BCGDV Social Ventures Program Part 4: Reflections
Plan A’s Co-Founder and CMO Nathan Bonnisseau reflects on the company’s time working with BCGDV as part of the BCGDV Social Venture Program
By Nathan Bonnisseau, Co-Founder and CMO, Plan A
8 weeks, no more. That’s the time we had together to take our company, put every bit of it under the microscope, and take it to the next level. With the help of no fewer than 15 DVers and their resources, we knew that planA.earth could benefit from those two months from just about every angle. As Plan A’s Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, I could go on for a long time about the numerous milestones our joint team achieved in that period of time, but I’d like to hone in on just a few highlights.
Plan A provides a self-service tool to help companies reduce their carbon emissions, create a culture of sustainability, and take full part in the global movement towards a carbon-neutral economy. Our tool calculates and monitors a company’s environmental footprint, and proposes a data-driven action plan to engage the entire company on the path to sustainability.
Psychoanalyze your company
The first two weeks of our collaboration were spent on understanding what we knew and what we didn’t know. In an epic, week-long sprint, the team pooled its knowledge of every aspect of Plan A. This exercise allowed us to map out our processes and highlights areas, and identify areas to work on.
Conversations with external stakeholders — clients of course, but also experts, investors, and potential users — helped us refine our processes, gather great ideas and adapt them to our own context.
One of the most valuable conversations we had was with a BCG sustainability expert who helped us understand the needs and wants of companies with regard to sustainability. His sharp perspectives on the current business sustainability scene and first-hand experience allowed us to tailor our product to the specific needs of those businesses that are looking into sustainability as a development strategy.
To take one example, we added a feature that automatically calculates a company-specific carbon reduction target aligned with the Paris Agreement country objectives. We also added other elements of comparison to contextualise the results of the carbon calculation integrated in our tool. Getting a number is good, understanding it is better.
Experiment like a (not-so) mad scientist
In the growth department, something similar happened. We first analyzed our fundamentals, historic experiments, and findings to elaborate on them and create an experiment plan. Experience from previous venture building experiences is essential to avoid making mistakes.
A common challenge in building a business is putting together the appropriate tooling stack to guide your customers through the experience as well as your team behind the scenes to manage this journey.
The previous experience of the growth team allowed us to fast track this process and build upon what was already up and running. How much we benefitted from the growth team at DV was visible not only by the substantial amount of money we saved from testing these services but also in the more fluid collaboration between departments.
Preparing for acceleration
Our collaboration is all done, but our adventure continues. Revamped processes, further innovations, and new features all require talented and dedicated people to lead them. Our final steps with the DV team were to prepare for life without them.
Despite the current global situation, we are recruiting for tech, marketing, design and sales roles. I believe this is also further proof of the quality work our organisations achieved together: Building more solid roots that help us withstand crises, and supporting other businesses on their global shift to be as prepared and adapted to our evolving landscape as possible.
I’d like to take this opportunity to once again thank BCG Digital Ventures for supporting Plan A. Don’t miss our co-organised webinar next week, Tuesday 28th at 5pm (CEST), on climate change, climate action, and of course its business implications, which will take place over at the BCGDV Instagram. Sign up here.
Oh, and there is no plan B for our planet! Follow us on Twitter at @planaearth to support our work and get your company on board!
Read the other instalments in this series:
🌎 Part 1: Introducing Plan A
🌎 Part 2: Design
🌎 Part 3: Technology
For more about Plan A, visit the website.
To learn more about BCGDV, follow us on Twitter @BCGDV and visit our website.
