It all started in Puerto Rico. With a lady named Katerina. Well, it started before then, but Katerina made it happen.
In 2015, I was invited to co-teach a Lean Startup program called I-Corps Puerto Rico. The event was put on by a non-profit, Grupo Guayacán.
The program was based on the principles of NSF‘s Innovation Corps:
the Business Model Canvas, rigorous application of customer discovery, moving fast and spending very little money.
So I was pleased to join the teaching team in Puerto Rico-to work with students, faculty and staff from the University of Puerto Rico in Mayaguez, and entrepreneurs from the local community. I was certain the program would help the Puerto Rican startup ecosystem continue to flourish. This is economic development and capacity building at its best, I thought.
After the first cohort, I was invited back for a second one, and then a third. Through every cohort I met more hardworking entrepreneurs, with fascinating projects, like Sunne Clean Tech, Zero Damage, and Brain Hi.
I was traveling to the island eight to ten times a year. Puerto Rico is a beautiful place, lush and green. If you spend any time there will you come to love the people, even more than the beauty of the place.
And then Hurricane Maria hit in 2017. Trees and power lines down, homes destroyed, lives disrupted. A friend from UPR described the damage like this: “It was as if the hand of God scraped across the island”.
The people of Puerto Rico worked to restore their homes and way of life. The programs I worked on were suspended. It seemed all I could do was pray and send emails of encouragement. Over time the startup ecosystem stirred, then re-emerged, and the programs restarted.
Katerina asked me to come to teach again.
“Yes, of course,” I answered.
“But, Brandy,” said Katerina, “we need something different this time.”
She was right, of course. What the entrepreneurs on the island needed was different from what I had taught before. The entrepreneurs in the post-hurricane programs were more often successful business owners looking to find a new way forward.
These business owners were familiar with the risks of entrepreneurship. They had just lived through a massive economic disruption and months of uncertainty. They were in the process of re-visioning their business.
As I started teaching that day, I noted that most had a valid business model before the hurricane. Post-hurricane, though, some of the business models had gaping holes: key partners had left the island, distribution channels had changed, customer segments had different motivations. What they needed was a way to re-think their business model, based on the new reality.
Teaching Lean Startup after Hurricane Maria got me thinking again about economic development and capacity re-building. That day I started to see lean startup as more than a tool for educating entrepreneurs – or an economic development device. It could become a powerful part of the recovery effort.
But it wasn’t exactly lean startup, because these were existing businesses who were pivoting while the island and economy were in recovery.
(Lean startup – startup) + post-disaster recovery = Lean Recovery
At the end of the first day of teaching, I went back to my hotel room and started researching FEMA’s definition of economic recovery. And how to teach after a trauma.
Where the NSF I-Corps program had been rigorous, with high expectations, and strict accountability as part of the classroom dynamic, Lean RecoveryTM required more support and transparency. And perhaps a little more imagination. This has opened up a different way of thinking about economic development.
My colleagues and I are working on this as a new practice area to help business owners recover from the Covid-19 slowdown much more quickly – and to adapt to an emerging reality.
I’ll keep you posted on our progress.