
Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit? - peridotoak
For a few years now, there&#x27;s been a rising tide of activism and talk of capitalism 2.0 -- is anyone actually riding this wave, or is it mostly talk?<p>If anyone is actively working on (or with) a social enterprise, or if you know of any, I&#x27;d really appreciate it if you can loop me in!<p>Thank you in advance!
======
kfreds
We started Mullvad VPN in 2009 for political reasons.

My cofounder Daniel and I viewed it as direct political action through
entrepreneurship. In particular we wanted to protest Swedish surveillance
legislation (FRA), which is partly why we chose a Swedish name for the
service.

So far we have refused at least five serious offers of investment and
acquisition, because we would rather retain control, even if that meant slow
growth or obscurity.

As time went by the company grew and so did our capabilities to affect change.
So far we have reinvested all profit in things we believe move the needle in
the right direction. Some are direct donations, others are pure investments,
others should probably be classified as "high-risk bets that might make things
better, but not necessarily for us".

The fact that we retain 100% ownership in the company enables us to engage in
strategic behavior that is unavailable to competitors who accept outside
investment. All VCs have investment horizons. If we invited one onboard they
would eventually want us to sell, or commit to handing out dividends.

We'd rather build some kind of institution. Even better if we can obsolete VPN
services as a concept. Then we could move on to other problems. It's not like
there's a shortage. We have explored the idea of moving our shares to a
foundation. Unfortunately that is an action that can't be undone. It's kind of
the point, but by retaining the shares we retain maximum strategic
flexibility.

Edit: I don't identify as a social entrepreneur, but thought you might enjoy
the story anyway, as we're also sort of optimizing for impact. Whatever that
means.

~~~
LMYahooTFY
Thank you for the story and insight, I find it mirrors a lot of Chamath
Palihapitiya's perspective on capital being an instrument for change.

What are the hardest challenges you're facing lately in operating a privacy
focused VPN service?

~~~
kfreds
As for our current hardest challenge:

Good question. As an organization probably helping each other ensure we stay
focused on what needs to be done and what is right for the organization,
weighing Time/Cost/Quality, and so on.

I'm not saying we're bad at it, it's just that remaining vigilant on keeping
the feedback-adaptation loop short seems key, regardless of layer on the
reality stack so to speak. On that subject, check out complexity science if
you want your mind blown on the extent of recurring themes in physics,
chemistry, biology, economics, computer science, etc.

Personally I have definitely struggled with perfectionism in the past, and
still do to some extent. This greatly impacted my productivity, and those
around me. Thankfully we hired a great CEO four years ago and I've since
focused mostly on strategy and research. I've also rectified my perfectionism
issue a bit :)

This is what I've been doing for the past two years, and anticipate spending
time on for another few: [https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2019/6/3/system-
transparency-fut...](https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2019/6/3/system-transparency-
future/)

~~~
querez
Do you have any pointers for people who'd like to dig into complexity science?

------
minerjoe
I gave up using Federal Reserve Notes, on principal, and have dedicated my
life to improving a small ranching community. By limiting my use of money to
less than $100 a month (hopefully soon $0), I've had to build connections with
human beings that would have not been possible otherwise.

It was really eye opening to realize that the universe wants to play and it
will help me in the strangest ways.

I've set up a community computer lab entirely based on e-waste collected for
free that has a print-shop, network, big screens, projectors, electronics lab,
etc and organized a few hackathons to see what services we can offer to the
community.

I'm spearheading reopening the local community center and are setting up a
tool-library with donated tools. You'd be amazed how many people have
workshops filled with tools they never use and will give to you if you ask
nicely and with a purpose.

I've begun to map all the trees in town, set up a gleening team, and building
out solar dehydrators. Gonna stock the local shop with dried fruit right next
to the candy isle. Give the kids a choice.

I've got hundreds (soon thousands) of baby trees in my back yard and have been
setting up a gene bank for grafting many varieties of fruit and nut trees.
Grafted a couple hundred apple, pear, plum, and cherry trees this last spring.
Propogating out all the materials we will need to turn this town into a
veritable food forest. With patience you can create orchards without spending
a single dollar.

We live in the most wasteful society that has ever existed. I'm exploring the
hack of seeing how much of this "waste" can be turning into things that people
would have had to spend dollars, which to me is adding fuel to the flame that
is rapidly destroying everything of true value on this planet.

Mother Earth.

~~~
glaive123
> I've set up a community computer lab entirely based on e-waste collected for
> free that has a print-shop, network, big screens, projectors, electronics
> lab, etc and organized a few hackathons to see what services we can offer to
> the community.

This is brilliant, why don't community organizations spring up all over to do
this?

~~~
peter_d_sherman
I concur entirely, and I second this! This is brilliant!

Hey, if you don't mind my asking, where is this community computer lab
located?

I wouldn't mind stopping by someday if I was in the area -- and I'm sure other
HN readers who are local to you wouldn't mind stopping by either!

------
songzme
2016 - While working as an engineer at Google, I decided to start a free
coding bootcamp on the side. I believed I could teach anyone how to become a
software engineer so I made a public post asking if anyone is interested in
learning how to code and about 30 people showed up at my house. While I was at
work in Mountain View, 30 people strangers used my house as a coding bootcamp.

2017 - 30 students were hard to manage and students started leaving. It
bothered me, so I quit my job at Google to focus on this full time. I reached
out to the students who left to see what happened and one of the reasons was
money. So for the students who are struggling financially, I started giving
them 2k / mo stipend.

2018 - Paying 9 students 2k / month used up all of my savings so I had to look
for a new job. Also started a non-profit to write off all my payments as
donations. This helped alot because to keep paying the students I took out my
401k savings and the donations helped offset the tax penalty.

2019 - Students got jobs. Realized that I want to train students to become
good solid engineers that I want to work with instead of gamifying the
interview process. Instead of padding resume and LeetCode, our curriculum
focuses on building good products with good tests and maintainable code.

2020 - Ran into financial trouble, had to let all the students go and gave
them a 3 month notice.

Now I'm primarily lurking on the chatroom of our final product, helping and
teaching students who are following my curriculum.

[https://c0d3.com](https://c0d3.com)

Next year I will get more RSUs and with that money I plan to kickoff a free
code house, a safe environment for students to learn (much like 42) with free
food and housing.

~~~
jahewson
Please stop throwing good money after bad. You’ve proven that your approach
doesn’t work, stop it!

Go find yourself a more business-minded partner in this undertaking so that it
can be financially sustainable.

Noble intentions are great but in the end you will be left with nothing and
unable to help anybody.

~~~
songzme
> You’ve proven that your approach doesn’t work, stop it!

I haven't proven anything yet and I have learned alot. You seem to have
reached a conclusion though, care to share how?

~~~
askafriend
You spent 4 years failing to find a sustainable, repeatable model with
economics that work.

Right now it’s a matter of when you burn out, not if.

------
AlexMuir
I run a company that collects and delivers used furniture for charities in the
UK ([https://boxmove.com](https://boxmove.com))

It’s a social enterprise in the sense that we save charities a fortune on the
way they currently operate, and we employ our staff on better salaries than
they receive working in-house. The flip side is we expect a decent day’s work
from our teams. We are profitable, sustainable and no reliant on grants,
funding, or anything else. That’s good for everybody.

