Ep. 068: How to Become a Social Entrepreneur

Guest: Saul Minkoff

Saul Minkoff has had quite the adventure in social entrepreneurialism.

In 2013, he was part of a team competing for the Hult Prize offered by the Clinton Global Initiative to create a business that would help provide food security for 20 million people by 2020.

Minkoff and his team developed an ingenious phone app that allowed women to save money on their mobile phone. Minkoff says they started with “women, in slums who have a little bit of leftover change. Instead of taking that money and putting it literally under the mattress, they could go to the local corner store and hand that change over to the vendor, who would create an SMS account that became a mobile banking system. They could literally text the balance to them.”

Entrepreneurial ventures targeting issues related to poverty around the world are growing in numbers headed by young women and men committed to changing the world by putting market forces to work.

Even though Minkoff’s team did not win the $1,000,000 Hult prize, they were committed to their idea and attempted to make it work on a much smaller budget. They were unsuccessful due to a myriad of challenges associated with being under-financed. Minkoff says it was a good idea and he’d do it again given the chance.

He also encourages others who are considering a socially entrepreneurial venture to move forward and make a difference. “If you fall flat on your face like I did, you have the option to get back up. So, I'd say, the differences between people who succeed in ventures and don't, often times, is just getting started. Just do it.”