who may be able to help in this regard?”  You would be amazed at how many doors this simple question will open up.

6.  Follow Up and Follow Through:

When I was working on my first social venture as a Freshman at the University of Colorado, I had lunch with a local entrepreneur and asked him one pointed question: “what will set me and my team apart from the rest?”  He simply responded, “follow up and follow through.” After any great conversation, follow-up by simply letting the person know how much you appreciate their time and thoughts. And if you want to distinguish yourself from nearly 99% of everyone out there, follow-through on the promises you make.  The key to this statement is to make certain that when you tell someone you are going to do something, you will have the time to do it well. This will do wonders for building relationships of mutual respect and admiration.

7.  Be Confident and Passionate

If you are going to get others excited about what you are doing you truly have to believe in what you are doing.  Anything less and the person across the table from you may wonder: “why should I help them with this idea when they don’t even believe in it?”  Don’t be afraid to express your excitement and your unreasonable ambition.  Be bold and be confident.  Remember though, you must be confident about what you do know, but also about what you don’t know.  This level of transparency is key to building quality relationships and to networking.  People are perceptive. If you aren’t genuine, they will know it.

So What?

According to Al Gore, there is an old African Proverb that says “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”  Whether or not the source is correct, I couldn’t agree more with the proverb.  The moral of this blog is that if you want to create Unreasonable Impact, you are going to have to be able to build unreasonably powerful relationships with your teams, partners, investors, networks, and friends.  The key is simple: be human… for in the end, business is not business, business is people.

written by: Daniel Epstein

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 examples of a powerpoint presentation that I’ve seen comes courtesy of Sparkseed Founder Mike Del Ponte.  Conveniently, his powerpoint presentation is on how to deliver the perfect powerpoint. So I invited him to the Unreasonable Blog to explain “How to Deliver the Perfect Powerpoint.” Check out his excellent video presentation and a text summary of his key points below:

1. Convey Your Core Message. Your powerpoint presentation has no greater purpose than enabling you to convey your core message. Assume your audience can only remember one thing. What do you want it to be? Use minimal text and powerful images to drive home this core message.

2. Exercise Restraint in Preparation. Don’t rush to open up Powerpoint! Garr Reynolds, author of Presentation Zen, suggests that before you open powerpoint to assemble your slides, you should take some time to go somewhere you can be creative and brainstorm to find your core message. Then, “cut the fat” off of your presentation and assemble your ideas into a storyboard with a logical flow.

3. Design Simply. When you are conveying your core message, you will find that there is nothing more powerful than a simple design. Avoid using animations or other flashy features that powerpoint has. Design your slides simply so you can be certain that your audience comprehends the core message of each slide. Mike offers some excellent examples in his slideshow.

4. Be Natural. Your presentation ought to be natural—well-rehearsed, but not memorized.  Most importantly, you want to be confident. And that confidence will show if you feel well-prepared and can be present while presenting. To ensure you are confident and to avoid anxiety do a tech check before you take the stage. Send your powerpoint to the presentation host, put it on a flash drive, and bring your laptop. Count on technology failing in the least opportune moments and always have a back up plan, and back up technology. At the end of the day, your powerpoint should only enhance your talk, and your presentation should never rely on it.

Do’s and Don’ts.

• Don’t use block text. Do use powerful images.
• Don’t put multiple pictures on one slide (it’s distracting).
• Don’t put your logo on every slide (it’s distracting and definitely unnecessary)
• Don’t use a lot of text on your slides (your audience is tempted to read)
• Do break bullet points into multiple slides, each conveying one key point (see Mike’s example)

Mike originally presented this powerpoint in a Sparkseed webinar. Sparkseed’s aim is to support college social entrepreneurs. One of the ways it provides this support is by hosting periodic webinars on the skills important for launching successful social enterprises. If you’re interested in attending a Sparkseed webinar, contact John Katz (johnkatz(at)sparkseed.org).

Many many thanks to Mike for taking the time to share his powerpoint designing wisdom with us! Please share other tips and thoughts you have on designing the perfect powerpoint presentation!

Not taking advantage of all that twitter has to offer is probably one of the biggest mistakes you could make early on as a start-up social venture. Everyone who is anyone in your field is on twitter. And twitter actually gives you the chance to do them favors. Think about all the free marketing you could provide Ashoka or the Acumen Fund by retweeting their messages to your followers. The more followers you have and the more they trust you, the bigger the favor. Eventually, you might warm up even the most remote, inaccessible experts in your field to the possibility of exchanging a few emails or even phone calls!

