Ever! Besides, making use of a beautiful thing, created by experts from quality materials pulled from the planet’s precious resources – leather, cotton, cashmere, wool, wood, gold, diamond and even oil – is logical, ethical, sustainable, and it ...

Chic, unique and sustainable: why we’re giving pre-loved presents this year

Credit: Shutterstock. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s (EMF) Global Commitment progress report has once again revealed several FMCG giants are woefully behind on their 2025 sustainable plastic use targets. While the report shows good headway on some ...

Signal: another bad year for plastic sustainability among FMCG giants – EMF

The odor control system market was projected to be valued at $1.19 billion in 2022, and it is expected to reach $1.25 billion by the end of 2023. The global market for odor control systems is anticipated to grow at a 4.8% CAGR, reaching a market worth $1.99 billion by 2033.

Smart Building Awareness and Sustainability Drive Building Automation System Market to Grow 7.4% CAGR by 2033

The final output is a sustainable, pure, branded generic ... For over 25 years, they have provided their customers with cutting edge medical gas system expertise, always ensuring that your facility's medical system operates safely, reliably and in ...

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Our BLUE VENT MUMU puts all of those concerns to rest and adds cutting-edge AI features that make the process easier ... Our vision is to revolutionize sustainable living by integrating smart composting into every household. We aspire to create a world ...

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Green accounting means integrating eco-friendly and socially responsible factors into financial reporting, showing a company's dedication to sustainability.

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The rapid advancements in technology have brought forth a multitude of innovative products, making our lives more convenient and efficient. However, this progress has also raised concerns about the environmental impact of the tech industry.

Green Innovation: Sustainable Product Design in the Tech Industry

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The Future of Tech: Embracing Sustainable Product Design

Through strategic partnerships with industry leaders, du explored collaborative opportunities to accelerate the digital transformation journey for businesses and contribute to the UAE's strategic visi

du exemplifies commitment to sustainability, innovation, and digitalisation at GITEX Global 2023

