Our Venture Ethos

Lean Start-up is a methodology for developing businesses and products. The methodology aims to shorten product development cycles by adopting a combination of business-hypothesis-driven experimentation, iterative product releases, and validated learning.

Core Component:
Build – Measure – Learn Feedback Loop

Once product market fit has been achieved the purpose of teams in country is to effectively build a sustainable business model with limited resources by using the lean start-up method. Teams build and carry out tests which prove/disprove every assumption placed within their Business Model Canvas (BMC). This firstly starts with the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) which was the result of the Design Thinking Process and confirmed product market fit. As a result of testing, measuring and learning through a disciplined approach the team will either Pivot or iterate on their existing business model. A Pivot involves a keeping one foot firmly in place as you shift the other in a new direction. In this way, the team process what they have already learned from past success and failure and apply these insights in new areas. Iteration involves bringing the desired result closer to discovery with each business interaction by learning and adapting within the original strategy.

A Project Everest venture continues to use Lean principles as it moves into the next stage, however, the purpose at this point is to prove out the business model ready for the commencement of scaling operations and thus social impact.

There are only two types of businesses; niche and scale. If a business is somewhere in the middle of those two extremes they are not a successful business. It is implicit that because of Project Everest’s definition of Social Enterprise that we are only interested in creating scale businesses. Thus scaling-up is an overarching term for our third methodology which contains three components; Gazelles, Exponential Technology and Venture Capital/Debt.

Gazelle

Gazelle Company: a high-growth company that is increasing its revenues by at least 20% annually for four years or more, starting from a revenue base of at least $1 million. This growth pace means that the company has effectively doubled its revenues over a four-year period.

Core Components:

Strategy
Execution
Cash
People

Globally companies have been scaling their operations for hundreds of years using traditional methods focused on the four core components. This methodology has been researched and documented as a traditional method of building large successful businesses. Project Everest ventures seek to be defined as a ‘gazelle company’ through their financial and thus social achievements. A core proponent of our value proposition is managing People through our Leadership training opportunities. We practice what we preach at Project Everest through core tenants such as strategy planning, exercising decentralised leadership practices and continually adapting our internal processes.

Exponential Organisation

Exponential Organisation (ExO): is one whose impact (or output) is disproportionally large — at least 10x larger — compared to its peers because of the use of new organisational techniques that leverage exponential technologies.

Core Attributes:

Massive Transformational Purpose
Staff on Demand (External)
Community & Crowd (External)
Algorithms (External)
Leveraged Assets (External)
Engagement (External)
Interfaces (Internal)
Dashboards (Internal)
Experimentation (Internal)
Autonomy (Internal)
Social (Internal)

The 6 D’s of exponential technology describe the process by which a product or services initially becomes digitised and ultimately results in becoming democratised. Following on from this premise Project Everest seeks to utilise off-the-shelf technologies on exponential growth paths in order to enable scale in the magnitude of ‘10x plus’ what could be achieved by a traditional gazelle company. The starting point for Project Everest and our ventures is to have a massive transformational purpose (MTP) which brings purpose and meaning to what we do- it gives us a compelling reason to get out of bed in the morning and face another day of eating glass and staring into the abyss (as Elon Musk so eloquently describes the difficulty of building a business). Beyond this Project Everest has developed ExO attributes across the following areas: Staff on Demand, Community & Crowd, Leveraged Assets, Engagement, Dashboards, Experimentation, Autonomy and Social.

Venture Capital

Venture Capital: capital invested in a project in which there is a substantial element of risk, typically a new or expanding business.

Core Attributes:

Angel Investment
Seed Capital
Venture Capital

The third method by which we increase the social impact we have through scale is by venture capital. Venture capital provides a financial and expertise input enabling a faster realisation of an enterprise growing in social and fiscal impact. We see this type of funding and support as significantly more powerful and impactful than donor raised capital, the reason being because of the ‘dumb money’ versus ‘smart money’ argument. Donor’s gain their returns in terms of personal fulfillment at the point of providing the capital into the hands of the NFP they have chosen to support. Not in all cases, but in most cases the donor will not follow up with how the money was utilised or take any active interest in the organisation realising it’s stated objectives- this is dumb money. Smart money, on the other hand, has not just capital but also expertise and connections that come with it and a vested interest from the Venture Capitalist in gaining a return, which is both financial and social, at the point of realisation of the business model. For this reason, Project Everest sees venture capital as an expedient way to realise our purpose but also, validation of the business model built to this point.