Natural Enterprise Creating Community-Based Enterprises, and Discovering the Work You’re Meant to Do

1. Natural Enterprise Creating Community-Based Enterprises, and Discovering the Work You’re Meant to Do Dave Pollard

2. Agenda: One-Day Intro Workshop • Intro: Discovering the Work You’re Meant to Do 3 hours • Your Gifts (exercise one) • Your Passions (exercise two) • Your Purpose (exercise three) • Assessing Your Competencies; Finding Complementary Partners 1 hour (exercise four) • Market Research: Discovering Unmet Needs 1 hour (exercise five) • Financing, Advertising, Co-ops and the Emerging Gift Economy: Why Conventional Wisdom on Entrepreneurship is Wrong (and getting wronger) 30 minutes • Q&A and wrap-up 30 minutes

3. What’s a Natural Enterprise? (… introduce the concept of the Sweet Spot here, and explain that we’re going to use Dave’s Gifts, Passions and Purpose as an example for the participants to follow to begin to develop their own) • A small, collaborative, egalitarian, agile, community-based multi-stakeholder business: • that responsibly and sustainably provides products or services that are unique and which meet deep-seated human needs in good times and bad • that allows each partner in the enterprise to do what they love, and what they do best • whose partners' strengths and weaknesses are complementary, and whose partners possess, among them, fourteen core business competencies

4. The Sweet Spot THE WORK YOU’RE MEANT TO DO

5. Profile of Entrepreneurs • Meeting Real Needs 25% - e.g. farmers, dentists MOSTLY HATE THEIR WORK 5% - e.g. volunteers MOSTLY FAIL 10% THRIVE • Fulfilling the • Entrepreneurs’ • Passions • Employing the • Entrepreneurs’ • Gifts 25% - most startups & copycat businesses MOSTLY FAIL

6. Your Sweet Spot Chart • Your Purpose • - needed in the world • - things you care about • - not currently provided • - affordable & recognized need • Your Passions • - things you love doing • Your Gifts • - unique skills, • talents and • capacities

7. Dave’s Sweet Spot Chart: Gifts • Dave’s Purpose • - needed in the world • - things you care about • - not currently provided • - affordable & recognized • Dave’s Passions • - things you love doing • Dave’s Gifts • - unique skills, • talents and • capacities

8. Exercise One: Discovering Your Gifts • Handout 1 • Interview each other in triads, using the question in Handout 1. • Then work through the self-discovery questions in Handout 1. Use the previous slide as a model. • Transcribe your Gifts to the lower left circle of your Sweet Spot chart.

9. Dave’s Sweet Spot Chart: Gifts + Passions • Dave’s Purpose • - needed in the world • - things you care about • - not currently provided • - affordable & recognized • Dave’s Passions • - things you love doing • Dave’s Gifts • - unique skills, • talents and • capacities (… overlaps between Gifts and Passions in bold; see next slide)

10. Dave’s Sweet Spot Chart: Gifts + Passions • Dave’s Purpose • - needed in the world • - things you care about • - not currently provided • - affordable & recognized • Dave’s Passions • - things you love doing • expository • writing, • imagining • possibilities, • embracing • complexity, • sense-making, • playing • Dave’s Gifts • - unique skills, • talents and • capacities (… compare with previous slide; discovering what’s in the intersection between Gifts and Passions)

11. Exercise Two: Discovering Your Passions • Handout 2 • Interview each other in triads, using the question in Handout 2. • Then work through the self-discovery questions in Handout 2. • Transcribe your Passions to the lower right circle of your Sweet Spot chart. • Look at each of your Gifts. If they are also your Passions move them to the intersection of the Gift/Passion circles. Use the previous two slides as a model.

