The 'Planet-Friendly Pitch' Challenge!
Already dug into our 'Ecopreneurship 101' primer? If so, you'll know that building green businesses that help solve our most challenging planetary problems is the Ecopreneurs way.
Generating eco-friendly ideas with excellent profit potential is the name of the game. So we've turned the steps of green startup discovery into an ACTUAL game (with prizes!) that you can use to test your ecopreneurship skills.
Here's How it Works
Imagine 10 years from now, you're pitching your first-ever idea for a planet-friendly startup to investors keen to help you get your venture off the ground. Though they won't give up their money easily! Which eco-challenges would your business help to solve? Who would your customers be? How would you make money? That's your story to discover and tell.
Stage 1: Identify a Future-Focused Opportunity
First, you'll seek out a planet-friendly opportunity you imagine will grow significantly over the next ten years. There may be a new environmental technology you think could go mainstream. Maybe there's an environmental challenge creating issues you feel are going to get much harder to live with. It's up to you to hit the books and find the seed of an idea to nurture.
A Challenge in Three Acts
There are three key stages to this challenge that’ll help you frame, research and discover an eco-friendly idea of your own. After each, you'll submit the results of your hard work to ITZA's expert 'Pitch Panel' for some helpful feedback and guidance.
Stage 2: Perfect Your Planet-Friendly Pitch
Now to nurturing! Once you've landed on an excellent opportunity to seize or a problem to solve, it's time to design your planet-friendly venture and get ready to submit your pitch to our expert panel. Here, you'll expand on your initial thinking and tell a detailed story about your green business idea and why it matters.
Stage 3: Reflect & Inspect & Adapt
Once you've completed both stages of the challenge, we'll encourage you to reflect on what you've learned, how you think you did in perfecting your pitch, and what you'd do next with your idea, given the chance (and some real funding!).
Grab Your Challenge Toolkit
Our experts have built three creative 'Canvas' tools to help you at each challenge stage. These simple (printable) tools will help you frame your ideas, prioritise your effort and ultimately tell a great story about your practical research and the ideas you generate. There are three included in your challenge toolkit:
You can download all three, along with some helpful extras here.
Take Our New Planet-Friendly
Pal For a Spin
Here at ITZA, we've been experimenting with our very own 'Canvas Coach' (Cici for short)—an AI chatbot that’s here to help when you need a little eco-encouragement or green-minded inspiration.
Once you're ready to get stuck into dig into the Futurecast Canvas, why not take Cici for a spin!
Earn a Promising Ecopreneur Award!
Remember, there are some real life rewards for excelling at this challenge. Once you have submitted all of your canvases to ITZA for our expert panel to review, we will:
Provide helpful feedback on your pitches so you can iterate and improve on your green business concept over time. Practice makes perfect!
Award 'Promising Ecopreneur' credentials for the 50 most promising planet-friendly pitches.
Select the five most exceptional submissions to join us at the Villars Symposium in Switzerland this summer.
Top Tips For Success
As you get stuck into the challenge, consider these tips our ecopreneurial experts reckon will set you up for success:
Stop, Collaborate & Listen!: Feedback is your friend. As your ideas begin to emerge, seek feedback from anyone who might give you an edge - family, friends, fellow learners. Ideas get better when shared so find that feedback and wrap the best insights into your pitch.
Exploit The Experts: Get an experienced, expert edge in your pitch. Attend our expert webinars and one of our Canvas Clinics and put ITZA's newest AI expert (Cici) to work for you, too.
Watch Those Dates!: Keep an eye on the various deadlines for submitting your hard work to ITZA's expert panel for feedback and review.
Iterate, Iterate, Iterate: Great ideas come from 'inspecting and adapting' your thinking after getting hold of helpful feedback. So take any impactful feedback you can get and work it into your concept. Rinse and repeat!
Get Grounded: Read our three primers on ecopreneurship—Ecopreneurship 101, Big Picture Puzzles, and The Four Imperatives—to put yourself firmly in the mindset of a green-minded venture builder.
Go Deep, Then Deeper Still: Ecopreneurs are well-informed, passionate folk who invest deeply in researching and understanding their environmental cause. Find a challenge or opportunity that motivates you and learn as much as possible to inform your pitch.