Do You Think Entrepreneurial Thinking Can Change Lives?

That moment when you're 17 and you win seed money for the business you just started. It happened at the library.

We asked Izzy Hernandez (pictured on right): Do you think entrepreneurial thinking can change lives?

Izzy said:

"I do believe that entrepreneurial thinking can help change lives. Look at Phoebe, Faith, and me, with all the work that we did in 48 hours. We are making a step into helping our community's teens by getting out financial knowledge that is definitely gonna help our youth have an idea of what to do once they finally "leave the nest" or so to speak. [she laughs.]

"If we get teens more interested in this topic we can help prepare them and help better there lives so they won't be left out in the dark. After all, we teenagers are the future. We are going to be the decision makers in our world and that is why it s so important that we help each other out when working on this project and hopefully this curriculum that we have started.

"It is to help benefit our teens, to help benefit our community, and most importantly, to help benefit our world."

Izzy was one of three teens who took part in the first programming funded by the Idea+Space grant. She spent 2 days of her fall school break with Robin and Brooke from LeadLocal, learning how to explore and test financial curriculum ideas for teens, using the lean startup methodology. Their proposal was so strong that Izzy, Faith and Phoebe were awarded $750.00 seed money to test their ideas in the real world, for classes given by the YWCA.

You'll be able to meet Robin, Brooke, Faith, Phoebe and Izzy at Tuesday's Catalyst Cafe. You don't want to miss this one!

When: Tuesday, October 14, 2014, 5:30-7:00pm
Where: Main Library Lower Level Meeting Room 2nd floor Idea+Space, 101 N. Stone.
Parking: Parking under the library is free after 5pm.

How We Innovate, a Presentation by Aaron Eden

Aaron Eden, Innovation Coach

At the May Café, innovation coach Aaron Eden talked to us about how Intuit is building innovation and entrepreneurial thinking into their workplace, and using creative brainstorming techniques to explore solutions.

He led us through an exercise where we interviewed a partner about a product: ladders. We had a couple minutes to ask lots of "why" questions about their most recent experience using a ladder.

Next? Go broad. Think of as many ideas as you can, independently from your interviewee. Aaron handed us fat markers and post-it notes and we scribbled ideas about how to improve ladders -- some crazy, some not.

Then you sort, from most useful to least useful and sketch out the concept using his simple form:

This is a very simplified version of the process. We learned a lot about how to listen to the problem, then capture the broadest set of ideas possible, and then narrow by different criteria.

If you want to know more, Aaron shared his "How We Innovate" presentation with us.

The next Café will cover Grantwriting for Businesses (yes, businesses), and Nonprofits.