A playbook for young entrepreneurs - Playincubate

A playbook for young entrepreneurs

YINCUBATE

Play online at www.playincubate.com

CONTENTS INCU BATE

FOREWORD 4

How to enable Youth Entrepreneurship in Europe? The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the National Agency and Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 2

PROJECT 6 ABOUT ERASMUS+ 8 PROJECT PARTNERS 10 PLAY 14 IS THIS FOR YOU? 17 MEET RUSSELL 18 HOW DOES IT WORK? 21 GAME COMPONENTS 22 LANDS AND CHALLENGES 24 LAND ONE | YOU - THE ROADS OF TRIALS 27 LAND TWO | IDEA - CREATIVE ISLANDS 53 LAND THREE | PROJECT - THE STATE OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE 97 LAND FOUR | GROW - MAGIC FLIGHT 131 BACK TO THE KNOWN WORLD 150 EXTRAS 152 WHY INCUBATION 155 RESEARCH INSIGHTS 156 THE SUPPORT GROUP 158 AUTHORS 160 COLLABORATORS /CONTRIBUTORS 162 FOR FACILITATORS | JOIN YINCUBATE 167 BIBLIOGRAPHY/SITOGRAPHY 168 www.plaYincubate.com

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FOREWORD

FOREWORD INCU BATE

Oana Țoiu State Secretary Ministry of Labor, Family, Social Protection and Elderly Romania has the highest economic growth in the European Union and our estimations as its Government are that this trend will continue. That is good news but as we move ahead, as a country and a Union, we need to make sure that the future we create takes into account the needs of the young generations and especially their potential to contribute. This is not the case now. Not in Romania. Not in Europe. As you read this, albeit economic growth, the relative poverty gap is rising and those most in danger are children and young people. There is no better way for this young generation to get a seat at the table and its fair share of the opportunities out there than to co-create this future. To be its co-designers as entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, as the value creators and disruptors that they are meant to be. Entrepreneurship is largely seen as an instrument to tackle unemployment and, if incentivised, will do this job well. My hope for this next generation of entrepreneurs, my desire, my bet is that it will not only create jobs but recreate a Europe that is more fair, more inclusive, more competitive and inspirational in its future project. But we can not put these expectations on their shoulders without giving them access to the resources to achieve them. This toolkit is a solid brick in supporting the ecosystem. 4

Marc Wesselink Serial Entrepreneur Managing Director Startupbootcamp Dear future entrepreneur, During the past 10 years, the startup costs of a company decreased from €1.5 mi to €5k if you compare building a platform that I have build in 2005 which later became just-eat.com. So in essence, everyone can become an entrepreneur! To become an entrepreneur and build a succesfull company, you can better learn from those who did it multiple times in the past. You don’t want to re-invent the wheel twice, right?! This is exactly what this book is all about: learning to work with entrepreneurial frameworks, developed by entrepreneurs. Necessary to channel all creative input you will come up with or will receive from your network. The only thing you need to do is to execute it properly and add your secret sauce to it! Good luck!

Gianluca Dettori Founder and Chairman at Dpixel Executive Chairman at Primomiglio SGR There is a new wave in entrepreneurship. A movement sparked by the blogs, books, and talks of people like Steve Blank, his affiliates and scholars. These ideas have been picked up quickly by the global startup culture and environment, developing in the past ten years new ways of thinking about company creation, new methods to analise and evaluate a business idea and new tools to deploy, test and expand a product or a service. Technology and access to markets has dramatically improved thanks to the digital networks, making much easier for entrepreneurs to design, develop and deploy new companies and products into the market. This new environment is opening up entrepreneurship to a wider and more diverse audience, making today the most exciting moment for youth entrepreneurship. We have seen several examples of very large companies founded and developed by younger people, Facebook being the most notable example.

Zoran Vitanov Consultant, entrepreneur and inspirational leader One hundred years ago, ten percent of people worked for others and all the rest had family businesses. Today we have the opposite situation: less than ten percent are in business for their own account, and the vast majority are employees. It’s obvious that we desperately need new generations of leaders and entrepreneurs. In this respect, the educational system has failed, and it’s time to start providing new generations with informal lifelong training in entrepreneurial and leadership skills. Many jobs are being lost to new technology, and many young people will sooner or later be forced to venture into entrepreneurial waters. The sooner they realise this the better, so we need to work on raising awareness and offering different types of training.

There is a cultural change in young wannabe entrepreneurs: on one side such examples suggest that creating a successful company is possible on the other hand the new tools suggest that knowledge and capabilities for the entrepreneurial journey can be taught and effectively improve the consciousness and younger generations. www.plaYincubate.com

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THE PROJECT INCU BATE

Every journey has a beginning...

PROJECT

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Yincubate was born by the encounter of four European organisations working on youth development, from different angles. Vocational training, social innovation, alternative sources of learning, support to the creation of startups. What all of them had in common was the wish to enable youth entrepreneurship with unconventional tools and methodologies, addressing young people in a language in which these would recognize themselves and immediately find the right reference points to build valuable experiences and generate impact.

www.plaYincubate.com

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THE PROJECT EYE SUPPORT GROUP

CO-FUNDED BY: ABOUT ERASMUS+ Erasmus+ is the EU’s programme to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe. Its aim is to contribute to the Europe 2020 strategy for growth, jobs, social equity and inclusion, and ET 2020, the EU’s strategic framework for education and training. Erasmus+ also seeks to promote the sustainable development of its partners in the field of higher education, and contribute to the objectives of the EU’s youth strategy.

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the National Agency and Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. 8

The outcomes of Erasmus+ are listed in various reports and statistics, and on the Erasmus+ projects website, which includes most of the initiatives funded by the programme and a selection of good practices and success stories.

The EYE (Enabling Youth Entrepreneurship Support Group) project is a collaboration between four European business incubators with various approaches to working with youth enterprises. The alliance has helped the partners to gain expertise, build capacity and develop innovative and easy-to-share methodologies (the Y incubate toolkit) for business incubation programmes targeting young Europeans. The toolkit is based on the four organisations’ experience, and on preliminary research into the state of the art concerning business incubators for young people. It has been tested by several European entrepreneurship hubs, students’ associations and business support groups, and will be disseminated to all European universities, incubators, foundations, investors and governments promoting youth entrepreneurship programmes.

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The EYE project has included research, transnational project meetings, learning activities, workshops, project management and communication. At every stage, the partners have used innovative methodologies including product and service design, design thinking, partnership brokering, facilitation, and co-creation. Initially, the project was meant to create a toolkit to increase incubators’ performance. During the transnational project meetings, and after examining the needs of the target audience, the design team has decided to produce a multilayer toolkit to help young people learn about and prepare themselves for the challenges of entrepreneurship. Y incubate incorporates a set of instruments, both digital and physical, to make young people aware of their skills and encourage them to enter the world of entrepreneurship. It aims to become a powerful resource for tackling unemployment across Europe.

ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/


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CO-CREATED BY: PROJECT PARNTERS

The Alternative University is a Romanian democratic learning environment that offers rich, personalized learning experiences, created together with business and education professionals. The organisation aims to support young people’s growth and empower them to make an impact on society. It does this by unleashing their hidden potential and pushing them to achieve the best they can in their respective industries, and to create a new culture of socially aware business that makes the world a better place. The educational model of the Alternative University is based on four principles: 1. Choose freely. 2. Create challenging projects that have real impact. 3. Develop your existing skills and gain new ones. 4. Be a part of the community, and give and receive support and inspiration. The university was founded in 2008. It currently provides a learning environment for 150 students, and has a network of over 150 business and education professionals. Each year, the students create approximately ten new businesses and carry out over eighty projects. universitateaalternativa.ro 10

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Team Academy Netherlands is a university of applied entrepreneurship. It is part of an international network of schools, Tiimiakatemia, founded in Finland in 1993, which has satellites in ten countries, more than 1,300 teampreneurs, and 800 team coaches. The programme is focused on guided self-organized learning, applying theory to practice, and team- and actionbased learning. Teams operate both as learning environments and independent cooperative companies. Students work only on real-life projects that they devise themselves, to cover all the expenses of the company. Team Academy Netherlands offers an accredited bachelor’s degree in business administration and entrepreneurship. Founded in 2005, it has 75 students in multiple locations, and is expected to grow to 100 students in the upcoming school year. More than 50 percent of students are entrepreneurs two years after graduation.

teamacademy.nl

Impact Hub Siracusa is an independent private cooperative company focused on social innovation, with a wide network of partners and affiliates in the Mediterranean region. With five years’ experience of Mediterranean cooperation and a team of eight founders and partners, it relies on a community of over a hundred social innovators and entrepreneurs. These act as highly skilled business and social enterprise experts, trainers, consultants and facilitators. In 2010, after several years spreading the culture of social innovation in Sicily, the founders won a European grant for the Euro South Hub project, part of the Interreg Italy-Malta programme. The successful completion of the project has consolidated a Mediterranean network of innovators and allowed the creation of the first co-working space in Sicily, on Ortigia island in Siracusa. Impact Hub Siracusa offers business support services, access to finance, community building, toolkits, workspaces, events, training, and business incubation programmes. In 2015 it launched a business incubator focused on digital social innovation, together with a hi-tech consortium, in the city of Catania. Since then it has developed and consolidated a wider network of partners, and become a cornerstone for social innovation and entrepreneurship in Sicily and beyond. siracusa.impacthub.net www.plaYincubate.com

The Business Start-up Centre Bitola was established by six local partners in 2007. Between 2007 and 2010 it implemented the From Idea to Business project, financed by the nongovernmental organisation SPARK using a grant from the Dutch government. The project achieved a direct and positive impact employing three main strategies: direct poverty alleviation, capacity building, and policy making. From 2011 to 2014, it implemented USAID’s Business Without Borders programme, with the goal of accelerating economic growth in southwestern Macedonia by facilitating the growth of start-ups and existing SMEs and creating employment opportunities for the young and vulnerable. Between 2007 and 2014, the organisation helped to create 750 jobs, supported 365 SMEs, advanced €417,000 in microcredit to sixty-two SMEs, provided 7,878 hours of consultation and organised 216 business training sessions for almost 4,000 people.

www.facebook.com/bsc.bitola 11

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THE GAME PLAYINCUBATE PLAYincubate is a game to train and test your entrepreneurial capacity. It consists of two components:

PLAY

- The offline section, containing a book of challenges and a game board to display your journey as a map (pp. 167-168) - The online platform: a website to keep track of your journey, unlock achievements and badges, record your progress in a learning journal and gain access to extra resources, available at www.playincubate. com.

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The lands contain 17 challenges that guide players from self-assessment to idea generation, team building, prototyping, and more. These will push you towards starting your entrepreneurial journey by expanding your mindset, testing business ideas, generating value and impact for your local community, and finally creating real-life projects. Are you ready to go out into the real world, develop your skills and come up with great ideas?

Join playincubate.com

Like a hero’s journey, PLAYincubate explores four lands that focus on different aspects of your entrepreneurial development: Land 1: You. The Road of Trials Land 2: Idea. Creative Islands Land 3: Project. The State of Divine Knowledge Land 4: Grow. Magic Flight

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IS THIS FOR YOU? Are you young and creative?

Are you passionate about your ideas? Do you love collaborating with other brilliant minds?

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If you’ve answered “yes”, or even “meh...” to any of these questions, then I have good news: you’ve come to the right place! It sounds a bit weird, doesn’t it? Don’t worry, all will be explained soon. Who am I? My name is… You know what? I’ll tell you later. What’s important for now is that you know what my goal is! My goal is to guide you through an amazing journey and turn you into an EntreprenHero! Yeah, I know, the word ‘journey’ might sound a bit ambitious, but you’ll see what I mean when we start tackling the challenges ahead. And no, we’re not going to ride horses, fight dragons or wear magic rings. We’ll simply focus on turning great ideas into great projects.

Do you have what it takes to make change happen? 16


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MEET RUSSELL THE MENTOR

Hello! So you’re looking for change. Questions like “What kind of job do I want?” or “Is entrepreneurship for me?” may have popped into your mind. These are tough ones to answer. To do so, you’ll need to experiment, venture out of your comfort zone and explore an unknown world. That’s what all heroes do: they go on an adventure, face a set of challenges, and bring back experiences that make themselves and their world better.

How am I going to help you answer these questions? Playincubate is the answer! An entrepreneurial journey full of challenges, designed to help you experience the road to entrepreneurship and find out if it suits you.

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What if entrepreneurship doesn’t fit you?

And by the way, my name is Russell!

Well, in that case it will teach you new skills that you can apply to whatever you do in the future. The challenges you’ll face will prepare you for many different paths you can choose.

Which stands for Really Useful Sober Silly Eager Lazy Leader. Just kidding, call me Russell. Let’s loosen up a bit, right?

Ok, so how do we do this? I’ll guide you through the four lands and help you acquire the tools that will give you most of the skills you need for your entrepreneurial journey. These are based on the experiences of successful entrepreneurs, and they’re presented in the form of a game. The more you play, the more you prepare yourself for the journey.


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To get started, go to www.playincubate.com and register a player account. This is pretty important. It’s the only way to keep track of your progress, unlock badges, download resources and share valuable content. And it’s all FREE! So join Yincubate and discover your full potential. Otherwise, just go to the next page and continue reading. Lazy you!

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GAME STRUCTURE

HOW DOES IT WORK? INCU BATE

LAND #1

2.

1.

CHALLENGE #1 MENTOR CARD STEP #1

Complete Steps

Start Challenge

Online

3.

Learning Journal

STEP #2 STEP #3 TIPS & TRICKS

LEARNING journal

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What does each challenge consist of? A COVER CARD showing its structure, what you need, what you’ll achieve, and Russell’s advice. A MENTOR CARD providing the information you need to start playing. STEPS: clearly defined tasks to complete, either alone or in teams. The number of steps varies depending on the challenge. TIPS & TRICKS to make your life easier, with models and structures to follow.

1. Start your challenge, following Russell’s advice and the Mentor card 2. Complete all the steps of the challenge, keeping an eye on the Tips and Tricks cards

Lined or squared NOTE CARDS to help you sketch out and develop your best ideas using pencil and paper.

