Our Going Global webinar, and Slideshare presentation, will help you understand why going global is something for you, and how you can join us in changing the world!

Your business idea may be large enough that you will need a business loan or small enough that you will need your own craftiness to make it work. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has ample guidance and information on loans as well as anything else you may need. Here are some steps you can take to start taking action on your idea:

Educate yourself

Now that you know what type of business you want to run, it is time to become an expert in that field. Make sure you get any licenses or education that may be required, do a competitive analysis on other businesses that offer the same product or service as you hope to. Examine why they do well or why they don’t.  Determine how to make your prices competitive and how you’ll differentiate yourself from the competition.

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Lay the ground work

What will you need to get started?
 

• A business name – You will need to come up with a business name and make sure that no businesses in the your state have that name.
• Choose what type of organization you want – The most common types of organizations to choose from are sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, and S corporation. Limited Liability Company (LLC) is a new structure that can be formed depending on the state you are in.
• Brand Yourself – You will need to start with a logo and then move onto your business cards and any other marketing materials you need initially. There are many ways to produce cost effective marketing for your company. You can even use email marketing and a template based website that you maintain yourself to help cut costs.
• Find a location – Do you need a location outside of your home? You may be able to save money by working from home if an outside office is not necessary.
• Get a business loan if needed – There are venture capitalists and banks out there that are willing to loan you money. If you need funding, see what options are the best fit for you.
• Set up accounting – Make sure to set up your tax forms and accounting services in the beginning so you can make sure to keep track of what your business is making and spending. There are many ways to do this through the right invoicing software or by going to a paid accountant.

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​Get started selling yourself

You may need to create a portfolio to build credibility in your new business. If that is the case, then networking and volunteering your services are key ways to get your name out there. There are many networking organizations that you can join to help you build your business. Approaching family and friends and asking them if they need your services, even if it is volunteer work, will help build your portfolio to show what you are capable of doing.

If you don’t need a portfolio for your type of business, then make sure you are ready to jump right into working for your customers.

Don’t give up

All businesses that succeed are hard work and take time and energy to grow into a prosperous business. While the startup will be a challenge, if you hang in there, you will see the fruits of your labor.

Are you ready to take the risk and realize your business dreams? What other steps have you taken if you’re already pursuing your dreams?

What if I told you that in 2012 you could have your dream job? Your job would include making money, building brilliant new approaches to products and services, endless learning opportunities, unlimited growth potential, and the end of poverty. Would you look at me like I was losing my marbles?

My guess is you would. So rather than tell you that you can have your dream job, I will show you that there is a path to getting there. I will do this in the same way that communities in rural Africa show us how they create their own economies. How innovation in their lives becomes the engine of hope and opportunity that is all-too-uncommon these days.

Welcome to ThinkImpact‘s innovation process.

In 2011, a young man from Richmond, CA named Philip Johnson applied for an opportunity to live and work in rural Kenya with ThinkImpact. The program he was hoping to join was called the Innovation Institute.

Philip first arrived to Washington DC for ThinkImpact’s training program called ThinkImpact University with no stamps in his newly minted passport. He had never even spent so much as a night camping. The palm fields of Kaloleni, Kenya are nothing like the streets of Richmond where he was born and raised. What he did have was a fresh degree from the University of the Pacific and an entrepreneurial spirit that would drive him to have a truly life changing experience in Africa.

Philip had no job lined up after graduation, but had a voracious appetite for learning and enterprise. He joined 10 other young people — college students, grad school candidates and young professionals — on this 8-week journey in Kaloleni.

For Philip, the trip was not easy at first. He was shaken by the new environment, the homestay experience, the food and the culture. Miles outside of his comfort zone, he began by putting his guard up, but he was determined to overcome the challenge. At the same time, he felt frustrated by the innovation process and challenged by the seeming lack of energy and motivation in the community.

Three weeks into the program, there was a pivot. Something clicked. As if a sudden awakening or moment of enlightenment had struck him, Philip learned how to communicate with people from this rural village. He began to comprehend what he could do in his short time in the community. Having completed his studies at UOP’s Eberhardt School of Business, he was more than capable of identifying market trends and supply chains, but he wasn’t able to fully understand how a social enterprise could be leveraged to bring about an end to poverty in a very localized context until he connected with the local community members.