Sustainable Edge

sustainableedge

Let's learn about via these 67 free stories. They are ordered by most time reading created on HackerNoon. Visit the to find the most read stories about any technology. Energy /Learn Repo 1. What Does 50% Electric Cars Mean To The Grid? Is a goal of 50% electric cars in the United States by 2030 a reasonable goal? What is required of the grid to support that? 2. Volcanos and New Proof Methods are great, but Bitcoin's Energy Problem Falls on the Community The environmental cost of blockchain technologies and cryptocurrencies is high, but the answer doesn't only lay with energy production and better proof methods 3. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3): Electricity - Radioactivity Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume I, ELECTRICITY: Radioactivity 4. Three Blockchain-based Energy Projects to Watch The year 2018 was marked by a surge of public interest in energy-related blockchain projects. Indeed, as it became ever more clear that distributed ledgers can be a great match for the energy market, with all its inefficiencies, large players – including Shell and BP – entered into blockchain partnerships. 2019 is shaping up to be even more exciting, with existing projects releasing their first products and new, high-profile companies entering the market. 5. Lowering The Electricity Costs Of Mining Bitcoin [A How-To Guide] Bitcoin remains an incredibly tantalizing digital asset, as those who invest wisely in this cryptocurrency can earn huge sums of money for themselves. Bitcoin miners and investors are nevertheless forced to contend with the fact that their market is incredibly volatile, and that technological changes are constantly upsetting industry practices. New and more efficient bitcoin mining processes, for instance, can help lower the energy costs associated with producing the digital tokens. 6. 7 Technology Trends To Drive The Energy, Oil & Utilities Sector In 2022 7. Lets Go Beyond Nuclear Fusion and Extract Energy from Blackholes I actually have been thinking about this for many years, and up until recently it has been confirmed. This is nothing new, as cosmologist and thermonuclear physicist Yakov Zeldovich have discussed this nearly half a century ago. 8. 5 Technologies That Could Be the Next Big Thing What is the up-and-coming breakthrough technology that will significantly advance humankind? Here are 5 Ideas of what it could be. 9. Bitcoin Mining Still Requires Too Much Energy Bitcoin is far less popular now than it was in its heyday, when the world’s leading cryptocurrency was regularly dominating international headlines and leading newcomers into the burgeoning crypto-marketplace. After it caught on like wildfire amongst non-traditional investors, the Bitcoin hype also generated a slew of headlines and controversies surrounding the immense amount of energy that’s needed to mine - or generate - new tokens. These days, that controversy has largely died down, but many people still wonder if Bitcoin mining still presents a serious new global warming problem. 10. Bitcoin Energy Consumption Explained Satoshi himself had to address Bitcoins energy consumption concerns, so let’s deep dive into why Bitcoin uses energy, and how it’s used. 11. Volume 3: Nuclear Fusion Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 3 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume III, NUCLEAR FUSION: The Energy of the Sun 12. Tips for Green Energy Technology Now our company know just exactly how crucial it is actually to care for nature is so essential. The recommendations below are going to offer you a lot of the very best operations that you may conveniently make green power help your residential property. 13. What Is Transactive Energy? 14. Hacking Renewable Energy for a Green Future [Infographic] How will the renewable energy industry address growing demand? To do so, they will need a better battery. 15. The Pros And Cons Of Proof Of Stake Technology There is no doubt that proof of stake (PoS) has become a popular consensus algorithm in the cryptocurrency world. 16. How Blockchain Could Create Incentives to Protect the Environment According to Dr. John Henry Clippinger, Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab, City Sciences Group and co-founder of Token Commons Foundation, the world is transitioning towards blockchain and smart contracts for managing its carbon emissions. 17. Cloudflare Helps Reduce The Environmental Impact of Internet Carbon Emissions Cloudflare is releasing sustainable edge computing services and energy-efficient features to help build sustainability directly into your own applications. 18. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 3 (of 3): Beyond Fusion - Antimatter Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 3 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume III, BEYOND FUSION: Antimatter 19. 2020 Was The Year Electric Vehicles Truly Arrived 2020: Year of the EV Launch 20. Energy Savings Strategies for Smart Homes Let’s explore some energy-saving strategies for smart homes that you can deploy today and make your homes green and energy-efficient. 