Welcome to the course where you learn to launch a new business in the energy, finance, real estate, design, engineering, or environmental sectors, while also helping you create positive environmental and human health impacts around the world. We will integrate tools, trends, and tips from the field of entrepreneurship as a career path for making a difference and generating wealth in the renewable energy and green building sectors. This is not a course about theory. Instead, we focus on real world application, step-by-step advice, and case studies. After completing this course, students will be able to: - Define key business opportunities, challenges, and potential solutions in the renewable energy and green building sectors. - Analyze a successful business in renewable energy or green building. - Identify 2 to 3 problems you might solve with either renewable energy or green building products or services. - Plan for engaging with investors who might finance a new business. - Take real world first steps towards launching a new business or corporate initiative, by applying the 1-page business idea summary template and the Business Model Canvas to generating and refining your own new business ideas.
Launching Your Business
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Do curso por Duke University
Renewable Energy and Green Building Entrepreneurship
152 ratings
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Blast Off — Moving from Ideas to Business Implementation
In this module, the instructor provides tangible steps for generating, refining, and launching new business ideas, including tips for website, logo, advisory boards, and using helpful tools, such as the popular and dynamic planning and strategy tool called the Business Model Canvas. We also discuss how to think about building a team, because without one, your startup is just another job, not an enterprise.
Conheça os instrutores
Chris WeddingFaculty
Nicholas School of the Environment. Founder and Managing Partner, IronOak Energy
Hello and welcome back to class.
You're almost done.
Hopefully you've made it this far.
Just one last video and in this particular video,
we're really trying to focus on having you apply what you've learned and
take real, tangible steps towards launching something.
So as we discussed in prior videos,
there's meant to be really a frequent process of learn and
refine in a business going from idea to operating business with customers, right?
We rarely get it right in the first version of a business model canvas.
So, how can you do that?
Well, partly it's through things like surveys,
whether it's electronic surveys, think tools like Survey Monkey or otherwise.
Or even better yet, whether it's face-to-face live discussions
with customers or prospects, go down a few rabbit holes, if you will.
To really ask all the follow-on questions to really understand the barriers and
needs and desires of your prospects.
So what they like, dislike, what they're currently using, and
now is it good enough, why is it not good enough.
And then will they pay, can they pay, what can they pay?
So, validate and refine.
Similarly, as I mentioned in the prior video on the business model canvas,
in this process of gaining feedback,
your new team will want to update your business model canvas.
Name your company.
Now, there are branding firms which get paid
very large sums of money to come up with names for companies.
So this is not an easy task.
I've done it wrong many times, and changed names of prior companies.
Some guidance, you want to make it easy to spell, short enough to remember,
indicative hopefully of what your business does and unique relative to competitors.
Here are three pretty good examples of names and brands.
If you google bad startup company names or
some such phrase, you'll see lots of examples of misspelled words,
intentionally misspelled words, but very, very hard to remember.
If you're listening to the radio, the TV, to a podcast and
there's a commercial, an advertisement, and
somebody has to spell the company name then it's a bad company name.
Generally speaking, it should be easy to, remember easy, to spell.
Now the business model canvas really can form the basis for
website language and you don't need a super complicated
website you need a place where folks can go to validate you,
to validate your business, to see what you're about.
Oftentimes, you're generating business through more one on one contact, and then
somebody is checking out your website to make sure you're legitimate, you're real.
Now, the other pathway is that your website is the main source for
leads, so know the difference for sure.
But this is really so, so easy to do.
You do not need an IT consultant to do this, you can of course if
you have the funds and when you get a really, really fancy website but
with tools like a Weebly, like a Squarespace and many, many others.
It is literally drag and drag and drop to get really,
really nice looking basic websites.
You need a real business email address, right?
So you don't want so and so business name@gmail.com, @yahoo.com,
@, pick your other, more kind of personal website provider.
So Rackspace, G Suite, formally called Google Apps, GoDaddy,
lots of other places will do email hosting, and allow you to have
an email that looks professional which is what you want, obviously.
