Earlier today Facebook, a privately held company, went public on the NASDAQ. The IPO (Initial Public Offering) of Facebook has been widely discussed in mainstream media for weeks. And for good reason too, as apparently one out of every seven minutes online is spent on Facebook.

Everyone has been drooling over Facebook's valuation of $104Billion dollars. Some (including myself) think this valuation is inflated with a lot of hype, some are mesmerized with our changing world, and how a virtual company can be worth more than McDonalds, Nike or Goldman Sachs, and others dream to build a company like Facebook.

However you chose to interpret Facebook's valuation, there is no doubt that expectations towards technology companies are increasing exponentially with time. With such high valuations, and companies like Instagram getting sold for $1billion within a year and a half of launching, reality is getting distorted. We've created these unreasonable expectations, where analysts and bloggers expect new entrants to have 1million users overnight, and grow their companies 10x in value instantly. Through SoJo, I feel this pressure directly, and more generally am concerned for the state of the industry.

Disclaimer: I am not among the 845million month active users on Facebook and have issues with their business model. That bias aside, I can appreciate what the company has done. 8 years in the making, Facebook created a brilliant product that meets the needs of its users. There are many things SoJo can learn from Facebook's product development path, namely around being attuned to the needs of users and continuous evolutions. I'm nervous however, that SoJo currently operates in an environment that is not as patient.

In 2004, Facebook would not have had 2.7billion Likes & Comments per day, and likewise, it is unreasonable to expect new entrants to do so today. Internet usage has changed, however iterations and growth need to evolve organically.

SoJo has approximately 2,000 active users within 6 months of launch. That is a huge number when you think of all the individual people we are supporting in their journeys of making social change happen. In the tech world however, that number is peanuts. The impact on the individuals today feels negligible, when everyone speaks in thousands and in millions.

I often use the iPod analogy to explain my frustrations with the impatient environment SoJo finds itself in. Post-Beta launch, I felt as though some people were expecting to see the iPhone5, forgetting there were over 20 iPod products on the market that inspired the first iPhone. With unreasonable expectations and a disillusionment with reality, some of SoJo's users and partners expect to see the best now. Over the past 4 months, I significantly reduced the amount of time spent at start-up socials and events, as everytime I would leave those events feeling inferior by all of SoJo's limitations. Similarly, I spend less time "selling" SoJo to prospective partners who are looking for the "iPhone5", and instead am focusing my energy on fostering existing relationships and building the infrastructure to support future iterations of our product.

I'm fairly positive that there was not a line-up outside the Apple Store back in 2001, when Apple released its first iPod. However back then, the ecosystem (users, market, retailers, analysts) were more patient and gave Apple the space needed to be creative, iterate and create massively popular products.

Fed by the ecosystem, we, the entrepreneurs (including myself) are often our worst critics. Why are we expecting iPhone5s, when they're still releasing our first generation iPod? I believe we should uphold ourselves to high standards, and that we should dream big. Rome wasn't built in a day, so please don't expect a world-shaking vision to be realized overnight.  

One of SoJo's core values is to Embrace Imperfection. I need to walk this talk, as I'm most content when I do so. The journey is not a sprint, and I need to constantly remind myself to scale back immediate expectations. We are feeding into the type, and will continue to focus on building a product that serves our users and adds value society.

What are you doing to not feed into the hype?

Sources: Facebook's IPO: What does it all mean?, Wikipedia iPod

With a growing team that remains geographically dispersed, expanding product requirements, and an ever evolving list of action items, our team desperately needed a project management tool to get us all organized. Last summer we set up an internal communications platform, however it was too difficult to maintain, uptake from the team was not sustained, and it quickly fizzled out.

A few months ago I discovered Trello and decided to "pilot" test it with Trevor. Since clear guidelines were not adopted, we would go back-and-forth between emails and Trello (which wasn't consulted daily). As result of being 'neither here, nor there' we did not make full use of this tool. After hearing so many people speak so highly of their experience with Trello, a few weeks ago decided to make the switch overnight and migrated all communication-related tasks directly to Trello. Trello is now being phased into the entire organization, and within only a few weeks of actively using it, I'm already experiencing noticeable differences in the following areas:

Reduced Emails
Controlling my inbox has been an ongoing challenge. There is little control over external emails, however internal communications is entirely in our hands. Email overload has resulted in many emails falling through the cracks. The costs of missed action items, and time spent following-up on tasks with team members is tremendous. By placing action items in the dashboard, instead of an email, ensures everything is kept in one place and avoids many redundant emails.

