Congrats! Member Play Shown in Workshop Production

Naomi Shafer

New member Naomi Shafer just had a workshop production of her play Service Dogs. The workshop, sponsored by off-Broadway company PTP/NYC, culminated in a free performance Monday night. The workshop gave the cast a chance to work out kinks in the script and discover how it reads in front of an audience, but without the pressure of a full run or reviews. A shorter version of Service Dogs won 2nd prize in Middlbury College’s inaugural New Play Festival this past spring.

The play is a dark comedy about how far four women will go to get a job in this intern economy.

The official blurb was:

“Briana, Tiana, and Stella have fresh ideas, expensive B.A.s, and flawless hair, but they're interns....still. When a job opens up at Shintz-Prarming, the women manipulate bright-eyed newbie Astrid to get an edge at the interview, and hopefully an edge up on their lives.

Naomi shared with us that “Watching the play in front of an audience taught me a lot. It was a relief to learn that others share in my sense of humor. There’s nothing quite as awesome as being able to give my actor friends jobs.”

Congrats Naomi!  We are delighted to have you in our coworking community!

Creative Destruction, Disruption, and Opportunism

One concept from economics is "Creative Destruction".  A recent blog post by Dr Jeff Cornwall explains the concept and applies it to entrepreneurship directly.

A highlight... 

Economists tell us that the primary role of entrepreneurs in the economy is to engage in a process they call “creative destruction.”  Through their innovations, entrepreneurs help create new industries that transform or even replace old and declining industries...

While there are still many opportunities for entrepreneurs in these industries, other industries have emerged as being on the cusp of fundamental change.  Here are a few that have recently caught my attention:

• Advertising:  While mass media advertising worked well with the Baby Boomer Generation of consumers, the Millennials do not trust traditional advertising.  They get information on what products to buy based on the opinions of their friends transmitted through social media, not from ads developed on Madison Avenue.
• Senior care:  We all know that the wave of Baby Boomers, also known now as the “grey tsunami,” will create significant opportunities in senior care.  However, Boomers have fundamentally different expectations than their parents, so they most likely will not accept many of the business models for senior care that are common today.
• Education:  Technology and unsustainable cost increases will be the likely sources of significant disruption in the education industry over the next decade.

Full post here. 

 

Funding Fridays: The Executive Summary

Welcome to the first in an occasional series, Funding Fridays, where we bring you videos and links to best practices on raising startup funding. 

This week we're talking about the Executive Summary. A good one can really help you get past those initial filters and serve as a tool to facilitate great conversations with mentors and even potential investors.  A bad one can get you disqualified in seconds.

Having reviewed more than a thousand of these, I have found some standard rules that help tremendously.  Below are links to my lecture on this, including Good and Bad examples of how to do most sections (thanks to Bob Hyers for that suggestion years ago!).

• Part I: Introduction, company, need, solution
• Part II: Market
• Part III: Competition, business model
• Part IV: Financials, exit, impact
• Part V: People, deliverables

Or you can view part I right here!

Metrics, Best Practices

Image credit: 

http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Greenbay

In a startup world moving more and more into the Lean / Business Model Canvas perspective, determining and measuring the right metrics has become vital.  Here are some great tips:

• Choosing The Right Metrics for Your Startup - via 500 Startups
• Measuring What Matters: How To Pick A Good Metric

Click Welcomes Four New Members!

Andrew Wollner

Jeff Green

Naomi Shafer

Sarah Williams

Click is delighted to welcome four new members to our fun shared office space:

• Andrew Wollner - Professor of Design at New Mexico Highlands University + Co-owner, Wollner Design
• Jeff Green - Operations Engineer, Special Projects at Wikimedia Foundation
• Naomi Shafer - Playwrite and grant writer for New England Youth Theatre
• Sarah Williams  - Co-Owner at Element Athletics.

Welcome to Northampton!

Stay tuned for detailed profiles of our new members in the weeks to come!