 Hi everybody. Thank you for being here. My name is Sam Utney. I'm the Managing Director of Impact Hub NYC and I'm here to talk to you about a concept that is a very exciting concept, but it's about 2,000 years old. And it's something that I think may actually be the key to the modern innovation, a new model for impact innovation. It's the idea of the marketplace and the marketplace where people come together, where they exchange ideas, where they work together and build a sort of local ecosystem. And what we're doing in New York at Impact Hub NYC is introducing something that we're calling Impact Bizarre, which is a live marketplace for impact innovation. And the idea is that anyone with an idea can come to one place, some idea that they had stuck in the back of their closet that they never thought they might pursue in their lives. They can come in and be met with the tools and resources and guidance that it takes to get a business off the ground or push it to the next stage or actually just sort of test it to see if it has something. It's mentorship, office hours, classes, workshops, lunch served daily, yoga in the morning. We'll have inspiring talks by founders and best practices during lunch. And it's a place where you can simply have someone hear you and hear your idea and give you some feedback and guidance. It will be open Monday through Friday, 9 to 6 p.m. and starting later this month. We've brought ourselves to a state of isolation. We're so connected through digital media and through social networks that we consider ourselves very connected. But as individuals and as entrepreneurs and as innovators, we're extremely isolated. And that can be incredibly lonely. It's also the same state for the organizations that are trying to help entrepreneurs and innovators. They're operating in silos. They're trying to reach these communities. And it can feel like a treadmill trying to actually access the people that they're trying to support with their services and resources. So what we're doing is we're pulling together the best organizations doing great work to support entrepreneurs and innovators and bringing them out of their silos into one space to benefit from a larger aggregate community and let that community benefit from all of their support, let that community benefit from all of their services all in one place. The idea is to really bring together an ecosystem of services, tools, guidance, expertise to let anybody pursue ideas and bring a current business to the next stage. So here are seven reasons why I think Impact Bazaar is a new model for innovation. First, we're mapping the local innovation ecosystem all in one space. All of these organizations, all of these ecosystems exist in every city. Every city is a perfect ecosystem of services, mentors, teachers, entrepreneurs. But it's very difficult to find your right partner, your right investor, your right entrepreneur. We're trying to bring all of these together so that you can simply look up, turn to someone, find out how they're a resource to you and actually have access to them in one space. So we're actually mapping the ecosystem. The ecosystem works incredibly well here at SOCAP. All of these resources are under one roof. But even then, I probably have all of the sponsors for Impact Bazaar I could possibly need. I probably have investors. I probably have all of the entrepreneurs. But even then, I haven't properly been mapped to them. So what we're really focusing on is mapping the ecosystem. And every city has the opportunity to do this. Many organizations have the opportunity to do this. It's just trying to map it. This is a new type of public space. And that's really thinking about market places and the role that they've served in society for thousands of years. It's been a place where people come together and it's fully open and public. It's accessible to everyone. So what we're trying to do is create a space that is truly accessible to everyone. We live in a bootstrap paradise. All of the tools exist right now to build almost any idea. If you have some random idea, you can build a website for it. You can create an online store. You can actually create apps very easily. Everything exists to build almost anything for very cheap or even free. But what we don't have access to and is what's really difficult, especially for a first-time entrepreneur, is that layer of guidance and expertise that sits on top of the tools and resources. So what we're trying to do is build a place where you can come in with this idea and have somebody listen to you and have somebody give you feedback and tell you that idea might be a great idea. But you should try reducing it to this simpler version and maybe it starts as an email list and not a full website. Or maybe you should just talk to that person because that's your right resource. Or maybe you should consider partnering with this person or that person. Or maybe you're not a non-profit. Maybe you're a for-profit. So giving a layer of expertise and proper sequencing of an idea and understanding this vast world of resources and tools through guidance and mentorship. Part of what makes this a real ecosystem is and part of what will truly allow this to represent everyone is to have everyone's voice included. So this is about creating a space that is provided at a price and a level of accessibility that anyone can experience it. And this is part of why we're reaching out to sponsors and part of why our support from Squarespace is so important to be able to make this accessible at $10 a day right now and it will be free to many of the communities that we've partnered with to actually promote this to the New York City innovation ecosystem. Also, this should not only be accessible to the people who can pay $450 for a monthly membership at a co-working space. We run a co-working space. I'm not trying to put that out of business. In fact, I think that that will help our business, but this kind of space, these kinds of resources should not only be accessible to incubators and co-working spaces and people who attend conferences like SoCAP. This should be available to everyone. We're redefining success and building businesses like we build art. Success can manifest in many ways and not every business needs to be built and have the next $100 million IPO. It's perfectly fine to build a business that can sustain your lifestyle, be something you love to do, and allow you to live out your days doing something that's really a wonderful passion. Not everything needs to be scaled. So if you're happy with your business, we want you to be able to build that kind of business and be supported in doing that. Also, you should be building businesses and we should be building organizations that are like art, something that we want to sign our name to. If you're building a business, we want to encourage people to build something that means so much to them and they are so proud of that they would sign their name in the corner when they're done. That doesn't even need to have a business model to start, but if at the end of building that piece of art, they sign their name and somebody wants to buy it, that's a business. So we're encouraging people to build businesses in the way that they would build art, build something you're proud of, start over if it's not right, give yourself access at a price that isn't forcing you to follow through on an investment that you're so deep into that you can't turn back from. Individuals need companions on this innovation road. It's a really lonely journey building an idea. We need community and to operate in isolation is incredibly isolating and lonely. So what we're doing is trying to build a place where people can come together, but we're also trying to recognize that this is a journey and it's about the journey. Building a business shouldn't be about the launch of the business, it should be about enjoying the entire process of creating it. So we're trying to build a space where you'll enjoy building your ideas. Access is the Trojan horse and social good is the ambush. We're trying to put together a package of tools that is accessible that can build any idea. So by providing access to someone who has this idea buried at the back of their closet that they never thought that they would be able to pursue or at least not now and that they can come in and be met with all of these resources to get it off the ground. That's our Trojan horse. This is about bringing people in to pursue their passions and to pursue their ideas. The ambush is the reality that all of the conversations that we have, all of the context that we put this in, the entire lens that we view this through will be the social impact lens and it will be the new norm of creating businesses. It's not about bringing people in to create social businesses or impact businesses. It's about having a simple reality and recognition that every business moving forward needs to be responsible to its community and to the environment and to its stakeholders. So that should be the new norm. That's the only conversation that we'll have. So really just to sum this up, this is about creating a space. A marketplace or a bizarre is about creating a space and time and all we're really doing is saying that this bizarre will be available in this space at this time. But what builds the bizarre is the creation, is the community that gets involved in it. So the people who come together are what build the bizarre. It's not just the people between the stalls. It's the people providing the services. It's the people offering resources. It's the people filling needs. It's the entire ecosystem there. So if you'd like to be a part of filling this space and time, we invite you to join us later this month in Impact Hub NYC. You can join us there or at impactbizarre.com and I look forward to building this ecosystem with you. Thank you.