21. Design and Simulation of a Green Energy Grid Wondering how we'll transition to green energy? This article presents a simulation of the UK's grid, and explains how we might model different energy sources. 22. How Does a Steam Turbine work? A steam turbine is a device that converts the thermal energy of steam pressure into mechanical energy, where the steam is expanded in stages in the turbine to d 23. Solar Energy Without the Sun Solar is the future, right? Flying cars, clean water the world over, and gleaming towers of city and glass that jut unceremoniously into the sky. Science fiction promised us a lot, and while we can’t sit in endless sky traffic just yet, we are making great strides towards powering our businesses and homes with the energy of the sun. 24. The Internet of Energy: 3 Paths Towards Peer-to-Peer Electricity The challenges in developing peer-to-peer energy systems include public record keeping, secure identity verification, and reliable communication 25. How New Technology is Turning the Global Energy Market Green Blockchain consortium to develop a  energy system to power a fleet of electric vehicles and charging stations in Toronto, Canada. 26. Why Solar Energy is Better than Nuclear Energy Solar and nuclear energy have been pitted against each other for years. Learn the pros and cons of both and see why solar energy could be better. 27. 5 Tips From a Robot on Motivation Need to get more done? Follow these 5 tips from an AI robot to help keep you motivated. 28. Technology in the Oil and Gas Industry: An MLOps Perspective The Oil and gas industry generates an annual revenue that was approximately $3.3 trillion in 2019 and is one of the largest enterprises in the world. Oil and natural gas upstream, midstream and downstream processes constantly generate large amounts of data and is immensely dependent on sophisticated technologies to reveal new insights in the business i.e prevent equipment malfunctioning and improve operational efficiency… 29. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3): Protons in Nuclei Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume II, THE STRUCTURE OF THE NUCLEUS: Protons in Nuclei 30. Bitcoin Mining and Traditional Banking Energy Consumption: The Truth Over the years, analysts and environmentalists have constantly called Bitcoin mining an energy-intensive venture. This has brought a continuous spotlight on Bit 31. Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3): INTRODUCTION Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. INTRODUCTION 32. Art for good, but are NFTs the answer or part of the problem? Artists are taking to NFT platforms, but that causes a sustainability dilemma. Could a better mix of technology and circular economy be a better fit? 33. Crypto Energy Consumption: Clean & Green Could Be the Solution For advocates of the widescale adoption of cryptocurrency, there is one major challenge that stands in the way of their dream coming true. Namely, the fact that mining cryptocurrencies require exorbitant — and seemingly wasteful — amounts of energy. 34. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3): The Proton-Neutron Theory Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume II, THE NEUTRON: The Proton-Neutron Theory 35. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3): Mass and Energy Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume II: MASS AND ENERGY 36. The Story of Nuclear Energy: The Nuclear Bomb Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 3 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume III, NUCLEAR FISSION: The Nuclear Bomb 37. Understanding Sustainability and Renewable Energy with Taras Vodyanyy This article talks about wind energy and how wind energy can become a major source of renewable energy source. 38. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3): Electricity Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume I, ELECTRICITY: Units of Electricity 39. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 3 (of 3): The Discovery of Fission Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 3 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume III, NUCLEAR FISSION: The Discovery of Fission 40. Building an Energy Market on the Blockchain: Evaluation, Wireframing, and Implementation Including Solidity smart contracts to get you started. 41. Energy Ideas For A New Decade Ever since I got my first solar-powered LCD watch in the late 1970s, I’ve been a fan of solar power, but what has amazed me in the 40’ish years since then is the rather pathetic advances we’ve made in solar panel efficiency. In 1954 Bell Labs achieved an energy conversion efficiency rate of 6%, then 25 years later we about doubled that, but in the 40 years since, we’ve only really seen another 50% increase to about 19% although more expensive panels can now get you 25%-30% with the super expensive ones that go into space getting nearly 50%. Another problem with solar panels and “green energy” in general is that the ecological impact of the manufacture and disposal of the components has a devastating environmental impact. 42. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3): Atomic Weights Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume I: ATOMIC WEIGHTS 43. Tesla Stock Wears A Double Halo (Illustration: Mike Bloom) 44. What You Need to Know About Bitcoin's Energy Usage Learn the truth about Bitcoin’s energy consumption and understand why its environmental impact isn’t as bad you think. 45. What is a BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) and How Does it Work? A BESS is an energy storage system (ESS) that captures energy from different sources, accumulates this energy, and stores it in rechargeable batteries. 46. The Story of Nuclear Energy: Neutron Bombardment Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume II, THE NEUTRON: Neutron Bombardment 47. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3): Energy - The Energy of the Sun Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume I, ENERGY: The Energy of the Sun 48. The Structure of the Nucleus: The Proton Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume II, THE STRUCTURE OF THE NUCLEUS: The Proton 49. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 of 3: Particle Accelerators Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume II, THE STRUCTURE OF THE NUCLEUS: Particle Accelerators 50. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3): Electrons and Energy Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume I, ENERGY: Electrons and Energy 51. The Story of Nuclear Energy: Thermonuclear Bombs Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 3 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume III, NUCLEAR FUSION: Thermonuclear Bombs 52. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3): The Neutron - Nuclear Spin Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume II, THE NEUTRON: Nuclear Spin 53. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3): The Energy of Radioactivity Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume I, ENERGY: The Energy of Radioactivity 54. Volume 3: Controlled Fusion Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 3 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume III, NUCLEAR FUSION: Controlled Fusion 55. Can We Harvest Solar Energy from Space and Beam it Down to Earth? It sounds too good to be true: a plan to harvest solar energy from space and beam it down to Earth using microwaves. 56. The Story of Nuclear Energy: Nuclear Fission | New Elements Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 3 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume III, NUCLEAR FISSION: New Elements 57.  Volume 1:   Electricity from Isotopes Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume I, ELECTRICITY: Isotopes 58. Bitcoin As Tokenized Oil. The rise of the PetroBitcoin? (An analysis of bitcoin strategies for oil rich and sanctioned countries) 59. The Benefits of Renewable Energy: Why Clean Energy Is Good for Our Health, Environment, and Economy Renewable energy is becoming more and more popular, and for good reason. Not only does renewable energy have a minimal environmental impact, it also provides a number of benefits to our health, environment, and economy. In this page, we will explore the many benefits of renewable energy technologies like wind turbines and solar panels. So read on to learn why clean energy is good for all of us! 60. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3): Electricity - Cathode Rays Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume I, ELECTRICITY: Cathode Rays 61. The Neutron: The Nuclear Interaction Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 2 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume II, THE NEUTRON: The Nuclear Interaction 62. The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3): Energy - Chemical Energy Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume I, ENERGY: Chemical Energy 63. WTF is Power Supply Unit? The Power Supply Unit is the bit of equipment that changes over the force gave from the outlet into usable force for the numerous parts inside the PC case. 64. World Within Worlds: Energy Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume I, ENERGY: The Law of Conservation of Energy 65. Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 3 (of 3): READING LIST Worlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 3 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Volume III: READING LIST 66. The Story of Nuclear Energy: Atomic Numbers orlds Within Worlds: The Story of Nuclear Energy, Volume 1 (of 3), by Isaac Asimov is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. 67. The New Source of Energy The World Set Free, by H. G. Wells, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. Thank you for checking out the 67 most read stories about Energy on HackerNoon. to find the most read stories about any technology. Visit the /Learn Repo

