The CollabMaker podcast CollabMaker

Today's episode is about ‘How to turn an idea into a purpose-driven business’ and features two amazing guests - Victoria Tötterström from Drivhuset and Peiman Khorramshahi from Dose Medbox. 

In today’s show, we talk through the key aspects of turning an idea into a business, Victoria and Peiman’s first steps into running businesses, why you need to be prepared to talk about your idea and not keep it a secret, why it’s essential for you to verify the need your customers have, the importance of listening to customers and being prepared to change your idea and iterate your offering based on the feedback from customers, how it’s essential to embrace failure and make it one of your driving forces, why creating an impact is so important to them and much more.

Every day in Sweden, Drivhuset helps people to turn their ideas into businesses, they provide free support and guidance for people in Sweden who want to open a business. They have lots of information and resources available on their website - https://drivhuset.se/en/. Together with information about the Loopa method, that Victoria and Peiman mention - https://goteborg.drivhuset.se/undersida/

Dose Medbox is an innovative business that helps people to remember to take their medication by transforming their phone into a smart pill reminder and together with their smart container means you and your loved ones should never forget to take your medication again. You can find out more at https://dosemedbox.com/



Useful links
You can get feedback on your idea and find people to collaborate with on CollabMaker.
www.collabmaker.com

You can watch some of the many resources on the Drivhuset website.
https://drivhuset.se/en/

You can find out more about Dose Medbox here:
https://dosemedbox.com/



It would be great to hear your feedback on today's episode, please email pod@collabmaker or reach out to us on social media.

To create a sustainable and better world, new digital tools, platforms and technologies need to be created, from a wider group of people. As surprising as it may sound, you don’t have to be a digital expert or have good digital knowledge to start developing your idea for a positive digital tool or platform into a reality. Today, there are so many tools that are made for digital novices that mean there has never been a better time to turn your digital idea for a better world into a reality. So where do you start when building such a platform or digital purpose-driven business and how have others approached this?

In today’s episode, Mark Hooley meets Barry O’Kane, the founder of Happyporch, a software development company for purpose-driven businesses, Nohelia Rambal, the founder of GOODF!ND, a digital platform connecting shoppers with good brands doing good things and Elena Escriva de Romani Perez, who is one of the co-founders of Fuelvision, an app helping airlines reduce their fuel consumption.

We discuss the best approach to creating digital tools, platforms, or purpose-driven business, how Nohelia and Elena built Minimal Viable Product’s (MVPs) – the first very simple iteration of their platform without using developers, the major benefits you will see through developing your product or service like this, when people should use developers, what they have learnt in their journey and much more.

Show links

Happy porch helps with ideas, strategy and software development to power purpose-driven businesses. They work with organisations that are making the world a better place and are particularly passionate about the circular economy.
https://www.happyporch.com/

GOODF!ND connect shoppers with good brands doing good things. The directory of brands with a purpose, making it easy to find sustainable and ethical alternatives. It doesn’t matter if it is ethical clothing, food, drink and dining, beauty and make up or more, GOODF!ND will help you find purpose-driven brands.
https://www.goodfind.io/  

FuelVision assists airlines to decrease their aggregate carbon footprint, by shaping future pilot behaviour. With their soon to be launched app pilots can make data-driven decisions before their flight and after landing assess their performance, track their progression and understand the climate impact of their actions.   
www.fuelvision.io

Useful links for no code tools and other useful resources

Resources:

No-code tools:
https://www.glideapps.com/
https://webflow.com/
https://bubble.io/
https://webflow.com/
https://wordpress.com/
https://wordpress.org
https://elementor.com/
https://www.browse.ai/ (scraping tool)
https://www.zoho.com/creator/ - Low code creator

Zapier: https://zapier.com – Connect different apps together and automate workflows

Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/Connect data, workflows and teams

Design: https://www.figma.com/ (Figma Community for UI components & mockups - building prototypes)

Other tools: https://krisp.ai/(plug in to reduce your and others background noise)
https://coda.io/

Moving to a new country can be a great experience, but it can also be extremely tough and challenging, as you move from a place you are familiar with to a country where everything is new. Finding work in a new country is instrumental to you adjusting to life in a new country, but job markets and approaches are often different. So how do you get a job when you move to a new country and most importantly how do you utilise the skills, experience and passions that you have?

In today's episode, Mark Hooley meets Greg Fernando, founder of New to Sweden and Anastasiia Tsarenko, co-founder of Perform on Top. Both organisations help newcomers to Sweden, but much of the advice given in today's episode can be used by people where ever they move and also by people before they move to a new country, to help them get in the right mindset.

We discuss ways to stand out from the crowd, what personal branding is and how to use it to differentiate yourself. We also discuss the mindset you need to get into during your search and different ways of getting experience.

Links

https://www.newtosweden.org/

https://performontop.com/

https://www.collabmaker.com/



Organisation information

CollabMaker
Is a new collaboration platform for people who want to create a better world. CollabMaker is the new online home for people, purpose-driven businesses, social enterprises and not-for-profits who want to collaborate to make a better world.

On CollabMaker there is an automatic matchmaking facility that connects skilled people to those with good business ideas that help drive progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

There is also an online peer support community, so you can share ideas, knowledge and support each other.

Perform on Top (in their own words :-))
Perform On Top is an NGO (Ideell Förening) located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Our mission is to help people with international backgrounds in Sweden integrate into Swedish society and join the labour market. We do it because we faced the same situations, went through the same struggles, and experienced discomfort. We realized quickly that to survive and thrive in our own domains, we need to be creative and resourceful. That's what we want to share. Our stories, our insights, our connections, and our guidance in such domains as:  

• Career coaching 

• Personal Branding 

• Entrepreneurship 

• Mentorship 

• Informational Support 

• Networking & Community  

We may not be experts. But, we know what works.




New to Sweden
New to Sweden is a non-profit organization with the goal to make all levels of the Swedish workplace more representative of the community they are in.



Music in the episode is from pixabay.com