Increased Coordination
There is no one person on the team that works in isolation. Some members do identical tasks as their colleagues, other people work jointly to conduct the same task. This tool has been set-up in a way that allows multiple people to essentially share one brain. Rather than making an extra step to physically check-in with someone when a task is complete, it already appears on the screen.

Increased Accountability
This tools gives us the ability to break apart action items, attach an owner, and set  deadlines. If people are in the habit of checking in regularly, then there should be no excuses for unfulfilled deliverables. In the past I've had difficulties holding everyone accountable to every little thing -- this tool does it automatically! This will also serve as a peer-to-peer accountability mechanism, because everyone's deliverables will be known within the entire organization.

Cohesiveness
Although there is a desire to keep the team in the loop of what everyone in the organization is doing at all times, it is physically impossible to do so. A shared dashboard, provides our team with ability to check-in on other areas of the organization at their leisure. Our team should not be working in silos either, so it is my hope that this tool be used consistently for people to check-in on their own tasks as well as others, to avoid the challenges of people working in isolation.












I am hopeful that SoJo can fully utilize this tool to get our team more organized internally. Regardless of the outcome, I'll be sure to share the results of this project management tool in a few months on the blog. Stay tuned.

This past weekend I hosted a workshop at Canada's largest student-run conference on technology and business. My session was on Taking your Ideas into Action and Social Innovation. We started the workshop with a roundtable to get a better understanding of who was sitting in the room and what they were looking to get out of the session. Of the 50ish participants, I was shocked to learn that many of them knew they wanted to run a start-up, but very few actually had an idea. It is my hope that the participants from the workshop walked away with these two insights:
(1) Figure out what gets you really excited [on the inside], and let that guide your journey
(2) Use your skills, talents, and resources to create something that will add value to our world. There are no shortage of challenges and problems that need bright, innovative ideas.

Chasing your desire to find an idea so you can build a start-up won't get you very far. Ideas are everywhere. I always get taken aback when people tell me, "all the good ideas seem to be taken" (this happens more than you'd think). Likewise, I often get asked "where do great ideas come from?" In my opinion, a great idea is one that has the potential to solve an unmet social need, environmental challenge, or makes the world a better place for society. Ideas most often come from a place of fear, anger or opportunity. The thinking that leads to great ideas come from a series of experiences, that culminate and build upon each other. Great ideas should be intrinsically meaningful to those committed to executing them.

Where did the idea of "SoJo" come from?
While in my third year of building Nukoko, I became frustrated by the lack of resources at my disposal. Under the pretext of  my academic research, I reached out to 50 social entrepreneurs for guidance. Each respondent had a unique story, but all lamented the lack of practical, resource-based support they found when starting their ventures. In hearing their experiences echo my own, the need for a resource like SoJo became immediately apparent. What initially started as a book, has evolved into over 100 blog posts, a dedicated and passionate team, countless conversations, and lots of experimentation, to create what SoJo is today and what we endeavour to build in the future. I still stand by a post I wrote 6 months ago:
"Steadfast in Direction, Flexible in Execution"  : with a clear mission and concrete goals, SoJo has a fairly good idea of what direction its headed in. The HOW is constantly changing, however our WHY will remain constant.

Finding your Idea
I read an article on Vanity Entrepreneurs this morning, which validated my thoughts that some individual's WHYs are convoluted. The desire to build something for the sake of building something, to be cool and/or famous, for an extra line on your CV, or to be rich is not a good WHY. If you find yourself nodding to any of these reasons, then I challenge you to dig deeper. Being attuned to our motivations that extend beyond "vanity" is the driving force behind spectacular ideas and a successful journey of actually bringing them to life.

If you are in search for a great idea, please continue to live your life, build meaningful connections, seek out rich experiences, and be open to listening. My research and experience has taught me that those ingredients will allow great ideas to come to you. When the idea comes, you will know. Whether or not you're ready to act on the idea is another question, but that is why resources like SoJo exist.

