ExperimentFirst
Co.Creator is working with 10+ global organisations, delivered over 3000 hours of learning, on average resulting in 90% having customers, and generated total of $2m+ in funding or revenue.
Tomás Despouy Z.
Co-Founder, Panal, Chile
Problem: The government of Chile are spending millions every year on education change initiatives, like bullying/anti-gang/teacher training, which fail to result in impact (behaviour change) in schools.
Solution: A microincubator inside schools to help bring about sustainable and repeatable bottom-up (from students and teachers) and top-down (from government) change iniatives.
After just 8 weeks
Awarded a place at the prestigious Socialab, described as a
'disruptive' solution
Pivot 2 times in 2 months, validated minimum viable product
5 big investors interest to fund $170K
Challenges
“For more than 6 months we were trying to build a students movement in Chile. Whilst we were making progress with the impact to student's leadership skills, I was failing to realise that it's simply not scalable and repeatable model of going to foundations and public fundraising"
"I had users but no customers, someone willing to pay for it on a repeatable basis"
Journey
"(Co.Creator) is about making ideas happen. And for this, it is completely disruptive since it pushed me to be vulnerable on my initial idea, so that I could be solid on my future project. Co.Creator helped me to arrive at a business model that is both scalable (in terms of using government funds) and repeatable (an annual fee for schools).
"Co.Creator made me realise a few fundamental lessons:
1. First customer, then investor:
2. Pilot everything:
3. Don’t do any pilot without charging:
4. Pitch, learn, pitch, learn (fast):
"The first 3 meetings that I had pitching the micro incubator idea, where a disaster, but then, every little suggestion and feedback on each meeting was giving me more credibility on it, at a point where people on the meetings were amazed and clear on the project and the innovative social impact that could have."
"The startup is now being replicated in Argentina and Spain"