Nano Ventures

1. Many people, locally and globally, currently live without housing. Even worse is the fact that many of these individuals have the skills necessary to exit this situation, but all they lack is the original resources and guidance. With the assistance of Nano, these unhoused entrepreneurs can gain the original resources needed to be successful, but still lack the guidance to success.

2. The solution at this stage (once the unhoused entrepreneur has been given resources and initial training from Nano), is to match the entrepreneur with a mentor who can provide guidance and assistance. This mentor can be in the form of an individual volunteer or a businesses/large corporation looking for corporate social responsibility opportunities.

3. The solution could help countless of the many unhoused who require guidance to become successful. It would allow for many struggling communities to flourish with the mentorship and advice of already successful mentors.

There are an estimated 567,715 people in the United States experiencing homelessness on a given night, according to the most recent national HUD’s point-in-time estimate (January 2019)

This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 15 June 2020. It is estimated that 150 million people are homeless worldwide.

Even Though millions of dollars and resources federal, city, and nonprofit are spent on food, shelters, low-income housing, rental assistance, etc, the ultimate means to end homelessness is by providing them with means to a sustained income. These existing solutions are simply just patchworked without regard for the long term outcome. If unemployment and decreased need for manual labor led to a homeless state in the first place, then looking for ways to economically empower outside of employment and/ or as a means of supplemental income through small businesses or entrepreneurial ventures offers a powerful solution. 

What the unhoused need is more than just an influx of money, but a method to earn money themselves and resources to allow them to develop skills and build businesses. However, guidance and mentorship is essential for many, if not every, businesses and is no different for those who are unhoused entrepreneurs.

The solution is a mobile app and a platform that three different populations will be able to use. Users registering on the app will have three options: unhoused entrepreneur, individual volunteer mentor, business providing mentorship. Each of the three different groups of users will choose one of the options. The unhoused entrepreneurs will be matched with one or more of an individual mentor and/or a business providing mentorship. This matching will be done with a machine learning artificial intelligence program best determining these matches to increase the chance of success. The second group, individual mentors, will be individuals who volunteer their time to help the entrepreneurs and will be matched with a venture requiring mentorship. The third group will be for established businesses looking to provide valuable mentorship to the unhoused ventures. These businesses will be further incentivized beyond philanthropic generosity to attain a higher NANO score (a measure of their corporate social responsibility which they can display) which will be given to businesses registering on the platform via the third option. The more time a business spends mentoring, the higher the NANO score. The more successful the ventures a business mentors become, the higher the NANO score.

The target population is those who are currently unhoused but have the motivation, skills, and drive necessary to exit their situation. These people are only lacking the original resources needed to start along with guidance throughout their journey. Nano already provides these individuals with the original necessary entrepreneurial skills training to start and develop their own businesses, and funds. their original equipment or merchandise needed to start their venture. With the assistance of mentors and mentorship from individuals and successful businesses, this set of people will be able to enjoy success and then will be able to pay their funds forward to another individual in the community. This overall will start to cause a chain reaction, or a Nano Chain, where each individual will pay their original funds to another member in the community so that in time, the entire community can slowly begin to flourish.

The population that this project assists are those who are unhoused and have the skills and are looking to start their own businesses. Having worked with over 100 unhoused entrepreneurs, it became evident what they needed most beyond money, was mentors. They needed mentors to help guide them and cheer them on and help them develop their business. The entire concept of matching existing businesses and mentors to unhoused entrepreneurial ventures will allow for more jobs and resources to flourish in these struggling communities with the assistance of mentorship.

This solution is innovative because it brings in three different groups who will be able to help each other and incentivizes each of them in a manner to come together to be mutually beneficial while also solving the larger problem of homelessness nationally and internationally.

Further, the usage of technology and entpreneurship for the homeless is also very innovative and has had little done in this field.

Beyond this, there are no other programs working in the same field in a similar manner to how Nano operates.. There are very few programs providing programs that provide resources for small businesses for the homeless. However none of them couple the funds with mentorship.

There will be two main parts to the technology that will be implemented in this solution. The first part will be a software in the form of a mobile app and an online platform that will essentially act as a platform to match mentors to unhoused entrepreneurs looking for mentorship. More specifically, this app and platform would be built keeping in mind the three parts of the app that would need to be designed to allow for usability of each of the three groups (unhoused entrepreneurs, individual mentors, business/corporate mentorship).

Within the app/platform, the actual matching would be done through the form of artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to create matches between entrepreneurs and mentors that has the highest chance of success. The usage of artificial intelligence and machine learning in this portion will be key in order to not just match efficiently without taking too much time, but also to ensure that matches done are done in a manner that is calculated with a high chance of resulting in success. The data that would be used to train this program would be past data of successful ventures and entrepreneurs and their mentors along with the characteristics and other fields that the mentor and entrepreneur would fill out at registration.

Both of the technologies I have mentioned have been used extensively, individually and in combination/unision.

Mobile Apps and online platforms that handle multiple user registration and pair users together have quite an extensive background. This ranges from online videogames where users can create a profile to other matching platforms such as Tinder or even social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram.

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning have been becoming increasingly popular and have become more common in day to day technological usage. It is proven that these forms of recommendation/matching forms of machine learning work. They are used in everyday software from site recommendations on Netflix or Amazon or Google or Youtube or any other online site that promotes certain content to a specific user. However, aritificial intelligence and machine learning have been proven to work as well in matching specific sites and areas such as Tinder or even broader social media sites where people can follow or connect with people the site recommends to them, based on machine learning. 

