Since we first came up with the concept of Common Soles earlier this year we've been chugging along quite quickly and smoothly. Fueled by passion we were able to come to market with our first flip-flop more rapidly than what others thought possible. Now we are a few weeks away from having our next few styles available which will go to funding new initiatives. Thus, we've proven our model is scalable which is a critical step in building Common Soles as a brand, and as a business. Without the business aspect the social aspect doesn't get the necessary funding and the whole model doesn't work. So happily it is all working out great thus far!

Rao and I are busy working on the new products and initiatives, but to the above point we are just as busy working on building a stable platform for Common Soles. Necessary components of that platform include such functions as: Distribution, Marketing, Accounting, and Finance. The two big ones for us at the moment being Marketing and Finance.  Without people knowing about what we are doing nobody can become a supporter or purchase a pair of flip-flops from us, and without the necessary finance, we won't have enough capital to invest in growing the organization.  This is our challenge - our solution? Communication.

Last Friday Rao and I pitched Common Soles at Babson (I know, we mention Babson quite frequently). We participated in Rocket Pitch which is a really cool event where presenters are given 3 minutes to present 3 slides to an audience comprised of business school students, attorneys, CPAs, investors, and other interested folks, a business or product idea in hopes that some of the attendees can and decide to provide value to the presenter in the form of investment, connections, advice, etc. It's an incredible experience and we got A LOT of positive reaction from our audience.

So this is us communicating. Reaching out to the world and asking how we can be the organization we have planned on building. It takes time, it takes a plan, and it takes help.  Thanks all for everything you've given us thus far.

-Dave

Whenever I go to Babson I get a boost of inspiration! Yesterday was the Forum on Entrepreneurship and I got the opportunity to listen to a handful of incredibly inspiring individuals from companies such as Facebook, Deckers, iRobot, and mzinga on what's on their minds as far as how we foster an environment of innovation and entrepreneurship. A hot topic of the day was social entrepreneurship and as you can imagine I was all ears at that panel discussion.  Here are a few of my takeaways from the day.

1)  Define your organizations "Dogma" (or often unspoken established belief). I heard a very compelling argument by Anand Vengurlekar on how organizations with Dogma's centered around fostering innovation often times were the winners in their markets. (duh..) But it was the concept of Dogma that got me going. What is your Dogma?

2)  Social Entrepreneurship is innovative at its core. An organization must be innovative in order to succeed at delivering not only profits but on its social mission as well. Being innovative as a social venture requires the ability to constantly inspire all those we touch. I hope we are inspiring! Thank you Mark Albion (one of the founders of Net Impact) for reminding me of this simple statement. Our organization certainly has its work cut out for us.. so far so good! Thank you all for the support!

3) Patience. Gary Vaynerchuk (hysterical guy) again beat into the audience the virtue of patience. Building an organization of sustainable value does not happen overnight. On that note we are jumping up and down with excitement over our new flip-flops which we will be introducing later this fall!

Enjoy the weekend,
-Dave

I love learning. I didn't until I graduated from college, I then realized how wonderful the gift of education is.  How could I appreciate it? I didn't know any other life until then.  So when I decided to go back to grad school in 2006 it was with great respect for the educational system, and drive to once again - learn. 

One of the greatest things I took away from business school was a deeper understanding of organizations role in society. Recently, Leonard Schlesinger, Babson's new President articulated this learning I took away very succinctly in the school's new strategy. 

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