Wishing everyone a successful 2012

May god give you the courage to follow your dreams; and we wish you the strength to persevere in 2012.

"If it's not fun, why do it?"

Ben and Jerry started the ice-cream company with $12,000 in 1978 after struggling for many months. $8,000 was from their savings and they had a $4,000 loan. The friend who helped them write the business plan (Jeff Furman) is now the Chairman of the Board. Here are some powerful ideas that have propelled them to do good even when Ben and Jerry's was sold to Unilever in 2000:

1. Business can be a force for good. They were one of the first companies to support the Occupy movement.

2. Businesses should not bankroll politicians. This is going to be their focus for 2012 (get the dough out of politics).

3. Go Fair Trade! Most of their products are fair trade.

4. If it's not fun, why do it? That's their motto. 

Truly inspiring! My heroes - Ben and Jerry. Thank you!

Full Conference: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/303128-1 (if you are in a hurry, go straight to 24:55 to listen to Ben Cohen)

Majamba, a Swiss Innovation that will change the world!

Fact: It is not easy to get funding and support for new ventures. Only 1 to 2 business ideas out of 100 get financing and its only getting harder. And even the ones that do get financing find it difficult to get the right mix of people to grow their venture or not-for-profit.

What if there was a platform that could support anyone starting something new and anything good. That’s Majamba.Me, the world’s first Volunteer Micro-Jobs Exchange. 

Here is how Majamba works:

1. you collect Majamba Hugs by solving missions, essentially helping entrepreneurs
2. with your Hugs, you can reward others who support your mission
3. your supporters or you can use the Hugs to get fair trade gifts

The more people use Majamba, the more will be the utility of the network. Success will mean Start-ups will have resources; Students & Professionals will be able to use their skills in new ways and get fair trade gifts; and Social Enterprises will create jobs for the makers of fair trade gifts. The overall goal is to contribute to the fight against youth unemployment and underemployment affecting millions and poverty impacting billions of people. 

Majamba Limited is a Swiss company co-managed by two entrepreneurs and four students (three from HEC Lausanne and one from International School Geneva). Yes, we are using the Majamba platform to build the Majamba exchange. Majamba is also supported by the Vaud SELT and the IBM Global Entrepreneur program. Majamba has established alliances with partners such as Self Employed Women Association from India, PayPal and FedEx. 

Rajiv Srivastava is the co-founder of Majamba. Rajiv holds an MBA from University of Southern California and international work experience with Hewlett Packard and as Director of Strategy at Orange Communications in Switzerland. Rajiv launched Majamba with his wife Jeannine Srivastava. And recently Enea Bello, Mattia Barardi, Maya Rikhye from HEC Lausanne and John Nicholas Lung from International School Geneva joined the core Majamba strategy team.

Currently the team is working on launching Majamba.Me with the social marketing campaign expected to start in February 2012. 

How can you help?

If you have one or two hours of free time to offer, put your skills to help start-ups trying to change the world, please join www.majamba.me for free! You even get 100 Hugs for just joining. You can solve fun missions, collect more Hugs; get Gifts or get others to support your missions.  

2011: The Year of Transformation

We are currently testing different campaign concepts before putting our marketing dollars behind the one that gets the most traction. After testing different concepts, we still feel that we are one step away from the campaign that will change the world!

Here is what we are confident about:

1. Concept: A Volunteer Micro-Jobs Network where companies post good Missions; people solve those missions and get Hugs; with their Hugs they get fair trade Gifts or post Missions of their own.

2. Partners: We have an all-star line of partners who have provided Seed Capital, Technology, Guidance and Encouragement.

3. Platform: The platform is pretty comprehensive: social network + catalog + social currency + mission apps. And now we are starting work on the Mobile App.

4. Team: We have a powerful team of Web Design, Web Development, Strategy and Business Development pros.

So what do we need to work on:

1. Identity: A stronger visual identity complete with a cool video to engage audience.

2. Gifts: Boost our gifts catalog. More variety.

3. Missions: More missions. More diversity.

4. Campaign: Once we have the Identity, Gifts and Missions - we will launch a marketing campaign that will target 2 geographic regions at one time.

Good vs. Bad Entrepreneurs (instead of Old vs. Young Entrepreneurs)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/the-case-for-old-entrepreneurs/2011/12/02/gIQAulJ3KO_story.html


(This is a reaction to the speech by Mr. Vinod Khosla, who segregates entrepreneurs based on their age).


I think we all look for generalizations that can help us focus on what makes an individual or a venture more successful. Age, gender, race, nationality, wealth, qualifications, grades and experience are just some of the filters people use.  
 
