My Hero - Henri Nestlé, who started small & scaled fast

One of my heroes is a German national called Henrich Nestle who moved to Vevey, Switzerland from Frankfurt and after experimenting for many years founded Nestlé which as you know has become the biggest Food & Beverage company in the world.

Here are some of the lessons worth noting:

1. Nestlé started small.

2. Experimented endlessly.

3. Built a powerful team by supporting them.

4. Founded Nestlé when he was 53.

5. He and his successors scaled the business through acquisitions.

In short, start small & scale fast!

What is the PROMISE? Why should anyone join majamba?

Need your guidance. As we are working on the full launch for mid-year, I am struggling to decide what should be the customer promise?

- Is it that Members build a Personal Profile (they inspire others by showing what good they are doing)

- Or is it that Members solve Micro Challenges (social work). The challenges are the focus.

- Or is it that Members collect Social Currency (majambas). The badge with the social capital is the focus.

- Or is it that members get 50% to 100% off on handmade products from around the world. The products are the focus.

- Or is it that Members get Social Gifts that they can share with friends. Combines products with people.

- Or is it that finally someone is building the GOOD social network. And we try to define what we mean by GOOD.

- Or is it...something else!!!!

Please help!!! Take the Poll >>>>>>>>>>>

Nationalism versus Internationalism

Back in La Sarraz after our exciting trip to India - 3 cities (Jabalpur, Ahmedabad & New Delhi): friends, family, new web design & development team, new operations team & partnerships with excellent social enterprises.

But the highlight was something simple - rediscovering "Internationalism". Indians (like me) love the world and everything in it (including India). This is interesting for me as I have seen (and felt) the rise of nationalism in the west. I have been trying to understand why are Indians open towards the world.

Why is that? I think that there are two main reasons:

1. Duality: Genetically, Indians have been comfortable with boxing competing ideologies, philosophies, allegiances and even product preferences into one very Indian framework where the two competing ideas can co-exist.

2. Growth: Living in a hyper-growing economy makes it easier for people to be optimistic (tomorrow is better than yesterday - it actually is for a whole section of the economy when there is growth).

It is truly inspiring to meet good, open minded, talented and straight-forward people.