Due to the proven and extensive nature of the two technologies this solution will combine, it is clear that the technological background to the solution will work and will be effective and efficient.

Pairing Local businesses with a homeless entrepreneur who is starting a similar or a collaborating business will eventually help the homeless entrepreneur sustain and grow their small business to a point of sustainable income.

It provides local businesses to help one person in homelessness exit their state of homelessness and poverty

The App provides access to a personalized best match mentor business, and funds to start their business,

The current number of people that Nano serves is 102 unhoused entrepreneurs in various shelters throughout the St. Louis region along with people in other states and countries. This has been through the form of personal mentorship, assistance in business development via business incubators, and entrepreneurship workshops along with funding of initial merchandise or equipment needed.

The amount of people that Nano aims to serve in the next year is 500 unhoused entrepreneurs in at least 10 different states and 3 different countries. This will be through the form of business and other individual mentorship along with funding. for initial merchandise or equipment.

In 5 years, Nano aims to serve 10,000 unhoused entrepreneurs, combined both nationally and internationally.  This will be through the form of business and other individual mentorship along with funding. for initial merchandise or equipment.

Without the app, our program was able to help over 100 homeless in the St Louis area over a span of 2 years. 

With the app, we can reach millions across the US and across the world. The app will not. only be able to attract more unhoused entrepreneurs to Nano to gain more entrepreneurial skills to develop their businesses, but will also allow for them to become more successful via mentorship, giving back more to others. 

Businesses will also be more incentivized to help with such an app due to the app's NANO score that will provide the businesses with a measurable manner to show their corporate social responsibility to their consumers, customers, and community. Thus, they will also be incentivized to help more entrepreneurs, but also put in their highest effort to try to make them successful as well.

The current main barriers that exist for us to accomplish our goals in the next year and next five years mainly revolve around the availability and willingness of potential individuals and businesses to mentor and help entrepreneurs, and also revolve around the funding and revenue that can be generated to further help more of the unhoused.

Advertise to local businesses

Help homeless businesses succeed and then help them pay it forward to help another homeless person in the community start their businesses.

Accumulate data to enable a score for social impact for local businesses which they can use to advertise about their good work in the community

Full-Time Staff: 2

Part-Time Staff: 10

Our team all has background and has vast amounts of experience not only with the unhoused and entrepreneurship, but also has extensive experience in helping the unhoused develop their businesses. The entire team has also participated in and helped form business incubators at shelters.

St. Louis City Hope Shelters - A set of local shelters that Nano has conducted numerous entrepreneurship workshops in, started a business incubator at, and funded members of the shelters for their entrepreneurial ventures.

Loaves and Fisches - Shelter that Nano conducted an entrepreneurship workshop in and given funding to members of the shelter for their entrepreneurial venture.

Covenant House Youth Shelter - A national chain of youth shelters that Nano has conducted numerous entrepreneurship workshops in, launched a business incubator at, and started an artificial intelligence education program at, and funded members of the shelters for their entrepreneurial ventures.

Gateway Family Shelter - A local shelter that Nano has conducted numerous entrepreneurship workshops in, launched business incubator, and funded members of the shelters for their ventures.

Destiny Family and Church - A local church and day time shelter that Nano has conducted numerous entrepreneurship workshops in, started a business incubator at, and funded members of the shelters for their entrepreneurial ventures.

Save my Sons - A local non profit initiative developed by a 

Parkway Spark! Incubator - High school entrepreneurship program that Nano partners with to use some of the same mentors and resources given to the students to develop their businesses.

High Quartile - Local business that has provided funding for Nano and its entrepreneurs and also has provided mentorship to the various Nano ventures.

TechnoSmarts - Local business that has provided funding for Nano and its entrepreneurs and also has provided mentorship to the various Nano ventures.

Currently Nano provides funding and entrepreneurial and business development skills development to those who are facing homelessness and are at high risk of becoming unhoused as well.

This is done by reaching out to churches and shelters to conduct entrepreneurship workshops at and then asking the members of the workshop, at the end of the workshop, to write a business plan. and executive summary sheet to discuss their plans with their future venture and what equipment and resources they need to get started.

Nano will then provide funding and resources at a cost of $250 or less to these individuals and will allow them to start their own ventures and gain their own sustainable source of income.

It is important to remember that funding only occurs in the form of equipment or merchandise or courses needed, but never in the form of cash. Further, repayment is done to someone else in the community with no interest and no terms and conditions. This way, once someone has become successful enough where they can repay their funding, they can give their funding to someone else in the community, allowing that person to have the same opportunity they received.

Financial Sustainability will be attained in two main manners.

The first manner, which has already been occuring, is via fundraising through campaigns, events, and pitch competitions. This has, in total so far, netted over $40,000 for Nano, allowing Nano to spread and help many unhoused start their businesses. 

The second manner which Nano hopes to develop via the solution is a more sustainable source of revenue that will allow more entrepreneurs to be more consistently funded. This will be through advertisements on the app and platform. Given that advertisers would know exactly what groups of people would be using the solution app and platform, advertisers would receive a high incentive to advertise on this platform. All the revenue earned from this would be put back into Nano and its entrepreneurs to further help them and their communities.