Those that join us from charities typically did 6-8 jobs a day. Our teams
average 20. There is so much bullshit and incompetence in the charity sector
that I would love to call out, but sadly that would damage our business. It is
a frustrating sector to operate in - not least because we compete against
‘serial social entrepreneurs’ who receive a grant, take a nice salary for two
years nibbling away at our client base, then shut down and move onto the next
self-enriching project.

Not really sure why I answered this question but there you go!

~~~
peridotoak
Thank you for the share, Alex! I found your frustration to be quite curious:
why would calling out the bullshit and incompetence be damaging to your
business?

I'd imagine that a huge part of your pitch is that you're MUCH more efficient
and therefore you can save on costs if they outsource to your business.

~~~
pbronez
OP runs a for-profit company with Non-profit customers. If they share a lot of
stories about how inefficient the non-profits are, that could hurt those non-
profits financially or just emotionally. Either of these would disincline the
non-profit from continuing to be a customer of OP’s moving company.

Everyone loves accountability until it’s applied to them!

------
benrmatthews
I’ve been working for, running and volunteering for social enterprises for 12
years now.

I find that “social enterprise” as a term isn’t really known by anyone outside
of the social enterprise bubble, e.g. those running, funding or volunteering
for a social enterprise.

The funding structures available to social enterprises seems to be an issue -
you can be anything from a private limited company through to a registered
charity or anything in between (and don’t get me started on CICs...).

I know a fully for-profit company who claims they are a social enterprise just
because their main client base is registered charities.

I also think that the B Corp movement
([https://bcorporation.net/](https://bcorporation.net/)) is building a much
better brand than the social enterprise movement - and the whole process to
becoming a registered B Corp is much more stringent than become a social
enterprise, and has the added benefit of helping improve the social impact of
organisations that apply to become B Corp registered.

I’m currently building a database of social good organisations in the UK and
beyond here: [https://goodhere.org/](https://goodhere.org/)

Would love to see more projects and funders submitted. Email is in profile if
you’re interested in discussing more.

~~~
User23
> I know a fully for-profit company who claims they are a social enterprise
> just because their main client base is registered charities.

Cynical me thinks that for-profit companies primarily work to benefit their
executives and shareholders. Non-profit companies primary work to benefit
their executives alone. How is this better? My source is overhead
conversations in bars in Seattle where I heard Gates Foundation executives
bragging about how they were getting paid $300,000 a year to do absolutely
nothing.

~~~
O_H_E
> where I heard Gates Foundation...

Oh, come on, that was one of the few places I semi-idealize as ethical and
"clean".

Humans will be humans I guess...

~~~
obmelvin
I don't think this necessarily says anything to the contrary of that. If you
are someone at Gates overseeing research grants etc, you probably have a PhD
and I'm sure the Gates job is less stressful than doing your own research. I
could very easily see how friends of mine would say such a position is "easy"
compared to publishing yourself, being scooped, research failing, etc.
Instead, you get paid well to help other people do the same. Nothing wrong
with that - it's just perspective.

Granted, I didn't talk to this executive, but I feel somewhat comfortable
hypothesizing this due to what I know of this area.

~~~
O_H_E
That sounds reasonable. Thanks for the perspective :)

------
bjelkeman-again
I co-founded Akvo Foundation [1] in 2007. Akvo is a not-for-profit/not-for-
loss [2] organisation that put together a combination of tools, services,
local expertise and sector knowledge. We work mainly in management of water,
sanitation and agriculture, even though organisations use our platform for all
sorts of data. WWF are tracking turtles in Indonesia, SNV manages their
massive biogas programmes, Sierra Leone quality test their drinking water etc.
Lots of stories here [https://akvo.org/stories/](https://akvo.org/stories/)

We are 75 people in a bunch of countries, with HQ in The Netherlands. We have
worked with two dozen governments, hundreds of organisations and companies, in
over 70 countries in the last decade. We work hard at making all our tools and
work open source or open content.

Working mainly in international development is not easy. The customer is
mostly project based, so retention is hard. You have to sell into each new
project. We have some of Europe’s largest NGOs using the tools as corporate
tools, but the technology use in many of these type of organisations, despite
being heavily dependent on data, is patchy at best.

[1] [http://Akvo.org](http://Akvo.org)

[2] We charge money for our services and any positive results are reinvested
in our tools, people and knowledge platform.

~~~
kgonza
Why Netherlands for your HQ?

~~~
WJW
Looking at their "About us" page two of the cofounders have extremely Dutch
names so it's probably just where they started out.

------
jwally
I built a site (addictionlocker.com) which is a password manager that makes
you donate to charity to get your passwords back.

I built it because everytime I try to lock myself out of twitter, et al, I
just unlock whatever I set up because I know the password.

Originally, I was going to take a percentage of the profit; but now want to
see all of it go to charity. What sucks is I think its a really solid idea;
benefits everyone involved (reduces addictive screen time, gives money to
givewell.org) but can't market it to save my life. I don't know if the concept
is too esoteric, or everyone is ok with how much time they look at their
phone, or my site just isn't good...

Please share if you find success...

~~~
croissants
I like this idea, but both credit card info and password is a big trust ask
for what looks like a fairly random website.

~~~
jwally
Do you think it would help if it was open sourced?

Credit card info is handled by square who Iframes all user inputs so I can’t
see it.

Password to unlock the pw you need a key, nonce, encrypted message. My server
only ever sees the nonce and message. The user only ever has all 3. Even the
bookmarks you create use hash-bangs which don’t go over the wire.

The hard part for me is conveying all of that without a wall o’text.

Maybe I can reach out to givewell, and get their thoughts. They’d bless it
maybe?

------
g14i
I also run a company [1] that primarily recruits low-income Brazilians from
remote locations and teach them how to code and create data-related products.
The company itself is for profit in the long run, but the first priority is to
make our members grow (financially and psychologically), then generate profit
for the founders.

During the entire process we focus 40% of their time to study/learn about soft
skills (become a better person/human), 20% for hard skills (become a better
professional) and 30% for producing code and create products, we pay 100% for
all the courses and books they use to lean.

Every quarter we review and increase their monthly income based solely on
their level of soft skills, not hard skills. So if they become more organized,
have better communication, etc. they earn more. People can start as low as R$
500,00 per month and grow up to R$ 25,000,00 per month.

In the end, our goal is to make each of them more (or totally?) lucid/self-
aware (in the context of psychology) and financially independent (more than R$
1 million on their bank account) in the maximum period of 10 years [2].

We have been doing it for the past 5 years, fully remote, and it's currently
very close to becoming a sustainable process, as some of our current members
are very lucid/self-aware and getting close (2-3 years away) to become
financially independent.

[1] -
[https://www.simbioseventures.com/v/english/](https://www.simbioseventures.com/v/english/)

[2] - [https://www.simbioseventures.com/v/english/sobre-a-
simbiose/...](https://www.simbioseventures.com/v/english/sobre-a-
simbiose/compartilhamento-de-sucesso)

Edit: clarification.

~~~
aprdm
It is worth noting that a lot of people feel that you hire people very cheap
and work them to their bones with a promise of a high salary. Working on
weekends and 12h a day seem to be incentivized.

Some discussion here:
[https://github.com/frontendbr/vagas/issues/3084](https://github.com/frontendbr/vagas/issues/3084)
and if you google for the python Brasil google groups there's a lot of bad
reputation around the company.

~~~
gmenegatti
Yes. This is true. There are some people with strong opinions about what we
do, but the interesting part is that none of these people were part of our
group before, they just criticize what they think we do, as they cannot
criticize what we really do.

