Financial health and well being is currently a hot topic. Both profits and non-profits are asking employees about their financial health and seeking solutions to help people combat abysmal consumer saving rates and burdensome debt.
Design Thinking + Rapid Prototyping = Real Impact!
I spent the last three days combining human centered design and rapid prototyping developing financial products to address individuals with fluctuating incomes. Some people refer to that as income volatility, but when it is your daily life it is more aptly described as "I don't have a steady paycheck."
The Propeller Has A Pilot!
OAKLAND, Feb. 7, 2017 -- Social Impact Ventures is proud to announce that it has chosen Hermes Homecare to pilot its Propeller program. Hermes is poised to take full advantage of the training, mentoring and networking that Social Impact Ventures provides.
"I’m thrilled to be the first company and a part of the Propeller pilot", said Iyanna Parler, Founder & Chief Care Officer of Hermes. "I feel that Social Impact Ventures investment validates me and my business and I want to take advantage of this opportunity to help us grow."
Social Impact Ventures will make an investment into Hermes and take an active management role in the company’s development providing support along with access to its network. Social Impact Ventures support includes – hands-on strategic and operational support, sales & marketing training, introductions to potential customers, and connections with industry mentors. Social Impact Ventures will give Hermes the tools to move from idea to a growing company.
About Hermes Homecare
Headquartered in Oakland, CA, Hermes Homecare provides affordable, safe, flexible in-home care for your loved ones in home or by phone.
About Social Impact Ventures
Social Impact Ventures applies operational knowledge and skills to develop business and revenue models we think have potential to maximize invested capital and social impact. We seed these ventures with a mix of our own capital and crowdfunding.
It's the 4th Quarter!
A mid-year update.
My how time flies! It has been six months since my last “official” post announcing our new business model. Well, we successfully launched our crowdfunding platform and inaugural campaign. However, our second campaign was less than successful. Upon reflection, we realized that in using crowdfunding as a proxy to determine a venture’s worth we (Social Impact Ventures) need to play a more active role in the companies utilizing our platform and support them in campaign development and marketing. We mistakenly assumed that a company coming to us would be prepared in to do both. We are now preparing for our third campaign and already making sure to be more involved. Stay tuned for the campaign’s outcome.
From a revenue perspective, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Or, to be specific, interim consulting roles continue to be the primary revenue generator for Social Impact Ventures and the roles continue to inform and influence our future direction. Our current client is Oakland-based ICA Fund Good Jobs where we are working on several growth initiatives.
Last, but not least we have redesigned our website. Check it out, let me know what you think and of course send business our way!
Exploring the In-home Care Market
We are stepping into the home care arena by launching Hermes Homecare in conjunction with Iyanna Parler, an African-American entrepreneur.
Why the home care space? Well, to be blunt, it is broken.
Hermes Homecare is a result of Iyanna's personal experiences trying to take care of ailing loved ones. Along with family and friends she struggled to find, hire and manage in-home care for parents and grandparents. Iyanna even became a certified IHHS caregiver in order to care for and directly address the unsatisfactory caregiver situation.
In discussing the opportunity with Iyanna, we quickly realized families struggle to get good, consistent, qualified caregivers. Agencies are expensive and more concerned with meeting "minimums". Caregivers are underpaid and often not “matched” with their clients. All of these circumstances create a revolving door for those needing care.
Leveraging Iyanna's ten years of experience and many lessons learned, long with Social Impact Ventures operating experience, we are embarking on a mission to change the home care experience so that it is :
- Simple - An easy way to hire excellent, consistent, reliable, qualified caregivers.
- Safe - All of our caregivers undergo a background check and are personally vetted by me and my team.
- Flexible - Care needed on your schedule with no contracts or minimums.
- Pays a living wage - We pay at least $15 per hour to our caregivers because we value the care they provide to our loved ones.
We look forward to keeping you updated!
Playground - Laboratory - Sandbox
Playground? Laboratory? Sandbox? We're not sure, but this is the place we get to experiment, tinker and apply our operational knowledge and skills by designing, testing and incubating business and revenue models that we think have potential to catalyze change.
We are currently using our crowdfunding platform to test whether an idea has legs or not. Our first campaign was to fund a prize-based contest platform. We successfully funded the platform and preparing to launch our first contest. Stay tuned!