Problem Identification: All entities involved directly or indirectly in agriculture are direct beneficiaries of our initiative. In Spain, that is more than 2 million people. The overuse of chemical agents, destruction of natural habitat & monocultures are the leading culprits in the decline of bee health & populations.

Team Description: 

• Anurag Phalke: Urban Architect
• Fabian Neiger: Chief Operations Officer
• Jeanne de Lescure: Melittologist (Bee Specialist)
• Yudan Liu: Marketing & Communications Specialist

Theory of Change. Install smart beehives with temperature control and a faraday cage to keep bees safe from weather and electromagnetic radiation respectively. Begin with the urban area of Barcelona, and later expand towards urban clusters in the rest of Spain (e.g., Madrid, Sevilla, Bilbao, Malaga). 

Earned Income Strategy. We will raise funds through public organizations. We will receive grants and sponsorship from the Barcelona government. We will also receive funding from the EU's National Beekeeping Program as part of their rewilding initiative.

Value Proposition. Our value proposition is to re-introduce bees to the city of Barcelona, Spain. This action, the benefit of which is difficult to quantify, will lead to an increase and stabilisation of the bee populations in the city and eventually in neighbouring vicinities as well.

Competitor Analysis. Currently, there are no peers serving the exact same beneficiaries as us. As our project introduces bees to urban areas, and other projects mostly focus on agricultural areas or other specified areas, we are the first working towards bees in cities. We are thus providing a new service, which we plan on later combining with existing services, meaning also approaching the rural areas.

Financial Overview. An overview of our current revenues and expenses, as well as a forecast for how these will develop in the coming 1-2 years.

Organizational Form. We will register our social venture in Barcelona, Spain as a Sociedad limitada (S.L.), a limited liability entity.

Fundraising Pitch. We are looking for social first impact investors. We are looking for grants from the Spanish government or from the EU. This initial funding will be used to buy/make the smart bee hives. We will be financing our operations through the partnerships with the telecommunications companies.

Social Impact Measurement. Our primary input measurement will be the number of beehives we place around Barcelona, and eventually other Urban areas. This number will be easy to assess, as we only have to count to assess our progress.

Communication and Marketing Strategy. Brief outline of our communication and marketing channels. It is important to note that we are not marketing our social business for profits but for educational purposes. We aim to bring awareness to people living in Barcelona about the important of co-habitation with bees.

Growth and Replication. We plan to grow according to our success throughout the major urban regions of Spain. After a year of operations, we want to expand further across Barcelona and the city's suburbs.

Exit strategy. This will be done by inviting interested parties to invest in a private exit round, where founders and investors will relinquish their dominant ownership of the company in favor of a more fragmented model.

Our social enterprise works to directly benefit the inhabitants of the urban area of Barcelona. Our project will increase the quality of life in Barcelona and the surrounding areas. This will be achieved by the increase in bees, which will lead to a higher quality of life as a consequence of increased pollination of urban vegetation. 

Additionally, telecommunications companies will benefit from our project, should they partner/subscribe to our model. Telecommunications companies will achieve a better communications network throughout the city of Barcelona. Furthermore, they will receive advertisement space in key areas of the city, generating hundreds if not thousands of impressions daily. Finally, telecommunications companies will benefit from increased PR towards to general public and are making the first step to becoming the sustainable leader in their industry. 

Lastly, the agricultural industry in Catalunya (and adjacent regions) will benefit from our project. This is due to the increase in bee population leading to increased pollination of crops in these areas. Farmers, agricultural corporations, and end consumers of agricultural products in Spain are all indirect beneficiaries. Since 4% of the Spanish population is engaged in agriculture, the initiative will indirectly benefit approximately 2 million citizens.

Bees are critical pollinators of farm crops and since a large proportion of the population is reliant on regional agricultural productivity, all populations reliant on Spanish food production qualify as beneficiaries. 

Bees account for 70% of all pollination of human food crops. In the winter between 2019 and 2020, the global honey bee population declined by 40%. This decline in bee population was brought to exist through a range of different factors: the loss of habitable land for bees, the growing use of pesticides in agriculture, the planting of ornamental flowers, as opposed to the natural growth of wildflowers and an increase in predator populations. However, the most overlooked threat to urban bee populations is the widespread presence of high-energy mobile network towers which emit hazardous electromagnetic radiation.

