Five Questions for the Smith Fellows

Paul HudnutApril 25, 2013

Q1: Why do humans have opposable thumbs?

A) To listen to lecturesB) To give lecturesC) To do researchD) To make things (and peel fruit)E) None of the above

Q2: Are you using your thumbs in your work?

Enough about thumbs…• Let’s talk about me for a while.• Education: – Colorado College, Virginia Law, HBS– Mashup: Environmental biology, political econ, law, business

• What else:– Entrepreneur: US WEST, Heska, Envirofit, Inviragen, New

Belgium– Educational Arsonist: CSU College of Business– Venture Gapitalist: Bohemian Impact Investments– Awe Hunter

Q3: What happens when you use brains and thumbs?

How an idea becomes a good or service which people will use (and someone will pay for).

Brains provide ideas.Thumbs provide action.

Lean Startup

“A startup is a human institution designed to create a new product or service under extreme uncertainty.” Eric Ries, The Lean Startup (2012)

A startup is a “temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.” Steve Blank, Four Steps to the Epiphany

Lean Startup

Steve Blank blog, April 16, 2013

Squiggling Along

Oft modified, from Damien Newman

Q4: What is a business model?

A: How an enterprise creates and shares value.

One approach…

Better Approach:

Business Model Canvas > 9 simpler pieces

H.E.R.O.’ic Enterprises

• Produce cleaner air, cleaner water, health, justice

• Find value in waste

• Prevent pollution, disease

• Restore/regenerate ecosystems and communities

Chronic

Crisis

BOP TOP

Partners in Health, Doctors Without Borders

Aravind, Envirofit, VisionSpring

Red Cross, CDC &FEMA

Merck, Toyota, BP

Business Models for Environmental& Public Health Ventures

Chronic

Crisis

BOP TOP

Partners in Health, Doctors Without Borders

Aravind, Envirofit, VisionSpring

Red Cross, CDC &FEMA

Merck, Toyota, BP

Business Models for Environmental& Public Health Ventures

XX

XXXX

HEY… Were you payingattention?

“Most people look at a company like Apple and think, how could I ever make such a thing?

Apple is an institution, and I'm just a person. But every institution was at one point just a

handful of people in a room deciding to start something. Institutions are made up, and made

up by people no different from you.”

Paul Graham, A Student’s Guide to Start Ups 2006

18

Q5: Do you have an example?

Envirofit International

• “Making the world fit for humanity.”

• CSU spin off• Sophisticated

technology• affordable design• mfrg and logistics• carbon and micro

finance

In process…Surviving in the Entrepocene

How to build something...

that matters…

with soul.

a guide to clean startups for the other 99%.

(with andy hargadon)

Bonus Question: Want more?• www.bopreneur.blogspot.com • Twitter: @BOPreneur

RESOURCES: steveblank.com businessmodelalchemist.com

andrewhargadon.typepad.comEric Ries, The Lean Startup (2012)Osterwalder & Pigneur, Business Model

Generation (2011)

Made to Stick (2007)

You have a Curse of Knowledge problem

How do you design your idea to maximize its chances of survival and replication?

SUCCESs framework