initiatives. Perhaps, without
these above considerations,
the immediate excitement
wouldn’t take us to go any fur-
ther.”
target customers to participate
in co-designing a product or
service so it can suit their tra-
dition and lifestyle best. All
these steps require using pro-
fessional skills and tools such
Recently, Diinsider conduct-
Knowing your customers in- as SWOT analysis, business
ed another small scale survey volves intensive resource mo- model canvas, focus group
asking what social entrepre- bilization as you will need your studies, etc.
neurs need most in order to
sustain their efforts. Results
revealed that besides financial
support, business plan devel-
opment and partnership op-
portunities are also essential.
deforestation could be a symp-
tom of a livelihood, so instead
of planting more trees, offering
an alternative livelihood to the
community is a better solution.
Fundamentally, what a social
entrepreneur needs most apart
from passion, is the capability
to secure all sorts of resources.
It does not entail you to have
all these resources at the begin-
ning. However, all these should
be present as your social en-
terprise grows. Here are a few
suggestions:
Partnership
Business Model Development
Transforming your idea into
a business model is the first
step in starting a social enter-
prise. It involves a lot of analyz-
ing from defining a problem,
knowing your customer, de-
signing your product/service,
to valuing proposition and rev-
enue streams.
Some may seem deceptive-
ly simple such as defining a
problem. Social entrepreneurs
usually assume that they know
the problem in their commu-
nities because they live there
and know everyone. But what
at first seems to be the problem
is often merely a symptom of a
deeper problem. For instance,
A standard business model canvas
enterprises only have limited
resources, partnership with
Social problems are usually other organizations having a
complicated and cannot be similar mission is a good ap-
solved by a single social entre- proach to maximize impact.
preneur. Since start-up social
diinsider co-founder Bolun Li with partner community
Photo by: Bolun Li
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