The decline in bee population directly hinders our ability to farm food. The inability of farmers to successfully pollinate their crops implies a drop in crop yield, which subsequently affects processing supply chains, and eventually the end consumer. Notwithstanding our efforts to preserve biodiversity in our natural ecosystems, the loss of bees severely damages wild populations of trees, insects and animals, which indirectly and inadvertently detriment critical balances which provide for our most fundamental needs. We have firsthand experience of agricultural livelihoods becoming endangered by diminishing bee populations. Ultimately, Spain accounts for 16% of European honey production, and unfavourable changes such as the increase in the use of pesticides directly damage the livelihoods of apiculturists. 

By addressing the problem at hand, the decline of bee populations, we will solve the interlinked problems that will otherwise arise. We plan on introducing bees into green urban spaces in Barcelona with a complementary business element, with plans to later expand into other dense urban areas in Spain (e.g., Madrid, Sevilla, Bilbao, Malaga). We plan on doing so by developing smart beehives (as seen at www.beewise.ag) that safely extend telecom networks to key blindspots between city blocks, as well as providing the bees with the right environment to thrive in.

At a much later stage, we look also to serve the agricultural regions directly, by introducing smart beehives in these areas. This is a goal for many years down the line. 

For more information, please refer to section 4. 

Sources:

• Decline in bee population a reality - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
  (https://www.uab.cat/web/newsroom/news-detail/decline-in-bee-population-a-reality--1345668003610.html?noticiaid=1345732103500)
• Factors Contributing to Bee Decline - Utah State University
  (https://extension.usu.edu/pests/factsheets/factors-contributing-to-bee-decline-PR.pdf)
• The Biggest Glocal Threats to Honey Bees - dadant.com
  (https://www.dadant.com/learn/the-biggest-global-threats-to-honey-bees/)
• Spanish honey production drops, as disappearing bees continue to sound alarm bells - euractiv.com
  (https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/spanish-honey-production-drops-as-disappearing-bees-continue-to-sound-alarm-bells/)

More information on the beneficiaries and the social problem can be found at:

• Why Valencia, Spain Has More Bees Than People - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-21/why-urban-bee-colonies-are-thriving-in-valencia-spain
• Honey Bees and Orange Trees - https://beemission.com/blogs/news/honey-bees-and-orange-groves
• Save the Bees - https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/sustainable-agriculture/save-the-bees/
• Honey Bees Need Your Help, Honey - https://www.npr.org/transcripts/825305756
• Spain, Europe Bee Keeping's Leader - https://www.qcom.es/alimentacion/reports/spain--europes-beekeeping-leader_35531_2580_39547_0_1_in.html

Our team consists of the following members:

Anurag Phalke: Chief Technical Officer

I devise our operational strategy and plan the deployment of our model on an urban scale. I shall leverage my network of technical experts and knowledge of urban policy to strategise how existing infrastructure can be leveraged to maximise our impact.

Fabian Neiger: Chief Operations Officer

I focus on overseeing our operations on a greater scale and am momentarily in charge of managing our finances. I also represent the company in partnerships and cooperations. Leveraging my background in the service industry, I have cultivated the soft skills required to manage impact-driven, cross-functional teams.

Jeanne de Lescure: Melittologist (Bee Specialist)

I employ findings from my research to co-create innovative solutions to improve bee population & health in urban centres. I draw on my network in the industry to encourage collaborations with professionals with diverse knowledge of bees.

Yudan Liu: Marketing & Communications Specialist

I collaborate with the team to generate organisational recognition and reach, in an effort to encourage citizens to collaborate in creating a bee-friendly urban environment. I maintain relationships with key media players to ensure that we achieve and maintain visibility and ensure dynamism in the organisation. I bring several years of expertise in social media, brand marketing and public relations to ensure that all communication objectives are met and surpassed. 

All four of us founders are active members; involved in making our social venture a success.

Our team is looking for support in the following areas: 

• Business Development Manager/Key Account Manager
• Fundraising/Sponsorship Specialist
• Legal Advisor

We plan to get started on our project by hiring outside talent on a freelance basis, to fill in whenever we need. This would involve hiring external legal help, should situations arise where this is necessary. Furthermore, we would approach the fundraising ourselves, for the time being, only relying on outside help or network connections where applicable or necessary. Finally, we believe in our ability to handle the financial aspect at first, before the project expands further and we require a professional to jump in. 

