Unreasonable at Sea day 68: Financials for Protei & Tom Clayton

We had a 1 hour deep dive with the learning partners and mentors on the Protei financials. We brought them our projected inputs / outputs for the next years of Protei. We showed them our projected models of financial input and outputs. We got a lot of input and questions about transforming from scrappy moving forwards to putting the “gas pedal” down in order to raise capital to get big quick. It is interesting to hone in on which customers will help move our technology along the fastest for the next set of customers. For example, we must focus most on our core technology, then use the applications of the technology platform as the ASSETS of Protei Inc, and therefore, we will prosper from the community and must have a robust community website. Besides equity, what companies would be willing to be a corporate donor for big ocean data… Google? Shell? BP? We do not necessarily need a pilot because this will immediately put a limit around our technology. At first, most of the feedback was: more money, better team, make the market, create demand, focus, get 75% of your time back-have someone commercially out there creating demand / BD person; understand the market; give market feedback; commercially savvy expert; can create demand; give product feedback. So we got urged to change the customer: drop the hobbyist, recognize what you are doing is outside the value; push to do other markets for data and operations, and place value over advantages. the margin is HUGE because you’ve solved it at a big scale so the price point should come after (the price is MORE than the parts)

so for now:
everything is focused on small grants (scrappy), not big equity investors.

financial statements:
1. income statements; profit and loss;
2. balance sheet – shows your assets, specific point in time how much asset you have
3. cash flow statement – what cash do you have in the bank today and what’s it going to look like

Then we had a meeting with the ship captain about not disagreeing about bring stuff for building on the ship. How can SAS (semester at sea) and UAS (unreasonable at sea) work together?

ALso I am happy that Modi gave me some mango treats, thanks Abishek! I’m obsessed with salty Indian pickles. and I ate some fish from Heather, Thanks Heather!

In the afternoon, we had a meeting with Tom Clayton, and it was really helpful. One thing he said is that: if her were to do what we are, he’d think big, think fast: raise big capital, form a big team, move fast. If we want to change the world, you have to build it up big and move fast. It is ok to prioritize for a few years, and be scrappy and run a lower cost startup. Also, beware of “cultural attrition issues” with one person who might bring the entire team down.

Tom’s five rules to running business, especially in Singapore:
1. Be Positive
2. hire the ABSOLUTE BEST, always smarter than yourself
3. Be Scrappy – think of creative ways to do things.
4. Maniacal focus on the end user
5. take initiative, move fast, fail fast

Unreasonable at Sea day 64: deep dive Aquaphytex, design thinking class, and a package

The next 6 days we are on the water from India to Mauritius: we will spend the next few days gaining clarity on our business model, financials, etc. The next three mornings mentors & learning partners will spent 1 hour with each company going over:
Day 1. Business model
Day 2. Off day
Day 3. Basic Financials
Day 4. Timeline:where aer you now, where are you pushing towards?

Deep Dive with Aquaphytex

Then we had a deep dive into Aquaphytex in the morning, 9:30-12:30. It was really interesting. Pedro discussed some of his issues and long term visions, and the biggest challenge is that they seem to differ with his partner’s long term visions. Profit versus worldwide impact, social benefit, and keeping his core team of employees. So we spent the first 1.5 hours understanding the issues, then spent the next 1.5 hours putting ourselves in Pedro’s position and trying to brainstorm together in three groups of 4 people, how to move ahead with Pedro’s company if we were him.

It is nice to have Tom Clayton back on board because he is super helpful, piercing at times, and asks amazing questions.

Design Thinking Class, student review

In the afternoon, we had the design thinking class session with George, and the students had prepared more work on Protei and our broad, open-ended question about engaging the open hardware community through a website and gamification platform.

The interesting things I took out of it:
Group 1: most people didn’t understand at first what Protei is, what the technology is, and a quicker way of explaining it to people will be beneficial. Most people do not feel comfortable with technology and therefore feel fearful to get one so an “empowerment video” would be the best next step in order to engage people to take the next step : from interest to actually purchasing one.