Philip opened up his heart and mind to people in Kenya. He listened to their aspirations, their challenges and ultimately became an inspiring figure to them. Along with several other community members, a Design Team formed and before long, with some brainstorming activities a growing sense of what was possible and a design challenge was developed. They asked: “How might we create healthy products, using local resources, while employing the youth?”

Their answer: coconut honey.

Through the innovation process Philip and his team prototyped multiple batches of this delicious honey that was made from the local alcohol, Palm Wine, a kind of fermented coconut water. Most families in the community earn a living through some part of the Palm Wine production and distribution process. Philip and his team found a way to leverage local resources and processes to create a new product that can be sold on the local market. A much healthier — and less intoxicating! — product than palm wine.

The Innovation Institute develops economies with new thinking, and it exemplifies what is possible. ThinkImpact has forged this process through five years of learning and listening in rural communities in Africa and also taking notes from visionaries. We work with IDEO.org and IDEO’s human centered design materials. For those interested in learning how to become part of an innovative process, check out IDEO. For those looking to work in rural Africa during college or after, apply for the Innovation Institute and become the process.

Change your life and change the world.

In Philip’s own words:

Why did you want to go?
“I was interested in social entrepreneurship. Already had been thinking about water problem in developing countries and my roommate showed him the opportunity to apply for ThinkImpact. Sounds pretty cool. Poverty alleviation, sanitation, sounded like what we were interested in. Always better to teach a man to fish than give him a fish.”

What was it like there?
“… it was… it was almost, like, being in tropical paradise, but everything that you think that shouldn’t be on that tropical paradise was there. Dropping trash, animals everywhere. It was humbling. A constant learning experience. A constant reflection experience. It was all those things. It was kind of like a rainbow and everything is there and it makes one complete picture.”

Will you go back?
Yes. I’m actually working on that now. Trying to build out a business plan. Going to be calling all of them. I’m really trying to get back.

What connected you to the community?
Went in with this idea that I should be a listener. That I would be tested. I wasn’t going to let my guard down. But then I did. And I watched. You can listen, but I also watched. I think it was when I learned how to watch — their sounds, watching them do stuff. By me not having talked to him that much, simple nods that I was paying attention, I think that was how we communicated the most. We would talk and it would be a period of like 40 minutes, silence, but it wasn’t an awkward silence.

What is your goal now?
My goal now is to get Ndoto Enterprise off the ground. The palm wine is a staple income in the community. With this you can actually create another revenue source. It’s also renewable. The coconut tree is everything to the community. We want to improve quality of life. This product incentivizes men not to drink the palm wine and instead to sell the sweet coconut syrup that comes from it.

Follow Saul Garlick on Twitter: www.twitter.com/saulgarlick

The ThinkImpact DC office is abuzz with discussions about the 2012 Innovation Institute and excitement about our updated website and launch of the 2012 application.  We here in the office have been working hard to ensure that this summer’s Institute is the best yet!  We have been listening to feedback of past scholars and advisors and incorporating their ideas and suggestions into our curriculum and organization of the program.  We have some exciting new changes, most notably the expansion of the Institute to both Rwanda and Ghana in addition to where we already work in Kenya and South Africa.  This expansion means that we are accepting more applicants than ever to join our team and have the experience of a lifetime living and working in rural African communities while learning about social entrepreneurship.  We can’t wait to start reading prospective scholar applications and getting to know the Innovation Institute class of 2012!

Want to end poverty with new thinking?

Join our team!

Jianlin Presents at SOCAP

The panel at SOCAP went extremely well, thanks to the concerted efforts of the panel team. People who attended the panel actively participated in the activities that we designed. I’m glad that all the efforts we put in during the preparation paid off. It was interesting to watch our audience doing what we did for the idea generation phase, but during a much shorter period of only 10 min. They all did pretty well though because most of the ideas they came up with were exactly what many of us scholars decided to do in the end.

After a long but interesting keynote talk I went on to present at the Innovation Showcase. It was eye-opening to see what other social entrepreneurs have been doing. The showcase makes me realize that social entrepreneurship is a really exciting area not only because of the projected profitability but also its potential impact. It was heartening to see many devoted social entrepreneurs whose businesses have benefited thousands of people. This encourages me to explore even more in this area, where “Money” meets “Meaning”.

What problem are you addressing? Why should people care?

