THE DREAM IN ACTION

This is a guest post by social entrepreneur Bobby Srivastava. I’ve known Bobby since college and he’s been focused on the social services since then. Bobby was the founding COO of  a KIPP school, and heavily involved in CPY4Youth, College Summit, and the Taproot Foundation. His insights to what it takes to be a successful social entrepreneur are right on. As he humbly calls himself a “fly on the wall”, he’s much more hands on as a board member and founder than he’ll admit. He’s one of the guys who are making big things happen with little resources, and making the world a better place.

Enter Bobby…

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I’ve realized after working with so many individuals within the nonprofit sector that we have encountered an unprecedented era where individuals are not waiting around anymore to start ventures that will soon change the world. Social Entrepreneurship is booming – people are putting their dreams into action, and scouring the community and the world to try and find ways to add value.  People are leveraging their skills and talents to literally reverse some of the issues that we only seem to be talking every four years around election time – poverty, hunger, education, healthcare, etc.  Social Entrepreneurs started yesterday.  How do you do it?  Throughout my exposure working with colleagues from Teach for America, KIPP, College Summit, and The Taproot Foundation, I’ve noticed several consistent trends amongst these social enterprises that will consistently validate the success and failure of future social entrepreneurs.  This is less about me “imparting wisdom”, and more about me being a fly on the wall, watching amazing people do amazing things and being a part of the movement firsthand.  All of this has been fueled by the very few drivers below. lanjut →

Vacation is important because…

Vacation, as the Europeans have discovered, is critical to ones ability to contribute effectively in the workplace. As I’m in Sweden this week and our project time lines are surely impacted by month long (or more) vacation schedules, I figured there would be no more appropriate time to write about vacations and the value of them.

Note: This trip is for business and not a vacation, however, I am spending a free weekend in Stockholm. A mini vacation I guess.

Although the “American way” seems to criticize the European vacation mentality, I think that it may be important to consider the value of extended breaks for multiple reasons.

1. Taking a break allows one to recollect their focus and return to work with a laser focus on their work.
2. A vacation allows one to recharge their batteries, release the pressures that can build at work, and return energized and excited.
3. Taking a vacation, perhaps a luxurious one, gives you a sense of reward and helps you to feel really good about giving 110% to your work.

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I’ve been working in Uppsala, Sweden, about 45 minutes north of Stockholm, this week and have learned a few very valuable business lessons. I was lucky to have the opportunity to travel when most other travel opportunities have been cut, and I’ve really focused on making the most of the trip.

Coming into the week I wanted to focus on really investing myself fully into the deliverables that I’d committed to in order to justify the trip and also through building relationships that are critical in order to successfully execute on the project in the future. With those two focuses in mind, I’ve learned quite a lot and have, I think, succeeded in both.

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Arrival

I arrived on the red-eye from Newark, NJ at 7:40am local time. My driver (it’s not as fancy as it sounds) was waiting and when I jumped in the cab the first thing he did was blow into a breathalyzer. I was thrown off by this but I appreciated the confidence I felt from his sobriety. The driver either spoke minimal English or he just didn’t like the looks of me, either is quite possible after getting about 3 hours of sleep on the flight. I won’t hold it against him.

During my 30-40 minute drive from Arlanda Airport out to Uppsala my initial reactions to Sweden are clean & green. It’s a beautiful country and everything seems brand new. From their automobiles, to their infrastructure, it’s seems “refreshed”. I expected the opposite. There is a lot of history here but it seems their has been a large investment in the country in recent years. lanjut →

I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s brilliant book, Tribes, over the past week. One of Godin’s theories in the book, that I definitely buy into is the importance of carving a niche with your message. A Tribe by Godin’s definition is a tightly interacting group of people, bound by a special interest. His call to action is for “you” to be the leader of that tribe. It’s time for “you” to step up. He also notes, about tribes, that if they’re too broad they will be diluted and never really operate optimally, or have any real impact on the world. The leaders message, if broad, will be lost with all the other broad messages. It’s the same issue as we’ve all read about before on the web, the signal vs. noise paradox.

In order to avoid getting lost among the others, I thought it would be appropriate to define the types of individuals that I think have enjoyed THE DREAM IN ACTION so far. I never rule out any transitions or changes in focus as experiences, both yours and mine, change. “The only constant is change” so I think it would be foolish to say that this blog won’t.

Here are the types of folks I think would dig this stuff:

1. Mustard Seed Entrepreneurs

By ‘mustard seed entrepreneur’ (did I just coin this term?) I mean those who don’t necessarily have tons of experience running a company and may only have an idea the size of a mustard seed. This includes early stage startups, “we just launched” types, or those who have an idea but are not really sure how to make it something real. The key is that we’re still learning how to extract potential out of ideas with our actions.

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So, I’ve been focusing on both mastering and minimizing mistakes. Mistakes lead to a less “dreamy” lifestyle, the opposite of what we’re trying to achieve here. If you’ve been reading, you know that I recently closed my first startup, so I am excited to get back into a project. Before I sink dollars and time into ‘the next big thing’ I’ve created 4 simple rules for myself on what I will do before diving all the way in. Pay attention.

No, I’m not just going to ask my friends if they think it’s a good idea, I’m not just going to poll my twitter followers (although I do love you guys!), and I’m not just going to do one Google search (or Bing!) to find the obvious competition. I’m going to force myself to be analytical towards, and skeptical of, the opportunity in order to protect the downside and make sure the option has a runway.

