The Altura Academy Curiculum
Altura Ventures has spent decades assembling the best materials for startup entrepreneurs. As part of the GEM System and The Altura Academy, you will receive coaching in the following approaches to optimizing your business:
Lesson 1:
Tracing Success Patterns: A Master Class in Persuasion by Lee Lorenzen -- Webinar
Tracing Success Patterns: A Master Class in Persuasion by Lee Lorenzen -- Workbook
This Tracing Success webinar is Lee's masterclass on persuasion and includes the complete stories as to why Bill Gate, Jeff Bezos, and Steve Jobs gave Lee's startups what they needed to succeed. The companion workbook has all of the written course material including additional persuasion techniques.
Lesson 2:
The GEM System for Raising Money in a Tight Funding Environment by Lee Lorenzen -- Slides
This presentation explains how the GEM System Fundraising Process Works.
Lesson 3:
The GEM System for Finding Explosive Growth for Your Startups by Lee Lorenzen -- Slides
This presentation includes examples of how persuasion techniques can be used to get amazing levels of growth (e.g., 2 million users in 14 days for the Birthday Calendar app).
Lesson 4:
- The Wally Video -- Overview
- The Wally Video -- Segment 1
- The Wally Video -- Segment 2
- The Wally Video -- Segment 3
- The Wally Video -- Segment 4
Wally Hawyluk took his local Melbourne pet shop from an over blown hobby to an international commercial success. The interview charts his story, which he credits to educating himself as a business person, implementing small bits of business know-how piece by piece. What makes it such a powerful video is the simplicity of what he did and the realization that these actions are open to anyone
The Altura Academy Top 10 Books on Startup Growth and Persuasion
These are links to online PDFs (or Amazon product pages) for the most useful books from various 3rd party authors.
The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing by Ries and Trout
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini PhD
Building a Storybrand by Donald Miller
The Elevator Pitch Template for Describing Your Business by Lee Lorenzen
How to Demo by Jason Calacanis
Eight Essentials of a Successful Alliance by the Warren Company
The Strategic Spectrum of Business Partnership Structures by the Warren Company
The Network Effects Bible by The NFX Team
These materials are the best that we can find and we encourage you to study them both before and after you become a licensee of the GEM System.
GEM System Learning Units
The following sections describe key parts of the GEM System and how each relates to ShopO which is one of the GEM System Clients.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
These videos describe various influence techniques.
- Robert Cialdini -- The 7 Universal Principles of Persuasion
- Robert Cialdini -- Principle 0: Perceptual Contrast
- Robert Cialdini -- Principle 1: Reciprocation
- Robert Cialdini -- Principle 2: Scarcity
- Robert Cialdini -- Principle 3: Authority
- Robert Cialdini -- Principle 4: Consistency
- Robert Cialdini -- Principle 5: Consensus
- Robert Cialdini -- Principle 6: Liking (part 1)
- Robert Cialdini -- Principle 6: Liking (part 2)
- Lee Lorenzen -- When We Were Kings -- The Power of Controlling a Two-Party Option
Story Brand by Donald Miller
These videos provide important lessons about Donald Miller's StoryBrand approach to messaging and branding from Donald Miller.
- Donald Miller -- Building a StoryBrand -- Book Summary
- Donald Miller -- The Importance of a Clear Story
How to Start a Movement
These stories are examples of how "one motivated flea can get the whole dog moving."
- Derek Sivers -- How to Start a Movement -- TED Talk
- Jessica Jackley -- Kiva's Intercontinental Ballistic Micro-Finance
- Jessica Jackley -- Kiva's One Spark That Changed the World
- Lee Lorenzen -- Rock Candy Revolotion -- TED Talk
- Jane McGonigal -- Why Reality is Broken -- TED Talk
- Zina's Speech -- We Few, We Happy Few, We Suite of Sisters
- Teddy Roosevelt -- It's Not the Critic Who Counts
- Pay-to-Stay Plan -- A Path to Debt Reduction, Immigration Reform, and Deportation Screening
The Women Who Inspire Us
These stories are about some of the women who were the inspiration for Altura Ventures and ShopO.
- Talent and Dreams are Universal --- Opportunity is Not
- Surprising Oprah with One Part of the Investment She Made in the World
- Jessica Jackley Homage -- The Azure Blue Crayon
- Jessica Jackley Homage -- The View Behind the Tapestry of Life
- Sheryl WuDunn -- Half the Sky and A Path Appears -- TED Talk
Startup Wisdom from Wally
These videos provide important lessons from Wally that every startup entrepreneur should learn.
