5. IMPCT Key Success Factors
5.4. Social Business Development’ Success Factors
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IMPCT also used one-to-one communication as a way of convincing people. For instance, after each speaking event, the team stayed around to talk to people to convince them to buy the IMPCT idea and donate. According to IMPCT, one-to-one communication was their success factor for the crowdfunding campaign.
5.4. Social Business Development’ Success Factors
Why is it a Success Factor?A well-developed social business will achieve the goal of impacting the macro-environment positively through blended value creation while respecting a triple-bottom line approach. It will also contribute in the development, commitment and maintaining of the network, enhance the social business model and grow the team.
Seizing Opportunities Timely
Stepping out of the comfort zone
IMPCT made several critical choices which led the team where it is today. For instance, when Prudot offered to Chen, Escobar and Scobbie to form a team for the 2015 Hult Prize, they all stepped out of their comfort zone and took the opportunity.
“At the beginning it was a small decision, then you see where this leads...” – Prudot
At the time, Chen was an IMBA student and was working full-time for her family business alongside. When Prudot asked her to join the team, she seized this once in a lifetime opportunity.
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Accepting helping hands
Then when the Taipei Angels offered their help, IMPCT accepted it and took the opportunity.
When IMPCT lost in Dubai, there was the opportunity for the team to run a crowdfunding campaign and the team took it too.
Challenges are new opportunities
Social entrepreneurs should understand that challenges mean new opportunities. Recently, IMPCT encountered problems with its social business model. It was an opportunity for the team to update its model, which is what the team did.
Participating in a Social Business Case Competition and a Social Business Accelerator
Learning
Even if the social entrepreneurs do not win, participating in a social business competition will be helpful for developing the social entrepreneurs’ project along with the social entrepreneurs themselves.
When signing-up for the Hult Prize, the IMPCT team members did not think that they would go all the way to the victory.
“My objective was just to participate in a business competition and to put it in my resume, probably travel.” – Escobar
“My objective by joining the Hult Prize journey was experience and open my horizons.” – Chen
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Even if IMPCT did not win the Hult Prize, the team still would have learned tremendously.
Indeed, besides money, fame and credibility, IMPCT has learned about early childhood education in urban slums, about themselves, about their teammates, about the team as a whole, etc.
“I never saw the real value of participating in a business competition to be honest, but once we were in that storm, I realized how much I had grown. And now I go back and I see all this
adventure and I would do it all the way again. It pushes you to grow.” – Escobar
“Through this process, I learned more than anything else I had done in my life. In such a short period of time we had contact with so many people in so many different areas that forcefully, it expends your way of thinking. There is no way you don't come out of that better than the way
you come in.” – Prudot
During the Hult Prize Accelerator, IMPCT met high-level professionals and learned from them.
“I learned a lot of techniques, a lot of tools that I could use to improve our business plan, or business model. But the greatest thing of all was meeting amazing people, people that you would never ever have the opportunity to meet, if it wasn't for that network, like the biggest lawyers, the biggest education guys, investors, billionaires and you can't believe you're talking
to these guys. This was just amazing, this was great.” – Escobar
The Hult Prize Accelerator got IMPTC to pitch every week in venues such as Microsoft campus or Google office. Each time, a different team of professionals would give IMPCT feedback about its pitch.
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With being in permanent contact with other teams, the Accelerator was the opportunity for IMPCT to assess its team spirit and sharpen it.
“We learned a lot. Not only for business model and how to make your pitch more stylish and more convincing and more persuasive, but also how to get along with other competitors, how to
make friend with them and how to show your team spirit. Because in the Accelerator we realized it's not only about your business model but also about the team spirit.” – Chen
Networking
IMPCT also benefited from the Hult Prize’s network such as the teams of experts acting as mentors or judges, and also such as the other teams competing. For instance, Chen even made a very good friend from the team that beat IMPCT in Dubai.
“It's a good opportunity to network with others. I even shared a room with a Pakistani girl, from Canada. We became very good friends now because in Dubai her team was the one that beat
us.” – Chen
Funding
IMPCT has been successful enough to win US$1 million in seed-funding from the Hult Prize, even though money is not especially the most important thing to have.
“Because we have money now, I can say that money isn't that important, […] for a good idea you can always get capital […]” – Scobbie
Credibility
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If a team of social entrepreneurs is successful enough to win a social business case competition, the team would not only get money as a prize, but also credibility.
“After we won, we got this stamp of approval, a big stamp of approval. When we write people and tell them who we are, they are more likely to see how they can work with us.” - Prudot
Now that IMPCT has been awarded with one million dollars in seed funding and has been backed by Bill Clinton, potential investors, partners or employees are more likely to be interested in working with IMPCT.