When our project grows, we will need a business development manager to source and acquire partnerships with telecommunications companies. This will be the first person that we need to hire from outside our founding team. We are confident we can get the project started without a business developer by covering for this position among ourselves, but will take care to not fill this position too late. 

As we all have backgrounds in business management, we are certain that the open positions can be covered by the core team members at first. 

One of our external partners is Jerome de Lescure - an Apiculturist and Professor, Founder of Les Ruchers de L'Olip, who will bring the critical technical knowledge required to complete this venture. 

Furthermore, we will collaborate with the University of Valencia, as well as the "Annales de la Société entomologique de France" journal, both of which have been involved in profound research on this subject. 

We look to work with the larger urban area of Barcelona. We aim to have partnerships with the city council of Barcelona and work together to reintroduce bees to the urban area. We aim to place smart hives among parks within the city, as well as the newly renovated streets/blocks such as the super-blocks close to El Raval and along Diagonal.

Furthermore, we will take care of the plants the bees will need to thrive. By this, we mean to partner with the department responsible for the green areas in these cities. We will provide them with knowledge on what plants and what environment bees need to survive, thus helping the bee populations survive in their new home. As the knowledge on apiculture is generally lacking in Spain (refer to: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-21/why-urban-bee-colonies-are-thriving-in-valencia-spain), we will provide this outside knowledge. 

The decline in bee populations is often associated with the possibility that urban environments are hostile to bees, and cannot sustain significant bee populations. However, the lack of pesticides and predators and abundant access to water and vegetation make urban environments very favourable for bees. Furthermore, urban and rural environments have been divided by their purpose, and there is a desperate need to reintroduce biodiversity into urban spaces. We propose to:

• Install smart beehives with temperature control and a faraday cage to keep bees safe from weather and electromagnetic radiation respectively. Begin with the urban area of Barcelona, and later expand towards urban clusters in the rest of Spain (e.g., Madrid, Sevilla, Bilbao, Malaga).
• Employ caretakers to establish and manage the hives and their surrounding gardens.
• Collaborate with local municipalities to improve bee environments.
• Provide network expansion services to telecom companies, and manage tower placements to provide sufficient shelter for bees. Telecom companies will subscribe to our infrastructure to extend their network and PR value. 
• Ad space on the hive can be leased to generate profit.
• Harvest and sell honey locally to offset some costs.

Sources:

• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-21/why-urban-bee-colonies-are-thriving-in-valencia-spain
• https://www.geektime.com/beewise-raises-80m-in-c-round/
• https://www.statista.com/statistics/1214293/cultivation-farmland-spain-by-region/

Our social enterprise employs a hybrid strategy of eliminating the antagonism and generating demand because of the antagonism. Practically, this means that we strive to reverse the damage done to urban bee populations by taking efforts to increase bee populations to a healthy level and eliminating dangers to urban bee populations (Strategy 3). We will also strive to capture the potential to integrate a demand-driven strategy to create demand for honey, as well as education about bees and apiculture (Strategy 4). 

To get us off the ground, we will raise funds through public organizations. We will receive grants and sponsorship from the Barcelona government. We will also receive funding from the EU's National Beekeeping Program as part of their rewilding initiative.

Prospectively, telecom companies will pay subscription fees to use our infrastructure to extend their network into urban network blind spots. Furthermore, in doing so, they expect to reverse the negative public opinion of the telcos' impact on bees and the ecosystem. Therefore, there is a huge profit margin for PR effects and advertising sales.

We anticipate that we will receive significant ancillary revenues from the sale of honey and other bee products harvested from ready hives, which would be sold at an ecological premium with the narrative of supporting rewilding and apiculture. 

Our value proposition is to re-introduce bees to the city of Barcelona, Spain. This action, the benefit of which is difficult to quantify, will lead to an increase and stabilisation of the bee populations in the city and eventually in neighbouring vicinities as well. By doing so, many positive changes will happen. 