Group 2. They prototyped a game. Making a website as a hub for activity using gamified methods of technology to incentivize people to change the world is what will be useful. People didn’t necessarily love the game aspect but what is most important is the SOCIAL aspect.

That afternoon and evening I spent trying to catch up with work and documentation.

a Package

Finally I got the package from Heather from that had travelled from Brooklyn to LA (Laura’s house) to Bangalore (from Laura’s hotel to Taylor’s room in the service center) to Kerala Kochi with Taylore onto the MV explorer. I finally got it from Taylor’s room. The weird thing is it was opened completely, but I still ate the swedish gummi shoes, despite being mysteriously opened.

Unreasonable at Sea day 62 – 63: back to Kochi

I went to Jaaga first thing in the morning and met Yashas who runs Hackteria.

I also met Ron who is an artist in residence at Shrishti funded by the goethe-institut, from Berlin.

Then I went to lunch at a Korean restaurant, tried to go to SP road but most of the electronics shops were closed, so I returned to Jaaga to meet up with Archana. Meanwhile, a start up festival / meetup was occurring at Jaaga, where there were a lot of guys who I had met at the start up festival.

Later on the way back to the hotel I passed by FABINDIA and then met Min and Minh at the hotel and together made our way to Punjabi by Nature where the rest of the Unreasonable team was meeting, and already eating.

View Larger Map

After eating, we went back to the Service Center and caught a night bus headed to Kochi, at 10:30. We arrived at 7:30 in the morning back in Kochi, at the port. That day in Kochi I ate breakfast and then we went around Kochi by bike.

First we picked up the package of sweatshirts and tee shirts, sitting at the JM BAXI Post Center from ALMA MATER that we had ordered, then we went “shopping” in Fort Cochin, where we met Modi, Kashe, Shira and Taylor. We went back to Fabindia then another store. Then we ate a delicious lunch.

Then we took the ferry to the mainland and went to the store where Cesar had visited the first day in Kochi, where Cesar had later purchased resin and epoxy, catalyst and accelerator. But he was disallowed to bring it on board the MV explorer without proper documentation so we returned and got paper documentation of each chemical. It took a LONG while while to get print outs of the test reports from each chemical. Probably around 2 hours. We were getting angry and a bit impatient.

Then we head to purchase the remaining items, aluminum rods for the mast, tupperware containers for holding the nano-filler beads that were just packed in a cardboard box and would fly everywhere, etc.

We realized that we were running late and SPED across Kochi to the bike rental place, then head back in a TUkTUk to the port. We arrived in time but unfortunately, when we returned to the MV explorer, we were not allowed to bring ANY of these items on board, so the entire afternoon’s worth of equipment gathering was fruit-less.

We had dinner then had a town hall meeting, welcoming returning folks : tom clayton, ben from Nike Foundation, Laura Edwards back from TED LA, Modi from Damascus Fortune… and one new learning partner from Microsoft. Then we did some work and before sleeping, we tried on our sweatshirts and tee shirts.

  
We had a meeting via Skype with Scott from Dragon Innovations, and learned that they actually act as what represents the “manufacturing intermediary company” for us, and they work with companies from all over the world who are manufacturing, in China. They also provide a design review process, which I am specifically curious about learning more about what this entails for Protei.
And here are a few more photos from the Kerala start up village event from Cesar’s photo stream:

Unreasonable at Sea day 60: Srishti school of design, Bangalore, and Shiva’s party

We arrived in Bangalore in the morning, at the Service Center where we were staying. Many of us had our own rooms, and it was nice there. We grabbed some breakfast there as provided to us then I spent some time preparing for the next day’s pitch event, Bangalore start up festival.

We learned quickly that “Indian time” means generally 1.5 hours late, so instead of leaving the service center at 11:30 we left at 1:15, and by the time we arrived at 1:45 to the INKTalk offices where we were invited to lunch, I had to leave immediately for Srishti.

I had lots of cell phones and wifi hubs but I was not able to use any sim Card. In India it takes 24 hours before you can activate a sim card, then it takes a few hours after that, but additionally, you cannot activate a sim card from another state than the one you bought it in. So that was going to be problematic for me as I purchased it in Kerala and now was in Bangalore.