“Now, when we go to meetings with new people, we can say "we are IMPCT and we just won the Hult Prize, Bill Clinton said we're one of the top ideas for changing the world". The meeting
is going to go well, because that's the ultimate introduction for your idea.” – Scobbie
Running a Crowdfunding Campaign
Benefits of running a crowdfunding campaign
After losing in the Hult Prize regional round of competition in Dubai, IMPCT started its crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo. Running a crowdfunding campaign was an advantage that IMPCT had over its competitors during the Hult Prize final. Thanks to the money collected during the crowdfunding campaign, IMPCT had already built its first pilot playcare. The team’s competitors, who did not have to run a crowdfunding campaign to go to the Hult Prize final (but who still could) did not have enough money to put in place the pilot of their project.
As financing is a challenge for social entrepreneurs, running a crowdfunding campaign is an option that should be considered since it enables social entrepreneurs to get funded without
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going into debt. In addition to financing issues, crowdfunding could help social entrepreneurs with bridging the credibility gap. Indeed, it is likely that social entrepreneurs will get a following on their project from people backing-up the social initiative. This can translate with more followers on social media and online coverage. Finally, crowdfunding allows social entrepreneurs to test the market. During a crowdfunding campaign, social entrepreneurs can see if people believe in their project and assess the potential of their idea.
Crowdfunding strategy: one-to-one communication
Each of IMPCT co-founder reached out individually to the persons from their personal network.
One-to-once communication was key to commit people to the project. Because money is involved, a crowdfunding campaign requires many efforts to take-off and succeed.
“You really need to convince people about this. I can tell you that 90% of people who donated were either relatives or people that we knew. The other 10% was the network effect. […] The only way to make us successful the Indiegogo was to talk to as many people as you can one by one. You can sit with them on a coffee and after the coffee ask them, you can Facebook message
them, you can call them, but it has to be personal. That is the key success factor. […] that's exactly what I did: from morning until dawn, I sat in front of my computer and I contacted at least a hundred people per day, one by one; every conversation lasted about ten minutes. It took
me so much time. It went like "hey how are you doing? how is the family?" and I tried to remember something that that person had told me before like "how did you do in your exam?", people need to feel important, you need to make them feel important, and that you cared. And I actually cared about all of these people. But no one has time to catch-up on every friend that you
have.”
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Even after events or presentations, the IMPCT team would stay longer especially to have one-to-one conversations with some of the attendees, to convince them to donate and raise awareness.
“Most of the time it was one-to-one but then sometimes we were able to speak at events and still when we spoke at events, we stayed around later to talk one-to-one.” – Prudot
Crowdfunding strategy: advertising the launch of the campaign
IMPCT wanted its crowdfunding campaign to start strong in order to impress its competitors and the judges. The team also knew that a strong start would feature its project on Indiegogo’s home page.
“What we did is that for two weeks before we launch the campaign, was talking to everybody we had ever met, just saying that our campaign is going to launch in two weeks, we need your donation on the first day. We knew that if we could do a significant amount of what we wanted to raise on the first day it would get us featured on the home page of Indiegogo.” – Scobbie
As a result, IMPCT funded 30% of its objective on the first day and the project got featured indeed.
Crowdfunding strategy: using emotions
People donate more when they are emotional. Therefore, IMPCT sold emotions to people, insisting on its purpose of building education and empowering people.
“We tried to give sympathy. Like selling emotions, selling that children need help and need a
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school, and the school can help break the poverty cycle. We tried to sell the feeling and emotions. The strategy was to be convincing and be emotional. Because people donate when they are emotional. When they are rational they might say "I'd better use my money in different
projects" but when they are emotional "I really want to help those kids and give my money to IMPCT"” – Chen
“So I would ask them how they were doing, and explained to them what I was doing, and how they could change someone's life, trying to convince.” – Escobar
It is easier for social enterprises than for for-profits organizations to use emotions. By nature, social enterprises have a purpose that is considered as good by society. Therefore, people are more willing to help and to donate.
“We tried to make the IMPCT brand image seem cool, like making good was cool: I'm helping others and it doesn't mean that I'm an old guy who made a lot of money and doesn't have
anything else to do.” – Escobar
Crowdfunding strategy: ask for little and aim at big shots
“It is extremely hard in the world of charity to convince people to give you US$1, only US$1 […]” – Escobar
Because it is hard for people to actually give US$1, IMPCT did not risk asking for more than this. The result is that most of the people who were asked to donate did donate US$1 and that some others donated more. Because the amount of money asked was so little, it was not a barrier for people to donate. So people actually thought of giving their money.
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“I didn't ask them for $100, I only asked them for $1, every time. Half of them did donate $1, and the other half donated more, sometimes even $500.” - Escobar
In addition of aiming at small donations, IMPCT aimed at big shots like NGOs and executives.
