Steps to Startup is a world-leading startup program that teaches you to plan, build, and launch a successful social enterprise. It is an interactive, video-based training program you complete online at your own pace. You learn with a global community of social entrepreneurs and coaches and can ask questions and get feedback at any time.
If you want to build your social enterprise as part of an incredibly supportive online community, Steps to Startup is for you.
Course Modules
Module 1 – Defining the Problem
Find out how to use research tools to validate the seriousness and extent of the problem that moves you, how to get to its root cause and effect on people, and how you can find the right solution.
Videos:
Video 1 Worksheet Activity – Problem Identification
Estimated time: 30 mins
You can complete this worksheet with a partner, each asking these questions to your partner and recording their answers; or complete this worksheet solo. It’s up to you!
What problem are you trying to solve or address with your social enterprise? Can you clearly define and describe your problem, and can you prove your problem exists? Clearly articulating the problem you’re solving is the key component to addressing it properly. A clearly defined problem will make the solution a whole lot easier!
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.”
― Albert Einstein.
Video 2 Worksheet Activity – Conducting Secondary Research
Estimated time: 4 hours-2 days
“The greatest danger for the new venture is to ‘know better’… what the product or service is, or should be, how it should be bought, and what it should be used for.”- Peter Drucker
Make sure you have the Problem Identification Worksheet from Module 1 ready to use (many of the questions posed there will be useful in this research). Remember, don’t jump forward to the solution; we’re still looking at the problem.
Secondary Research (From Other Sources)
Looking for research already done by someone else is called secondary research. This can start with a basic internet search, but make sure you use reliable sources. Stop by your local or university library – they would be happy to help you find reliable sources and can sometimes help with the research itself! Contact people who are expert on a certain issue who may have experience working with your problem. As you do this research, be sure to keep it all together and highlight or mark the parts and statistics that provide useful information.
Use the table in the worksheet to track of the information. It makes it much easier to find when you are looking for it later. Which stats are important? What information did you learn about the problem that you did not know before? What piece of revealing information was provided through an interview with an expert? As you speak with people be sure to record their names and contacts in case you need to reach them again. You will be surprised how often you may want to circle back to someone you have already spoken to before. Remember, you need to keep good notes because you will forget things you learned even a day later. Keep tracking the information so that you can use it in planning your enterprise and for convincing others why it’s important!
Video 3 Worksheet Activity – Who are we interviewing & how
Estimated time: 1 – 2 hours
If there isn’t enough research available for you to make any conclusion (or a specific-enough conclusion about your problem), you will want to be interviewing people directly experiencing this problem in order to determine and articulate what the problem really is. Even if you have found research, THIS WORKSHEET IS STILL NECESSARY AND REQUIRED; this interviewing process may help you more fully narrow your focus to a very specific problem in a very specific location.
Make sure you have Worksheet 1 and 2 ready to use (many of the questions posed there and information found will be useful in this research).
Video 3 Worksheet Activity – Survey Template
Estimated time to create: 30 minutes. Estimated time to complete all surveys: Not exceeding 30 hours over two to three weeks
The survey you craft online will vary heavily depending on the problem you are trying to address and to whom you are talking. You can use the questions in this download as a guide.
Video 3 Worksheet Activity – Survey Planning (BONUS)
Estimated time: 1 hour
Use this Bonus Worksheet to record the key questions you wish to ask in the survey.
Video 4 Worksheet Activity – Problem Statements
Estimated time: 30 minutes
What problem are you trying to solve or address with your social enterprise? Can you clearly define and describe your problem, and can you prove your problem exists? Clearly articulating the problem you’re solving is the key component to addressing it properly. A clearly defined problem will make the solution a whole lot easier!
Video 4 Worksheet Activity – Cause Analysis
Estimated time: 30 minutes
Use this tool to look at the direct causes, underlying factors, and contributing factors leading to the problem.
