The Sustainable CO-OP Store weekly meeting #10

Hola.

Hello, what's happening?

I'm not even situated.

Refresh where we left off. I completely forgot what the agenda for this week is and everything.

Um, yeah, we're just gonna go over it, I think.

So yeah, yeah, cool. It's just been one of those days where like everything else in my mind had to be cleared out.

Hi guys, yeah, what time is it there?

12 midnight.

Okay, where are you guys at?

What?

Where are you guys at?

We're in Portugal, we're visiting Ani.

Oh, awesome.

Here for a little bit of time. Yeah, we saw Ani yesterday, uh, she She's working on a project over here and living here.

Yeah, yeah, it sounds like she's got some cool stuff going on.

Yeah, yeah, she's always, she's always had that energy, but even now it's even, uh, her and her boyfriend are doing some particularly cool stuff together.

So yeah, nice. Yeah, good.

Russell, Calvin, what's up guys?

Hey everybody.

We're just missing Jennifer and Adam, but I think we should just get started because that was what we agreed to.

Are you recording it?

Yeah, it's recording. I think everyone—

yeah, you're a little quiet. Is there a way— can you try to turn up your mic or something?

Or what?

I'm a little quiet, really?

Yeah, you're a little quiet.

Okay, maybe it's just a little far. Is that any better?

That's a little better.

Okay, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know why.

That's weird.

Let me see if I can change the setting.

Audio. Zoom there. If you really dig in the preferences, I think there's a mic input level. Okay, yeah, see if you can mute audio now. Yeah.

Hi guys.

Hey Jennifer. I'm going to try to work on it in between.

It's just my headphones.

How are there people?

I think, I think it might—

Oh, you know what? Okay, I see. It might be my headphones. You know what's funny? Zoom has a separate volume setting than like my computer. Does anyone else? It's kind of weird.

Computers are weird, man.

I'm always like yelling at Olaf, like messing up something with like an app or like something like, oh, how did you not know how?

But yeah, I think, yeah, how even you managed to do it, to mess it up like that.

Yeah, it's like, but, but it's always good to hear from an engineer that, you know, it's a Okay, cool. So I'm actually the icebreaker person today, and so I'll kick things off. So my icebreaker for today is, what's an interesting skill you want to learn? What's an interesting skill you want to learn? So, okay, I thought I had one, but now I'm forgetting it. Actually, does anyone else want to get started? Because I feel like I have a good one. I can't remember it.

I can start.

Okay.

So I guess I've started this one, but not like wholeheartedly. But I've been really interested in learning Chinese. And I started on Duolingo, which is like not the best way to learn a language. Because it just takes forever, but it's pretty difficult but interesting at the same time.

So yeah, try me. Have you heard about Pimsleur?

I've heard about Pimsleur.

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I also got recommended. I'm learning on Duolingo now, but like actually someone recommended me, a couple people, and they said Pimsleur is great.

Yeah, yeah, so I gotta take it to the next level if I'm ever actually gonna learn it, but you know, right? I don't know if you've used Duolingo, but you can kind of go on and just like spend 10-15 minutes and kind of, you know, learn like one lesson at a time, which makes it really easy. And if I skip a day, you know, it's free. If I skip a couple days, it's not a big deal.

Cool.

Well, I've been learning for like 3 years, and we went to Mexico. I was able to communicate, but I was far from her.

I know that's the nice thing. You can, if you just know how to like ask where the bathroom is, you know.

Oh yeah, but Chinese, I don't know.

I can go. I remembered the skill that I wanted to learn. Yeah, I love music. I've been wanting to either or both learn to DJ a little bit better and to actually maybe make music, electronic music. I was practicing with one of my friends and I'd like to do that more, find time to do that more. So like something artistic, but I feel like I could add to my life. Okay, I'll pick, I'm gonna pick Calvin. Can't hear you Calvin.

We can't hear you.

Can't hear you Calvin. Got it.

Sorry, the second layer of muting on my mic, I had that one on. The skill I'd like to learn is I'd love to do like small animations. I'd love to learn how to do that because I think there's such a cool way to like get the eye's attention and to show like two objects interacting. And I don't know, it adds like a level of professionalism to most like video productions that I feel like could be so valuable and be so cool. So that's something I'd love to learn. Who wants to go next? We're gonna, we're gonna go in the order of my, my screen bubble, so I'd like to hear Erica if we haven't heard her yet.

I—

well, in the near future, I like to learn some like graphic design skills and illustration skills. And like bucket list skill that I want to have is sailing. I love to learn how to sail. I know, I know she knows.

Yes, thank you.

Yes, nice.

Um, next, uh, I picked Jennifer.

Okay, well, let's see, there's a lot of things I would like to I think next I would like to do dancing, maybe belly dancing.

Sounds fun.

That's great.

So yeah, I guess I'd like to Learn how to become an effective leader. All of my projects have always been by myself, so I'd like to figure out how to work together with people better. It's one of the reasons why I'm here, so. And I'll kick it over to Ulla.

Ready?

So yeah, I'll kick it over to Ulla.

I have so many, but one skill that definitely would be useful for me is public speaking. I get extremely stressed and I like don't remember anything, like anything. So you're probably speaking with no anxiety and yeah, just feel comfortable. Uh, who is left?

I think that's it.

It's a good icebreaker.

Cool. Yeah, it's always good to like learn a little bit more about people and it's nice to hear you guys in different Okay, so I'm the facilitator tonight, um, so we should start with reading the agenda, right?

So, okay, we will start with vision voting results. It should be done by Adam, but he's not there yet. Okay, next is value proposition research results. I think it was Calvin and Russell, right? Next is business model canvas, customers discussion, right? Um, number 4, feedback system for co-op proposals. And then it comes meeting time. We would like to discuss options about That's me too. And then how the meeting— does anyone have anything they would like to add to the agenda?

I don't have something to add, but I do want to let the team know that I'm out next week.

Okay, thank you.

Yep, and then I leave at the top of the hour. I have a scheduling conflict today.

Today, right?

Today, yeah.

Okay, all right, so we're good to go.

So we'll move Adam's maybe to a little bit later and think in case he joins. Otherwise we can talk about it.

I think that's good.

That, uh, yeah, Calvin had value proposition, so that's perfect because then you can start.

Yeah, actually that's a better name in case you had to pop out, Calvin.

You and Russell could Okay, would you like to start, Calvin or Russell, with our value results? What did you find? And what is—

sure, with our value proposals.

Well, before, before we do that, so who is the— who's the, um, facilitator?

And then we have I am the facilitator.

What was the other role? Because I, I'm not, I'm not sure if I am that person.

And the keeper's Adam.

Uh, oh, Adam.

Okay, uh, okay, good, good catch, Russell.

Appreciate you catching that.

Yeah, okay, I can hear— I can take the minutes.

Okay, great.

Yeah, or at least, um Maybe we can—

we'll swap you with Adam, or like, whenever, like, you're coming up next.

Yeah, okay, that sounds good.

Maybe you just want to put that as an action item for me to do, and I'll just do it on the— There's your first note-take for the night.

Right at the top.

Would you like to share your screen, or how is it?

Yeah, I'll share the screen. Okay, um, hopefully my computer is going to quite— oh, have I not logged in here? Okay, I'll just go to Drive.

Yeah, the document is Worker Co-op Store Packagings List.

Thanks. Yeah, I was trying to figure out— I'm trying to profile my machine wide, so like I only have 4 CPUs but I'm using a load average of 8, which means I'm doing more than double what my computer can deal with.

Oh no, Zoom is crazy.

Am I muted?

You're not muted.

Can you guys hear me?

No, it's my computer, it's this thing.

Yeah, it's coming through crackly, so we're doing the crackles dance.

Why don't you share, Calvin, because my computer can't handle it today.

I got it.

Sorry, Calvin.

No worries.

I'm gonna have to get another computer.

You know, it might be an Ubuntu issue too, because I've had that issue on my desktop, which is kind of old, but I kind of assumed it's because it's old. But you know, there might be an Ubuntu Zoom issue there.

I wouldn't be surprised.

Here we are. Um, everybody can see the screen? Yeah, I think I'm in—

thanks, Calvin—

proper sharing mode. No worries. And then I'll just scroll through and talk about it.

So we—

Can you zoom in a little bit?

Oh yeah, I can do that.

How fast it will do it, I don't know. There we go. Let's do it some more.

Nice.

All right, so we have this list here. We kind of started with the materials. And then we thought back, okay, what's going to be like, what things are we going to want to gather about each material in regards to packaging and containing our products? So we thought, you know, kind of in a funnel, kind of like largest concern and then narrowing down. It's just human health. Uh, you got, you know, financial costs. You don't want it to be like overburdensome and therefore the business doesn't work and, uh, other things to keep in mind. So these were kind of the criteria that we came up with that we thought would be good for, um, uh, the research. So we want to like essentially treat that as a checklist and try to gather that intel on all these, um, materials for the future. What products did we want to have in mind? We have a range here that goes from the easy as a product.

What's that?

I don't know if you— I just wanted to like stop for one second. I don't know if you had a process about how you want to present this, but like, just thinking about that first section, and do we want to talk about this now, or can we Maybe we should ask questions later and you present the whole thing first.

Yeah, yeah, let's just present the whole thing because this isn't set in stone at all.

Okay, yeah, sorry, then I'll go back to mute.

Thanks, thanks, I appreciate it. Um, so then we, we thought, okay, wait, um, in regards to these materials, like, what are they going to be tackling? What are the actual, like, tasks? Are we going to put toothpaste in an Altoid tin, I think, was something we mentioned last time. So here's the range of like usability cases, if you will. So you got your, your more simple, tame things in, in terms of containings. You've got the kind category, it's granola bars. Apples already have like an inherent seal around them from the messy innards. And then you've got all the way up to hard mode where you've got laundry detergent that could very well eat through certain materials that we would be assessing. So we wanted to keep these in mind and maybe use this as like a rating system for what is the best use case for this, because maybe we end up using multiple materials, and odds are that's what we'll end up doing. And we'll want to use that to help solidify like, okay, how do we handle hard modes? Well, that's going to be majorly metals, for example. How do we handle the kinds? That's going to be cool wax paper made from fungi. Those are the fun thoughts that we've gone through. So we've got a list of materials. We divided them up into traditionals that we're used to seeing. Of course, we left out plastic because it's not an option for the most part. And then we have a list here of non-traditionals. Like some of the cool mushroom foam packaging. Hopefully y'all saw the links in our Slack. There's some really cool TED Talks in there and some neat use cases. And then we've got experimental, and these are the ones where like either Russell or I had seen these before out in the wild or on YouTube, and we wanted to follow up and, and see where these technologies are at. We were surprised to find that like mushroom foam packing is, is not part of the experimental. It's already used commercially and there's already that company. So in this research, maybe a few of these things will jump up. This took a little bit of work and we shared in the Slack that, you know, if y'all knew all of these criteria for one of these already, I don't— maybe it slipped by me. Maybe one of you is actually a packaging engineer and you already knew everything there is to know about tin can manufacturing and its costs and sustainability numbers, but it looked like that might be kind of a big ask for somebody who isn't a master in those fields. So we made this document. You know, we're transparent. You guys can come see us work, but here is how we divvied up the list. We kind of found like a nice balance between like these things are going to be related, the things I'm going to research, and the things Russell are going to research. And that's where we left it because there was plenty of work and we figured this could be a document that gets filled in more. And I think it's good that we're checking in. That's the end of my presentation. I hope everyone liked it. Please, questions now and Russell and I will tackle them.

