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Effectuation & Uncertainty Trying to Create a Market from Waste at TerraCycle

Explore heuristics for decision-making in uncertainty, the journey of TerraCycle using effectual principles, pivotal moments, and innovative approaches to waste management. Follow the compelling story of TerraCycle, a venture that revolutionized waste conversion into consumer products. Witness strategic decisions, resource management, partnership building, and the essence of unpredictability in creating sustainable markets. Learn the art of leveraging surprises and co-creating opportunities in an ever-changing business landscape, exemplified by TerraCycle's unique journey.

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Effectuation & Uncertainty Trying to Create a Market from Waste at TerraCycle

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  1. Effectuation & UncertaintyTrying to Create a Market from Waste at TerraCycle Stuart Read Professor

  2. Double Feature • Heuristics for decision-making in uncertainty(called effectuation) • Story of a venture(focusing on some of the key moments)

  3. To get started – effectual principles invert some of the logic traditionally taught in business school Causal principles (blue) what is taught in bschool • Effectual principles (red) the logic of expert entrepreneurs 3

  4. Meet Tom

  5. 2001: A freshman at Princeton, 19 year-old Szaky sees red wiggler worms turning organic waste into high quality fertilizer Prototype a business model that might convert this observation into a venture which uses waste as input.

  6. Where to Start Goals. Given (based on prediction) • Means. Theingredients ofnew opportunities: • Who I am • What I know • Whom I know

  7. April 2003: TerraCycle wins Carrot Capital Competition. Prize is $1million - and investors aiming to “professionalize” the firm. Terracycle has $500 in the bank. Accept the prize?

  8. Risk, Return and Resources Expected Return. Calculate upside potential and pursue the (risk adjusted) best opportunity. • Affordable Loss.Calculate downside potential and risk no more than you can afford to lose.

  9. Out of money, with customer orders pending, Terracycle needs to buy packaging for its organic fertilizer. What to do?

  10. TerracycleOrganic fertilizer packaged in used plastic containers

  11. From there, expansion into “upcycled” consumer products, built using consumer waste, collected by consumers

  12. 2007: Walgreens orders 100,000 pencil cases for delivery in 3 weeks (in time for “back to school” sales) Terracycle finds a Canadian recycler with a warehouse full of pouches. But Terracycle needs Kraft permission.

  13. Attitude Toward Others Competition.Set up transactionalrelationships with customers andsuppliers. Partnership.Build your “future” together with customers, suppliers and even prospective competitors. 13

  14. Terracycle logo on CapriSun packaging

  15. As the TerraCycle product range has grown, the firm needed more and more partners to help them “eliminate the idea of waste”

  16. TerraCycle has achieved critical mass with more than 250 unique consumer products

  17. And their “supply chain” generates all the inputs

  18. Surprise Avoid Surprises. • Leverage Surprises.Basis of new opportunities. 18

  19. Underlying Logic & What to Do To the extent we can predict the future, we can control it.  PLAN To the extent we can control the future, we don’t need to predict it. CO-CREATE 19

  20. Tom Szaky does not carry a business card. He carries a stamp so he can stamp his information into your (waste) paper

  21. So creating new opportunities looks a lot less like a puzzle with a fixed set of pieces and a possible “right” solution…

  22. To more of a crazy quilt – assembled from the things at hand by the people who commit to working on it.

  23. Effectuation & UncertaintyTrying to Create a Market from Waste at TerraCycle Stuart Read Professor

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