Millennials Gained Interest in Social Entrepreneurship

Millennials are slowly becoming larger in number, in fact, they’re now the largest group among the US labor market. While profit in the work place is great, it’s becoming not enough for this group of people. Millennials are extremely willing today to drop what they’re doing and change professions, even at the cost of a promotion. Why are millennials so geared towards social entrepreneurship today?

How did this come to be? For starters, the internet played a big part. Millennials grew up with the internet, constantly connected with one another. Through this consistent connection we’ve seen a lot of collaboration. It’s through the internet that they are more aware of social problems happening around the world than say baby boomers were years ago. It creates a greater chance for these problems to strike a chord with someone bring on a call to action. They’ve become more interested in real meaning to life than just material things like cars and houses.

Millennials are courageous, ambitious, and determined in attempting ideas and business plans to help combat social hardships. They’re also proactive in the sense of rather than letting businesses or the government come up with a plan to help those in need they put their own mind to work to try to think of great solution.

For more on this topic, check out this article at Forbes.com on millennial social entrepreneurs.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate social responsibility has become a large part of business today. With a lot of knowledge public with respect to how much revenue or profit a company brings in, it’s important to consumers to see how they go about it. Are they paying fair wages? Are they donating a portion of their profits to charity? Is there something else that they’re doing amidst all their great success in order to share it? Let’s take a look at some companies who are stepping up their corporate social responsibility according to Business.com.

Madécasse

Co-founders Brett Beach and Tim McCollum previously worked for the Peace Corps so they come from a great background in order to help a specific cause. As the founders of Madécasse, they were looking to help find a solution for Madacascar, one of the world’s poorest countries (fourth). Approximately 70% of the world’s cocoa supply is from West Africa. With that said, only 1% is produced there. The location is missing out on a great opportunity. Beach and McCollum began their social enterprise in Madacascar. What they would do is produce the chocolate there, but sell it internationally in order to help locals. Check out this video below:

LifeStraw

Water is a necessity in life yet nearly 750 million people around the world have a hard to accessing clean water. That’s where Vestergaard Frandsen steps in. Frandsen created a product and distribution method that is certainly a step in the right direction for the problem mentioned above. LifeStraw produces a microfiltration device that removes 99.9999% of bacteria from water sources. Normally, people would boil water in order to kill bacteria which brings on the process of acquiring fire wood and setting up a fire. Then once heated, it’s not quite drinkable because it’s so hot. The microfilters offer a great solution.

Great Companies That Make Money and Do Good

Sometimes the hardest thing you can do when trying to start a social entrepreneurial business is figuring out how to execute your idea. How can you both make a business that stands on its own and help benefit others, the social aspect. You might not get it right on the first, second, or even third try, but you find a way to get it done. Brought to you by Inc.com, here’s a short list of a couple great companies that do social good all the while making money.

Oliberté – Footwear

Oliberté is a footwear company founded by Tal Dehtiar. Dehtiar’s vision was to create a better middle class in Africa. He aimed to do this by creating sustainable jobs with fair wages in Ethiopia. Dehtiar now produces in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Liberia. It looks as though he’s just getting started as he has a vision that brings them to Cameroon, Congo, Uganda, and Zambia.

Falling Whistles – Whistles

Falling Whistles

Falling Whistles was founded by Sean Carasso and David Lewis. Together Falling Whistles began by producing fashionable metal whistle necklaces. A journey landed the founders in the Democratic Republic of Congo where they saw how bad the war has hit the area. With over 6 million people dead in the last decade, Carasso and Lewis wanted to begin to help. The company now works to develop partnerships with community leaders to assist in the rehabilitation of those exposed to the war. While having sold 50,000 whistles already, it’s really these partnerships that are helping the most.

Jack’s Soap – Soap

Bridget Hilton, founder of Jack’s Soap wanted to stop the alarming death rate among children. When she learned that 5,000 children die everyday from diseases that could have been prevented from washing their hands, she knew something had to be done. Her vision is simple, for every bar of soap she sells, she donates one to a child in need. These bars of soap while luxurious, are both PETA and USDA approved.

For more on other great organizations, check out this article here.

Overcoming The Psychology Of The Social Entrepreneur

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Every organization or work place has a leader. The CEO, founder, co-founder, etc. For everyone of those leaders, comes a fleet of workers. No man or woman can do it on their own. From the beginning, to bring yourself to do so can take a lot. Along the journey, there can be some rewarding moments as well as some mentally draining moments. The process of starting a business or organization can take a lot out of you. This long and tough road can be complicated for entrepreneurs, but it’s that much harder for social entrepreneurs. While an entrepreneur focuses on business model and market opportunity, a social entrepreneur will have to keep that in mind while also maintaining the social impact efforts. Let’s take a look at some of these hurdles social entrepreneurs will have to overcome in order to succeed.