Let me first explain why further precaution is necessary. When you ask a friend “would you buy this product?”, 80% of the time they’re going to say yes. They don’t want to disappoint you and people hate the word, No. Instead of asking ‘would’ you buy, ask them ‘to buy‘, right on the spot. You’ll have a much more accurate understanding of whether or not you have something of value. This is called dry testing and I’m going to try and become religious in using this & similar methods in the future when testing ideas. Here are the 4 must execute steps to how I’ll dry test:
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This post is a bit less focused than most, but there have been a myriad of thoughts that I wanted to share with you guys. I’ve added a new widget to the blog that will help promote other blogs that I read and am inspired by, I’ve started using a new URL shortening tool that provide awesome analytics, and I share a Twitter business model that in my mind is genius and could really change the game.

I would love any thoughts or reactions to these musing in the comments below! I hope all is well with you and that your actions are getting you closer and closer to living your dreams.

The BlogRollr Widget

If video isn’t your thing, here’s the deal, I’ve added the BlogRollr widget in the sidebar of THE DREAM IN ACTION. A blog roll is a list of blogs that I read and that continue to inspire me. My blog reading changes all the time because I’m always looking for new sources of challenging thoughts and new ways to learn so a dynamically populated list makes tons of sense.

Also, I really like the idea of being able to support other bloggers. I get an unbelievable amount of inspiration from many of the guys on this list.  Some of the best & most inspiring are Neil Patel’s QuickSprout blog & Fred Wilson’s AVC.com. In the BlogRollr widget you can see my all time most read, or click on the Recent tab to see what I’ve consumed lately. For example, I’ve been reading both Charlie Hoehn & Steffan Antonas a lot recently because their unique approaches to the changes on the web & in business. Check their blogs out and let me know what you think of the widget in the comments!

Update: The BlogRollr widget is a Firefox plugin and apparently does not display to those visiting the blog using Internet Explorer. My advice, don’t use IE, but I will reach out to the folks at BlogRollr to see what’s on the horizon to fix this issue. Thanks!

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In October of 2008 I launched a company called SocialDreamium LLC. I started out doing social web consulting work and used the revenues from that to fund the development of our first product. I recruited a co-founder and development team in December 2008 and we “broke ground” on our product just before the New Year.

Now in late-May 2009 we’ve decided to shut down SocialDreamium and move on. What did we get out of the business? A much better understanding of the social web landscape and significant entrepreneurial lessons learned. As much as I don’t like writing this post, it’s extremely valuable for all of you who are, or will be, in the same boat. The startup road is a narrow and rough one to travel along, my only hope is that you will be smart enough to learn from my mistakes. We weren’t just unlucky, we screwed somethings up; below are many (but not all) of the top lessons I learned from the 8 months we devoted to SocialDreamium.

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Learning From Others

As I work on my “Lessons Learned” post after closing down SocialDreamium (post should be ready by Wednesday) there is one main lesson that sticks out above the rest. The one lesson that I couldn’t wait until Wednesday to post is the importance of learning from others experiences! As a first time company launcher I was green to so many pitfalls that I could potentially succumb to. What I attempted to do, and will continue to focus on, is learning from the mistakes of others.

“Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”
- Otto von Bismarck

So, as I continue to focus on this, the next questions become, how do I know who to learn from? How do I access these individuals? And where can I converse with them in order to learn from their learnings? lanjut →

This post is very different from any I’ve ever written here on TDIA. I should first say that I am by no means any kind of authority on new or trending music. I don’t claim to be someone who is good at finding music before most others. For that check out @melillo and Say.No.Radio. It’s just not my bag. However, today I do want to feature a budding artist with ridiculous talent and the nuts to develop a new genre of music from that talent. The man is passionate like crazy and his days of recognition and popularity are definitely ahead of him.

Allow me to introduce Ben Stanford Eduard Seiler, or his artist name DubFX for those who have never heard of him. He operates with only 2 instruments, his vocals and a piece of equipment called a loop station. Essentially, DubFX lays down each piece of his music individually all created by his voice, then with the loop station he plays each portion back over the others to create a one man collaboration of beat boxing, bass tunes, and vocals that will blow you away. Have a listen…the video above is probably my favorite of DubFX’s tracks called ‘Soothe Your Pain’.

Explanation of Loop Stations & DubFX

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A few months back I was engaged in a conversation about how social media (blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.) can really be used to drive tangible changes for a business. As individuals we are able to connect with old friends, stay even more connected with co-workers, and track real time topics, but what do businesses really get out of it all? It’s all kind of fluff right?

Mike Walsh, the CEO of Leverage Software thinks not. Mike is is was an angel investor in Salesforce.com and his company believes that social media can make smart companies even smarter. His business has benefited from actively engaging in the social web and driving benefits out of “intangible” tools. This guest post from Mike gives 10 solid ways that businesses, not just individuals, can increase tangible results like member acquisition, retention, and even drive revenue using these social web tools. lanjut →

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Contact

email: ryan[at]thedreaminaction.com or preferably from the contact form.
twitter: @ryangraves

If there is one thing that I do plenty of at GE, it’s present. Whether this be over the phone or in person telling a story in a business setting is a skill that one should continue to foster and treasure everything you learn. Along with presenting, the skill of building powerful Powerpoint presentations in order to communicate a project status, present a business case, and sometime request funding for a project is key. I’ve never pitched VC’s or Angel investors for funding on a startup, although I may soon :), but I have learned a thing or two about requesting cash using a solid slide deck and good story.

Recently, I’ve been studying methods on pitching for startup venture funding and have looked through many example decks and I’ve created this list of tips for getting funding in either the corporate or startup worlds. Believe it or not, I find many similarities between the two. I’d love your feedback on which tips have worked for you or which tips you disagree with.

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