67 Stories To Learn About Energy

Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET), the security, performance, and reliability company helping to build a better Internet, today announced it will help power an Internet with zero carbon emissions. Now, not only will one of the world’s largest and most interconnected networks operate on 100 percent renewable energy, but Cloudflare will also remove all historical carbon its global network has emitted since its founding by 2025. The Internet is responsible for approximately 1 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year—roughly comparable to the annual CO2 emissions of the entire aviation industry worldwide. Now any Internet property on Cloudflare’s network—which today already consists of 17 percent of the web—will automatically reduce emissions and seamlessly contribute to a greener, more sustainable world. Today, Cloudflare is also releasing sustainable edge computing services and energy-efficient features to help organisations of any size build sustainability directly into their own applications, websites, and networks. Now businesses can choose to intelligently route traffic through data centres powered by renewable energy using Green Compute on Cloudflare Workers. Customers can also understand and quantify their individual footprints and approximate savings from Cloudflare’s network in comparison to Internet averages with the Carbon Impact Report. Furthermore, organisations that deploy websites on Cloudflare Pages will automatically operate on renewable energy and receive a green certification from The Green Web Foundation displayed through a verified badge. “Internet usage has skyrocketed in the last couple of years, growing over 80 percent on our network, and is showing no signs of slowing down. ,” said Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare. For every search you do, online order you make, and video call you join, there is an environmental impact from the physical data centres, servers, and other physical infrastructure the Internet relies on “We want to give the Internet a clean slate to help build toward a future where it’s easy for anyone to create, build, and run their applications on green energy while remaining secure, fast, and reliable.” As Internet usage continues to rise, so does the energy that’s required to deliver online services. The electricity used to power the Internet’s infrastructure helps move content that sits in faraway servers, passes it through networks, and allows for it to land on a user’s device. While turning to cloud platforms to deliver a service or document is more environmentally efficient than paper printouts, for example, each Internet-powered property has a climate impact that can be mitigated. Organisations need the insights, tools, and control to lower their supply chain carbon emissions without sacrificing the security, speed, or reliability of their applications and corporate networks. Cloudflare is providing environmentally efficient solutions, giving organisations a seamless way to: : Using Cloudflare’s distributed global network to drive a better climate outcome, businesses and developers can elect to route a portion of their compute workloads through facilities on Cloudflare’s edge powered by 100 percent renewable energy with Green Compute on Cloudflare Workers. Power compute with renewable energy 2. : The millions of customers powered by Cloudflare can effortlessly track and view their approximate carbon savings from their usage of Cloudflare services in comparison to Internet averages for the same volumes. With the Carbon Impact Report, all customers can view customised data on their individual footprints on Cloudflare’s network to quantify, report on, and set sustainability goals, as well as view recommendations on actions they can take to reduce their carbon impact. Quantify their individual footprint and carbon savings from Cloudflare’s network 3. : All websites are automatically powered by 100 percent renewable energy with Cloudflare Pages, now in partnership with The Green Web Foundation. Organisations and developers default to deploy certified green web pages and can elect to display a verified badge. Receive green certification on their websites by default 4. : Search engines will be notified by Cloudflare when content on a page has changed, to eliminate unnecessary crawls and energy. This option will be available in the future for all Cloudflare customers, to help deliver fresher indexes while wasting fewer resources from search engines. Reduce unnecessary energy from search engines indexing the web Efficiency has been at the core of Cloudflare’s network from its founding. In contrast to legacy models that transport certain activity to specific data centres halfway across the world, each Cloudflare data centre delivers full functions of security, performance, and reliability to intelligently serve users based on location. The coupling of comprehensive services and Cloudflare’s network edge—spanning more than 200 cities operating within milliseconds of the Internet-connected population—simultaneously reduces energy to transport while providing optimal speed and security. Cloudflare continues to iterate on the optimal efficiency of its network, and has achieved more than 50 percent improvement in requests per watt by deploying Arm® Neoverse™-based processors in its edge servers. Today, the company is furthering its efficiencies with renewable energy-powered edge computing and services for its customers to build and scale sustainability. “The industry is facing a massive opportunity to accommodate the increasing demand on cloud computing in a sustainable way,” said Chris Bergey, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm. “Energy efficiency is part of Arm’s DNA, and we are pleased to see Cloudflare leverage the performance-per-watt benefits of Neoverse as they continue to build on and prioritise the overall efficiencies of its vast global network.” “Cloudflare’s recent climate disclosures and commitments are encouraging, especially given how much traffic flows through their network. Every provider should be at least this transparent when it comes to accounting for the environmental impact of their services”, said Chris Adams, Co-director of The Green Web Foundation. “We see a growing number of users relying on CDNs to host their sites, and they are often confused when their sites no longer show as green, because they’re not using a green CDN. It’s good to see another more sustainable option available to users, and one that is independently verified.”