You need to be able to send something to somebody when they need or
want to learn about your business.
So often this takes the form of a one page summary of you business.
You want it to look really nice.
So don't do what I did early on, was to try and design it myself.
Get somebody who is more expert in using graphic design software
to do it to make it pretty for you once you have your content ready.
And then convert into a PDF as the electronic document that you send
around to prospective partners and customers.
Please, please build an advisory board.
We, you, just don't know what we don't know and
look, the structure to me is extremely variable on advisory boards.
This is not a board of directors by the way,
which would have something control of the decisions made by your company.
Look, your looking for
exports in your field that can both be expertise in a particular subject,
let's say energy, or real estate, and also aspects of growing a business,
say marketing or finance.
But often, these advisers are excited to see,
to help a younger company grow.
It's great if you can also motivate them financially to do so.
But anyway, nothing like having an extra set of wise folks rooting for
your success and hopefully holding you somewhat accountable
to the milestones, the goals you set forth for you and the company.
You'll likely need channel partners to help sell your service or product.
So if you're in the online space this is perhaps affiliates if you're selling,
I don't know, online courses.
You may do a joint venture with others who sell online courses
who maybe sell to the same type of customer but provide different products.
So you gotta team up and share the success.
You split the profits essentially from those marketing campaigns.
Again motivate these channel partners financially
to get you in front of their audiences.
You've gotta prove that you know something about your sector,
about your industry, let's say.
A blog is one way to do that.
There are far too many blogs out there.
Many are not good and so there is a bit of content overload.
However, a consistent blog is often the most visited part of a website.
Now, it is important to do it regularly, perhaps one or
two times the same day every week to share that through your social networks.
And some research suggests you either go very short and very frequent or
you go less frequent but much much more In depth.
So think about Seth Godin, G-O-D-I-N.
He's produced a very short blog everyday for many years.
And is one of the most widely read blogs in the world.
There are examples of others who write, almost a small book,
thousands of words for a blog, but only write once every two weeks or
once every month, or once every two months because it's such rich content.
Another format you can think it matters are Q&A where the most
frequent questions that come up in your industry, around your product type,
how can you write great great answers to those that are evergreen.
The other thing is if you can write evergreen content something that's
relevant, not just during the week of a certain news headline but,
over the course of a couple years.
You're likely to get more traffic from that.
The last slide here on launch.
Aim for a high touch approach that does not scale at first.
Get out of the office and
talk to customers who are happy and less happy let's say.
Those who said no to you, why did they say no, so learn and refine your business.
Again, this is not a stone carving exercise.
All this is meant to be iterative.
Key conclusions, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
Launch before your business is 100% ready.
Some say the only way to learn is by doing, not by thinking about it some more.
Number two, your first business idea is likely not the one that will succeed.
Remember, failure only happens when you give up.
Now when you fail, it's hard to keep that in mind, but again you should expect
that things will not work out and you need to find a path around those roadblocks.
Lastly, it's never been easier to start a new business in most countries.
The tools are more available, and the cost lower than ever.
So what I'm saying is, when should you start a business?
Now, right?
Maybe not right this very second, but yes, now.
There's never going to be a perfect time, but now is as good a time as has been,
relatively speaking, to start a new business.
Lastly, questions for you, what's holding you back from launching the new startup or
corporate initiative?
Then hopefully you've kind of further refined and
fleshed out during this course.
Number two, what would your future look like in three to five years if you don't
implement this next steps in this video and
instead remain in your current job doing what you've always done.
Now, look, maybe that's fine.
But I'm guessing you're taking this course because there's interest for
a different level of impact you're seeking to make a different lifestyle,
more flexibility for your family, for friends, for causes etc.
Finally, what is the timeline for taking these next steps in this video?
Write them out now and tell somebody.
Tell many people about it.
Put it on Facebook or LinkedIn.
Let others hold you accountable as kind of peers, supporters along the way.
So, we'll see you in the very last video and really,
really helping you pause this video and written on answers to this questions
on this slide as you have throughout the whole course.
The time is now, right, to put this into practice.
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