12. Dave’s Sweet Spot Chart: Gifts, Passions + Purpose • Dave’s Purpose • - needed in the world • - things you care about • - not currently provided • - affordable & recognized • Dave’s Passions • - things you love doing • expository • writing, • imagining • possibilities, • embracing • complexity, • sense-making, • playing • Dave’s Gifts • - unique skills, • talents and • capacities (… overlaps between Gifts/Passions and Purpose in bold; see next slide)

13. Dave’s Sweet Spot Chart: Gifts, Passions + Purpose • Dave’s Purpose • - needed in the world • - things you care about • - not currently provided • - affordable & recognized FALL-BACKS PRACTICES • mentoring/unschooling, • inspiring writing • numeracy, • analysis • making sense of the world, • simulation games • Dave’s Passions • - things you love doing • Dave’s Gifts • - unique skills, • talents and • capacities • expository • writing, • imagining • possibilities, • embracing • complexity, HOBBIES (… note the labels for the 3 non-Sweet-Spot Intersections, and why they are NOT the Sweet Spot)

14. Exercise Three: Discovering Your Purpose • Handout 3 • Interview each other in triads, using the questions in Handout 3 • Then work through the self-discovery steps in Handout 3 • Transcribe your Purpose (needs you want to fill) to your Sweet Spot chart • Look at each of your Gifts. If they are “On Purpose” for you, move them to the intersection of the Gift/Purpose circles. • Look at each of your Passions. If they are also “On Purpose” for you, move them to the intersection of the Passions/Purpose circles. • Look at the items in the Gift/Passion intersection. If they are also “On Purpose” for you, move them to the Sweet Spot. • Look at the needs in your Purpose. If they are also your Gifts and/or Passions (that you missed in Exercise One or Two), move them to the appropriate intersections. Use the previous two slides as a model.

15. Natural Enterprise: The 7 Steps

16. An Aside: Natural Communities (… compare with previous slide; Natural Communities comprise a set of Natural Enterprises)

17. Finding the Right Partners • First, you need to find people who share your Purpose, or whose Purpose can be readily combined with yours to create a collective Purpose you can all embrace. • Next, you need to ensure that your Gifts (the ones that overlap your Passions and your Purpose), and those of the people you have found who share your Purpose, are: • Mutually Exclusive: not significantly overlapping (otherwise you’re likely to be stepping on each other’s toes), and • Collectively Sufficient: to be able to achieve your Purpose, without “skill gaps” you would have to get outsiders to do, or do badly or indifferently. • Then, you need to make sure that, between you and your potential partners, you have the 14 core capacities prerequisite to any business’ success, as outlined below. • And finally, you need to come to terms with your partners on what the Vision and Operating Principles of the enterprise will be, and what each of you needs to get from the enterprise to succeed, on your own terms, individually and collectively.

18. Exercise Four: Competency Assessment and Finding the Right Partners Complete the Quiz in Handout 4 to assess your core entrepreneurial competencies and areas of weaknesses. Transcribe the results to the competencies profile on Handout 4. Next, compare your profile with that of other participants. Who would be a good business partner for you (if they also share your Passions and Purpose)? Who else can you think of in your community who has competencies that complement your own?

19. World-Class Market Research: Key Steps Criteria for assessing needs to ensure they are suitable for a Natural Enterprise to address: Qualified as real unmet needs through both primary and secondary research. Acknowledged as needs, and affordable, by accessible customers who need it. Appreciation of why needs aren’t already met, and strategy for overcoming those reasons. Good fit with the Gifts, Passions, Purpose, core and technical competencies and resources of the Natural Enterprise members.

20. Exercise Five: Primary Research • Using the scenario in Handout 5, interview the other participants, letting the discussion go where it will. • Group discussion at the end of the interviews: • Do you think the proposed enterprise will succeed in your community? • Does it meet a real need that isn’t already being met? • If so, why isn’t someone already doing it? • What obstacles need to be overcome and how might they be approached? • How could the idea be tweaked to make it better? • Do the competencies exist among the potential partners to make it a success? • Is it in the Sweet Spot of any of the participants?

21. Why Conventional Wisdom on Entrepreneurship is Wrong (and getting wronger) Financing: Organic sources of capital Advertising: Viral marketing, word-of-mouth and reputation management Co-ops: Caring about the enterprise, Integrating the “stakeholders” The Emerging Gift Economy: It’s already here When the Lights Go Out, the Storms Start and the Market Falls Apart: Natural Enterprise and the Transition Movement

22. Q&A and Wrap-Up • Questions? • Next Steps | Staying in Contact • dave.pollard@gmail.com • Session Evaluation