A Case Study | Lean Startup Test Results
“I believe that Steve Case when hand delivered a proposal at Lean Startup Conference for the Case Foundation with an opportunity to be a development partner for WTIM will setup a meeting to find out more about creating a WeThinkItMatters Beta Campaign designed to find out what causes and issues are most important to address. Within 3 weeks of receiving the proposal the Case Foundation will have a sit down or phone meeting with me to learn the return on investment and impact of sponsoring a WTIM campaign.”
Let me give you some context for my hypothesis so you can better understand why I believed the Case Foundation would respond to my hand delivered proposal.
The Case Foundation created in 1997 by digital pioneers Jean and Steve Case say on their website “We strive to Be Fearless in our approach to social change. We don’t limit ourselves to any one sector or issue, rather we partner across industries and search across issues to identify opportunities where innovation is needed to address an urgent challenge. We find and fund efforts that break down barriers and divisions, challenge the status quo and offer new solutions to ever-evolving problems, all in pursuit of one bold mission — investing in people and ideas that can change the world.”
My first introduction to the Case Foundation was in 2013 at a special Startup Weekend event called Tech4Change, the Case Foundation was a partner of the event. I got this poster from them :) please read it!
The Tech4Change event was designed to encourage new ways to think about entrepreneurship in challenging environments around the globe. The 54-hour marathon event focused on developing tech tools for the greater good and creating viable social enterprises that can scale to address global needs.
I was at the event as a media sponsor taking pictures. But also ended up joining a two person team that needed help creating an MVP and Intro video. We won 3rd place :) and some awesome growlers.
My next encounter with the Case Foundation happened in 2016. I was student in The School of Social Entrepreneurship run by Social Change Nation. There I met two more people, and they told me about an event called MCON and guess who was presenting it, the Case Foundation.
I was awarded a scholarship ticket from Achieve to the event in Washington DC, but was unable to attend because I couldn’t afford the travel.
Even though I wasn’t able to attend the live event I did enjoy most of the conference via the live stream, and felt like Jean Case was speaking to me during her presentation.
I stayed up to date with podcasts and articles Jean & Steve Case were a part of and it seemed if I could just get the Case Foundation to give me and my idea a review they would see WeThinkItMatters was a wise impact investment.
I have been doing my best to get their attention via Twitter since June 2016, with increased effort since posting my hypothesis Nov 1. View the Tweets here
In my hypothesis I thought if I could hand deliver Steve Case a proposal at Lean Startup conference in person, that making that connection and giving him something unique, I figured it would create some interest from the Case Foundation.
When I didn’t get any response from Twitter I moved to try LinkedIn’s inmail and targeted 13 Case Foundation employees with the following message:
I have been reaching out to the Case Foundation here https://goo.gl/0XO9zy
I met Steve Case at Lean Startup and gave him a intro for a sponsorship proposal https://trello.com/c/X2xrPNjc/38-boonebergsma-cause-integrated-advertising-a-case-study
I would greatly appreciate an opportunity to share more about how I think the Case Foundation and I could change the world :) https://medium.com/startup-or-die-trying/my-journey-with-a-disease-and-my-lean-startup-16ed7d15bce5
Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you for your time!
Out of the 13 people at the Case Foundation I sent that to, so far only 5 have clicked the first link in the message, and none have responded to my LinkedIn inmails.
I also reached out to the Case Foundations via their contact email from their website.
I really thought that after getting a combined 93+ retweets on just 3 of my tweets to the Case’s about this proposal and getting over 800,000 impressions from those that the Case Foundation would at least reply to me because of the engagement.
What do you do when you believe in a organization and the message they are spreading, but they give you the cold shoulder when you try and connect?
:) you #BeFearless and don’t let Failure stop you from keep trying!
If you truly believe in what you have to offer and you know that offer is good for the other parties involved, Never Surrender Never Give Up!!!
And if your the Case Foundation and investing in ideas and people that can change the world and making entrepreneurship inclusive is really important to you, it might help to be willing to engage with those who are reaching out to you with ideas to share.
I am thankful for the work the Case Foundation is doing to make our world a better place, and am still a fan of Steve Case & Jean Case. And hopeful we still will get an opportunity in the future to connect about changing the world :)
