Project AURA: Light Up the Road (Effective Scaling Strategy)

Project Aura: The Product from Project Aura on Vimeo.

This week, I wanted follow my trend from last week and focus on social innovations closer to home. Domestic social innovations are closer for me to grasp, and growing up in an area (East Liberty, PA) which is now transforming into a landscape of revitalizing, I am able to see up close the wonders that are impacting and shaping our world. After reading the article, "How to Take a Social Venture to Scale," (Harvard Business Review, 2012) I wanted to interview my friends Jon Ota and Ethan Frier, who co-own AURA, an LED light product that will be used on bikes. Jon and Ethan are at the point where they are developing a scaling strategy. According to "How to Take a Social Venture to Scale," there are several areas companies should focus on to ensure a successful scaling plan: Staffing, Communicating, Alliance-Building, Lobbying, Earnings Generation, Replicating, Stimulating Market Forces.

Unfortunately, Jonathan and Ethan were unable to complete the interview this week as they are preparing for a trip to Las Vegas to meet with bike accessory manufacturers(so, hopefully I can update this blog post with their interview at a later date --- check back!).

AURA currently has two employees and about $40,000 in grants and investments (combined from General Electric and the URA) and is currently at the stage where large scale growth is expected and needed. The plan for AURA is to be acquired by a bike manufacturing accessory company and to still retain decision-making responsibilities in the company. By having an exit strategy of acquisition, Jon and Ethan must pay particular attention to the scalability of their company. The most important suggestions made by the Harvard Business Review is that AURA should pay close consideration to its staffing, alliance-building, and lobbying. New employees entering AURA most have the same passion Jon and Ethan have for the bike safety industry. There must also be strategic alliance building. Through alliance building, AURA can grow to become a larger company and do it quickly. The third, and most important piece, is lobbying. Project AURA and other social innovation, must be able to leverage policies to implement their innovations quickly to the world. On the first day of class, we were taught that it took many, many years for legislation to be passed to mandate oranges to be eaten by crews on ships to prevent scurvy. The success for many social innovations start from the ground up (grass roots), but through lobbying, there is a more apparent top-down approach.


About Project AURA

Project AURA, or simply AURA, is a lighting model for bicyclist that attach LED lights around the spokes of a bike's front and back wheels. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an organization that works to improve road safety for all travelers, in 2011 there were close to 700 bike fatalities. Ethan and Jon, being avid cyclists, knew that cyclists needed to be safer on the road. Motorists attitudes toward cyclists have been often impatient, but Jon and Ethan knew that night riding was very dangerous because motorists could not effectively identify cyclists. Currently, most cyclists use some type of flashing light, but Jon and Ethan theorized that the blinking light on the back of the bike could be confused for many things, and some motorists might be inclined to speed up. This is where they devised Project Aura, which allows motorists to recognize the wheels of the bike (something particular to bikes) and know the movements of the cyclists (when the bike is pedaled over 4 mph the lights turn white and when there is deceleration, the lights turn red). By making the bikes congruent to movements similar to a car, there might be an improved relationship between motorists and cyclists to share the road and make it safer.