In urban areas, the increase in bees will impact the ecosystem service of pollination. This means more flowers and crops grown in Barcelona will bloom and increase local honey production, which will offset the decrease in Spanish honey production seen in recent years. (1)

Through the design of our smart hives which include danger-free 5G cell towers, telecommunications companies will reach more areas and offer a reliable mobile network across the entire city of Barcelona. The advertisement space on beehives will provide them with hundreds of impressions daily.

Null hypothesis: If we don't follow this project, agricultural armageddon could happen. It is estimated that 35% of all food produced in the world is pollinated by bees! (2) In other words, if no new bees are introduced to Spain and the decline in bee populations is not stabilised/countered, there will be no food-crop pollination and a drastic decrease in food production will follow. Without pollination, farmers will lose their jobs and humans will lose their food! (3)

Sources:

1) https://www.larazon.es/castilla-y-leon/20220920/uzcoy2xupjf5rbaoxrqnrkrj2q.html

2) https://ourworldindata.org/pollinator-dependence

3) https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2019/05/19/buzzzng-off-bees-are-disappearing-across-the-planet-could-we-be-on-the-brink-of-ecological-armageddon/

Our unique sales proposition (USP) to Spanish honey consumers can be described as an increase in honey production, thus an increase in honey supply, which essentially leads to a decrease in the overall price of honey, as well as the possibility to buy local & sustainable honey. Spanish consumers will buy our product because they know that they are not just buying honey but also protecting the local environment and supporting local producers. Additionally, our actions counteract the decrease in Spanish honey production and the increase in honey imports seen recently. (1)

The next best alternative will be the expensive import of European honey or the import of "fake honey" from across the globe (mostly Portugal or China). (2)(3)

Finally, by introducing a bee museums and educational institutions teaching about bees, we are certain to counteract the loss of this knowledge seen in Spain. We presume that the more people know about the importance of bees (and other pollinators), the more respect and care they will show towards these insects. This will strengthen the outcomes brought by our project further and should eventually lead to humans cohabiting earth with bees in harmony. (initially in Spain, afterwards also across nations)

Source:

1) https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/spanish-honey-production-drops-as-disappearing-bees-continue-to-sound-alarm-bells/

2) https://www.euractiv.com/section/agriculture-food/news/honey-gate-how-europe-is-being-flooded-with-fake-honey/

3) https://www.larazon.es/castilla-y-leon/20220920/uzcoy2xupjf5rbaoxrqnrkrj2q.html

Currently, there are no peers serving the exact same beneficiaries as us. As our project introduces bees to urban areas, and other projects mostly focus on agricultural areas or other specified areas, we are the first working towards bees in cities. We are thus providing a new service, which we plan on later combining with existing services, meaning also approaching the rural areas. We plan to combine ideas from existing projects, such as the smart beehive from https://www.beewise.ag. 

There are a few bee protection initiatives already running in Spain, e.g., 

• Hero-Jam company bee initiative: 
  https://www.bee-careful.com/initiative/Hero-spain-save-the-bees-honey/
• Friends of the Bee society in Spain, has initiatives to protect bees and many voluntary beekeepers! 
  https://abejas.org/en/amigos-de-las-abejas-foundation/
• Bees thriving in solar farms close to Seville:
  https://newseu.cgtn.com/news/2022-06-13/Honey-production-booms-as-bees-thrive-in-Spain-s-solar-panel-fields-1aOk3o2OI5a/index.html

As we are a completely new project and no peers serving this geographical area, there is no way to quantifiably compare our impact versus our peers' impact. Over the course of the project, we plan to measure the increase in bees and thriving hives in the urban areas. Also, by monitoring honey production by these hives, it will give us an indication of how to approach introducing smart hives into rural areas. 

We plan on building relationships with our peers wherever possible. Therefore, first steps would be to approach projects mentioned above and see if peer-projects can be combined with our own. For example, an idea could be to introduce small solar farms to urban areas, which in turn are beneficial for bees, as well as produce electricity for the urban inhabitants. Solar farms are protected areas, free from humans and thus most substances detrimental to bees. This could be a way to collaborate with existing projects.

As mentioned in the previous section, there are no direct competitors for this project. As such, there is no market division and no way to accurately define how we compare to our competitors. Therefore, this section can't be filled-out in the way that is intended. 

