July 18, 2015.
I was on a podcast recently to capture thoughts on AlligatorZone, and heard the word ‘magical’ mentioned a few times by someone very knowledgeable about startups who was once unsure of what to expect at AlligatorZone and had later experienced a few sessions in Silicon Valley libraries. On Monday July 13th, 2015, we had yet another session of AlligatorZone in South Tampa at the Jan Kaminis Platt Library. It was magical. What is also magical is that communities need not travel far to find such powerhouses of knowledge and inspiration right in their neighborhood, to inspire the next generation of leaders.
The local entrepreneurs who presented at this session of AlligatorZone were Jack Kennedy, Co-founder & CEO, KiteDesk, which helps sales people to prospect, connect & sell to their customers more effectively, and Frank DiLorenzo, President & Founder, RnR Games, a manufacturer of games and toys.
In case you have been under the impression that kids and teens (the audience is aged 7 and above) don’t mean business, here is a sprinkling of topics and concepts you would have heard, had you attended this session of AlligatorZone:
KiteDesk co-founder Jack Kennedy had to bring up ‘Sentiment Analysis’, the concept of ‘Eating your own dog-food’ on whether they used their own product to help their own sales-people in selling, how they started off differently and then ‘pivoted from selling general organizational tools as originally intended’, the ‘kind of information they keep’, whether ‘schools could use tools like this’, a question on design about ‘why social icons are in a particular color’, a question on ‘how long he has been at this’, and one that made a smiling Jack wonder aloud if the kids were planted there by his investors, which was “Do you think this company is going to go on?“ R&R Games founder Frank DiLorenzo faced a different set of questions such as branding (‘Why is your company named R&R Games’ – there’s an award for guessing), product-discovery and distribution channel questions, (”Where can we buy your games?”, “Are you on the Internet?”), manufacturing question (”Do you have a factory?”, a product-line question (”Do you have interactive games online?”), a volume question (”How many games do you sell a year?”), important questions such as “Do you have fun in your job? – (Yes he said, because he gets to spend a lot of time to play as head of R&R’s Research and Development), questions on promotion revealed that ‘Hide and Seek Safari broke HSN record’, and that they are known as ‘The King of Party Games‘. The one question that came up as Frank rolled up his cart with some of their products was, “Are you like Santa Claus?” Scroll down and enjoy this photo-essay to find out if he is.
Jack Kennedy, Co-founder & CEO, KiteDesk, is a serial entrepreneur. He used the example of the process of selling girl-scout cookies to explain his software.
At AlligatorZone, it doesn’t take long for presenting entrepreneurs to realize that they have a very short time before they lose their audience’s interest ….
… and the sooner they show their product, the better … however …
… if the big screen projection technology arrangement fails to work, then they have to really resort to strong story-telling skills.
The analogy of girl scout cookies was great, but the kids went off at a tangent discussing their favorite flavors. Those always make for interesting challenges for startup founders who have to gently bring the kids back to showing their product.
Jack faced some interesting questions on his product, and some existential ones on his venture and on his entrepreneurial journey, including which of his 3 ventures was his favorite.
Even as Jack was navigating the world of girl-scout cookies, the next presenter, Frank DiLorenzo was preparing, what he would soon tell everyone, is a product display.
It was time for the second presenter of the evening. It didn’t take much time for us to know why Frank DiLorenzo’s company R & R Games is known in their industry as “The Kings of Party Games”.
At AlligatorZone, kids own the show. We had a young girl from the audience introduce Frank DiLorenzo. She had shied away from reading the introduction to the previous presenter. Interestingly enough, towards the end of the evening, she said to me “Excuse me, are there any more speakers I can introduce?”, and seemed a little disappointed when I told her that Frank was the last presenter of the day. Kids learn in an empowered environment in AlligatorZone, which makes it very different from anything else I have seen. I have seen only a couple of entrepreneurs flat-out refuse to answer a question or give a smart-alec response, which changes the tone of the remainder of their session. Kids, and soon their parents don’t usually bother with founders who may thus come across as being unapproachable. Our goal with AlligatorZone is to make inspiration approachable. Startup founders who leave their halos behind do extremely well in AlligatorZone.
Almost every concept and thought presented by Frank included an element of gaming, a quiz, or a treasure-hunt. Frank addressed two early questions of “Are those games for us?”, and “Are you like Santa Claus” deftly by saying I wanted to show you what we make, and maybe we can play one at the end. Once those questions were out of the way, the kids focused on learning the business. Some interesting questions came Frank’s way.
When asked how many board games he sells in a year, Frank made a little game out of it and had the kids guess his sales volumes (and even gave interesting tidbits such as which country buys the most board games). It is a very delightful way of addressing what could be an awkward question for some. What made Frank’s talk very endearing to the kids was when he mentioned that he used to hand-make games as a child, and that they too could do it.
Frank had asked me to alert him when we had 10 minutes remaining in the session. And then the party began. He led the crowd in playing a game called “Smarty Party”, and encouraged everyone to join in, even the parents. The product-display now became the prizes. Scroll down to see what ensued.
She got it right!
High-fives!
A parent asked for a group picture.
As is usually the case in most AlligatorZone sessions, teens prefer to wait for quiet one-on-one conversations with the presenting entrepreneurs towards the end. I am told these moments hold imminent promise for both businesses that seek new talent, and also the teens looking to get into the working world.
As part of our quest to perfect AlligatorZone, we ask presenting business founders for their feedback after their session. Jack Kennedy had to rush to his next appointment, but Frank was able to give us a post-session interview (see https://youtu.be/chGG3kmqpL8), for your viewing pleasure.
Hope to see you soon at another session of AlligatorZone. Check out the running calendar at http://AlligatorZone.eventbrite.com.
Bookmark www.AlligatorZone.org, follow updates at http://www.twitter.com/alligatorzone and like us on www.facebook.com/AlligatorZone.org.
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For your reading and viewing pleasure, here are links to previous articles about AlligatorZone, some of which also contain embedded videos:
AlligatorZone is one of several impact-programs being designed at SiliconGlades. If you know of startups that would make for interesting presenters to an audience of kids, teens and families, please send your suggestion to events [at] siliconglades [dot] com, or direct-message at @siliconglades
This report was posted by the moderator, who’s a volunteer from SiliconGlades, an innovation firm that designs, among other things, hyperlocal social impact programs such as AlligatorZone. In other words, SiliconGlades designs programs that bring communities together for a common uplifting purpose, right in your neighborhood.