Anyway, we respect different opinions, but we are really focused on hearing
the opinions of the people we already have inside our group, because they are
the ones that truly understand what’s going on.

~~~
aprdm
The github issue I posted has comments from employee reviews on glassdoor.

That said I wish you the best! It is really cool that you think of your
business the way you do. I just find it very important to show to the HN
community how other people feel about your business as well.

~~~
gmenegatti
Unfortunately Glassdoor is a place where any random person can comment things,
not necessarily real ex-members.

Only a few of the reviews we have at Glassdoor are real, the rest comes from
internet haters. Even so, if you look a the numbers, you will see that even
people that criticize us, 74% recommend the company to a friend.

It’s obvious that we have challenges, as any company, but apparently the
benefits are higher than them.

------
gamerDude
I'm working on a company to create a universal basic income utilizing
technology instead of financial instruments. Doing that through building homes
that run on renewable energy, grow their own food and are cheap to make.

The first prototype house should be done this year!

~~~
peridotoak
This is amazing, I'd really love to learn more! Do you have any resources I
can look into?

~~~
gamerDude
I don't have a website yet or anything so that I can solely focus on the
building, but my email is in my profile.

Essentially, the prototype is a tiny house with greenhouse attachment. Looks
like it will come in around ~$25k. The greenhouse is 95% automated using
hydroponics and sensors for any adjustments to turn on ventilation, water
alerts or ph alerts for making sure the nutrient solutions are where they need
to be. We are currently experimenting with deepwater and nft hydroponic
systems.

After the prototype, we are going to raise money to build the first
neighborhood. Houses will be a bit bigger, ~1500 sq. ft. and be fairly modern
style, potentially in Denver. Powered via Solar for now. And basically get 10
or so people to move in all with a skillset that could help push the
technology and needle forward on how this could be implemented at a larger
scale.

~~~
hanniabu
That's pretty good. From my experience just the greenhouse, foundation,
growing apparatus, monitoring, growing supplies, and permitting would cost
$25k. The labor costs and tiny house would easily put it over. I'd be curious
in seeing the breakdown of costs.

------
mgbmtl
I work at a small cooperative. We do contact management for non-profits (from
large professional associations to small activist groups). It's an area where
Salesforce is present, but there is a huge potential for growth, especially
outside the US (data sovereignty).

We're a small worker owned coop, meaning we are basically a few partners doing
hosting and consulting for the CRM. The CRM is open source, and we are many
companies and organizations working together. They have become a very big
family (with the good and sometimes the bad).

I like being my own boss and getting to chose my projects, while getting to
work with really nice people (whether the clients or colleagues). Of course,
no illusions, at the end of the day, we have to get the job done, on budget
etc. It's not all rainbows, but I like it. You might say it takes a certain
personality to be able to collaborate with alot of people on the long term. We
all have weird personality traits. It requires patience.

In the same day, I might work with folks in France who work with animal
shelters, people in Turkey who work with oppressed teachers, and small
activist groups in the US who hide migrants from ICE.

Money isn't the end goal, but we still have salaries in the higher average, in
our area. CRM isn't super exciting tech, but it quickly provides value to
users.

------
mattharney
I’m one.

Through SEAL, we fund academic research and take on impact campaigns on
specific environmental initiatives.

We just called on financial institutions to create an environmental charity
rewards card (a portion of your credit card rewards go to charity, not airline
miles):

[https://sealawards.com/eco-rewards/](https://sealawards.com/eco-rewards/)

The potential here is huge - could raise even more funding than Jeff Bezos $10
billion climate fund. And the consumer survey data (n - 3,000) is very
encouraging.

Now the tough part is convincing them - if you want to help please visit
[https://ecorewardscard.com/sign-up/](https://ecorewardscard.com/sign-up/)

My overall summary of social entrepreneurship: expensive (I subsidize this),
hard....but really fun and rewarding.

~~~
greenfinance
Hi Matt, any chance we could talk? I run a business which helps developing
country communities set up and manage green community “banks”. This is in
communities which are conventionally unbankable but can manage simple
community funds. We build ecosystem restoration requirements into loan terms
and it’s looking like a successful approach to environmental management. We
need to provide seed capital to community banks in order to get them going,
and had been thinking about using the mechanism you are developing. Maybe we
could partner? Here’s a case study showing how it works.
[http://greenfi.org/?page_id=627](http://greenfi.org/?page_id=627)

~~~
mattharney
Matt AT sealawards dot com

------
dguo
With the help of some friends, I started Sublime Fund
([https://sublimefund.org/](https://sublimefund.org/)). It lets people donate
to multiple charities on a monthly basis from one place, while maintaining
their privacy. Sublime Fund is itself a 501(c)(3), and we don't keep any cut
of the donations for ourselves (though we do deduct the cost of payment
processing and distribution).

A lot of the motivation for building it came from my own desire to use it, so
I've tried to make it as user-friendly as possible. For example, there are no
attempts to add friction to the process of stopping donations to a charity. I
can do it in seconds.

I've let development stagnate because I started a new job last year, but it
requires very little maintenance to keep going, and I plan on getting back
into it soon to build out new features.

~~~
ampdepolymerase
In light of how the previous Mozilla CEO was forced out over private
contributions to non-profits, do you see Sublime becoming more relevant given
the current trend of deplatforming? Do you implement any policies or
information assurance protocols that would e.g. prevent differential analysis
or deanonymization your contributors by reporters/media? I think people would
be more than happy that you charge a small fee for your services if stronger
guarantees of privacy can be assured.

------
kisamoto
I co-founded a company to make carbon removal accessible to everyone
([https://carbonremoved.com](https://carbonremoved.com))

Idea is to avoid the dubious carbon credit system and instead actually remove
your historical footprint.

We've been iterating on different variations of the product for a year and
registered a company (we're Swiss based) in April. So far we are responsible
for the removal of 26tons of CO2 and with our customer base we're now removing
over 10tons per month.

In the grand scheme of things, we know it's a small step but by supporting
multiple carbon removal providers (Direct Air capture and storage; tree
planting; enhanced weathring through olivine stones (coming soon); biochar
(coming soon)) we're aiming to make carbon removal affordable while maximizing
our environmental impact.

~~~
chispamed
First of all congrats on building a business that focuses on tackling climate
change as its probably the most pressing global issue of all right now.
However I’ve been struggling with the ethics of carbon removal and carbon
offsets a bit myself and would be really interested in your perspective. If
the ethical goal is to have the lowest atmospheric CO2 concentration in let’s
say 2050, how do you justify funding carbon removal now at a time where the
prevention of carbon creation is way cheaper per ton and thus allows people to
have a higher impact regarding that goal for the same cost? Is it because you
feel that with the right funding now carbon removal could eventually become
much cheaper? I’m not trying to criticize you, I’m just really interested in
the topic as something about carbon offsets always feels pretty sketchy and
I’m always looking for ways to ethically invest or donate (I gave to an anti-
deforestation initiative for some years and am financing crowdfunded loans for
businesses to install solar panels in developing countries right now while
also leading an ethically conscious lifestyle when it comes to travel, diet,
activism and general consumption).

