“Lean Manufacturing” is the the origin of the phrase and philosophy “Lean Startup” and no matter how many times I see good summaries of the Toyota Manufacturing Process (the masters of Lean), I keep seeing analogies that are useful for startups. Lesson 1- Don’t make the same mistake twice. Lesson 2- Optimizing internal operations can be your secret sauce. Lesson 3...
At a recent Seattle Impact Investing Group meeting, Leslie Christian was a guest speaker, sharing some of her wisdom on mixing impact with investing. Her wisdom is wide and deep, but one idea especially popped out: the paradigm of shareholder value, especially in regard to investors, risk, and return. Specifically, what we’re taught in Finance is the following equation: Revenues...
Kevin Starr of the Mulago Foundation wrote a nice explanation of the need for and sweet spot of impact investing, Somebody’s Gotta Get Rich. Impact at problem-solving levels of scale doesn’t come from one-off businesses. “Levels of scale” as in making a noticeable difference in the world, rather than simply telling a good story imagining a world different from how it is today. Kevin...
Apparently I’ve misunderstood the “Tragedy of the Commons” and so likely have you. This is a great example of a meme that is assumed to be both ancient and obvious, but isn’t. There was an essay entitled “Tragedy of the Commons” written back in 1833, but it was ignored until Garret Hardin published an article in Science in 1968 with the same title. It’s...