This is a nice passport photo example from the place where I got the passport photo the day before in Kerala: 

And you have to get a passport photo in order to get a sim card. Wow regulations. So I unexpectedly didnt have really a way to get in contact with anyone or the google maps I expected, nor were offline maps working but it was fine. Taking the rickshaw auto’s seems good enough. It is interesting that there are just areas of the city, but no real addresses – Karnataka, Koramangala, etc. So it took about 1 hour to get to Srishti from the inkTalk offices, in a dusty Auto ride.

The guys from ink were super helpful and gave me a sandwich and got me into an Auto headed to Srishti.  Thanks. 

I arrived at Srishti, first to the wrong campus (because there are three venues within a few kilometers from each other), but then arrived at the correct campus and met Shika. She introduced me to some folks then I gave a short talk to about 50 people, and people showed extreme interest in water-related issues, open source DIY hardware kits / sensors (for example, a bio sensor measuring arsenic in the waters), and community mapping projects. I got some suggestions about meeting people at NCBS and other environmental groups. I met Sharath from Hackteria / Dorkbot etc, who eventually gave me a ride to where Jaaga is. From there, I tried to find a store where they could help me with my sim card, and I actually ended up getting a ride from a nice girl on her motorcycle to the cell phone store, but unfortunately it was closed. So I went back to the main road to try to catch a bus to Shiva’s house for the party in Karnataka.

At that time, it was dark, and many auto’s wouldn’t take me, but then some guy helped me get an auto and gave Shiva a call. Although crazy traffic, I ended up getting there alright, although it took me about 1/2 hour to find the right place. I entered during the performances.

So there were performances for a few hours then eventually we ate a delicious feast dinner on a big plate with bread and lots of delicious yellow and green sauces and rice that was super sour and delicious and spiced.

Unreasonable at Sea day 56: How to change the world

Notes on Visual Thinking

I sat in on a meeting with Cesar, George and Daniel and this is what I took away from it:

1. How can we use that engine [creative design thinking and empathy, I think] to create the biggest impact?
2. how do you define change? change = change people’s lives for the better, or advance your practice; for lasting transformation
3. the unreasonable institute seems to be working as an experiment, but what if took a more portfolio approach to think about an evolution than trajectory
INSTITUTION – parallel to what VIRGIN has done, But think of: inc, fast co, CNN: They haven’t built anything they just have become powerful off of other’s work
4. Every question is around impact; But the first time we filmed the institute it was only about impact ; there was no bigger picture – but it got bigger if we realized that the BRAND was the asset
-is impact your greatest goal?
5. entrepreneurship is the force for change
6. nurturing the potential in the innovator
7. entrepreneurship: that word is bad because it leaves out teacher, politician; but if you can nurture creative potential of all of the people then you can unlock much more potential. Not everyone is a designer from a professional perspective – but other people can think like designers. Everone has the responsibility to be innovative. We try to identify the need.
8. Here we try to : nurture the creative potential of innovators who nurture the creative potential in innovators, so you can collaborate as a team. learning is the curve to be on. 

[INTERRUPTED FOR A EMERGENCY DRILL]

Brainstorming with Abby on Protei in Hong Kong, and Philanthropic investment

Protei in Hong Kong as a foreign company, as a HK based co., or as a subsidiary. We can get help, as a”social business”, such as a company secretary, to set up the company and taxes for a few thousand HK dollars per year.
How do we find the right partner for manufacturing? finding the right partner can be challenging; Ideally you have someone who speaks chinese to go with you.

On the Funding side:
-HK government grants are starting to change the requirements so we don’t have to be set up as a HK charity. Protei is eligible for HK government funding and it is open to foreign entrepreneurs. You can set up a HK company without staff right away but you have to say that you plan to create jobs and map out the next year and financials.
More on visas and work permits…

Big suggestion: Don’t set up as a for profit if you aren’t looking for investors – if you plan to reinvest the profits into R&D, then set up as a company limited by guarantee. You can’t have shareholders, or take investors, and you apply for tax free status. This tax exempt status will make you eligible for lots of diff types of funding.