How about the order of the challenges? Challenges follow a certain order, but you can play them over and over again if you find them particularly useful and/or enjoyable. If your project requires you to go back to a particular step, feel free to do so – the game is flexible to suit your needs

When is a challenge completed? To complete a challenge, fill in your LEARNING journal on www.playincubate.com. Log in and enter your reflections and findings. You’ll unlock BADGES to share your achievements with the world, and gain access to EXTRA RESOURCES such as videos, tutorials, and reading material to dig deeper into the challenge subjects.

3. Go to playincubate.com and fill in your learning journal to unlock badges and extra resources


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YINCUBATE GAME COMPONENTS

THE ENTREPRENHERO’S JOURNEY INCU BATE

17 Challenges each consisting of: - a mentor card - some action steps

Board Game | The journey it maps the lands and tracks your progress through the journey

4 Lands | The levels every land is a section of the journey and contains a number of challenges

LAND 1 | YOU ROAD OF TRIALS

Russell | The Mentor he will guide you through your journey

LAND 2 | IDEA CREATIVE ISLANDS Learning journal the online forms to complete each challenge and record the lessons

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LAND 3 | PROJECT THE STATE OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE

17 Yincubate badges | Rewards a collection of inspiring and useful contents available when you unlock a badge

LAND 4 | GROW MAGIC FLIGHT

Extra resources unlocked after completing a challenge and collected in the learning journal


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THE KNOWN WORLD LAND 1 | YOU ROAD OF TRIALS

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LAND 2 | IDEA CREATIVE ISLANDS

THE ENTREPRENHERO’S JOURNEY LAND 3 | PROJECT THE STATE OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE

LAND 4 | GROW MAGIC FLIGHT

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CHALLENGES

CHALLENGES

CHALLENGES

CHALLENGES

1. Raise Self-Awareness 2. Explore the World 3. Make a Change

4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. Design Value 11. Plan your Project 12. Build Resilience 13. Prototype your Idea 14. Exchange Feedback

15. Present your Idea 16. Celebrate 17. Create your Future

Work in Teams Exchange Feedback Generate Ideas Make Decisions Create your Business Exchange Feedback


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THE ROADS OF TRIALS

LAND ONE | YOU

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CHALLENGE 1. RAISE SELF-AWARENESS

Welcome to the Road of Trials

This land will help you connect with yourself and the world around you. To start off your journey, you’ll go along this road. You’ll look within yourself and out into the world. This will help you prepare for the entire journey ahead, building a foundation for you to develop further down the road. I’ve prepared three challenges for you: 1. Raise Self Awareness - You’ll learn how to understand yourself and to acquire a selfdevelopment mindset.

CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - The entrepreneurship wheel Step 2 - Set SMART goals Step 3 - Development plan Tips & Tricks

YOU WILL NEED Two and half hours

One person

Learning journal A4 paper, pen, The Entrepreneur Wheel

SKILLS TO DEVELOP FEEL

THINK

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Self-awareness raiser You will learn how to understand yourself and develop a growth-oriented mindset. No extra resources available.

MAKE

2. Explore the World - You’ll learn to explore the world in order to discover growth opportunities. 3. Change Maker - You’ll learn to identify problems in your community that you can solve given your resources.

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In order to successfully complete a game-changing journey, you have to discover what your starting point is. This means that your first step is to become self-aware. No worries, I’ll help you to find out where you are right now and create a path to the place you wish to reach. I’ll challenge you to uncover your entrepreneurial super-powers and your major drawbacks, and also to create a development plan meant to unleash your entrepreneurial spirit.


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1. RAISE SELF-AWARENESS


MENTORCARD

STEP 1. THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP WHEEL

Focus on

Understanding yourself Your first challenge will provide you with the tools you need to understand yourself and create a self-development mindset, which will be your most important ally in the journey ahead.

About this challenge

In order to raise your self-awareness, this challenge uses the Entrepreneurship Wheel, a tool that will help you assess your level of satisfaction with ten entrepreneurial skills or attitudes. The wheel is the first move towards understanding yourself. You’ll then set goals that will help you enjoy a smooth business ride. You’ll finish this challenge by creating a self-development plan. These three steps will prepare you for the rest of your Y Incubate journey.

The Entrepreneurship Wheel contains ten sections that together provide a snapshot showing how bumpy or smooth your entrepreneurial journey could be. It’s not a picture of how it has been in the past, or what you want it to be in the future. Nor is it a report card on how well you’ve performed or what you’ve achieved. The emphasis is on your level of satisfaction in each area today. The ten areas on the wheel are: 1. Opportunity seeking – finding and taking up opportunities to improve things in your surroundings 2. Problem solving – defining a problem, generating alternative solutions, evaluating and selecting alternatives, and implementing solutions

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3. Working in teams – working collaboratively with a group of people in order to achieve a goal 4. Exchanging feedback – an evaluation given to a person or a group, based on previous actions in order to help them improve 5. Idea generation – creating and developing new project ideas 6. Decision making – weighing the pros and cons of different options and selecting the best 7. Planning – developing plans to achieve optimum results given the resources, needs and demands of the project 8. Resilience – taking risks and using failure as a learning opportunity

9. Prototyping – validating your ideas by building and testing products or services 10. Pitching – presenting your idea in front of an audience Rate how satisfied you’re with your entrepreneurial skills. Zero means not satisfied and 10 means highly satisfied. In the end, you’ll have created a matrix that represents the current state of your skills. Remember, it’s not about getting 10s! It’s about understanding your strengths and development needs.

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1. RAISE SELF-AWARENESS STEP 1. THE ENTREPRENEURSHIP WHEEL 1.

Opportunity seeking

2.

Problem solving

3.

Working in teams

4.

Exchanging feedback

5.

Idea generation

6.

Decision making

7. Planning 8. Resilience 9. Prototyping 10. Pitching

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STEP 2. SET SMART GOALS

STEP 3. DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Now that you know more who you are and your strengths and weaknesses it’s time to set some goals. I know that this can be difficult, but I am here to help you. Let me tell you a little bit about goals. If you say you’re going out, but not where you’re going, how do you know when you’re there? But if you say you’re going to the park, you can plan the best route – perhaps the prettiest, the fastest, or the safest.

We’ll use the SMART goal model, which lets you understand, measure, and track your goals in a relevant and timely manner. »» Set your first SMART goal! Choose one that you want to reach in the coming months. The objective here is practicing, so feel free to choose anything from your personal or professional life.

Use the SMART goal model explained on the Tips & Tricks card — see page 36.

Your goal is to create a self development plan to gain a clear picture of how you need to grow in order to achieve your goals. The next step is developing yourself. This will happen naturally within the YIncubate journey, but it’s always a good idea to have a plan.

A good self-development plan includes: • Your main goal, clearly defined • Why you chose it • Which skills you need to reach it • How you’re going to develop these using activities • When you’re going to perform the activities • Time to reflect on what you’ve done.

You should adjust and update the plan constantly as you grow. You’ll find a development plan model on the Tips & Tricks card — see pages 36-37-38.

What this means is that a specific goal works a lot better than an unspecific one.

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TIPS & TRICKS. SMART GOALS

TIPS & TRICKS. SELF DEVELOPMENT PLAN

The acronym SMART stands for the five characteristics that a goal should have in order to be valuable: S

SPECIFIC • Clearly formulated and well defined. • Easy to understand for anyone with a basic knowledge of the process.

M

MEASURABLE

1

Main goal:

3

Which skills do I need to achieve it?

EXAMPLES 1.

For an organisation or department Not SMART: “Improve our sales” SMART: “Improve sales from ten to twenty a month, achieving 100 percent growth and a profit of $500,000 by the end of April.”

2.

• You can monitor when it has been achieved.

A

AGREED • Agreed and shared with everyone involved in the process.

R

REALISTIC • Achievable according to the availability of resources, knowledge and time.

T

TIME-BOUND

TIPS & TRICKS 36

For a wannabe runner Not SMART: “Start running” SMART: “Run five kilometres, three times a week for eight weeks, using a timer to measure your performance. Improve your time by at least two minutes by the end of training period”

2

Why is this my main goal?

4

How am I going to develop them?

Activities: 1.

For a student Not SMART: “Get better grades.” SMART: “Improve grade average from 4.5 to 6.5 by the end of the school period on July 30th”

2. 3.

• Has a clear deadline. • Allows sufficient time to complete, neither too much, nor too little.

4. 5. www.plaYincubate.com

TIPS & TRICKS 37

1. RAISE SELF-AWARENESS TIPS & TRICKS. SELF DEVELOPMENT PLAN 5

When am I going to do these activies to develop my chosen skills?

TIPS & TRICKS 38

6

Reflection on this month’s development: [to be used after filling it in]

7

Conclusion (and how am I going to improve my next monthly development plan compared to this one?):

Tip: Create an agenda for your goals and plan all your activities. You can do this on your computer and synchronise it with your smartphone, so you always have a clear overview on what to do when. This will give you a feeling


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NOTES SELF-AWARENESS

CHALLENGE 2. EXPLORE THE WORLD CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Immersion Step 2 - Prune the Future Tree

Two and half hours

One person

Learning journal

A4 paper, pen, sticky notes, markers


THINK

YOU WILL NEED

YOU WILL ACHIEVE World Explorer You will learn to explore the world in order to discover opportunities for development. Extra resources are available when unlocking the badge.

MAKE

If you want to complete this journey, you’ll have to gain a better understanding not only of yourself, but also of the world around you. So I challenge you to take a closer look at your community: what’s it like right now? Is there anything that can be improved so that the people in it can enjoy a better future? To answer these questions, you’ll need to be curious and gain insight.

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2. EXPLORE THE WORLD

2. EXPLORE THE WORLD

MENTORCARD

STEP 1. IMMERSION

Focus on About this challenge

Useful advice 42

Observation Observation is an essential skill for entrepreneurs. Being able to understand the world around you is the first step in creating positive change. Successful businesses address real world needs, solve problems or improve current solutions.

Your goal is getting to know the local context and understand people around you.

At the end of this stage, you will have a clear image of the main challenges people around you face in their everyday lives. You will map the positive and negative features that define your community’s current reality. Later on comes the time to dream! You will have a clearer picture of what your world looks like now, but what about picturing how you want it to be? For this step you will have to focus on positivity and creativity, imagining a future that would make people’s lives better!

Go out, immerse yourself in the city for 90 minutes and record anything you find interesting or unusual using notes and photographs. Look for patterns and similarities. Interact with people. Explore a wide range of aspects. Here are some guiding questions:

Throughout this challenge, you will use “Prune the Future”, a tool showcased by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo in their book “Gamestorming”. In the External Resources section of our website you can find ways of digging deeper into your observation skills and gaining powerful information about global challenges and development needs.

• How do people get around? • How are elderly people’s lives improved by technology? • How are kids spending their time? • What challenges do adults face when shopping? • What businesses exist and why? What problems remain unsolved? • Are people active citizens? • What does the city’s cultural life look like? • Do people feel safe?

All the things you see around you were developed at some point. The things you don’t see still have the opportunity to be discovered and developed, and the art is to see things that others don’t. For this stage, you’ll need to be proactive and observant, trying to understand the main challenges in your community. Truly immerse yourself and experience things from a different perspective!


Gather insights as follows: 1. Discover As you observe and interact, make a list of things that people are satisfied and dissatisfied with. 2. Unpack data After gathering the information, it’s time to collate it. Take thirty minutes to transform your notes into headline quotes, using a different sticky note for each headline. Summarise and organise information in groups of related sticky notes. 3. Extract insights For each group of sticky notes, find deeper connections that lead to insights. Go from things like “education” to conclusions such as “Young people are unhappy because of the lack of opportunities to practice what they learn.”

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2. EXPLORE THE WORLD STEP 2. PRUNE THE FUTURE TREE*

Your goal is to visualise the current state of the community and shape your desired reality. 1. Start by drawing a large tree on a whiteboard/A3 poster. Draw at least five big branches that represent major challenges faced by local people. The inner branches represent the current state of the challenges, and the outer ones their future state. Don’t forget to draw a trunk and roots, as you’ll need them in the next step. 2. Read more about the challenges you found and use the patterns you discovered to define the branches. Use sticky notes as leaves to write features of the current state on the inner branches both positive and negative.

3. Use sticky notes to define your desired reality. Write down all your aspirations and dreams about what a better future for your local community should look like. 4. Bonus: Collaborate! Ask five local people to write their desired features on the tree, defining the next phase of its growth. Reflect on the following questions: What new features appeared? • Does one branch – perhaps a core feature of the future state of the world – get the bulk of the growth? • Did an underused aspect (the inner or outer branches) become stronger? After completing this step, you’ll have a clear image of how your community can grow into an environment that improves the lives of the people in it.

*Prune the Future Tree is a challenge adapted from a tool of the same name in Gamestorming, by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo. 44


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CHALLENGE 3. MAKE A CHANGE

NOTES OBSERVATIONS

CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Define the roots Step 2 - Define the trunk Step 3 - Gamechanger

Two hours

One person

Learning journal

Sticky notes, pen, markers, Future Tree


THINK

YOU WILL NEED

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Change maker You will learn to find the problems in your community which you can solve given your resources. Extra resources are available when you unlock the badge.

MAKE

Have you ever thought that there might be a connection between yourself and the challenges of your community? That you could become a change maker by helping certain people while doing things you enjoy? In this new challenge, you’ll have the chance to identify how best to use your resources in order to improve the lives of other people. What an opportunity!


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3. MAKE A CHANGE

3. MAKE A CHANGE

MENTORCARD

STEP 1. DEFINE THE ROOTS*

Focus on

Defining a purpose As Stephen Shapiro did in his book “Goal-Free Living”, I invite you to use a compass, not a map, by being purpose driven. Throughout this challenge, I’ll encourage you to define your driving force and not let yourself drift aimlessly from one goal to another. The purpose will be your compass, giving you a sense of direction on your entrepreneurial journey. It will remind you of why you’re doing things, help you set achievable goals, and make sure you’re consistent.


Useful advice 48

You’ll begin this challenge by defining the internal and external resources you’ve gathered so far. Next, you’ll define your personal statement of purpose by reflecting about how and whom you want to help, and which activities you want to do in order to help them. In the end, by linking your strengths and purpose, you’ll discover which local problems you’d enjoy solving, and which will have the most impact. During this challenge, you’ll use two tools: Prune the Future Tree and the Impact & Effort Matrix, presented by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo in their book “Gamestorming”. You’ll also use the Purpose Statement and Key Resources section of the Personal Business Model Canvas, two insightful tools from “Business Model You”, written by Tim Clark in collaboration with Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.

