ExperimentFirst
Unit of Wheelhouse Venture Partners
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.
Lucy Tutton and Suzy Hogg
Co-founders: ProjectBoxED
Problem: Learning, which combines fun, academics and real-world problems (e.g. primary to secondary school transition), is not accessible to parents to better engage with their child's learning.
Solution:
Provide accessible projects and tools for parents and guardians to engage with their child’s development and learning in an engaging and fun way.
Impact rating of Co.Creator:
Leadership Development
significantly
Recommendation (out of 10) :
10
Funding Pipeline:
TBD
Challenges
"We didn't have the idea until we met at the Teach First Innovation Weekend, so I guess that was a barrier. If helpful, barriers I've experienced before, have been around not taking the idea seriously enough to move it forward and lacking the entrepreneurial skew to approach research participants as customers!"
Progress
"Originally, the idea was to provide a framework, CPD and project portfolio to facilitate the adoption of project-based learning in schools. Because of current educational reforms, project-based learning is a difficult instructional model to implement, so we have moderated our approach to working outside of formal education, while we develop our projects, professional credibility, web-tools and frameworks. This solution may not have become apparent if Co.Creator had not set us up to develop two ideas alongside one another - this was an excellent part of the programme and I am not sure that we would have thought along different routes if we had not had the opportunity to take part in this programme. Starting with parents and children, we will build our project portfolio and experience, we will then be in a position to scale to working directly with schools."
"We have made enormous progress - we have an idea and a platform from which to develop it! Co.Creator also supported the development of a website platform - but more than this - keeping the focus firmly on our strategic intent and mission and most importantly 'getting out of the building' and testing our ideas in the real world meant that our product ideas and opportunities to take them forward far exceeded what we might have achieved in 8 weeks without this programme. The framework, support and journey Co.Creator took us on helped us develop at a rapid and consistent pace with exposure to Co.Creator's wealth of experience and weekly teaching tools put together created a well rounded and comprehensive programme. I now think that I can look at ideas from more a start up / entrepreneurial perspective that can make things happen and achieve the impact we are hoping to have by maintaining the big vision but also being realistic."
"It has been a really interesting learning curve. The main progression for me personally, has been to raise my ambition and to push a bit harder than I typically have done in the past. Leaning to hustle and raise my game. In terms of the business, I actually see it as something which has potential as a marketable proposition, rather than as a pipe-dream. Without Co.Creator, ProjectBoxED would never have come alive, and the research would have remained a purely academic exercise."
Reflections on their virtual co-founder
"Our virtual co-founder (Zevae) is a true professional with a spark and talent rarely combined - he is able to think conceptually and creatively, whilst keeping ideas practical and real, driving you and your idea forward with useful (and sometimes challenging!) critique whilst simultaneously showing he is behind you and supports you. Co.Creator's clear experience and ability to focus on strategy and detail through the lens of business and creativity comes through strongly in the programme - what he has developed is original and combines and draws on what is available, whilst developing it and making it accessible and applicable to your project. Zevae is an exceptional talent."
"A consummate professional and an enigma. His absolute commitment to our project, is something far beyond any commitment I have experienced from colleagues in the past and is probably the most significant contributory factor to our confidence in taking the business further. This commitment has made the critical difference between our simply exploring something, and our actually starting up. There are many great strengths to mention, depth of experience, that he is results-focused, ambitious and strategic. A strength that really impressed upon me is his ability to listen, more often than not, to sketchy verbal descriptions of research encounters, which he immediately made sense of and was able to shape them into appropriate actions."
Journey
Week 1: "Highs: new adventure, challenging and crystalising. Co.Creator has a laser beam focus, and will take no prisoners! Lows: challenge of finding high level participants for interviews feels overwhelming - BUT! will give it everything I can. The process learning materials, udacity etc look excellent, v curious about your adaptations to the BMC. Thanks for a fab first session :)
Love the ambition, really wouldn’t aspire to doing anything so BIG without CoCreator! Commitment question an excellent tip.
Felt inspired to develop our project, excited by the work that is already happening (e.g. School 21 and high tech high) but believe we can really add value, found discussing the script Co.Creator had written really useful as a way in to structuring our thoughts. Great to hear Lucy & Co.Creator brimming with ideas, have to get over feeling prohibited by this ‘non-teacher’ thing and start pushing out a bit more."