Imagine, if you are lucky enough to get 200 new business plans emailed to you every day along with emails, phone calls and plenty of encounters with hopeful entrepreneurs from all over the world, you can feel compelled to develop a framework, a guiding principle regarding how you say no to people. Also when you do invest in hundred's of entrepreneurs and only a small minority succeed, you end up developing a formula that allows you to filter.


People like Mr. Khosla are super successful, intelligent and networked. They have created their short-cuts based on experience acquired over many deals. Everyone is entitled to his or her views. But I think Mr. Khosla represents a very dangerous point of view (age as one of the most important metric for deciding where to invest) that leads to prejudice against thousands if not millions of highly qualified, generous, hard working people. 
 
Today, more people are starting new ventures and even more want to start new companies but find it difficult to raise money. This is because the venture model has not been adapted to our age. It remains surprisingly "Industrial". Committees find it difficult to understand Innovation so they force the entrepreneurs to write business plans and develop prototypes. In others words, they buy time so they can figure out what to do. So number of companies that "make it" vs. "projects initiated" is around 1%. These so called successful companies attract billions in investment and most fail to do anything that will make the world a better place. And the BIG problems - 300Million people unemployed; 600Million people underemployed; 3Billion people trying to make a living on $2.50 a day - continue to confound us.  
 
What we need is a new way to support entrepreneurship. A new peer2peer approach, where Good People can dis-intermediate the bad people and directly working with other Good People; helping each other to solve the big problems irrespective of your age, gender, race, nationality, wealth, qualifications, grades or experience. Where thousands of entrepreneurs can work with millions of students and revolutionaries to start something good. The only thing that should matter is the power of the Idea. That is what we are trying to do with majamba.me

The challenge of getting early adopters

Yesterday, I had a chat with my neighbor and shared with him our current challenge - building a community of early adopters who use the site. This is a well documented and researched problem. It is especially challenging if your project is noble. People are skeptical of anyone doing good, because the first thing they want to know - why? The want to know - what's the catch. And if there is no catch they become even more suspicious and assume the worst.

I think I have shared the majamba concept with over 1,000 acquaintances, friends and family members and after 50 days after launch only 70 have registered and not many people are using the site. Although the site has gotten a lot of traffic. The ranking has gone from 20,000,000 to 640,000. I know there are many other factors that have contributed to low registration and limited usage - no advertising, abstract concept, no big companies advertising on the site, no celebrities spreading the word, no major rewards etc. It's a classic chicken and egg situation - people will use it when there are many companies posting interesting missions and jobs. And companies will only post missions if there are many members.

So my neighbor suggested I look at this video on YouTube that really shows the challenge of getting early adopters:

1. A guy takes the risk of starting something good - dancing, expressing his joy. He is not a pro and there is nothing polished about him. Note that no one even notices him in the beginning.

2. The people who are sitting close to him (when they do notice him) almost look squeamish and half embarrassed (that will be most of my friends and relatives)

3. Then one person joins and then another one and soon its a big crowd. Note the profile of the early adopter. He is not from the inner circle.

4. And the party gets started!

Wow! Amazing!

Our First Corporate Fact Sheet

The 10 Month Cycle

As an entrepreneur, it is of paramount importance to understand your rhythm. It is easier to pace yourself if you can identify your own entrepreneurial cycle. I believe everyone has their own cycle as it depends on your chosen industry, market, business model and your own training and stamina. Knowing your rhythm allows you to not get distracted when you hear fairy tales or bad stories.

I believe we are on a 10-month cycle. Also the boundaries between different cycles are blurred. In other words, there is no clean end and beginning of each cycle and you can be ending one and starting another simultaneously. 

Cycle I: Creating the Concept

Early on we knew we wanted to do something about tackling poverty. But What? How? Where? When? were just some of the questions. We talked to many people, gained initial support from some very good people. Getting the business plan done was a process of discovery, setting up the company, building the prototype and getting the seed. We knew that this was going to be an epic battle against poverty. And most importantly we love the concept of "Solve Missions; Collect Credits; Get Gifts". Its on the cross-section of micro-finance, crowdsourcing and social good.

Cycle II: Developing the Platform

There are two ways of building a platform. You do it yourself when you are a designer/developer or you do it with a team of designers/developers when you are a business person. Being business people meant we had to gather a strong and diverse team that understood us as we tried to articulate the vision and translate all the conceptual ideas into mock ups, blueprints through regular calls, changing things, managing emotions, keeping an eye on the budget and most of all getting things done. 