~~~
kisamoto
That's a great question so I hope I can provide a little insight to my
thinking:

    
    
        * You are right, we do need to also focus on reducing emissions and carbon removal is by no means a replacement for reductions;
        * However even if we were to reduce to zero emissions tomorrow, there is still an excess of emissions already present in the atmosphere that needs to be addressed/removed.
        * Another large consideration for myself when thinking about this project was to support as many carbon removal projects as possible now, so they can be mature, cheaper and readily available as we also reduce.
    

It is my firm belief that carbon removal should and will replace the existing
carbon credits based system. If I emit a ton of CO₂ then buy credits that have
reduced (although this is a little ambiguous) someone elses emissions, my 1
ton still exists in the atmosphere.

Reducing my own footprint (so it becomes 0.5 tons) then actively removing that
unavoidable footprint - or more if I would like to live carbon negative -
means I can truly say I have no impact.

I hope this helps but please feel free to ask about anything else or email me
directly: ewan (at) carbonremoved (dot com)

------
MrsPeaches
I am co-founder of Open Energy Labs
([https://openenergylabs.co/](https://openenergylabs.co/))

We teach young people in sub-Saharan Africa how to build off-grid renewable
electricity supplies.

600 million people in SSA don't have access to electricity and one of the main
barriers to expanding access is a lack of local technical skills.

We are supporting people to build those technical skills and drive access to
electricity across the continent.

------
jefflombardjr
Plug for Philly Yardens! My buddy Chris is killing it!

He's now on a mission to transform the landscape of the city and turn often
neglected patches of grass into thriving microecosystems.

[https://yardens.life/](https://yardens.life/)

Been an incredibly positive response so far, if anyone is interested in
starting something similar we've discussed open sourcing it so others can do
in their own city.

~~~
searchableguy
I have always thought of a service like this one but it wouldn't be
sustainable where I live due to lack of access to water if it grows.
Centralized farming is arguably better suited given existing micro farms and
outdated tooling.

But, this is a neat idea. I hope this grows big.

------
emixam
I'm one of the co-founder of Digicoop, a worker cooperative based in France.
We develop Kantree, a work management platform as SaaS or on-prem solution.

We are a small team, all employees are associates and we are remote first. New
employees must become associate after 1 year.

The hardest part for us is funding as no investors are interested in worker
coops.

We had quite a few hurdles on the way and the startup scene mostly rejects
outliers like us as we have no true funding story to tell. But we really
believe in this model and fight hard to keep going.

We have written about our company on kantree's blog if you want more details.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
I always wanted to start a coop, but never found anyone who knew how. I am
interested in your product and pinged you on your website.

~~~
gremlinsinc
Are you a developer? I'm also wanting to start a coop. Something with maybe
our own SaaS that has MRR but also does agency work for companies. If you or
anyone else seeing this wants to team up let me know.

------
tekstar
I donate the money I make from my side project apps to climate charities. The
amount of money I was making was too small to motivate me for purely financial
reasons, but as a means to help the environment it adds an additional source
of motivation for me to iterate on them.

------
talkingtab
Nanocents. Although not complete, it is an attempt to allow micro payments on
the internet. It allows you to pay one cent on the internet fairly efficiently
- most of the money ends up with the payee. This is not a single site payment
thing, you can pay one cent (or more) at any site accepting nanocents.

While this may not seem especially important, it provides a way for
responsible sites and services to avoid using AdSense and other intrusive
systems that track user.

Tracking provides a way to target users with tailored information. This is the
ultimate problem. If I can target you with one message and someone else with
an opposing divisive message then I can disrupt social systems, including but
not limited democracy itself.

Sole founder and developer desperately seeking help. If you are interested in
helping or trying out micro payments go to
[https://nanocents.com](https://nanocents.com) and watch the demo video or
send email to

info at nanocents.com

edited for grammar

~~~
joe-collins
The second coming of Project Xanadu.

------
jacob_rezi
Considering the economic fuck-house as a result of the pandemic , our company
has shifted our focus from increasing MRR to helping out anyone and everyone
who can benefit from our resume software.

Furthermore, I've started to familiarize myself with the Sustainable
Development Goals outlined by the UN - specifically inclusive economic growth
as so many people are the edge of economic ruin.

[https://rezi.io](https://rezi.io) \- we are just a simple resume software
that many people love and trust

~~~
frompdx
Hi Jacob,

A couple of questions.

1\. I could be mistaken on this, however, the resume template used by your
service ("The Rezi Format") appears to be generated with LaTeX. Do you allow
your users to download the tex source code?

2\. If your service does use LaTeX behind the scenes, where was the original
tex source code for "The Rezi Format" template acquired?

3\. A resume will typically contain a lot of high value user data. What steps
does your service take to keep this data secure from you, your employees, or
any future buyers?

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions.

------
ignoramous
Apart from other founders chiming in here, there indeed are "impact tech"
(buzzword warning) startup incubators and accelerators out there.
[https://hatchcolab.ch](https://hatchcolab.ch),
[https://opentech.fund](https://opentech.fund),
[https://fongit.ch](https://fongit.ch),
[https://nlnet.nl/foundation/](https://nlnet.nl/foundation/) are a few that
come to mind.

Here's a blog post that lists some VCs actively investing in _impact tech_ :
[https://medium.com/@IFI/the-what-why-who-and-how-of-
impact-t...](https://medium.com/@IFI/the-what-why-who-and-how-of-impact-tech-
vc-8d1ec5a36d75)

------
anandchowdhary
I'm the co-founder of Oswald Labs
([https://oswaldlabs.com](https://oswaldlabs.com)), an accessibility
technology company that builds products for people with disabilities.

For example, we built Augmenta11y, an AR reading app for children with
dyslexia, that makes reading 20% faster for them. We even published a research
paper in the IEEE about it:
[https://oswaldlabs.com/research/publications/dyslexia-
augmen...](https://oswaldlabs.com/research/publications/dyslexia-augmented-
reality/).

Our business model is B2B SaaS for our web accessibility/customization plugin
that adds features like dyslexia-friendly reading mode to websites. We charge
a monthly fee for the plugin after a free plan for websites with less than 10k
pageviews per month.

Not that it means much, but we were one of the youngest founders in the Forbes
30 Under 30 Asia 2018 list as "Social Entrepreneurs", so you can find many
other companies focused on impact there:
[https://www.forbes.com/30-under-30/2020/social-
entrepreneurs...](https://www.forbes.com/30-under-30/2020/social-
entrepreneurs/).

------
pella
YC has a nonprofit programs :

List of the YC non-profits:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_VuERKGdeFU_VnsJpybvpwuF...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_VuERKGdeFU_VnsJpybvpwuFW6KSkQUFG4XV5rCB_us/edit)

see more:

[https://www.ycombinator.com/library/4k-what-y-combinator-
loo...](https://www.ycombinator.com/library/4k-what-y-combinator-looks-for-in-
nonprofits)

~~~
tdrp
They do, but a lot of the social good companies are not actually non-profits
but more like low-profit/high-impact, or B-corp style. In fact a few states
have Benefit Corp/Social Purpose Company LLC-like structures.

So it puts you in a somewhat weird spot since you will never be potentially
worth a billion dollars (which is the guideline for the for-profit track of
YC) nor are you a pure non-profit.

It'd be cool if they added such a track or loosened the non-profit
restrictions so it's not necessarily a 501c3 structure.

------
matthewheath
I'm not a social entepreneur myself, but I work for a social enterprise that
offers two products:

\- An app ([https://badges.giki.earth](https://badges.giki.earth)) that lets
you scan barcodes for products in UK supermarkets and lets you see various
badges we award: if it's organic, uses sustainable palm oil, vegan, and so on
— to help people shop more ethically and sustainably.

\- A UK-based climate change lifestyle tracker / behaviour "nudge" website
([https://zero.giki.earth](https://zero.giki.earth)) - a "green FitBit for
your lifestyle". You sign up, calculate your carbon footprint based on your
lifestyle, and then commit to taking steps to reducing it. We also offer this
to businesses and other organisations to encourage them to become more
sustainable.

(Aside: Giki stands for "Get Informed, Know your Impact")

Any questions? I can be reached at the email in my profile or at
matthew.heath@giki.co.uk :-)

------
MathematicalArt
I am Xavier, Mathematical Artist. And we are currently running a campaign
called “Think OMNI” to introduce the entire US (for now) to a form of thinking
that I call Omnidisciplinary Thinking. This form of thinking entails
intuitively decomposing ideas into their root forms in order to efficiently
use knowledge across, within, and between boundaries, disciplines, and
industries. In essence, the boundaries that we put around our thoughts and
ideas are useful tools yet we forget that such boundaries do not truly exist.

Think OMNI aims to show people how to use Omnidisciplinary Thinking
pragmatically today! in order to provide solutions in three areas: personal,
interpersonal, social.

 __Personal __: Powerfully reason by analogy to better understand the world
and one’s true capabilities

 __Interpersonal __: Engage with Root of discussions to better communicate
with others, _especially_ when their views seem in opposition to one’s own. By
decomposing to the Root and reconstructing, we can avoid rhetorical blocks and
have difficult conversations.

 __Social __: at this point, this is two-pronged. One is to show companies how
to decompose talent because Keyword Bingo doesn’t work when entire industries
need to shift into others. Furthermore, training efforts need to build on
whatever is already there with a person’s skills rather than start from
scratch.

At its most pragmatic, an Omnidisciplinary Thinker should be able to leverage
every single piece of knowledge and experiences that one possesses to figure
out how to meet basic needs in order to build Breathing Room to pursue other
things. In general, it will allow for people to seamlessly blend insights
across all disciplines. And the ultimate Omnidisciplinary minds will be able
to powerfully and accurately draw insights from incredibly disparate subjects
for pragmatic outcomes. (Imagine reasoning about medicine in terms of
painting.)

Leading into the US election, the intent is that people of all social-
political backgrounds, ages, etc. can use this to have the difficult
discussions that we were not able to and still are not able to have with one
another today. As a response to COVID, this tool must help employers and job
seekers be more fluid with what a person’s skills actually are and what a role
entails. In the longer term, this is expected to be a powerful thought tool to
be leveraged by people around the world.

I may be contacted at [email address redacted].

~~~
archibaldJ
Just visited mathis.art. My apologies for the bluntness but the general
impression it gives off is a project by an eco-centric person making bold
claims about things. You speak a great sense of pragmatism but I don’t see
anything pragmatic about the campaign, both in your HN post and on the
website. Also I don’t see anything mathematical or remotely art.

Please don’t get me wrong. What you are doing sounds interesting. Here is just
my 2c and I hope you it find useful. Looking forwards to seeing your progress.
You are in my watch list now =)

~~~
MathematicalArt
Thank you for the feedback. The post I made here is the focus for now. This
was the site as it was a few years ago when I was experimenting with the idea
and the question “Should an artist be egotistical?” After all, is such a site
about exploring one’s self? Regardless, the site is now about how we all can
think moving forward, so it is no longer an individual expression of myself.

I am currently working on a complete redesign as we speak. The only reason I
even mentioned it here was the timeliness of the General Post. The site as it
is needs to at least have the information I posted here, which it does not.
Please consider it _Under Construction_. It currently is not related to the
campaign at all.

Also, a thought experiment for you to ponder: Must art leave an artifact? Who
made that restriction? If an artifact and a conversation have the same effects
on the world, is one more artful than the other? Is the creator/instigator of
a response more worthy when there is a tangible thing?

These sorts of questions are not what “Think OMNI” is about, though. Think
OMNI is about eating, raising a family, engaging with neighbors. Pondering art
is for after Breathing Room has been developed.

------
yoaviram
I've worked in technology my whole professional life, founded startup
companies and most recently run a London based digital agency. About 3 years
ago I started asking myself if this whole Internet project that I've been a
part of for so long is a net positive or a net negative in terms of our
quality of life. I didn't like the answers I was giving myself and so decided
to devote my time to digital activism.

In 2018 I co-founded
[https://YourDigitalRights.org](https://YourDigitalRights.org), a free and
open source service which helps you regain control of your online privacy by
instructing organizations to send you a copy of, or delete the personal
information that they have on you. The service automates the process of filing
data access and deletion (right to be forgotten) requests.

We have a few other projects in the pipeline. We're now in the process of
registering as a charitable organization in the UK, although that has proven
far more difficult then we expected (our initial application was rejected on
the grounds that privacy is not a right and therefore if that's what we're
promoting it is a political cause, which is not permitted for a charity).

I also moved with my family to the countryside in Italy where together with my
wife and some friends we're starting an alternative school:
[https://shadesofgreen.school/](https://shadesofgreen.school/)

Here's a recent interview I gave if you'd like to read more:
[https://thriveglobal.com/stories/yoav-
aviram/](https://thriveglobal.com/stories/yoav-aviram/)

Feel free to email me through the address at
[https://YourDigitalRights.org](https://YourDigitalRights.org) if you'd like
to chat.

------
amartshah
Hi! I'm a co-founder of Change [1]. CHANGE connects our network of today's
most resonant nonprofits with brands to power donation rewards.

With consumer activism on the rise, our rewards system allows brands to be at
the forefront of social responsibility while actively engaging the most
coveted demographic. 59% of Change users consistently share branded content
with their online following after redeeming their rewards. On average, every
$6.67 in donated rewards results in one unique user sharing branded content on
their Instagram story - $36 less than the average payment for nano
influencers.

We quit our jobs 6 months ago during COVID-19 to start this. Check out our
mobile app [2]. Change is looking to grow its network! If there are any
nonprofits or brands you would like to see on Change, let us know! We would
love to reach out or be introduced! Let me know if you are interested in
learning more

[1] www.getchange.io [2] Mobile app: www.link.getchange.io/app

------
gramakri
I don't identify myself as a social entrepreneur but we built Cloudron around
2014 for personal reasons. When Google Reader shut down, we realized the
importance of self-hosting and data ownership. Initially, we started writing
our own apps but mid-way recognized that there is already a plethora of self-
hostable (especially opensource) software out there. It's just that those apps
are really hard to deploy. So, we now make a smart server platform that you
can install on any cloud server or home server and you can easily install and
maintain those apps.

Over time, we had to make many decisions around outside investment, salaries
and target audience. We make choices based on whether it has social impact and
whether our day to day work solves problems that we personally care about and
for other privacy minded people like us. For example, we did not pursue
outside investment (despite offers) and decided to retain 100% ownership of
the company. We felt taking funding will make us focus on large enterprises
and the product will take a different direction (k8s anyone?), quite far from
any social impact. Investors, who we met, seemed to care more about 100x
growth than our cause and some even laughed at the idea - "who wants to
selfhost email?".

Same for salaries, we took a heavy pay cut for the initial 2-3 years just to
to get product going along (and so many pivots). What kept us going is that we
felt there is a social aspect to the product and if we don't do this nobody
will. With a bit of luck, today we are profitable and can pay ourselves decent
salary now (fwiw, I am based in bay area).

Just wanted to share our story, I don't know if it's relevant to what you are
asking :) Ultimately, we want normal people and businesses to self-host and
have complete control over their data (I wish we had the resources to make a
hardware appliance that sits alongside the router). I understand I am not
curing cancer or solving world hunger, but I want to do my bit moving the
privacy needle :) !