Nonetheless, there are some projects that help bees in urban areas. For example, in Rojales, a city in the region of Alicante in the Valencia-region in Spain, bee hives have been put up for wild bees to habituate. This will counteract climate change and increase pollinators in the region, in the form of wild bees. While this is a similar project to our own, it is not possible to compare the two, as we are looking to generate some monetary value with our initiatives and this specific project is not. Therefore, actual comparisons would eventually have to be made regarding the approximate number of bees we saved. 

Sources:

• https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2021/02/18/solitary-bees-encouraged-to-reproduce-in-fight-against-climate-change-on-spains-costa-blanca/
• https://ecomil.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Flyer_corridors-for-pollinators.pdf

Revenues

SUBSCRIPTION REVENUE = 120,000€

Yearly subscription from telecom companies per hive = 1,000€ x 12 months = 12,000€

Numbers adjusted to Europe prices (https://dgtlinfra.com/cell-tower-lease-rates-agreements/)

12,000€ x 10 = 120,000€

ADVERTISEMENT = 240,000€

Additional yearly revenue from ads = 2,000€ x 12 months = 24,000€

24,000 € x 10 = 240,000€

HONEY = 21,000€

7€ x 25 x 12 = 2,100€ x 10 = 21,000€

We have about 10 smart hives across Barcelona's parks, each containing 12 colonies, and 1 bee colony produces approximately 25kg of honey per year with sells at 7€/kg

The financial data above is based on the following assumptions:

• A smart beehive is placed every kilometer or so in the City
• We should be able to sell all honey our bees produce, given the shortage of honey in Spain and the world in recent years.

TOTAL REVENUES = 381,000€

Expenses

We are assuming these expenses based on Beewise's unit costs per year,

Variable Cost per Hive = 48,000€

Operating costs = 400€ per month x 12 = 4,800€

Total VC: 4,800€ x 10 = 48,000€

Set UP Cost per Hive = 126,000€

Set-up cost per hive: 2,000€ (Gear & Supplies) 

Set-up cost per cell tower: 10,000€

One Bee queen = 50€ x 12 (Colonies) = 600€ 

Total Cost: (2,000€ + 10,000€ + 600€) x 10 = 126,000€

Fixed Cost per Hive = 120,000€

Energy cost: 1,000€ x 10 = 10,000€

Total FC: 10,000€ x 12 = 120,000€

Salaries = 55,000€

Gardener > 25,000€ per year (https://www.erieri.com/salary/job/gardener/spain/barcelona)
Beekeeper > 30,000€ per year (https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/beekeeper/spain)

The financial data above is based on the following assumptions:

• One gardener and one beekeeper can take care of all 10 hives and surrounding parks in a year

Total Expenses in First Year = 229,000€

Expenses in the next years of operations without the Fixed Setting Up Costs = 103,000€

While we expect to live up to our financial projections we are aware that contingencies exist. The following are the most likely scenarios that might force us to deviate from our projections: 

• telecommunication companies don't see the same amount of value in our project as we do
• governments don't want to support our project (either not at all or not with the same support)
• increase in costs for running the hives due to unforeseen circumstances like illness of bees, gardening costs, administrative costs

Sources:

• https://www.tridge.com/news/paulino-marcos-the-extremadura-beekeeping-sector-n
• https://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2019/05/19/buzzzng-off-bees-are-disappearing-across-the-planet-could-we-be-on-the-brink-of-ecological-armageddon/
• https://www.statista.com/statistics/784920/price-medium-annual-from-the-honey-in-spain/
• https://www.bbka.org.uk/honey
• https://honeybeehobbyist.com/how-much-queen-bees-cost/

The following is a breakdown of our unit cost per hive in Year 1:

The following is a breakdown of our unit cost per hive in consecutive Years:

Additional comments:

While telecommunications companies will be able to discuss the prices with us, we will have a minimum price from which we won't budge. This price is set at 2,000€ per month for each beehives advertisement space.

We do not plan on paying ourselves any salaries. Instead, we want to reinvest our profits directly back into the venture and fuel expansion. 

Sources:

• https://www.beewise.ag/#getstarted
• https://www.beekeepingfornewbies.com/starting-costs/
• https://www.erieri.com/salary/job/gardener/spain/barcelona
• https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/beekeeper/spain

We will register our social venture in Barcelona, Spain as a Sociedad limitada (S.L.), a limited liability entity. More information about this legal form can be found here.

