---
tags: 2i2c, solyr, kawasaki
title: SOLyR/2i2c Pitch Deck Notes
---

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/q7LgVB1.png" alt="2i2c logo" width ="180" align="left">

# SOLyR/2i2c Pitch Deck Notes

2021-11-21
J. Colliander

> The notes below follow the structure based on [Guy Kawasaki's 10 slides](https://guykawasaki.com/the-only-10-slides-you-need-in-your-pitch/) for a startup pitch deck. The ideas described below were influenced by exchanges with the [2i2c team](https://2i2c.org/about/), Ian Allison, Jennifer Berdahl, Chelle Gentemann, and others. A takeaway from this [talk by Yuvi Panda](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stealing_some_of_Wikimedia%27s_Principles_to_Democratize_Programming.webm) -- open principles create conditions for emergent benefits -- weaves throughout the notes.

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# Problem and Opportunity

> Describe the problem you are alleviating or the pleasure you are providing.

**Problem**: Teams are underperforming. Solution-finding is slower than it could be. Accidental complexity makes it harder for people to collaborate.

+ People, working together as communities ore teams, focused on data informed research, teaching, decision-making, are underpforming.
+ Collaborative human capaticy to make breakthroughs, solve problems, improve society, confront the climate crisis, improve global health, address disinformation, ... is constrained.

**Opportunity**

Communities will generate better solutions to big problems via improved collaboration with curated tools and data integrations using interactive computing.

New collaboration workflows, data-proximate computing, deployed for social collaborative communities will accelerate scientific discovery, broaden participation in research, and advance toward transformational solutions.

**Inspirational Examples**

+ Wikipedia
+ Linux kernel
+ International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
+ Pangeo
+ CERN
+ Printing press
+ Internet

These examples all involve people working together, facilitated by technology, with emergent benefits.

Imagine a system that:

+ enables community (Facebook, Slack)
+ provides computing tools (Jupyter, Dask, K8s,...)
+ connects to data (Dropbox, Bloomberg, S3, ...)
+ empowers collaboration (Google docs)
+ connects to knowledge (ORCid, Library,...)
+ mobilizes knowledge (arXiv, Binder, JupyterBook, DOI)
+ produces composable tools (UNIX, 3D printing)

Imagine a federated platform with the collective capacity of Facebook empowering

+ large scale teams
+ data-informed decisionmaking
+ accelerated discovery
+ sharing of knowledge
+ improvements to society

The opportunity: Help humans work together to do big things.

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# Value Proposition

> Explain the value of the pain you are alleviating or the value of the pleasure you are providing.

Why is the system we envision (SOLyR/2i2c) valuable?

Humans face HUGE problems:

+ climate crisis
+ food insecurity
+ water insecurity
+ cognitive warfare / disinformation
+ corruption
+ wealth gap
+ health services gap
+ injustice
+ ...

SOLyR accelerates solution-finding by

+ facilitating large scale teamwork
+ integrating human and artificial intelligence
+ enabling composable knowledge sharing
+ incentivizing collective effort
+ creating conditions for emergent benefits

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# Underlying Magic

> Describe the technology, secret sauce, or magic behind your product. The less text and the more diagrams, schematics, and flow charts the better. If you have a prototype or demo, this is the time to transition to it. As Glenn Shires of Google said, "If a picture is worth a thousand words, a prototype is worth 10,000 words."

**technology ingredients**

+ computing
+ interactive
+ cloud
+ data-proximate
+ web application tech
+ open source development

**open community principles**

+ right to replicate
+ open as possible
+ public as possible
+ attribution > ownership
+ low cost
+ easy access
+ sharing > hoarding
+ community > individual
+ composability of knowledge

Knowledge is like air. Knowledge should:

+ flow freely
+ not be owned
+ be clean
+ be universally available

SOLyR will accelerate

+ knowledge acquisition (learn)
+ knowledge discovery (research)
+ knowledge mobilization (publish)
+ transformational solutions (implementation)

Virtual cycle of knowledge:

learn $\rightarrow$ discovery $\rightarrow$ publish $\rightarrow$ learn $\rightarrow$ discovery $\rightarrow \dots$

SOLyR's underlying magic? The magic is there is **zero secrecy to the sauce**.

**Prototypes**

> What are the most compelling showcase examples we can demonstrate?