~~~
searchableguy
I have used cloudrun before when I didn't have much technical knowledge.

It is awesome. You might also be interested in this comment:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24171800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24171800)

------
ozaark
I created Treets ( [https://treets.org](https://treets.org) ), a basic shop
that currently plants 5 trees in areas of need around the world for every item
sold. The challenge was finding the right partners also focused on
sustainability from the fabric to the continued maintenance and oversight of
trees.

The issue I saw was many companies were claiming to be eco-conscious with
planting trees but behind the scenes their product was harmful and their tree
planting was merely donating ~$1 from $70+ items. Currently Treets continues
to plant more trees than it costs to operate and I'll continue to run it so
long as that holds true.

------
pchanda
Ecosia ([https://www.ecosia.org/](https://www.ecosia.org/)) is a search engine
based in Germany which spends most of its profits in reforestation efforts by
collaborating with local non-profit organizations. They also publish their
monthly financial reports here: [https://blog.ecosia.org/ecosia-financial-
reports-tree-planti...](https://blog.ecosia.org/ecosia-financial-reports-tree-
planting-receipts/)

Disclaimer: Not related to them in any way but recently came to know about
them when they hit the 100 million count of trees planted.

------
ericvanular
I built the community at
[https://collective.energy](https://collective.energy) to help environmental
entrepreneurs have a platform to find an audience, get feedback, and
collaborate!

~~~
HugeAcumen
It looks interesting - but...

The first thing i did was hit the search button to see if the site could help
with my own projects - being asked to login when I tried was pretty jarring.

If I ran across this in the wild, that behavior would probably be enough to
leave without bookmarking.

~~~
ericvanular
Hey HugeAcumen, that is great feedback. I've now changed the permissions to
allow guests to be able to search. Check it out again and feel free to join us
if you'd like :)

~~~
HugeAcumen
That's great, thanks :)

------
ada1981
My YC-Alum cofounder and I just launched Smiiles.com to provide the highest
quality masks to the homeless.

We started when a friend asked if we could help get masks to homeless in LA,
and our friends from TOMs and Bombas inspired us to use the 1 for 1 model.

We are currently in a friends and family launch and in talks for retail
distribution.

Our first goal is to provide 300,000 masks a month to LA county.

My HN friends can visit to order (3 packs = free shipping):
Http://Smiiles.com/anthony

Also check us out on IG @givesmiiles

\- Partners include LA County Department of Health, Flowspace, Flexport and
Webflow.

~~~
gus_massa
[The parser of HN does not like Http with a capital H. Edit your comment to
change it to an h so it become clickable.]

~~~
ada1981
Doh! I missed the edit deadline...

But here it is: [http://smiiles.com/anthony](http://smiiles.com/anthony)

------
TudorBirlea
Consider the social impact of the way digital marketing works today: it is
completely based on surveillance. This creates mistrust and it is the reason
conversion rates are so small. Makes people feel used.

Based on my research while doing my postgrad at Cambridge, I figured out a way
to scale empathy: no need for personal data, no need for intrusive
technologies, no need for excessive details.

Today we work on this social impact if you will: make people feel understood.

~~~
pbronez
> my research while doing my postgrad at Cambridge, I figured out a way to
> scale empathy: no need for personal data, no need for intrusive
> technologies, no need for excessive details.

How??

~~~
TudorBirlea
My research was around "behavioural causality." The simple way to put it is:
any human behaviour can be explained by a core motivation (4 of them) and
driving emotion (8 of them). Just as all the music is made with just a handful
of notes, the same way no matter how complex a behaviour, it's just a
combination of these 2 factors. Of course it's a bit more complicated, but
that's the gist of it.

Now, let's say you want to use this for advertising: if you know the equation
behind the decision to adopt a product, then you can put in you ad the right
copy (i.e. stimuli for the required emotion). People who are ready to switch
will feel understood.

Happy to share more if it's relevant to you.

------
yboris
Very related: _Founders Pledge_

Founders Pledge is a charitable initiative, where entrepreneurs make a
commitment to donate at least 2% of their personal proceeds to charity when
they sell their business. Inspired by effective altruism, the mission of
Founders Pledge is to "empower entrepreneurs to do immense good"

[https://founderspledge.com/](https://founderspledge.com/)

------
mawise
I'm trying to help people host their own websites instead of trusting their
social data to big tech. It started as an open source blogging system, but I
think it takes a hosted option to be sufficiently accessible. Still a very new
project: [https://simpleblogs.org/](https://simpleblogs.org/)

~~~
searchableguy
Major problem is support and management. Hosting can be automated to a degree
and has been by many projects. Some open source software charge one time setup
fee for their automated DO/scaleway/cloud install button.

------
ricksunny
Social entrepreneur here. Background:
[https://www.sunnyirrigation.com](https://www.sunnyirrigation.com)

I just feel the premise of the question begs a little bit of helpful
correction. Social entrepreneurs don't _necessarily_ place social impact
_above_ profit. (Rather the social impact is extraordinarily hard to
quantify). But true that S-E's do weigh the value of social-impact vis-a-vis
profit. I would argue though they do so mostly in their intentionality
compared with the alternatives they could have otherwise embarked on when they
decided to form a social impact venture in the first place.

I began writing on some of the philosophy speaking to the impact-profit
distinction which is very often framed as a dichotomy. If there's interest
I'll finish and post it.

------
digitale
A company called xocial would fit the bill. They're a registered
B-Corporation. From their FAQ:

xocial is a team of do-gooders (okay, okay, developers, strategists and
investors) who want to use technology to make us better parents, friends,
coworkers, bosses, businesses and citizens. Instead of measuring our
popularity, xocial measures our positive social impact. The fact that we’re
measuring it means we can compete with each other to see who can do the most
good—which is where our idea for competitive kindness came from.

[https://www.xocial.com/faqs](https://www.xocial.com/faqs)
[https://app.xocial.com/](https://app.xocial.com/)

------
ryanmarsh
One of the great joys of making a profit has been giving to causes and needs
that tug on my heart strings. Please help me understand the logic of how
operating a business at a loss (eschewing profits) has a greater impact than
having money to put towards said impact.

Ex. Bill Gates

~~~
njb311
A ‘not-for-profit’ does not mean it doesn’t make a profit. It means that
profits generated are used to further the purpose of the organisation and not,
for example, for shareholder enrichment. A loss-making organisation could only
be sustainable if it was receiving grants or donations, in which case it is
more likely to be a charity than NFP.

~~~
ryanmarsh
OP said “social entrepreneur” placing “social impact over profit”.

