Put together by the Google Foundation, this video while an hour long is more than interesting and well worth watching by any aspiring social entrepreneur. It focuses on the Ashoka Foundation, but so much more.

Ashoka: Innovators for the Public is a nonprofit organization supporting the field of social entrepreneurship. Ashoka was founded by Bill Drayton in 1981 to identify and support leading social entrepreneurs through a Social Venture Capital approach with the goal of elevating the citizen sector to a competitive level equal to the business sector. The organization currently operates in over 60 countries and supports the work of over 2,000 social entrepreneurs, elected as Ashoka Fellows . Ashoka also creates mosaics of best practices that map the commonalities and intersections of key principles that guide Fellows’ individual solutions. Ashoka’s initiatives include Changemakers, Youth Venture, and Full Economic Citizenship.

In any case – enjoy.

… before arriving at day two it is worth continuing with the finance theme just to add that yes ‘cash is king’ but growth is proportional to your necessary funds for operation, therefore, model your cash needs according to the expected or desired success of your business. Also, be as creative as possible when looking to reduce your cash requirement (subscriptions, early settlement discounts), at the end of the day this costs you less than fundraising.

When fundraising, research your investors as they do you, check the fund vesting status and exit horizon, consider their experience, and above all look for references from their portfolio companies. The better you know your investor the more chance you have of reaching an agreement over money for you taking the risk and putting in the hours.

When it comes to pitching your idea you are looking for relatively small amounts of capital in the main so don’t raise more than you need and avoid taking on more debt. Be as creative as possible on how to spend or not spend it and then pitch your idea with passion, vision demonstrating a clear market opportunity. What’s the purpose of all this? To get a meeting with the investor to go into more detail so don’t tell them your life story, keep them keen and make it special.

If you want to hone that pitch then you must know that communication consists of 3 parts: the SENDER, the MESSAGE, the RECEIVER. To communicate well you need to think about how you are communicating (your style and tools as The Sender); what you are communicating (the key elements of The Message; tell a story, engage the audience); and the ‘mindset’ and needs of The Receiver (know your audience and tailor the message to them).

Lastly, when it comes to being the latest innovation there are many common misconceptions out there and the top seven might just be:

7. Successful ventures are VC funded – only 12% of fastest growing companies in fact

6. Successful ventures are B2c – it’s more volatile and takes more time

5. Products sell online – even Google has a sales team for each country

4. Start-ups are born global – very few mature companies are even global

3. Break through ideas are instantly profitable – you need to plan & execute first

2. First movers are best – maybe if it’s a gold rush

1. We are the only ones – no competition probably means it ain’t worth fighting for

Now, don’t forget it is not all about the money so find people that are willing to work with and for you to make this dream a reality.

It would be easy to think that f3fundit launched this competition just to find a winner and give away some money. In fact the greater purpose behind this exercise was to demonstrate that there are many ventures worthy of our attention that stand to benefit and improve their chances of success through the two day workshop we put together.

This exercise was about capturing opportunities, mobilising resources and achieving results because we need more success, greater access to talent, more ideas to see the light of day and more value creation.

In the process we learnt some valuable lessons from the generous contributions given by our team of experts that have set up countless businesses between them. So much so we think these secrets need to be shared:

Firstly, the most important lesson to learn as an entrepreneur with an early stage venture is that your quite brilliant plan will always need changes and you must be willing to adapt as you move between planning, engagement and execution. Ongoing innovation is vital to your success and it is natural to go from plans A, to B, to C – in fact 86% of vested business plan submissions by (US) VCs are adapted one way or another.

Secondly, work on your business model not just your business plan! That means your valued customer, value proposition, value chain, profit engine (yes even if you are non-profit!), and protection. Doesn’t matter if you are the next Mango, iPad or Cirque du Soleil you need to focus on the right segment, clients, partners, risks, revenues, etc. How do you protect yourself? Through patents, brands and core competencies.

Thirdly, if you plan to be international then don’t just replicate what you are doing in one country, make allowances for cultural differences, empower the local partners and employees to manage and develop your brand and services but retain control. Eventually, you may even realise that people are identical to work with in spite of their differences.

Fourthly, capital is basically for 3 things, start-up costs, operating losses and working capital. If you look at the balance sheet this translates to investment in fixed assets, necessary funds for operations and a sufficient cash buffer. Further, as an entrepreneur negotiating with investors you must be aware of what impacts your personal wealth. This comes down to valuation, liquidation preferences (never more than 1x so negotiate!), accrued dividends (watch these), and anti-dilution – it is worth knowing that 1/3 of VC investment in the US is a ‘down’ loan.

Lastly, always, always get a good lawyer to guide you through these contract negotiations.

More lessons to come in our next instalment and take a look at our resources page for updated recommendations on content you should download or read!

When you think of the Soviet Union, and in fact communism – the last thing that comes to your mind are the favorable conditions it set for private enterprise. And while undeniable that the “concept” of privatization was “frowned upon” under the hammer and sickle, it’s not to say that it inadvertently didn’t do more good than bad for entreprenerus – at least in today’s world, and looking ten fifteen years down the line.

Have we lost our marbles. Hardly.

