#leasons learned

[vanitoss]

If you have to question whether or not you want to be with me, I don’t want you to be with me.

If you have to question whether or not you want to be with me, I don’t want you to be with me.

If you have to question whether or not you want to be with me, I don’t want you to be with me.

[bipolarbandit]

Never be a prisoner of your past. It was just a lesson, not a life sentence. ~Unknown

[chunky-heels]

Respect the dream.

[smiththeteacher]

I’ve learned a lot this year. I learned that things don’t always turn out the way you planned, or the way you think they should. And I’ve learned that there are things that go wrong that don’t always get fixed or get put back together the way they were before. I’ve learned that some broken things stay broken, and I’ve learned that you can get through bad times and keep looking for better ones, as long as you have people who love you.

Jennifer Weiner

[kaybabyy666-blog]

And this too shall pass.

[samantha-roshini]

Twenty eleven {discoveries}

So much has happened this year and I've learned quite a bit. 

For example, 

Procrastination will be the death of my academic life 

radio hits are not all that (same goes for the artists that sing them)

rediscovered meditation .. and just in the nick of time!

don't let the narrow-minded opinions of others affect your views. Nothing good will come of it. 

acoustic will almost always be better than the original. 

going to your religious centre does not automatically make you religious. 

actions speak louder than words. 

life is precious, don't waste time on things you'll regret later. - I learned this last one recently. 

What discoveries have you made this year? 

[startsomegood]

Teething problems and the value of friendship

Over the past couple of weeks we have been dealing with issues caused by some of our campaigns being set up incorrectly, which has resulted in them being unable to process the donations pledged by their supporters. This is obviously the biggest problem we could have as a fundraising site and we accept full responsibility for the mistakes we made. Amazon have also apologized to us for problems with their submission process which allowed us to make these mistakes but the fault is ours.

Unfortunately while the fault is ours the impact was felt by a couple of our campaigns, including two of our most successful: HairFlair for Hope and Soften The Fck Up. In both cases we had no option but to, to our enormous disappointment, ask all supporters to re-enter their donations. The HFfH campaign was recently re-run in the background and concluded two days ago with all but $590 re-pledged. Thank you so much to all of their supporters and sorry again for the inconvenience. StartSomeGood guaranteed HFfH the full amount they originally raised and will be making up the difference, along with waiving our fees.

We are likewise guarantors for STFU but I suspect they won’t need us: since their campaign re-launched earlier this week 70% of their original funds have been re-pledged and the campaign has another 29 days to run. In addition we are waiving all fees.

In both these cases we’ve been enormously moved by the reaction and support of the social entrepreneurs involved. As Sherri Sosslau, founder of HairFlair for Hope, said in an email to their supporters: “We are deeply disappointed by this turn of events, but we appreciate StartSomeGood and Amazon for taking responsibility and being our partners through this project.”  Ehon Chan, founder of STFU, has been unbelievably positive during this experience, telling us “We're all entrepreneurs - we're the unreasonable people who don't give up until we're proven otherwise or get the best social outcomes.”

This is testament to the fortitude, entrepreneurialism, positivity and drive of Sherri and Ehon and their teams, which are such critical qualities for social entrepreneurs. For any entrepreneurs actually.

Alex and I have certainly had the chance to practice fortitude and resilience during this episode. The journey of starting an initiative is never easy, and will always involve missteps. As Alex said recently, the test of a start-up is not whether you make mistakes, because you will, but how you respond and learn from those mistakes.

We have responded the best we can, guaranteeing the money already raised and working hard to encourage all supporters to re-pledge. And we have learned valuable lessons, key amongst them being the importance of partnership and friendship. StartSomeGood is designed to be a high-touch experience for social entrepreneurs. We are committed not just to building a platform with the best peerfunding model and technology, but more importantly to partner with social entrepreneurs to guide them to success in their campaigns and ultimately social impact. We do this by providing resources and a lot of interaction. We have emailed and spoken with both Ehon and Sherri numerous times and met them both in person. Without this contact and the relationship and trust build up through it I do not think we could have all worked as well together to save this situation.

Thank you so much to Sherri and Ehon for sticking with us during this tough time and for being such social change rock stars and also to everyone who has contributed to their campaigns.

If you haven’t already you should check out Soften The Fck Up and support them to reduce the incidences of male suicide in Australia.

Sincerely,

Tom

Co-founder.