CLIENT: Agora Partnerships

DATES: January 2019 - May 2019

COMPANY
Agora Partnerships is a pioneering international organization accelerating the shift towards a more sustainable and equitable world through the visionary impact entrepreneurs it supports. Agora equips entrepreneurs with the knowledge, tools and networks needed for the next level of growth.

CHALLENGE
My challenge was to create a new service with significant earned revenue that would also increase the brand footprint of Agora across Latin America.

APPROACH
Given Agora’s decades long experience in the impact entrepreneurial ecosystem in Latin America, the team already had several ideas for new products. This project therefore focused on exploring the potential of each of these ideas as well as generating new ideas in a co-created manner.

The preparation phase of the project involved engaging team members in vision definition, strengths/weaknesses mapping and current financial performance analysis. The research phase was designed to involve outside stakeholders to conduct market trend analysis and engage in user needs interviews.

Data from these activities were used to facilitate individual and team ideation sessions, using an Ansoff matrix for frameworking and a 9-factor weighted decision matrix for voting. In the forming phase of the project, we used competitive scans, market demand analysis, business model canvases, product costing and innovation financial forecasting to analyze the products with highest probability of success.

After testing lo fi prototypes of the most promising services with end users, we moved into the launch phase using a service roadmap and commercialization strategy.

RESULTS
The ultimate result was a train-the-trainer service that launched in April 2019 and has already been sold to Mexican and Nicaraguan government entities, carrying a margin of 15% each. Additional interest in the service has been expressed from ecosystem players and corporate partners across the region.

LESSONS LEARNT
A major lesson learnt in this project was the importance of political context when both developing a new product and attempting to sell it. A careful balance between end user needs and buyer agendas must be considered at each phase and particularly in the forming and launch phases to ensure market feasibility.