This form is straightforward to establish with significant flexibility as a legal entity (allows for non-profit & for-profit). While protecting the personal assets of the partners, this form also guarantees a reliably low and consistent taxation rate of 25%, before any deductions we may receive on social grounds. 

The ownership of our social venture is structured as follows: 10% reserved for investors and another 10% for key stakeholders, such as employee unions, crowd funders and key beneficiaries, who will elect a representative to the board. This 20% is currently held in equal divisions by four founders until it is appropriate to be issued.

The remaining 80% is split as follows:

30%: Fabian Neiger - Chief Operations Officer

17%: Anurag Phalke - Chief Technical Officer

17%: Jeanne de Lescure - Melittologist (Bee Specialist)

16%: Yudan Liu - Marketing & Communications Specialist

While the company's legal form permits the issuance of dividends, the objective is to maximise the reinvestment of liquid assets to promote organisational growth. 

Our social venture will be governed by a board of directors consisting of the founders and an elected representative for beneficiary shareholders. Decisions are based on the recommendations from the organisation's advisory committee, which consists of experts and representatives from different aspects of the venture. This way all stakeholders have significant representation in the governance & leadership of the company. 

We project that we will need the following amount of start-up capital: 229,000€

Our setting up costs are extremely capital intensive and we will need 174,000€ to install the 10 Smart Beeehives across Barcelona, set up the complementary cell towers, and populate the Beehives with Bee Queens to get the colonies started.

We also need 55,000€ to hire a gardener and a beekeeper, assuming they can both take care of all 10 hives and surrounding parks.

We expect to reach break-even by month 8 in Year 1, where our expected revenues at that point will reach approximately 254,000€

This is assuming telecom companies adhere to a yearly subscription per hive at 12,000€ and our additional yearly revenue from ads per hive totals 24,000€ by Year 1. We expect a total revenue of all 10 hives at 360,000€ 

Finally, we also take into account our revenue from selling honey in Year 1 at 21,000€, as we project to be able to sell all honey our bees produce.

Therefore, monthly revenues are expected at 31,750€ meaning we can reach break-even by month 8 at 254,000€ fo revenues.

We are looking for social first impact investors. 

We are looking for grants from the Spanish government or from the EU. This initial funding will be used to buy/make the smart bee hives. We will be financing our operations through the partnerships with the telecommunications companies.

Due to the financial projections of our venture looking promising, we are confident that we won't need additional outside investments after the first grant. 

Our social return will be seen in the return of bees to Catalunya and eventually Spain. While the effects of this social return will be difficult to gauge accurately, the effects will undoubtable be noticeable very quickly. Furthermore, we are certain that our venture will increase the quality of life in Barcelona (and Spain). This will benefit basically all inhabitants in Spain, as well as visitors. Finally, it is possible that the increase in bees will increase the count of crops grown, which in turn will drive down prices. As Spain is an exporter of Fruits and Vegetables, this will also benefit foreign countries, mostly throughout Europe. 

Sources:

• https://www.statista.com/statistics/773143/fruit-export-volume-from-spain-by-fruit/
• https://www.statista.com/statistics/1214335/vegetables-export-volume-spain-by-product/

In reporting our input activities we consider the following key performance indicators:

Our primary input measurement will be the number of beehives we place around Barcelona, and eventually other Urban areas. This number will be easy to assess, as we only have to count to assess our progress.

Additionally, through the increase in beehives, the number of bees will also increase. The exact increase will be difficult to assess but we will be able to measure how many new bees we bring to the area initially, and maybe more importantly, how many queen bees we bring to the area.

Finally, we will also measure the amount of kilograms of honey we sell and how this compares to the amount of honey produced by our hives in total. These numbers will be assessed in kilograms and financial value gained. This allows us to see how the honey-market has evolved with the inception of our hives and the connected increase in available honey.

In reporting our output we consider the following key performance indicators:

Primarily, we will measure how many bees are now present in the urban area of Barcelona. This increase will be measured every three months. As queen bees are capable of laying eggs the entire year round, especially in a protected hive, we have decided on a three-month cycle to measure our output, which will allow for understanding of the progress. 