Cycle III: Building a Customer Base

We are now in the process of launching a Multi-wave marketing campaign (we try something, learn and try again) starting today for 3 months. The marketing plan has three parts:

A. The Good Needs Friends: Here we are requesting people to invite their friends on majamba and we will reward them credits and gifts (the gift packages are very, very attractive).

B. Invest majamba credits in Good Companies: We are investing 5,100 to 51,000 majamba credits in companies so they can create their own missions.

C. Majambassadors: We are recruiting students on different campuses around the world to be brand ambassadors of majamba and identify new start-ups to support as well as coach other students to leverage the platform.

During the beginning of each cycle, the target looks daunting and it's like rubbing rocks to get a fire going! You have to learn and try again, and again...I can see some sparks...

Start Somethings New!

our best video, yet!

Our Pitch at Forum EPFL Start-up Day

Excellent feedback on majamba.me. Next step - building the multi-phase launch team.

majamba.me is live!

Thanks to family and friends, a major dream has been accomplished! By the way in the past 72hrs, slept for 8 hours!

Please join majamba.me and together we will erase poverty from our planet!

Is investing 100% of your advertising budget into social enterprises an effective way of marketing?

We are doing this experiment with the launch of majamba.me, the network that rewards good. Instead of investing money in Advertising, we will be investing in social enterprises via majamba credits.

Quick Intro to majamba
You see, when you travel, you get rewards; when you shop you get rewards, so we thought why not create a social currency network that rewards good. The more good you do, the more credits you get. And with your credits you can decide to get fair trade gifts (that's the investment in social enterprises) or reward others who support you.


Expected Impact
Well, for every member who joins majamba.me, we will be able to empower one person who lives around the poverty line (http://majamba.blogspot.com/2011/09/100million-members-100million-people.html), so we are focussing on driving membership starting 2nd of October.


I will be happy to share the results of this experiment...

majamba, the network that rewards good

Folks, this is our briefest video. We have managed to tell the story in 30 seconds.

Free Handmade Gifts!

Thanks To Dr. Deepak John Mathew, Nandini, Shyam, Alex and Jeannine. Here is the launch video!

100M Members = 100M People Empowered

Turning social interaction into social good

The basic idea behind majamba.me is to turn social interaction into social good. Now if we can convince 100 million members to join, we will be able to empower 100M people on the planet living close to subsistence level and make a dent on global poverty.

Here are the details behind the claim: 

1. People spend thousands on gifts during family events and festivals. Of course, we know how things go during Christmas. However economic uncertainty does impact gifting, donations and other altruistic actions undertaken by normal people. 

2. One thing that is UP during the uncertain times is the time people spend on social networks. Comparing notes and finding out new things, recommending, interacting and just passing time, yes, people are spending around 20% of their time on social networks. 

3. So let us say we were to find an ingenious way to reward people around $1K of handmade goods as social gifts for doing the social things they like to do on the Internet. 

4. Now imagine, 100M people getting rewarded $1K per annum. Yep do the math, that's around $100B of gifts. 

5. Let us take a scenario that these gifts are sourced from artisans and families that are living at subsistence level, mostly around $2.50 a day. Now an average boost of $1,000 of additional income will make a sizable impact on their quality of life. So $100B worth goods will have a positive impact on around 100M people living around the poverty line. 

Aha, you may be wondering who is footing the bill - advertising! 

Companies spend well over $600B on advertising and sales promotion. Now people are spending around 20% of their time on social media. So if companies start to put around $120B on advertising on social media and start to use networks like majamba.me that reward people for doing good. This will set off a virtuous cycle where more people will be getting gifts for free; helping each other; a services exchange will emerge; more companies will use these platforms (competition is a good thing as it expands the market quickly) to get their message to the customers in a cheap way and more jobs and dignity for the artisans of the world. 

Yes, you got it! It's just simple social innovation! Coming your way on the 2nd of October 2011.

Congratulations! You made it! Now what?

Millionaires around the world

That's right, according to Cap Gemini there are 11million millionaires in the world (Credit Suisse believes that the number of millionaires is 26 million, but I like the methodology of Cap Gemini which factors a more conservative estimate of the financial assets based on macro-economic factors).

Yes, 0.16% of the world have assets more than 1million US dollars. Their total wealth is $44Trillion. Switzerland, Japan, Germany and the USA have the biggest accumulation of millionaires. India and China show the biggest growth. That's phenomenal!