Your goal is to analyse and map the personal strengths that can help you create your own future. Keeping in mind the results of the Raise Self Awareness challenge, use differently coloured sticky notes to write the following on the roots of the Future Tree: Your abilities and skills Abilities are talents that emerge effortlessly, such as spatial orientation, group facilitation, empathy, and communication. Skills, on the other hand, are talents you’ve become better at through practice and study, such as project management, piano playing, and fundraising. Your interests

Interests are the things that excite you. They’re your most precious resource because they give you personal and professional satisfaction. Write them on sticky notes. Personality Your personality completes who you’re. List descriptors, such as emotional, intelligent, calm, thoughtful, energetic, detail-oriented. Personal and professional connections List the people who have an impact on your personal and professional path friends, teachers, family, anyone who is influential and can contribute to your growth.

Past experience You might have professional or volunteering experience, a professional reputation or be recognised as a young leader in a specific field. Other tangible and intangible resources These include any personal assets that are potentially useful to your work. Think about tools, clothing, money, property or anything else you own that can be used as an investment in your career.

By linking your purpose statement and the things you discovered about yourself and the world, this challenge will unleash your hidden potential and get you closer to building your desired reality. *This challenge is inspired by Prune the Future Tree, a tool present in the book Gamestorming, by authors Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo and by the “Key Resources” section of the Personal Business Model Canvas, tool from “Business Model You”, a book written by Tim Clark, in collaboration with Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. www.plaYincubate.com

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3. MAKE A CHANGE

3. MAKE A CHANGE

STEP 2. DEFINE THE TRUNK

STEP 3. GAMECHANGER*

Your goal is to craft your purpose statement, the trunk of your tree. Many of us have goals in life: short, medium or long term. But how many of us have a real purpose? Keep in mind the elements that define your tree’s roots and define the trunk. To design your purpose statement, do five simple things: 1. Write down three to four activities you very much enjoy.

help (verb) I’d like to

2. Use another sheet to describe the people or groups you like spending time with. 3. On another piece of paper, write down how you intend to help others, using three to four verbs. 4. Use the following sentence as the foundation for your purpose statement: “I would like to help THESE PEOPLE using THESE ACTIVITIES.” 5. Fill in the following table with the verbs and nouns you wrote in the previous points. Put your favourite verbs and nouns first. See Russell’s purpose statement for a good example.

people (noun)

by doing (act)

6. And now the acid test: can you confidently and proactively share your statement with others? If you lack confidence or feel embarrassed, you’ve got more work to do.

*This challenge is inspired by the “Purpose Statement” section of the Personal Business Model Canvas, tool from “Business Model You” by Tim Clark, in collaboration with Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.

I’d like to empower young people to unleash their potential by guiding them in their first entrepreneurial journey.

Your goal is to decide on the problem in your local community you can best contribute to solving. In order to choose it, you have to discover which leaves are best nurtured by the roots - which challenges in your community you can best build solutions for, to make your desired reality come true. Your personal statement may lead you to solve challenges, but how do you know which ones? Map possible paths according to two factors: their potential impact and effort required to implement them. After this exercise, you’ll choose a challenge to get the most effective results. Draw a 2×2 matrix with the impact level increasing from bottom to top and the

effort level increasing from left to right. This creates a different impact-effort combination in each quadrant. High Impact, Low Effort: The best ideas go here! High Impact, High Effort: Further study is required. Low Impact, High Effort: Better avoid these. Low Impact, Low Effort: Further study is required.

Write it here:

________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________ ________________________

Write down on sticky notes the challenges that keep you on the track defined by your Purpose Statement. Then place ideas on the matrix. Now it’s time to commit to your GameChanger! You need to answer one more question: Which local challenge do you commit to solving, given your purpose statement and personal strengths?

*GameChanger is a challenge inspired and adapted from the Impact & Effort Matrix, presented in “Gamestorming” by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo. 50


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CREATIVE ISLANDS

LAND TWO | IDEA

INCU BATE

CHALLENGE 4. WORK IN TEAMS

Welcome to the Creative Islands

This land will help you build an idea and support it with a team. Now that you’ve been along the Road of Trials, it’s time for the Creative Islands. Each will bring you value through its challenges, which vary from forming a team to developing powerful business ideas. This will prepare you for Land 3, in which you’ll turn this idea into a real project. 4. Work in Teams - You’ll learn how to develop a team purpose statement and ground rules. 5. Exchange Feedback - You’ll learn the basics of using feedback as a team development tool in projects. 6. Generate Ideas - You’ll learn how to brainstorm and generate new project ideas. 7. Make Decisions - You’ll learn decision making techniques useful for choosing between business ideas. 8. Create your Business - You’ll learn how to create a business model around your ideas. 9. Exchange Feedback - You’ll learn more about using feedback as a team development tool in projects.

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CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Get your team together Step 2 - Get to know one another Step 3 - Create team purpose Step 4 - Create playground

YOU WILL NEED Four hours

Three to eight people

Learning journal A3 paper, sticky notes; pens; markers


THINK

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Team Worker You will learn how to develop a team purpose statement and ground rules.

Extra resources are available when you unlock the badge.

MAKE

Welcome to a new land! The Road of Trials helped you find your purpose. I’m sure that by now you have a better picture of the change you want to bring to your community. But are you ready to create it? The last land might have shown you that there are resources that you still need. Don’t worry, I have great news! Around you there are other people who want to work with you and are ready to embark on your game-changing journey. Your first challenge in this land is to gather them and define your common purpose.


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4. WORK IN TEAMS

4. WORK IN TEAMS

MENTORCARD

STEP 1. GET YOUR TEAM TOGETHER

Focus on

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Collaboration Why can well properly formed and managed teams achieve way better results than people working alone? Different people working together can bring their own visions, and open up opportunities for different ways of seeing and doing things. This can improve the final result of your work. If two people work well together, for example, the sum of their work should be better than their separate efforts combined. I like to say that in a strong team, one plus one equals three! Besides that, working together can make challenges less scary, since you have someone to share and help you get through it. Forming real teams and working efficiently isn’t as easy as you might think, though. We tend to believe that work flows naturally, but certain rules need to be applied if a team is to run smoothly. If differences and agreements aren’t respected, the work will tend to be disorganised and there will be friction between team members. Team building is a mix of art and science. My goal here isn’t making you an expert, but introducing you to the basics of team building and management, so you can get started on working together and learning from one another.


I’ll take you through the four main steps of team building, and our website also provides some external resources if you want to go deeper. In the third step of this challenge, you’ll use a tool called Affinity Mapping, detailed by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo in their book “Gamestorming”.

Useful advice

If you haven’t really worked in teams, it may be hard to see that collaborating with others is an extremely important skill. Mastering it can make a difference in both your professional and personal life.

Your goal is to gather the most suitable people for your team. This challenge is pretty clear. During the previous ones you mapped out who you know, right? Now is the time to actually reach your network and activate it. From the people you listed, who do you think would like to join you on this journey? Invite between three and eight. Any fewer would be less enriching, and any more might complicate teamwork.


Give them a call and invite them. Maybe their reason for joining you is different to what you thought, but at this point, anyone that’s interested is welcome! Getting people together can be hard, but I highly recommend that you do that now. It’s important and helpful to connect a group around an idea from the start. By doing this, you’ll make the challenges and your entrepreneurial journey more fun, valuable and enriching. Go for it!

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4. WORK IN TEAMS

4. WORK IN TEAMS

STEP 2. GET TO KNOW ONE ANOTHER

STEP 3. CREATE TEAM PURPOSE

Your goal is to get to know your teammates better. You’re probably now working with people you’re already familiar with, but don’t underestimate this part of the challenge. There’s always more to learn about one another! Here are four examples of “getting to know you” activities. Pick two, and do them with your team.

Life story in a minute

The surprise question

Your goal is to define a common goal with the team.

With paper and drawing materials, everyone in the team draws and tells their entire life story. You have fifteen minutes to draw and only one minute to present it. At the end, share what caught your attention about others’ stories.

Everyone writes on paper at least three questions they want to know about everyone on the team. Collect the papers in the middle of the room. Sit in a circle, and take turns to pick up questions. If you pick a question, you have to answer it.

Many organisations define themselves in terms of their vision, mission and values. This is because teams must agree on a shared identity that represents them all, and a common goal that ensures everyone is working towards the same purpose.

Stuck on a desert island The scenario: everyone is stranded on a desert island and can choose one item to bring with them. They should choose something that represents them and can help everyone else understand them better. After everyone shares what they brought and why, it’s time to work together. The next step is using the items together to survive. Even if the items weren’t essential for survival, join forces and make a plan to survive as a group. You can’t change the chosen items.

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Have you ever This is a classic! Hold up five fingers, and every time you’ve done something that your colleagues mentioned, put down a finger. When all five are down, tell everyone the most embarrassing story about yourself you can think of. The game ends when everyone has lost, and the last player has shared their embarrassing moment. Sharing is caring!

1. Get to the WHYs Give everyone a few sticky notes and ask them why they’re playing Y Incubate. Each person writes down all their reasons, one on each sticky note, without influencing others’ responses. Keep these simple – they might include things like making money, having fun, or learning about business.


2. Affinity Mapping* Everyone places their sticky notes on the wall. Next, arrange them into clusters of similar reasons. What motivations fit together? Can you create a main theme for this group?

3. Group Purpose Statement* Write a clear, inspiring and memorable purpose statement, one that connects the group members and makes sure everyone is working in the same direction. A simple way to do this is to fill in the following model: We would like to help THESE PEOPLE by carrying out THESE ACTIVITIES. You can always come back and adapt this, to keep it up to date with your development as a team.

*This challenge is inspired by Affinity Mapping, from the book Gamestorming, by authors Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo and by the “Purpose Statement” section of “Business Model You”, a book written by Tim Clark, in collaboration with Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur.

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4. WORK IN TEAMS

STEP 4. CREATE PLAYGROUND

Your goal is to create a playing field that helps your team focus on the goals you’ve set. Having a clear set of rules and agreements will help you to set boundaries and enhance your creativity and freedom. Imagine a game of football: what would happen if you put people on the field and told them to play with no rules, no time limit and no clear understanding of why they are there? They would just run around with no clue of what they were supposed to be doing. The playing field defines a set of rules and guidelines that everyone agrees to follow as long as you’re playing this game. Rules can be as simple, such as: “We’ll start playing at 9am: everyone needs to be on time” or “We’ll communicate through a chat group”.

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Now it’s your turn:

Membership

Look at your team purpose and discuss the rules and guidelines you need to follow in order to reach your goals.

What does it take to be a part of your team?

Time

Are you meeting at specific times? For how long? Is punctuality important?

Note these down and make the document available for everyone. It’s really important that they’re clearly defined, agreed upon and easily available in case of any misunderstandings. Use the template below and adapt it to your needs. Constantly update the document as you progress into the journey. Out-of-date rules and guidelines can do more harm than good.

Communication Are you using and unformation any means of management communication? Where are you recording what you produce? Roles

Who is doing what in your team?

...

...


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NOTES YOUR TEAM MEMBERS

CHALLENGE 5. EXCHANGE FEEDBACK CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Individual feedback Step 2 - 360º feedback Tips & Tricks - Giving feedback Learning journal


THINK

YOU WILL NEED

YOU WILL ACHIEVE


Beginner Feedback Exchanger You will learn the basics of using feedback as a team development tool in projects.

A4 paper, pens

No extra resources are available.

Two to six hours

MAKE

Now that you’ve embarked on this journey together, it’s time to invest some time and energy in helping everyone to rise to their full potential. Welcome to your first feedback round. Use this challenge wisely to grow individually and as a team, and work towards the better tomorrow you’re creating together.

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5. EXCHANGE FEEDBACK


MENTORCARD

STEP 1. INDIVIDUAL FEEDBACK

Focus on

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Giving and gaining feeback Feedback is an evaluation given to a person or group based on their previous actions and used as a basis for improvement. It is an effective way of giving constructive advice than can contribute to team members’ personal development and help them to align their expectations and set new goals. If used efficiently and periodically, it can tackle major issues early on, before people get too serious and emotional. Feedback can also be the main driver of personal growth within the team, serving as a mirror and helping people figure out what they need to focus on.


As a team, that decision needs to be taken together. Feedback should be incorporated and used constantly, and can be applied in two ways: One-on-one, ongoing feedback: every team member should feel able to approach others and give feedback as they wish, following certain guidelines. This type of feedback should be used constantly, provided the team agrees with it. It helps to create positive relationships in which people communicate effectively. 360-degree, prescheduled feedback: this involves the entire team, is important, and should happen at regular, predefined intervals, so that all team members can prepare and contribute to the improvement of others, appreciate what’s going well and focus on the future.

Useful advice

Feedback needs to be a part of your team culture, and to be given constantly. Giving and receiving it isn’t as easy as it may seem, but luckily I’ve prepared some guidelines.

Your goal is to exchange individual feedback with your teammates. This should be an ongoing process rather than happening at pre-set times. After you’ve had the opportunity of working closely with your teammates, pick your moment and give them some individual feedback. Remember, this should be positive as well as negative!


You can use the START - STOP - CONTINUE model to make it easier to formulate your feedback. »» What should they start doing? »» What should they stop doing? »» What should they continue doing?

Need inspiration? Check the Tips & Tricks cards on giving and receiving feedback — see pages 67 -68.

Remember to be open: explain your feedback in more detail if necessary.

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STEP 2. 360° FEEDBACK

TIPS & TRICKS. GIVING FEEDBACK

Your goal is to organise a collective feedback session with all your team members. Every team should have feedback sessions, where each member is evaluated by the group. Such moments reflect team’s health and improve its performance. Allow around four hours. It is important to take your time. Agree on a feedback format. You can use the START - STOP - CONTINUE model or adapt one based on your team’s needs. Ask everyone to prepare a document in advance containing: Self-evaluation. Reflections on your performance to share with the team. Feedback for all members. Use the agreed model to prepare individual feedback.

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General feedback for the team. Teams tend to develop certain behaviours, and these can be improved through feedback. On the 360º feedback day, use the following agenda: »» Go over the feedback principles with the entire team, to ensure the process is constructive. »» Pick a random order in which to give individual feedback. »» Start with the self-evaluation, giving members a chance to say how they see their own work. »» Obtain individual feedback from all team members. »» Allow a short time for questions. Do you understand the feedback and why it’s important to the person who gave it? If not, ask for clarification. »» Repeat until all members receive feedback.

