Startups

The power of entrepreneurial thinking not only serves to launch products and organizations. In the actions of individuals and groups, who are passionate about solving problems, entrepreneurial activity can be a catalyst for creating great change. By seeing problems as opportunities just waiting to be seized, we can go a long way in addressing many of the most pressing problems on Earth. To inspire all of us to be change-makers in 2013, here are three inspirational videos featuring passionate leaders who are making change in the world. Making Change Through Cultural Lines Using a illustrative example from her experiences in Niger, Melinda Gates, co-chair and trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, talks about developing approaches to increasing contraception access and use, by tapping into the cultural realities and interactions between groups of men and women. Can Products Save the World? Serial entrepreneur Jeff Church discusses whether social enterprises can sell products to affect change in the world. As the co-founder of social enterprise Nika Water, Church believes social entrepreneurs can only have lasting success if they start their enterprises as “nine parts business, one part cause.” Using Serial Innovation to Create Change Method Products Co-Founder Adam Lowry loves it when competitors copy his company’s products because it means they are changing the rules of the game in their sector. Lowry also explains why this allows his company to innovate in the cleaning products category and pushes their industry to create desired social change. Check out more entrepreneurial insights on Stanford eCorner.

It’s easy to fall in love with a cool technology or an amazing idea, but can these actually be turned into useful products that customers desire. While visions of huge profits and market domination can begin to dance in the mind of aspiring entrepreneurs, it is a commitment to building valuable products and deeply understanding the problems you are solving for customers that provide the true foundation for success. Here are three videos examining the importance of keeping laser focus on creating products that connect with audiences. What is a Product? “Product is everything,” says Smule Co-Founder and CEO Jeff Smith. While his previous (and successful) entrepreneurial experiences taught him the impact of sales, marketing and finance, Smith sees nothing being more important than product. Here he discusses why it’s important to consider what the first demonstratable use case of the product will be, and to work creatively to communicate this to customers. Are You Building Products Customers Want? “What customers want isn’t necessarily what you or your engineering team wants to build,” says Jessica Mah, co-founder of inDinero. Here Mah describes the debates that went on inside her company when aligning the desires of the engineering team with new requests for product features. Eventually a strict weekly schedule was implemented at inDinero to provide more insightful customer feedback, says Mah, which provided new insights that would shape the future of the product roadmap. Show Investors a Working Product To inspire a vision about the possibilities of a product, entrepreneurs should show investors a working version of their product, says serial entrepreneur Jack Dorsey. In the video below, the co-founder of Square and Twitter explains how this approach also makes the telling of the product’s story easier. Dorsey also shares the amusing (and money-making) technique he used when presenting Square to investors. Check out more entrepreneurial insights on Stanford eCorner.