Protei is a good fit for venture philanthropy.

Brainstorming with Catlin

ON HK
We talked for a long while on HK, loans from the government, HK Science and Tech park, structuring the companies and HK for profit / not for profit setups; We learned about how Catlin structures OED and all of the companies within, in US and HK. It was extremely interesting and informative and I really look forward to learning more from her. It was super useful to learn from her how she structures OED.

And
1. r&d, grants from govt or competitions, ie in HK serap – 2 years, 1.2 million : [most companies die here at the end]
2. then manufacturing – they’ll pay 50% up front, revenue and loans; loans from hsbc and local banks: [most companies then die at the end here]
3. third stage – growth and payback; profit or investment leads to growth (this is where investors make good partners)

DEEP DIVE with SOLAR EAR and TENDEKAYI

HOW DO I CHANGE THE WORLD?

a talk with Arch bishop desmond tutu – resident nobel peace prize winner working to inspire global change; & tori hogan, ken banks (frontline sms)

KEN: Maybe we cannot change the world. Maybe that is too broad of an idea. It’s easier to do BAD stuff and change the world, but trying to fix education across africa is beyond the UN, us, etc. Let’s frame it for more achievable goals that we can actually do.

TUTU disagrees – Slavery was a fairly universal practice and abraham lincoln succeeded: for reason, justice and oppression in south africa, reflected almost everywhere in the world; rosa parks, mother teresa

KEN: do you think they’ve changed the world for EVERYbody?

TUTU: YES i actually believe yes but I did cover my back by saying.. [i missed it]. one of the reason i came on this voyage was meeting you [addressing the students], knowing you are fantastic. Students help get rid of apartheid, young people – have you heard of karl kilberger from canada…

TORI: did you think rosa parks and others went out with the INTENTION to change the world?

TUTU: do a little bit where you are, it is those little bits that overwhelm the world; that is true but i want you to be able to maintain the dream to affect the whole world; dream about that; dream about poverty as history; do it in your little corner and it will ripple ripple ripple…

TORI: there were many people in that apartheid, you were not the only one; it is important to remember there are many people.

TUTU: when you are in a crowd you have been carried on the shoulders of others; I went to west point with my wife and on my visit they gave me a cap and i tried the cap and it wouldn’t fit; a nice wife would have said it is too small but my wife said your head is too big

TORI: what is the doable stuff right now for these students?

KEN: question what i am seeing; don’t accept that it is normal; as Natural Geographic said: LIVE CURIOUS, don’t stop asking why; many people do see things, accept then and move on; famine: usually caused by dams etc; poor people don’t spend their money on healthcare; there is a lot we assume; often end up solving a different problem than they thought they saw; because the problem is a lot deeper and complex – you can try to fix the system that caused the problem in the first place; – finding where your niche might be and getting out and seeing the world will help you understand where you are best placed

TUTU: I think it is important that we affirm what is happening to you; if we are people that didn’t care, the fantastic thing is that you DO get churned up inside and then do say “what the heck is this”; I think you guys will keep affirming that the unease that you have is a fantastic testament to the kind of people you are who can actually begin to want to change the world and you can change it; our english brother is right… [tutu makes fun of ken then cackles]; he is quite right but you should DREAM and say I DREAM that this world is going to be different and THEN the reality; i’ve frequently said to the media: i’m very angry because you love nothing better than telling the story of a young person who has gone off the rails and you express it ; i have visited many countries; in accessible places you find kids like you from opulent homes;
Go dream dream dream and the realities might make you come down a little bit but dream;

KEN: when i started my journey in 1993 and was deeply affected with what i saw and the 14 people weren’t and could go back to their dayhjobs and forget what they’ve seen but i realized it was hard to make a difference; I used to get out to african countries, be an observer, not ever thinking i’d make a contribution, but making observations I never thought I’d make a different one; I must still keep the spirit going to drop and travel; keep free and nimble – then I am more able to take opportunities – you’ll find things you aren’t slooking for – if you go look for a gf or bf you won’t find one?

