Change the world by bike

Zambikes International is a Californian company set up in 2010 that provides worldwide distribution for Zambian-made Bamboo bicycles, providing increase employment and impact into the lives of the Zambians who make them. In Zambia, unemployment is over 50%, literacy is low, and school is not free. Finding a job supports more than the individual; it also supports their children, brothers, sisters, and the entire community. When you buy a bamboo bike, you are employing 40+ Zambikes workers that...

Virgina Benefit Corporations

Virgina Benefit Corporations Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has signed legislation that will make Virginia the fourth state to allow stock corporations to become Benefit Corporations (B Corps). The bill had unanimously passed both the Virginia State Senate and the Viriginia State legislature. Governor McDonnell signed HB 2358 on March 26, 2011 and the legislation will take effect on July 1, 2011. Previous states that have adopted B Corp legislation include Maryland, Vermont (where the le...

Bare Naked Business

Bare Naked Business Peggy Farabaugh started Vermont Woods Studios, an online retailer of fine Vermont made furniture, a few years ago. You might think that an online business selling high value items was bound to fail. But what Peggy and her handful of colleagues have done is to prove that assumption wrong. Her business is thriving and individual online sales average over $2,000. She and her team have developed a model that is well worth you taking a look at. The lessons apply to many small o...

Peak and Path

Peak and Path Keeping your eye on the peak, while watching the path is a nice skill for leaders, followers and entrepreneurs. If you aim to start a business, there is every need to do just that. Dream of profits, but monitor your cash flow. Top managers have a hard time balancing command and control systems, while at the same time being social architects to enable the performance they dream about. Good social architects create the means through which the ends can be achieved. It is a...

Create Your Business Model

It's not too late. Now is the moment to create your business model. Maybe the reason for the existence of the business you want to start is no longer valid. There is a better mouse trap–even than your own invention. Or, worse there is after all, no need to kill mice in the first place. Of course you have your business plan, whether on the back of an envelope or bound into a 50-page document with charts and tables. But will it work? Will they believe it? Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigne...

Creating Shared Value

When Michael Porter, strategy guru known for his five forces of competitive advantage comes to the view that creating shared value (CSV) is the key to the survival of business, I pay attention. When you think about it, the concept is not only ethical and about doing the right thing, it is also a very sustainable business strategy. Porter's article, written with Mark Kramer, appeared in the Jan-Feb 2011 issue of HBR and deserves to be read by any thinking entrepreneur or manager. Selfish compe...

For Benefit Corporation: a Vermont first

Vermont Benefit Corporation Act The goal of for-profit companies is, naturally enough, to make profits. Legislation has been introduced in Vermont that would allow companies to exist for other reasons — providing a social good for the community while returning gains to investors. Such companies would register as a “beneficial corporation.” “This bill proposes to allow new and existing for-profit corporations to elect status as a for-benefit corporation with the purpose, among other thin...

The American (Bad) Dream

The American Dream expresses the aspiration for a "better, richer, and happier life." Hmm... The minimum wage in New York currently stands at just under $15,000 and the national average wage stands at about $31,500. By contrast it is forecast (NY Times, July 15) that Goldman Sachs employees “could on average, earn roughly $770,000 each this year or nearly what they did at the height of the boom.” This average includes every banker, trader, mailroom and janitor at the firm, or over 50 times...

Ethonomics

Ethonomics is a word that will that spread, so don't be freaked out by it. Most recently used by Fast Company magazine to mean a hybrid of technology, design, and social responsibility that is about ethics in the marketplace. Progressively the concept of the triple bottom line will become the quadruple bottom line - in my opinion. The fourth element will be about ethics, or the state of being. If the motivation for dealing with profits, people and the planet does not come from the heart, ...

Enternships

Internships are harder and harder to find for young students interested in business. At the same time, many startups have a tough time justifying taking on new people on the payroll. Bootstrappers have always known how to get work done by means of begging, buying or borrowing labor. Students who might have been drawn to the idea of big business as being able to provide greater opportunities for learning than small business, can now see how working in an entrepreneurial environment can give th...