1. As specifically as possible, identify the need that your venture will address.
What is the social or environmental need that you are going to meet? Why should we care about addressing this need? Stay focused on the need(s) you will be addressing and do not discuss your solution here.
The visually impaired people, specially the blind ones, cannot recognize colors and money bills. This is important to improve their life quality because it turns them more independent and elevates their self-esteem. In addition, this handicap avoids them to work on several areas. Most of these people have low income and therefore, need a low cost solution to this problem.
2. How do you know that this is currently an unmet need?
What indicators do you have that show this need is currently unmet and deserves urgent attention? Have you interacted with the people in need or do you have any first-hand experience with this need?
There are 314 million people visually impaired in the world, 45 million of them are blind (WHO.org). Also, 87% of them live in developing countries (25 million only in Brazil). I had worked in partnership with a NGO for blind people and they declare this as a need.
3. What is your solution?
How are you addressing the above need? How do you know your solution attacks the root cause(s) of the issue instead of the symptoms? Demonstrate how your idea is a systemic solution to this need.
My solution is a low cost color and money bill identifier portable device. This device reads the color of an object or the value of a money bill and speaks the name in loud sound. The root cause of the problem is the high cost of this kind of devices. I propose a low cost device that will lead to a overall decrease in the prices practiced in the market.
4. Who are your customers?
Who are the intended beneficiaries or customers of your product or service? Please be as detailed as possible in describing your customer, including relevant demographic information like socio-economic status, age, gender, and location.
The intended customers is primary the Brazilian visual impaired and blind people, which 29% (7.25 million) lives with less than $200 per month (the minimum salary in the country). the São Paulo state holds 2.2 million of them. For this reason, and because there are is the place where we plan In addition, the Brazilian’s life expectancy is 68 years, with 80% of this time without any handicap. This mean that the average Brazilian will live 14 year with some kind of handicap. [source: Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics].
5. How are your customers answering their need currently? What existing solutions are they using to meet their need?
What products or services, if any, already exist that are addressing this need and how effective are these solutions? If no other competition exists, describe how your customers are otherwise coping with their need. Don’t focus on your venture in this answer; we just want to know what is already going on in the market.
The needed people are addressing the problem relying in someone to help them or buying a market device. There are some identifiers sold in Brazil, with prices from $150 (color only) to $300 (money bill only). However it is a high cost to the target customers and there isn’t an integrated device to identify, with one device, colors and money.
6. Why do you believe that your solution will meet the needs of your customers? How do you know your customers will pay for your product or service?
Do you have any in-market indications to support your assumptions? Have you already gotten a prototype to customers? How are you going to make certain your customers remain satisfied with your product or service?
I have many information from my NGO partner about a product like the proposed identifier. Also, my team have developed a prototype and made it public on the university’s website and we usually receive emails requesting to buy the device. The prototype was developed during the graduation course. At the end of the development, we presented it to the NGO which give us lot of feedback about the device’s usability. Also the NGO demonstrates a huge interest in taking it to the market.
7. What are the tangible outcomes of your solution and what key metrics will you use to demonstrate your progress?
What tangible difference will your product or service make in the lives of your customers? What will happen if your venture becomes successful and reaches the goals you outline in this application? How will you know that your venture is successful and what metrics will you use to gauge your success?
The key metrics for my venture are: employment rate and average salary of the customers, number of handicapped people who has the color/money bill identifier. If my venture becomes successful every visually impaired or blind people will own a device to help in theirs diary activities. This will improve the customers’ self-esteem. For example, they will can choose their clothes by color, identify objects and use money bills checking the value.
8. What steps have you taken to turn your idea into reality and where are you in the process of development?
Once you identified the unmet need, how did you develop the idea of your venture? Have you established any key partnerships? If you have been operating for a long period of time, share with us the significant steps you took to get to where you are today. How many customers do you have and how much revenue / funding have you generated? If you are still in the idea stage of your venture, tell us how you are working towards making your idea a reality, how long have you been working on your idea, and how has it developed over time.
The main development steps are: 1.requirements elicitation, 2.technical solution selection, 3.electric and mechanic project, 4.prototype construction, 5.user testing, 6.prototype improvement, 7.final project, 8.business plan creation, 9.supplier selection, 10.raising initial capital and 11.distribution channel development. We have already a partnership with a NGO that help blind people, to get in touch with the possible customers. We receive academic support from a university committee that fosters projects that address social needs. We are working for 6 months on this idea and we have the first prototype working.
9. Please describe two other entrepreneurial undertakings in your life.
At the Unreasonable institute, we believe that entrepreneurs do stuff and that they create things. Your past experiences as an entrepreneur can range from selling lemonade to starting a business venture to creating a community group or establishing a club. Whether successes or failures, we are excited to hear about your two most significant entrepreneurial experiences.
In my life, I had lots of small entrepreneurial experiences. My most significant entrepreneurial experience was the organization of 4 events in the last year of undergrad course. These events aimed to foster the social-environmental vision on the university students. We did reforestation, visits to NGOs and sustainable activities on a public school. We mobilized around 500 students. The second most significant experience was mobilize a group of 5 people to develop a framework to create dynamic websites. With the framework we could build 7 websites: 4 for-profit and 3 for non-profit organizations. The non-profits websites remained online with my framework for 4 years and was used by 5000 users on average.
