The Winds of Change – Part 1

Ah, the more things change, well, the more they change. The last 90+ days have accelerated the inevitable, and put several things for which I’m passionate on a collision course: solving problems for (1) event discovery, (2) HBCU young alumni enrollment in alumni associations, and (3) African-American entrepreneurship.

And either I’ll survive the resulting collision or I won’t. Not sure if there is room for any gray. It’s black and white.

Fortunately, there is a revolution in the technology circle underway which outlines a better and faster way to execute new companies/ideas. Put “kindergarten” simply, it brings together a series of best practices which significantly increase the chances of new companies/ideas being successful.

At the risk of being too “technical”, I won’t go too much deeper into the philosophy here. But I’ll say that once you “get it”, your view of the world changes. And it has brought to light a painful truth – one that I’ve ignored/avoided for far too long:

I can’t do the Young Alumni Movement in its’ current form any more.

When I first conceived the Movement in late 2008, I envisioned intersecting corporate marketing campaigns with philanthrophy. And while I still believe this is possible, I totally underestimated a significant component of the business model: the time required to plan/execute the events.

Over the past 2.5 years, I’ve put in about an entire year’s worth of full-time hours on the Movement, and sacrificed, easily, $30,000 in revenue. Easily. It was never an issue because I’m passionate about solving the problem of low young alumni enrollment in the FAMU National Alumni Association.

However as I get older, priorities change, and passions arise, making these sacrifices is much more difficult. And, honestly, over the last 60 days I wanted to walk away. It has had a devasting impact on my personal life. But much like Peter Parker in Spiderman 2, every time I tried walking away, “something” kept pulling me back. It was actually eery.

Earlier I talked about how the Lean Startup Methodology (Customer Development + Business Model Canvas + Agile Development) changes the way you view the word: in terms of problems and their potential solutions. It really simplifies life - and it has been hidden in plain sight the entire time. And I believe that low enrollment of young alumni in HBCU Alumni Associations is critical problem – one that will have an extreme negative impact on the African-American race in the upcoming two decades if left unsolved.

Over the last 2.5 years, many people have told me that I needed to charge for doing the work of the Young Alumni Movement. But I refused because (a) I felt about doing social good and (b) I didn’t want to look like profit was my primary motive. Unfortuantely, in the African-American culture, our default stance on issues is negative.

But, if the problem is so important, doesn’t it make sense to pay for a solution? People, especially black people, pay for frivilous things all of the time. Why not pay for solution to a real problem with significant consequences if left unresolved?

And with this line of thinking comes the announcement that I’ll not be executing the Young Alumni Movement for free anymore.

In Part 2, I’ll discuss how I’ll do this while also incorporating problems 1 and 3 listed above. I think it will make sense to many of you.

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