Week 1 · 26 October to 1 November
What do I already have that others would value?
Why we start here
My first clients wrote to me before I had a company, a website or anything official to show them. So I didn't start from a business plan. I started from what I already had, and this week you will do the same, on paper, with other people checking it.
Learning outcomes
Tap each one to rate yourself now. We ask again on Sunday.
Small print for the certificate: this week introduces and assesses Outcome 1 (assets and opportunities), and introduces Outcome 2 (problem discovery) and Outcome 8 (your identity as an educator-entrepreneur).
What we cover
Tap a lesson to open it. A flower turns orange when you have watered that lesson's seed.
Who you are, what you know, who you know.
Open lesson 1Consulting, courses, curriculum, products, edtech, community.
Open lesson 2Why it feels wrong, and why you have been doing it for years.
Open lesson 3Several seeds, never one, because your plant is not you.
Open lesson 4How to ask so that people tell you the truth.
Open lesson 5How the week runs
Your field quest
"What do you come to me for?"
With people who might have the problem you want to solve.
If you are building inside your school or institution, hold your four interviews with colleagues or leaders about a problem that keeps coming back.
What you will have made by Sunday
Both go into your portfolio and count toward your certificate.
Resources for this week
Hover over a book to see it. On your phone, tap it.
What you need
In the garden
Week 1 · Lesson 1 of 5
Who you are, what you know, who you know. Before you plan anything, you count what is already in your hands.
Learning outcomes
Rate yourself now. Come back at the end of the lesson and rate yourself again.
A story first
My first clients wrote to me before I had a company, a website or anything official to show them. So I didn't start from a business plan. I started from what I already had.
Most educators think they need a big idea before they can begin. You already have more than you think. This lesson is about seeing it.
Researchers studied how experienced founders actually start. What do most of them start from?
Saras Sarasvathy studied how experienced entrepreneurs make decisions. Most of them did not begin with a fixed goal and a plan to reach it. They began with their means: who they are, what they know and whom they know. Then they asked what they could build with that.
She called this way of working effectuation. Its first principle has a lovely name: the bird in hand.
Complete the bird in hand.
Founders start with ? they are, ? they know and ? they know.
Your three kinds of means
Your character, your values, your story. What people say about you when you are not in the room.
Your subject, your training, your methods. The things you can explain, plan and fix.
Colleagues, parents, former students, school leaders, and the groups you belong to.
These are real kinds of assets educators have. Where does each one belong?
Emilia's tips
Match it
Every asset can grow in more than one direction. Here is a first taste of Lesson 2.
Your turn
Add at least ten things you have. Do not judge them yet. It saves on this device, so you can come back to it.
Traits, values, your story
Subjects, skills, methods
People and groups
Resources
Hover over a book to see it. On your phone, tap it.
In the garden