Connecting with people over twitter is exactly like connecting with people in real life (see last week’s blog post). If it’s really going to be something valuable for you (i.e. connecting you with the right people), it boils down to asking yourself how you can help your loyal followers. This simple question has enabled us to grow our followership at a rate of 500 new followers each month. All it takes is 30 minutes a day. That’s 30 minutes that enables you to help others, market your brand, become an expert in your field, and build genuine relationships with people you want to connect with! Here’s how to do it!

1. Pick an information niche. Choose a very narrow field and tweet about that and virtually nothing else. For us @BeUnreasonable, we tweet about how social entrepreneurship can be used to create high-impact solutions to the world’s biggest problems. We try to answer questions like “How can I start a social enterprise?”, “What have proven, high-impact social enterprises done to effectively address social/environmental problems?” and “How can social entrepreneurs gain access to the resources they need to make their social enterprise successful?”

2. Become a gatekeeper. Anyone in your niche has access to the same information that you do. That’s exactly the problem. Few people have the time to go through it and discern what’s useful and what’s junk. Using Twitter, you have an incredible opportunity to address this “pain in the market.” Filter information so others don’t have to, constantly guided by asking yourself “what is valuable to people in this information niche?” If you do it well over time, people will come to regard you as an “expert gatekeeper of information.” They’ll start coming to you first before pouring through endless streams of articles all over the internet.

3. Make information come to you. To make it easy on yourself, rely on your own gatekeepers. Don’t waste too much time searching for information. Make information come to you by using an RSS feed (I use Google reader). Identify some of the best sources of information in your particular information niche (a few blogs in my Google Reader include Entreprenur Magazine, Change.org, Good Magazine, Seth Godin’s Blog, and NextBillion). Every morning, thanks to Google Reader, I’m able to go through over 20 blogs and pick out the best 5 articles 15 minutes. This process benefits me independently of tweeting since I quickly get updated about all the happenings of the social enterprise space.

4. Auto-Pilot. You want to be visibly reliable. That means tweeting several times a day. But how can you do that without wasting your whole day, ensuring that you are able to space out your tweets for maximum visibility? Get a free account with a service like SocialOomph (formerly TweetLater), which allows you to schedule your tweets. I spend 15 minutes reading through articles and another 15 scheduling tweets for throughout the day.

5. Always give credit. If you really want to develop a following, avoid self-marketing and focus most of your posts on retweeting. Whenever you tweet anything, make a serious effort to give your source(s) of information credit. Include both the author of the content and the source if possible (e.g. “An example tweet” by @author via @source). If you find information that didn’t come through twitter, search for the author’s name in google to find if they have a twitter account (i.e. type in “John Doe twitter”). You’ll find this helps you to connect with the people you credit, that it boosts your credibility as a tweeter, and that people are grateful (so they are more likely to follow you). To quote Guy Kawasaki (who has over 176,000 twitter followers), “retweeting is the best form of flattery these days.” Even Guy loves having his messages spread virally. If you really want to do your favorite tweeters a favor, recommend them to your followers with the #followfriday or #ff hashtags (e.g. “For great #socent tweets, check out @socialedge #ff). All the marketing you provide others on twitter helps you build up credibility and improves your ability to contact your niche’s experts.

6. Listen to your followers. Give new followers the opportunity to tell themselves about you over direct message. Never start a connection over twitter by directing people to your website or asking them to support your blitzkrieg fundraising campaign. Ask them what lights them on fire and what they want to learn more about. Through this feedback, you KNOW what your followers find interesting (which can guide what you tweet about). If you learn about a follower whose passions align with yours, you may strike up an email conversation or even a phone call that leads to a meaningful relationship! Some of our best connections with potential Unreasonable Fellows, mentors, and pipeline partners happened thanks to a few direct message exchanges.