That's a good start for sure. So should we like start Reading them?

I didn't hear the second part.

Should we read through all the options here? Well, at the bottom, I had a question just on the bottom here. What made something non-traditional, traditional, and experimental? How did you guys break that up?

So traditional is things that are already in use. Non-traditional are things that are already in use but not mainstream.

Okay.

And then experimental is not mainstream, exploratory, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. It's research and development sort of stuff.

Yeah.

So like Amazon's, at the bottom it says Amazon's paper and foam padded envelopes. Yeah, it's like experimental because they're the only ones who use it.

Is that kind of They invented it. We'd have to try to reverse engineer it.

Gotcha.

The, the, the way that one in particular works, um, they use the same glue that is used to make cardboard into making foam. They've come out with some sort of secret sauce to make that glue foam up, and then they're using that to, to create, uh, mailers that are like puffy so you can protect items. The neat thing is, since it's the same glue that is used for cardboard, and I know that you can decompose cardboard, I know you could decompose these envelopes as well. So there, I think that's a powerful contender, but it's, it's less for the— that's more for things that are fragile and less for things that, like cereals or whatever.

So cardboard has glue in it.

Oh yeah, it does.

It's corrugated, corrugated, you know, you gotta There's like sheets of it that fit together.

Yeah, it's like pulp and then glues and that's basically it.

So I guess looking back to Ulla's question about like, how do you, you know, should we read this? But I think more to the point is like, how as a team should we be providing input, or is it really like you just wanted to give us an update of where you guys were, and then next week or in the following weeks you're going to provide us further input on alternative packaging? Is that like the process? And then I guess based on that, we're saying we're going to even zoom it out further, like we're going to go back to the value proposition square and say like more clearly the materials we're going to use in packaging. So yeah, it's a slightly confusing question, but hopefully you guys follow.

Yeah, I think the, the first step was we were just trying to figure out the lay of the land and present that, and we think we did an okay job. I'm sure we've missed tons of things, but I think this is a good first step. Then the idea was hopefully we could split up this work even more so it's not just me and Calvin, because If you look at the decision funnel, it's pretty in-depth, like you could, and then it's times, it's like, it's an n times m problem, which is a lot of things to look up.

But it's definitely pretty ambitious. I would almost suggest that you guys pick like one or two things to go really deep on and do like, do everything on, you know, get all of these criteria for one or two things and then come back and we can kind of assess like, What is the actual time? What would it take to do all of them, I guess? Do you know what I mean?

All right, so Calvin, why don't we meet up and we'll pick one thing and we'll try to do it together, and then have like— we can present an example of what we're thinking of as far as the research.

And are we doing research on like the materials and, um, if they've been used, or, or Are we also doing research on like packaging companies that we could like partner with or buy from? Yeah, yeah, because maybe they— I mean, I was like, I saw the video, I watched, I read this and I watched the video of the Amazon thing and then I was like just like searching for companies that, that green packaging and like maybe It's also one thing that we could do some research on, companies that specialize in all this.

Yeah, and I think that's going to be key for the potential to scale. We're going to need to find— either we're going to need to make it ourselves, or we're going to need to find someone that can supply it.

That's a good point that as we take notes and do research on these materials that we're also noting. And that might be like, maybe it's not part of our decision criteria that we use to think of, okay, what data points do we definitely want to collect? But in terms of like, as we do research, maybe there should be another subsection here that says players in the game, you know, is kind of how I think of it. And then, you know, that will be the resource that we further research. Once we kind of settle on which materials pique our interest.

I guess that's kind of dipping our toes into the key partners part of the business model canvas. Yeah. So I mean, we can— that will definitely come on when we're talking business model canvas-wise. Or I mean, if you guys want to start doing research on that too, I don't want to stop you there, because there's some feasibility. You know, it's like, it's almost like a feasibility study.

I actually was going to say that, um, like where you guys are going with this just seems like, you know, closer to the components of the feasibility study where we're going to really dive deep on, on, you know, like the materials that you want to use and say yes and no to. I mean, like this, but that said, yeah, this could totally happen as like a I don't know, best term I could use is like a background job. Like, well, there's other work that we're doing parallel. You guys can perhaps continue to do this and it'll probably be valuable later on.

So, I mean, it's definitely a great framework. I think the framework is excellent here, if that makes sense. Like the, just the, you know, the decision criteria, it's really great.

So Vivek, what you're saying is that this research is important, but it will come like later on in the depth that they're trying to do. But that could— like, you can say it's not the next necessary step, but we can be doing it on the side as like just—

Exactly. I mean, to a great degree, yes. I mean, this— because you're going to do really intense Basically, I foresee the outcome of the information that Russell and Calvin have already taken will lead us to creating some sort of criteria.

Yeah, it takes about the same time.

There's some background voice going on. Maybe if it's possible, maybe you can mute yourself. But if you can't, you'll hear Fiamma's voice. Yeah, um, anyway, so it, um, it could be used as like the, um, like analysis that we show customers and saying, hey, this fits our like criteria, like this is how XYZ is like good on these spectrum, on the spectrum or whatever. And it can play into that, um, analysis that we, we provide customers. So, but I For the business model canvas, personally, it seems a little in-depth. I can speak to that a little bit as well, but does that make sense?

It makes sense to me. Yeah. I mean, I would agree. This is definitely very in-depth for value proposition. I would say, I mean, like, I would say it's like, this is definitely like the difficult part.

So, well, this was one, this was, this was one bullet of the value prop, right? So the team's got, the team's got it. Like we're all kind of expected to go deep on each of these bullets.

I feel like, well, I think, I mean, we're about to talk about the business model canvas in a minute. And I just like, just to give like a little bit of a preview, I wanted to bring it up. And when we got to that section, which was— but, uh, yeah, I think it's— it makes sense to sort of tail into it, uh, right now. Is like, so I talked to, uh, David Hammer, uh, who's the executive director of ICA Group. Uh, I have like a first Wednesday of the month, I talk with him and Shelley. Um, you know, Shelley, as you guys know, is the consultant I've been working with, um, on a pretty frequent basis. By the way, for the next meeting, which will be in May. Uh, I'll send you guys all an invite. Uh, any of you who want to attend are welcome to. It's on Wednesdays, the first Wednesday of the month at 3 PM Eastern time. So you can join, welcome to. Uh, David has a wealth of knowledge and he is, um, happy to share with other people. So, uh, I'd love to have folks join. Uh, but to that point, I asked David, I said, I asked him, hey, What is your input on the business model canvas? How do we get through it? And like, you know, any suggestions or tips? And his point was this, is that the business model canvas, we, uh, we should— we shouldn't go like— he recommended not going too, too crazy on like the in-depth of the input that we put into it because things will change As we sort of go and do more research or go into the market and we ask people or we actually do some sort of like real test of it, like an MVP, he recommended like get feedback, have serious discussions about any bullet point that you put into it. If there's like sort of a debate on one of them, maybe the onus of the person who presented it can go and do further research on their own. But, uh, and then come back and present to the team. But try to go through the business model canvas relatively quickly. He thinks it's going to be a healthy discussion, it's going to take us a few, you know, weeks to do it, but, you know, try to go through relatively quickly and let the feasibility— let it drive direction for the feasibility study to really do the in-depth analysis. And then the feasibility study will, uh, flush out, okay, like, this value prop doesn't make sense, or this customer segment doesn't make sense, and oh, but this one does, you know. And but let the business model canvas sort of be an area, just a starting point for us to gather some information, to be high level. And then the feasibility studies where we really, as team, we sort of break up into individual, uh, or not individual, but like smaller, you know, groups and committees where, you know, we go out and solve problems. Like kind of like you and Calvin have become— Russell become like sort of a mini committee trying to solve this problem, and then you would come back in a week or two just like presenting your findings on that, and we could sort of vote on it based on your information. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah. And there's not really much to vote on yet.

We're just—

seriously, this is just research.

Yep, of course. I just wanted to sort of talk about, you know, because you were asking like, you know, we're gonna dive into all the bullet points of the business model canvas. And I think my point is I'm trying to make is like, I think based on my conversation with David today is like, I think we, we should try to make a little bit more, uh, we should try to focus on, um, not being so stressed about every bullet point right now and let the, uh, the, uh, feasibility study be where we pour our like real analysis and take you know, more thoughtful time behind, you know, every single bullet that we put up initially. Let that be where we, you know, decide to cross out things and add more things or whatever.

So yeah, it's like the business model canvas is like a draft of the whole company, and then we'll add the details.

Yes, and we'll modify things and we'll remove things and things like that.

Yeah, yeah, there is a risk too that, you know, we go through the whole business model canvas process and then at the end say, well, maybe containers is not really a good fit because of when you look at it all on the board. Yes, just like it doesn't fit in with everything else. Not that it really looks like it's heading that way, but you know, there is that risk. We should be aware of it and not get too to attach to anything at this point, I think. Normally when I do Business Model Canvas, we all sit around and it's like one session, so I guess I haven't like done it over a number of sessions before.

Yeah, me either.

Maybe to that point, Brian, maybe we should make the agenda for the next meeting like just 2 hours focused on Business Model Canvas if you think that's an approach, or maybe we schedule a separate one. This is just like the one time, or not the one time, but like, you know, this is like, we're using that with this mindset. Let's like, you know, just schedule a meeting to just do that, you know, um, dedicated. We're, you know, separate of our weekly, weekly calls so that we can make solid progress on it.

That's not a bad idea. I mean, even then, if we, even if we don't like finish, finish, we have like, um, We can say like, all right, this is version 1, and we can do research and come back to it and still go through that process. Yeah, I like that.

Russell wanted to say something.

Yeah, I'm just like, we're going to need— like, we decided to— like, last week we decided to work on this, if I remember correctly, because we kind of knew that we were going to need to solve packaging, or we're going to need to find someone like a key partner that can solve it for us. So that was kind of the direction we went. I don't think that like there's any harm in like the work we've done so far. And in fact, like once we get a little further along on our like mission statement and vision statement, and then we can get a website up, this research could be put on our website, right? Like a blog post or something. Um, so it's not like it disappears, like Um, even if we don't end up using it directly, um, some other team might grab it and run with it. So I'm not too worried. I'm happy.

Russell. Oh my God. I hope you didn't take my, what I said in the wrong way. Like, I don't think it's at all ways. I think it's very much super useful.

No, no, no, no, no. I'm just saying, no, that's not what I mean when I said that.

I'm just, yeah, it's, it's, I think it's the right direction. Like Brad, I actually, I'm pretty, even your decision-making funnel, like I would like to learn a little more about it, but like high level, it seemed very interesting and included things I hadn't, you know, personally hadn't thought about. So yeah, I 100% think it's very valid and definitely won't go away. I just, I'm just wondering, you know, yeah.