Furthermore, we will measure the output of our venture on the agricultural market in Catalunya. We are assuming that the increase in bees will lead to an increase in pollinated crops in the region. This increase in crops will lead to a decrease in prices on the market in Spain. This price decrease will allow us to gauge the output of our project in the best way possible. 

Looking now at the alternative, should we not go through with out project, then there will be no increase in bees. This in turn will lead to an absent increase in grown crops. Essentially, not much would change and the absence of our venture will not be immediately apparent. However, should humanity decide to do nothing about the decline in bees, we are facing extinction. Therefore, the null hypothesis is a grave scenario. 

Sources:

• https://canr.udel.edu/maarec/honey-bee-biology/seasonal-cycles-of-activities-in-colonies/

In reporting our outcomes, we consider the following key performance indicators: 

Apart from the increase in bees and in crops we plan to measure every three months, any further outcome measurements will be difficult to assess. Essentially, the end goal is to stabilise the bee populations in Spain and eventually worldwide, if our venture grows to such a size. If bee populations stabilise in the long-term, humanity will have made a massive step towards the mitigation of humans' impact on our planet. 

However, there are no official KPIs or benchmarks we could find in this sector, as the repopulation of bees is usually government organised. Therefore, we will share our data and discuss our impact with the respective city governments and national government. In collaboration with these official bureaus, we are certain to be able to set relevant KPIs and measure our success according to these metrics. 

In reporting our indirect impacts we consider the following key performance indicators:

We will measure how the perception towards bees and the collective knowledge of bees changes over the years. This assessment will be done through public surveys throughout areas where we're active and those where we aren't yet. This difference will be our indirect impact. Furthermore, we will gauge our indirect impact on the general public through the increase in followers and engagement of our social medias. This impact will be measured on posts coming from our own socials, as well as third-party social media pages we will be collaborating with (e.g., government accounts)

Furthermore, we will measure how the quality of life in the urban areas increases. We will also assess these metrics through surveys. However, as quality of life is an official metric, we are confident we will be able to see an increase in the areas we are active in. This increase could be an arbitrary figure, however, the best case scenario is that Barcelona would climb up the ranks of the "quality of life index by city." Currently, Barcelona sits in the 130th spot. 

Sources:

https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings.jsp

We will monetise our impact by selling the honey the bees produce in their hives. Due to lack of honey in Spain in recent years, we see this as an attractive business opportunity, which will bring additional revenue that we can reinvest into our venture. 

At this point in time, it is impossible to give an accurate assumption of the S-ROI our project will create. However, as the venture will grow organically and be self-sustaining after only a few months of operations, the investments made by government grants will increase in economic value above what was invested in dollar value. As we are a venture with a solely social-focus, we can state that each investment made will lead to a higher social return on investment than what the initial investment would essentially return. Therefore, our S-ROI is predicted to be very high. 

Here is a brief outline of our communication and marketing strategy:

• Different channels will be established. Focusing on government/public and customers/beneficiaries.
• Cooperate with public education institutions such as schools and natural museums to educate the public how to live with bees, why bees are needed in cities, the benefits of bees to humans, etc.
• Different social media accounts will be created to continuously make an impact  and influence more people. As the general public's knowledge about bees increases, the willingness of telecom companies to cooperate with us will also increase, and the cost of education to enter other cities will also decrease.

It is important to note that we are not marketing our social business for profits but for educational purposes. We aim to bring awareness to people living in Barcelona about the important of co-habitation with bees. We want to communicate our social business to create opportunities for other social entrepreneurs to expand in other cities and countries. Social media can be a powerful tool to portray the benefits our business model brings to urban spaces and motivate stakeholders to encourage local governments to welcome such models.

Main communication channels:

1. We use twitter as the main channel to communicate with government and investors： Twitter will be our COO's account- will be updates on the project, Q&A, interactions with governments accounts.
2. We use the following 2 social media channels for public and it will be 2 steps:

• Instagram and Tiktok will be our main social media channel in the first 3 months, video content will be posted on both. Content is used to boost our social business to the public and create a community. We post our philosophy and vision, daily pictures of what we are doing, involvement with the community, we interact with ur followers, combined offline activities to stimulate more UGC(for example, do life streaming we he are doing workshops in museums). In addition, instagram and Tiktok will also be channels for selling honey and other bee products.
• YouTube: After we run instagram for 3 months, we start to create Youtube video like a "mini documentary" to show how we take care of our bees, collect the honey and manage the collaboration with telecom companies. These can be used as educational content for schools and a tool for stakeholders to keep track of our social entrepreneurship journey. 
  

