Starting Up — Tuesday, May 3, 2011 0:10
6 Principles for Making Your Pitch Unforgettable
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:
The Key to Powerful Relationships
Sunday, November 21, 2010 2:38
Business isn’t business. Business is people. Everything an organization wants to achieve it achieves through its people. Your ability, therefore, to galvanize the support of key individuals, build incredible teams that are relentlessly dedicated, and excite rooms filled with innovators and investors all depends on your ability to build powerful relationships. Below, I’ve included a list of what I have found to [...]
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 [...]
8 Tips for Getting Major Media to Care About You
Monday, March 1, 2010 11:04
Unreasonable Institute Co-Founder Tyler Hartung has gotten the Unreasonable Institute some amazing blog coverage from Business Week, from Inc Magazine, and from the Wall Street Journal (twice). We asked him to share how he did it. Here’s what he had to say! When I was recently asked what I did to get bloggers of some major publications to write about [...]
5 Ways to Mobilize Hundreds
Tuesday, January 12, 2010 0:01
At long last, we’ve selected our 42 Finalists! Their ventures will be profiled on the Unreasonable Finalist Marketplace starting on January 19. Their job will be to use the marketplace to galvanize the support of hundreds of people to raise a cumulative total of $6,500 each, the cost of attending the Unreasonable Institute. The first 25 to do so, thus [...]