We've covered the first and second stage -- idea generation and opportunity evaluation in class. And I think we are now on planning stage: strategy and operation plan. And then, at the end of semester, we will be able to launch our social venture and grow our baby further.
As for the planning, mainly two things need to be considered: strategy and operating plan. We've set the strategy in terms of target population, business model, positioning, and company goals so far, and now we need to set some more details of how we will go about our strategy statements with operating plans.
Here are some ideas for my venture operations:
- Company timeline: Since the timeline needs to be short-term plan for class, let's say it shows 12 month-long plan. At the beginning of 1 month, company will develop curriculum or message for firms and individuals. In the second month, company will contact family counseling organizations (e.g. father school and mother school) to ask if they will incorporate the idea/curriculum of company drinking cultures in their training program. Depending on their response, regular curriculum can be added up on their existing program or our staff members or guest lecturers can go visit and deliver the message -- the length of their speech can vary from 10 minutes to 2 hours or more. From the third month, the enterprise will incorporate with more organizations and deliver that message more often. That is a briefly sharable timeline. If you are curious about father school, please follow this link.
- Staffing plan: Company needs staffs to develop curriculum, contact relevant organizations, do research on companies, and provide lectures. Borrowing from the ideas that 4 cornerstone are the best with a founder and at least one advisor, we may have 6 people for staffs. But, at the same time, regarding that my venture would not be too technology or finance-involved, we might need less people on our board at the beginning. Bear in mind, though, that I plan to have all staff members including myself as a part-time staff as a pro bono or social responsibility theme. Everyone is expected to have a sustainable income from other sources.
- Budget and financing plan: Since staff members are expected to have regular income and we start small, budget and financing plan would be minimalistic as well, unless it has to generate stable revenue as a social venture. Income sources could include tuition from those schools or gratitude fees from counseling firms, but this wouldn't be too enough for every member, I suspect. I am okay not to earn too much out of this, as long as we are delivering message to the world and more people in South Korea, especially in Seoul, can hear about this issue.
- Other aspects: There were two interesting ideas I could get from the interaction with classmates last week. (1) Use songs or media to promote the ideas of "drinking too much is uncool", "family and friend value is important", "your happiness matters", and "your life is important". Since media is very impactful in many aspects, I might be able to use media to spread the theme. Although, currently, our media is also highly embedded with encouraging drinking somehow in South Korea, I will think about some ideas of how I can use media in realistic ways. (2) What about using pilot program? And also, what about approaching organizations and family members at the same time, unlike my original plan of approaching family first, employees second, and employer the last? Well, this is also a great idea; I will try to incorporate these ideas in our venture plan.
I would like to also ask regarding my staff plan and budget/finance plan. I am curious whether it will be okay that everyone on board will be part-time with stable regular income source from their full-time job, and therefore, we have less emphasis on earning regular income source from the venture we create. Would that be okay or not too sustainable? Any recommendations or innovative ideas for funding plans? Thanks all; great to have awesome and fresh ideas from classmates.
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