The two most commonly asked questions SoJo gets are :

1) How do you make money / what is your business model?
2) What  are you / what is your legal structure?

Our business model is constantly evolving, however I can finally announce our legal structure :
a Hybrid Social Venture.

What does this mean?
SoJo (http://theSoJo.net) is being created and delivered jointly by two different entities: SoJo Ventures Inc. and SoJo Education.

In Canada there is no legal structure that recognizes a social enterprise. You are either a for-profit or non-profit. There are advantages and limitations to each legal structure. When it was time to formally incorporate SoJo, open a bank account and have a legal framework to build its product, we deliberated long and hard between a for-profit and non-profit structure.

Decision to go for-profit
A year ago, SoJo Ventures Inc. was incorporated as a for-profit corporation in Canada, assuming that it could develop and deliver SoJo's online learning tool and community of social innovators as a for-profit. Our rationale at the time for pursuing a for-profit legal structure over a non-profit included:

- Set a precedent: We want to be trail blazers by showing our community that it is possible to create a financially sustainable venture that delivers on profit and mission. With the shrinking pool of resources available to non-profits, we want to lead by example in demonstrating that there is another way of satisfying mission, while sustaining your costs.
- Protect the Intellectual Property and technology developed: For-profits have fewer restrictions on how assets get allocated and used.
-Access to research grants and funding available to corporations for developing new technologies and innovations.
-Fewer restrictions on how we can raise capital, spend our resources and conduct business operations.
-Be respected as a legitimate member within the technology community: almost all technologies are developed under for-profits, and we did not want any biases imposed on us by the tech community if we were not a for-profit entity.  

Unfortunately over the past few months SoJo experienced significant limitations with the for-profit legal status, where we faced unnecessary obstacles and were forced to turn down some opportunities as a result of formalities. There have been instances where organizations and individuals were excited about SoJo and eager to work with us, however upon learning about our legal status, the conversations quickly changed. Somehow, everyone assumed SoJo was a non-profit, and when told otherwise, people grew suspicious about supposed ulterior motives. I didn't realize that taking the 'high road' and delivering a service which was traditionally delivered by a non-profit, as a for-profit would receive so much backlash. Almost all of the organizations we work with are non-profits, and some did not understand why a for-profit is the one bringing everyone together. Based on my interactions with other individuals in the sector, there still exists a lot of misunderstanding and stigma towards mission-driven for-profit corporations. SoJo's vision is ambitious enough. Does it make sense for us to go up additional uphill battles for reasons of "morals" and "precedents"? 

Decision to go non-profit
Every conversation that forced me to question my decision of our legal structure was an additional drop in the bucket. The bucket tipped when a significant partner made it very clear that they could not work with SoJo under its for-profit legal structure, as it is written in their mandate that they cannot support for-profit corporations. This partnership will give us a boost in credibility, build our community, and give us access to several valuable networks. I could not justify letting this partnership go, therefore exactly one year later, I went through the process of incorporating SoJo Education, a non-profit organization.

Why create two legal structures?
Yes, SoJo will be delivered jointly by a for-profit corporation and non-profit. I am very well aware of the redundancy that exists with having to maintain two organizations, two bank accounts and two separate governance structures, however we were really left with no other option. Until Canadian legislation catches up with evolving needs of the Social Enterprise sector, many people such as myself will be forced to be creative in order to deliver value to society today. This is not the perfect solution, however this dual-structure model best meets our needs today.

As far as I'm concerned, the hybrid legal structure will have little effect on SoJo’s end product. Our primary goal is to make SoJo a robust platform that is accessible to as many people as possible -- and we took the entrepreneurial approach of doing what was necessary to achieve this goal. Given that there is no legal recognition in Canada of a social enterprise, we decided to adopt an alternative arrangement: the hybrid social venture. This will allow us to reap the benefits of both legal structures.