The East – West Divide

Let’s look at the nature of things as they were prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall and Perestroika. Not only was food scarce in the Warsaw Pact but so were normal commodity items such as pillows, skirts, toilet paper, or for that matter next to everything that wasn’t either vodka, potato, or beer, or combined product there of, and you can forget about the availability of Levi’s Jeans all together.

So what would happen if say a few individuals gained access to a box of Levi’s, another few, to a couple of crates of Bananas, another to extra couches at the factory, and perhaps someone else to some toddler shirts, etc… etc… effectively an underground economy, which initially arose as a barter system. 3 pairs of 501 regular fit jeans for 1 couch. Done. One pair of regular fit for 10 shirts. Done. 5 shirts for three bushels of bananas. Done.

An entrepreneurial mindset was forming out of necessity to have basic human goods. What’s interesting as well is that – this new basic form of entrepreneurship – spanned the Eastern Block, the Polish would have a surplus of something the Hungarians did not, who in turn had a surplus of something or other that the Romanians lacked, and so the circle went ’round and ’round, and under the table micro international trade was blossoming.

Aside from the trading and the bartering, this did however carry risks, visas were next to impossible to acquire, individuals were putting themselves and their families at stake for just participating in this activity, but history aside, all this came to and end with the fall of the USSR and the introduction of free market reforms, or did it?

The West – West Divide

Let’s fast forward to now, and look at the Western block, aside from a few pockets, entrepreneurship and failure is generally looked down upon. If you fail, it’s as if though you are negatively branded, and instead of being looked a as a brave individual whose attempted something new, and in terms of the general mentality – this is probably the most differentiating factor between the U.S. and Western Europeans.

What do we mean? Well in Spain one of the most sought after positions is a “funcionario” or a civil servant, in Danish there exists a word for being too ambitious, but the buck doesn’t stop there.

There is a popular drive not to succeed and just be comfortable in the majority of the populace, and the socially backed government initiatives, the sometimes month+ it takes to get a company up and running, the don’t get us started on various labour laws that make firing people more expensive than keeping them on, it’s no wonder that entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship has been hit with the stick for decades and just now individuals are trying to turn things around led by best practices and initiatives coming from the states and those Europeans who had to leave in order to fully develop their companies and ideas in places such as Silicon Valley, NY, Boston, etc.

The East – West Junction

We’re 20 years on from the fall off the Berlin Wall, the entrepreneurship mentality is still there, the post Warsaw pact citizens are innovating, creating, going around obstacles and taking risks in order to move their enterprises forward, not only on a local but an international front. Furthermore, due to the oppressive nature of the Soviet regime, the region has typically embraced US American ideals and concepts, further positioning themselves to grab the reigns for European Entrepreneurs.

Notwithstanding, many of the C&E Europeans feel that they have something to prove, to show that they too can become magnates of industry, and with the total alienation to socialism caused by the USSR it wouldn’t be surprising if within the next 20 years the focus of entrepreneurship on the European front will shift much further East.

Today we present you with 25 quotes regarding entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs, some hit home, some are inspirational and some are funny, and while Googling “Entrepreneurship Quotes” will give you a list of many many more, we figured the best dang thing to do was to dig through the web and pick the ones we felt were most relevant. Enjoy!

1. “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.”
- Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Enterprises

2. “There is only one way to make a great deal of money; and that is in a business of your own.”
– J. Paul Getty, Former oil tycoon and once the richest man in America

3. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”
- Thomas Edison, inventor and scientist

4. “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary”
– Vidal Sassoon, entrepreneur

5. “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
– Peter Drucker

6. “Failure defeats losers, failure inspires winners.”
– Robert T. Kiyosaki, author, entrepreneur, investor

7. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover”
- Mark Twain, author

8. “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”
- Steve Jobs, Apple Inc., the line he used to lure John Sculley as Apple’s CEO

9. We were young, but we had good advice and good ideas and lots of enthusiasm.”
- Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft Corporation

10. “Nobody talks about entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking. Running that first shop taught me business is not financial science; it’s about trading: buying and selling.”
- Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop

11. “I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become one in order to keep my magazine going.”
- Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Enterprises

12. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
– Walt Disney

13. “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.”
– Mario Andretti

14. “In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.”
– David Ogilvy

15. “The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake – you can’t learn anything from being perfect.”
- Adam Osborne

16. “The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities.”
- Michael Gerber, author, entrepreneur

17. “An entrepreneur tends to bite off a little more than he can chew hoping he’ll quickly learn how to chew it.”
- Roy Ash, co-founder of Litton Industries

18. “Every worthwhile accomplishment, big or little, has its stages of drudgery and triumph; a beginning, a struggle and a victory.”
- Mahatma Gandhi, political and spiritual leader

19. “Entrepreneurs average 3.8 failures before final success. What sets the successful ones apart is their amazing persistence.”
- Lisa M. Amos

20. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
- Steve Jobs, Apple Inc.

21. “Everyone experiences touch times, it’s a measure of your determination and dedication how you deal with them and how you can come through them.”
- Lakshmi Mittal

22. “I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity.”
- John D. Rockefeller

23. “Most new jobs won’t come from our biggest employers. They will come from our smallest. We’ve got to do everything we can to make entrepreneurial dreams a reality”
- Ross Perot

24. “Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual.”
- Natalie Clifford Barney

25. “There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are now afloat;
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose the ventures before us”
- William Shakespeare, author