Bringing the Lean Start-Up Methodology to Moldova

Last week from start to finish was pretty crazy but productive.  I'm staying busy and having a lot of fun (plus a little stress), preparing for some really great events to come this fall and getting Moldovans involved along the way!

I spent last week  in Chisinau for two trainings and a conference.  I presented to the PCVs who just began their service on different opportunities to educate youth in Moldova about business.  Tuesday and Wednesday, I assisted my fellow PCV, Matt, in a training on the Lean Canvas Model and Lean Start-up methodologies.  On Tuesday, we trained Year 1 PCVs in the Small Enterprise Development (SED) Program.  On Wednesday, we trained both the leaders of Junior Achievement Moldova and of the IATA Program from Winrock International.  Talk about three days of getting work done!  I think and hope they were a very productive three days.

During the Lean Canvas training, they did exactly what students will do during Innovation Weekend.  They were tasked to create a lean canvas that addressed a problem in rural Moldova and added value to consumers.

Speaking of the Lean Start-Up methodology, why are we putting such an emphasis on this, you might ask?  This up and coming new concept is changing the way that entrepreneurs of any size approach starting a business.  We see many practical applications even here in small town Moldova!  

"It's a methodology called the "lean start-up," and it favors experimentation over elaborate planning, customer feedback over intuition, and iterative design over traditional "big design up front" development."   -Steve Blank

Please continue reading the article here from the Harvard Business Review for a succinct explanation of the idea, versus the conventional business plan idea.  My personal observation tells me that many businesses fail in Moldova (as they do everywhere), because they did not find the root cause of the problem their business is trying to solve for customers and thus did not add value to the customer (who pays for something of little worth?).  Business owner forgot or ignored communicating with their customers in the first place, and in turn invested way too much money to build a business that was doomed for failure.

The Lean Start-up methodology is something we see as offering a clear picture of how to create a model of business that can work, even in Moldova.  How do we plan to impress these ideas on those who will soon be the next generation of entrepeneurs in Moldova?  I've mentioned this before, but I will mention it again (because it's too important and exciting not to!).  GLOW/TOBE, in collaboration with Junior Achievement Moldova, is organizing an Innovation Weekend on November 23-24 which will be the highlight event for Global Entrepeneurship Week Moldova.

We're still in need of financial support, and I'm charging you, faithful reader, to help garner funding in the next 25 days! Please utilize the donation page (link to donate on the right).  I am open to your suggestions as well, as to what information I could provide that may help make you better informed about my work here or specifically Innovation Weekend.

Training with the Junior Achievement Moldova and IATA Winrock program staff, plus a few volunteers from each organization.

One activity focused on building each other up as teams.

Pitching a business idea, creatively.

The week wrapped up with a conference to bring together all of those non-educator PCVs to share, reflect, and move forward with ideas and projects we want to pursue or implement in the next year.  I mostly was excited about discussing youth development particularly in correlation with business education and also supporting young, ambitious agriculturalists in Moldova.  

The icing on the cake was the creation of this sweet video for Sudden Cardiac Awareness Month.  My roommate has this topic close to her heart, as her brother has a miraculous story related to his heart.

Throughout Moldova, people celebrated the "new wine" created from the fall grape harvest.  I enjoyed my time at the Chisinau WineFest with a number of my PC friends and even some of their parents who came to visit!  My favorite winery, Et Cetera, won the Best Winemaker Award for this year!!  Twas a great finish to a week of productivity.  

Now if you could just please help me fundraise for Innovation Weekend!

At Wine School at WineFest.  You can tell that fall has arrived, as I sport two scarves!