The Hybrid dispelled:
"The hybrid uses a series of contracts and agreements to combine one or more independent businesses and nonprofits into a flexible structure that allows them to conduct a wide range of activities and generate synergies that cannot be done with a single legal entity. The guiding principles dictate the relationship between the corporation and nonprofit. The entities that generally make up a hybrid are distinct for legal purposes, and each is responsible for compliance with the laws and regulations that govern it, but when properly structured, the legally distinct entities can behave much like a single entity. The purpose of the contract hybrid is to create an ongoing, symbiotic relationship between a nonprofit and a for-profit to accomplish mission and business objectives on a long-term basis. It allows synergies that simply aren’t possible with the other models, because both the nonprofit and the business are free to pursue their activities in a way that is most likely to be successful within the legal, financial, and regulatory framework that applies to it, without being bogged down in the limitations and regulatory burdens of the other party. Yet they are tied together in a way that allows the whole structure to leverage the strengths of each organization."
Source: Adapted from Allen R. Bromberger's article in the Stanford Social Innovation Revue

How will SoJo's hybrid operate:
Each entity has their own purpose, and collaboratively they will deliver http://theSoJo.net. SoJo Ventures Inc.'s primary responsibility is to develop the technology and backend support needed to power SoJo. SoJo Education's primary responsibility is to make the content freely accessible, and build the community associated with SoJo.

Both entities will be linked by partnership agreements, created in accordance with a series of guidelines and policies, ensuring a legally sound and transparent relationship. You can view the guidelines here.

In addition to the paperwork and administration costs associated with creating two legal entities, I expended an incredible amount of time researching possibilities, talking to experts and deliberating -- this process was incredibly tedious, and was a huge headache. SoJo's legal structure has been over a year-in-the-making. I wanted to wait until our documents were reviewed by lawyers, and that most of our internal controls were in place before publicly announcing our legal structure. SoJo is committed to being transparent with sharing our story, and hopefully this post helps you better understand the thinking that led to this important decision. Please share your thoughts, concerns, and questions. I may not have all the answers, but am open to the dialogue.

5 years ago I wanted to be a lawyer. After all the time spent reading dense legislations, including the Not-for-profit Act and Income Tax Act, researching options, and speaking with legal professionals, I am further reassured that not pursuing a career in Law was the right decision for me. Legal stuff is not written in an accessible format, and is subject to a great deal of interpretation. Further validated by this journey over the last year, SoJo is committed to publishing content on all of these topics in a friendlier way. Please be patient, as it will take time to gather this content, however rest assured that it is coming.

Sources:
Social enterprise in Canada : Structural options
A New Type of Hybrid – Social Entrepreneurship + Business Equity via Stanford Social Innovation Revue

I'm excited to announce two new changes and refinements in SoJo's mandate and purpose. Since our launch, we've been known as an organization that supports youth to build social ventures. After careful deliberation, we've decided to drop youth and replace social ventures with social innovations. Iterations and refinements naturally happen over time, as the more you test your ideas in different contexts, the more you better understand how your idea fits in with your audience and the people who you seek to serve. 

Youth
SoJo is building an intuitive and highly user-friendly tool to support individuals in their journeys of social change. We initially decided to focus on serving a younger audience for a variety of reasons: SoJo was inspired by academic research on young social entrepreneurship; our entire founding team was comprised of young people (and who best to serve a youth audience, then youth themselves); and there was a clear gap in resources that were written and delivered in a format friendly to a younger audience. Over the past four months I found myself consistently explaining SoJo as a tool suitable for a first-time user. Only recently did it become clear that there was no need to restrict SoJo exclusively to youth, when in reality we can serve a much larger audience.

Another more fundamental reason for dropping the "youth" label is to conserve the integrity of the social innovators we support. As with my personal experiences, I'm sure all of the members of our community would like to be recognized for the work that they do, rather than because they happen to belong to a certain group. We are extremely cautious of placing labels on our community members or the work we do, and as such would like more emphasis to be placed on the social impact created.

Social Innovation
So what exactly is a social innovation? Academics and practitioners have been debating over the definition of  Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation for the past few decades. In the spirit of being as inclusive as possible, we will adopt the broadest possible definition of social innovation:

A new idea (a venture, project, product, program) that addresses an unmet need or social challenge, and/or improves the overall welfare of people.