And, and that funnel can be, can be changed. Cause like we literally spitballed that, like me and Calvin like hustled when we got this done, we were working really fast. So, um, It's all up for debate. It's all up for work.

So we appreciate the hustle.

Yeah, but just to know, where are we with this now? Do you guys need more help? But not going more depth, but researching some different area, or what is—

I think, I think at this point we almost could stop, and it's like, this data is okay. We can, we could stop here, and if we want to Next week, do Business Model Canvas, and me and Calvin can focus on that. Well, I won't be here, but if we want to focus on that, I think that'll be a good use of our time. I wouldn't want to pull the team into this, into this train of thought too much unless we really thought that was the next thing that needed to be solved.

Um, so do you want to try to do, um, do you want to try to squeeze in the customers and the partners this week to test out How it, how it feels, you know, squeezing a bunch of these blocks in one meeting.

I say we go as far as we can. We're only missing one person. We're also missing Annie too.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so that point, to that point too, so, so I guess first off, first takeaway, maybe we just want to make sure we in the minutes just capture the link that Russell and Calvin provided so we don't lose track of where that is, first off, I think. Secondly, I think there's a— we, we just discussed, and maybe we can just— maybe we vote on it, or I don't know, do we want to like either dedicate next week's entire weekly meeting to business model canvas so we can chug as fast— as much along on it as possible, Or should we perhaps schedule a separate meeting so that in case there's parallel work happening, we don't lose momentum in an entire week on those items? Yeah, I think that's up to discussion. So you want to talk about that, Gonzalo?

I'm okay with going, using our next meeting just for the business model canvas because I think that there There are some left action items, but they're not pressing, if I'm okay. So if I— if I don't know, there's like something that wasn't so busy, for instance, like we can keep it like that so next week we can focus on that.

It was busy for two guys.

Okay, so, so yeah, I meant not the week, the agenda of today.

So Well, other people, I see them shaking their head in agreement. So yeah, Russell's into it.

I agree. I'm just saying that like, um, if we can get like the, the business model canvas, we don't have to dive, Erica, we don't have to dive as deep as we did here with, with next week's. Like, our goal should be to just fill out the canvas, not go on tangents and do research. And then once we have that big picture, then, then we could as a team say like, well, that bullet looks really important or whatever. Like, so this work was more of like a— this work was more of like a parallel work with the rest of the work that was going on.

But my question is, should we kind of think about it during this week so we come prepared for next time? Will go like, you know, it would be a flaw, we would fill it up very quickly, or we will be just like, you know, thinking about it as we start the meeting. So that may take like double time probably. But if we all prepare, at least like think about it, just give it a thought or two.

I think you have to be more structured about it. Like, I think if you're going to propose us planning during the week, I think there should be some sort of at least like some sort of you like you know, what exercises, I don't know, Brad maybe has a suggestion, like, you know, should each of us just quickly glance through and fill it in? You know, especially for Russell, maybe that's even our approach, like Russell won't be able to join, maybe Russell can, you know, take a crack at it on his own, you know, take 30 minutes, take a crack at it on his own. I can, like, he can send it to me or send it to the group and I can, like, you know, glance at it during the course of the meeting and make sure they're like, like, you know, mention Russell's points, you know, in the meeting, you know, because he won't be there. I don't know what— if you want to provide more structure beyond just like saying, hey guys, like, think about it. I don't know, that seems a little loose for me.

Yeah, I would— I'm a little worried that we would lose the brainstorming aspect of going through it all together kind of fresh. Yeah, that definitely would be faster though. It would definitely— we'd definitely be get through it faster. I mean, like maybe the first time, maybe if we like, you know, this is not the first time we're going to go through the business model canvas. That's not, you know, just fine. That's fine just to get stuff up on the board and we can move on from there.

Maybe you have a suggestion, Brad, of like what, like in my, like for people that have never done that before, what could be like studying or like reading or doing research on something that might help us to prepare, not coming up with ideas, but like starting the business model kind of what is it like? Yeah, maybe you have the—

I guess my strategy has been to think about it from like, so value proposition, we kind of thought about it from a high level of like, here's some like by high level, almost like the value, just like a business values almost, like kind of we're tied together with the business values. And then think of it at a very low level as we can. We kind of ended up talking about containers and that's kind of where the conversation led. And I think that worked really well. I was planning on doing something similar with customers and talking like high level, who would we, you know, like market groups, what market groups would be, you know, like, you know, married, like families or like people who are single or, you know, just like talk about like big market segments and then talk about, okay, who are we going to Who do we know personally who could use this? That's kind of what's going to be my strategy there. You know, I think I haven't really thought about for key partners. I think from a high, you know, I think a high level. So I guess think about it in that kind of context. From a high level, it's pretty easy to go in, have everyone just come with like these high-level things, what we think of. And I think the, you know, it's a little more difficult to think like a more concrete, like down to earth level for some of the other ones. I can definitely, you know, prepare some stuff for next week.

One thing, one thing I have in regards to Erica's question, maybe, I mean, if you don't mind, Brad, like maybe you can find like a YouTube video or like a blog article that like you can send out to the team and say, hey guys, like, just watch this video or watch this, uh, or read this blog post or something. This will give you a good, like, mindset of, like, how to tackle this business model canvas on your own without— like, if none of us were here, like, if you read this, watch this video, you could probably do this on your own. Or, like, are you okay at it? You know, you won't be, like, the pro like your friend was, but, like, you'll be in the starting—

we can definitely get started. Yeah. And we'll be able to get through it in one meeting. Yeah.

More importantly, would that be like something you'd be volunteered to take as an action?

No, I think that's doable. Yeah.

Would the rest of us be cool with taking that as an action item? Whatever he sends, we'll consume before the next meeting.

Yes. And then if we all have the same source of information, we will be on the same page.

Word.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So do you think, um, Do you think everyone's going to come up, like, is going to fill it out themselves, like, on their own? And then during the meeting, we're all going to just list off everything we think of? Or is it, do you think we fill it in, like, on Miro?

Or together in the meeting, right?

Like a brainstorming part. Get ready, kind of not exact, you know, answers, Just to have an idea, just to get—

okay, okay, we know how to use the canvas better. I think that might be okay.

I got you.

Okay, equally active, I think.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Yeah, and if— and as you're exploring like this, the, the topic, um, you— it might, it might make sense for you to do as like a homework assignment. Doesn't have to be official, but like you could try to do a test one for yourself. It doesn't have to be related to to this effort just to see if you can practice it. Because once you go through it, like, you start to get better at it.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Jennifer, do you have any thoughts on that? We haven't heard from you.

Uh, well, I like the idea of brainstorming. That's one of my favorite things is just to write things, come up with with a group, come up with ideas and just write them down without using judgment for a while, and then, then later go back and weed things out.

Yeah, so yeah, I think we should try to hold on to that as much as we can. Okay, I think that's going to be the balance is like keep the brainstorming but also move quickly so we can get through in a meeting.

That's good. So being mindful of time, we just be clear the action items. So the action we just mentioned from this is, so for action items so far, I have from Russell, Calvin, provide the link from your research so we can go through it. And Brad will send us either video, blog, or something to, to about business model canvas to help us to, to start.

And then we're all going to consume that. We're going to watch it.

Everybody will watch this. So yeah, for everybody, everybody you're watching or read about this, do you have an idea?

And to be clear, Calvin and Russell are just sending Brad the link. He— we already all have it.

Just to be in the minutes.

It's just so he can include it in the minutes. But, um, yeah, that's— but is everyone— so everyone's cool with consuming whatever? Uh, Jennifer, you're cool with that also? I didn't see a nod or like a thumbs up, so I wasn't sure.

Cool with what?

Sorry, what was the question?

Reading or watching whatever Brad sends us in terms of, um, totally, that's fine.

That sounds great.

Great, because I think that's, I think that's a really good approach in general, you know, just going back to like some of the most basic, you know, cooperative principles, like, you know, trying to remember that we are all owners. We don't have roles yet in any shape or form. Definitely this is a steering committee, but at the end of the day, we're like all owners. So trying to get us all to the level where we can make smart decisions about anything we are working on and building makes us all more than just like a gear in a machine. We're all actually very active humans in, um, in making wise decisions. On our own capabilities.

Everybody's eager to give their ideas, so I think it's okay.

No, and then just, you know, I'm just saying this is— it goes like, this is empowerment, gives us like— it goes back to the most basic components of our cooperative. So I think that's awesome, personally.

I'm just— great. Um, let's move on. Okay, so now we actually have on the table business model canvas and customer discussion.

Yeah, okay, cool. Let me— so I kind of have— sorry, I have to prepare the— get this thing in the right spot. So I kind of already talked about what I wanted to do. You know, we talked about from a high level and kind of like a ground floor share. Okay. You guys see Miro, the business model canvas here?

So everyone can see you.

Yep.

Thanks.

I get this to go a little small.

This is the font. So if you— I mean, at least this This, yeah, I can zoom in.

I just wanted to.

Yeah, awesome.

Oh man, I did not practice enough on Miro. Hold on, hold on, I gotta use my mouse. Okay, so yeah, so like I said, we did from like a high level and a low level, and I think that kind of worked out really well. Want to move on to customers and kind of take that same framework.

Get it.

So customers, just to review, might be kind of self-explanatory, but, you know, it's the people who are interested in your products, the people who you expect to want that value proposition and to pay money to, to get it, I guess, at a very basic level. Now, ours is a little interesting too, because I think you could probably— there's like an aspect of membership and like ourselves could be considered customers because I'm sure we're going to be, you know, it's kind of the co-op model. I haven't really wrapped my head around and how if we should like do it completely separate or if we just think about this as membership. But I think if we just think now, just kind of brainstorm now, who would be interested in this? So high level, what large groups of people beyond everyone, who wants this more than— who needs this more than other groups?

I think the head of household is usually the person who has the purchasing power a lot of the times, whether that's a partnership or a single parent or heads of household, maybe. I don't know if that's even— I don't know if that's PC anymore, but yeah.

Sustainably conscious. Customers.

Oh man, we're really testing my spelling here. Um, not even close today. Can it even— oh, okay, it gave me a suggestion. That's good. Sometimes I'm— it doesn't even know. It's not a word. I don't know what it is. Um, so Do you think—

People local to the store?

Store, that's definitely a good one. I'm trying to think of some way to say like nature lovers or like naturalists, maybe?

Is that—

Tree huggers?

Tree huggers? Does anyone take offense to that?

Naturalists, tree huggers, and even minimalists. Because the idea is that there'd be less like leftover waste.

But is it just—

I think they're two different— minimizing tree huggers.

Is tree huggers different than sustainably conscious?

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're just like— but they're like, they're not like all thinking about like sustainability as much. Is that sort of the differentiation we're imagining?

I think that the terms— I think sustainability is still a term we're trying to figure out what it means, because like you saw the bullets of our decision funnel, and those were kind of all in, in the aim of sustainability. And so we're still trying to figure out that word, but we kind of know what a tree hugger is, and we, we know what a naturalist is. Go ahead.

Yeah, I know a lot of people that care and love nature and everything, but like they don't really know how to shop sustainable. They don't have the possibilities. For instance, in Mexico is really hard, so they are not sustainable conscious.