I find the numbers staggering:

• Only 0.16% of the world population is made up of millionaires. That's a lot lower than I thought.
• However, the top 0.16% control $44Trillion of the world's wealth. That's around 22% of the $200Trillion estimated world wealth according to various estimates. $44Trillion is important when you consider that the world's GNP is $77Trillion.

Now let us contrast this with other set of numbers:

• And more than 3Billion people live on $2.50 a day.
• Consider this: according to various estimates (inc. World Bank, OECD), the total amount that is donated to charities is around $700Billion (not just the millionaires giving but all the people who give to charities). 
• So it is safe to surmise that donations alone will not make a dent in global poverty (however, charity plays an important role during short term crisis management - floods, earthquakes). After years of marketing and tax rebates, charities are attracting a very small proportion of the total wealth (actually 1.6% of the wealth of the top 0.16% of the world or 0.35% of the total global wealth). 

Here are my take-aways:

• We have been measuring the wrong things. If we teach people to maximize wealth and we continue to publish the wealth list, then people focus on wealth accumulation. We need to focus on how much "social capital" is the person creating (not just personal wealth).
• We need business innovation to create jobs for everyone. Because jobs create dignity, increase disposable income for shopping etc. and shopping is fun.
• Imagine, a system where the more good you do, your social currency increases and with your social currency, you can go shopping! Suddenly, you are having fun AND changing the world at the same time. That's majamba.me!

http://www.youtube.com/user/majambaME

What is confidence?

We really find out much more about our nature in tough times. Who are we? How do we react to uncertainty? Do we freeze? Do we become über religious? Do we just roll the dice without thinking things through? Do we get caught in the cold comfort of analysis and dare I say paralysis? Do we think its fun and become addicted to chaos (yes, it is possible).

Or do we just put the blinkers and navigate towards the goal, using analysis, pacing ourself but always moving forward. I think that is confidence. Confidence is about having the courage to move forward.

How do you know you are right?

We don't know. I must admit - the most difficult thing to do as an entrepreneur is knowing whether the "customer facing proposition" is the right one. It is even more difficult for me as I have spent 15+ years in the "corporate" world where you have a lot more resources to research trends, test concepts etc. Of course the downside of most the decisions taken in the corporate sector is the compromise that dilutes the vision and the processes and the politics that sap energy.

So which one is better - the entrepreneurial adventure or corporate world?

As the name characterizes - the entrepreneurial adventure is like a very fast moving roller coaster. And the corporate world is relatively stable even if the overall company is going up or down. The systems ensure stability. For me, clearly the adventure is better; it feels good to have the opportunity to build a "fair trade based" corporation that combines the best of a nimble and creative entrepreneurial environment plus the sense of stability that comes when you are working in a gigantic $50billion+ revenues corporation.

On the 2nd of October, we will launch the customer proposition - let's see what will happen!

The Rise of the Good

2nd of October, is the birthday of our hero, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. That is the day we will be launching majamba.me, the world's first fair trade social commerce network. We tried to imagine "What will Mahatma Gandhi do in todays world?" The result is majamba.me

wanted: majambassadors

My grandfathers were professors and they used to teach me the value of work. They used to say that Work is not just a source of income, security and most of all work creates dignity. And creating good jobs is the ultimate joy.

As I went to study and work around the world, I started to realize what they meant. I met some very generous people in Delhi, Ahmedabad, London, Los Angeles, Dallas, Basel and Lausanne. And I am linked to most of them via the Linkedin network.

Then a static refused to go away - over 3,000,000,000 people on our planet live on $2.50 a day or less. Sometimes, the only skill our friends have is to produce handmade goods. However, most of the time, they do not get a fair deal for their efforts, hence the cycle of poverty persists.

After doing some more research realized that donating money to the poor is not always the best form of charity. As it does not always preserve or promote dignity. However, buying the handmade products at a fair price has the good chance of impacting poverty because the income comes over a period of time and families are able to plan education and save for healthcare and rainy days. But further research revealed that real handmade products make up a very low percentage of the total volume as they can prove to be expensive for the end customer.

So there was a gap in the market for companies that could shift large volume of handmade products without taxing the consumers with high price.

After many discussions with our good friends including great organizations like Vaud SELT and SEWA.ORG the concept of "Do Good & Get Goodies" took shape and majamba.me was conceptualized.

majamba.me is an incentive system for doing good - the more good you do (like supporting a start-up or helping someone promote a book, anything that is good for the society), the more credits you get. And with your credits you have 2 options:

- use the credits to reward others who help you (so here majamba is like a services exchange)
- get gifts (here majamba is a catalog of fair trade products)

We are now getting ready to launch on October 2nd and we are dedicating the next year to finding "majambassadors" - these are like-mided entrepreneurs from around the world who can promote majamba to their network or in their town or club or friends and get lots of majamba credits that they can use to seek help for their projects or get handmade gifts...and the virtuous cycle will grow.

