
Our Venture Ethos
“Solving social issues for the 4 Billion people who live on less than $5/day is essentially about commodification: take socially beneficial goods and services and make them orders of magnitude cheaper, then sell them on massive scale”.
Core
Methodologies
Design Thinking is a methodology used by designers to solve complex problems and find desirable solutions for clients. It draws upon logic, imagination, intuition, and systemic reasoning, to explore possibilities of what could be—and to create desired outcomes that benefit the end user (the customer).
Core Component is the five stages of the Design Thinking Process
The Design Thinking process
The five elements of Design Thinking are utilised in each of Project Everest’s enterprises. The first element, ‘empathise’ requires team members (students) to observe and understand the user or audience – who in this circumstance are the local communities. Team members (students) will interact heavily with the local community to understand their experience and the context behind it. This stage is critical in defining any pains and gains that may (or may not) exist and determining the most effective approach to solving these identified social issues, in this way Project Everest adopts an integrated approach with the local communities. This involvement continues through the remaining elements of Design Thinking; define, ideate, prototype, and test. Furthermore, the concept of social enterprise requires the thorough commitment of local communities to employ and embrace the business model for its success, thus the entire success of the Project relies on local community engagement and participation.
The purpose of using Design Thinking is to achieve ‘Product Market Fit’ which is where the customer segment we are targeting is aligned with the value proposition we are offering. This is effectively determined when the end user pays in cash or equivalent for the socially beneficial product or service.

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.


Impact Assessment
Positive and negative, primary and secondary long-term effects produced by a development intervention, directly or indirectly, intended or unintended”
At Project Everest, our work in country is entirely community-based, thus inevitably there will be an impact. Measuring our impact is to ensure it is positive, and geared towards our vision, mission, and values.
‘This is not data collection for data collection’s sake. Every number is a person, every case study represents someone’s life. This is knowledge that has a direct impact on community well-being, people’s happiness, health and welfare for this generation and those that follow.’
Our projects are socially beneficial products [or services] that contribute to completing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. There are positive impacts that can be measured throughout the life of a project, students collect that information in handover documents, memories, testimonials, videos, and photos. However, the intent of the Impact Assessment as introduced in 2016 is to identify potential harmful impacts on the community. If you identify and acknowledge a negative impact, it can be mitigated, which would both ensure maximum social benefit.
Example: the introduction of a subscription for communities [water infrastructure project in Timor-Leste] to have the frequency of their water infrastructure repaired would leave the current member who is responsible for the village fund that manages those fixes obsolete [Group Maintenance Fund]. Involving that member in the solution would allow for the success of the business to go ahead without removing people from employment.
You could discover impact by using the tool ‘theory of change’, mapping out the entire user journey – you can follow alternate pathways where your product or service will ‘touch’ users and what that interaction may look like, doing so will release potential outcomes.
- How will you measure your [positive and negative] impact in country?
- What social, economic, environmental or other influences are you measuring and how?
- What are teams implementing to mitigate negative impact?
An Impact Assessment is a feature of each week on project, and a consideration of each major action within a project. It’s a moving concept that you use as a consideration at every stage, in the same way, you would use design thinking activities to broaden your understanding and develop new pathways, you would use an Impact Assessment to ensure the direction you have chosen does more ‘good’ than ‘harm’.
Outcomes
Through proper completion of the Impact Assessment, the teams will be able to mitigate any negative impacts and ensure that maximum positive impact is achieved. This needs to be a gradual process, with each team expanding and iterating on the previous month’s work.
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Change-Makers SAY ABOUT
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