Below are 8 lessons that I carry with me from journey so far:
1. In social entrepreneurship, impact should come first and profits second
Sometimes it’s more financially profitable to sell an exclusive license on your products or services, but in a social enterprise, there must be no such monopoly. Social innovation should be available to as many people as possible and it shouldn’t be locked up in the hands of an exclusive distributor.
2. To scale the impact is more important than to scale the organisation
When you are thinking of growing your company, start with scaling the social part.
Scaling impact can be done in one of three ways:
a) scaling deep – expanding the number of products or services for the same audience
b) scaling out – launching subsidiaries or franchisees in different geographical locations
c) scaling up – replicating the social innovation across geographies using existing organisation
3. Social entrepreneurs comprise only 5% of all the entrepreneurs in the world
A reasonable number taking into account the first part of this article. But it means that what we are doing is quite unique. To put it simply: value yourself and your company!
4. Growth is not the same as scaling
You can grow the number of customers and yet be detrimental – this is not scaling. Scaling is replication of an already profitable and impactful business model.
5. Innovation and scaling shouldn’t be done simultaneously
Each of these processes should take all of your time and resources. Only big companies can do this simultaneously, so startups need to do one or the other.
6. Scaling should come in two: an entrepreneur and a manager
Entrepreneurs are visionary, inspiring and creative leaders. They can invent and re-invent the company. However, to grow, a vision is not enough; a down-to-earth, practical manager is needed to implement the vision and complement the visionary (this is where my team come in)!
7. Surprises are the new normal. Resilience is the new skill
You should constantly train your company to be resilient, flexible and adaptable in order to survive.
8. Partnership is the new black
Need advertising? There’s a partner for that. Need to solve logistics issues? There’s a partner for that too. Don’t try to vertically integrate everything within your company. Sharing resources is more effective.
My conclusion?
The truth about doing social business is somewhere in the middle: doing charity won’t bring any financial profit, but running a pure commercially-oriented business is neither satisfying, nor very-well accepted in today’s world.
You need to be very creative to combine impact and profit. Find your place on this scale and keep rocking!
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