7. Make it easy for others. The viral component of twitter is its concision. You can pour through enormous quantities of information at a blazing pace and make decisions about what you want to learn more about, what you want to share with your followers, and who you want to connect with. Make it easy for people to make the decision to share your tweets and to connect with you. Shorten your tweets so that others can retweet them without edits (don’t exceed more than about 120 characters). Use hashtags so people can quickly identify what you’re generally talking about (we often use #socent for “social entrepreneurship and #bop for “bottom of the pyramid”) and find your tweets when they search in a specific information niche. Follow people back so they continue to follow you (though not blindly – with automated follow on, you’ll find you pick up a good number of scantily-clad women and money-laundering schemes). A little twitter thoughtfulness goes a long way!

So What? Ultimately, if used right, twitter gives you the chance to connect with the most savvy, knowledgeable people in the space you’re passionate about. When you provide those in your field value consistently, you gain their trust as a source of information. With that trust, you have a credible brand that even the giants of your field recognize (and have benefited from, since you’ve been retweeting them). By using twitter well, you develop a supportive network to which you can market, learn from, share resources with, and team up with to systematically tackle the world’s greatest threats.

We’d love to hear your stories of great twitter connections, other tips you have for using twitter, your vitriolic distaste for our suggestions, and all other relevant thoughts in the comments section!

Message

Short and sweet. To keep our messaging clear, we created our own website – www.whogivesacrap.org – to act as the central ‘hub’ of our marketing campaign. This gave more of a target introduction to Who Gives A Crap^TM (and an easier to remember URL) than our detailed profile on the marketplace. Our key messaging was: (1) Pledge now! (2) Help spread the word. (3) This is our concept, we need your help…in two sentences. (4) Go to our marketplace profile for more detail.

Give Something Back. Everything Who Gives A Crap^TM will ever do is based on the fact that we don’t really appreciate a lot of the ‘traditional’ development aid fundraising tactics – images of sick children and people asking us for spare change really turn us off! We thought about what potential pledgers would appreciate and decided that we needed to give something back. Without a tangible product the best we could was a good dose of every bad pun in the book (it’s a crappy idea, this will never work in France but who gives a bidet, a quick re-crap, now for some toilet humor, …). We created funny videos, dreamt up humorous media stunts, created a toilet paper tagging Facebook campaign and dug up all sorts of strange and amazing toilet facts and photos from around the universe (mostly Asia!). Did you know the world’s largest toilet can be seen on Google maps satellite view?!

+ Plan

Launch Stage 1: Far, Wide and Impersonal. Due to the ever increasing weekly pledge limits, our launch plan was to create buzz using Twitter and the mainstream media in week 1 and then to engage with our (potentially more generous) personal networks in week 2. After having a HUGE prime time live TV stunt canceled just hours before going to air, the best we ended up with was this photo of Jehan (Simon in the background) in a big Melbourne newspaper:

Launch Stage 2: The Close To Home Push (Pun Intended). Despite our optimism, we didn’t end up raising much in Stage 1. But the hype amongst our family and friends made it much easier to approach them using Facebook and YouTube, and to create email content that would be more likely to go viral. We wrote a list of individuals to approach personally and emailed / Facebooked everyone else that we knew: email first, Facebook as a follow up. The individuals we approached personally were asked to become ‘pledge champions’ with the objective of finding 5-10 additional pledgers – this was responsible for raising thousands of dollars of pledges. Needless to say, we owe these guys BIG!

+ Luck

In hindsight we had a pretty good plan, but we were also very lucky for a few reasons: (1) We have strong personal networks with relatively high disposable income and near constant internet access. This really hit home when a friend in Malawi couldn’t pledge for 4 days (and eventually gave up) because her internet wasn’t fast enough. (2) We have contacts in lots of different areas of mainstream and sub-cultural media. (3) The economy was on our side – the Australian dollar is kicking some serious arse making pledges almost 1:1. (4) Our email campaign went relatively viral. Yes, this is mostly luck. We are still meeting strangers who received our mail out. (5) Finally, Melbourne’s Sri Lankan girls went unexpectedly crazy over the sight of Jehan’s bare legs.

- Sleep

What did we learn? (1) Don’t expect to get much sleep, or to ever complete that to do list. (2) Back lots of horses, some will fail and others will do better than expected. (3) Start earlier than you could ever think is necessary. Some of our ‘failures’ have turned into media ops that we’re now dealing with 6 weeks later. (4) Last but not least, prepare to be amazed by the generosity of both friends and strangers. All of it culminated in what was truly an amazing experience. The adrenaline (and coffee) made up for the over tiredness.

And that’s how you get the world to give a crap in 2 weeks!