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Three Ways Inclusive Businesses Can Become More Customer-Centric
In any successful business, the customer always comes first. However, impact-focused enterprises often paint customers at the base of the pyramid with wide brush strokes, overlooking nuances in culture, location and literacy. Christian Jahn, Executive Director of the Inclusive Business Action Network, understands the desire to "help" poor people – but notes well-intended social entrepreneurs risk ignoring what their customers really want. Instead, Jahn recommends businesses develop a holistic view of customer needs, viewing them through a realistic lens for more meaningful impact.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Finding the Right Financial Partner: Lessons Learned from One Startup’s Success in the Funding World
Kinnos was founded during the Ebola outbreak of 2014, marketing an innovative chemical product that allows even untrained workers to apply disinfectant correctly. Its founders (then students at Columbia University) quickly received more than $750,000 in grants and prizes. But as their company grew, they had to learn to navigate the risky landscape of startup investment. According to Christina Tamer at VentureWell, the Kinnos team's success in this area—they have raised $1 million in venture funding from angel investors—offers a number of key lessons for other entrepreneurs.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing, startups
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Cracking the Nut: How a Cashew Enterprise Empowers Women in Rural Bali
Each day, East Bali Cashews (EBC) processes about 800 pounds of raw cashews, preparing them for snack production. The Indonesian company was launched about five years ago after a health care volunteer saw the impoverished conditions many agricultural workers face, and it now employs 400. But the statistic that most impresses Nadia Putri, an MBA candidate at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, is that more than 80 percent are women. After interning there this summer, Putri details how EBC works to advance women by providing training in everything from English to Excel.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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The Least Sexy Approach to Development: Why We Need to Focus on Systems Change
Even within the systems-change sector, people joke that it is one of the least “sexy” facets of development work. Focused on addressing the faults in social, economic and political systems that lead to problems like poverty, the approach can be overwhelmingly complex, which has limited its widespread implementation. But as Lexi Doolittle at S3IDF explains, a market-based approach that nudges these systems towards greater inclusivity and productivity is a vital tool to catalyze social change – one that we cannot afford to overlook.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise, Uncategorized
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The Benefits of Conflict: Why the Tension Between Profit and Purpose is Actually Good for Social Enterprise
Social entrepreneurship is on the rise, yet many entrepreneurs still struggle to convince investors that they can turn a profit while advancing their missions. In researching several social enterprises, Eli Etzioni found that this conflict between profit and purpose is often an obstacle. But his studies also revealed some surprising ways it can lead to “moments of balance, creativity and ingenuity.” He explores how three entrepreneurs leveraged the tension between money and mission for the benefit of their businesses.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
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Using Mobile Technology to Fight Disease: Three Tips for Social Startups in the Developing World
In a world where nearly half of the population is too poor to access essential health services, preventable diseases still claim countless lives. Malaria alone is responsible for over 1 million deaths each year, and sickle cell disease also affects millions across the globe. But these diseases can be significantly helped with early diagnosis and cost-effective treatments, says Hemex Health co-founder Patti White. She explores the innovative technology Hemex has developed to address this issue – and highlights three elements of its approach that can help other social enterprises gain traction in the crowded startup space.
- Categories
- Health Care, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- startups
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How to Build an Impact Industry: Four Strategies from the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
Almost 3 billion people worldwide cook with materials that are inefficient, unsustainable and polluting. Since 2010, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves has sought to make clean stoves and fuels commonplace across the developing world, by building an industry that could deliver this vision. Colm Fay and Ted London at the William Davidson Institute share insights from the Alliance's efforts to catalyze this new industry, breaking down four key stages of acceleration and their lessons for other impact-based accelerators.
- Categories
- Energy, Social Enterprise
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Looking for Funds in All the Wrong Places: The Single Biggest Thing Social Entrepreneurs Misunderstand About Investors
Social entrepreneurs often feel like they have to compromise or downplay their missions in order to appeal to profit-hungry investors. But that's not the case, says investment consultant Jenny Kassan, as investors don't always fit the stereotype of a "middle-aged white man in a suit" seeking a fast, lucrative exit. She explores a vast, under-recognized source of investment capital that entrepreneurs can tap – one that actually prefers businesses with a social focus.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Tags
- impact investing