Cloudflare Helps Reduce The Environmental Impact of Internet Carbon Emissions

Research on Gamification in Education

Entrepreneurship in 8 Hours This optional module presents Entrepreneurship. It is broken down into Day 1 and Day 2 but the reader can work at their own pace. It is designed so that in eight hours of reading and deliverables the student can acquire a basic understanding of entrepreneurship. There are no explicit references here to social entrepreneurship or the differences between traditional and social entrepreneurship. If one defines traditional entrepreneurship as directed toward a market problem and social entrepreneurship as directed toward a social problem (such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals ), basically the same approach can be used with either type of entrepreneurship. [1] Day 1 here are three ways today that a person can think about managing their economic affairs: T 1. Have a job 2. Be a contract worker, consultant or part time worker 3. Own a business If you start or own a business there are basically two choices: 1. To be a small business owner 2. To be an entrepreneur If you start a single dry cleaner to provide for your family and establish a lifestyle, then you are a small business owner. If you start a dry cleaner as a prototype and build and operate 1000 dry cleaners, then you are an entrepreneur. The difference between the two outcomes is that the entrepreneur is building a company that has scale. A scalable company might have an initial sales target of $100 million in annual sales within five years. In order to achieve scale, the secret or key to successful entrepreneurship, starts with the opportunity that one selects to pursue. To explain opportunity, there are three concepts to understand and master to be successful in scaling: 1. Insight 2. Vision 3. Value Israel Kirzner, a leading Austrian School economist and writer on entrepreneurship, said that entrepreneurs have a positive asymmetry of information, what is commonly called an insight. In his book the concept of insight is more fully developed. As an interesting observation, Michael Spence, Nobel Laureate economist, as a “negative asymmetry of information”. One can begin to see now that all economic activity can be understood in terms of access to information and asymmetry. An insight is the seed of an idea upon which to build a company, the unique perspective and interpretation of the information which is not grasped by many. Sam Altman at Y Combinator, a leading accelerator, describes insight as follows. Competition and Entrepreneurship described poverty “We greatly prefer something new to something derivative. Most really big companies start with something fundamentally new (one acceptable definition of new is 10x better.) If there are ten other companies starting at the same time with the same plan, and it sounds a whole lot like something that already exists, we are skeptical.” Having identified the insight, the challenge becomes even harder to then create a vision. A vision can be understood as how to “change the world”, the big picture motivating dream that explains why you are so passionate about the idea. Many have insights or ideas but much fewer have a vision and this is one reason why entrepreneurship takes hard work. One to develop and articulate a vision is the Golden Circle, shown in this . tool video by Simon Sinek If you succeed in igniting a passion that produces a vision, the next hurdle is that the entrepreneur must create value for a customer and be able to capture that value (sell the product or service). Value is a customer perception, what economists call utility, and not a simple calculation of selling price and cost. Many entrepreneurs initially underprice their products because they fail to consider ‘perceived’ value. If one appreciates correctly the perceived value, and prices correctly, then this analysis is confirmed by a customer purchase. In order to create value for the customer and capture value for the business, the entrepreneur must understand the problem or need of the customer. In order to make such a determination, one can use a 5-step process called design thinking, which is explained in detail by the Stanford Design School . Design thinking begins with empathizing with the customer through in the field observation, survey and research of the customer. This first step is also called “putting yourself in the shoes of the customer”. It is a critical step where first time entrepreneurs typically invest inadequate time and spend insufficient time in the field. here The understanding of the problem is confirmed when one can describe for the customer three factors : [2] 1. The customer’s fears 2. The customer’s needs 3. The customer’s wants. These three factors explain the emotional, rational and aspirational characteristics of the customer’s problems. Step 2 in design thinking, reframing the problem, is a powerful tool to develop a complete understanding of the customer problem. Frequently the problem is reframed by changing a key assumption about the problem. For example, if we change the assumption that a boat is not one solid piece of wood (a dugout) but can be constructed from pieces of wood, we start building off shore vessels and launch international trade. After one develops an understanding of the problem, one then proceeds to create multiple creative alternatives through ideation (step 3 of design thinking) and then to select one to develop as the prototype, step 4. A prototype is one way to test (step 5) a solution with customers. The prototype is not a perfect, finished solution but sufficiently developed to gain insight about whether a customer might use the product to obtain a solution to the problem. It is much more important to use rapid prototyping to test many solutions than focus on a single perfect solution. The story goes that the Wright Brothers were successfully because they realized they needed an airplane design that could be crashed and rebuilt quickly. This story illustrates successful rapid prototyping. While defining a problem and solution is necessary, it is not sufficient to successfully build a company usually. The problem and solution must be surrounded by what Warren Buffett called a “moat”. The moat creates a sustainable or competitive advantage. The competitive advantage is how a company creates the value for the customers and the company stakeholders such as shareholders. One way to create a competitive advantage is to be innovative. (Another way to secure competitive advantage is to get a monopoly from a government.) Innovation is a term