We thank our ennovent community who has given fantastic feedback on our blogs and a great response to the Global Energy Challenge. In a collaborative manner we can create new opportunities for the Base of the Economic Pyramid in India.

We asked our fans on Facebook, whether “Being a Social Enterprise is harder than a purely For Profit Enterprise?”. We received some interesting responses which inspired this post.

Every entrepreneur is a Social Entrepreneur

The thought was interesting. In the past few weeks, we have presented stories from all across India; about motivated student leaders to social entrepreneurs; they are real heroes who are working on the ground, creating opportunities for rural India.

All entrepreneurs create value whether that is monetary returns or social gains. They create jobs, deliver value to their customers, suppliers and shareholders. The entrepreneur changes the landscape of the entire value chain.

Though the challenges of entrepreneurship remain similar for all enterprises, a social enterprise has a more nebulous social goal which is sometimes hard to define and equally hard to measure. A for-profit social enterprise has the added responsibility of creating a sustainable business and doing good, at the same time. A for-profit entrepreneur, who is also adding value, may not necessarily have a clear social return to deliver but at the same time engages in social causes. (Corporate social responsibility- is another topic which we won’t address here!)

So what do people think about all these dimensions of enterprise building?

To summarize Megha Bhagat’s statement,  “The thin line of difference probably is that a social entrepreneur has kept his selfish needs in check better than a for profit one..I have always believed every enterprise or any thing a man wants to do stems from a selfish need/desire etc he wants to do…”Social enterprise” is also one person or a few people with a thought or need to do something…but here…selfish can be good.

The thought above reflects the varied understanding which the community has towards the meaning of social enterprises. The thought of being “selflessly selfish” is interesting. We also agree that it is not an easy task to build any enterprise. And furthermore, it takes lots of guts and some real life changing experiences to create a disruptive innovation which finds its way to rural India.