Sustainably conscious are mothers that like are teaching already— mothers or fathers, whoever— and they are teaching their kids, you know, and they are like educated. They want to— they know why or and they want to pass it to the family, but they're not tree huggers. They just know it's wrong or why it's wrong.

I've got two angles on the— a lot of Indigenous communities speak of Mother, Mother Earth. Mother gives water, water is sacred. It's part of their religion. So maybe it's earth lovers is like one way to view this because I was thinking at first climate change conscious people. So if you're aware of climate change, then maybe as a consequence of not wanting like the hot earth doom that we're going towards, maybe that's where, you know, it sparked it. But it could also, you know, without the threat of human self-harm doom kind of thing, it could also come from the same direction as like the indigenous communities with, with the love for Mother Earth. So, but I'm not sure how to say that like this. I'm so glad we're gonna read about these, cuz I have no idea how to like say the business model canvas version of what I'm trying to say.

Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, we're still like the brainstorming phase too. Um, what I was thinking of was like climate anxiety or people who have climate anxiety. I mean, I feel a little bit too, it's just like this, you know, kind of like growing, like Not— I think it's more about like not sure how everything's going to play out. It's kind of where like my personal anxiety comes from. But I think that's part of it. I don't know, you know, I don't know if there's probably a better way to put it, like you said. And, you know, I don't know if we want to market to people specifically on their anxieties. It's probably not too ethical. It would be like a weird combination of a co-op that is marketing anxiety.

People climate aware.

Climate aware. Oh, I've got the—

maybe the last version, and then I'm gonna dip off. I'm gonna say empathetic people, because it kind of comes down to empathy. We share the space, we don't want climate change, we're thinking empathetically about other people. If I were to follow the guide as like describing a couple of words, empathetic people is the best I got. And then I'm gonna go. I'll see you guys later.

All right, thank you, Calvin.

You got a bunch of good ones in there, so Yes, health-conscious people.

People who care about health, no chemicals in their products and all that.

Yeah, I'm gonna learn how to spell conscious. Okay, health-conscious.

I would say environmentalists and permaculture— permaculturalists.

I would also add like, um, because the store is going to be all nice and it may become kind of like hip Like, it may start like this, so it may be like, you know, the people who are hip because followers, you know, it's cool like that, so often it starts like that.

Yeah, that's like, uh, makes me think of like Whole Foods. There was like a hipster aspect to Whole Foods at the beginning, right?

Where you're like, so it starts and then, you know, it just grows, but We'll get like this Supreme.

Can I say hipster trendsetter? Yeah, hipster might be kind of vague, so I wanted to—

another demographic.

I would say trendsetters.

Is that not the same? Because I can remove that if you think that's not really— sure.

I didn't know hipsters is I'm not sure if it's the same, but maybe.

It's sort of what you said, it's like, what, like, sort of like, you know, it's got a cool cachet. Is that what you were saying?

Yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, it's like, that's the word I would use for that. Like, I would call it like a trendsetter.

Fashion.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like a counter-fashion. Go ahead, Erika.

Friends and family, people that we know.

Supporters. Yeah.

I would say, in a different angle, I would say folks that are anti-capitalism or anti these big brand-name corporations that—

That's interesting. Yeah, that's a good angle.

Do we, do we self, do we self, uh, do we fall into these categories, each of us? Kind of, some of them, right?

I found a lot of these.

I feel like there's a lot of this.

I would put down teachers. I think maybe that would be a good one.

Yes, it would be. That's great.

For anti-capitalism, I think maybe this is a separate thing, but like anti-big oil, do you think that's part of it?

I'm just curious, like, why do you think teachers? I didn't follow that.

Jen?

I just think that teachers are a good audience as a group. Teachers, they tend to be— they're college educated and they can understand and also disseminate.

But do we— so just to be clear, Brad, is it when we say customer segment, we— is it like a customer segment we would target that may not be familiar with the concept? Or do you think it's like, they're like, be easy to capture right away?

I think closer to easier to capture right away.

I think, because if that's the case, I'm a little—

like, teachers, broadly speaking, I'm like, I'm wondering if like they would, you know, be easy targeted customers.

I think so. My wife's a teacher.

Yeah, I mean, I guess at this point I wouldn't worry too much about how well we could target them. You know, I think we'll get there.

Right.

Similarly, you know, like any of these, we're going to pare it down. You know, we're not going to do everything. So I wouldn't worry about that too much.

Got it. Yeah. That's a good point.

I mean, that one is, you know, more, more open-ended than some of the other ones. Sure.

That's a fair point.

Sorry about that.

And then the, I guess the idea, like for me, like if I was doing this was eventually I would try to find the commonality between these types of people. And then eventually we would have our own like case study where we create a fictitious person with personality and we describe how we would sell to them.

Well, so you're already thinking about the framework for this.

Yeah, I know.

I already read about it. I know how it works now.

Yeah, I think maybe the customers could be people who like quality stuff, you know, because we would sell like quality. So people who are very like, yeah, I don't know how to call it.

I mean, that's a thing about with Amazon is like you're not quite certain that the the products they're getting are getting come from like high-quality vendors.

I think minimalists fall into that category because they really care about buying few quality items.

Right.

The only—

because I think Calvin's point was also about minimalists, was just like there's just like less stuff left around when you buy. But I think what Ulla's talking about beyond just that component is who shops in Whole Foods, for example, people who trust this is high-quality stuff.

Yeah, so yeah, I think there's like a—

I think it's a little different.

Yeah, minimalist, everything organized and everything is small, so he has to buy this amount of flour, for example, versus like someone may not be a minimalist but they might actually buy a lot of stuff, but they actually—

but they focus on really high-quality stuff, whatever they do buy.

Yeah, it can fall into different categories and Um, but, but yeah, like, to answer your question, who buys in Whole Foods? People that want to buy everything organic and like find organic in one place, like everything they need in one place, which is also something we want to do. Like, so maybe practical people, one-stop shoppers.

Yeah, high quality. I don't know if you can write it, but I think so.

Yeah, so maybe we just have both those.

High quality, uh, and what was it? One-stop shopper, practical, or one-stop shopper. Is that— and for practical, is that good? One-stop shopper, was that the—

yeah, it's another type of person. Yep.

High ex— instead of high quality, maybe high expectation customers, or like, I don't know.

Hi, Adam.

Yeah, that's definitely another vague one. Either, you know, hey, sorry, your box didn't pop up.

Did Calvin tag you in? It seems— yeah, so it sounds like you only have— it's on to you.

Um, so yeah, high quality is definitely one of the open-ended ones. And when you said high quality, um Erica, what was the other thing you said?

High expectation customers.

That's good. Yeah, it's almost— we're kind of getting into, which is not bad, but, you know, it's— I think, think about high level. It's almost like, what are our customers' value propositions? Or like, what are our customers' like, you know, expectations? That's almost what that would go under. Which is definitely good too.

What about millennials? Is that a, is that a thing?

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, I think so.

Millennials.

Oh, I avoid, I avoid generational stuff just because I feel like it's so stereotypical, but I get what you're saying. Young, I would just say the young.

Okay.

The young youngsters.

Yeah, it's easier to write to the young.

But actually, a few articles, you know, and one company that produces a certain kind of plastic, they were mentioning millennials are setting this, uh, need for I think millennials is great. Like, I use like multiple times everywhere.

I think Russell, Russell just means that like, like he agrees with that and he's like, you know, how about college students?

Is that like a better demographic?

College student?

I think they just try to save money. Um, I was just reading the description on top and it says describe your target audience in couple of words. I think we're beyond a couple, so should we try to like group some of these groups?

Actually, you know what's funny? I was just starting to group the ones that were a little more like open-ended here and put them at the top. So I thought millennial, teachers, hipster, trendsetter were like A little more open-ended there. Health conscious. I don't know, I don't know how to do this now.

Maybe you can make mini Post-its to—

Let me do another one down here. Well, I'll leave this one. I got a little bigger. Make this one big. And then, so I wanted to dig into another good exercise. It might be tricky to do both these exercises at the same time. Let me see, can I steal— I want to do sticky note, I want pink.

Let me—

I can't do my mouse, okay. Okay, so— There we go, perfect. So I wanted to go and it's good to dig into— take it from the opposite perspective. Who, like, you know, we're— these are a list of people that we, we think are out in the world, you know, that are groups of people out in the world, but it's also good to think about who do I know that I know needs this right now, if that makes sense. Now, it might be good to, if somebody thinks of somebody, I guess I don't necessarily want to list people's names, but if you think of somebody, just talk about how do they fit into these categories that we we talked about, and through that we can kind of like see if there's other categories we missed, or I think it'll kind of help sort the ones at the top, the ones that make the most sense.

For instance, like, I know teachers, I know some teachers, like, would that be like a specific thing?

Like, yeah, if you know a teacher who's like, who has like, if you know a teacher who like has complained about like a all the plastic they have to throw out in their classroom or like, yeah.

Yeah, so my former coworkers, you could say Erika's former coworkers or teacher friends.

We're supposed to say specific people?

I guess think about a specific person in your mind and then kind of work through like, I guess we can do this out loud. I guess we, you know, maybe we could, well, I guess, yeah. If you feel comfortable, like thinking out loud of like what causes them to, you know, what situation are they in where they need, where they need something like this, where they like have this issue. You know, I know, and like going back to, I guess, kind of like how the household I would almost fit into. Like we constantly try new ways to like reduce our trash and we're kind of, it's like a never-ending battle in our household. I mean, well, you know, good. I'm so, this is the thinking out loud thing. Something we constantly have an issue with is our trash. For whatever reason, we just have like a lot of raccoons in the neighborhood. And whenever there's like, they'll just like pick through whatever trash we have, like black bag trash, like all the time. So we've like constantly tried to find ways to not have our trash like smell bad or be like whatever it is. And like we've done compost, we've done compost stuff and we've done, you know, trying to do less, less plastic and more like cardboard things. So I don't know. I mean, that's like a weird customer segment. People who have issues with trash disposal. Trash disposal. That's— yeah, there you go. I guess that's the idea of this like thought process. You come up with really weird customer segments. Can anyone else think of like somebody who like—

like John Oliver's followers, like people that follow John Oliver?

Sure, because he did the— he did that segment, right?

Yeah, or Greta Thunberg followers.

Yeah, that's interesting. I'm gonna put, um, I wonder, is it like, uh, what is about— so what do you— those are, those are definitely good. What do you think there's like, uh, what is the aspect about those followers that make them go in that direction? Like, what is their— what's the driver? I guess I don't know too much. Like, I know of Greta Thunberg. Sorry, I guess I don't know how to pronounce her last name.

Yeah, I'm not sure either.

Thunberg.

But she's the— I don't even know how to characterize— she's the young woman who like has traveled like to the US and is from somewhere in Europe, somewhere in Northern Europe, I believe, right?

Uh, Sweden or Sweden.

That's all right. She's like an environmental activist.

Yeah, environmental activist.

Yeah. What is the, um, does she have a specific environmental thing? She is— is she— would you put her in the anti-corporate kind of category?

Uh, yeah, definitely anti-Exxon.

Anti-Exxon.

