Five compelling takeaways from the Art of the Start

1. Make meaning. Successful companies start out to make meaning, not to make money.   Companies make meaning by:
   1. Increasing the quality of life
   2. Right a wrong
   3. Prevent the end of something good
2. Create a mantra. Be able to answer “why do you work here”?  Some guidelines for drafting the mantra include:
   1. Avoid it being too long, not unique, not memorable
   2. 3 or fewer words ie: Healthy fast food can be the mantra for Wendy’s
3. Get going. As an entrepreneur we should think differently or aim to deliver an already known idea/service better than the competition.  During the journey, we shouldn’t be afraid of polarizing people with our venture since it is not possible to please all people.  If you attempt to do so, you end up creating mediocracy.  Finally, it’s important to create a team (soul mates) that balance you as the entrepreneur.
4. Business model. Work at clearly defining a business model that is:
   1. specific  – answer: Who is my customer? How do I get my money out of his wallet/her purse?
   2. Simple – there is no need to innovate on business model.
   3. Ask women about business models! Do so since men have a fundamental flaw of wanting to kill things.
5. Hire infected people. It’s important to build your team with individuals that have the work/educational experience needed AND who also LOVE your product!  Build your team with individuals who are better than yourself. Finally, apply the shopping center test – if you don’t get the I want to go over there feeling because you like her/him, don’t hire that individual.

One last and important takeaway is to not let the bozos grind you down!

Save Tuba’s value proposition for our diverse customer segments!

The Save Tuba app is a creative tool that helps bring sustainable education to life. It is an interactive way to engage children and educate them on sustainability. Rather than learning from lectures and tests, we are giving our users a way to escape from their classrooms and explore their local communities in order to make them greener. They will not only be educating themselves but also their parents as parents are often involved in their child’s education.

The value proposition for our diverse customer segments is that we help educators deliver sustainability lessons by providing teachers an engaging, gamified app that students will enjoy as they learn and apply the lessons learned into real-life behaviors.

Save Tuba’s Total Available Market and Total Addressable Market

(Lists of our assumptions and hypothesis)

Our Total Available Market hypothesis is that once customized to the different grade cohorts and (if and when) proven to be effective via implementation with Lower secondary students, the Save Tuba app will be included in all public, private, and Ministry schools with teachers and students in Kindergarten through 11th grade.

The Total Available Market and Total Addressable Market are based on the following assumptions:

1. Save Tuba app will be customized to serve all school-age groups (Kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high school students in Kazakhstan).
2. The Ministry of Education in Kazakhstan will approve the implementation of the Save Tuba app across the entire country.
3. District and building level administrators will support classroom teachers with implementing the Save Tuba app.
4. All teachers will adopt the use of the Save Tuba app when teaching sustainability lessons.
5. All students will have the necessary equipment (mobile device – cell phone, tablet, laptop, or desktop) to access the Save Tuba app.
6. All students will have access to WiFi/Internet to be able to connect to the Save Tuba app at their school and/or home.
7. Once implemented with Lower secondary students, the Save Tuba team will be better able to expand the adoption into Primary and Upper secondary schools.
8. We assumed an average of 25 students per teacher.

Our Total Available Market is ~3,557,856 students (~142,314 teachers) attending public, private and Ministry of Education schools in grades K – 11. 

• 8,575 elementary and secondary schools (grades one through eleven) 
  • approximately 3.2 million students
• 244 specialized secondary schools 
  • approximately 222,000 students
• 100 kindergartens (83 public, 4 directly under the Ministry of Education, and 13 private) 
  • 135,856 children enrolled in kindergartens (or 63% of the 5- and 6-year-olds)

Of the Total Available Market in Kazakhstan, the number of students and teachers that we can realistically reach is based on working with students and teachers from Lower secondary schools (grades 5-9) in the City of Almaty. Our Total Addressable Market is a subset of the Total Available Market. It will include 20 schools, 16,000 students and 640 teachers.