Change Magazine July 2017 issue | Page 9

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 6