In your twenties, you have limited access to resources and very little experience, which is why you can be incredibly successful! Lack of resources helped us improvise and create the impossible with the GenJuice Tour. With big dreams, we have attracted sponsors, received media coverage, received donations for events and will reach more than 1.2 million young people this summer. So here are the ten steps we used to create GenJuice that you can use to make your impact nationally or globally:
Table of Contents
Start a national movement at a young age
1. Have an idea? Pitch right away and don’t “defend” your ideas
Ariel waited no more than two days before sharing her idea with friends and family for feedback. She did not think that someone had stolen the idea. She knew that sharing it was the only way to succeed.
2. Become a victim of peer pressure
After asking for feedback and finding a few team members to support the movement, we told everyone we knew about our plans. By telling everyone, we put our personal reputation at stake and people expected to see us organize the tour.
3. Go to events to find your team members
Ariel, Gleb, and Daniel were already good friends, but since they were all full-time or in school, there was no way for them to handle it alone. Virgilia joined immediately after meeting Ariel in Women 2.0 the workshop and the main team were provided. You can check out some other interesting networking events such as Startup Weekend, barcamp, Meeting the founder.
4. Collaborate with people who are in the early stages of their own ventures
Once you’ve built your team, you’ll need outside help in areas where you don’t have much experience. We immediately teamed up with Brenton of Convospark as our social media consultant and Ingrid Stubb of Career Within You as our formal consultant. Not only did they believe in our vision, but they were in the early stages of their projects and found some unique ways to capitalize on GenJuice. So, hire extended members of your team by finding other projects early on to share resources.
5. Join an existing community or network
Working with Brenton and the guys at Convospark, we found incredible support in the Gen Y blogging communities. All it took was a few introductions and all of a sudden we made good friends and found GenJuice supporters who were willing to help us make this innovative Gen Y tour successful.
6. Make websites, not children
It will make a little more sense with this video. Around this time, we learned two things. First, design is incredibly important when it comes to building trust! Secondly, if you want to do something, it shouldn’t take you 9 months or more for it to happen. We redesigned and relaunched the new GenJuice website in less than a week with our amazing designer Gleb.
7. Always test run everything you plan to do!
May 8, 2010: We hosted GenJuice Berkeley with only one goal in mind: to test all of our assumptions. No matter what you’re working on, always test run first with a small group of your target audience. Make them an official group, club or council within your project to give them ownership of the end result.
8. Get Organized, Get Google Docs
May 10, 2010: We realized how important organization is not only to our team, but to the hundreds of people we wanted to mend during the GenJuice tour. We’ve made Google Docs the sixth official member of our team. Why? Because we use it for almost everything! From internal collaboration to how our attendees meet each other before our events.
9. If you love him, why don’t you marry him?
May 18, 2010: You can watch a short video post by Virgilia (Why I Quit My Job), Ariel (The Importance of Going Full-Time) and Brenton to see the excitement of working full-time in an enterprise. The reason this is critical is because at this point you no longer have excuses or obstacles to stop you from being successful with your project. Now it’s time!
10. Go away!
June 19 and 20, 2010: We told you our story, sharing some of our failures and major achievements. Use the nine steps above to get ready, but make sure you just do it! You can start by joining us on the tour starting June 20th, or attend our San Francisco launch event on June 19th.
Finally…
We wanted to share our experience and the milestones we have achieved in building the GenJuice movement for two reasons. First, it was necessary to show how quickly you can come up with an idea and bring it to life, just by believing in it. Secondly, to show you that despite the lack of resources for GenJuice, we have never once used this as an excuse to leave. Seizing every opportunity in front of you and learning from your mistakes, you will always move in the right direction.
Who is Ariel Patrice Scott?
Ariel launched GenJuice to encourage more young people to start new businesses and projects. GenJuice is a 12-city national tour with events designed to help young aspiring entrepreneurs meet potential co-founders and team members.
Who is Virgilia Singh?
Virgilia gained experience in the corporate world working at Booz Allen Hamilton, developing a product innovation strategy for Intel, and advising the UN Ambassador on the economic empowerment of women around the world. Virgilia recently left her full-time DC job to co-found GenJuice.
Who is Danielle Leslie?
Danielle Leslie left her sales and business development position at social gaming startup RockYou to venture into a fast-growing project called GenJuice. Daniel will preach innovation and youth entrepreneurship in the summer of 2010 during the GenJuice Tour.
