'Year in the Life' of a new Social Enterprise Chair - January 2024

There and back again (17/52) An entrepreneurial journey.

2023 marks a strange point in my entrepreneurial journey, which started in 1988. During these 35 event-filled years I have been an entrepreneur turned academic and now returned entrepreneur!

In truth, these labels conceal that this journey was less of a circular path and rather more like a continuous development of my entrepreneurial mindset. When I reflect back on these seemingly discrete roles, it seems plain to me now that the characteristics and behaviours of an entrepreneurial mindset were evident whether I was in the role of entrepreneur, academic, charity trustee, professor, school governor, mentor, community leader, educator or social entrepreneur.

Furthermore, these were not just evident but significantly contributed to my successes and helped me overcome many failures.

In addition, I find it even harder to separate these entrepreneurial characteristics and behaviours from being dyslexic. The latter is often portrayed as a disability. I am now happy to challenge this notion of dyslexia being a learning disability and even a learning difference. Having had the privilege to meet so many successful dyslexics in a wide variety of environments, I am convinced dyslexia is in fact a learning advantage – even as superpower!

No, I am not saying that to be a successful entrepreneur you need to be dyslexic. But, I am suggesting that being dyslexic could help with the development of an entrepreneurial mindset. I really like the Made by Dyslexia video on the Five reasons why Dyslexics make great Entrepreneurs and the Forbes’ article entitled: How Dyslexic Thinking Gives Entrepreneurs A Competitive Edge.

I would guess that between 3 and 4 in 10 entrepreneurs have some characteristics of dyslexia.

In my next post, will be back to Songs, Signs & Sounds with a reflection on the main learning from our first 4 months as a social enterprise. Staring us in the face (18/52) Keep it simple but hyper-focused on customers!

Staring us in the face (18/52) Keep it simple but hyper-focused on customers!

At Songs, Signs & Sounds we are always asking ourselves, have we got our value proposition right? Georgie Lockett , Karen Nicholson and I have been using business modelling to help us. But, there is an even simpler way to do this - one that is staring us in the face!

Our customers!

We have been doing this in two ways:

• Firstly, looking at the data – how many people are viewing our social media posts and how many new customers are we attracting? The data is positive – social media interactions are up and we have attracted 20% more customers this year already (remember we are a tiny social enterprise – so each new customer is especially precious!). Importantly, we have also noticed that it is particularly parents of young people with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) that are responding positively to our value proposition.
• Secondly, listening and responding to our customers. What we hear is they are happy but want more. This has already resulted in a monthly live well-being and music session for subscribers. Just watch this 2-minute video to find out what is involved.

But, we need to remain hyper-focused on this emerging group of customers – I feel a focus group coming on!

My next post will look outside Songs, Signs & Sounds to our competitors. What can we learn about our competitors that will help us develop our unique offer?

The path less travelled (19/52) Using business modelling to better understand competitors.

As part of Georgie Lockett , Karen Nicholson and my business modelling for our social enterprise Songs, Signs & Sounds we decided to analyse our two nearest competitors by comparing our respective business models. Not so much to find out want we do that is the same but rather to highlight our differences or USPs. This is what we have learnt:

1. Songs, Signs & Sounds is a one-to-many social enterprise that creates weekly interactive music sessions delivered online to subscribers. In other words, build once and share with many.
2. Songs, Signs & Sounds sessions our online only (both pre-recorded and live). In fact, we are a digital pure play business with every aspect being online – from marketing to delivery and from production to payment.
3. Songs, Signs & Sounds is a creative double act! Perhaps surprisingly, this helps our offer be unique. As talented and experienced SEND Music Practitioners @Georgie and @Karen are well qualified to create sessions individually but there is creative power in numbers and it’s clear our subscribers value this too. How do you put a value on creative energy?

All the above means that Songs, Signs & Sounds is scalable in terms of production and delivery – keep watching this space!

Perhaps because it’s the start of a new year, I am in a reflective mood. So, my next post is a flashback to 1996 (20/52) insights retrospective business modelling.

Flashback to 1996 (20/52) Insights retrospective business modelling.

All this business modelling for Songs, Signs & Sounds has reminded me how important technology is for disruptive start-ups. Combine this with my reflective new year mood and coming across this old newspaper article in 1996, I decided to revisit the business model of Hygeia Care - a company founded by me and my brother Tim Lockett in 1983! The article is about the formation of Huntleigh Hygeia – a joint venture between our start-up and a much bigger company.

But, what made us so attractive to a long established and highly respected UK PLC?

The obvious things like market position, people and customer base are on this list. But, I would add something less obvious – our use of technology as a differentiator from competitors. We were the new kids on the block and grew rapidly from the start. To cope we had to continually improve and change our information systems – this was complex, expensive and risky. But, also a great learning opportunity. We learnt to take calculated risks with technology and this made us an early adopter of hosted enterprise applications - or as we know it now, SaaS (Software as a Service) or Cloud Computing.

Why was this so important?

• Firstly, we had access to better technology and could scale more quickly.
• Secondly, we quickly understood the value to our bigger customers of e-commerce or e-procurement.
• And finally, we accumulated huge amounts of data about our marketplace and turned this to our advantage is an important, if somewhat specialist, way!

We moved our value proposition from ‘how much does a product cost?’ to ‘how much does it cost in use?’ So, instead of reducing our price (and margin) to win new customers, we helped them reduce their overall spend (and NOT our margin). Overtime, we became more profitable than our competitors – what is often called sustainable competitive advantage.?

On reflection, I think the use of innovation (such as information technology) is the key for disruptive start-ups like Songs, Signs & Sounds .

Remember, innovation is not restricted to information technology. It could be a new way of working, a new process or new product. The most important thing, is that innovations lead to an improved value proposition for your customers.

My next post will revisit innovation in the context of Songs, Signs & Sounds – Creating value through innovation (21/52) The power of small, incremental and mundane!

#SEND #socialenterprise #dyslexicthinking