Well, like, I think she's more focused on, like, the carbon side of things.

Yeah, very carbon.

Climate change versus, like—

would you say climate?

Climate change.

Yeah, climate activist. Yeah, I'm trying to think of the specific things that she has come out against.

Well, she just is fossil fuels, like the fossil fuel energy.

This is kind of— I mean, this list is kind of the same, I guess. Um, what am I doing?

I know. Yeah.

—il?

—il.

Just -il.

—Fossil?

—il.

Okay. Yeah. I haven't had coffee in a while. It's been like, it's been a day.

It's okay, Brad. I feel like I have a peer now because I can't spell either.

The Polish native speaker can spell better. Don't worry about that. I can barely, yeah. Stop, don't worry about it.

What about people that don't have access to bulk stores, organic stores, and that they could buy online?

Okay, yeah, going down like the access route, do you think like— so the first thing I thought of is like people people who live in like a food desert, if you know that term, or like food, like people in low food security or like low food security areas, if you know that term. Erika, is that kind of where you were headed with that?

Yes, or like maybe they live in a small town and there's only one store and there's no like a green bulk store, kind of like where we wanna be. They don't have a store without concept near them.

To, yeah, bulk food? Let me say, let's say, what's the best way? Because it's like food, it's like access. It's like food options, low food options. Yeah, that's good. I gotta tell you guys a story. We were at Easter this— so this weekend? Yeah, this past weekend. And we went to visit my wife's family who lives in Defiance, Ohio, kind of, kind of almost middle of nowhere, not quite middle of nowhere. We were pretty close out there. Go to sit down and everyone has a bottle of, like a plastic bottle of water at the table instead of like a glass. It's just like, it's too late. I can't, I can't say anything. I can't like ruin Easter by like starting, like going down this route of like the environment, but I just had to sit down and Take it. I just said to not say anything.

To empathize with you. That's like, actually speaking of like weird channels, like that also comes from, like I was thinking about is like even my mom, you know, she like has this habit of buying like plastic utensils and plates for a big, like, or semi-large like dinner at our house or other like events. And yeah, I think, you know, if you could provide an alternative that was equally good but wasn't plastic, I think she would buy it. She just doesn't know anything better, so she does that. So I think it sounds like similar to your own family, like we could just provide it.

Yeah, it's like, it's kind of just like a convenience thing, I think. Does that—

Advocates.

Or maybe like people who don't know better and we can like give them something better, like easily.

Does it make sense?

Yeah, well, I think Vivek, I mean, I think we were kind of talking about like people who want like something very convenient. Does that—

like, super— they're not super mindful. They could be— just give them like an alternative option that was just as good, equal quality, but, you know, just was like an alternative to plastic, they might just switch.

It would have to be 100% compostable water bottle because they didn't know that the water itself is so bad.

Yeah, for example, again, with Whole Foods. Maybe someone goes there because of the organic food, doesn't care about plastic at all. But then when they ask them to bring utensils for a party and the utensils are already compostable, that person doesn't have to think about that because the choice is there already. And doesn't have to go out of their way to, to pick something that's good.

So, but yeah, so yeah, so someone who doesn't know, we should slowly start wrapping up. So maybe, oh yeah, okay, but this was great.

I think it's the, uh, yeah, convenience, convenience customers or Well, it's not just about convenience, but yeah, it's about just— oh, maybe it is, maybe you may be right. Yeah, yeah, maybe you're right, it's just get back to being— yeah, maybe you're right, it's just like it is actually more of a point about convenience.

Yeah, I mean, I, I think that's a part of it. Okay, does anyone have anything else? We can kind of wrap it up if there's like last thoughts here. There's anyone, any other stuff that looks great already?

So, and it comes to mind, maybe.

Okay, so I'll prepare some stuff so we can all do the recipes, the key partners, activities, resources. I mean, we got like 4, 5, 6, 7. 7. Yeah. Okay.

The next, next week we're gonna, we're gonna be fully focused on this, so we'll probably be able to chop through. Yeah, yeah.

I think partners is going to be the big one. And my experience is once you get partners, the rest of these, you kind of— it's kind of a little more going through the motion. So there's less, um, it's not as much brainstorming, you know. Key activities, you're kind of, you know, for example, key activities, just connecting your partners with value propositions. Well, I guess that's Channels is definitely like, I think it's one that's just like, yeah, we're going to use these channels. We all like them.

Okay. That's great. Cool. Next week we may need focusing on that.

Yeah. Great. And we'll circle back to the value props because I think we left it last week. We didn't really finish it. Right. So I'm just assuming we're going to go back to it, Brad. Right. Is that correct? It didn't feel like we finished flushing that out last week.

And this week we can—

Russell and Calvin like dive into a piece of it, but we, we didn't— is that, is that not right? If that's wrong, I thought we didn't— well, here's the thing.

So the, the value prop really does direct everything else.

That's why we do it first.

But, um, we really need to nail down what, what, what our value prop is because Ideally, it would be small enough that we can build a company around it or at least start iterating on an idea around it. So we focused on packaging, a store that focused on packaging, but that might not be the best way to have a sustainable store. And so it might be just that we buy only sustainable things and then that's it, and then we just Supplier store with it. So then our value add is just like, how do we do that? Right. And that might mean just a website or a database or something. I don't know.

Yeah. So we did have like, we did like that. No, I think we had a pretty good list of, oh, I'm not sharing my screen anymore, but clean, conscious food products, clarity. I mean, there's other stuff in there than containers. We can, I mean, I guess we can definitely come back to it. I guess like I think we should kind of move through the whole thing and then circle back. But we can talk, I mean, we can talk about it tomorrow. I mean, not tomorrow, next week.

Yeah, I think so. That will be to the agenda. Okay, that's good. And we are doing pretty good with time, not perfect, but we're good.

Fun. I like doing this.

Yeah, it's great. I think so. Okay, next is Vivek, and it's coming with System for Club Proposal.

Yeah, so, yeah, so I just— something I've been thinking about a lot, it's just, is like, how do we work together as a team and how do we make smart decisions? You know, it's one thing if you're working like a one-person, like, team and you're just making decisions on your own, but especially working as a group, I always think about how can we work smoothly, seamlessly together. And so systems always, like, come into mind for me. So, like, how do we as a group do these things without, like, feeling like so much onus on one person? And I've been doing a decent amount of research on it and I wanted to share some of the materials So we can all be on the same page of like why systems are important. I'm going to share my screen.

Cool.

Okay. So yeah, goal. I think of this as like goals versus systems. Goals are like, we all know what goals are, you know, these like these targets you work on, but I think, A better way to think about it is like really systems. If you build the good systems about making good decisions, then we can sort of do this consistently, make good— we can tackle any goal in a thoughtful, systematic way and be successful at it versus just focusing on one goal, being like one goal being, I don't know, business model canvas, like tackling a business model canvas. Instead, if we have a system to tackle business model canvas or or any sort of a problem we're working at, we can make better decisions. And so that's what I'm trying to, I'm going to try to explain to you. And so this is sort of the why of some of this. So this, here we go. So this is a conversation with the author of the book, Atomic Habits. He's, uh, like, Atomic Habits, like, sold over a million copies globally, and he's like a real expert on systems and habits in general. Uh, let me just grab it. I've been exploring the world of plant medicine for a long time. First did ayahuasca decades ago in Peru before it was cool with a shaman. Okay. I'm gonna— it's like an advertisement.

I don't know how, like, can you guys hear me?

Yep. I can't hear you guys. One of the companies I've been working with, uh, okay, uh, that's annoying that they have this advertisement. Uh, okay, well, I'm gonna skip that, uh, and show something else.

Um, here we go. I can put in the, um in the minutes too.

Maybe if someone wants to grab this link, and maybe if someone can play this link to get it to the 33-minute mark, and then set it up so that we can play it, that'd be awesome in a second.

Where is the chat? It's open.

Oh, here we go.

Would someone mind trying to like cue this up at the 33-minute mark? And then this is another point about why systems are really good. Don't set goals, set systems. It's a quick video.

Goal setting is fascinating because it's sort of a broken process. Process in many respects. This is the way a goal works. You say to yourself, "When I achieve whatever the thing is, that's how I'll know I'll have succeeded and I'm going to do everything I can to get to that point as quickly as possible." What that means is you exist in a failure state for a long time until you reach that goal if it's a long-range goal. And so as you evaluate your process, all you get is the negative feedback of not having achieved that goal. Perhaps as you move closer to it, there's some positive feedback. But if the goal is really the end state that you're seeking out, there's a lot of failure before you get there. And now here's the thing: when you do get there, it's a massive anticlimax. So there are people who achieve the highest highs, people who achieve the highest highs in athletics, in business, and if you talk to them and you describe— you ask them to describe what it's like to reach their goals, they say things like, I got there and it was an incredible anticlimax. I— the minute I I got there, I had to start something new. I had to find a new goal. And that's partly because there's something really unsatisfying about the moment of reaching the goal, unless it has its own benefits that come from reaching the goal. If it's just a sort of signpost, that doesn't do much for us. It doesn't nourish us psychologically. And what that ends up meaning is that we have to try and find something new. So really, if you look at life as a series of goals, which for many of us it is, it's a period of being unsuccessful in achieving the goal, then hitting the goal, then feeling like you haven't really got much from that goal, going to the next one. And it's a sort of series of escalating goals. A really good example of this is, say, smartwatches or Fitbits or exercise watches. People, when they get those watches, a lot of them hit on the number 10,000. I want to walk 10,000 steps. When you do that, the thing will beep. You'll feel pretty good about it for a minute, but then that feels a little hollow. And the goal escalates over time. People will describe going from 10,000 to 11,000 to 12,000 to 14,000 steps to the point where they're moving through injuries, through stress-related injuries because the goal is there. They respond to the goal more than they do to their internal cues. And basically, there's something really unfulfilling about that. The reason the goal keeps escalating and becoming more and more intense is because when they achieve the goal, they don't actually get anything for that achievement. And so, goals generally, I think, are in many ways broken processes. I think part of the problem with goals is that they don't tell you how to get to where you're going. A better thing to do is to use a system. So the idea behind a system rather than a goal is that a system is saying things like, I'm a writer, my goal is to finish writing this book, but I'm not going to think about it that way. Eventually, I'll have 100,000 words, but what my system will be that for an hour every morning, I will sit in front of my computer screen and I will type. It doesn't matter what that looks like. I'm not going to evaluate the number of words. I'm not going to set some benchmark, some artificial number or benchmark that I should reach. What I'm going to do is just say, here's my system, an hour a day in front of the screen, we'll do what I can, bam. And the thing is, every time you set a system and you stick to it, you're achieving something. Instead of a goal that you're failing essentially for long periods of time until you reach the goal, you're succeeding every day as long as you adhere to your system. And you end up getting to the same place, but that first framing is so much more effective. It gives you the kind of positive feedback you seek, and a system is, is kind of geared towards psychological well-being. This is the thing I need to do to feel good about the way I'm moving through the world towards whatever end state I'm looking for. Goals don't do that. They just set signposts that you're supposed to look at from afar and move towards. Systems are a much more useful way of engaging with the world towards certain ends and certain outcomes.