widely used but rarely understood. Joseph Schumpeter was a famous economist who did the early thinking and writing about innovation and entrepreneurship. He is well known for calling innovation “creative destruction” but perhaps a more useful concept was his idea that innovation was “invention commercialized”. Inventions are original, tangible devices, processes, methods and compositions that have “purpose”. By purpose we mean that something completes a job or provides functionality. Once the purpose is established we commercialize by bringing it to market and testing it with customers. There are four kinds of innovation, three of which can be the basis to form a new company. There is a 2-part framework of market-technology that defines innovation, as shown below. Credit: Jim Kalbach Incremental innovation is the small changes that increase revenue for an existing business, not a startup venture. Disruptive innovation was a term coined by Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen. Disruptive innovation is when one takes an existing product in the market, reduces its feature set and cost and opens up a much larger market (moving to the right on the market scale (x). (Every new type of computer after the original mainframe has been a disruptive innovation.) Breakthrough innovation is typically a never seen before technology, such as Google glasses. In such a situation the entrepreneur and any investor are taking both the technology risk (will it be perceived as a reliable, full featured technology) and market risk (sufficient customers to build a large company). In a game changer innovation, the entrepreneur successfully picks a new technology that is widely adopted in the market. Google’s use of artificial intelligence to improve the search experience would be a good example of a game changer innovation. After developing an innovation, or as part of the exercise to shape the innovation, an entrepreneur should do a detailed competitive analysis. A key factor in analyzing competition is to explore the current, alternative ways to solve the same problem. Steve Blank’s is an excellent tool to do competitive analysis. From the competitive analysis, the entrepreneur is refining their understanding of what features, benefits and customer experience will successfully position their product or service, which provides the basis to define a customer value proposition (CVP) which is the last topic in day 1. However, one point first on competition. The presence of many competitors may be good news. First it confirms that “now” is the time to launch a new venture because many companies are trying to solve a similar problem. A second benefit of competition is that multiple companies are investing to build the new market, which is perhaps more capital efficient. Lastly, competitive information helps the entrepreneur to develop their approach to sustainability. Competitive Petal The customer value proposition or CVP is a major milestone in the development of a new venture. A CVP combines the initial analysis of problem, solution, innovation and competition. At any point the CVP is a work-in-process, updated and refined in a constant iterative process of testing and evaluation. A simple way to look at CVP is shown below . [3] The CVP is a critical step where one begins the transition from analysis to creating value for the customer and the development of the features, benefits and customer experience of a product. An example of a feature is the touch screen on the iPhone, a benefit would be the “access to the Internet” and the customer experience might be defined in part by the App Store.) Many writers on entrepreneurship now believe that a company should be selling a customer experience and not just a product or solution. Determining the CVP is where the customer experience starts to take an initial shape. One important concept in the early development of a new scalable venture still remains to discuss — sizing the opportunity. We begin day 2 with this topic. Deliverable — Day 1 At the conclusion of the material above, the student should prepare the Why — How — What analysis from the Golden Circle for a new business concept. Such an exercise should allow the student to test their understanding of all the concepts covered so far. Such an exercise may be more effective if done with a partner or a small group, where ideas can be presented, analyzed, and refined. Entrepreneurship is a “team sport” and this exercise is a good time to start building collaboration skills and learn more about how groups work. Day 2 With a CVP tentatively developed, two critical analysis should now be prepared: 1. Is the business concept a feature — product — or company? 2. Is the opportunity sufficiently large to build a $100 million company in five years? The results of either analysis might prompt one to return to Day 1 and start over. Do not be concerned. Entrepreneurship is an iterative process and there will be many times when one goes back to a previous step. Not every new idea for a company is really the basis for a company. Consider Dropbox, the file backup and synching service. Many companies have tried to buy Dropbox and their plans for the acquisition demonstrate my point. If Apple had bought Dropbox, they would have treated it as a feature in their product infrastructure, similar to iCloud. If Microsoft had bought the company they would have treated it as a product similar to Office or Sharepoint. The Founder of Dropbox had the vision to make Dropbox a successful standalone company. If the initial analysis shows that the idea is a feature or product, one might return to the CVP for further analysis or start over. Sizing the market opportunity frequently helps to determine the answer to feature — product — or company. Many say that a market opportunity must be at least $500 million and preferably $1 billion to attract outside capital. Not everyone builds their entrepreneurial venture using outside capital, but the professionals have these guidelines for several reasons. One should probably heed this advice. Many times a market is too small because the business concept is only a feature or product. venture capitalists In order to size a market one needs to have a clear idea of who the customer or persona is. This view may change throughout the entire process of starting and growing a company and should be considered a hypothesis requiring validation at this stage. Amateurs generally size markets top-down. Professionals typically size markets bottom-up. The reason is multiplicative systems , which simply stated says that one bad assumption at the