SoJo is presenting information clearly and in an easy to access format, and therefore should be available to all.
Ironically, refining our mandate is allowing us to support more people. SoJo's model hasn't changed, we've just changed the language of how we communicate our mandate -- which will allow us to serve a larger market.

Today I was asked to tell an editor at Canada's largest daily newspaper about SoJo. A great opportunity for coverage, I attempted to depict SoJo in 10 pictures and 6 words (no internet, no computer). See below.

SoJo has the ambitious goal of being the ubiquitous source of support for social innovators to take their ideas for social good into action, which includes revolutionizing the way in which online learning happens. In a world where we're told to use a slide-deck and bright shiny objects to sell our vision -- I opted for the basics: a whiteboard and a marker.

Over the past few months, I've consistently struggled to explain SoJo's vision, our solution and value-add, the status of our Beta and distinctions between those three elements. When talking about this challenge to a supporter, he in return asked me to draw out SoJo on a whiteboard. After a few attempts, I quickly realized there was no cohesion in how SoJo was explained and a great need to clarify and simplify our message. That same afternoon I hashed out what our whiteboard pitch looked like. It got tested with fellow SoJo team members, other entrepreneurs and staff in the Digital  Media Zone (gotta love a collaborative workspace), however today the whiteboard pitch got its debut. My lack of confidence in my drawing abilities (I will work to improve my stick figures) was offset by my excitement to share SoJo's vision in a more interactive and engaging manner.

In my opinion, this pitch is effective for two reason: simple and interactive. We're all overloaded with information, so it is my intention that saying less will allow the audience to retain more. Secondly, by being able to draw SoJo's story in real-time, it keeps the audience engaged, allows me to control how the message gets perceived and hopefully store a mental image of this whiteboard in their head.

We'll see how successful the pitch was and if a follow-up call comes for a story. If not, it was great practice.

An invitation to keynote an event to a group of students and community of professionals interested in global leadership led me to Ottawa. After networking and meeting with people internationally in the UK and in the United States, a trip to Canada's national capital was well overdue. My meetings in Ottawa went very well, and resulted in new partnerships and collaborations for SoJo.

The only meeting without an "agenda" was a visit to the HUB Ottawa. Part of the global Hub network, HUB Ottawa is a place-based member community and co-working space that offers a unique mix of infrastructure, programming and connections to help people kick-start, co-create and grow enterprising ideas for a better world.

Vinod, the Managing Director of HUB Ottawa is a good friend and in many ways our entrepreneurial journeys have been running in parallel. Always keenly interested in social innovation, Vinod was helpful in connecting me with research participants for my thesis which ultimately led to the creation of SoJo. While I was in the early stages of figuring out what Social Journal would look like, Vinod was percolating ideas of how to make Ottawa a city more welcoming for innovation, and had creative ideas for unconventional ways of getting youth to inform the policy-making process -- and so our journeys began. I started SoJo in Toronto and he set out to transition out of his job to work full-time on bringing the HUB to Ottawa. Despite being in different cities, working in different industries (physical infrastructure vs. virtual technology), and in different life phases (Vinod is married and has a mortgage), in many ways we could relate to each other and would periodically check-in on each other's journeys. We hashed out our shared frustrations around access to financing, the inefficiencies and redundancies that exist in the current social innovation landscape in Canada, used each other as sounding boards, shared updates on mini-successes and talked about the difficulties of letting go of team members.

The same weekend SoJo launched our public Beta, The HUB hosted their first open-house to invite future members to preview their new home. Having the opportunity to see the HUB Ottawa complete and witness Vinod interacting with the members of this community he was instrumental in creating was humbling and exciting. It was great to share in the success of this new venture, an idea which I had a chance to see develop every step of the way on the sidelines.

In many ways our two ventures are very different, however it was great to have a fellow entrepreneur-friend be with me along my journey. No venture is built alone, and both of us have great teams and advisors - however the entrepreneur, the individual who has invested all of themselves in their ventures, face a different set of pressures and challenges. Building a peer-support network of entrepreneurs going through a similar journey (at the same time as you) is very healthy, as they can relate to what you're going through, which allows you to speak open and candidly without fear of judgment. Another companion great to have during this roller-coaster of a journey.