Week 2: "Strategic intent is a challenging concept to nail - felt heartened by the fact that our virtual co-founder (Zevae) said we would keep refining over the course of the next few years and getting those we engage with to help us make the decisions. Challenge to find SLT in schools to speak to before Saturday - but we need this info so we will go for it! ARGH - First FAIL! Doesn't feel so good but I guess I'll get used to them. Feeling a bit panicky about not having a sea of contacts, but driven to do what I can with who I know. Hustle is a new behaviour to me, I am usually very polite & reserved…
Tired, but excited! Still brimming with ideas, happy to be exploring different ‘vehicles’ for getting PBL out into the world :) parents are much easier to find for interviews, so hopeful that wk 3 will be less stressful research-wise! Really appreciate the feedback from Co.Creator on intros, pivots and possibilities. I don’t see how this course can be done in the allocated time though, it’s taking much more than the suggested 5-8hrs p/wk! Great that Suz has carried out the interviews and we have some data to test our assumptions, really good to have Co.Creator’s perspective and to draw out the idea of using PBL for parents."
Week 3: "Tired! We have so much rich data and so many ideas, that 1hr call isn’t enough to go through it all, but think that indicates how big this is becoming. I need to be mindful of work boundaries and maintain focus on my other priorities, but working with Lucy & Co.Creator is too compelling and exciting!! Have made some great advancements in such a short period of time, but must now slow it down for a week to get my other stuff back on track - sorry!
Really excited about the development and enthusiastic uptake of our idea from teachers. Feeling quite stretched in terms of time to dedicate to this and torn as would like to put more energy into this.
Lots more ideas come out every time - Co.Creator is great at challenging us but balancing that with forward thinking and supporting us to recognise the pitfalls and to feel confident about what we have done so far - must nail the business/money questions! Agree that the time commitment for the course is much more than 5-8hrs per week - and Co.Creator should certainly get more remuneration for the skills and support he is imparting as part of co-creator - it’s a brilliant concept, and well delivered!"
Week 4: "Really happy with the progress we are making, LOVE your (Co.Creator’s) value proposition tool. I like ambiguity but it feels brilliant and a bit of a relief to have something more concrete to be working through with customers. I’m not good at asking people for their ‘help’, but Co.Creator’s push & pace is giving me the reasons/motivation to ask research participants for much more than I would normally be comfortable to ask for."
Week 5: "Got through lots of ideas and feedback (thanks for the extra half hour!), lightening speed. Great to have co-designed a 1-pager and to hear Lucy really getting behind this approach. Feels like we’re ramping up with tasks again, with that comes worry about the time issues we have - have to stay focused on what’s really relevant now.
Really feel like this idea ‘clicked’ this time, as we started to develop the MVP on the ‘project box learning’ it really started to come together - it’s really valuable to work on the documents together when we are on the calls - I really feel we are benefiting from Co.Creator’s expertise in honing down to the nub of an idea - it’s really making me think about and analyse the data in a different way. Also finding the reading useful - good to see examples of others MVP.
Gawd, harder to reach research participants, no let up from Co.Creator, design in a cafe & grab people on the fly, go and show the product to people in soft play centres, right outside my comfort zone again :) brilliant and terrifying! Again thanks for putting in the extra effort on the 1-pager and additional call with Lucy, feeling inspired and excited as usual, but for the first time thinking that we actually might genuinely have a business here!!"
Week 6: "(extra call with Lucy for developing the whole-school approach). After initial work on the whole school approach Co.Creator has really taken it on a level - I feel really excited about the new approach and interested to see if change management is something that resonates with schools - think it will be tough to test this as we approach the end of the school term and not so many teachers are available. Concerned about fitting this in with a demanding workload in my usual role. However, will endeavor to push ahead. Having spoken with Co.Creator and all the time and energy that has gone into the thinking behind this approach I believe we have something really ‘stand out’ that will set us apart - I am keen to make sure that we are still addressing our social mission but think this is intrinsic in the design. Can’t wait to see what schools think of this new MVP. Really enjoying working with Suz and Co.Creator."
Week 7: "High spirits to trough to high spirits, and trough again, I think I’m feeling more volatile because we have narrowed down to MVP execution stage, and am nervous about having come this far and potentially misread the research! Once we have fleshed out some ideas and are working creatively with more tangible outcomes, I shall miss living in the realms of infinite possibility, but hope to gain confidence again (or pivot) through getting more cogent feedback from our WIX site - thank you so much for all your extra hours, it’s amazingly generous of you!"
Week 8: "Woo, lots to do! Slightly breathless with pressure mounting, that again could be to do with not wanting to walk away from this process having made weak decisions - I am really excited by the potential we have, but think we are trying to move too fast, and wish we could have been at this stage a couple of weeks back! I can’t believe how much Co.Creator has put into this, and continues to do so. Great to have consensus of project directions, and thanks for the learning framework."