Beta Launch (For Real!)

Following a sputtering start to our delayed launch last Monday, we’ve been working hard to get it right this time around. Despite this being a beta launch to a small group of friends, we had to get the essentials right and hopefully, we’ve closed all the gaps. We are happy to now announce the BETA LAUNCH of Elevyn!

The Elevyn project is not 100% complete by any means, and we would like to invite your participation throughout the development. Specifically, we hope you can:

* Give feedback on the content (eg: Is it difficult to understand? Are the prices of the items too high or too low? Would you buy from there?)

* Support our pilot shop (Soning Craft) by shopping there and their Cause which is the Sinompuru Women’s Group

* Inform us of any problems or bugs that you encounter

* Give us your ideas, suggestions and thoughts

Invite e-mails have been sent to all who signed up earlier. If you’ve missed it – no worries just fill in your e-mail address on the invite page and we’ll send you the beta URL.

SocialTalkr Interview with Elevyn Founder Mike Tee

Our very first media appearance!

SocialTalkr speaks to Mike Tee about the idea behind Elevyn, how it works, our goals, and more. Click on the link below for the interview. Note: page may not appear properly on Internet Explorer! Update: Site has been revamped and it now looks great!

http://www.socialtalkr.com/wwwelevyncom-interview-with-founder-mike-tee/

SocialTalkr interviews Asia’s web 2.0 companies to find out their stories.

False Start!

First of all, a great big THANK YOU to those who signed up as beta users to Elevyn! Quite unfortunately, we were unable to make the beta launch as promised on Monday 18 August due to some logistical issues with our pilot online shop in Sabah.

Our Field Coordinator Puah Sze Ning actually left for Sabah a week ago to aliase with the local community to clear up some outstanding product issues prior to the launch.

However, one thing we learnt about working with rural communities is that schedules are often unpredictable, and very likely, subject to last minute changes.

Thus, despite our best laid plans, several crucial issues with the online shop just couldn’t be fixed in time. We’ve therefore decided to delay the launch for a little bit more.

The good news is, we’ve just seen some -amazing- updates on the handicrafts and photos that Sze Ning has posted into the online shop from Sabah. There will be more in the days to come, and we look forward to updating you on our next launch date. Stay tuned!

On behalf of team Elevyn,
Mike Tee & Devan Singaram

Elevyn.com Beta Launch

Finally, after months of development, Elevyn is ready for its first beta appearance on 18th August 2008. Here’s an update on what we’ve been up to, and what the beta launch will offer:

1. The basic structure of the website and backend is up. That means users can sign up as members, “suggest” Causes, buy items, open a shop, list products, and sell them.

2. The launch will feature one fully functional online shop as our pilot project – SoningCraft from Sabah, Malaysia. Founded by sisters Mazeline and Malina Soning, SoningCraft sells a wide variety of traditional handicrafts, beauty accessories and hand-made keychains.

Items can be purchased directly from the website – even though it’s in beta, the entire buying and shipping process is up and running.

Our own “pilot purchase” gave us a nice little pen holder that took just a few days to deliver!

3. The Cause.

SoningCraft works closely with the SINOMPURU Women’s Group based in Kampung Tinanggol in Kudat, northern Sabah. The group is made up of single mothers and old womenfolk who live below a poverty standard.

They rely on the sale of hand-made items to make ends meet – food, medication, childrens’ school fees, etc. SoningCraft sells items from the SINOMPURU group to help better the economic status of its members.

4. The objective. The Cause aims to raise $100 to be channelled into the group’s community fund. The money will be used to cover medical and food expenses in case a member gets admitted to the hospital. Members can also borrow some of the money to pay for their childrens’ school fees or to buy beads to produce handicrafts.

5. Beta invites are still open! Go to www.elevyn.com/invite/ and provide us your e-mail. An e-mail containing the URL will be sent to our beta users on Monday, 18 August 2008. We gladly appreciate your comments and feedback on the site prior to launching it public.

That’s it for now; thanks for catching up!

The Killer App for Facebook?

Who hasn’t heard of Facebook by now? It’s a social networking tool to connect and keep in touch with friends. According to Wikipedia, the website has 43 million active users worldwide with memberships close to 60 million.

So how does this relate to Social Entrepreneurship? Well, the appeal of Facebook is that it expands to include applications develop by external software programmers. This allows people to group around applications instead of just their friends. I took a look at 3 applications: Causes, Change.org and Groups.

A rudimentary search showed about 7 groups were created to support Social Entrepreneurs with about 220 members. Groups included meetups as well as those exploring the possibility of Social Entrepreneur degrees.

Change.org displayed only 1 group but it had 188 members while the Causes application displayed about 8 Social Entrepreneur causes with around 580 members. But this is not counting specific groups, such as those built around the Homeless World Cup (582 members), Kiva.org (groups alone numbering about 60, some with over 4,000 members) and Play Pumps International. Include this, and the scope just grows much bigger.

Even with this numbers, I feel Facebook lacks that killer application to convert active membership to actual benefits. Causes, for example, has an application that allows members to donate to a cause. Take for example, a cause to “Support Independent Film” has 24,712 members but only $80 donated.

Maybe, these applications need to move beyond charity expected from members (which obviously isn’t working as well as their moral support, myself included). That means open up the APIs further and allow software developers to work on tools to monetize and kick start solutions to causes immediately.

Sometimes I do believe, that part of the problem is that solutions just aren’t exciting enough. Let’s re-look at the “Support Independent Film” cause. Now let’s say, within this cause, a suffering film maker could go in and post the sypnosis of the film along with certain elements of the script. He could also do a 2 minute pitch on video. Further, he could post up that he needs $45,000 to do the short film (not for an NGO, but the film maker himself needs that amount!).

In return, he / she can select 2 options for funding the film. One option is that anyone who contributes to that cost stands to make a percentage profit of that contributed. Another possible option, is that members to that cause can “pre-book”, by buying tickets to the film online. Once that amount is reached, the film maker can work on launching the film, at the same time updating members of the progress, creating a “buzz”. Now, the solution may not be easy, but isn’t it exciting…

Creative Capitalism by Bill Gates

When one of the world’s great business personalities presents an idea that could change the world, it’s worth a read!

In “Making Capitalism More Creative”, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates touched on the success of capitalism, and how it has improved the lives of billions. Unfortunately, billions have also been left behind – stuck in a life of poverty, diseases and suffering.

The solution? Creative capitalism, as Bill Gates calls it.

“Creative capitalism: an attempt to stretch the reach of market forces so that more companies can benefit from doing work that makes more people better off. We need new ways to bring far more people into the system – capitalism – that has done so much good in the world.”

So how does it work? As Gates tells it:

“A few years ago I was sitting in a bar with Bono… we’d had a few drinks, and Bono was all fired up over a scheme to get companies to help tackle global poverty and disease… Bono’s persistence soon gave birth to the (RED) campaign. Today companies like Gap, Hallmark and Dell sell (RED)-branded products and donate a portion of their profits to fight AIDS.”

“It’s a great thing: the companies make a difference while adding to their bottom line, consumers get to show their support for a good cause, and – most important – lives are saved.”

“In the past year and a half, (RED) has generated $100 million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, helping put nearly 80,000 people in poor countries on lifesaving drugs and helping more than 1.6 million get tested for HIV. That’s creative capitalism at work.”

You can read the full article here – it’s long but touches on a lot of good ideas and possibilities!
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1828069,00.html

Note: Quotes above are fetched directly off the article, and have been edited for length and clarity.