Our videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/majambaME
Our full blog: http://majamba.blogspot.com/

Our alpha site: majamba.me

The story of majamba is out!

Check out "the story of majamba" on YouTube.

Just making this video is a major landmark. I hope you like it and share it with some good people.

Getting ready for the launch of majamba.me

We are getting ready for the launch of the world's first fair trade social commerce network on the 2nd of October. Please check out the video...

The secret of success

In my opinion, the secret of success has four ingredients:

1. Identifying a cause worth fighting for

2. Building a talented & diverse team

3. Delivering with limited budget and under unlimited pressure

4. Patience

Is Crowdsourcing a solution to poverty?

I believe that Crowdsourcing is the solution to global poverty. But before I go further, let's look at the alternatives:

1. Govt. financed poverty alleviation programs: Financed by tax and currently fighting for survival because funding is under attack due to rising public debt.

On the positive side: Chinese & Brazilian Governments have lifted millions from poverty however at the cost of relocation in most cases.

2. Charity/Donation financed programs: Financed by donations and currently facing a decline in donations as economic/political/market volatility means that people are unsure about the future (and market is volatile because people are unsure).

On the positive side: Bill Gates & other billionaires stand out as they are focussing on specific issues for example vaccination.

3. Business Innovation/Corporate Social Responsibility Programs: All companies want ROI on any investment and a CSR campaign is generally no different. Only visionary companies keep up their CSR campaigns during uncertain times.

On the positive side: Toms.com is one of the best examples of CSR based marketing.

Now the beauty of crowdsourcing is the "peer2peer" nature. In other words, individuals connect with other individuals and together create a better world. Peer2Peer networks are the future because they democratize doing good, so anyone and not just Governments, Corporations & Billionaires can make the world a better place and directly control what is being done with their funds.

In summary, crowdsourcing is the solution to alleviating billions out of the viscous circle of poverty is because the biggest source of happiness is helping others (this is backed up by research from Prof. Dr. Martin Seligman who has empirically shown that people are most fulfilled when they help others).

Internship at a Swiss Fair Trade Social Commerce Start-up

Do you believe that business can be a force for good?

Do you want to become part of a start-up team focussed on Fair Trade?

Are you interested in a 6 month, part-time, 100% flexible internship to shape and execute the majamba.me launch strategy?


Yes, please read on:

Introduction
majamba.me is the world’s first fair trade social commerce platform. We empower social enterprises by providing social commerce services - Catalog, Payment, Logistics & Social Marketing. We offer handmade gifts to consumers at unbeatable prices. And we offer a powerful campaign management system for corporations to manage their global social corporate responsibility campaigns. We are funded by an innovation reward from the Swiss Govt.

Your Mission
- Work online with the core team in Switzerland and India to fine tune the launch strategy for majamba.me. The planned launch date is October 2nd, 2011.
- Create interesting missions that anyone can solve online in minutes and get majamba credits (MC).
- Procure interesting & beautiful fair trade products that members can get using their credits.

Our Ambition
- thousands of members in Switzerland, India, UK, US and around the world helping each other and getting fair trade gifts
- millions in sales revenues for our partners, the fair trade social enterprises
- unlimited dignity (and Jobs) for makers of handmade products around the world.

Your Reward
- Boost for your resume
- Our support for starting your own venture
- 100,000 majamba credits (that you can use to get amazing handmade gifts)

Contact Details
intern@majamba.com

www.majamba.me
we♥fair trade

What is professional success?

1. Doing something that gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling.

2. Being able to talk about what you do for a living without cringing.

3. Knowing whatever happens next, you will be fine.

What can Fair Trade companies learn from Apple?

First of all, fair trade is a very powerful concept - allow the producers of handmade goods to get a fair price for their products and allow them to lift themselves from poverty.

However, 200 years of industrial revolution has pretty much left the 4,000,000,000 people aside.

So the question is - what can be done to lift millions from poverty en masse (using the principles of industrial world)?

1. Build a powerful aggregation platform (like iTunes or Apps Store) that allows individual products to be promoted & sold worldwide.

2. Build a seamless customer experience 24x7.

3. Tell a story that people can identify with.

4. Ensure that the product works.

What are Groupon, Living Social missing?

