I recently wrote a piece for Fast Company (and the new Skoll World Forum website) about the Six Things Silicon Valley Can Teach Social Entrepreneurs. If you’re a social entrepreneur, or you work in a fast-paced technology environment like Silicon Valley, these might ring true.
Here’s a preview…
Six Things Silicon Valley Can Teach Social Entrepreneurs
Can a social enterprise have the breakthrough success of a Facebook or Twitter? Perhaps if they start emulating some of these characteristics of the most successful tech companies.
After nonprofit work in East Africa, and an MBA from Oxford University’s Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, I was not the most likely person to land at a small startup called Twitter in 2009. But that’s exactly what happened.
Based on my work leading social innovation at Twitter, here are six essential things that Silicon Valley can teach social entrepreneurs.
1: TAKE RISKS
Continuing to take risks is essential to the success of any good social entrepreneur, and most credit their greatest successes to such risks. After all, big risks can reap big rewards. What starts in your garage can become bigger than you ever imagined–and not just for Steve Jobs. In 2009, Nanoice, a social enterprise transforming the sustainability of food preservation, started in the Seattle-area garage of founder Craig Rominger. Three years later, they boast 16,000 square feet of manufacturing space, and a host of accolades to boot.
