Embracing Social Entrepreneurship: A Journey from Passion to Freedom
Today, this social entrepreneurship venture supports my family, including my wife and four children. It allows me the liberty to educate, write, and speak about my favorite subjects. Moreover, it grants me the freedom to craft my schedule, something I never experienced while working the typical 9 to 5
Steps to Start a Social Entrepreneurship Business
Starting a business has various approaches. But here’s a simple phased approach that worked wonders for me, and hopefully, it might assist you too.
1. Find a Venture You’re Passionate About
What do you truly enjoy doing? Is it writing, conversing, creating videos? Building a business isn’t easy, but starting with something you genuinely enjoy can provide the motivation and enthusiasm crucial for success.
2. Juggle It on the Side
After kickstarting my social entrepreneurship venture, I landed a job in a company. However, I kept my business on the side because I found joy in its construction.
3. Build Among the Masses
Start with a small website, create a blog, or set up a YouTube channel. Share whatever you’re building on social media. Explore platforms to showcase your work and see if your ideas resonate.
4. Work for Free
If you’re just starting, proving your expertise is essential. Working for free can provide invaluable feedback, sharpen your skills, expand your network, and attract potential paying clients.
5. Network Building
Seeing the progress after stage four, I tried collaborating further with others. Some were in a similar space, while others had entirely different pursuits. However, every interaction taught me something valuable.
6. Seek Mentorship
When I began my business, I learned from individuals ahead in this journey. Even though I wasn’t initially well-connected, reaching out online and acknowledging their work led to fruitful guidance for building my business.
7. Ask for Support
Sometimes, you have to ask for help. At the onset of my creative journey, I asked my mentor if they’d support me in my endeavors under their platform. They graciously agreed, and since then, I’ve been contributing to their platform.
8. Practice, Practice, Practice
When I started, I committed to writing extensively. Writing daily blog posts, averaging 700 to 1,000 words, for thirty days straight, over three months. This practice not only honed my writing but also provided insights into audience preferences over the coming years.
9. Double Down on What Works
After experiencing these steps in social entrepreneurship, you’ll find a sweet spot—the place you enjoy and where your audience resonates. Once you find it, dive deeper.
10. Go All In When the Time Is Right
If your business remains a side gig, there might come a time when you have to make a crucial decision. Balancing your business growth and daily work might demand a choice.
11. Reiterating the Process
As time passes, you’ll discover multiple uses for a single piece of content. For instance, a newsletter email can be repurposed for various purposes.
Strategies for Various Platforms in Social Entrepreneurship Content
When it comes to content creation, exploring diverse ways to distribute your material, regardless of the medium you start with, is key. Tailoring content for your chosen platform might require tweaking (like turning it into a thread or carousel) to optimize it. However, the groundwork begins with content creation.
Developing a Social Media Presence
Once you’ve honed your content, consider creating a “flywheel” effect. Repurposing content across platforms allows for reassembly and amplification, fostering an effective flywheel. Ever seen a business thriving everywhere online? A significant factor is having an effective flywheel in place.
Building Compilations
Your recurrently created content might consist of small elements. But by aggregating all information and packaging it well—like in a book or an online course, for instance—you can monetize it.
“But why would people pay for what they can get for free?” you ask. They pay for the curation. While online information is free, the investment lies in time. What they pay for is clarity, all in one place, particularly evident in social entrepreneurship.
Documenting Procedures in Social Entrepreneurship
As you continually refine your work and business grows, ensuring seamless operations becomes crucial. Documenting processes helps identify necessary tasks and their sequence. For instance, you might need freelancers or employees at times. The better your documentation about workflows, the easier the training.
Continuous Learning
Allocate time to continually learn about your craft and running a business. Engage in courses or communities for help, not just to share your experiences but to learn from others.
Ultimately, you can decide to outsource certain tasks, but the more you know about them, the better—especially in the realm of social entrepreneurship. This knowledge confirms whether you’re getting the needed help or not being taken advantage of.
Fearlessly Pivot
Sometimes what worked stops working. You might need to pivot your business or focus on a particular area of interest. Or even change your preferred medium or platform. Or help customers solve a pain point vastly different from your initial idea.
Setting Boundaries
For all the joys of building a business based on your passions, there’s a natural risk: workaholism. Define when to dedicate time for other priorities, both short and long term, especially within the realm of social entrepreneurship. Setting these boundaries assures you that your business works for you rather than the other way around.
MORE INFO: Jan Koum’s Secretive