So that, to some degree, like high level explains what, one of the ideas behind the systems goals comparison. The other point that I wanted to mention in that video that, or in that audio clip that I wanted to share, I don't know if anyone got a chance to queue it up, but is that author mentioned, he basically says like, if you try to work towards a goal, You might be successful in achieving that one goal this one time, but if you focus on a system and you, you use that system, anytime you're trying to tackle any problem, then you'll be successful almost every time you want to achieve whatever the goal or target you're working on. So you said that a little bit more eloquently than I did, but that's basically the premise of that audio clip I wanted to share. Uh, Okay, and then he also— I grabbed this from one of his blog posts. I'll just read this. Um, he says, every Olympian, every Olympian wants to win a gold medal. That's their goal, right? Every candidate wants to get the job. If successful, unsuccessful people share the same goals, then the goal cannot be what differentiates the winners from the losers. It was the goal for winning the Tour de France that propelled the British cyclist to the top of the sport. Presumably they wanted to win the race every year before, just like every other professional team. The goal has, had always been there. It was only when they implemented a system of continuous small improvements that they achieved a different outcome. And there's like quite a story, like the British cyclists, I think for like 20 years, they couldn't win. They never won the Tour de France or something like that. Like even longer, maybe. And then finally, like, they got a coach to basically focus on a system versus just focusing on the goal, like a system of like continuously improving. So that's sort of the mindset I'm getting at is like, how can we as a team be very focused on just having a system that we can continuously be successful at even the smallest of tasks and making wise decisions? Did anyone get a chance to queue up the audio or no? No, I'm just like putting it out there.

I did. We can try it. It was coming out of my computer speakers. Yeah, let me try. Let me try playing and see if it'll— Can you hear it? No.

Can you hear that? When you share your screen, you have like an advanced sharing option with audio.

Maybe if you share it. Oh, okay.

Let me try that. Yeah.

I'll stop sharing for a second, then you can try. Just, yeah, let's see what happens. No, nothing. Okay, hold on. I got some— buttons here. You said, is that in more?

Let me see.

It's not hugely important, but audio settings.

Okay.

Oh good, let's, let's not stress about it. It basically, like I said, he, he just talks about how the, the difference— hopefully that's clear— like the difference between like a goal and a system and why that potentially is valuable. I'll go back to sharing my screen.

Yeah, you want to go? I can leave, um, we can—

I can totally send the link and you guys can check it out.

Um, I'll leave it in the minutes. Yeah, sure. Yeah, cool.

So that's sort of the difference. That's the sort of the— so why like I think this is important. And so, uh, and then lastly, lastly, you mentioned also if you're a coach, your goal might be to win a championship. Your system is the way you recruit players, manage, uh, your assistant coaches, and conduct practice. So this is just like an example of like a system versus a goal. I hope that's, hope that's clear. So I, I did a fair amount of research on trying to find like good systems that orgs put into play. And I found a few things, but I didn't find like too many things that felt like super perfectly applicable. So I kind of like molded something into like our, what potentially could be our own system. And this is, this is just like a proposal. I'd love us to give it a shot. And I kind of did it. I kind of did it with this project itself. I was like, okay, how do I, what about if I just implement it in this way? So first I said, hey, I used to like, this is coming from a takeoff of Simon Sinek's presentation on Start with Why. So I started with why I wanted to present to you, everyone on the team, why I think a system versus a goal is important, so everyone understands the importance of what we're discussing. Hopefully, hopefully I did a good enough job where you guys understand why a system could be really, really valuable for us. Then I focus on teach everyone how to execute that project, or how to write a good mission statement, or how to do a business model canvas— I wrote that backwards— or how to do a good visibility study. Like, that's how we could execute it. Like, first start with why, like why we're doing it, so everyone understands the importance, the value of it, right? Then she showed them how they could execute on any of these projects that we're doing, right? And give them the system, the tools to do it well. And then the what is our finished product, what does like the finished product look like, and so forth. And then this is the last part beyond, you know, even Simon Sinek's model is like tools for measurement. You know, Erica even talked about this last week, have some comparisons, good and bad examples to compare against so that we know like if we produce a business model canvas or we produce a feasibility study, it like, this is how it compares against some good examples of it. Or metrics or rule of thumb, like we can learn from or use as examples, like, you know, this mission statement is considered really, really good by lots of marketing experts. And like, you know, maybe we compare that, or maybe it's like a number comparison. That's actually a better way to put it. Like, and maybe it's like, yeah, that's a better way. Like some sort of project that has like a number or like a score or something like that. We can we can score it against it and compare the score against it. And then lastly, another way, a tool to measurement, is asking professionals or experts for feedback. So, you know, like I mentioned, for the business model canvas or the feasibility study, I've like been talking to the ICA group and like, um, matter of fact, even today David was like, hey, if you want to show me where you guys have gone with the business model canvas so that I can give you guys input or feedback on it, I'd be happy to. And so he's, he's somebody who has some expertise on this. Even you, Brad, like maybe presenting the, like the finished business model canvas to, to your old colleague, if you haven't touched, like maybe that'd be a good way for us to decide. And so this would be our potential system. Start with why, you know, to explain to the team, like any project we're taking on, like, it doesn't have to be super intense. It's like, The quick why, like why is this important? Like why should we care about it? Then explain how do we actually do this well as a team? And then lastly, talk like having a clear output that we're gonna, that we're gonna, you know, come with at the end of the day. And then thinking about how do we measure if we did a good job? And that's it. That was basically the presentation. Of like our potential system, uh, open to feedback and input from the team. Like, does this make sense? Is it, you know, could be— do you guys like it or don't like it? Uh, and then assuming if you do like it, um, you know, we could always just test it with like one or two projects coming up and, and see, give it a go in case, you know, you like it.

So basically you're saying that our— one of our systems would be to like when we want to tackle some research or any homework you can say, you kind of do what you did at the end of this presentation, like answer those questions and then consult experts or find stories of failure or success and all this?

Well, I think like a really concrete example would be like if we, if we, I mean, um, like we're going to tackle the feasibility study like pretty soon, so, or relatively soon in the next couple weeks or so. So just like to get the, like, someone's probably gonna take a lead on sort of getting us started with it, just kind of like we did the business model canvas. So whoever that person is, or two people are, they can first like get to get everybody on the team on the same page, explain the why. Okay, why is this feasibility study important? Then they like explain to us the steps of how to like execute a feasibility study in a thoughtful way so that we all understand the process of like doing it and like, um, and like what like a finished feasibility study generally looks like. So we are good This is what it looks like at the end, so we have a general idea, and then we work towards creating that product. Then once it's done, once we like, or sort of done, like maybe our first draft is done, we can measure the results of that finished product against good ones, or we bring it to experts who've done feasibility studies. Maybe we talk to other cooperatives or whatever, so we have a gauge if like the final product that we produce is close to what we would like or we think is a good product that we can take and use for the, what we call, like a deck or a business plan. So that would be the process. That's just like one example, but maybe there's other projects that we take on and we would go through that same step process. Explain the why, show us the how, how do we execute against it, have a finished product, and that finished product comparing against good and bad examples.

So these are like different filters that every—

like filters might be one way to think about it. It's just like, it's literally like I said, like a system. This is the system so that we all can make good decisions. It will help us lead to making really solid decisions about any piece of the business.

Yeah, I think it's good. I think it makes sense.

Yeah, for me also, it totally makes sense. It's almost like what we do every day is we want to make like a thoughtful decision. Even something simple. If I want to, I don't know, take a yoga class, right? You just don't go without asking yourself, why do I want to go there? Just to go there? Or— so usually it will be— some people do that, but if you want to— of course, people mindlessly follow something, but if we, uh, or, or different decision would be like, oh, buying. Why? Often people don't ask themselves why, this question why, so they just buy and buy and buy and then create, you know, and they have lots of stuff because they didn't ask themselves why. So for me, it's almost like a basic 3 questions we ask ourselves without even acknowledging it, you know, to make a good decision from small things to big. I feel like you just broke down the process of decision-making that we do every day. I mean, or at least, you know, we try.

Yeah, I think so. I just wanted to systematize it, right? Because then, then if we like— if, if people liked it, we liked it as a team, we can put into place. And then anytime we have a project, whoever brings that project to a place, whether it's a feasibility study, whether it's a mission statement, whether it's whatever it is, like maybe it's new technology, like, you know, Brian and Russell might present to us so that we all get to a certain place where like, okay, like, hey, this is the the tech meeting, you're about approaching it this way, XYZ, and they can present it in a way so we can all have somewhat thoughtful opinions on it, a thoughtful opinion on or perspective on it.

So it's kind of like a system to cover your bases so that when we come to present, we, we have the information that we kind of expect the team. Okay.

Sounds good.

So we avoid kind of like circling around, I think. So we have it already all like right there.

Yeah, I think— I hope it would help us be like a little bit more streamlined. And once again, just hopefully, I believe it'll help us all get to a level where we can make a bit more thoughtful decisions and thoughts bring more thoughtful input to whatever the proposal or idea is that comes to play. It might be somebody who does a little bit more research or like, Brad knows a decent amount about business model canvas. So he explained the why of the business model canvas. He even showed us how to fill one out and showed us some examples. I think all of us got to a little bit better place. And now even then though, we've asked for more material so that we could be more insightful, right? So that allows for us to be able to fill out the canvas more thoughtfully. But I think Brad explained the importance to us so we understood why we were doing it in the first place. So it's kind of just like systematizing some of this stuff.

It's also, I feel like this is good if two people or more are working on the same thing, this kind of like makes it easy to divide the work. Like, oh, I'll talk to experts and I'll do a research like good and bad examples, or, and then you like, you make sure, like as you said, as Russell said, that you have this information required when you present it to the team.

And then let's say someone would have a question, like one person presenting, then someone else would have a question, so that the first person would already have an answer. Now they will be, "Oh, you are right, let me research this again." So I think it would be already like all present.

I would like to say though that— oh, sorry, Ulla.

No, it's okay, I finished.

Okay, I would like to say that sometimes there might not be an expert, or there might not be— like, we might not be able to hit all the bullets on every proposal, but I think if you— if we try to go through the system, I think that'll be helpful.

Oh yeah, the point of clarification on the tools of measurement— yeah, you don't have to have all those. It was just like, we can pick 1 or 2, or 2 of 3, or whatever it is. We just— we should have some way to gauge if we've done it correctly, whether it be an expert, whether it be a comparison, whether it be some metric that we find or we create for ourselves. So it doesn't have to be all three. It can just be like one of three or two or three.

Russell, were you thinking of a specific one that you thought there would— I guess I would expect there to always be some professional, not that I— I guess I can't think of a situation where they wouldn't be.

I think a lot of times professionals are biased to using a hammer because they know how to use a hammer, right? They might be thinking too much in the box or whatever.

Jennifer, Adam, any inputs on the system that I presented? You want me to go back to the drawing board and think about anything else, or can we experiment with like this going forward? I don't know, but your thoughts.