Access to Funding

Tech startups have a far easier time gaining a venture capitalist investment than a social entrepreneurial business due in large part to the bottom line. An investor will look at the bottom line, which many tech businesses have a keen eye on whereas a social entrepreneur’s business is looking at the social impact their business can make. An investor always wants to make their money back and then some and they see that happening far easier than with a business that’s worrying about a social impact first. A way to avoid this dilemma is to avoid these investors. You have access to funding through grant programs and platforms like Kickstarter that can be of help. You don’t want to get hung up on an investor who is looking to change the mold or fit of your business.

For more information on other hurdles social entrepreneurs will have to overcome, check it out at Yahoo! Finance.

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Social Entrepreneurship: “The Venture”

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Adrian Grenier, the star of HBO’s series, Entourage is taking on a few new roles. For one, Grenier was recently hired by Dell as a “social good advocate.” In the heat of business, many companies can lose sight of certain initiatives. Dell has an initiative to do social good and does not want to lose sight of that. Grenier has a track record of working for social causes. He has helped create a television show for the Discovery Channel on sustainable living and he’s even began creating a documentary on raising awareness for whales and the ocean noise pollution.

Adrian Grenier

Adrian will also be a part of “The Venture,” a business start-up competition. Grenier will serve as a judge along with Alexandre Richard, the CEO of Pernod Ricard’s, and Morgan Clendaniel, the founding editor for Co.Exist. Adrian will help decide which of five entrepreneurs will be awarded $1 million.

The show strongly resembles ABC’s Shark Tank but has a bit of a different focus. The competition will judge based on longevity of the business, their core principles, and what they are looking to do from a social perspective. Social entrepreneurship is the idea that financial success and social good can work hand in hand. This is what the judges will ultimately be looking for. Social entrepreneurship has been on the rise in the last 20 years, due in large part to millennials.

The Venture had over 1,000 applicants which will ultimately be cut down to 16 competitors. At that point, the field will be narrowed down to 5 finalist. Now it won’t be a winner takes all competition. Each of the five finalist has a chance to walk away with a portion of the $1 million. It won’t be televised, but can be sometime down the road.

For more on this interesting competition, check it out on Fortune.com.

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Leveraging Regional Assets: Presence of Mentors

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While the scope of our research was aimed mainly at the direct correlation between the success of entrepreneurs and the location of the Kansas City area, a detail emerged from interviews we conducted with successful entrepreneurs. I’m talking about the utilization of mentors. An extremely high number, approximately 75% of the entrepreneurs we interviewed, had some form of mentorship as they founded their companies.

Some of these mentor relationships were formally structured, such as those through the Helzberg Entrepreneurial Mentorship Program (HEMP) or Pipeline, while others evolved naturally. In some cases, an entrepreneurs previous employer became their mentor. While many had some sort of mentor, those who didn’t had previous experience working at a large successful firms.

The following quotes describe the relationships and advice the entrepreneurs received:
“I’ve never had a single formal, heavily invested mentor-mentee relationship. There are a handful of owners/executives that are highly accomplished that are a phone call away to answer questions and offer guidance and encouragement or inspiration or connections, to help any way they can.” (IT Firm C)

“The Helzberg program helped us a lot, because that was in 2003 and 2006. I would even go out on a limb to say we might not be around if we didn’t have that to lean on in the 2005 timeframe when we made some real bad management decisions and lost the money. Because I was able to pick up the phone, personally call Barnett and say ‘I’m in trouble, I don’t know how much trouble I’m in.’” (Business Services Firm M)

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Social Entrepreneurship: The Next Generation

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The realm of social entrepreneurship and those involved are considered to be a part of the confluence of philanthropy and business, and Neil Blumenthal of Warby Parker Eyewear is no exception. Although his point of view is exceptional. Blumenthal’s initiative, his dream that is, is the acceleration of socio-political reform to a point that brings its adaptivity and progress up to par with that of the booming technological sector.

Blumenthal hopes to effuse this helpfulness and eagerness to take action to influence others to take a part in the change they wish to see in the world. Catherine Clifford of The Entrepreneur expresses that ideas should be born out of the desire to enact change. It isn’t about the uniqueness so much as the motivation and vision. Blumenthal himself worked for a similar company that offered glasses to developing areas. Already, many young companies are following in these footsteps with programs that donate a certain amount of profits, or provide goods to the underprivileged. Warby Parker has a buy-one-give-one offer for their sunglasses.

An example he cites as an example of evening the difference in technological and political growth is Waze, which provides users with the least congested traffic routes available. This integrates high-speed programming with socio-political concerns. As information becomes more democratically available, self-driven entrepreneurs can incorporate information previously held by governmental agencies with the free map of society. The most important aspect in the equation for growth is always looking for improvement and never settling with complacency. Complacency, to echo Blumenthal, parallels the lethargy of government. It is key to stay up to date with the wants and needs of the world; “the most thoughtful company wins.”

