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Vision, Values, and Ideas: The Case for Going A7er Big Challenges
Alex Lightman Founder Ins5tute January 12, 2015
What do you want?
• What is important to you? • Most people want you to ask this quesCon. • “Everyone’s favorite radio staCon is WIIFM. What’s In It For Me?”
• Part of the fun and challenge of being a great entrepreneurship is playing a game:
• arCculaCng what you want, and then aNracCng and enrolling other people to want that also, and geOng them to pay you to get it.
What Do I Want?
• A world in which anyone can buy, sell, borrow, loan, and swap with anyone else, and can meet, collaborate with, and accomplish projects, from anywhere on earth, online.
• A world in which people can live their lives, eat, their food, travel, and work enCrely fueled with clean renewable energy.
• A world in which people can eat fresh, healthy food within hours of the food being picked.
How Do I Make This Happen?
• Chairman of Witkit – collaboraCon so7ware • Chairman of Everblaze – solar PV innovaCon • Advisory board and first outside investor in Natural Machines – 3D food prinCng
• Chairman of Global InnovaCon Network for Entrepreneurship and Technology (GINET) – commercializaCon of university technology
• No. Am. director – ShadowView – Drones to protect endangered animals
Vision
• Vision is highly focused and selecCve glimpse of a future world that is different because of you and what your company accomplished.
• Vision is a guilty pleasure. • A great vision is a paradox. It’s egoCsCcal and solipsisCc – the world remade the way you want it to be remade. It’s also very benevolent and selfless – you are going to dedicate your life to changing the world.
Where Vision Fits In
• Vision – how the future will change a7er you • Mission – Accomplishment your company is focused on relentlessly
• Strategy – Your choice between low cost or high service/customizaCon.
• TacCcs – Projects, partnerships, funding choices. Includes “Must-‐Win BaNles”.
• OperaCons – Plan your work and work your plan
Ways To Convey Your Vision • Videos (watch all the Sandwich videos) • TV (watch all the Natural Machines news) • Books (Brave New Unwired World, ReconciliaCon)
• Models (get a 3D printer, check out evrTree) • Facebook group • Kickstarter (includes video plus prizes) • Fashion show • Conferences and summits • Placement in TV shows, movies, games…
Facebook Groups: Unfair Advantage
• Bitcoin and the Internet of Money (read and copy the policies, if you wish) 5,428 members
• Solar and the Internet of Energy • STEAMPuffs • ET3 • Everblaze • 3D PrinCng and the Internet of Things and Food
Where Good Ideas Come From
• This is the Ctle of a very good book, by Steven Johnson, subCtle, “A Natural History of InnovaCon.”
• Good ideas come from having lots and lots of ideas and keeping track of them.
• A great way to get lots of ideas is to make a daily habit of filling notebooks with mini-‐analyses every day: ObservaCon. Diagnosis. Prognosis. PrescripCon.
Si7ing Through Ideas • If you do the four step mini-‐analyses 1 to 6x a day of ObservaCon, Diagnosis, Prognosis, and PrescripCon habitually, you will come up with thousands of new ideas.
• There are three primary ways to try these out and see if there is merit are:
• Get together with trusted friends and discuss…then do the same with adversaries.
• Put the ideas out on social media in specialty groups. Delete a7er you test, if you wish.
• Publish the ideas and/or speak, and be open.
But It’s NOT Just About Ideas!
• The Ctle of this secCon used to be “Vision, Values, and Leadership.” And it sCll should.
• Values make a big difference, and are a great way to both generate ideas, and to filter them.
• You can prove this to yourself by learning about or recalling great business rivalries and arCculaCng the differences in values, and results.
Values Make A Difference -‐ 1 • 3D food prinCng has three leading entrants. XYZ printers,
ChefJet from 3D Systems and Foodini from Natural Machines
• Spent hours with all three companies and their markeCng managers.
• XYZ and ChefJet examples were 100% candy, chocolate, cookies, and wedding cakes. 100%!
• Natural Machines examples are 100% about “eaCng free healthy food” with fewer preservaCves.
• A world with XYZ and ChefJet is even more obese. • A world filled with Foodini is more healthy. • So I as of today I am one of the first three investors in NM.
3DSystems ChefJet – Sugar Skulls
Natural Machines Foodini
Values Make A Difference -‐ 2 • Solar photovoltaics is a big industry and growing 100% a
year, with many companies installing PV and manufacturers copying the same designs.
• ExisCng solar is roof-‐mounted and ground-‐mounted. Out of sight, out of mind.
• Everblaze is a company that has already created six new innovaCve designs that will take solar into new places, including evrTrees, which will put solar in the middle of ciCes, where people can see, touch, recharge, get shade, and converse adjacent to solar, and use photons.
• My value of wanCng people to SEE solar and interact with it, led to the creaCon of the evrTree. My value of helping farmers led to the creaCon of the evrPivot.
evrTree – dream in progress
Values Make A Difference -‐ 3 • I have invested thousands of hours into Facebook. If the hours invested by users into Facebook were paid at minimum wage, this would come to over $500,000,000,000.
• FB is valued at over $200 billion because FB packages your informaCon and sells you.
• My values are PRIVACY, security, and collaboraCon, and the five freedoms from “The Science of Liberty”, which informs the approach of Witkit as the first encrypted collaboraCon SaaS platorm.
Think “Resume”, “Wiki” and “Bio”.
• Make sure that you have a great resume, a great Wikipedia entry, and a great bio. It’s beNer to live your life in such a way that other people write these about you; if only you know, then you are “pushing” vs. aNracCng.
• Be part of organizaCons that are worth talks that TED, TEDx, BIL, and other groups want.
• Seek to win awards.
Think “Crowdsourcing”
• A successful funding, whether from friends and family, VCs, or crowd-‐funding, is a right of passage.
• Be a credible expert and leader of a community. Create a focused community on Facebook or other social media. Have good admin policies.
• Do a simple Kickstarter for $25,000 to $500,000 to build your mailing list, name recogniCon, and reputaCon for delivering by succeeding.
Go A7er Meaningful Hard Problems
• TransiCon away from polluCng fuels • TransiCon toward clean fuels • Reducing violence • Reducing obesity and overweight • Increasing peace, love, relaConships • Increasing collaboraCon • Increasing safety, security, privacy
My contact informaCon
• Alex Lightman • [email protected] • 310-‐717-‐7745 • Feel free to friend or follow me on Witkit. • If you’d like to know more about Witkit, Natural Machines, or Everblaze, let’s talk.