We plan to grow according to our success throughout the major urban regions of Spain. After a year of operations, we want to expand further across Barcelona and the city's suburbs. Our revenue projections show, that we will be financially sustainable and stable within the first year of operations. This finding allows for our early expansion. We are aiming to remain local to the urban area of Barcelona as a first expansion, as this is where we will have close governmental ties, which will facilitate this strategy. 

After having an established company and controlling the urban area of Barcelona, we plan to expand to the other large urban areas in Spain. The next goal is to expand to Madrid, where we plan to place our hives as well. This expansion will be facilitated by our success story in Barcelona.

Further expansions will take place after five years of operations. We are assuming to be able to expand into multiple cities at the same time after this time period, without having to rely on government/EU funding. This will be possible, as we plan on saving up profits, in order to finance this endeavour. 

The order of our expansion strategy will be as follows:

1. Central Barcelona
2. Wider area of Barcelona, including suburbs
3. Madrid
4. Sevilla
5. Málaga
6. Bilbao
7. Córdoba
8. Zaragoza

While expansion will occur slower in the first years, it will speed up with growth. Furthermore, expansion in larger areas (e.g., Madrid) will take more hives and require more capital, whereas smaller areas (e.g., Córdoba or Zaragoza) will be able to be achieved with less investments. Thus, we are constrained by our own growth, which in turn explains the increasing expansion speed after being established. 

We would be happy to support other users on Babele to replicate our social business model in other regions, countries or for other types of beneficiaries. We would support such replications as follows:

On a national level (Spain) we will offer support to help other social entrepreneurs working toward the same goal of bringing back the bees in urban areas. It is important to note that once our business model is validated in Barcelona, we plan to expand to other cities in Spain by ourselves. This means we won't license our name or business model to other ventures that do the same thing as us, but we will open dialogue to make sure we are thriving toward a common goal of bringing back the bees to urban cities of Spain. However, if said ventures can commit to a joined exit to community like us, then we are open to  collaborate with them.

On the international level, we will help other social entrepreneurs as much as possible to replicate our business model. We will license our beehive technology and brand to sell as franchises across the world. However, these ventures are responsible for finding their own initial funding however they see fit. We can come in as consultants to help them find investors and figure out operations and administration. As a franchise, these ventures are expected to follow the same business model meaning they have to re-invest all profits into the business itself. They are also expected to plan for a joined community exit to stakeholders, just like we plan to do here in Barcelona.

At the same time, we would like to credit the following social business model as having been an inspiration for us: BeeWise

Once we meet our objective of having a mighty presence in most if not all Spanish cities and towns with endangered bee populations, we will open the company to share ownership with those who benefit from our presence. These will most likely be our employees, government entities, agricultural workers, volunteers, and bee enthusiasts, as well as people who simply appreciate our operations.

This will be done by inviting interested parties to invest in a private exit round, where founders and investors will relinquish their dominant ownership of the company in favor of a more fragmented model. This will enable direct and indirect beneficiaries and stakeholders to become involved in governing and guiding the organization's community-driven causes.

As mentioned above, on meeting our organizational objectives, we will open the company to share ownership with those who benefit from our presence. 

By inviting interested parties to invest in a private exit round, investors will relinquish major proportions of their ownership to direct and indirect beneficiaries and stakeholders. This would, in a way, be comparable to an IPO, where investors will be able to cash out to an association of stakeholders who will then govern the organization democratically. 

In the initial division of company shares, 10% has been reserved for non-founding team members, who make significant contributions to the growth of the organization in its infancy.

When the company initiates its exit, all major shareholders: founders, investors & unions, will trade the greater share of their holdings to the stakeholders to enable a more fragmented, non-hierarchical model of ownership. This model of ownership is distinct from their roles as employees of the organization since they will continue receiving their remunerations regularly for their efforts.