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Model 47: A Startup Storybook
How long are you going to procrastinate starting your business? You've been thinking about it for years. Have you scrawled that idea down on a crumpled napkin somewhere? Congratulations friend, you've already finished the first step of Model 47! How about step two?
A few years ago, the two of us embarked on the greatest journey of our lives. We sought to understand how the modern entrepreneur uses technology--anywhere in the world, not just in Silicon Valley. We started in Lagos, Nigeria, working with 25 entrepreneurs building businesses of all sorts. To our surprise, their biggest obstacle wasn't the tech! Rather it was how to truly to understand their customer's problem. How to solve that problem at a price customers would pay. How to spin the tale of their success.
Working with these founders, we created and taught a set of lessons to help turn their initial schemes into profitable businesses. After six months of teaching and learning, we extended our program to another set of entrepreneurs in East Africa, to understand a different market. On our first flight from Lagos to Nairobi, we began writing down the stories of those entrepreneurs, what had worked for them and what had not. In the days and months that followed, we refined that first outline 46 times--once for every business we have worked with. You're looking at the 47th iteration of the Model 47. We've since used this model with hundreds of entrepreneurs all over the world. And you know what? It works!
The lessons of Model 47 are different from what you'll see in other startup books. We believe you DON'T have to go to a fancy business school, or get accepted to an exclusive incubator, to be successful. That your business will be better if you build for ONE hero, versus looking for a target segment with 2.1 cars and 1.4 dogs. That you should co-create with your hero, coming up with a REAL solution to their REAL problem. That you should spin the tale of that hero, and let that storytelling form the center of your efforts. And that--as much as possible--you should grow through revenue from your customers, not through VC funding.
Our core belief is that, with a few tools and frameworks, "non-traditional" founders can build amazing businesses. Regardless of your last name or the size of your bank account or your hometown, we've written this book for you. Whether you live in London or Liberia, San Francisco or Sao Paolo, Portland or Port Harcourt, if you want a no nonsense step-by-step guide to success, this book is YOURS.
This is the year you can make your dream into a life-changing reality. Let's do this!
A few years ago, the two of us embarked on the greatest journey of our lives. We sought to understand how the modern entrepreneur uses technology--anywhere in the world, not just in Silicon Valley. We started in Lagos, Nigeria, working with 25 entrepreneurs building businesses of all sorts. To our surprise, their biggest obstacle wasn't the tech! Rather it was how to truly to understand their customer's problem. How to solve that problem at a price customers would pay. How to spin the tale of their success.
Working with these founders, we created and taught a set of lessons to help turn their initial schemes into profitable businesses. After six months of teaching and learning, we extended our program to another set of entrepreneurs in East Africa, to understand a different market. On our first flight from Lagos to Nairobi, we began writing down the stories of those entrepreneurs, what had worked for them and what had not. In the days and months that followed, we refined that first outline 46 times--once for every business we have worked with. You're looking at the 47th iteration of the Model 47. We've since used this model with hundreds of entrepreneurs all over the world. And you know what? It works!
The lessons of Model 47 are different from what you'll see in other startup books. We believe you DON'T have to go to a fancy business school, or get accepted to an exclusive incubator, to be successful. That your business will be better if you build for ONE hero, versus looking for a target segment with 2.1 cars and 1.4 dogs. That you should co-create with your hero, coming up with a REAL solution to their REAL problem. That you should spin the tale of that hero, and let that storytelling form the center of your efforts. And that--as much as possible--you should grow through revenue from your customers, not through VC funding.
Our core belief is that, with a few tools and frameworks, "non-traditional" founders can build amazing businesses. Regardless of your last name or the size of your bank account or your hometown, we've written this book for you. Whether you live in London or Liberia, San Francisco or Sao Paolo, Portland or Port Harcourt, if you want a no nonsense step-by-step guide to success, this book is YOURS.
This is the year you can make your dream into a life-changing reality. Let's do this!
235 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 9, 2019
5 people are currently reading
9 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 2, 2020
A must for new entrepreneurs
It's great to see an easily digestible guide for entrepreneurship. Dona and Jeremiah did an amazing job capturing the great stories of the African entrepreneurs and translating them into very relatable and reusable content for everyone else to learn from and apply to their endeavors
It's great to see an easily digestible guide for entrepreneurship. Dona and Jeremiah did an amazing job capturing the great stories of the African entrepreneurs and translating them into very relatable and reusable content for everyone else to learn from and apply to their endeavors
January 3, 2020
Awesome read
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews