"You should do this in a Rural area! Even better if you can do it in one of the most backward districts of the country."
My heart sank when I heard the very first sentence of feedback. By the time the second sentence was spoken, I wanted to retort, "Do you think we would have Google and Facebook today if Larry, Sergei, and Mark were asked to start in the most backward area in the US, where there were limited computers and hardly any internet access?"
Some parts of our model sounded great on paper, but we still needed to test them in the real world. At such an early stage, why add unnecessary risk by trying to do this in a rural area when our model is supposed to work in a city with a growing fitness culture? I chose to stay silent. My internal critique took that as a greenlight to start with the self beating - am I just bad at communicating? Did I fail to explain why starting in a city is crucial to ensuring jobs for the underprivileged youth we train? Did I miss sharing our genius (emphasis mine) insight on getting Fitness coaches with 2-5 years of experience to become instructors in our program? Where will you find these instructors in a rural area? I believe my punch line - the opposite of unemployment is not training but employment - is just not hitting home anymore. Didn't this person hear that we cannot guarantee jobs if we do this in rural areas where there are not many gyms or customers looking for fitness coaches?
It takes a while for my internal dialogue to settle down before I could digest the last part of the feedback, "That is where the funding is!"
I have heard this feedback from fundraising consultants, team members at well branded1 social sector incubators/accelerators, and many conventionally successful2 non-profit founders. It took me a while to see the advice for what it is - Chase the money! Impact is secondary -and understand what was really triggering me.
In some ways, the feedback does make sense - how can you ever create any impact if you are not funded? But in reality, going down this path means you are choosing to shift your focus from designing for the end beneficiary to catering to funder's expectations. One may argue that it is a minor concession in the grand scheme of things, but I beg to differ based on my experience witnessing a variety of social sector organizations across sizes, sectors, and geographies and the "1 in 60" rule. In aviation, the "1 in 60 rule" is a rule of thumb stating that after flying 60 nautical miles, a one-degree error in heading will result in being one nautical mile off course.
I am not stupid (or arrogant) enough to think that everyone should just fund CoolCoach. Rather, I am frustrated with the idea of putting impact second. Shouldn't we be focussed on figuring out the impact model rather than fitting into funding considerations?
1Incubators/accelerators that are more well known than any of the organizations they have incubated/accelerated. They spend more on branding than actual program design/delivery and are frequently staffed with passionate but inexperienced people.
2Founders that have raised a substantial amount of money, but the jury is still out on the impact their programs/organizations have had.
*FRA, short for Frequently Received Advice, is a series of posts on the well-intentioned but often unhelpful advice I have received as I build CoolCoach. In most situations, I wanted to respond, and respond strongly at that, but I always chose to hold my tongue. Partly because I knew it was my frustration coming out, but mostly because I had no indication it would be received or understood. With these posts, I hope to share my perspective.