[TUTU: HOW DO YOU KNOW? , laughter cackling]

KEN: most people i know running non profits were found by the problem

TUTU: learn how to express your compassion, caring-ness. I want to be a little more like those i want to help; How about if all of us said to ISE: i don’t want to eat a particular meal and the cost of it should be incorporated into donations from all of us

KEN: all sorts of things I would NEVER have imagined phones were used for because i didn’t dictate what it would be used for ; you can teach how to fish or you can send the spades so they can learn on their own; go out with an open mind; look to try to understand and experience; dont go and think we can fix things; local people and knowledge is usually more efficient than what we [i imagine he is talking about white middle class people] can ever do.

TUTU: UBUNTU – a person is a person to other persons: i am because we are; i need you to be all you can be; so that I can be all I can be; I keep reminding you that we are all africans. its’ not a figure of speech to say “we’re family”. if you deny this truth then we are in the problem we are in today; you spend billions on instruments on death and destruction and you see children dying who don’t have clean water; we have enough resources for our world for be the paradise god wanted it to be;we have enough money to ensure that we site here and a billion people are hungry. there are people who go to bed hungry and get up in the morning and have no food and their children have to go to school and haven’t eaten. Because we forgot that they are family; in family, the law is: you don’t get what you invest; you don’t say “baby what is your contribution to the family budget; baby contributes nothing but a few smells; but have you seen how much love is poured out on this one; you don’t say to granny “money talks”. in the health of family you know that it is from each according to their ability; to each according to their need; until that gets through into our numskulls we are constantly going to be wondering how much is the US spending on nuclear stuff; russia, iran

KEN: the system is broken ; most people benefit from the infrastructure on the planet

TORI: we have to keep “that heart” and sometimes our desire to change the world does more harm than good. what i’ve learned is that we need to really understand what it feels like to be on the receiving end; 1 key question : WHAT DO YOU WANT? a lot of assumption about what the world needs but that needs to be the first question that gets asked. You never know when you’ve changed someone’s life – sometimes you do but most of the time you don’t –

KEN: everyone wants scale, big numbers – but quite often if you’ve helped only one family you have given them opportunities that others haven’t had; Humility is really in these people. the characteristic that is on the ground with people, brave or other

TUTU: on closing: i have seen young people – and the most touching thing is that they care ; and i just want to be sure that they care, and they do

TORI: it is heartwarming, realize you’ll all be part of thee solution in little and big ways, and you can at least make a difference even if it isn’t on the entire world

Cynthia’s diction on Gabriella inspiring confidence

Cynthia informed me that she is leaving the ship, in India. Before she left she gave some words of wisdom on inspiring confidence in myself:

1. look people in the eyes when they talk to me
2. don’t say “um” ; as in don’t say anything when you aren’t saying words; compose your thoughts first and then speak
3. trust your gut feeling

Thanks CYNTHIA!

I miss you on the MV Explorer. 

Unreasonable at Sea day 55: The Big Dance

Workshop with Cheryl, from Microsoft, on Marketing

• who’s is our MARKETING audience?
• for cereals we often think the mom, but NO, the kids bug the mom for the cereal so they are the audience.
• who does Protei have as our target audience for marketing?–>tech college crowd, scientists
• What are the key emotional drivers that you are going to use for your campaign? and how can you gather customer data? what are the emotional reasons that people have connected to Protei? engage lots of people?
• There are ways to get Data (Facebook, survey monkey)
• what are you trying to do with your product? change perceptions? drive awareness? Then figure out what are your tactics – use coupons , use online etc, and figure out the END ACTION
• advertising with social media is more effective and cheap compared to banners and stuff
• how are you going to measure to prove to investors?