That’s not a charity it’s a weak business.

~~~
njb311
Meaning that social impact is prioritised over profit. There’s still no
constraint on making profit, and there is the same potential to be financially
successful.

Many, if not most, businesses aim to make profit regardless of their social
impacts — they’ve probably never even thought about what they are. It’s easy
to say that employing people and giving them a salary is the most useful
social impact a business can (or should) have, but when you factor in negative
externalities that may not be true.

A social entrepreneur actively aims to make a positive social impact. It’s not
about it being a weak business or a charity.

------
sagarkamat
Seedspot based in Phoenix ([https://seedspot.org](https://seedspot.org)) is an
incubator that helps a whole bunch of social ventures every year. The few demo
days i attended had rather amazing ventures present.

------
raoulbhatia
Habe a look at the World Summit Award (WSA) and its sister project the
European Youth Award (EYA) - now known as WSA Young Innovators. There are a
lot of cool projects going on!

* [https://wsa-global.org/](https://wsa-global.org/) * [https://eu-youthaward.org/](https://eu-youthaward.org/) * [https://wsa-global.org/wsa_categories/wsa-young-innovators/](https://wsa-global.org/wsa_categories/wsa-young-innovators/)

------
ssss11
The top level replies here are interesting, I think, for the HN crowd.

There’s some great examples of social good - helping homelessness, poor
countries, the starving, the environment etc.

I don’t see anything though related to digital human rights and fixing the
surveillence marketing & surveilance state activites that have overcome the
web. As a tech crowd i find that very intriguing.

If anyone has examples of what they’re doing in this space I’d like to hear
it?

I’m thinking of things like Solid, Matrix, Sovrin, and so on... this area
seems to be growing rapidly and it interests me alot

~~~
gramakri
About digital rights and data ownership, I wrote about my company here -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24170790](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24170790)

------
hkt
I'm in the process of stringing together a gsuite type offering with open
source packages like nextcloud and wildduck. The plan is to be a cooperative
owned by its members (customers and employees), and to let them be the main
arbiters of social ends. I'm expecting privacy and the environment to be key
concerns from my research so far. Not currently open for signups while I get
some design and marketing help from a freelancer and tune some of the
account/identity handling.

------
3riverdev
Yep, and loving every minute of it. I left a SWE career and am focused on
growing ImpactUpgrade.com, where we solely serve nonprofits with all things
digital and operations. We're primarily working with some larger organizations
that tackle child sex trafficking. Hiring like hotcakes -- would love to chat
with anyone interested in working with us.

Happy to dive into detail on the specifics, for profit for good vs nonprofit,
the downsides of tech volunteering, etc.

------
monicatie
I'm working on a project called The People's Devs about doing pro bono dev
work for social justice groups or organizations. Currently it's just me
helping my art studio build an app to help artists and those struggling to get
funding for housing and supplies. Haven't been sure how to scale and get more
people, but I'm hoping it'll grow organically over time rather than chasing
specific types of devs or organizations.

------
Layvier
I'm starting an open collaborative knowledge sharing platform for personalised
learning that would be registered as a non profit if things go well. First
release on the way: [https://sci-map.org/](https://sci-map.org/) From what
I've seen there's really few social projects aiming for an exponential growth,
startup style.

------
escot
I built givecrew, an app to donate with your friends as a team. The goal is to
have a larger impact by grouping together your funds, donating together, and
making a social long lasting experience.

[https://www.givecrew.org/](https://www.givecrew.org/)

------
gitgud
I develop opensource software, so people don't need to pay for software!

Wouldn't that be a nice world to live in?

------
tommaitland
I co-founded Raisely, we’re a social enterprise. Impact is baked into our
constitution, we report on it before profit, we restrict who can use our SaaS
and we’re a bcorp. I wouldn’t call it “riding a wave” or just “talk” - it’s
just genuine global citizenship.

~~~
peridotoak
I've just checked your site out, I really like that you offer core services
for free and then up-sell on marginal services!

I'm curious -- who do you report the impact to, and how?

Is there a framework in how you went about pricing to balance the profit-
motive and the impact-motive?

~~~
tommaitland
There isn’t much around to govern social enterprises, so we don’t have much of
a framework.

We report impact regularly internally (it’s in dashboards the whole team has
access to) and through the B-Corp certification we get assessed in detail
every few years. Our staff hold us to account, more than our customers or the
law.

For us we found a mechanism where benefit and profit are aligned, and I think
most good social enterprises have done the same. That’s to say that the more
impact we have, the healthier we are on classic business metrics.

~~~
_oliverking
Can you tell me a little more about the mechanism you found? I'm understanding
it as your staff holding to you account -- how do these conversations
typically go?

------
mushufasa
Literally doing capitalism 2.0. We make it easy to use your shareholder rights
to push for change among the companies and funds you invest in.

For example: [https://www.yourstake.org/petition/disclose-corporate-
politi...](https://www.yourstake.org/petition/disclose-corporate-political-
activity/)

------
staunch
Bill Gates and Elon Musk are two of the best examples of effective social
entrepreneurship.

Bill Gates made the money and then spent it socially on vaccine research,
reducing disease, improving education, etc.

Elon Musk's efforts are more directly social-entrepreneurial. He's helping to
move the entire world away from gas powered vehicles (Tesla/Solar City),
reducing urban congestion and improving rural life (SpaceX/Starlink), and
trying to back up civilization on other planetary bodies (SpaceX).

I think the idea of "social entrepreneurship" is plagued by the problem of
"serving two masters" when you really need focus to be successful.

Elon Musk clearly is clearly doing social entrepreneurship, but in practice
that just means running successful (and relatively traditional) capitalist
enterprises. Gates was even more conventional with his path. Both are doing a
lot more good than most people who call themselves social entrepreneurs.

~~~
afkqs
Would the founder of vegan restaurant be considered a social entrepreneur? As
by growing their business, more people will consume non meat-based food, and
in fine help reduce climate change.

Defining the boundaries of social entrepreneurship would require a whole
separate thread.

------
surfmike
I used to work at [https://maishameds.org/](https://maishameds.org/) which is
working on pharmaceutical distribution in East Africa.

------
bognition
Your ask is pretty ambiguous. What specific questions do you have?

~~~
peridotoak
You're right, that's my bad. The thinking I had in mind when making the post
is that entrepreneurship is difficult enough and the desire to make social
impact introduces a sometimes competing demand.

I wanted to get some perspective on what this is like and if there were any
role models out there to study as I am keen on going down this road!

~~~
tommaitland
I think it’s certainly an extra thing to consider and just focusing on profit
is maybe easier in the short term, but I think profit without purpose quickly
leads a company directionless and staff demoralised.

------
forgotmypw17
A few years ago, I gave up a "successful" career as a hat-wearer and started
minimizing my upkeep time and spending.

I am now 3000+ commits into a project I enjoy writing.

------
pkphilip
Yes, we work with farmers in India - we teach them organic and natural farming
and we find ways to sell their produce to customers in the cities.
www.unifield.in

~~~
searchableguy
That's neat. I don't have experience with farms/agriculture so pardon my
ignorance.

Are there existing centralized communication systems to know which farmers are
growing which crop in a state or country at what rate?

Centralized and vertical farming doesn't work with small farmers and there are
too many of them but it's hard to get them to lease the land and start your
own hub afaik.

With ground water depletion, lack of storage facilities, distribution
channels, capital and good tooling. It's a hard problem.

Would it help/work to have a federal level planning system that farmers can
use to decide which crops to grow and how. Get support through a hedge fund
and be able to reuse tools.

~~~
pkphilip
We work with farmers in India. There is data on what is being grown in various
areas but not fine grained enough or updated often enough for our purposes.