10. How do the members of your team know each other? Describe the history of your relationships including any shared work experience. How and why did you decide to work together?
We believe that one of the most important parts of a successful startup venture is the founding team. So please tell us about yours! If you don’t have a team, please take this opportunity to explain why you are the sole founder of your venture. We prefer teams so you will have to provide an excellent reason for not having one.
We are a team of 2. We first met 6 years ago in the university and started working together 3 years ago. We get in touch because of our common interest in Computer Engineering and we started working in the university committee that foster social projects. We have been working together in that commitee and in other volunteer activities. Also, we build the prototype of our solution together. We have decided to work as a team to run a venture in the time when we realized that we won’t want to work for large companies after the graduation and because we want to make the difference in the world.
11. Why is your team uniquely qualified to run your venture? Also, please explain which team member will attend the Unreasonable Institute and why he/she was chosen.
Share with us your team’s passion, education, past experience, expertise, and individual strengths. What makes your team the perfect one to run your venture? If you need to expand the size of your team, please tell us how you’ll go about it and why you need more members. If you don’t have a team, why not? Why do you think you are qualified to run your venture on your own?
I am a computer engineer and a master’s degree student that focus on social and appropriated technology. I have already made several devices and softwares, worked in different companies and I am participating on a commitee of social projects in the university. I love to make stuff and like to use my knowledge to create things that help people. My partner is also a computer engineer but focused in usability and in interacting with the final users. She is very analytical and have a large background in working with open source software. I will attend to the Unreasonable Institute.
12. Describe your most significant failure as an entrepreneur.
We really value failure at the Unreasonable Institute (we’ve failed a lot). We believe that entrepreneurs often learn more from their failures than from their successes and we want to learn about your greatest failure as an entrepreneur. No, this is not a trick question and it is a genuine question. What happened and why do you consider this experience a failure? What have you learned from the failure and what have you done since you failed?
My most significant failure as an entrepreneur was on a time I have worked in a local community to revitalize a square in the neighborhood. We tried to motivate the people but we only got the children’s attention. We cleaned and reformed the square. But, 6 months later the square was like the beginning. I learned that we need to work both with the social and technical aspects, and we need to listen to the community for their needs, and not try to do what we think its the best for them.
13. We require that all ventures we incubate can cover their costs of operation within 1 year of graduating from the Institute. What is your venture’s model for financial sustainability?
You may need start-up investment or donations to get your venture off the ground, but once it is running, how will it sustain itself? If you are already financially self-sustaining, what is your financial model and when did you become financially self-sustaining? To be clear, we define financially self-sustaining as being able to cover all of your costs of operations with internal revenue that is generated from the sale of your product or service. If you rely on charitable donations or other outside sources of funding to operate, you do not meet our definition of being financially sustainable.
My model is based on product selling. We will become self-sustaining at the time we have enough sales to maintain the factory and the product development. I don’t plan to rely on charity. Instead of, I plan to sell the devices through NGOs, specialized stores and our website.
14. How could your model be scaled or replicated to eventually meet the needs of at least 1 million people?
All ventures that we work with at the Unreasonable Institute should have the intention for their models to scale or replicate beyond their country of origin within 3 years of graduating from the Institute. What is your plan for your model scaling or replicating and how will you be certain it will be effective? Will you open source (or “copyleft”) your model by sharing it with other entrepreneurs to adopt in their home countries, create a franchise, scale internally, or replicate your model in some other way?
To reach 1 million people, we will release the hardware and software as open source. This will help entrepreneurs of other countries to adapt the device to theirs local needs, changing the way that the device recognize money or the language of the sound messages.
15. How will you get your product or service to your customers?
What is your marketing plan and how will you distribute your product or service?
Most of the people with visual impairment use NGO’s services to get access to books, newspapers and other specialized tools, like white canes. We will do a partnership with local NGOs to sell the devices to the needed people. Also, the website, with accessible features, will enable the direct selling and distribution.
16. What don’t you know?
Throughout most of this application you have been sharing with us what you do know and what you predict will happen. We want you to take this opportunity to tell us what you don’t know. Is there any knowledge that you currently don’t have access to? Are there questions that you don’t have answers to? What assumptions have you not tested? What uncertainties currently exist for your venture / customers / team / model…etc? We value integrity and transparency in all the entrepreneurs we work with.
I don’t know if it’s better to have one big factory or local arrangements where the devices are assembled near the customer. I don’t know what kind of materials could be used to make a “green” device.
17. What are you going to do if you don’t get accepted into the Institute?
If I don’t get accepted, I will try to apply to other institutions and I will continue the development of the prototype and of the business plan. And, of course, review the mistakes and evaluate the weakness of this application.
The visually impaired people, specially the blind ones, cannot recognize colors and money bills. This is important to improve their life quality because it turns them more independent and elevates their self-esteem. In addition, this handicap avoids them to work on several areas. Most of these people have low income and therefore, need a low cost solution to this problem.