»» Reflection. Review the positive and negative points to make the feedback better for the next round.

• Keep the goal in mind and be constructive. Feedback can become emotional and it’s easy to lose track of the main goal. The aim is not simply to externalize frustrations, but to provide valuable, constructive advice on how others can improve their performance and behaviour. • Be honest. It’s easy to cushion feedback and hide feelings, for fear of hurting others. What actually happens most of the time is that the feedback not given hurts the most. • Focus on the action, not on the person. Say “When you were late for three meetings in a row, it made me think you were uninterested in working together,” not “You’re not interested in being a part of this team.” This can avoid defensive behaviour and protect personal relationships.


• Be precise and objective. Give real examples and concrete ways in which the recipient can improve. If they don’t understand, use clear examples. • Speak your feelings, don’t accuse. “When you do X, I feel Y” is a nice model to follow, because it creates valuable dialogue. This makes the recipient think about how their behaviour affects others, and focus on improving that. • Feedback is not necessarily negative. An important part of it is praising people and focusing attention onto positive behaviour and results. A good way of ensuring this is not forgotten is to start with the positive feedback. • Pick your moments and protect your team. Not all feedback needs to be given in front of everyone. It may be better to do this privately.

• Don’t wait for things to escalate. If you feel that a team member can improve their performance or you’re dissatisfied with their behaviour, it’s important to address it as soon as possible. Waiting a long time may make the feedback more emotional and create unnecessary tension. *Some of these principles are developed by Justin Rosenstein in his blog post “Blunt, Effective feedback in three stories” (www.blog.asana.com)

TIPS & TRICKS 67

5. EXCHANGE FEEDBACK TIPS & TRICKS. RECEIVING FEEDBACK • Be proactive in seeking feedback from those you work with. It shows that you value their opinion and are focused on improving your performance. • Be open to others’ feedback. It’s never easy to listen to criticism, but remember: its purpose is to improve the team, not to offend you. • Ask questions. If you don’t understand the feedback, ask the person to elaborate.

TIPS & TRICKS 68

• Feedback is a gift, and you can do what you want with it. Use it an opportunity to improve yourself. You’ll often receive feedback you don’t agree with, but don’t take it badly. If you disagree, it’s OK to tell your teammates and let it go, as long as you’re open to hearing about it again later on. • Take notes. It’s easy to get lost with feedback, especially if it’s in a group. If you have a written record, you can get back to it later on.

These are some basic principles to keep feedback constructive and use it as a valuable team and personal development tool. Go through them with your team, and write down any others that you feel should be added to the list. Use this card every time you give feedback.


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NOTES AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT

CHALLENGE 6. GENERATE IDEAS CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Warm up Step 2 - Brainstorm Step 3 - Conclude

One hour


Learning journal

A3 paper, sticky notes, pens, markers, finalised Future Tree


THINK

YOU WILL NEED

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Idea Generator You will learn how to brainstorm and generate new project ideas.


MAKE

There’s nothing more exciting in business than transforming skills, dreams and experiences into ideas. So it’s time to start searching for possible projects. Don’t stop until you have ten ideas that are worth trying.

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6. GENERATE IDEAS

6. GENERATE IDEAS

MENTORCARD

STEP 1. WARM-UP

Focus on


Useful advice

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Brainstorming Brainstorming is a technique to stimulate the creation of a large number of ideas, as fast as possible. It is usually done in groups and led by a moderator, who is responsible for putting the participants at ease and encouraging creativity without allowing the group to lose its focus.

Your goal is to warm up for a brainstorming session. In order to generate valuable solutions, begin with creativity-boosting activities.

Not everyone knows the right way to brainstorm. It’s all about creativity and freedom, forgetting about reality and barriers, coming up with as many ideas as possible without worrying whether they’re good or bad. The process of deciding whether to pursue them takes place separately, after the brainstorming is complete. In this challenge, you’ll look at your motivation tree, already pruned and with all elements in place, and brainstorm ideas (hopefully business related) to make it a reality.

Three things Divide the team into pairs, each person facing the other. In each pair, one person asks the other: “Name three things that…” followed by the first thing that comes into their mind. The other comes up with three answers as quickly as possible. Switch roles and repeat at least ten times during a five-minute period.

For example, if I say: “Name three things that are yellow,” you have to tell me the first yellow things that come to mind, without overthinking and worrying about right or wrong answers. Just respond as fast as you can!

This technique has many benefits, both on the team and project levels. It helps break through barriers in thinking, and may bring unexpected and valuable results. It also creates team ownership by making everyone contribute.


Object jam Bring a random object into the brainstorm and give the team five minutes to come up with alternative uses for it, perhaps if it were bigger or smaller.

Round table story Say the first sentence of a story, then ask each team member to continue it one sentence at a time. This should last a maximum of ten minutes.

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6. GENERATE IDEAS

6. GENERATE IDEAS

STEP 2. BRAINSTORM

STEP 3. CONCLUDE

Your goal is to generate as many solutions as possible for the problem you want to solve. In order to start brainstorming, you need a guiding question. A good example would be: “How is the team going to realize this specific objective?” Focus on practical ideas at this stage. Spend sixty minutes coming up with ideas that answer this question, and make sure someone writes them down. Avoid discussing them, and aim to have around a hundred ideas by the end of the session. Your brainstorming session should be guided by the following principles. Write these down, and put them up somewhere visible.

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1. Quality through quantity The quality and effectiveness of the ideas partly depends on their quantity. The more you generate, the greater the chance of coming up with good ones. 2. Refrain from judging ideas Criticism should not hinder the creative process and the generation of bold ideas. Focus on producing and developing them, and leave the evaluation until later.

4. Combining and develop ideas Brainstorming should be a 100 percent collaborative process. Any member of the team can combine, adapt and transform ideas, and split them into many others.

1. Cross out the ideas you don’t like: those that you all find unfeasible or require too many resources to do. 2. Choose a maximum of ten that seem to have real potential.

I suggest you continue straight to the Make Decisions challenge, where I’ll guide you towards picking the idea you’ll work on with your team for the rest of your Y Incubate journey.

3. Be bold New ideas and perspectives lead to innovative solutions, so embrace them without letting criticism break the flow.


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NOTES IDEAS SHORTLIST

CHALLENGE 7. MAKE DECISIONS CHALLENGE STRUCTURE

YOU WILL NEED

Step 1 - How-Now-Wow matrix Step 2 - Prioritise business ideas Step 3 - Decision-making techniques


Learning journal

A3 paper; yellow, green and blue sticky notes; coloured markers


THINK

One and half hours

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Decision Maker You will learn decision making techniques useful for choosing between business ideas. No extra resources are available.

MAKE

Now I feel pretty guilty. There you are, with ten cool business ideas on the table. They probably all have the potential to solve an issue in your community, and fit the resources you have at your disposal. But which one will you fall in love with? Find out by taking this new challenge.

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7. MAKE DECISIONS

7. MAKE DECISIONS

MENTORCARD

STEP 1. HOW-NOW-WOW MATRIX*

Focus on

Choosing the right ideas Choosing business ideas to develop can be tricky! A few things to take into consideration: Can you actually make this idea come true? Do you have enough resources? Are people willing to pay for this idea? How large is the market? What about competition? Are there any other businesses solving this problem? What will be unique about your solution? These are only a few of the questions you’ll have to answer as an entrepreneur, and you’ll have to do plenty of research in order to succeed. Like I said, it’s a long and tough road ahead.


This challenge will give you room to experiment and make things easier. You’ll prioritize your ideas using a simple framework, and then I’ll introduce some decision-making techniques that you can use to come up with one final idea. In this challenge, you’ll use four tools: the How-Now-Wow Matrix, the Impact & Effort Matrix, Dot Voting, and the $100 test, described by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo in their book “Gamestorming”.

Your goal is to rank your ideas in order of feasibility and originality. During the last challenge you listed a maximum of ten interesting and potentially successful ideas. Now it’s time to rank them and take a decision.

HOW - Yellow ideas: those that are a breakthrough in terms of impact, but impossible to implement right now given your current resources.

WOW - Green ideas: those that have the potential for orbit-shifting change and that you can implement given your resources. The How-Now-Wow matrix is a tool used by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo in their book “Gamestorming”.

The How-Now-Wow matrix is a selection tool in which a group weighs up each idea based on two parameters. Draw a 2-by-2 matrix like the one on the right. The horizontal axis represents the originality of the idea; the vertical one how easy it is to implement. Label the quadrants as follows: NOW - Blue ideas: easy-to-implement ideas that solve problems and result in incremental benefits.

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7. MAKE DECISIONS

7. MAKE DECISIONS

STEP 2. PRIORITISE BUSINESS IDEAS

STEP 3. DECISION MAKING TECHNIQUES

Your goal is to choose what business idea you’ll build, using the Dot Voting method. Here’s what you have to do: 1. List the ideas you shortlisted during the previous phase on large pieces of paper stuck around the room. 2. Give each player three blue, three yellow and three green sticky notes, or three marker pens, one of each colour. 3. Ask each player to stand up and vote for the three best ideas in each category, by placing a sticky note under each idea they choose, or by making a mark with the coloured pens. Remember, blue means Now, yellow is How, and green is Wow. 4. Finally count the number of notes under each idea to categorize it. The highest number of notes of a certain

colour categorises the idea under that colour. 5. In case of a tie: - If the number of blue notes is the same as the number of green ones, the idea is blue - If the yellow and green notes are equal, the idea is green 6. Place your ideas in the matrix according to their colour. 7. You now have a bucket of Wow, green ideas to work on further. If you don’t have any ideas in this quadrant, focus on the blue Now ones.

Your goal is to use decision making techniques to find the most suitable idea and reach agreement with all team members. You can also apply these to other decisions that you need to make as a group.

Dot voting The same technique explained in Step 2. Give each team member a number of sticky notes or dot votes, and ask them to distribute these between the potential choices. The highest number of votes wins, as simple as that! 100$ test* Put all of your ideas in a matrix with a space for a potential investment in each one. Give each team member a hypothetical $100 to invest as they prefer – either everything into one idea or divided between more than one. Get them to write down why they made this decision, since it can be great input for decision making. After doing this individually, share your investments with the group, see which idea has the most money and go for it!

If you only have one idea in this quadrant, your choice is already made. Otherwise, let’s move on to decision-making techniques.

Impact & Effort Matrix* Create a matrix with two axes: Impact (the potential payoff of the action) and Effort (the cost of taking it). Place your idea in the matrix according to the impact and effort involved. This is a good way to see if your effort is worth it, and make a decision accordingly. Build your own criteria! This is difficult, but it can be the most effective decision making technique. Pick a set of criteria that your team would take into account when making this decision. Is money an issue? Is time? Are you more focused on learning, maybe? What about fun? All you need to do is agree on a set of criteria and start your own matrix to achieve clarity and make your decision.

*The $100 Test and Impact and Effort Matrix are tools used by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo in their book “Gamestorming”. 80


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NOTES CHOSEN IDEAS

CHALLENGE 8. CREATE YOUR BUSINESS CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Your business model Tips & Tricks - Business Model Canvas

Sticky notes, marker, Business Model Canvas

SKILLS TO DEVELOP THINK

Two hours


Learning journal

FEEL

YOU WILL NEED

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Business Creator You will learn how to create a Business Model around your ideas.


MAKE

First and foremost, congratulations! You now have an entrepreneurial project idea. This is an important step for your team as it opens a new world of possibilities. Because I’m sure that a map would be more than useful at this point, I challenge you to create it for yourself. That’s why your new challenge is to create a Business Model Canvas for your project. Are you curious about what that is? Let’s find out!

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8. CREATE YOUR BUSINESS

8. CREATE YOUR BUSINESS

MENTORCARD

STEP 1. YOUR BUSINESS MODEL*

Focus on

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Business Model A business model describes how an organisation creates, delivers and captures value. In other words, it shows the major components of a business or project, how they interact to deliver good things to clients, and how it makes money in the end. A business model is not like a business plan. A business plan may be sixty pages or more, filled with assumptions about every aspect of your future business: marketing, sales, production, human resources, organisation. The problem with business plans is that they’re often static and unvalidated, which means they can be completely wrong. This happens because it’s extremely hard to predict what will happen when you actually launch your business.


For this challenge, you’ll use the Business Model Canvas, created by Alex Osterwalder. If you want to dig deeper and understand this great tool, used by millions of entrepreneurs, I recommend that you read his book Business Model Generation. You can also find a lot of information on the website of Strategyzer, the company that developed and published the book and the canvas. There are links both to the tools and the Strategyzer website in your extra resources.

Useful advice

A business model, unlike a business plan, shows how the major components of your business interact. It’s also very dynamic, so if you change one component of the business (for example your clients) you can see how the entire organisation changes. That’s why business models are a better choice when you want to launch a venture: most of your initial assumptions of how it will work will be wrong. Everything changes when your ideas are tested in real markets, with real clients and real money.

Your goal is to create a business model. You’re going to use Alex Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas,* a chart with nine blocks representing the fundamental aspects of a business. You can download it from the official website www.businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas/bmc, or draw it on a piece of flipchart paper. Complete each of the blocks in this order: 1. Customer Segments 2. Value Proposition 3. Channels 4. Customer Relationships 5. Revenue Streams 6. Key Resources 7. Key Activities 8. Key Partnerships 9. Cost Structure This will be your first business model canvas. I recommend that you create more than one because, as I said, most initial business models are not very accurate. You won’t know how people react to your product or service until you’ve launched it. www.plaYincubate.com

*Business Model Canvas is a tool created by Alex Osterwalder showcased in the book “Business Model Generation”

For extra guidance, check the Tips & Tricks card on page 86 and the Strategyzer website.

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8. CREATE YOUR BUSINESS TIPS & TRICKS. BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS • When thinking about your clients, be as specific as possible. Create personas: potentially real people who are in your target audience. Write down their names and build your entire customer profile around them. Think what a day in their lives looks like. • Create more than one draft. Use this canvas as a brainstorming tool. Create ten different versions of the same business idea. • Use the guidelines in the canvas to generate different options. Ask yourself “what if” questions and see how

TIPS & TRICKS 86

the answers affect your entire business model. “What if we try to generate revenues from renting something? What if we establish co-creation relationships with our clients?”