If you are in the US the reality of farming is very different there vs-a-vie
the situation in India.

~~~
searchableguy
I live in India.

> There is data on what is being grown in various areas but not fine grained
> enough or updated often enough for our purposes.

Right? Do you think farmers would self report that data in exchange of getting
real time data from other farms? Would they care about recommendation on what
to grow and pricing?

There are lot of groups for techies online and self reporting channels but I
haven't found any good ones for farmers in india. Can you list them for me if
you know about them?

I would love to talk more. Email is in the profile.

~~~
pkphilip
It would be very difficult to get farmers to self-report anything unless what
they get in return is quite tangible. I am not familiar with any
network/system that does this effectively in India and at scale.

------
known
I've started giving cash to poor/needy within my vicinity; I believe it's the
easiest/efficient way to help poor families;

------
known
And yesterday I donated to
[https://donate.wikimedia.org](https://donate.wikimedia.org)

------
loceng
Loop you in for what purpose? Can you share more?

~~~
peridotoak
The thinking I had in mind when making the post is that entrepreneurship is
difficult enough and the desire to make social impact introduces a sometimes
competing demand.

I wanted to get some perspective on what this is like and if there were any
role models out there to study as I am keen on going down this road!

------
maskedinvader
my friend started this initiative to help give back knowledge to community on
specific categories like gardening, hiking etc He brings experts to give hour
long interactive webinars, he has slapped together a quick wordpress site
[https://enlightenedsapiens.com/](https://enlightenedsapiens.com/)

------
anotheryou
I feel like you should first try to become self-sustainable just to be able to
support your idea and team.

------
mekarpeles
I work over at the non-profit Internet Archive running their Open Library.
There are a lot of people in the space, applying their entrepreneurial
affinities towards public good. I spent ~5 years doing startups before joining
the Internet Archive.

Been here for ~5 years.

There's pretty high leverage for impact. It's very fun and satisfying work.
Big community of passionate, smart people who care.

This can be true... and at the same time, I'd say there hasn't been a day
which has gone by where I haven't felt impostor syndrome as I'm forced to
compare my work against the aggressive forward progress achieved by well
funded and staffed for-profit organizations.

One of the reasons talent steers clear of non-profits is circumstantial. VCs
(who have a vested interest in smart people starting companies or joining
their portfolio companies) encourage smart people to do startups. Makes sense,
not bad advice.

But this also results in a strange form of dissonance where I'm perfectly
certain millions of people could do better work (better design, engineering,
and PM'ing) than I'm doing, and yet in the past 5 years, no one has come along
and done it.

I think it's in part this self fulfilling prophecy why more, talented people
don't try the non-profit path. You likely won't earn stock and may not save up
enough to buy an Bay Area house.

1\. The impact at non-profits can be extraordinarily high.

For years, I was the only PM / SWE / ops / dir of openlibrary.org responsible
for ~3M+ patrons. We were enabling millions of meaningful book borrows for
patrons and students. I've been able to independently drive large programs
forward, shape partnerships, and am afforded a massive amount of trust and
agency w/o having to escalate through a chain of 20 directors.

2\. Many non-profit orgs (Wikimedia, Internet Archive, Mozilla, EFF, et al)
offer competitive salaries

(I guess SF is a magical place) I'm still able to earn (sans stock) w/ a
competitive 6-figure salary.

3\. Non-profits can offer opportunities for self-directed personal growth

As someone who considers themselves an early stage "startup person", I've been
able to (at my discretion) participate in community organization (50+
contributors), project planning & management, design, devops, software
engineering, program creation, and partnerships (I've helped lead a design
partnership with the Tradecrafted Group & Rutger's University). I've mentored
3 interns and have had ample opportunities to participate in public speaking.

4\. Flexibility

I work remotely with a diverse group of people from all over the world
(Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland, Amsterdam, India, Italy, etc) :)

5\. The team & mission

The people I work with care so much.

Caveats: Non-profits are like startups in another way; I've found myself
perpetually having to move quickly and balance time constraints (knowing even
if I build something people love, the "rocket fuel" or funding is seldom
available to scale up the team we need). This also means (at least for
Internet Archive) it can be hard to specialize and I don't always get to build
the sexiest solutions with the latest tech.

------
jariel
You mean like Amazon that doesn't make a profit, and passes on their vast,
amazing operational efficiency basically for free?

Or Walmart that makes very thin margins and uses their power to force profits
out of the value chain (they sit down with suppliers and require them to
reduce margin) and has a policy of keeping margins extremely low themselves,
thereby creating massive surpluses and helping people with little financial
means more than any other program?

People focus so much in 'profit' when that's usually a narrow slice of what's
going on.

When people are paying you for stuff or services, most of what is happening is
value creation of some kind.

If people are not willing to pay you, it might be a sign that what you are
doing is not useful to them.

The amount of 'surplus' generated for the customer is usually not even
measured, particularly for consumers (it's called 'consumer surplus' and it's
their version of profit).

If you are creating a ton of consumer surplus, then worrying about your narrow
slice of profit doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

If you're an NGO not creating a ton of consumer surplus then you are a _value
destroyer_ not a _value creator_ and you're basically burning money, truly
wasteful. (I'm not saying NGOs are that, but they can be).

There's no such thing as 'Capitalism 2.0' \- build a company, create
surpluses, be a good actor, and take some margin as profit, or not, whatever
you want, it's a side show.

------
bar00000n
there is no capitalism x.y here nor social just “democratic”(?) politics. i.e.
you harvest votes, you want as many as possible zombie voters or as many as
possible from a specific proffesional/social branch or company (unions
anyone?)

------
MarkusAllen
I am walking the talk...

Google this: Welcome to XClave by Markus Allen

~~~
sethherr
This appears to be a pyramid scheme...

------
tomphoolery
You can ask literally anyone involved in the music industry...

------
xoxoy
no

but if i’m going to start a business the best way to make an impact is to
create a business model that can sustainably provide a true living wage plus
benefits for all employees. that would be my “social impact”.

------
XClave
I am walking the talk - impact over profits.

Google this: Welcome to XClave by Markus Allen

------
daniel-s
The way that you know that you're making a social impact or benefiting society
then you're making money. Social benefit and making profits are the same
thing.

There are exceptions of course, like if you made money by cheating via
violence or because you got the government to grant you special privileges.
Otherwise, if you're playing by the rules then your profit is the only
objective, rational way to reason about your social impact. The more profit
you make, the greater that you know your impact has been.

~~~
milaresearcher
I strongly disagree with your statement that profit is the only objectective,
rational measure of social impact.

It would be great if the balance of human and environmental well-being
produced by an organization could be captured as such, but I feel it is often
much more complicated.

It is clear that a poor child has a lower ability to pay for goods and
services than a rich child. Does this mean that goods and services sold to the
rich one with a hefty profit margin are more "beneficial to society" than when
sold to the poor one at cost?

~~~
daniel-s
First, those are two different things. The first is a business selling a
product for profit, the second is a charity: giving or subsidising food to a
kid.

It's impossible to know how much benefit anyone gets from food. Maybe the rich
kid barely notices the food because he lives in abundance, maybe it's his
favourite food, maybe the poor kid is starving and desperate, maybe he's
overweight and the food is doing him harm, maybe it's the rich kid's favourite
food but his brain reacts less favourably to that than the other kid when
eating his least favoured food.

The only thing that can be reasoned about any of the above was that rich kid's
parents wanted to pay more money for the food than what the stuff going into
it cost. The food producer created something more valuable than what he
started with. That is the only conclusion that you can objectively reason
about from the above.

