Explorations in Social Entrepreneurship

Over the last several months I’ve been exploring entrepreneurship both in terms of what makes for success as an entrepreneur and understanding various business models for social entrepreneurs. Here’s a very short snap shot of things that have stuck out in my mind:

• Some of the great successes of people like Thomas Edison came from a continuous cycle of research coupled with practical real-world experiences (contracts) from people with a real problem;
• Success is often iterative. Rarely does a breakthrough idea just arrive after a night of contemplation;
• Be ready to change and adapt quickly.  Some of the entrepreneurs I’ve talked to in Ottawa started one company only to discover their niche in a completely different field. Shopify.com is great example of a company that started as two people wanting to create a snowboard company and ended up creating scalable online stores for businesses;
• Start. Perhaps this is the hardest part. Don’t expect to get everything perfect the first time around, but not starting might be more costly than waiting.

Second I’ve been exploring several social entrepreneurial business models. I am a firm believer in sustainable ways to implement development projects. Social entrepreneurs apply business knowledge in their projects to achieve a social change. What’s interesting here is a social entrepreneur can be either a for-profit or a not-for-profit incorporation. As discussed on the Skoll Foundations Social Edge site, there is clearly a gap for people who want behave both a sustainable business and a grant receiving not-for-profit. More and more organizations are creating a hybrid model that has both a not-for-profit and a for-profit side. There is some discussion of introducing a new model of incorporation in the United States for – for-benefit organizations -” driven by a social purpose, they are economically self-sustaining, and they seek to be socially, ethically, and environmentally responsible”

Bellanet was an organization based within IDRC for many years. It is now independent of IDRC and we are exploring Social Entrepreneurship models to work together as an international alliance of organizations. Bellanet is now known as the Bellanet Alliance of Social Entrepreneurs. Stay tuned.

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