Groupon, Living Social and a bunch of daily deal companies have some flaws:

1. Limited brand building options for partners

2. Erosion of price point for partners

3. Almost no new capability boost for partners

4. Consumers have to spend money to buy the discount and then spend money to buy the product (sooner or later the credit card bill will catch up with the people)

Facebook vs. Google+

The question is - what happens when two giants duke it out?

1. Customers win

2. Niche Competitors win

3. Developers win

So what does it mean for majamba.me?

1. Stay focussed on developing our platform

2. Continue to sign up partners

3. Prepare for offering our customers a great offer

Thank you!

Today, 16th of July 2011 is the first anniversary of majamba LLC.

At this time, we would like to thank all the majamba social venture network members.

And we would like to highlight folks who went out of their way to advise us:

Bhaskar B

Marc S

Tom W

Joe H

Noel T

Shyam S

Anil G

Aslam M

Jaldip U

Narendra V

Chandan W

Ojasvi B

Sandy W

Raphaël C

John A

Patrick B

Guido S

Thomas V-A

Simon F

Simon S

Fabrice A

Alejandro A

Michel J

Vincent R

Jean-Baptiste E

Michel T

Didier W

Chris T

Laurent L

Patrick G

Joe B

Steve M

Barb N

Sebastien F

Rika N

Robin L

Frank D

Francis C

Markus S

Damien C

Karim P

Peter H

Krishnan S

Nicolas S

Johnny K

Jena B

Daniel F

Mike F

Rahul B

Nilam S

Nandini D

Prableen S

Martine B

Sabine E

Rene D

Geert DB

Sanjiv D

Caroline S

Jean-François B

Roland G

Eric M

Didier M

Metin C

Chris B

Caroline R

Eric G

Xavier B

Gauthier J

Ricardo I

Juan R

Francisco M

Brian M

We are grateful to you. Of course, a startup is super challenging and your good wishes and support has made it a lot easier. Now the challenge for us is to use all the positive thinking to launch majamba.me later this year.

What good is dreaming it, if you don't actually do it!

That is the tagline from an advertisement for Honda 2009/2010. The company created by Soichiro Honda in 1948, who after tinkering for many years started producing motorcycles and founded the company at age 42 to focus on making superb motors (the smooth sound, never hurts the ears).

Wieden + Kennedy, a London based agency produced this ad for Honda using the 1965 song "The Impossible Dream" written by Joe Darion & the original Music by Mitch Leigh.

The words of the song are like a charter for majamba:

Impossible Dream (The Quest)

To dream the impossible dream,

to fight the unbeatable foe,

to bear with unbearable sorrow,

to run where the brave dare not go.

To right the unrightable wrong,

to love pure and chaste from afar,

to try when your arms are too weary,

to reach the unreachable star.

This is my quest,

to follow that star --

no matter how hopeless,

no matter how far.

To fight for the right

without question or pause,

to be willing to march into hell for a

heavenly cause.

And I know if I'll only be true to this

glorious quest

that my heart will be peaceful and calm

when I'm laid to my rest.

And the world will be better for this,

that one man scorned and covered with scars

still strove with his last ounce of courage.

To reach the unreachable stars.

Building the "dream team"

As we continue to strategize, design & develop - we just realized that we are building the dream team that will allow us to launch a pretty powerful majamba platform.

The team is focusing on answering some basic questions:

- what can we do for our customers that no one else can do?
- how do we take our message to them?
- how do we ensure that we have the most interesting user experience?

The team is also made up of advisors (some of the people on this list), who are kindly providing feedback.

Once again thank you!

I am not happy with status quo.

Look at the statistics (according to SwissInfo): In 2010 there were 205 million people out of work and 2011 does not look any better, especially in industrialised nations, hit by sluggish growth. Young people – 80 million are unemployed - are the worst hit by the current growth model that no longer works, says the ILO.

Think about it - 200 plus million people out of work and perhaps around 800 plus million people are trapped in jobs where their aspirations are not being met. Now some might say, hey why I should bother...let the Govt. and Inter-Govt. folks work it out. And some people want to help and find that the only option available for them is to donate money. I believe that indifference is uncalled for. A society with imbalance creates angry people who become puppets for manipulative politicians who tap into this feeling of injustice and only create chaos, grab power, accumulate wealth and then "air-brush" history. Giving a donation is almost as harmful as indifference. Imagine this - a person gets something without working on his own. Then gets more and more donation. It does not take long for the person to get addicted to getting money without producing some goods or services that can be consumed by the society. Micro-credit, another favorite of the elite who want to do good is equally harmful if its not accompanied by developing institutions that allow the person to sell and market what he is producing.