The world needs to experience a “mind-shift.” That is, the wealthiest countries and individuals must seek solutions to poverty that reach well beyond traditional philanthropy. Indeed, the only way to actually end poverty is to create opportunities that create yet more opportunities. These opportunities can be found in the markets of developing societies, but they cannot be ideas hatched in the comfort of a library or an apartment. The ideas that will create jobs, meet basic needs and provide for a better quality of life must be sourced directly from the communities that would benefit from such innovation.

With this belief, ThinkImpact (www.thinkimpact.org), the social enterprise that I run, seeks to provide college students and young professionals living and studying in the United States extraordinary access to economies and communities in rural villages in the developing world. While there, they are not asked to complete service projects or conduct research for a paper. Rather, they are expected to fully immerse in the culture, experience life as a local through shared austerity, learn about the vast local resources, skills and other assets that exist within the society, and work in design teams with local community members to unleash the power of those assets.

The curriculum and program that we offer (this year for 44 scholars from 27 schools across the United States) is non-traditional in every sense. It is challenging, uplifting, empowering and at times, stressful. But it is also the most efficient way to change minds from dependence to independence; breaking the endless cycle of poverty once and for all. It is time that community members gain access to ideas and processes that will help them unlock their own potential, creating myriad opportunities in a given locality. Until we break the dependence on aid that is so common in poor communities, we can never imagine an end to poverty.

Back in the States, we’re raised and educated on principles of effort and attempt. Quotes like “A for effort” and Wayne Gretzy’s “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take” encourage us to become familiar with the possibility of failure rather than afraid of it. In the process, we may even discover our skills and passions.

Especially in social entrepreneurship, success is dependent on experimentation and rough implementation. Doing so helps us learn from our mistakes and can potentially lead to great success. Without trying, no progress can be made.

But here in the rural communities, there isn’t time, money or familiarity with experimentation—people stick with what their familiar with. A majority of the community are sustenance farmers who are living on little more than $1 or $2 a day. Specifically, for my project dealing with nutrition, community members favor methods of cooking and dishes that have been made for generations. Talking about creating a new snack or implementing a variation on an existing snack is impossible to envision. What is more, the concepts of prototypes and multiple iterations are even more foreign. Even something as simple as replacing meat in samosas with vegetables can create difficulties in imagination.

The simple act of creating a prototype gets people thinking in new ways. When they can physically see a new concept, and even taste it, they understand it and can immediately become passionate about it and begin thinking creatively. So now as we approach the final week in the design process, it will be important for all of us to place greater emphasis on the physical manifestation of ideas rather than just talk about them. Doing so will lead to greater chance for success in our ventures.”

We will be sending a weekly newsletter every Tuesday with details including photos, blogs, and videos from the field that keep our team, friends and family updated on the accomplishments of the scholars abroad. This, along with the development of a new media website, thinkimpact.phanfare.com, and constant updates to our blog, allows us to experience the Innovation Institute even at home!

“I went to church on Sunday. I’ve been going to church on and off since I was 10 back in the states, and I have never seen a service with so much life in it. I can safely say the Huntington Emmanuel Church does far more dancing and singing, and at a significantly higher volume than my customary service. My ears are still ringing from that 2 1⁄2 hour service! The message was from Exodous. about God taking the people out of their suffering in Egypt and into the promised land, just as these poor and forgotten Shangaan are waiting to find their happy ending. Chapter 3, verse 14 stuck out to me particularly. Admittedly, I still can’t read Shangaan, and it is thanks to the kind woman seated next to me that I know even the gist of the verse. But essentially, God comes to the people and states “I am what I am”. I couldn’t help but be brought back to one of Saul’s many pre-departure pep talks in DC, where he reminded us that “people are people everywhere; we are all fundamentally the same”. While this may seem like an obvious statement, I feel it is worth lingering on, and exploring the meaning behind it.

