Lesson #3.8: The Elevator Pitch

I was not going to post anything else for the night, but I was browsing around on the net trying to find tips for presenting an elevator pitch, which we have to do for our business plan in the upcoming week. My team members and I are really nervous, and so I wanted to get as much information as I can before we present our pitch. So while browsing around I found this YouTube video that really helped and I thought, why not share it on my blog? One more post for the night won't kill me. So in case you are planning on pitching your grand business idea soon, and are as nervous as I am, here are 5 tips we both can use:



Hope it helped. Until next time, school's out, learning's in!

A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success.

Joyce Brothers

Lesson #3.7 Social Entrepreneurship

We are currently doing a business plan for our course and my group mates and I decided to focus on a social need to fulfil. Our business idea, after much thought, was to create a publishing house in the Caribbean that transcribes Caribbean books into usable formats for children ages 2-12years who are visually impaired. While there are many such companies in the United States that does this, there is none in the Caribbean. To add, while we do have books being transcribed to Braille, many of these are usually American books, and not those written by our very own Caribbean authors. So we saw a social need, and decided to develop a business to address that need. Late we found out that what we are actually doing is what is known as social entrepreneurship, which is the topic of today;s lesson.


is Social Entrepreneurship?

Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change.

Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to take new leaps.

Social entrepreneurs often seem to be possessed by their ideas, committing their lives to changing the direction of their field. They are both visionaries and ultimate realists, concerned with the practical implementation of their vision above all else.

Why we need Social Entrepreneurs

Each social entrepreneur presents ideas that are user-friendly, understandable, ethical, and engage widespread support in order to maximize the number of local people that will stand up, seize their idea, and implement with it. In other words, every leading social entrepreneur is a mass recruiter of local changemakers—a role model proving that citizens who channel their passion into action can do almost anything.

And just in case this I have not convinced you so far, I found two videos that helped to convince me of the importance of social entrepreneurship. Take a look:

Many times when we think of becoming entrepreneurs we think about the cash influx to be gained from starting our own business venture, what benefits there are to us. Today I challenge you to think about how can you create a business that will benefit the wider society and make an important difference in someone else's life.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.  ~Anne Frank