So what is the solution for winning against poverty?

Imagine a system by which products and services produced in villages & towns around the world could be marketed directly to consumers. Then people will not leave where they live and just move to the cities to get a job. Villages and small towns will thrive as people with the highest level of productivity will stay where they are and build a home full of wholesomeness. People with jobs can afford education, health care and do not become recipients of donations. When people have a cash-flow they do not fall prey to loan contracts from sharks disguised as micro-credit firms. Imagine free & fair market economics helping the world manage poverty; imagine every person having access to a fulfilling job; imagine parents spending time with their kids - own or adopted; imagine low taxes and small lean governments; imagine citizens of the world buying products directly from people who are producing them. Yes, imagine a world where its cheaper to work than to steal or to engage in corruption. Yes, you may have guessed, that such is a system has to built on the Internet. The biggest collaborative platform the earth has ever seen. Something the creators of the Internet or the Web did not not envisage, because they could not. The Internet has become what it has because Governments have been unsuccessful in fully controlling it.

So far the Internet has been used as a tool for information, communication, entertainment and commerce. Which is great! I propose that now we are entering the phase where the net will be used as the primary tool for development commerce. In the next 10 years, you will see companies that will use market economics to uplift millions out of poverty. That will be so satisfying, so cool and so wholesome!

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.

majamba.me pre-launch campaign is live!

Dear friends,

As you know, we are developing the majamba platform in baby steps, so every 2 months we have been launching something. On December 16th, 2010, we launched the "Social Currency & Social Network" platform, currently being revamped; On the 14th of February 2011, we launched the "Challenges" App, currently being tested on majamba.com. In mid-March, we received partial funding from the Vaud State / SELT for product development and now on the 15th of April, 2011 I am pleased to announce that we are introducing the "pre-launch" campaign for majamba.me. We are on target for the commercial launch in mid-year 2011.

Now you may be wondering - why are we doing a pre-commercial launch campaign?

You see, for the commercial launch of majamba to get any traction, we need around 4,000 supporters, who really want us to succeed. This will allow us to build the good social network with sufficient critical mass that will offer members the following features:

1. build social capital when you do good (e.g. - solve challenges or promote good).
2. when your social capital points reach different levels, you will qualify for rewards & gifts (e.g. - notebooks, music etc).
3. these gifts are procured from the best social enterprises (like SEWA.ORG) in the world that secure the jobs of the bottom of the pyramid.

So the more good you do, the more gifts you get and the more jobs you help create. Our goal is to sign up hundreds of social enterprises and create thousands of jobs for the "bottom of the pyramid" (BOP). The BOP are our friends who live on less than $2.50 a day. That's over 3billion people or nearly half of all humanity.

Yes, please sign-up at majamba.me and use the "Share this" button on majamba.me to share this campaign with your good friends & followers. And together we will change the world!

My best regards,

Rajiv Srivastava

www.majamba.me

Switzerland

majamba.org, a social venture incubator

It took me 10 months to get funding for a company that is focussed on doing good. Upon reflection, I realized that the main reason is that there is a gap in the market for financing start-ups that are untried, untested, very early stage and fragile especially if they are planning to do good for the society AND aim to make a profit.

Socialists do not invest in you because you are making a profit and Capitalists do not really understand why you have to do anything else but make money!

So I got rejection letters & calls saying - we love your resume, we like your idea but come back to us when you are successful. I thought, why will I need them when I am successful, however, there was one clear exception - The Swiss Government / Vaud State / SELT, who decided to partially fund majamba LLC.

Then came a simple insight - hey, why not document all my lessons learnt and provide consulting to other folks starting a venture. I looked around and there are quite a few people doing that already. Then I thought maybe I can package my consulting into a solution for entrepreneurs and take care of 5 to 10 ventures. There are quite a few people in California who do this type of thing quite well...kept on thinking and talking to my friends. And then the idea presented itself - how about building an incubator that can support 1,000 social ventures every year, all focussed on eradicating poverty.

Incubate like a fish.

That is the goal of www.majamba.org

To be continued...

The Good Needs Friends

There are over 3billion people on the planet who are living on less than $2.50 a day. Every time I share this statistic with potential investors or collaborators or friends, they go yeah, that is true but how will you do something about it?