Often when people venture to other communities, the focus tends to be on what is different from their own. I could go on and on for days about all the things that have stumped me, challenged me, confused me, believe me there is no shortage of those. But I have also seen so many similarities between these people and my own community in the states, and I think it is more important to ponder on those. I immediately think of my first full day here, when I was working at a house making cement bricks, and the music blaring out of their speakers consisted of the new Drake, Nikki Minaj, Eminem songs I was hearing on the US radio before I left. The similarities between my culture and theirs’ can be found in both superficial instances like these, and of course deeper more meaningful ones as well. These people believe in the sanctity of family, and in cherishing one another. I think of my host family, and their mutual understanding of cooperation and support. My host sister is 18, with a 2 year old son named Divine. Rather than forsaking her education and staying home to care for him, her mother, Nelly, watches Divine so Nani can go to school. The whole family is centered around this little boy, which is easy to do. He radiates life and love and happiness, and I’m already falling for the little guy, even though he sings me the Mlunga (white person) song every morning. They all share household responsibilities, and work hard to retain a high sense of cleanliness, despite their lack of running water. Ayushi and I did laundry yesterday, and safe to say we’re pretty terrible at hand washing clothes. Nani and the kids mostly watched and laughed. But learning to wash clothes and dishes by hand, without running water, is no easy feat. The Shangaan people have mastered the art of it, and manage to accomplish so much without my every day modern conveniences. Regardless, I’m counting down the days when I can brush my teeth in a sink.

Most noticeably on my trip thus far, the Shangaan people, like everyone else, look for community. My street in particular is fortunately very close. It seems like every night everyone gathers at Jane’s to watch the latest installment of a popular soap opera, or in the case of last night, watch terrible movies like Anaconda. The people are always outside during the day, playing or talking in the street, working together, being together. I guess what I’m trying to say is that this trip thus far is reminding me we are all humans, we all need friends, family, love, a community. I feel so fortunate to have the most amazing group members I could ask for, as well as a village community full of love and acceptance, that has thus far shown us nothing but grace, compassion, and appreciation. The world becomes more and more integrated each day, and with it comes the need to both understand and appreciate other cultures for what they are,without viewing things from our own ethnocentric lens. Here, I am being constantly reminded that the basic foundations in us are all the same, and as long as we remember that, there is hope for all of us to one day understand each other. And that’s something we can all work towards.”

“The last two weeks have been a blur. Two Thursdays ago I was checking in at ThinkImpact at D.C., and now I am sitting in a small village in rural Africa.

To Recap:

-        The first few days of orientation were awesome. We had a lot of great speakers and finally got to meet the ThinkImpact staff, all of whom are great people.

-        It was really great to finally meet all the other scholars. I lucked out and ended up in the pink group, which consists of Adam, Lauren, Yem, Jianlin, Eric, and me. Everyone in the program is very intelligent and accomplished.

-        After a long Lufthansa flight from D.C. to Frankfurt, we hopped out of the airport and spent 10 hours exploring all the sausage that Frankfurt had to offer.

-        Back on the plane to Johannesburg. We got to meet our advisor Nick Singer. The city has malls that could compete with any mall back in the states. You can still see signs of the World Cup from last year. Everyone speaks English. There are very poor parts of the city as well, slums of very tiny shacks made of corrugated metal.

-        There was not much exploring to be done. For the most part we were trapped inside the hotel compound, which included a casino and a food court. We did go to the Apartheid Museum and learned more about the history of the country.

-        After two days, we went to Nelspruit, a city just an hour or so outside our villages. This was more of a transition day. We wanted to make sure that we do not get to the village at night because people have some very extreme superstitions about the night in the villages.

-        The next day was the first day in the village. We were introduced to our host families. Mine consists of a woman, Busi, and her two children Witness, 12, and Faith, 5. The choir, which is part of a group called Youth in Action, gave us an awesome performance as a welcoming gesture. The leader, Enoch, has been a tremendous help to us by introducing us to the community and pairing us with translators (students)

-        Work began the next day. Life here is very slow. People kept making jokes about running on “Africa Time”, but I did not realize till coming to the village that people here move very slowly.

-        Over the next few days, we immersed ourselves in the community. This includes bathing in a bucket and using a latrine, which is a toilet seat over a several meters deep hole in the ground and a smell that gets worse every day.

-        After conducting several interviews, we have found some major problems in the community. Work is hard to come by. Most work happens outside of the city. This means that men must work away from home, some for the week and others for several weeks. They come home on weekends. Lucky men work in the game reserves or the mines. There is an HIV/AIDS problem. Many men die, leaving their wife and children. The women want work but in many instances, they never finished high school because of pregnancy. Even if they do get a job, it is hard for them to accept because their children are too small and there would be no one to take care of them. Many youth do not have the money to go to college or university. As a result, some drop out of high school. There is a drinking problem among the younger generation. People who are educated have no outlet because there is a shortage of jobs.

It will definitely be a challenge to create a business opportunity in this village when there are so many factors going against it.

- Munis”