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Simon Newstead

Co-founder @ GoalsWon, EA For Kids, Better Bite Ventures
116 karmaJoined Working (15+ years)Melbourne VIC, Australia
goalswon.com
Interests:
ParentingCommunityBuilding effective altruismProductivityEntrepreneurshipCharity EntrepreneurshipEffective altruism art and fiction

Bio

Participation
3

Tech founder turned impact investor / aspiring EA.

3 active EA projects:

BetterBite.vc - Alt protein VC in Asia
GoalsWon.com - accountability coaching app
EAforKids.org - EA storybooks for kids

How others can help me

Help with advice, support on any of the EA projects I'm working on

How I can help others

Any advice on entrepreneurship, seeking investment, building startups. Also free accountability coaching:  https://www.goalswon.com/giving-back

Posts
4

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Comments
19

Have you tried to bring forecasting techniques to your company? How did it work out?
Simon Newstead1
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Sure, we self studied from an agenda that the two of us put together:

- those 3 books
- some clearer thinking modules (great resource)
- practicing forecasting on metaculus
- reading some other articles and interviews

Here's a doc with all the details (also contains book notes if it's of info)

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Have you tried to bring forecasting techniques to your company? How did it work out?
Answer by Simon Newstead5
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Our venture capital fund (alt protein) recently did training into forecasting and decision making (based on approach from Superforecasting, How to Decide, The Scout mindset).

As a result, we're currently revamping our evaluation process to attempt to reduce bias and explicitly think in terms of scenarios, probabilities and expected value return multiples, rather than our old approach of guesstimating the likely outcome and scoring around that single scenario (we're also participating in some forecasting exercises to help us understand possible paths for the technology in more detail)

So far the key obstacles are to figure out how to adopt these new techniques without spending vastly more time in analysis, leaving us less time on generating dealflow and also making founders wait longer for feedback and go/no go decisions.

Another practical challenge is the actual nuts and bolts of how to take various expert inputs and then actually come up with the predictions (Superforecasting doesn't really go into the details).

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Vida Plena Predictive Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
Simon Newstead1
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Thanks for the analysis. 

Curious about the big difference in effective per-person costs between this intervention in Ecuador vs in sub-Saharan Africa, is there any main factor that leads to the much lower cost in Latin America.

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Announcing Vida Plena: the first Latin American organization incubated by Charity Entrepreneurship
Simon Newstead3
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Congrats on the launch!

Curious about how it scales, does the training of facilitators take place always in person, I could imagine over 100 hours is quite a long time to spend to get new recruits up and going, and would they be able to attend it if they are from a remote area etc?

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Keep EA high-trust
Simon Newstead8
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Are orgs / movements like Doctors without Borders, Greenpeace, Peace Corps , Rotary etc considered relatively high trust too? 

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Where are you donating this year, and why? (Open thread)
Answer by Simon Newstead4

2022 donations in USD:

5k to Maternal Health Initiative (new CE org, family planning in Africa)
5k to Vida Plena (new CE org, mental health in LATAM)
2k to Giving What We Can fund (short and longtermism causes)
2k to Cellular Agriculture Australia (developing cell ag industry)

Donated to own EA projects:

22k to GoalsWon (accountability coaching app, pro-bono for EAs)
1k to EA for Kids (EA storybook creation started)

Overall happy with the year, the best yet for contributions both directly and investing in own EA projects. Also thankful for all the collaboration and advice from the community.
 

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An EA storybook for kids
Simon Newstead1
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Agreed, physical is the real end target, though it's nice to be able to test/refine on ebook before committing to printing costs. Thanks!

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An EA storybook for kids
Simon Newstead2
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Hey, great to hear that and sure, let's swap notes and help each other out as we go!

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An EA storybook for kids
Simon Newstead1
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Agreed stories are powerful, and the sentimental value can also remain strong over years. 

If someone is thinking what book to give to a niece, or friend's kid, or their own kid in the future, they might think of those classics like The Giving Tree they resonated with years back... 

(I'm imagining all those millions of young parents starting to read Harry Potter to their own kids now...)

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An EA storybook for kids
Simon Newstead1
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Still figuring it out, but most likely in 2-5 year old range where kids are just old enough to grasp concepts, but still enjoy getting lost with their parents in a tale that sparks their imagination. 

Looking forward to your and your niece's feedback later!

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