In one night of networking with executives, alumni of her father’s E-MBA program, Chen gathered thousands of dollars. Moreover, Escobar gathered US$15,000 in donations from two large Salvadorian NGOs.
Crowdfunding strategy: strategic donations timing
IMPCT was in competition with other teams to access the Hult Prize final. Only the best crowdfunding project would get a ticket for the final. IMPCT wanted to seem like it was one step ahead of the other teams, which is why the timing of donations was important.
“We were looking at the other teams so if there was a day when we didn't have many donations and another team was catching up, we add a little bit that day because you always want to seem
like you're one step ahead.” – Scobbie
Sensitive information was well-kept from competitors, especially in regards with large donations, like the ones Escobar obtained from the NGOs.
“[Escobar] actually contacted this NGO in the very beginning and they agreed to give us donations. But at the time, the crowdfunding was about one month and we were competing with
other teams. We didn't want to show this. This is like a game of cards, the important card we show. So at the time we were afraid that if we show this card, other teams might copy us and also get donations from other foundations and to increase their credibility. So we didn't show
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this donation until the very last moment. This is a strategy: we want to show in the last moment, not only to our competitors but also to the Hult Prize judges that we have this and this shows our
credibility and that shows how hard we worked on convincing other people; not only individuals but also organizations, they also believed in us and also want to help us.” – Chen
Sensitive information was not only kept away from competitors, but also within the team. For instance, Escobar did not tell his teammates when he obtained large donations from NGOs. He did it because he did not want his teammates to release pressure and not work as hard as they would have worked otherwise.
“I managed to get one $10,000 donation from an NGO, and I didn't tell my teammates until the last day because I wanted them to push as far as they can. At the end of the campaign I would tell them "you did a great job, you really did your best, and I have a surprise for you, I have a
$10,000 donation from a US NGO". But if I would have told them since the beginning, they would be laid back and feel to secure. So I think I did well on that. It's also good to leave big donations until the last minute of the campaign because you can confuse your competitors.” –
Escobar
A Convincing Pitch
A convincing pitch is what made IMPCT win the Hult Prize. In only eight minutes, IMPCT has been able to convince eminent judges including a Nobel Peace Prize laureate that theire idea was worth US$1 million.
Practice makes perfect and is a never-ending process
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“I think practice makes perfect.” – Escobar
“In real life, you're only good at the things you practice.” - Scobbie
IMPCT always took practice so seriously that the team tried as much to put itself in real-situation setting by remodeling its environment and creating tension. IMPCT did it especially before crucial the crucial one-time pitches of Dubai and New York.
“We remodeled the living room, we connected the TV to our computers and we improvised a theater. We actually inflated some balloons and painted them with a black marker with some faces of angry people, and we would put them in front of us so they would seem angry judges, or confused people. So we forced ourselves to pitch our idea in front of them for 100 times. My memory is very bad and I cannot learn one whole pitch just like that. I needed to practice a lot.
We were practicing with a chronometer, and [Chen] would jump out of nowhere and scream to distract us and we just needed to remain focus.” – Escobar
Because the pitch would be time-limited, a challenge for IMPCT was to get the time right.
Further practice with attention to detail was required.
“I think my time couldn't go over 3 minutes and 40 seconds. So I had to practice so much. What I did is that I recorded myself saying the whole thing on my iPod, and then I just walked around
New York listening to it and repeating it on the street like a crazy person.” – Prudot
Only one second was remaining when IMPCT finished its pitch.
Because of its constant learning attitude, IMPCT not only practiced before crucial presentations, but took every situation as an opportunity for practice. Whether it would be only the
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co-founders practicing in a room, during a meeting with mentors or a presentation in front of investors, IMPCT would always build on the feedback received during these situations in order to enhance its pitch for the next time.
“When we get a comment that says that we did this and that didn't look good, we all talk about it and think how do we not do that thing in the future.” – Scobbie
By practicing its pitch, IMPCT mostly refined its message, not its model.
“It has been something that we learned a lot about: it's not enough to have a good idea or plan, but how you communicate it is crucial.” – Prudot
Practice is a never-ending process for social entrepreneurs.
The Script: communicating a complex idea with a simple message
IMPCT’s final pitch during the 2015 Hult Prize final used simple graphs easy for the judges to understand. In comparison, IMPCT’s competitors used more pictures, which are more difficult to understand.
IMPCT wanted to make a pitch simple to understand and straight to the point.
“The Angels wanted us to cut a lot of slides. That's how we learnt how to do a great pitch: you
“The Angels wanted us to cut a lot of slides. That's how we learnt how to do a great pitch: you