In this day and age as globalization and interconnectedness take the forefront of socio-political platforms, the self-serving enterprise does not finish first. It is the company that brings people and causes together that ultimately succeeds. Exhibit A: Neil Blumenthal.

For more on this interesting article, check it out here at entrepreneur.com.

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Leveraging Regional Assets: Implications and Discussion

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We’re now going to revisit other parts of the study and look into implications for 3 major audiences: entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship supporters, and policymakers.

Capital

Many of the entrepreneurs in the Kansas City area started small but in time were able to take on great growth. Although some businesses will take the route of venture capitalist, this study showed that few actually chose that route. Most entrepreneurs from the study started with capital they had or gathered from family and friends. What we found is that a lack of investment dollars is not key to growing a business in this region.

Entrepreneurs should not be discouraged by the region’s shortage of significant investments from venture capital firms. They should consider paths to start small, with funds from various sources, and scale up effectively by attracting clients.

Policymakers and entrepreneurship supporters should channel their energy into connecting nascent entrepreneurs with experienced entrepreneurs, not on creating venture funds or seeking outside investors.

Talent

Each of the companies we looked into seemed to have great employees showing that the Kansas City region is not short of talent. High levels of education and a strong Midwestern work ethic are on display across the board. Some companies leverage this strength, achieving high levels of retention and offering high-quality customer service. Both serve as competitive advantages. Although Kansas City is far from prestigious engineering universities like Stanford and MIT, it’s the training programs that these companies have that create great talent.

Entrepreneurs should not expect all programmers and other employees to be prepared to contribute to the company immediately. Instead, they should consider investing in long-term training programs for young, aspiring talent in the area.

The region’s best resources are a hard-working and loyal pool of labor, a small and supportive business community, and a low cost of living in a family-friendly environment. As a result, companies should integrate the whole set of recruitment, retention, training of employees, along with the company culture to support it, with this strength of the Kansas City region.

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Some of the Top Social Entrepreneurs

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Entrepreneurship has long been around for sometime. Entrepreneurship is the process of starting a business or organization. An entrepreneur is responsible for putting the business in motion via funding, hiring, orchestrating a business model, and sales. As time went on, a new form of entrepreneurship formed. Social entrepreneurship took came to fruition when Bill Drayton discovered it and began to use it with normality. It was first found in print in 1972. Social entrepreneurship is the pursuit of a business that also solves a problem within society. A noble profession, there have been many great social entrepreneurs that have had success. Lets take a look at some of the most successful ones to date.

Bill Drayton – Ashoka: Innovators for the Public
Bill Drayton is not only a successful social entrepreneur, but he actually helped create the term. Drayton’s organization is designed to find and help social entrepreneurs from around the world. Ashoka provides start up financing, connections to global networks, and professional support services. Drayton’s organization has an outreach of 3,000 across 70 countries. For general inquiries, contact Ashoka at info@ashoka.org.

Muhammad Yunus – Grameen Bank
Muhammad Yunus has done many great things for the field of social entrepreneurship. He has won the Nobel Piece Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. The Grameen Bank is a bank that allows the impoverished to be granted a microloan without needing to put collateral down.

Blake Mycoskie – TOMS
Blake Mycoskie founded TOMS, a one for one based concept to help those in need. TOMS started with shoes, when someone bought Mycoskie’s shoes, he would give a pair to a child in need of one. When he realized he had something great going on, Mycoskie took it a step further. TOMS eyewear was eventually launched. With every pair of eyewear sold, Mycoskie would give sight to a child in need.

For more on great causes similar to the ones above, check out this article here.

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Leveraging Regional Assets: Findings

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The companies interviewed ranged from small, hyper-growing firms with extremely high productivity to large, yet still rapidly growing companies. If you can look at the chart below, on average these firms had $22.8 million in revenue. Not bad for 22 companies in the Kansas City area. The chart further shows that on average these companies employ about 112 people. The real important fact here is that on average, these companies manage a 39% annual revenue growth rate.

From a geographical standpoint, about 56% of the entrepreneurs we interviewed were either A) Kansas City natives (10) or B) come from Kansas or Missouri (4).  The interesting facet of these statistics is the eight whom we interviewed that were from outside of the Kansas City region.  Seven of those eight were from within the United States and the eighth was international.  Take a look at the chart below.

 

The companies interviewed had many different avenues of which they went about securing funding for their businesses.  The most popular way was however, self funding.  Thirteen of the twenty-two companies each used their own savings or from past entrepreneurial successes.  Six companies secured their funding through family and friends while angels, venture capitalist, bank, and government loans each had two companies go that route.

Check in soon for further information on this interesting study.

 

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