List five take-aways from Guy Kawasaki’s talk and explain exactly how you will integrate that concept/construct/strategy into your project. Make it compelling. Don’t write generic forgettable text.

1: An important topic that Guy Kawasaki touched on during his talk was the importance of creating a MAT, or an outline of your ventures Milestones, Assumptions, and Tasks. Creating milestones creates a focus for your team to strive for, and motivates the team to continue to push forward in their research/mission, while the tasks clearly lay out what needs to be done by the team in order to reach those milestones. The assumptions that are made are also important in reaching those milestones, as they could dictate how the team can operate in certain facets of their venture or react in certain situations. Ukweli has laid out our major milestone of getting our venture to launch, and has laid out the tasks needed to be done by each member of the team, but we have some assumptions about how the structure and work in Sierra Leone operates, and that is something that has to be confirmed or adjusted.

2: Kawasaki also highlighted the importance of hiring people who are “infected” with a dedication for your cause and company, as it progresses your venture forward. Although Ukweli Test Strips has Hassan carrying out various operations for us, we have talked about looking to bring another person in Sierra Leone onto the team to assist Hassan. This is where the idea of hiring an infected person can come into play, as we should be looking for someone who would love working for our project and working to carry out our milestones.

3: Kawasaki’s idea of not asking people to do something you wouldn’t do also stood out to me. I interpreted this just as respectfully treating people who are helping your venture, and I believe this is one of the more important things we could do in Sierra Leone. I believe that in country we make sure that the workers feel like they are being treated in a fair and respectful manner, and they feel like we are not asking too much of them in order to progress our venture. This would give our company a good reputation and also potentially make our operations more effective.

4: Kawasaki also highlighted the importance of flattening the learning curve. In terms of our project I think we could apply this concept to the training and educating of the workers in Sierra Leone who are administering the strips. With work currently being done on the marketing and training pamphlets for the PHU workers in Sierra Leone, it is important to make it as easy as possible for the workers to understand and retain the information that is needed to make their jobs related to our venture effective. If it is difficult for the workers to understand the workings of the strip and the overall operations of Ukweli they could perform their tasks incorrectly, or not effectively convince people to get screened.

5: I also believe it is important to keep in mind Kawasaki’s idea of niching oneself. Although the test strips offered by Ukweli are already distinguished from and offer more value to women than the competitor strips, we should not become satisfied with what we already have. Adding preeclampsia to the strips does bring additional value to the end users, but I feel like we should still look for ways to increase value to pregnant women in the future.

 

Present a business model canvas for your venture.

1: Value Proposition

Ukweli offers a specific, affordable, and accessible three parameter test strip that screens women for UTIs and preeclampsia.

2: Customers of Ukweli

The direct customers of Ukweli include the various peripheral health units and pharmacies that are buying the strips from our team, then distributing them to the end users of the test strips, which would be the pregnant women and women in general of Sierra Leone who would be at risk of contracting a UTI or who could have preeclampsia.

3: Channels for Distribution

At the moment Hassan is the main channel for distribution to get the test strips from the World Hope Makeni office to the PHUs in the area. Although having a man on a bike deliver the strips seems unreasonable, it is the most effective method in that context and situation.

4:Customer Relationship

A lot of the customer relation with the PHUs falls upon Hassan to carry out. Since Hassan is the one doing the selling to the PHUs, as well as the one carrying out the training for many of the CHWs, he is the one that is carrying out the most regular communication with people on the ground on behalf of Ukweli.

5: Revenue Streams

Our revenue stream is based solely upon selling our test strips to the PHUs, who would then sell the strips to women to create a source of revenue for themselves.

6: Resources

Lehigh University serves as our major resource, as it contains many of the resources inside of it that we use to test the accuracy of the test strips and other factors. Another resource to consider is the already established relationships in Sierra Leone. This resource cuts out the often difficult task of establishing ties in a new country.

7: Partners and Suppliers

Our main partner is World Hope, who has employees working to expand Ukweli’s venture in Sierra Leone. Our OEM supplier is Wangchen, based in Jilin, China.

8: Activities

The main activity of Ukweli’s operations is to distribute test strips to the PHUs that will screen women for UTIs and Preeclampsia. Another operation of Ukweli is facilitating the training of workers who administer test strips, as well as organizing the manufacturing of the test strips.

9: Costs

Ukweli takes on high overhead costs associated with running the venture, which is one of the main reasons our team requires more funding. We also have labor costs for Hassan that we need to account for.