ABBY from SYNERGY on Sources of Funding, within Asia

• what is the best source of funding for your company? What is possible and what is the goal? and what stage of development are you?
• A lot of people are interested in giving money but very few deals actually being made. For seed stage when you still need money for r&d: awards , competitions, r and d grants, initial money from corporate competitions; [ie SOE]
• Sometimes it is worse to get a social investor than a regular investor – they might have high unreasonable expectations – they want you to save the world and make a ton of money. if you don’t need investor funding now, don’t go for it – they might have expectations that will change what you are going to do – they think they know better and will come in and try to shape the corporation
• The smile program – business advisor for 2 days / week
• ANDE, GSBI, SEA, Asian Venture Philanthropy Network, SOCAP
• Synergy: virtual incubator; philanthropic investment to fill the gap before the commercial impact investors are willing to come in
• Investors are often concerned about exit strategy if it isn’t debt so there is a gap between helping one investment get to the next level: quasi equity, rev share, debt is good and clean
• To help us find funding – get a good advisory board & board of directors.

Design Thinking Class with George and critique for the students empathy research

• Clarification between : intellectual knowledge and embodied knowledge
• Nurture the fact that you are your own independent thinkers; going to university was a path on which maybe you didn’t have to blaze so many trails, but now you do have to be your own trailblazer

• Ideation2.0: techniques to get ideas out
• goal: come up with ideas
  • 1. tom chi: rapid ideation – work visually to get 4 starting points out; quiet time to draw out ideas
  • 2. braindstorm
    • defer judgement
    • wild ideas
    • build on ideas
    • lots of ideas
    • be visual
    • headline ideas
    • one person speaks at a time
  • 3. NEW : BODY STORMING:
    • put yourself at a vantage point you have never been at before
    • idea: to design the luggage compartments: let’s BE the luggage – at IDEO: mock up an airplane, put chairs out, laid on the floor as if they’re luggage to see what it’s like for the luggage to experience the flight
• Prototyping 2.0: create quick prototypes; manifest ideas in an experiential way
  • 1. low res Experiments- quick and dirty – create a new website using post it notes; try it out; test quickly what the interface / experience should be like before you code anything;
  • 2. LOTS of them: every night, do it on the fly
  • 3. NEW: ENACT THE SCENARIO” more like a skit / scenario – enact the scenario – by enacting it you will discover new insights you wouldn’t do otherwise

• TEST THE IDEAS & get feedback
  • John Hockenberry from the Takeaway WNYC – trying to launch a whole new morning show to take on morning edition
  • The Takeaway – things were unfolding so quickly that there was inaccurate stuff on air
  • enact the scenario in the studio – he got his entire crew in a conference room, explained the experiment, got three signals from AP wire from News ON AIR
  • through this enactment john noticed that the reporters are standing doing nothing : why not?!? because they are out in the field so have no idea what’s going on
  • so they do cross checking and within a week there is a news situation and the reporters know what to do as they did from enacting the scenario in the newsroom
  • So when you enact the experiment so you see things you wouldn’t, just by thinking about it
  • 1. set the scene, create props, create roles, and run the scenarios –
  • 2. to test: leave a told empty for the USER to then participate with you

We were now told to be teacher / coach, rather than client – we would like to push the students to go a bit more profoundly into the user / need / insight; The students’ work was awesome; we got some nice wireframes and insights: We are working with three different groups of students, each with three members working on Protei. They each had very different set of insights.

Here are some of Emily Kathe’s diagram’s of “buy your own customizable protei” website

My insights from the students’ insights:

1. Group 1; Emily Kathe talked mostly; The biggest insight is that people need to feel comfort inspired onto them that they would be able to use this boat well and wouldn’t be too “novice” because they don’t know “technology” supra well. So have layers or stacks that are easy to peel away, but also allow people to still know that they are buying a working product, and allow them to understand what it can do, not only how to modify it.

2. Asa mostly talked, as well as Romaine: It’s even more important to get people to RETURN to a website and to do this it requires rapidly evolving site; so then there will be newly generated content, user generated content that is organized programmatically

3. GF talked mostlyPeople return to a social website for two reasons : 1. to build a repertoire of comments on their OWN wall; to build their own ego; personal comments towards them 2. to have tags / customizable information flowing their way based on their interests;

After that, Cesar and I brainstormed about a name some more, I worked out (deck of cards) with Daniel and Coleman, brainstormed some more about the name, then went to the “dance party”.