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# Business Model (2i2c)

>Explain who has your money temporarily in his pocket and how you are going to get it into yours.

+ Build an open source web app that unifies/integrates/improves:
+ Jupyter ecosystem
+ data sources
+ library sources
+ publishing workflows
+ Provide (sell/partner) managed services of web app to values-aligned _open knowledge customer segments_:
+ universities
+ education institutions
+ research teams
+ communities of practice
+ government of agencies
+ nonprofits
+ publishers
+ academic societies
+ Invest in open source communities to improve SOLyR ecosystem

**Pricing model**

+ setup fee (one-time)
+ service fee (recurring)
+ support fee (recurring)
+ consultancy (project-based)
+ cloud costs (pass through)

**Hypotheses**

1. Low churn despite right to replicate
2. Values/principles alingment will attract open knowledge customers
3. Emergent benefits will yield sustainability

---

# Go-To-Market Plan

> Explain how you are going to reach your customer without breaking the bank.

## Evidence of potential:

+ exploding usage of Jupyter
+ success of Pangeo
+ growth and replication of Berkeley data science program
+ Syzygy

## Phase 0: formation

- [x] cofounder agreement
- [x] consensus re: values + vision
- [x] seed funding
- [x] establish nonprofit
- [x] initial governance structure
- [x] initial team

## Phase 1: Exploration

- [x] serve a university (e.g. U. Toronto)
- [x] serve a college (e.g. pilot hubs)
- [x] serve an event (e.g. Paleohack)
- [x] serve a community (e.g. Pangeo)
- [x] collect revenue (💰)

## Phase 2: Validation

- [x] define alpha service offering
- [x] build sustainability team
- [ ] align sales + engineering effort
- [ ] monitor costs, revenue, capacity
- [x] sell alpha service
- [ ] define "partnership tier"
- [x] seek input from U. Toronto
- [ ] seek input from McGill
- [ ] seek input from Berkeley
- [ ] convert Syzygy to 2i2c?

**🎯 Phase 2 Target Milestone:** product-market fit for managed JupyterHub service

## Phase 3: NASA TOPS SOLyR MVP

- [x] describe SOLyR vision
- [x] identify MVP scenarios (AGU2022, other 2022 events)
- [ ] seed funding, NASA TOPS?
- [ ] build SOLyR-alpha
- [ ] iterate toward SOLyR-beta

**🎯 Phase 3 Target Milestone:** Demonstrate potential of SOLyR

## Phase 4: AGU2023 Open Science Pavillion

- [ ] build SOLyR-beta
- [ ] deploy SOLyR-beta (deadline 2023-06-01)
- [ ] support content development on beta
- [ ] launch content on beta as **Open Science Pavillion** for AGU 2023 (deadline 2023-12-01)

**🎯 Phase 4 Target Milestones:**
1. 🤩 Blow people's minds!
2. Hundreds of AGU participants say "I want SOLyR"

## Phase 5: Abstraction and Expansion

- [ ] serve community outside geoscience; which one(s)?

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# Competitive Analysis

> Provide a complete view of the competitive landscape. Too much is better than too little.

+ impact scope envisioned here is large so there will be competition
+ cloud providers may become competitors
+ Microsoft/GitHub 😬
+ Google Collab
+ AWS Sagemaker
+ for-profit unicorn competitors

**Hypotheses**

4. Values/principles alignment with open knowledge customers will protect 2i2c/SOLyR.
5. Cloud provider(s) may rally to support 2i2c as lead generator for sales to universities, etc.
6. Emergent benefits of "open" will create a moat for 2i2c. (e.g. unicorns and MANGA [_previously FAANG_]) can't displace Wikipedia (but Google Knowledge graph has slowed Wikipedia growth...; right to replicate and no vendor lock-in allows 2i2c to retain customers)

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# Management Team

> Describe the key players of your management team, board of directors, and board of advisors, as well as major investors. It's ok if you have less than a perfect team. If your team was perfect, you wouldn't need to be pitching.

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# Financial Projections
# Key Metrics

>Provide a three year forecast containing not only dollars but also key metrics, such as number of customers and converstion rate. Do a bottom-up forecast, not top-down.

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# Current Status
# Accomplishments
# Timeline
# Use of funds

>Explain the current status of your product and what the near future looks like and how you'll use the money you are trying to raise.