• For more inspiration, get “Business Model Generation” by Alex Osterwalder on BusinessModelGeneration.com, and watch Steve Blank’s course “How to Build a Startup” on Udacity.com.

• When you complete the first version of your canvas, go out and interview people who fit your customer profile. Try to understand if their needs fit your assumptions and your idea solves their requirements. Keep the canvas as a guideline. Modify it after you speak with at least five potential clients.


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NOTES BUSINESS MODEL

CHALLENGE 9. EXCHANGE FEEDBACK CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Individual feedback Step 2 - 360º feedback Tips & Tricks - Giving feedback Learning journal


THINK

YOU WILL NEED

YOU WILL ACHIEVE


Intermediate Feedback Exchanger You will learn the basics of using feedback as a team development tool in projects.

A4 paper, pens


Two to six hours

MAKE

Do you remember when I first asked you to invest time and energy in helping everyone in the team to rise to their fullest potential? Now that you’ve taken some serious steps forward together, it’s time for your second feedback round. Use this challenge wisely, to grow individually and as a team and improve your entrepreneurial project.

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89



MENTORCARD


Focus on


Useful advice 90

Giving and gaining feeback Feedback is an evaluation given to a person or group based on their previous actions and used as a basis for improvement. It is an effective way of giving constructive advice than can contribute to team members’ personal development and help them to align their expectations and set new goals. If used efficiently and periodically, it can tackle major issues early on, before people get too serious and emotional. Feedback can also be the main driver of personal growth within the team, serving as a mirror and helping people figure out what they need to focus on. As a team, that decision needs to be taken together. Feedback should be incorporated and used constantly, and can be applied in two ways: One-on-one, ongoing feedback: every team member should feel able to approach others and give feedback as they wish, following certain guidelines. This type of feedback should be used constantly, provided the team agrees with it. It helps to create positive relationships in which people communicate effectively. 360-degree, prescheduled feedback: this involves the entire team, is important, and should happen at regular, predefined intervals, so that all team members can prepare and contribute to the improvement of others, appreciate what’s going well and focus on the future.

Your goal is to exchange individual feedback with your teammates. This should happen constantly. There are no predefined moments: this challenge should be seen as an ongoing process. After you’ve had the opportunity of working closely with the others, pick your moment and give them some individual feedback. Remember, this should be positive as well as negative.

»» What should they start doing? »» What should they stop doing? »» What should they continue doing? Remember to be open: explain your feedback in more detail if necessary. Do you need inspiration? Check the Tips & Tricks cards on giving and receiving feedback — see pages 55-56.

You can use the START - STOP CONTINUE model to make it easier to formulate your feedback.



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TRIPS & TRICKS. GIVING FEEDBACK

Your goal is to organise a collective feedback session with all your team members. Every team should have feedback sessions, where each member is evaluated by the group. This reflect team’s health and improve its performance. Allow around four hours. It is important to take enough time. Agree on a feedback format. You can use the START - STOP - CONTINUE model or adapt one based on your team’s needs. Ask everyone to prepare a document in advance containing: Self-evaluation. Reflections on your performance to share with the team. Feedback for all members. Use the agreed models and prepare individual feedback for each member. General feedback for the team. Write down any feedback for the entire team.

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Teams tend to develop certain behaviours and these can be improved through feedback. On the 360º feedback day, follow this agenda: »» Go over the principles with the entire team, to ensure the process is constructive. »» Pick a random order to give individual feedback to team members. »» Start with the self-evaluation, giving the members a chance to expose their version of their own work. »» Individual feedback from all members. »» Allow a shot time for questions. Do you understand the feedback and why it’s important to the person who gave it? If not, ask for clarification. »» Repeat until all team members receive feedback. »» Reflection. Review the positive and

negative points of the process. The goal is to make it better the next time round.





TIPS & TRICKS 93

NOTES BEST FEEDBACK

9. EXCHANGE FEEDBACK TIPS & TRICKS. RECEIVING FEEDBACK • Be proactive in seeking feedback from those you work with. It shows that you value their opinion and are focused on improving your performance. • Be open to others’ feedback. It’s never easy to listen to criticism, but remember: its purpose is to improve the team, not to offend you. • Ask questions. If you don’t understand the feedback, ask the person to elaborate.

TIPS & TRICKS 94




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DIVINE KNOWLEDGE

LAND THREE | PROJECT

CHALLENGE 10. DESIGN VALUE

Welcome to the Land of Divine Knowledge

This land will help you to develop your idea into a project, and to prototype and test it. All the creative work you put in Land two will become a reality now. You’ll go deeper into the Business Model Canvas, creating value with your idea, by making sure it solves a real problem. 10. Design value - You’ll learn how to design a value proposition that best serves customers’ needs. 11. Plan your project - You’ll learn to develop an executable action plan and a timeline, and to assign responsibilities. 12. Build resilience - You’ll learn how to take risks and to use failure as a learning opportunity. 13. Prototype your idea - You’ll learn how to validate your idea by building and testing a prototype. 14. Exchange feedback - You’ll learn to master feedback as a team development tool in projects.

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CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Value proposition Step 2 - Customer discovery Step 3 - Value map and fit Step 4 - Your value proposition Tips & Tricks - Interviewing Learning journal

THINK

Three to eight hours

Three to eight people Sticky notes, pens, Value Proposition Canvas


YOU WILL NEED

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Value Designer You will learn how to design a value proposition that best serves customers’ needs. Extra resources are available when you unlock the badge.

MAKE

Before you start building your entrepreneurial project, you have two steps left. The first, covered by this challenge, is defining what value your project offers to people in your community. This is a really important question for a value creator, and I trust that you’ll do your best in investigating the answer. I imagine you have a lot of assumptions regarding the value you create, but now it’s time to validate them with the help of your community.


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10. DESIGN VALUE

10. DESIGN VALUE

MENTORCARD

STEP 1. VALUE PROPOSITION CANVAS AND CUSTOMER PROFILE*

Focus on


Value proposition design “Value Proposition Design” is a book by Alex Osterwalder and his partners at Strategyzer, who also created the Business Model Generation and Business Model Canvas. These two tools should be used together to create value for your business and your customers.

Using them, you’ll further explore the Customer Segment and Value Proposition sections of the Business Model Canvas, with one main goal: achieving product-market fit by understanding your customer profile and value map. I highly recommend Osterwalder’s book, which contains a lot of useful information and guides you through the entire process. As usual, I’ll try to keep it simple.

Your goal is to get acquainted with the Value Proposition Canvas and draw your first customer profile. 1. Download the Value Proposition Canvas from the official website businessmodelgeneration.com/ canvas/vpc and print it in a format large enough to work on with it in a group, using sticky notes. Otherwise, draw it yourself on a big piece of paper. 2. Fill in the Customer Profile, the right-hand part of the canvas, based on assumptions. Dig deeper into what you drafted in the Customer Segment section of your Business Model Canvas. To complete this section, you should exercise empathy and put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Customer Jobs describes what customers are trying to get done in their work and lives, expressed in their own words. Pains describes outcomes, risks and obstacles related to the customer jobs. Gains describes the specific outcomes customers want to achieve.

You can find more guidance on filling in your canvas on the Strategyzer website. *Value Proposition Canvas is a tool developed by Alex Osterwalder in his book “Value Proposition Design”.

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10. DESIGN VALUE

10. DESIGN VALUE

STEP 2. CUSTOMER DISCOVERY AND PROFILE VALIDATION*

TIPS & TRICKS. INTERVIEWING

Your goal is to meet your potential customers, and collect insights about them to enrich your customer profile and validate your initial assumptions. Here are two exercises you can do to complete the profile. The main difference between observing and interviewing is that observation shows you objective reality and not the customers’ perception.

1. Interview your customers:

2. Observe your customer’s world:

Look at your assumptions and write down aspects of your customer profile you need to validate. List any doubts you have about the profile. Include everything you want to learn about the customer and create an interview format with specific questions.

Shadow your customers for a day, and note down in detail everything that is relevant to your profile. Write down times, activities, pains and gains you observe and insights that come up.

Interview five to ten people in your customer segment. If you need inspiration, check the Tips & Tricks card on interview guidelines — see page 103.

Put all this information in your profile. Use affinity mapping to find connections and patterns in what you’ve observed, and use sticky notes to represent your customers.

While interviewing, it’s important to keep certain guidelines in mind:

it. Remember this is not the focus. You should listen much more than you talk.

• Adopt a beginner’s mind. Listen to the answers of your potential customers with a fresh perspective, adapting your interview and exploring aspects you didn’t expect to come up.

• Don’t explain your solution too early. This can distract your interviewee and generate fake positive answers, since they can already imagine what you are trying to build.

• Get facts, not opinions. Always ask for confirmation and concrete examples of when or where they have done what they tell you.

• Follow up. Always exchange contact information and ask if you can get in touch if you have any further questions. Believe me, you will!

• Ask “why” to get real motivations. When you ask why to get better understanding of their motivations.

• Always open doors at the end. Ask people if they know anyone else you should talk to. This is the easiest way to connect with relevant interviewees.

• Don’t sell, learn. Avoid the temptation to talk about your solution and persuade your potential customer to buy

*Value Proposition Canvas is a tool developed by Alex Osterwalder in his book “Value Proposition Design”. 102


*The Interviewing Guidelines are adapted from Alex Osterwalder’s book “Value Proposition Design”.

TIPS & TRICKS 103

10. DESIGN VALUE

10. DESIGN VALUE

STEP 3. VALUE MAP AND FIT*

STEP 4. YOUR VALUE PROPOSITION*

Your goal is to define your idea in the Value Map on the left-hand side of the canvas and ensure it fits with customers’ needs. 1. Design your value map Products and Services should be a list of what your value proposition is built around. Pain Relievers describe how your products and services help with customer pains. Gain Creators details how they create customer gains.

• Problem-solution fit: when you gather evidences of your customer segment’s jobs, pains and gains and design products or services to address them. • Product-market fit: when your customer segment gets excited about your value proposition and buys your product or service, bringing traction to your business. • Business model fit: when you can create a functional, profitable and scalable business model around your value proposition.

For this exercise, you will focus on Problem-solution fit.

Your goal is to define and sketch your value proposition.

Compare your value map with the integrated customer profile you’ve built, and look for connections. Ideally, the map will have sticky notes that address important and specific customer pains and gains, helping them to get jobs done.

Congratulations, you’re almost done! Now it’s time to write down your value proposition in a clear way. This exercise will help you explain what you ‘re building and make sure you’re aligned with the team.

Register your fit with checkmarks on the sticky notes.

Fill in the following model and adapt it to your needs. This will be your project explanation!

2. Look for fit Fit happens when your value proposition addresses your customers’ real pains and gains. As a result, they will be motivated and excited by your product or service and hopefully persuaded to buy it. There are three levels of fit to take into account:

Our _______________________________________________ (products and services)

help(s) _______________________________________________ (customer segment)

who want to ______________________________________________ (jobs to be done)

by _____________________________________________________ (addressing pains)

and _____________________________________________________ (enabling gains). *This challenge is inspired by the Purpose Statement section of the Personal Business Model Canvas, a tool from “Business Model You”, written by Tim Clark in collaboration with Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. It is also based on the Value Proposition Ad Libs tool developed by Alex Osterwalder in his book Value Proposition Design.

*The Value Proposition Canvas is a tool developed by Alex Osterwalder in his book “Value Proposition Design”. 104


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NOTES WHAT’S THE VALUE YOU CREATE?

CHALLENGE 11. PLAN YOUR PROJECT CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Gameplan Tips & Tricks - Business functions

A3 paper, sticky notes, markers


Two hours


Learning journal

FEEL

YOU WILL NEED

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Project Planner; You will learn to develop an executable action plan, a timeline and to assign responsibilities. Extra resources are available when you unlock the badge.

MAKE

Has anyone ever told you that failing to plan is planning to fail? Well, because I really think so, I have a new challenge for you. The last step before launching your entrepreneurial project is planning. Because dealing with a project can get really tough if you don’t reflect upon questions like “what”, “when”, “who” before jumping into action, I wish you good luck in finding the best answers.

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11. PLAN YOUR PROJECT

11. PLAN YOUR PROJECT

MENTORCARD

STEP 1. GAMEPLAN*

Focus on

Planning Completing a GamePlan as a group has two major benefits: The first is that it breaks big projects into manageable chunks, which encourages team members to take responsibility for parts of the project. The second is that it raises the quality of the project, making it less likely that important steps are left out and more likely that the project is approached thoughtfully and strategically.


Throughout this challenge, you should define the action you’ll take to create value for your business and your customers. This deserves special attention, as it will show you how to get where you want to go. The gameplan is based on the Graphic Gameplan presented in “Gamestorming”, by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo.

Useful advice

Plenty of us are visionaries, idea generators, or, at the very least, suggestion makers. But ideas never become real without a plan. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Well done is better than well said.” Following up on a big idea with an executable action plan is one of the huge differences between good teams and outstanding ones.

Your goal is to complete a plan for your project. 1. Organise a meeting with all your team members. 2. Beforehand, ask each member to think of all the actions that will be required to create the value you have defined for your customers, in your value proposition.

3. Draw a picture similar to the following on a wide sheet of paper. Display it on a wall and tell team members that the goal of the meeting is to reach agreement concerning specific tasks, required to create value for your customers. 4. Write the tasks to be discussed in the first column. While defining the projects, check the Tips & Tricks card on page 110 to be sure you don’t miss any important elements.

5. Go through every project and agree on the action required to accomplish it, recording this on sticky notes. 6. Based on the projects and action you have listed, agree a timeline and write the milestones in days, weeks, or months along the top row. 7. Assign responsibility for projects and actions to individual team members. 8. As you post the sticky notes, ask yourselves challenging questions about your plan: Does this have to happen first? Can we combine these two actions? Do actions in one project affect the progress or outcome of another?

*The GamePlan is based on the “Graphic Gameplan” presented in “Gamestorming”, by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo. 108


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11. PLAN YOUR PROJECT TIPS & TRICKS. BUSINESS FUNCTIONS 1. Operations Operations transform resources or information into desired goods, services or results, and create and deliver value to customers. They can be divided into four categories: a. Production - combining various tangible and intangibleresources to create a product. b. Inspection - determining that the quality and quantity of the product are correct. c. Transport - moving goods from one place to another. d. Storage - kepping goods or materials in appropriate conditions until they are ready for use.