Video 4 Worksheet Activity – Empathy Map
Estimated time: 30 minutes
Take what you’ve learned from the interviews and list the beneficiaries’ (user’s) needs in the boxes within the empathy map. Needs are verbs, i.e. activities and desires – they’re the actions the user takes. Identify needs directly from the user traits you noted. Try identifying needs based on contradictions between two traits, such as a disconnection between what a user says and what the user does.
Video 4 Worksheet Activity – Target Group
Estimated time: 30 minutes
Use this tool to help you map out each of your target groups.
Module 2 – Planning Your Social Impact
Find out how to plan and measure social impact, how to communicate your ‘theory of change’ to stakeholders, and how to focus on the results you must deliver and account for.
Videos:
Video 5 Worksheet Activity – Mission Statement
Estimated time: 30 mins
Every organisation has a mission statement, from a church soup-kitchen to the United Way Charity to Nike Athletics. It’s a way to orient staff and stakeholders towards a common goal. Your mission statement should communicate the overall purpose of your social enterprise and its work. It should define the biggest, most broad-ranging change that your organisation strives for.
Video 7 Worksheet Activity
Estimated time: 1 Hour
The Social Impact Canvas is the foundation on which you build your impact. Use Worksheet 2 – Social Impact Canvas to begin planning how you will achieve your impact. Completing this worksheet for your enterprise will give you a very clear idea of what you aim to achieve in both the short, and long term.
In Worksheet 3 – Outcome Builder you will begin filling out details on who or what your outcome relates to, your desired impact, and expected results.
Module 3 – Building Support for Your Cause
Find out how to build a strong founding team, develop your network, recruit influential allies, and utilise supporters behind your cause.
Videos:
Video 8 Worksheet Activity – Stakeholder Analysis
Estimated time: 1 Hour
A big part of your social enterprise’s success will be determined by who you choose to have on your team, not only as staff, but as board members, mentors, funders, advisors, supporters, clients, customers, and more. Pulling the right people in early can help you start off in a good way.
- Identify: List all of your stakeholders.
- Assess and prioritise your stakeholders into distinct categories.
- Begin to understand at a deeper level their interests and expectations
Video 9 Worksheet Activity – Forming Your Core Team
Estimated time: 1 Hour
A strong core team will consist of a mix of relevant skills, experience and connections. Your core team should share your values, passion and commitment to your cause. Use the competency template to help you build a strong core team. Taking steps like this will ensure your enterprise addresses the needs of your target beneficiaries and will add credibility in the eyes of funders and supporters.
Video 10 Worksheet Activity – Developing Your Network
Estimated time: 30 mins
The success of any endeavour whether personal or professional is based on relationships. A social network gives you access to information, recognition and support for your cause. Reaching outside your circle will bring a diverse perspective into the mix.
Use Worksheet 3 below to take some time to think about your own personal network and its impact on you as a social entrepreneur.
When you are trying to broaden your network you need intention and a plan of action. Use Worksheet 4 to help you create a plan of action to meet new people and expand out of your comfort zone.
“ We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.” ― Jim Rohn
Module 4 – Testing Your Ideas on a Small Scale
Find out about ideation techniques that generate an abundance of social enterprise ideas, select a winning concept, and continually test and adapt it based on startup principles.
Videos:
Video 12 Useful Download
Now is the point where we can think about solutions. The aim of ideation is to create a large quantity of ideas that you and your team can filter down into the most viable and promising enterprise ideas to pursue.
Use the introduction to Design Thinking Process Guide to help you with this step.
Video 13 Worksheet Activity – Assessing Feasibility
Estimated time: 2 Hours
Now it is time to narrow down all those great ideas and start to follow and pursue the ones that seem like they will provide the highest impact. Use Worksheet 1 to plot your ideas by mission and money.
The Level 2 Feasibility Assessment worksheets will help you answer the questions around money, mission, capability and markets. To take a deeper dive into the feasibility of any of your ideas use the bonus worksheet Research Feasibility which will take you through even more questions.
