In 2010, one of us was sitting in a room at the Harvard Business School with Eric Ries and a number of budding entrepreneurs. They were pitching their ideas and plans to Eric and their peers; once the pitch was complete, the group would then brainstorm. One of these young entrepreneurs in particular stood out. He was not your standard internet entrepreneur — the student presenting was pitching a project to increase sub-Saharan farm income, by helping farmers shift from traditional crops to rubber trees. He had developed an extensive plan, and had the promise of grant money behind him. The problem with the effort, of course, was that building both the necessary African infrastructure and the logistics network needed to transport the non-indigenous crops was going to be a very expensive proposition indeed.