There are 314 million people visually impaired in the world, 45 million of them are blind (WHO.org). Also, 87% of them live in developing countries (25 million only in Brazil). I had worked in partnership with a NGO for blind people and they declare this as a need.
My solution is a low cost color and money bill identifier portable device. This device reads the color of an object or the value of a money bill and speaks the name in loud sound. The root cause of the problem is the high cost of this kind of devices. I propose a low cost device that will lead to a overall decrease in the prices practiced in the market.
The intended customers is primary the Brazilian visual impaired and blind people, which 29% (7.25 million) lives with less than $200 per month (the minimum salary in the country). the São Paulo state holds 2.2 million of them. For this reason, and because there are is the place where we plan In addition, the Brazilian’s life expectancy is 68 years, with 80% of this time without any handicap. This mean that the average Brazilian will live 14 year with some kind of handicap. [source: Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics].
The needed people are addressing the problem relying in someone to help them or buying a market device. There are some identifiers sold in Brazil, with prices from $150 (color only) to $300 (money bill only). However it is a high cost to the target customers and there isn’t an integrated device to identify, with one device, colors and money.
I have many information from my NGO partner about a product like the proposed identifier. Also, my team have developed a prototype and made it public on the university’s website and we usually receive emails requesting to buy the device. The prototype was developed during the graduation course. At the end of the development, we presented it to the NGO which give us lot of feedback about the device’s usability. Also the NGO demonstrates a huge interest in taking it to the market.
The key metrics for my venture are: employment rate and average salary of the customers, number of handicapped people who has the color/money bill identifier. If my venture becomes successful every visually impaired or blind people will own a device to help in theirs diary activities. This will improve the customers’ self-esteem. For example, they will can choose their clothes by color, identify objects and use money bills checking the value.
What steps have you taken to turn your idea into reality and where are you in the process of development?
The main development steps are: 1.requirements elicitation, 2.technical solution selection, 3.electric and mechanic project, 4.prototype construction, 5.user testing, 6.prototype improvement, 7.final project, 8.business plan creation, 9.supplier selection, 10.raising initial capital and 11.distribution channel development. We have already a partnership with a NGO that help blind people, to get in touch with the possible customers. We receive academic support from a university committee that fosters projects that address social needs. We are working for 6 months on this idea and we have the first prototype working.
In my life, I had lots of small entrepreneurial experiences. My most significant entrepreneurial experience was the organization of 4 events in the last year of undergrad course. These events aimed to foster the social-environmental vision on the university students. We did reforestation, visits to NGOs and sustainable activities on a public school. We mobilized around 500 students. The second most significant experience was mobilize a group of 5 people to develop a framework to create dynamic websites. With the framework we could build 7 websites: 4 for-profit and 3 for non-profit organizations. The non-profits websites remained online with my framework for 4 years and was used by 5000 users on average.
We are a team of 2. We first met 6 years ago in the university and started working together 3 years ago. We get in touch because of our common interest in Computer Engineering and we started working in the university committee that foster social projects. We have been working together in that commitee and in other volunteer activities. Also, we build the prototype of our solution together. We have decided to work as a team to run a venture in the time when we realized that we won’t want to work for large companies after the graduation and because we want to make the difference in the world.
I am a computer engineer and a master’s degree student that focus on social and appropriated technology. I have already made several devices and softwares, worked in different companies and I am participating on a commitee of social projects in the university. I love to make stuff and like to use my knowledge to create things that help people. My partner is also a computer engineer but focused in usability and in interacting with the final users. She is very analytical and have a large background in working with open source software. I will attend to the Unreasonable Institute.
My most significant failure as an entrepreneur was on a time I have worked in a local community to revitalize a square in the neighborhood. We tried to motivate the people but we only got the children’s attention. We cleaned and reformed the square. But, 6 months later the square was like the beginning. I learned that we need to work both with the social and technical aspects, and we need to listen to the community for their needs, and not try to do what we think its the best for them.
My model is based on product selling. We will become self-sustaining at the time we have enough sales to maintain the factory and the product development. I don’t plan to rely on charity. Instead of, I plan to sell the devices through NGOs, specialized stores and our website.
To reach 1 million people, we will release the hardware and software as open source. This will help entrepreneurs of other countries to adapt the device to theirs local needs, changing the way that the device recognize money or the language of the sound messages.
Most of the people with visual impairment use NGO’s services to get access to books, newspapers and other specialized tools, like white canes. We will do a partnership with local NGOs to sell the devices to the needed people. Also, the website, with accessible features, will enable the direct selling and distribution.
I don’t know if it’s better to have one big factory or local arrangements where the devices are assembled near the customer. I don’t know what kind of materials could be used to make a “green” device.
If I don’t get accepted, I will try to apply to other institutions and I will continue the development of the prototype and of the business plan. And, of course, review the mistakes and evaluate the weakness of this application.
AUIRE is a Social Business that develops low cost assistive devices to visually impaired people. 