- Download Worksheet 1 – Assess Most Promising Ideas by Mission and Money
- Download Worksheet 2 – Level 2 Feasibility Assessment (multiple ideas)
- Download Worksheet 2 – Level 2 Feasibility Assessment (single idea)
- Download Worksheet 3 – BONUS Research Feasibility
Module 5 – Finding Your Customers
Find out how to use good market research to find your ideal market and customers. Use the customer personas to define the qualities that separate you from the competition and determine a winning value proposition to customers.
Videos:
Video 17 Worksheet Activity – Identifying and Segmenting Customers
Estimated time: 1 Hour
This worksheet is about finding paying customers for your product or service. For these customers, you need to think of extra things for their purchase (from social beneficiaries) – you need to sell them a physical product or service (or at least a well-articulated promise for your product or service on pre-order).
Video 18 Worksheet Activity – Understanding Your Customers
Estimated time: 1 Hour
In Worksheet 1 Customer Personas, you can begin to start developing a detailed understanding of your target customers by compiling a portrait of the typical person you wish to target.
Worksheets 2a and 2b will help you to prepare for interviewing your target customers. The survey you create will vary heavily depending on the problem you’re trying to address for your customers and to whom you are talking. Use the templates below as a guide to help you to plan your interviews.
- Download Worksheet 1 Customer Personas
- Download Worksheet 2a Interview Questions Guide – In Person
- Download Worksheet 2b Online Survey Template
Module 6 – Designing Your Business Model
Learn about business model generation for social enterprises. Find out the secret ingredients of a successful social enterprise, how they fit together, and how to consciously design a business that achieves both impact and profit.
Videos:
Video 21 Worksheet Activity – Social Enterprise Business Models
Estimated time: 45 mins
This worksheet is to help you pause and reflect on the model you need for your social enterprise. This worksheet will help you note down any insights that arise at this stage. You will start by writing down the cause of your enterprise in simple terms in the table provided.
Then you will take a few minutes then to describe:
- the balance between mission and profit motive that you strive for
- the relationship between your social programs and trading activity
- the market(s) that you are targeting or already active in.
If you’re completing this exercise alone, make sure that you check these insights with your team to ensure that everyone is of a common view.
Video 23 Worksheet Activity – Designing Your Business Model
Estimated time: 1 Hour
The social business model canvas is a really useful visual tool to help you understand how the various components of a social enterprise interact with and affect each other. This exercise will help you focus, strip away the complexity of traditional business planning and can improve clarity and focus on what drives your business.
Below you will find a completed example, along with a blank template for you to apply this to your own social enterprise.
Module 7 – Securing the Funding
Find out how much money you will need to really get going, how to navigate the social enterprise funding options available, and how to secure the startup funding you require.
Learn about business model generation for social enterprises. Find out the secret ingredients of a successful social enterprise, how they fit together, and how to consciously design a business that achieves both impact and profit.
Videos:
Video 24 – Useful Examples
There are advantages to choosing a business model that already exists in another organisation that you can replicate, or you could consider licensing, simply purchasing the tool of the business model from another group and using this to build your social enterprise.
Have a look over the CEIS Business Models Report & the Social Franchising Manual to help you to explore this further.
Video 26 – Useful Template
Forecasting cash flow is the most reliable way to estimate how much money your enterprise will need on a day to day basis. You calculate this by estimating how much money you expect to get in, and how much you expect to pay out every period. By subtracting your cash to be paid out from your income you will arrive at your cash on hand balance. If the figure is negative, this is the sum which you need to raise to stay afloat. Use the template below to help you to estimate your cash flow.
Module 8 – Getting Ready for Takeoff
Find out how to keep your social enterprise legal, stay on top of the money and inevitable red tape, execute an effective launch plan, and build an identifiable brand.
Learn about business model generation for social enterprises. Find out the secret ingredients of a successful social enterprise, how they fit together, and how to consciously design a business that achieves both impact and profit.
Videos:
Video 31 Useful Templates
Use the templates below to help you to understand the cash position of your business precisely and accurately.