Creating One Million Advisory Relationships by 2021

We have a vision for Arbolus. To achieve this we need to be constantly motivated, so we've set ourselves a goal, a huge goal.

We started Arbolus because we believed experience should be shared without limits. We wanted to take away the barriers that prevent people connecting, and sharing professional experience.

So we have introduced a our Big Hairy Audacious Goal of creating one million advisory relationships between companies and experts by the end of 2021.

Why this goal?

When speaking with business leaders who are looking for help we often hear:

"I know who the right person is, but don't have any common ground to get in touch ..."

"I need to know who to speak to about this, and can’t think who the right person would be"

At the same time, we often hear from experts:

"I have 20 years of valuable experience, but I don't know who would find it valuable"

"I have a few advisory relationships through friends and former colleagues, but I would like to work with more people. Can you help?"

Our Big Hairy Audacious Goal

Earlier this year we started thinking about a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG). We wanted to come up with something that would make us commit to our vision of sharing experience without limits.

So what do we need to do to achieve one million matches?

We needed to think a little differently. Here are some ways we are going about it.

1. Use technology to analyse experience within our community and automatically match it to companies' needs

We are training data models to map the experience of our community. At the same time we are identifying the needs of our companies and making the introductions. We call this Hyperion.

2. Crowdsourced referrals

We recognise our community is perfectly placed to refer people they know who have experience that companies are looking for.

3. Challenge our interpretation of a ‘match’

Why does a match need to be 2 people meeting or speaking on the phone? What if they could message each other through our platform? What if we could build groups of experts? (see Arbolus Circles). What if we could help experts produce content as a way of sharing their experience?

4. Remove financial barriers

What if we forgot about trying to monetise a match? What if we could just let two people who wanted to connect, do so freely without trying to force a monetary transaction right at the start? We are now exploring new ways of creating value for companies and experts without a financial exchange.

What next?

To make us commit to this, we are going to send a follow up to this post every couple of months with a Match Tracker (showing how many we have achieved). We would also need help! If you have thoughts or ideas please get in touch - we would love to hear from you.