Yeah, I think your whole point is you want to work more purposefully, which is— I totally get Ulla's yoga class. Analogy, because it's like, um, I see that in some hobbies that I'm in, and it's like if you go through the motions, you don't get better. So, so yeah, I'm right for that. Absolutely. Oh, by the way, while I'm speaking and I have attention, um, sorry I'm late. I, uh, uh, I thought I was early. It was— I totally blanked. I was sitting in front of my computer for like an hour and I just randomly clipped the Zoom link. I was like, oh, I guess the meeting's going on. So whoops, I've been traveling and I'm also not very bright. So yeah, apologies for that. And yeah, wait, what'd you say?

Sorry, he's just teasing.

Daylight savings change.

So just like, yeah, yeah, this, this, the sun usually hits my wall like around like 5:30, but now it's shifted. So yeah, it's, it's tricky. But anyway, apologies. Um, but yeah, um, I do like the, uh, anytime we could add numbers to stuff, I like it.

So yeah, I think it's like the purposeful part definitely there. And it just like, once again, just I, I I, I, maybe this is like a little fact in that, you know, what's his name in that audio clip. If you guys— I'll send you guys a link after or put in the chat. If you could just like take literally maybe 2 minutes, 3 minutes, just listen to this little clip that he says. It's like super powerful. He basically says, like, it, it, I think this system will allow us, like, without even thinking, you just do the system, I think we will all be able to make better decisions. It's It's like kind of like leaning on the power of all of us, like diverse thought, thinking about a problem versus like if, like Russell goes and solves something, he might forget like one angle. And I think this system, when we utilize it, we will avoid making, avoid any blind spots and we'll like make more smart decisions. And that's what I'm trying to, I really beyond, yeah, I think beyond just the, the point of being more mindful, but also being— just having a system to— we avoid blind spots. Jennifer, Jennifer, do you have anything you want to add? Oh no, it sounds good.

I like, I like your thinking on that.

Cool. I think it would make our life easy.

Cool. Yeah, yeah, I just want to be full-time. Yeah.

So how much research— so One last question. What, during your research, did they talk about how, how to, if you should like use it to like, should we, I guess like the next step is, should we create like a PowerPoint template that has these already, these questions already in it, or should we like have like, I was gonna, how systematized should we get?

I was gonna volunteer to create something on Miro, maybe like a frame. That kind of like we could— maybe Vivek, we can do this together. Like what you explained in the presentation, make— turn into like a Miro frame. Maybe we find a template that can match this or we create our own template and then people have the option to use it if they want to. Perfect.

Yeah, I love it. I think that's—

no, I think I like us I mean, if people could, you know, maybe for any given presentation, people could just take it and it'll all look the same, which is nice. And we also, we want to start developing our graphics too. So that might be a good first place to start doing that.

I think that's awesome.

Yeah.

So we're a little, yeah, we're a little behind.

So in the meantime, actually, you've been very cool for edit. Yeah, I don't know if we'll get to it. Which, you know, this is very quick one, but so that's great. So everybody agrees, you guys. So action item is Erika and Vivek create a new frame for the decision-making system. Right. Next. Okay, Adam, you are next. You are just in time. Oh no, meeting time. Ah, meeting time. Yeah, sorry.

Yeah, so I'm gonna try to keep this quick. Um, so just a quick request, uh, question. It's a request to question. So, uh, I think everyone knows, so Ulla and I are currently in Portugal. Also, Ani is here. Um, and, um, you know, Ani, Ani, we talked to Ani before we came out here and she would like to be part of the meetings, but it's really too late for her in Portugal time. And me and Ulla, when we came out here, when we decided to come out here, we agreed like we were gonna make the meeting time no matter what, like we were gonna definitely do it. We're super awake. We're gonna somehow do it, like we're gonna figure it out like while we're here. But Ani has like, you know, other things that she's doing, but I love for her to be involved and I think I think you guys all saw that she definitely adds some value to the team and to the project, but, you know, just with her schedule, it's tough. But she, she said if like, if there was a way we could move up the meeting time in some way, somehow, uh, you know, it to where it would fit like achievable, like a more like reasonable hour in her day, she would, uh, she would definitely join. Um, you know, just as we would just figure that out and But I don't know if that's like feasible with people's schedules. I know people have, you know, busy schedules. Maybe the night is just really the only time possible. And that's, that's fine if that's what everyone votes on. But I want to just put this out there and see if there is any other times, like, you know, could we do it early in the morning or is that not possible? Is there like time during day that maybe we could consider? I don't want to add a ton of confusion, but I just wanted to see if this was even something the team had any appetite for. And if there's not, then it is what it is. Annie will try to figure out how she can be involved.

Otherwise, maybe you can remember you made that calendar in the beginning where we click on times that would be doable to us. Maybe you can do that again and we can reconsider.

Okay. Is it— is there even appetite? I mean, because it sounds like Eric has an appetite for it. Is, is, you know, Jennifer, uh, Russell, Adam, are you Is there any appetite for— I'm not trying to force this. I'm just like, I just would love to figure out a way to, you know, keep her continuing to be engaged.

I would love for Annie to be able to join us. If we can work that out.

Other guys? To be honest, Adam, Russell, I saw Brad, you gave a thumbs up, but Adam, Russell, is there appetite? And you're in a— I don't want to I'm not trying to post anything.

Yeah, no, no blocker here. It's just making sure that I can still make it, hopefully. So if we start picking, like, if we try to find like 2 or 3, uh, time slots and then try to see if we can all do it, like, that barely be the, the way to go.

Yeah, the goal isn't not to like swap Ani in for anybody else. Like, that, that, that would be like not the right initiative, right? Ideally, like, in the ideal world, like, what I'm hoping is like there's actually a good time for everyone here and Ani, and that, that's, that's the— and I, I don't know if there is, but I figured I'd bring it up and see if there was an opportunity.

Yep. So I guess I— what I was just saying was like, if we can get some times, we can figure out if we can fit everybody.

But that's the item. I'll put that together, and— or I'll put that together. Maybe I'll give it to you.

Yeah, right. Let's write one. Um, we, everybody should have time to think about it and see their schedule. And okay, so now Adam, coming back to our favorite topic, vision, or it's pushed again. Aha. The, the mission voting.

Yeah. Yeah. The vision voting.

I mean, I don't know if results or secondary, third. Yep, Adam wants to take over.

Yeah, let's—

sure, let's talk about it. Why not? It's, uh, what, 5 weeks in a row now, something like that. Um, should we just look at Miro at the, uh, at the board?

Do they all get tallied? Somebody, uh, okay. Yeah.

Um, I'll— I guess I'll do it. Um, Yeah, all right. So yeah, thanks to anyone who made comments on the left here. That's great. I don't have a lot more to say that we haven't said in the past, but there's one— this one was clearly ahead in terms of votes. So yeah, I really— if I leave it to the crowd, if you guys have any comments on your thoughts on this process, it clearly didn't go smoothly. How we could possibly do better in the future, if that kind of thing.

Yeah, anyone want to talk about it? Well, we definitely got closer to consensus Right. I mean, that's just 3 people who was the top one, one person who was their second. So, I mean, I think that's something, right? Yeah. I guess not like a consensus consensus where like everyone wasn't their first one, but right. It's a little more clear, right? There was last time there was a couple in the 20s. Now there's one, there's 35 and the next one's 18. Uh, correct. Yeah. 2 ratings.

I would like to also say something for this and for the future ones. So when we have to do something like that, I would like to propose like, uh, like 2 stages voting or 3. For example, like now we finally reach something and we would pick either 3 or 4, the best ones, and we will do the second voting. You know, to pick already from the best ones something, because to be honest, like I had, I would like, I was torn apart because each of them was not perfect, but they had like half that I really liked. So maybe I would see that in the next one. So I would like to propose something like this, like pick few, I don't know. 3, 4, the best ones, and do the last voting.

Do you think the Fibonacci sequence was not— didn't weight it correctly? Like, we were, you know, everyone kind of did pick like their first, second, third, fourth, fourth and fifth, right?

I should—

speaking to this point, I like— actually, I've been thinking what something— what she just said, and what you said also, Brad, about consensus. And I think so, for a couple reasons. I think this mission statement is tricky. I mainly blame myself, like, or partly blame myself, like, I know I've been a little bit of a wrench on this. And I actually thought about it a lot, like, why? And I think part of the issue is, and is like, this doesn't— the voting process in some ways is not really consensus. And it's like more kind of like falls into majority rules. And so I have been thinking about that a lot like last week. And to a little bit to Ulla's point, I was thinking like maybe what we should do is try to like pick the, like maybe the top 3 or 5 scores, present it, and then those who are like most passionate talk about why they're most passionate about that particular one. Particular statement, and those who, who feel like it's missing something, we can talk about that. And then we can try to like literally massage it so that we are more thoughtful about including— if we agree, like, maybe like one of the statements is missing an essence that we all agree about, right? Like maybe it's— and then we can try to incorporate that essence that brings up, and then we can potentially work more closely to consensus. Literally, I have a—

I don't know, this is an idea, just a thought. If— what if we went to Slack and started a channel for this and just posted the ones and thumbs up, put a thumbs up on the ones that you like, and then the ones that have the most thumbs up, or the ones that have all of us thumbs up. Finally, maybe we'll get one that has— we can just keep trying variations until we get one that has everyone's buy-in, right?

And not come back to this again on the meeting, but you know, because it's kind of like—

I like that we could kind of progress with this on the Slack, and eventually when we I did want to say that like, while it is majority rules, it also kind of is consensus because we still have to get everyone to agree, right? So if we went to a vote and we didn't get one, we got one person to say no, absolutely not, we can't move forward, then we couldn't move forward. So it is consensus still. Um, that being said, like, um, I kind of liked what Calvin kind of proposed last week, which was, could this be our tentative— could this be our tentative, uh, mission statement while we're in steering committee? And then later on we can, we can do a, do another, uh, attempt at it later on when we become the real thing.

Um, I personally would like to do what Jennifer and Ulla propose like together to choose the top 5 or something and then have a conversation on Slack like analyzing each, each one. Yeah, because I think it's like, I don't know if you read what I, what I share on Slack, but like if we get this right, it's gonna save us other decisions later. I think it's very important. To get it not perfect, but close to like what everyone agrees on. Like, I don't like agreeing, for instance, like I would block the one that's winner. No, sorry.

Even for just the steering committee as a tentative thing?

Yeah, like I, Yeah, I would like to do what they say, like say, okay, this one is good. We have 5 because now there are so many, it's hard to go through all the options. We have 5. This one has this but doesn't have that. But what about this one? What if we do boom? And we can do it on Slack easily because we can read on our own and we can, yeah, like maybe share some research and Yeah, just combine.

Maybe we can combine because like half of us prefers, let's say, number 1 and the second half number 2. Maybe there's a way to combine them together and then everybody will be happy.

Yeah, I mean, that's basically what I was trying to say is like, I think that way you're, you're, yeah, you're just doing it to be a Slack and I'm kind of fine with that. You know, that way, because, you know, the number one to me, like, for example, is missing some things or limiting some things. I forgot, I have to reread it, but I think it was missing some stuff. So I feel like if we were able to, yeah, either redo it through Slack or like a live, you know, live conversation, I think we would get, you know, closer to that, a mission statement you really feel proud of. I hear your point, Russell, too. I could all— if it went to vote today, my vote would be the same, or I would be— I would say I would agree, but I would say revisit when we have a marketing committee. That would be my point. So like, Like, no, with the knowledge, with the knowledge that, like, we would come back to this. So, but I think I like the way we could potentially do it through Slack.