There are governments with trillions of dollars and billionaires with all their will and resources and millionaires who give large amounts to charity. There are professors with PhD's who are writing books after decades of research on their theories on how to eradicate poverty. There are politicians who promise to provide jobs to millions if they are elected. There are thousands of super dedicated social workers, but still the rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer.

What can I do? I am not rich, I am not super smart, I am not super connected (this blog has 5 followers and my Linkedin profile has under 200 connections and Twitter & Facebook are in their 20's), yet I dream to move the needle, to make an impact on improving the lives of billions. I am in the 10th month of this journey. Here is why I believe even a small guy like me can make a difference - you see, the good needs friends - no one can overcome the challenge alone.

The challenge is SO enormous that it will take everyone to pitch in - beyond nationality, race, religion, political spectrum, sexual orientation, ideological framework, class or caste, for profit companies and non-profit, Government or Non-Government organizations, everyone to do something about it.

The second point is that I believe that our focus has to be create JOBS for the bottom of the pyramid. With jobs comes dignity and ability to support a family responsibly, get medical attention if required, get shelter and most importantly produce something which is of use to the society. Having a Job allows a person to believe in sustainability much more; more peaceful neighborhoods (there is a direct correlation between inner city unrest and youth unemployment); more education opportunities for the young families.

That is what we are building with majamba - a social network that will make people who want to do good super successful. majamba means to give something insignificant away for the greater good.

What do consumers want?

Yesterday, Dr. Fyfer invited me to present the latest on the "majamba story" amongst other things to the students at the Business School Lausanne (BSL). For those who do not know - BSL is leading the charge for management innovation in Switzerland and perhaps continental Europe. The students are experienced and the professors combine business practice with theory by inviting people who are in the trenches to share their experience (that's why I was there).

After I presented majamba and what we are building and our goals, I opened up for discussion. And the response was awesome!

The BSL folks sliced and diced up the majamba business model to get to the core. And I realized that what consumers really want is to directly help people who need help. And anyone who is able to build a platform that allows the "rich" to support the "poor" directly is going to be able to do good.

That's it - it's that simple. So once again thank you Dr. Fyfer and I think the name of your student was Martin. Martin, thank you!

making sense of it all

I am trying to make sense of the what's happening in the world right now. More specifically in the world of entrepreneurship. And even more specifically in the world of Internet Start-ups.

Here is my take: The Doer's are winning!

The thinkers - Economists, Philosophers, Strategists, Consultants, Architects...have to learn from the Developers, Designers, Activists and other Action oriented people.

Social media is dominated by people who get things done; they do and then they talk. Dreaming, postulating, imagining, or just talking & powerpointing is being pushed to the back seat.

So is this the end of the road for the thinkers?

First of all, I must come clean (as you may know), I am an economist who made his living as a strategist for fourteen years before becoming an entrepreneur last year. I would certainly like to think that thinkers have a place in our world.

So here is what we need to do, my dear fellow thinkers - learn from your friends: The doer's. Learn how they focus on getting things done, not just talking about it. Imagine the impact of combining thinking with doing, you know the oriental saying "Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare".

I am now - together with Alex & Jeannine and thanks to my friends Noel, Tom & Joe - focussing on building majamba to be of more use to our members. We will make majamba more relevant to our members. This is going to be a journey of continuous learning, meeting new people, new friends, new ideas, re-establishing old relationships, sharpening our pure vision (support people who want to do good, become super successful) and most importantly improve continuously - hence the name of this journey is "KAIZEN".

Tell me why?

the other day I heard one of my favorite songs – Tell me why? by Genesis.

Here is how it starts…

Mothers crying in the street
Children dying at their feet, tell me why, ooh tell me why
People starving everywhere
There’s too much food but there’s none to spare,
Tell me why, oh tell me why

...

If there’s a God, is he watching
can he give a ray of hope
so much pain and so much sorrow
tell me what does he see
when he looks at you
when he looks at me
what would he say
cos it seems there’s no-one listening

...

Then I thought what was the defining insight from a major conference in a little Swiss village – inflation of commodity prices. In other words, food prices are going up. OK after many days of parties, that was the declaration!

You know we can do better than this! So what is the solution: the solution, my friends is when everyone starts making small changes in their lifestyles and starts to think about others. Think about it, income disparity is increasing. Unemployment & Hunger by themselves are not the root cause of revolution and destruction. Revolutions happen when a few control wealth and continue to grow richer at the expense of other. When the powerful neuter any dissent. Then the pressure builds up and the lid is blown up. For peace and prosperity, we need to change ourselves. How can we do this? We hope to present a small step forward on the 14th of February, the majamba beta version.