Here at Raízes, we understand and defend entrepreneurship as a way to achieve autonomy, especially for women and vulnerable populations. Having your own business can allow greater flexibility and creativity – especially in today’s world where there is a lot of work but little employment. Therefore, one of our main fields of activity is business modeling.
How we do it
We start with identifying the purpose of the business. The methodology that we use is the Golden Circle. Created by leadership specialist Simon Sinek, it aims to improve the performance of companies in the segment in which they operate, trough the way of thinking, acting and communicating. It seeks to answer three key questions: what, how and why?
With this, we are able to find out why people are motivated to work, for example, if they believe in a cause or because of taste, talent. And it is the people who benefit from social projects that include the business modeling stage that bring us these pieces of information. From there, we develop the next steps – Always starting with ‘why’ and looking for businesses which are connected with people’s talents and desires.
Beyond the Golden circle
After this initial Golden circle step, we us Business Model Canvas to develop the business modeling. We use this methodology because it’s a way to make a business plan faster. What we mean by this is that business plans in the past were very long, they included market research – which was sometimes time-consuming – and this made the business take a long time to actually start acting on its needs. Therefore, we currently work with prototyping.
Prototyping can be done with Canvas, which helps business modeling see how different areas are interconnected, including the target audience and different stakeholders. In this way, it’s possible to understand the viability of the business and have a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to generate immediate prototyping, carry out the market test, etc.
From this stage on, the business can be quickly started and gradually improved.
The profile of the people benefited by the projects in which Raízes operates.
Having said all of the above, we have a specificity in our social business: we serve especially the most vulnerable communities. Many of those people have little access to this type of technical information. In addition, there are many social businesses too, which ‘seek to have a positive impact on a community, expand the perspectives of people marginalized by society, in addition to generating shared income and financial autonomy for lower-class individuals’ (business definition of social impact by Sebrae).
Because of this, we seek with our strategies to respond to the needs of making efficient and faster business designs for different areas.
What is the profile of the businesses covered?
They can be individual, family and even collective businesses. We do believe a lot in the power of ‘doing collectively’, of networks, and much of our work happens with small businesses working together.
And who can hire us to do an entrepreneurial qualification and business modeling?
A foundation, a corporation, a network or association (of entrepreneurs, for example), an organization, etc.
Find out more about each of the projects we work on in this special section on our website!
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