TIPS & TRICKS 110

2. Marketing Marketing creates, communicates, delivers and exchanges content that’s valuable for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. Some marketing is strategic, concerned with the choice of markets and how to compete in them; other marketing is operational, including such things as promotions, catalogues, brochures, and advertisements. 3. Sales Sales involves selling your product to new and existing customers. A salesperson may be more of a “farmer”, developing long-term customer relationships, or a “hunter”, bringing in and closing deals.

4. Team Management This ensures that the right people are doing the right jobs. It involves teamwork, communication, objective goal setting, and performance evaluations. 5. Finance and administration These are necessary in ensuring a reliable flow of information and maintaining control and accountability concerning the project. Accounting records day-to-day financial transactions relating to purchases, sales, expenses and income.


111

NOTES PROJECT PLANNING

CHALLENGE 12. BUILD RESILIENCE CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Warm up your Resilience

A4 paper, pens, digital camera


Two hours


Learning journal

FEEL

YOU WILL NEED

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Resilience Builder You will learn how to take risks and to use failure as a learning opportunity.


MAKE

Now that you have a clear entrepreneurial project idea and a plan, it’s time to jump into action! This is the supreme test, and requires a lot of strength, patience and endurance in the face of potential failure. It demands resilience, so we’ll start with a warmup to prepare you for this bumpy ride.

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12. BUILD RESILIENCE

12. BUILD RESILIENCE

MENTORCARD

STEP 1. WARM UP YOUR RESILIENCE

Focus on

Resilience How do successful business leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs bounce back from uncertainty and start businesses under challenging circumstances? Aren’t they afraid of failure or rejection when they take risks? You’ve probably wondered why some people seem to succeed no matter how much adversity they encounter along the way. Psychologists have investigated the personality traits that help these people achieve the most in their personal and professional lives. One of the most important is resilience. This conclusion is also valid for aspiring entrepreneurs, and I have good news for you. Like everything else on this journey, resilience can be developed.


Your next challenge is to build resilience in the best way possible - by confronting your fears. In taking risks and getting out of your comfort zone, you’ll learn how to embrace and accept failure. After completing this challenge, you’ll be able to fail early and often, but most importantly to see failure as a learning opportunity. The challenge ahead has been carried out all over the world, with often radical results. The activity was developed by the Transformative Action Institute.

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Your goal is to overcome your fears and build resilience. 1. Go outside! Go out with your team to a busy location. If you’re more than four people, split into smaller groups. 2. Fail! Collect as many failures as you can in thirty minutes. Be creative, and find ones where there’s a real risk of rejection.You can interpret these instructions in any way. Just can’t do anything that is • Illegal, sexual, or culturally offensive • Harmful or dangerous to yourselves or others, or that harasses others. For example: ask a stranger to exchange sweaters with you, sing the national anthem, give you money for charity, or buy you an ice cream.


Count how many times you fail, and how many times you succeed. Take photos or videos of some of your attempts, so you can share your experience with others.

5. Bonus! If you feel good about warming up your resilience, you can find a more challenging task in the extra resources. Fill in your learning journal.

3. Share If you worked in more than one group, share the results and announce the winning group - the one with the most failures.

*This step is based on the Resilience Builder, a tool developed by the Transformative Action Institute and used with young people by the Slovenian entrepreneurship organisation Ustvarjalnik.

4. Discuss Answer this simple question: what was the most epic fail you encountered? Continue with the following: • What did it feel like to fail again and again? • Did the fear of rejection go away after the first few times? • Did you get more comfortable with failure? • Did you start to grow more bold, resilient and self-confident? 115

NOTES LIST OF FAILURES

CHALLENGE 13. PROTOTYPE YOUR IDEA CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Define Step 2 - Execute, test and learn Tips & Trick - Testing questions

Sticky notes, pens, markers, sticky tape, complete Business Model Canvas


One day to one week


Learning journal

FEEL

YOU WILL NEED

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Idea Prototyper You will learn how to validate your idea by building and testing a prototype.


MAKE

Are you warmed-up? You’d better be, because now it’s time to get real and test your project idea. Will it work? Will it fail the first test? What will you need to change so that the value you create satisfies the needs of your community? Answering these questions requires a lot of external testing and internal tweaking, and this is exactly what’s waiting for you in this challenge.

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117

13. PROTOTYPE YOUR IDEA


MENTORCARD

STEP 1. DEFINE*

Focus on


Prototyping Low-fidelity prototyping is useful in detecting and fixing major problems at an early stage, and obtaining feedback that focuses on the product’s hidden assumptions and core value, rather than on how it looks. That way, it will be easier for you to change your product, because you haven’t had time to fall in love with it and will be more willing to integrate user feedback. In this challenge, you’ll build a low-fidelity prototype, defined as an inexpensive, quick and not very good-looking representation of your idea. The main reason for this is to learn as fast as possible from your customers whether your idea is worth pursuing or not. Low-fidelity prototyping is used by designers and entrepreneurs all over the world. This challenge is based on a tool developed by Laura Busche in her article The Skeptic’s Guide To Low-Fidelity Prototyping in smashingmagazine.com. For the purpose of this challenge, parts of the original content have been modified.

Your aim is to prototype your idea by defining a scope and method to approach potential users. 1. Define your scope: What will you show in your prototype? Which main features do you want to expose your users to? List two to three core functionalities that you’ll include in the prototype. Use a simple table like the one below to list your features: Core features

Useful advice

118

Try to follow these four principles: LITTLE TIME | First of all, it should take you a maximum of one hour to build your prototype. NOT VERY PRETTY | Don’t spend time worrying about the looks of your product. Invest your time wisely in talking to potential customers, not in making it beautiful. KEEP IT CHEAP | Use materials you can find easily. LISTEN, DON’T SELL | Most importantly, throughout this challenge, always remember that the goal is improving your idea by aligning it with your customers’ needs, not selling it to them. www.plaYincubate.com

Complementary features

2. Define the method: How will you show your prototype? What can you build quickly that would help your users to deliver valuable feedback? How could you display and test the concept, investing the least amount of resources? To find the simplest method possible, keep asking: ”Is there a simpler way to show this?” The level of detail that’s right for your prototype will depend on a few factors: • What type of users will be exposed to it? • Will they be able to deliver insightful feedback based on the model that you are presenting? • Do they need to see a certain level of detail to understand the concept? • What resources are accessible to you?

• With low-fidelity prototyping, agility is crucial: be resourceful and find clever ways to use what you have. Think about it in this way:

*This challenge is based on a tool developed by Laura Busche in her article “The Skeptic’s Guide To Low-Fidelity Prototyping” at smashingmagazine. com. 119



STEP 2. EXECUTE, TEST AND LEARN*

TIPS & TRICKS. TESTING QUESTIONS

Your goal is to create your prototype and test it on potential users.

2. Test: How will you evaluate the prototype you are showing?

1. Execute: How will you build it?

Avoid explaining the limitations of your prototype. Make sure users understand the aims of the project, and ask questions or prepare a short guide before you present it. List a few of the questions that you’d like to be answered during the session.

Low-fidelity prototyping is about not how sophisticated your model looks, but the insights it generates. a) If you’re prototyping a physical product, spend no more than one hour building the simplest version of it, using easily found materials such as paper, sticky notes, and tape. You want to show people what your product could look like, so it doesn’t have to work! You’ll be there to tell them how it functions. b) If you’re prototyping a service, find the easiest way to test whether people need or want it. For example, if you want to create an education programme dedicated to helping young people find their passions, start helping one person to do so. 120

If you need inspiration, you’ll find suggestions on the Tips & Tricks card see page 121. 3. Learn: You’ve shown your prototype. Now what?

From here, your next step is to build a high-fidelity prototype that reflects the product’s look and feel in greater. Test it again and again! This challenge should be seen as part of a cycle. You should always prototype, test and learn from your users and improve your product.

These are some of the questions you will want to ask:

Regarding perceived benefits “What, in your opinion, is the key benefit offered by this product concept?” “From the features you’ve seen today, which ones would make you use it?” “Which features doesn’t it have, but would make you want to use it?” Regarding positive and negative reactions “On a scale from one to five, how much do you like this concept?” “Why?”

Collect your users’ feedback and build an affinity map to find similarities in their evaluations of the concept. Incorporate their feedback and move on.


Regarding awareness “Having looked at this concept today, what do you remember most about it?” “What do you recall about the prototype features?” Regarding comparative advantage If you showed users two or more versions of a concept, ask which works best. “Which of these options appeals to you the most? Why?”

Regarding intention to use “Having looked at this product concept today, on a scale from one to five, how likely would you be to use it?” “Why?” General feedback “Do you have any changes or corrections that you feel would improve this concept?”

Regarding emotional reactions “How did you feel while testing this prototype?” (help them by providing a list of emotions — happy, frustrated, excited, bored, etc. — or illustrations of faces showing these emotions. Have each user select one or more emotions triggered by the prototype.)

TIPS & TRICKS 121

NOTES TESTING QUESTIONS

CHALLENGE 14. EXCHANGE FEEDBACK CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Individual Feedback Step 2 - 360º Feedback Tips & Tricks - Giving Feedback

YOU WILL NEED Two to six hours


Learning journal

A4 paper, pens


THINK

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Expert Feedback Exchanger You will learn the basics of using feedback as a team development tool in projects.


MAKE

Wow! You’ve advanced a lot in your game-changing journey. Well done! Before moving to your last three challenges, I’d like to ask you to invest some more time and energy in helping everyone in the team to achieve their full potential. Welcome to your third and last feedback round. Don’t forget to use this challenge wisely, in order to grow individually and as a team, and improve your entrepreneurial project.

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123



MENTORCARD


Focus on


Useful advice 124

Giving and gaining feeback Feedback is an evaluation given to a person or group based on their previous actions and used as a basis for improvement. It is an effective way of giving constructive advice than can contribute to team members’ personal development and help them to align their expectations and set new goals. If used efficiently and periodically, it can tackle major issues early on, before people get too serious and emotional. Feedback can also be the main driver of personal growth within the team, serving as a mirror and helping people figure out what they need to focus on. As a team, that decision needs to be taken together. Feedback should be incorporated and used constantly, and can be applied in two ways: One-on-one, ongoing feedback: every team member should feel able to approach others and give feedback as they wish, following certain guidelines. This type of feedback should be used constantly, provided the team agrees with it. It helps to create positive relationships in which people communicate effectively. 360-degree, prescheduled feedback: this involves the entire team, is important, and should happen at regular, predefined intervals, so that all team members can prepare and contribute to the improvement of others, appreciate what’s going well and focus on the future.

Your goal is to exchange individual feedback with your teammates. This should happen constantly. There are no predefined moments: this challenge should be seen as an ongoing process. After you’ve had the opportunity of working closely with the others, pick your moment and give them some individual feedback. Remember, this should be positive as well as negative.

»» What should they start doing? »» What should they stop doing? »» What should they continue doing? Remember to be open: explain your feedback in more detail if necessary. Do you need inspiration? Check the Tips & Tricks cards on giving and receiving feedback — see page 127-128.

You can use the START - STOP CONTINUE model to make it easier to formulate your feedback.



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TIPS & TRICKS. GIVING FEEDBACK

Your goal is to organise a collective feedback session with all your team members. Every team should have feedback sessions, where each member is evaluated by the group. This reflect team’s health and improve its performance. Allow around four hours. It is important to take enough time. Agree on a feedback format. You can use the START - STOP - CONTINUE model or adapt one based on your team’s needs. Ask everyone to prepare a document in advance containing: Self-evaluation. Reflections on your performance to share with the team. Feedback for all members. Use the agreed models and prepare individual feedback for each member. General feedback for the team. Write down any feedback for the entire team.

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Teams tend to develop certain behaviours and these can be improved through feedback. On the 360º feedback day, follow this agenda: »» Go over the principles with the entire team, to ensure the process is constructive. »» Pick a random order to give individual feedback to team members. »» Start with the self-evaluation, giving the members a chance to expose their version of their own work. »» Individual feedback from all members. »» Allow a shot time for questions. Do you understand the feedback and why it’s important to the person who gave it? If not, ask for clarification. »» Repeat until all team members receive feedback. »» Reflection. Review the positive and

negative points of the process. The goal is to make it better the next time round.





TIPS & TRICKS 127


NOTES USEFUL FEEDBACK

TIPS & TRICKS. RECEIVING FEEDBACK • Be proactive in seeking feedback from those you work with. It shows that you value their opinion and are focused on improving your performance. • Be open to others’ feedback. It’s never easy to listen to criticism, but remember: its purpose is to improve the team, not to offend you. • Ask questions. If you don’t understand the feedback, ask the person to elaborate.

TIPS & TRICKS 128




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MAGIC FLIGHT

LAND FOUR | GROW

INCU BATE

CHALLENGE 15. PRESENT YOUR IDEA

Welcome to the Magic Flight

This land will help you make your project grow and build your future. This land... Well, it’s just wonderful! It’s full of rainbows, flowers, butterflies, sunshine and smiling people. Well, not literally... But it’s super nice! Here you’ll show your idea to the world, gather resources to make it grow and then celebrate and take ownership of your future by planning the next steps. Yes, I told you! It’s going to be great.

CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Business idea factsheet Step 2 - Craft and pitch

15. Present your idea - You’ll learn how to pitch your idea. 16. Celebrate - You’ll learn to recognise team progress and to develop a positive team culture. 17. Create your future - You’ll learn how you can take ownership of your future and continue your growth.

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A4 paper, pens, computer, presentation software


Three to eight hours

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Idea Presenter; You will learn how to pitch your idea in an effective way.

Three to eight person

Learning journal

FEEL

YOU WILL NEED


MAKE

The secret to maximising the impact of your project is in your ability to bring on board people, resources, and other forms of support. In the entrepreneurial world, one way to do this is by pitching your idea. Doing this in front of an audience might not be the easiest challenge, but you’re lucky because I’m right here, ready to guide you.


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15. PRESENT YOUR IDEA

15. PRESENT YOUR IDEA

MENTORCARD

STEP 1. BUSINESS IDEA FACTSHEET

Focus on

How to pitch Feedback that’s not sugar coated can help you improve your idea. Because potential investors or mentors will usually tell you straight away what they think, you’ll receive opinions that will help you bring it to the next level. Secondly, these people have wide networks and, if they like your idea, can introduce you to others who can help. From then on, it’s up to you to build collaborations. Lastly, and most importantly, pitching helps you gain a lot: valuable business know-how, resilience, networks and, if you’re in the right spot, the resources you need to make your idea come true. Really important elements for aspiring entrepreneurs!


After making your business idea real by prototyping and testing it, it’s time to present it to those who can help you develop it further. I now challenge you to pitch your idea to potential investors, mentors and partners. In this challenge, you’ll go through two important steps: Completing a business idea factsheet to structure and capture the essentials Building a powerful, clear visual presentation and a memorable speech, and finally pitching your idea.

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Your goal is to complete a simple fact sheet for your business idea, with the essential information that should be showcased in your pitch. Use the content you have developed with the Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas, together with the conclusions from prototyping and testing.

4. Solution: your solution to the problem or business opportunity

7. Competition: alternatives to your solution that are already on the market

5. Product: how your product or service works

8. Your business model: how you plan to make money on the long term

6. Market: the size of your target market, and any research results

9. Resources needed: the money and other resources you need in order to grow 10. Contact: how people can contatc you.

Enter the information in the following format: 1. Introduction: who you are and what goal of this pitch is 2. Team: who the team members are and their roles 3. Problem: what problem or business opportunity you are addressing


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15. PRESENT YOUR IDEA STEP 2. CRAFT AND PITCH

Your goal is to create a presentation including all the points outlined in your business idea factsheet, and deliver it to potential investors, mentors or partners.

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1. Build your presentation

2. Write your speech

3. Pitch!

Your presentation should include all the points outlined in your factsheet, in a simple, direct and visual format. Ideally you should use presentation software and have each point on a single slide.

Based on the factsheet, write and rehearse a speech and ask teammates for feedback.

Find opportunities to pitch - either call people within your network or take advantage of pitching events.

Your speech should feel natural and engaging to the audience.

Don’t include too much text, make it visual and engaging, and give your speech structure and flavour.

Practice different ways of delivering it to find what suits you best.

Make sure that your visual presentation and speech are adapted to your audience. They should always fit the context and the goal of the pitch: finding partners, investment or other resources.


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CHALLENGE 16. CELEBRATE

NOTES ELEVATOR PITCH

CHALLENGE STRUCTURE Step 1 - Appreciate Step 2 - Share with the world Step 3 - Celebrate

YOU WILL NEED One day


Learning journal

A3 paper, markers, pens


THINK

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Celebrator You will learn to recognise team progress and develop a positive team culture.


MAKE

Not many young people get this far on their game-changing journeys. But you have, and now I can finally call you an EntreprenHero! It must have been a bumpy ride with all those ups and downs, and I truly admire how much you’ve developed along the way. Because I cherish your progress, I challenge you to reveal and recognise all your achievements, the lessons you’ve learned, and the contribution of the team – and then celebrate these in a fun way.


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16. CELEBRATE

16. CELEBRATE

MENTORCARD

STEP 1. APPRECIATE

Focus on

Celebrating Appreciation and celebration are extremely important but often neglected parts of life. The stress and intensity of day-to-day activities leaves us little time to relax, look back on the positive side of our journeys and be thankful for valuable experiences. Celebrating has proven benefits: It serves as a motivation booster, infusing people with energy, and helping them to achieve goals and exceed expectations. It contributes to a good team culture. If you praise and celebrate even the smallest achievements, people feel recognized and connect more with one another and the project. Remind everyone why you’re doing things in the first place, keep an eye on your goals and set new ones.


Your goal is to show appreciation and recognition to your team for its achievement. The first part of this challenge is simple, but extremely important: gather your team and start appreciating! Divide this activity into two phases:

Throughout this challenge I will guide you through three steps, from internal appreciation of your team and experience, to sharing what you got done with the world and finally having a lot of fun together!

1. Individual appreciation

2. Team appreciation

Ask everyone to write a small thank you note for all other teammates. The goal here is to show appreciation for something specific they achieved along your journey as a team. It can be as simple or as complicated as you make it.

Now it’s time to appreciate collectively! Ask everyone in turn two simple questions:

The notes should be read later and are not meant to be shared with everyone. Of course this can happen, but people shouldn’t feel obliged to do so.

• What are you thankful for regarding the team? • What are you proud of? Make sure you record this part on paper, since it’s important for the second step of the challenge.

Enjoy and party!

Useful advice 140

Focusing on positivity brings improvement. If a team focuses on the bright side of things, they tend to want to improve the project further, because they feel positively attached to it. Moreover, they’re more aware of their strengths, and maximise the role and impact of these in their journeys.


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16. CELEBRATE

16. CELEBRATE

STEP 2. SHARE WITH THE WORLD

STEP 3. CELEBRATE

Your goal is to show the world the achievements and results you are proudest of. 1. Review the output of the team appreciation challenge and prepare what you wish to share with the world. Is the focus of the team appreciation on the people involved, the project you built together, or what you all learned? Choose between one and three aspects that you’d like to showcase.

2. Choose a format for sharing:

3. Share it with the world!

What is the best way to share your appreciation? Is it a social media post, a drawing of what you produced together, a blog post? Can you go deeper and share with the world what you have learned together?

Your approach depends on what works best for your team. What will make everyone happier and prouder? Go for that!

What about organising an event? Does your project make you so proud you want to share it personally with others? Invite your friends and other interested people in your network to a presentation.

Remember that showing the world what you are doing can increase the impact of your project.

Your goal is simply to have a lot of fun with your team. Go out and do something to celebrate the journey you have been through together. You can go out for a movie, dancing, attending or take part in a sporting event, whatever makes you happy as a team. Having fun is an important part of working together, and can contribute to a positive team/organisational culture.

If you plan to keep your project going in the future, how about implementing regular activities like this in your routine? My suggestion, if you have a really diverse team, is to start a “weekly fun activity”, and make sure that everyone in your team is responsible for organising it at least once. This way, everyone can try new things and all teammates are happy.

Pick a format with your team. If you are stuck, review the “make decisions” challenge and use the tools it includes.

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NOTES WHAT’S NEXT?

CHALLENGE 17. CREATE YOUR FUTURE CHALLENGE STRUCTURE

YOU WILL NEED

Step 1 - Look back Step 2 - Your options Step 3 - Decide your next step

One day


Learning journal


THINK

MAKE

A3 paper, markers, sticky notes, pens, completed Future Tree, completed Business Model Canvas, prototype and test results

YOU WILL ACHIEVE Future Creator You’ll learn to take ownership of your future and continue your growth.


Even game-changing journeys come to an end. But this end means a new beginning. This is your last challenge, and is all about defining this new beginning. The main focus will be to design your next level. Will it be a new entrepreneurial project? The same but bigger or better? Will it be a job? Or maybe a business? What about an incubation programme? Let’s discover together what path you’ll take at this crossroads.

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17. CREATE YOUR FUTURE


MENTORCARD

STEP 1. LOOK BACK

Focus on

Wow, EntreprenHero! What an intense journey!

Your goal is to build a history map of your journey to get a clear picture of how you’ve developed so far. You’ll gather and review results from previous challenges.

3. Collect “aha” moments: start with the first and move on through the all the challenges. Represent the most important points of your journey with drawings and keywords.

In front of you is a new world. It’s now your turn to choose what path you want to follow next on your journey.

1. Draw a timeline on a big sheet of paper, with a long arrow on the bottom, the start date on the left and the current date on the right.

As with all the previous challenges, what you choose to do with this one is entirely up to you. You’ll start by looking back at your journey so far and the new skills you’ve developed along the way. Next, you’ll look out into your community and discover some of the options for continuing your entrepreneurial development. In the end you’ll choose, define and make your first steps on the path that lies ahead.

2. Divide the paper into two big rows: for YOU (individual story points) and PROJECT/TEAM (collective and business related points). If you want to organise your history map further, you can signal the four phases of your journey in the upper part of the map.

Use the rows to separate personal and project-related developments. If you’re doing this challenge as a team, you can represent each member in the personal section of the map, or show everyone’s individual moments collectively.

Like I promised, the purpose of the challenges was to give you an idea of how entrepreneurial journeys can look and feel like. You have now reached your final challenge and I hope this journey was insightful and you developed yourself along the way. I have to tell you, though, this has only been the beginning! What’s next?


You can take on this challenge solo or with your team, depending on what sort of next steps you’ve chosen.

4. Reflect and share: highlight, circle or emphasise the most important steps for your team. What made you stronger as a group? How have you changed since you started the journey? Record this close to the end of the timeline.

List the following: • Biggest successes and challenges • Lessons learned • Skills developed • Results and achievements

The challenge uses the “Impact & Effort Matrix” tool detailed by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo in their book “Gamestorming”.

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147



STEP 2. YOUR OPTIONS

STEP 3. DECIDE YOUR NEXT STEP

Your goal is to discover new opportunities within your community.

Bootstrap your Business

Become an intrapreneur

Bootstrapping means starting your business without any external help or capital, by being self-sustainable. The only way to bootstrap your business is to get sales. Get out of the building and get ten sales, from people you don’t know. Fill in the following table to make sure you can be sustainable.

Intrapreneurs act as entrepreneurs inside existing organisations. They use their skills to make changes, develop solutions and improve the business. Being an intrapreneur can be a great way to gather experience and develop your talents further. Find at least five companies that share your purpose.

NAME

SOLD?

...

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Your goal is to decide your next step, given the options you’ve just discovered. What are you willing to do next?

...

COSTS

(Production + Customer Acquisition)

...

SALE PRICE

...

Name company

Company mission

Available positions

Arguments for applying

...

...

...

...

Play YIncubate again

Incubation and acceleration programmes vary in shape, focus and duration, but they can provide you with valuable resources and support. Find five such programmes in your area.

If this was your first YIncubate journey, you might want to restart it and dig deeper. You can do this with the same project, if you want to develop it further, or with a new one. Plan your next possible journey:

BENEFITS

REQUIREMENTS

...

...

...

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

Look for Incubation

NAME

2. Take action. Write down at least three next steps you can take next week towards your new goal.

Your own purpose statement

PROFIT

...

1. Alone or with your team, put the four options in the Impact & Effort Matrix.

________________________________________________

YIncubate 2.0 Goal of the game

Project to develop

Team

...

...

...

*“The Impact & Effort Matrix”, is a tool showcased by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo in their book “Gamestorming”.


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BE THE MASTER OF THE TWO WORLDS INCU BATE

Welcome back to the known world, EntreprenHero! You’ve chosen a new path after this game-changing entrepreneurial journey. Now you’re back in your world, but you’re different… Can you feel it? The past few days, weeks and months have brought you wisdom and some new skills to go with it. What you do with these is in your hands – choose carefully!

THE KNOWN WORLD

Like any superhero, you can decide to continue on your journey and keep developing yourself. You can form a new team, or continue with your current one. You can share the lessons with other people and get them to experience this journey as well. It’s all up to you. There you go! It was an honour working with you and trying to guide you through your entrepreneurial journey. I wish you all the best and remember – you can always come back for some more. Enjoy!

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THE JOURNEY INCU BATE

Every journey has an end...

EXTRAS

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YIncubate was co-created by over 150 people during a two-year journey through chaos and creativity. The following section sheds light on the process of creating the methodology and designing the toolkit, and the opportunities that lie ahead for brave readers wishing to contribute to the model’s growth.


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RESEARCH INSIGHTS

A business incubator is a company that offers services to people with ideas who want to develop their own businesses. Source: EYE research report, study on European terminology in youth entrepreneurship For more information visit: www.yincubate.com/study-on-european-terminology-in-youth-entrepreneurship

WHY INCUBATION? INCUBATING YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS Business incubators provide new businesses with support services for growth and development. During the past twenty years, many studies and resources have been dedicated to understanding whether and how they work, and how to maximize their impact and efficiency. Europe considers entrepreneurship as a key part of the solution to youth unemployment. It provides an additional way of helping young people to enter the labour market and promoting job creation. The Europe 2020 employment target for both young people and adults is 75 percent. But are business incubators the best solution to drive young people towards entrepreneurship across Europe? Incubators are designed to improve the capacity and performance of new businesses. They work by addressing most of the factors that affect the success chances of such businesses, from setting them up to accessing the market.

154


INCU BATE

In the early stages, incubators promote entrepreneurship as a career option to individuals and groups with the necessary soft skills and attitude towards risk, analysis, intuition, and resilience. At a later stage, they create stimulating environments, providing networking platforms and facilities to facilitate marketing, scaling, and funding opportunities. These services include • Coaching in motivation, confidence and leadership • Validation of business ideas and business plans • Access to resources (financial, technological, logistical, PR and media, networking etc.) • Knowledge transfer concerning the business generation and start-up processes • Access to networks of customers and business partners • Adaptation to local and/or international markets, including regulatory issues

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RESEARCH INSIGHTS

ALTHOUGH INCU BATE

FACT 1

SMEs are the engine of economic sustainability and development in Europe

FACT 2

Young people can become better entrepreneurs than older people

FACT 3

Relativey few young Europeans are involved in new businesses

FACT 4

Young people need stimulating ecosystems to become better entrepreneurs 156


157

EYE SUPPORT GROUP:

EYE SUPPORT GROUP: INCU BATE

Impact Hub Bucharest Romania The go to place for organisations to grow, an award winning coworking space, an entrepreneurial minded community and a funky event space.

Leiden Universiteit

Erasmus Centre for

Professional Rebel

B. Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Entrepreneurship

The Netherlands

The Netherlands

Traditional Dutch University with seven faculties, located in Leiden and The Hague. Around 7,000 students graduate annually.

The Netherlands

Professional Rebel empowers big organisations to ignite the startup spirit, through programs that enable creativity, innovation and independent thinking.

Creative working space for innovation, education and growth. With 28000m2 of space, B. Amsterdam is the largest startup ecosystem in Europe.

www.universiteitleiden.nl/ www.impacthub.ro

www.ece.nl

www.b-buildingbusiness.com www.professionalrebel.com

Youthub

EESTEC Catania

Startup Messina

Italy

Italy

Italy

Italy

Startup Super School is an international format takes the startup and entrepreneurship culture to schools and universities.

Youth association focused on business, technology and peer to peer startup support

The main youth association focused on business, technology and peer to peer starup support in Sicily

Association to network and spread Entrepreneurial Culture in the Strait of Messina Area

http://youthub.net/ www.eestec-catania.eu

www.startupsuperschool.com

Startupbootcamp

Handshake

Entrepreneur Scan

The Netherlands

commonground srl

The Netherlands

The Netherlands

AIESEC Catania

Google Developer Group

Global family of industry-focused startup accelerators, has run programs in over 10 countries and supported 345 startups since 2010.

