A lot has happened in the last four months. Therefore, we would like to use the time between the years to give you a little insight into the developments made so far:
Purpose and Purpose Principles
As we all know: Effective teamwork needs a common purpose. A purpose that triggers a tingling sensation and reminds us daily why and what we are working for. So, naturally, our first step in September was to sharpen Reframe.ventures' Purpose. In addition, we defined Purpose Principles to guide our actions and help us to align ourselves with common values. You can read more about our Purpose and the five principles on our team page.
The team is growing
At the beginning of September it was just Jil and Leon who met for the first time in the new virtual morning standup and discussed what the initial steps should be. It had been clear that Pablo would join them mid-month and form the core operational team for the period until the end of the year. However, old and new acquaintances from university quickly came forward and expressed interest in supporting the team in certain tasks. And suddenly there were three more, Johanna, Anna and Jan, who pushed important things in the development work and took over self-organized responsibility for the progress of Reframe.ventures. Soon Frederike, who was finishing an internship in Paris, will replace Jil, who will continue her studies in the US and supports us in strategic questions from there. You can find out more about us as a team on the team page of our website and in the highlight stories of our Instagram profile (German).
New design, new website
In order to present ourselves professionally and innovatively, we decided to relaunch the corporate design of Reframe.ventures and our website. After several discussions about different logos, colour tones, combinations and countless implementation problems, we were able to launch our new design on our website after two weeks of hard work. The result is a simple and clean look with a few red and green highlights.
Social Media Campaigns
An important goal of Reframe.ventures is to bring the idea of social business to a wider audience. Therefore, starting in mid-October, we published a six-part social media campaign under the motto "Problem Seer or Solution Thinker". The viewer is supposed to recognize and question his or her own thought pattern on social "problems". A second campaign followed from the beginning of December. Every week during Advent, we invited our followers to consume positively or get involved in society. We showed how this can be done easily with concrete examples. Feel free to check us out on Instagram or LinkedIn, where you can find all the individual posts.
Every week during Advent, we invited our followers to consume positively or get involved in society. We showed how this can be done easily with concrete examples.
Podcast
Besides a lot of positive feedback, we were especially happy about two invitations: one to the 4Changemakers Lunchclub and one to the podcast of the Reutlinger Jungs. Here we were able to talk about our daily work, but also about our self-developed basic models of social business and our first project. We thank you very much for the opportunity to spread the idea of Reframe.ventures and social business via these two formats!
Pilot project: Weckenbräu
For some time now, we have been working with our pilot clients in Reutlingen on a business model that fights food waste with a gourmet product. With Weckenbräu, parts of the malt are replaced by unsold leftover bread in the brewing process. Every bottle of fine bread beer sold contributes directly to reducing food waste. Weckenbräu is now for sale in several locations and even has its own Instagram profile (under construction).
Offer and project standard
We have used the time to sharpen our offer and define basic bundles that interested companies can now book with us. If you want to learn more about this, it's best to just contact us directly!
Frameworks, basic models and databases
An essential part of our work is to make it as easy as possible for companies to develop impact-oriented business models. For this purpose, we have substantially revised and refined the frameworks and methods we have been developing over the past two years. A key component was the creation of our database of successful social business practice examples and the subsequent derivation of the 21 basic models of social business, for which we published a white paper in November.
Acquisition
To achieve positive change and social impact at the end of the day, we are of course dependent on companies that implement impact-oriented business models with our help. Since the end of October, we have been approaching business owners and introduced them to Reframe.ventures. The development and first testing of our own acquisition strategy was a special learning experience we took from this period before Christmas. Now it remains to hope that we will also be successful with it next year and that we can inspire companies with our vision and work.
Foundation preparation
Since we now want to officially register our company in the spring of 2021, we have recently been working a lot on legal, tax and other startup-related topics. We have diligently written business plans, intensively dealt with the concept of stewardship ownership, started to draft a partnership agreement, and set up a detailed financial plan for the upcoming year. Although we still have some important discussions and decisions to make, we have made a lot of progress since September.
We have diligently written business plans, intensively dealt with the concept of stewardship ownership, started to draft a partnership agreement, and set up a detailed financial plan for the upcoming year.
Outlook
We are incredibly grateful for the many experiences and opportunities that have arisen for us over the past four months. It is motivating to see what can already be achieved in a short time. For these reasons, we look forward to the coming year with great anticipation. In 2021, as already mentioned, the official registration is finally coming up and we are planning various other projects. Through our communication channels, we will of course provide you with further campaigns and articles on the topic of social business in the coming months. If you're still not a part of the community, feel free to follow us on LinkedIn or Insta.
Until then, the Reframe.ventures team wishes you a merry Christmas and a happy new year 2021.
Stay healthy!