top of the model ruins the entire result. Bottom up, we might start with a single store, determine the store traffic per day, decide days open per week, assume a purchase percentage for potential customers and an average transaction and calculate annual revenue for a single store. Then one validates each of these assumptions and then considers how many potential stores could be opened to finally size the opportunity. All the energy and analysis is easily focused on understanding single store performance (the economic unit) and any error is less likely to totally ruin the market sizing exercise. Most market sizing exercises involve the concept of an economic unit. Economic units are what drives sales growth and can be stores (locations), distributors, salespeople, site visitors (e-commerce), plants (utilities), etc. It is important to understand what the economic unit is in the entrepreneurial venture. [4] [5] The next step after confirming that the market size is sufficient to build a large company is to consider the new venture’s ‘business model’. The business model provides an opportunity to more clearly articulate the business strategy, but equally important allows the entrepreneur to consider: · Additional ways to create value for the customer · Additional ways to create competitive advantage · Additional opportunities to improve the economics of the business Peter Thiel provides four rules that show business model thinking to create a successful company: [6] 1. Build Proprietary Technology That Is 10x Better (a competitive advantage or moat) 2. Look For Effects (may create a monopoly) Network 3. Create Economies of Scale (creates cost advantage) 4. Build a strong brand (helps to develop the all-important customer requirement for trust) William Osterwalder did much of the original work to popularize business models and his canvas is shown below. Michael Porter’s work on value chain actually serves the same purpose and many other writers have a concept of business model. [7] [8] [9] Many books and articles have been written on business model. The value of any of the approaches is that they provide a systematic way to analyze and determine how the new company will do business. Two particularly useful concepts highlighted by Osterwalder (and often overlooked) are channels and partners. Channels focus on how the product reaches the customer, what might be called distribution. Partners opens up the entire consideration of expertise and outsourcing. In the simplest case, a company should only retain what creates the most value for the customer and outsource everything else (after considering cost, risk, timing, customer experience, etc.). Such an approach increases the likelihood that the company focuses all its resources on what creates the value for the customer. The last step in the analysis of a new venture is building a financial model for the new venture. A financial model serves many purposes: · It articulates simply through its assumptions the business model · It demonstrates the founder’s business logic · It demonstrates the scale of the opportunity · It demonstrates a path to profitability · It shows the capital required to build the company A financial model should include a minimum of four parts: 1. Balance Sheet 2. Income Statement 3. Cash Flow Statement; and 4. Assumptions tab with a financial summary Any introductory accounting textbook can further explain balance sheet, income statement and cash flow. A sample model is shown . A model should be self-explanatory. There should be no need today to walk a reader through a model. Remember, you are building the model to answer the reader’s questions and not to show off Excel skills or how complicated you may think the business is. here A common logic for building a company and the financial model is to think in terms of milestones or deliverables. In doing a startup, examples of deliverables might be: · Reaching a significant number of e-commerce customers, say 10,000 · Reaching “breakeven cash flow” (where monthly cash received from customers and all expenses paid out are equal) · Reaching $1 million in annual revenues (a level of annual sales widely regarded to demonstrate “product-market fit” or traction) At this point the entrepreneur has initially validated the problem, solution, customer and size of market largely through research in the field with prospective customers. They have also prepared a CVP, a business model and a cash flow model to determine how much cash they need to reach the first milestone. The entrepreneur is now ready to raise the initial funding to start the company and launch in the market. Capital raising, company launch and legal matters are outside the scope of this module. A tip — family and friends are a frequent source of initial capital. Deliverable — Day 2 At the conclusion of the day 2 reading, the student should prepare a business model canvas, as shown above, for their new business venture. Particular attention should be paid to opportunities to create additional value for the customer. ***************** There is additional required reading in the that accompanies the LCD that further details many of the concepts in this document and also much supplemental reading and videos to further advance your understanding. Reading List [1] https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/21252030%20Agenda%20for%20Sustainable%20Development%20web.pdf [2] https://strategyzer.com/canvas/value-proposition-canvas Many people can claim to have developed the value proposition canvas and subsequent improvements, as shown above. Perhaps Alexander Osterwalder has done much to promote the concept. [3] [4] http://www.tronviggroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/A-Helpful-Starter-Guide-to-Thinking-Like-Your-Persona.pdf [5] https://www.fs.blog/2016/08/mental-model-multiplicative-systems/ [6] http://www.creativitypost.com/business/peter_thiels_4_rules_for_creating_a_great_business [7] https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers-ebook/dp/B06X426D4F/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518087569&sr=1-3&keywords=osterwalder+business+model+generation [8] https://www.amazon.com/Competitive-Advantage-Creating-Sustaining-Performance/dp/0684841460/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518087358&sr=1-2&keywords=competitive+advantage [9] https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Company-Entrepreneurs-Companies/dp/3838373316/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518087471&sr=1-2&keywords=billion+dollar+company

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