Italy

Handshake connects talented, enterprising students to companies in the creative industries.

With tests, tools and training, E-scan develops entrepreneurs, students and employees to become more entrepreneurial for more than 20 years.

Italy

Catania, Italy

We design services and experiences. We share design thinking mindset and approaches with people and organisations that want to innovate and make sense.

Not-for-profit student organisation to explore and develop leadership skills

Local community of developers specialized in Google’s development technologies.

www.aiesec.it/lc/catania

www.gdgcatania.org

www.startupbootcamp.org

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The Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship (ECE) is the leading expertise centre on entrepreneurship in Europe.

Startup Super School

www.handshake.nu

www.entrepreneurscan.com

www.commongroundpoeple.com


CEFE Macedonia Through action oriented access and simple learning methods to competency-based economics and formation of enterprises.

www.startupmessina.org www.cefe.mk

LAVA Italy Cultural association for personal development through training and advisory services www.projectlava.it

SEAVUS Macedonia Guided by the premise of creating environment that stimulates the co-creation of innovative solutions and ideas. www.seavus.com

159

AUTHORS INCU BATE

Andreea Gospodariu Project Manager, Phase 2 Passionate about education. My purpose is to have a positive impact in communities and to create optimal learning processes. @Dea_Go

Diana Ioana MoreaGhergu Entrepreneurship methodology developer Avid learner, entrepreneurship igniter, aspiring changemaker. @DianaIoanaMorea

Horatiu Ticau Entrepreneurship methodology designer Empowering young people through entrepreneurship education programmes, recently focusing on emerging markets. @HoratiuT

Gabriel Faerstein Entrepreneurship methodology developer Iam a social entrepreneur, passionate about travel and cultures. I believe in the power of a connection between entrepreneurship and education to change the world.

Christiaan van Ettikhoven Storyteller Learning and creativity is what floats my boat. Creativity for me is connecting two unconnected elements to create value and that’s always my purpose.

Lisa te Velde Designer I am a self-taught designer who’s practicing to be skilled at understanding problems and solving them in an efficient way.

@gfaerstein1

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Salvatore Fallica Product development coordinator A creative entrepreneur by vocation, I was born in Sicily, an island of fire and sea. I am an associate member of Impact Hub Siracusa, a business coach at the business incubator Vulcanìc, and a vertical accelerator. I believe in listening as a key to success. @fallicalive

Vincenzo Di maria Service designer

Claudia Busetto Information architect

Designer and entrepreneur with international experience. I care about people and how design can address everyday challenges.

I like to organise information so that it can be understood by anyone. I design digital products and interactions that are useful, usable and desirable.

@vdmdesign

@claudiabusetto

Rozita Talevska Hristovska Project manager In the words of David Bowie, tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming. Passion, perseverance and the promise that anything is possible never fail to get my adrenaline pumping. @rtalevska

161

WITH THE COLLABORATION OF:

DISSEMINATION EVENTS INCU BATE

Gabriela Solomon Project manager, phase 1 Alternative University Romania Violeta Maria Caragea Researcher Alternative University Romania Vlad Atanasiu Researcher Alternative University Romania Arjen Hemelaar, Project manager, phase 1 Team Academy The Netherlands Bart Jenezon, Methodology development Team Academy The Netherlands

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Hans van Voorbergen, Methodology development Team Academy The Netherlands Mia Bijman, Researcher Team Academy The Netherlands Glenn van der Plaat, Event manager Team Academy The Netherlands Peer Stoop, Advisor Team Academy The Netherlands Michel Arends, Advisor Team Academy The Netherlands

Manuela Trovato, Research coordinator Impact Hub Siracusa Italy Mirko Viola, Researcher Impact Hub Siracusa Italy Simone Piceno, Event manager Impact Hub Siracusa Italy Salvatore Biazzo, Administrative assistant Impact Hub Siracusa Italy Stena Paternò Del Toscano, Advisor Impact Hub Siracusa Italy

Maria Clotilde Notarbartolo, Facilitator Impact Hub Siracusa Italy Rosario Sapienza, Advisor Impact Hub Siracusa Italy Vivana Cannizzo, Communication assistant Impact Hub Siracusa Italy

Prof. Konstantin Petkovski Researcher and mentor Macedonia Vesna Ivanoska Advisor and facilitator Macedonia Jovan Stalevski Advisor and facilitator Macedonia Aneta Naumovska Administrative assistant Macedonia

Simone Bellanca Video maker Impact Hub Roma Italy


163

CONTRIBUTORS:

CONTRIBUTORS: INCU BATE

164

Alice Iacono

EESTEC Catania, Italy

Antonio Musumeci

Paradigma Soc. Cop. Italy

Joost Ling Team

BITE, The Netherlands

Ștefan Buda Romania

Luigi Privitera


Salvatore Giuffrida

CarPlusCamp, Italy

Niek van der Voort

LastMason, The Netherlands

Adrian Stratulat Romania

Gabriele Messina

Google Developer Group Catania, Italy

Giuliana Gulizia

CarPlusCamp, Italy

Quintus Willemse

LastMason, The Netherlands

Stelian Mustea Romania

Francesco Russo


Dario Maccarrone

TIM WCAP, Italy

Marc Elias

Startupbootcamp, The Netherlands

Aura Soagher DaAfaceri, Romania

Giuseppe Patti


Rosario Faraci

University of Catania, Italy

Eduard Vos

Workbookers, The Netherlands

Dragoș Buzzi

Business Organisation for Students, Romania

Fabio Arceri


Ruggero Leotta

AIESEC Catania, Italy

Bart Jenezon

1nspiring Company, The Netherlands

Alexandra Stancu

Romania

Michel Murabito

Google Milan, Italy

Francesco Pira


Christof Stettina

Leiden Universiteit, The Netherlands

Amalia Bărzulea


Andrea Giarrizzo

Startup Super School, Italy

Daniele Pecoraro

Lazarus S.r.l.s. Italy

Linda Vermaat

Professional Rebel, The Netherlands

Sorina Conea


Francesco Pira

Youth Hub, students association, Italy

Danilo Mirabile


Jochem Cuppen

Erasmus Centre for Entrepreneurship, NL

Mădălina Roman

VIP România, Romania

Giuseppe Coppola


Alberto Longo Lazarus S.r.l.s. Italy

Martijn Driessen

Entrepreneur Scan, The Netherlands

Mircea Bogdan Stoica

Romania

Salvo Antonino Tucci


Emanuele Accardo

Maria Augustina Cilea

The Entrepreneurship Academy, Romanian - NL

Cristian Badea Romania

Tamara Manuele


Lucia Lo Presti Gynesia, Italy

Ioana Miruna Toanchina


Angela Dimișcă

Teach for Romania, Romania

Antonella Falsaperla


Raffaele Vitiello

Cloudmesh S.r.l. Italy

Maria Alexandra Butmalai


Florentina Larion

Romania

Michela Giuffrida


Emiliano Nesti

i3P Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Iulia Petrescu


Corina Angelescu

VIP România, Romania

Andrea Castagna

MAS Communication, Italy

Marco Nannini

Impact Hub Milano, Italy

Teodora Ioana Iacob


Sandra Mascali


Fabrizio Lapiello

012 Factory, Italy

Linh Pham Hoang


Aleksandra Stoilkovska Azir Aliju

Faculty of Tourism & Management Skopje, MK SEE University Tetovo, Macedonia

Morena Assenza Parisi


Gianluca Dettori

D Pixel, Italy

Radur Tudor Stefan


Iskra Danailova

EPCI Skopje, Macedonia

Dario Michele Zappalà

Darwin Technologies, Italy

Yonah van Andel

Team Laserbeam, The Netherlands

Horia Stupu


Makedonka Dimitrova

University American College Skopje, Macedonia

Sergio Marchese


Teddy Uijttewaal


Alexandru Narcis Murgu


Valentina Disoska

ABWMacedonia, Macedonia

Claudio Sichili


Glenn van der Plaat


Andreas Alessandro Poletti


Daniel Gustav Indelicato


Jeannot Engelen


George Alexandru Moroianu The Entrepreneurship Academy, Romanian - NL

Luca Caruso

Urban Talent Lab, Italy

Lisa te Velde


Ciprian Mihai Dudulea

Roberta Mirabella

Associazione Culturale LAVA, Italy

Christiaan van Ettikhoven


Andrei Eduard Burghelia

Pierpaolo Murabito

La.Boo Design, Italy

Wouter te Winkel

Team Academy, The Netherlands

Alexandru Dan Balas

Chiara Potenza Italy

Marjolein Bakker


Alexandru Andries

Giovanni Luca Scuderi

Italy

André Bolland


Roxana Bîra Romania

Carlo Bonaccorsi

AIESEC Catania, Italy

Kees Sultan

Team Academy MBO, The Netherlands

Alexandru Poenaru

Fabio Bruno

Startup Messina, Italy

Rick Vlaar

Team Academy MBO, The Netherlands

Luiza Mușat Educativa, Romania

Marcello Perone


Mia Bijman

Kairos Society, The Netherlands

Irina Itu Romania

Giuseppe Arrigo


Joost van Rhenen


Luiza Amzolin




The Entrepreneurship Academy, Romanian - NL The Entrepreneurship Academy, Romanian - NL The Entrepreneurship Academy, Romanian - NL Ecotur, Romania

Romania

Radmil Polenakovik

NCIEL - Skopje, Macedonia

Gabriela Kostovska

Bogoeska YES Incubator Skopje, Macedonia

Nikola Trajkovski

Startup Weekend Skopje, Macedonia

Ilija Vuckov EMKICE Maceodnia Zoran Vitanov

Association of Managers, CEFE, Macedonia

Beti Delovska

BASME Skopje, Macedonia

Dori Pavlovska Consultant, Macedonia Gorazd Smilevski

Business Academy Smilevski, Macedonia

Zaklina Gestakovska

My Career - Advisor Association Maceodnia

Irena Chausevska Mimoza Bogdanoska Jovanovska

NewMan’s Business Accelerator Skopje Faculty of ICT Bitola, Macedonia 165

FOR FACILITATORS | JOIN YINCUBATE Are you a coach and mentor for young entrepreneurs? Are you looking for creative solutions to support your local business ecosystem? Are you part of an organisation that promotes entrepreneurial culture among young people? Do you organise or facilitate events for the development of young people’s skills and mindsets? 166

INCU BATE

Our team is constantly working on growth opportunities and methodologies to support young people and strengthen entrepreneurial ecosystems. You can find us in Romania, the Netherlands, Italy and Macedonia. All we want is to generate impact, and impact is all about people! The YIncubate project has created the basis for an international community of business coaches, startup mentors and facilitators. We wish to enlarge our scope, crossing the borders of the four countries involved in the project and reaching as many entrepreneurial ecosystems as we can. PLAYincubate is a valuable toolkit, ideal for pre-incubation services and local community programmes. There is a gap between young people’s entrepreneurial aspirations and the real opportunities offered by incubators and other business support organizations.


In between there are youth and student associations, open and smart communities and other parties that hardly ever follow structured programmes to support their members. This fun methodology is the solution we offer. Keep in mind that PLAYincubate is not just a book! It’s a set of powerful instruments that can contribute to the growth of your local business environment. Interested in using the toolkit within your organisation, or for an educational programmme or event? Get in touch with us via [email protected] and discover how enable youth entrepreneurship to its full potential!

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BIBLIOGRAPHY / RESEARCH REFERENCES

SITOGRAPHY INCU BATE

Gray, David, et al. Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers. O'Reilly Media, 2010

Entrepreneurship and incubation blog www.worldbusinessincubation.wordpress.com

Clark, Tim, et al. Business Model You. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2002 Osterwalder, Alexander, and Yves Pigneur. Business Model Generation. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2010 Rosenstein, Justin. Blunt, Effective Feedback in 3 stories. Asana, Apr. 2016, blog.asana.com/2015/07/workstyle-effective-feedback/

David Binetti - Innovationa Accounting on Slideshare presented at Lean Startup Conference 2014 http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Unemployment_statistics#Youth_unemployment_trends EFQM Excellence Model http://www.efqm.org/ The Centre for Strategy & Evaluation Services (CSES) http://www.cses.co.uk/

Osterwalder, Alexander, et al. Value Proposition Design. John Wiley & Sons, Inc , 2014 The YES Project http://ase.tufts.edu/iaryd/researchYesPubs.htm (Study) Ustvarjalnik. Resilience Builder. 2015 Busche, Laura. The Skeptic’s Guide To Low-Fidelity Prototyping. Smashing Magazine, Apr. 2016, smashingmagazine. com/2014/10/the-skeptics-guide-to-low-fidelity-prototyping/ Research reports Annual Report on European SMEs 2013/2014 – A Partial and Fragile Recovery EC/ECB - SAFE Wave 9 Incubating Success - Incubation best practices that lead to successful new ventures David A. Lewis, Elsie Harper-Anderson, and Lawrence A. Molnar Innovation Incubators http://ebn.be/downloads/innovation_incubator.pdf

Youth Entrepreneurship - A background paper for the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs and Local Development http://www.oecd.org/cfe/leed/youth_bp_finalt.pdf Special report on business incubators published by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) http://ebn.be/index.php?lnk=K2tiZmlkaWp5MVZzVWF6SzFUWkpHL3RvOGFYcGh1MmVNZE1GVWJjdDhWMD0=

CREDITS: Text revision by Het Vertalcollectief http://hetvertaalcollectief.nl/en/

Youth entrepreneurship Recommendations for action http://www.youthbusiness.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/RecommendationsforAction.pdf 168


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MY NOTES:

MY SKETCHES: INCU BATE

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Land | Creative islands The2 EntreprenHero’s

Journey

www.yincubate.com

IDEA

Land 3 | The State of divine knowledge 4. Work in teams

7. Make decisions

5. Exchange feedback

8. Create your business

6. Generate ideas


PROJECT

10. Design value

The EntreprenHero’s journey www.plaYincubate.com

11. Plan your project

3. Make a change

12. Build resilience

2. Explore the world

13. Prototype your idea

1. Raise self-awareness

INCUBATE

Learning Journal

YOU

15. Present your idea


GROW

16. Celebrate 17. Create your future

Land 1 | The road of trials 172

Land 4 | Magic ﬂight