Thursday, April 11, 2019

Problems Encountered By A Social Entrepreneur

By James Watson


Starting a social venture is one of the most fulfilling undertakings. These start-ups, however, have been known to face many challenges as they get off the ground. As is the case with many other start-ups, a great majority of them fail to make it past their first birthday. We will look at some of the main challenge of a social entrepreneur in this article.

Funding has, without a doubt, been a major problem. Even though they may be intended to run as non-profit organizations, they still need funds to meet their day to day needs. To keep themselves in business, some are able to generate some income from the sale of socially valuable goods and services. Other sources of income may include corporate investments, donations and government funding. As these entrepreneurs soon find out, it is not always easy to approach investors as many fear that they may not recoup their investments being that these enterprises mainly focus societal value rather than profit generation.

Many people who decide to get into entrepreneurship often venture into new areas with the intention of making profits. However, those who chose the path of social enterprises are socially responsible, and are obliged to contribute to the well-being of the society in which they operate. They usually make it a primary goal to ensure they impact the society positively and the profit making part is always secondary.

Other major characteristics are that the individuals involved are usually passionate and determined about what they do. They possess a high sense of motivation, intrinsic or extrinsic, and are visionaries who have the aim of bringing change. In essence, the this kind of entrepreneur can be termed as a persons recruiter, who presents their ideas or solutions, in a manner that the people, who could be a part of the problem, get to see the need for a change and join the entrepreneur in attempts to achieve it.

Entrepreneurs also engage in the process of continuous innovations, adaptations and learning. In this manner, the society is at the advantage of benefiting from such innovations. The main limitation may be the fact the room for innovation is a bit restricted due to limited funding. Innovation is at times risky and may culminate in losses. This makes it difficult for a good number of social enterprises to exploit their full potential.

For the ventures that are to be involved in production of goods, locating the right manufacturers is more often than not, quite difficult. Faced by the entrepreneurs as they bargain their hunt to find the most affordable one in accordance to their financial capabilities. However coming up with the cash to meet the minimum order is usually a problem to the entrepreneurs.

The structure of these kind of ventures is such that it does not promote innovation and risk taking. More specifically, this form of investment is likely to suffer from financial constraints thus many prospective investors find themselves with limited room for risk taking. As is the case for every other sector, there is a need to encourage experimentation and risk taking without which the likelihood of failure is increased many times over.

Just like all other sectors, the enterprise is also faced with numerous challenges that hinder its growth and development. Such challenges need to be looked in to in order to ensure the development of the entrepreneurship sector. Governments and the corporate sector are best placed to collaborate with small start-ups to help them remain afloat in the ever competitive business environment.




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