I'm sorry to interrupt, we just crossed our time. I just want to make sure that everybody's okay staying a little longer, a few minutes.

Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, I would definitely, I mean, I would go for, uh, taking this to Slack, having more discussion. And going with the top 5. I like that idea too.

Okay, Adam?

Um, sure, yeah.

I feel bad for Adam.

Adam's like, oh my god.

I'll be real with you, like, I've spent, like, I just feel like I'm wasting my time, um, a little bit. Um, it's like, uh, I know, like, the massive hurdles ahead of us And it just feels like I'd like to focus on some stuff where I actually could add value to the, to the group. So I look forward to that, probably when the feasibility study starts happening. So however you want to resolve this, cool with me. So yeah, let's just keep moving forward.

All right, thank you, Adam. You You came in a little late. Did you get the plan? So the new plan about business model canvas, we're going to focus on it next week, the whole next meeting.

Oh no, but it sounds good to me.

I just remembered that we had this whole discussion about— We don't have a video to watch.

Yeah. Okay. But we were going to do—

finish the business model canvas and then talk about feasibility studies and stuff like that. After that. Okay, so it is coming. Don't feel, you know, it's not too far.

I'll wait for it. Looking forward.

Yeah, and to that point, I, you know, I talked to David today, David Hammer, and he, and he, uh, he said we're making good progress. He's— everyone that I see, it's like, I know while we're in the weeds of it, it feels like we're not moving fast enough, but everyone there is like super impressed by the speed of which we're working. And, um, we even talked about the feasibility study stuff. Or actually, I have a call with a particular business analyst there on Friday. If anyone wants to join, I'll actually, I'll send you guys the details, timing, and any of you guys are welcome. It's on Friday at 2 PM. So we'll, I'm already thinking ahead. I was trying to get ahead of the game so that we can tackle it swiftly as well. Okay.

So I'm going to add to action items that we will move all this discussion into Slack. Um, does someone want to volunteer for this, or Adam wants to continue?

Um, I'd be, I'd be happy to do whatever.

Either way, Jennifer, you want to take the lead? You're the one who proposed it. Maybe I'll do it if Adam's tired of messing with it.

So I'll take it if Adam's tired of it.

I'm going to put it up for action like that.

Adam, unless you really want to continue owning it, but—

No, let's just go back and forth. It's okay.

Well, we all own it. Like, we're at the point where we all are owning it, and we've decided to just not do it, like, not decide to sign is what I've gotten to. To the point of, like, as a team we've decided, like, we're not going to make a decision. So, but yeah, I think, I think having another set of hands, uh, pick up, pick up the work, I think is gonna be good for us. And potentially moving it out of Miro is a good idea as well, um, if, if it'll enable the discussion and collaboration.

So it will not grow eternally.

Yeah, I'm not sure. Miro doesn't seem to be very good with discussion. Like, I had trouble like clicking through all the comments and going in and out of them. So Slack could be a better place to do that kind of the discussion part of this. Another benefit.

That's great. Alright, and our last point I think for today, mirror training.

Yeah, just a quick one. I just wanted to get a gauge, like how did we think about that process of mirror training? Do we think that was good? Like, do we— yeah, is there any feedback or anything on that? I thought, yeah, I'm just kind of curious for future, future, like, tools and things like we learned. Do we like that process and do we want to like more of that? Or maybe we would even think about doing that for like Slack or something.

Did you like the video or would you like us to teach more?

Yeah, I thought the video was good. I was hoping you guys would put it online somewhere instead of it just being like hidden in our thing. Like, could it, could it go on a YouTube channel? Or I don't know if you guys are receptive to that, but it seemed like a good video.

Is it on YouTube or was it just in Miro?

I thought you— I thought it was just Miro.

Where did I see it? Just on Miro? Yeah. Oh, it was just on Drive. Okay, right.

Yeah, do you want to— you would like us to make it public or something?

Well, yeah, I mean, a lot of our work, if we do it publicly, um, I think it'll just keep adding to our brand, and you guys did a great job.

So that's true. Okay, you can also— I mean, like, temp— you can make— you can upload things to YouTube and, um, you get a link, and then the only people who can see it are people with that link, if you want to start there. We don't want to make it public.

Sponsor our project. That's really what we need.

Make them a part. It's really up to Ulla and Erika if they're comfortable with being on YouTube or wherever you post it publicly. But yeah. I don't mind.

Ulla?

Cool, okay, we can do one.

Yeah, we just think maybe where, but yeah, the same channel, but we can think about it. Yeah, but would you like us to create more videos, so like this educational videos in the future, or are you— I think it's up to you.

If you, if you enjoy doing the video, I think you should. If you, if that's, if it gives you you joy, sparks joy, I think you should do it.

I guess also the other question would be like, did you guys all feel pretty comfortable with Miro now, or is there any other questions for the two ladies to perhaps help you guys use it better?

I feel pretty comfortable. I think practicing the little box over there was more helpful than the video. I'm not saying the video was not helpful because I think it was good to start with. But I think if there was one thing to do that we were going to— if we had to pick one, I would say have a tutorial somebody went through or worked through, if that makes sense.

Got it.

Yeah, because I feel like these trainings were helpful. If we're going to— Miro's seeming like it's shaping up to be our main hub or tool. So just that we're all feeling pretty confident how the tool works, it will really help us in general, our general productivity as a team. So I thought it was really handy.

Yeah.

I mean, there is much more to, even though maybe you feel comfortable, but there's, I think, so many more components, tools that we can still learn. Okay, well, okay, so we will think what to do next, Erica and me.

Maybe we can just like, we can have a talk, you and me can get together and say, oh look, this looks interesting, let's share with the group. Yeah, like make a video or another, yeah. Guys, I'm gonna have to go soon.

Yeah, I'm sorry, we're also gonna fade. Sorry, are you tuning off already, or— no, I have like 5 minutes. Yes, so let's just wrap it up and say quickly how everybody feels. How did the meeting go? And we finish. Okay, I start. I think it was good. Just got blind right now what to say. I think it was fine, especially it's 2 AM here. We are live. I'm glad we did it. And yeah, great to see everybody. Great teamwork and yep, moving forward. You too, Russell.

Thanks. Yeah, I thought this was a good meeting. It was long having Calvin here and then Adam here. It's just like, I don't know, it felt like two meetings back to back just because I don't know, it just felt different. So it was great though, but I'm tired. I think the two-hour meetings are getting to me. I think if we were going to do— we're going to switch the time. I think if we had like 1 hour all hands, I think that's probably better. And then we can have smaller meetings. Like me and Calvin met twice or 3 times last week, um, really briefly, but, um, and spontaneously. But, um, yeah, it starts to— I'm— it's starting to eat into my time a lot more than I thought it would. And so, but, and like just how long this meeting is, I know we, we We try to cover so much, but I don't know, just food for thought. Nothing, nothing there.

But I'll kick it over to Brad. Yeah. Yeah, I think the— I mean, I think the work you did, Russell, with Calvin was really good. And I think it kind of gets to the stuff that I think is really difficult to— I think the problem with Business Model Canvas is that is when people keep it very kind of vague and they're like, well, my customers are everybody and our value proposition is this and partners are people, you know, partners are companies that provide the value proposition for us. And, you know, it's like they keep it very vague and I think you guys dived into it really well. So it was good. And I think it's like a framework that I think we can use or like a system we can use for the rest of the blocks too. Possibly. So that was really good to see. I think it was good to see us pivot a little bit on how we get through the business model canvas. I think that was good to see that, like, everyone kind of come together and say, okay, let's adjust the plan a little bit. So yeah, that was good too. Let's go, um, Adam.

What are your thoughts? Great meeting. I think it's really important that we all show up on time. So, um, honestly, I do get annoyed by that. So, um, whoops. Um, but, um, yeah, now that I'm through the, uh, mission stuff, Brad, I actually— I might follow up with you after the meeting, um, see if I could give you a hand, um, to just fill my 5 hours for the week. So I'll contact you directly. Russell, I think you're on to something in these 2-hour meetings, especially towards the end. It's like, I, after, you know, a full day of work, it's tough. So maybe little things like being strict about ending on time would be great. Or like, yeah, maybe, and I think as we evolve, we'll subspecialize a lot more more, so maybe the full group meeting won't be 2 hours and you might have little committees that meet more regularly. So I think it can evolve and all that, but yeah, good to see everyone.

Oh, Vivek, how was the move? Oh, cool, cool.

I'm gonna throw it to Erica because I know she actually had a jump off, so I don't want to, but I'll speak up after. Good point, good point. I'm not going to stay too late unless you need to jump off.

Thank you. I like that we are like learning how to work together and like figure out systems, and I like that we are going to try to have a discussion, formal discussion on Slack, because that can save us meeting times. Like we're not going to go go over the mission again in the meetings until maybe we present the final product, or like, but we— I think it's important that this week we actually— the people that want to still work on the mission statement committee to like have a discussion on Slack, follow up on that discussion, so we can shorten our meetings because it seems that it will benefit everybody if we could do that. That's all I have to say, and thank you everybody. It was nice seeing you, and see you next week. Bye.

Um, I, uh, I thought this meeting was good. Um, as usual, I'm always happy, but, um, uh, I, I definitely hear you guys on the, on the 2-hour meetings, and, and I mean, as you guys can tell, we, we go over I think it's because we're trying to jam a lot into 2 hours, so I've been really like mulling in my own head, like how do we, how do we do this better? I don't know, I don't know the system yet, but maybe, maybe this is something, you know, Russell and Adam want to jam together on and think about an alternative, but if not, we don't need to do it now, but this is like something I've been also thinking about, like how do you, how do you get so much done and make sure that we're continuing to participate. Um, but anyway, getting to the, the original point of the question is, yeah, I was really happy and, uh, I'm glad people were receptive to the system idea that I proposed and decided to experiment with it. Um, I also, like, I was excited about the decision to dedicate the next meeting to the business model canvas. I think we're going to chug through a lot of it, uh, and especially with Brad sending out some material to prep for also. I think once that's done, we'll be in a great place to review with ICA and then, and then do the feasibility stuff. So I think we're gonna, we're gonna, we're moving quick, so I'm good. Jennifer?

I thought it was a good meeting. I enjoyed the brainstorming, and I think I agree with the shorter meetings. And I think Ani said that she thought a shorter meeting might be good too.

All right, thank you so much everyone. Thank you for participating, your hard work, uh, your energy. And, um, I will send the follow-up email with action items. You can also find it from here.

And yeah, oh, and whoever's, um, you know, facilitator next week, just— I would quickly glance at the—

what you need to remember.

But, aha, right, I wanted to just, um, yeah, whoever is the facilitator, yeah, if you can check on the Miro also, like, what do you need to do, uh, yeah, before meeting, during the meeting, and after. I think, like, Erika summarized it very well.

Okay, guys, see you soon. Take care. Ciao. Enjoy Portugal.

Thank you. See you.