How my failures in business inspired me to help other social entrepreneurs

By Sina Fak

In high school, I became obsessed with the idea of social entrepreneurship. I loved the concept of a business that balanced profit with the greater good.

I was eager to make a contribution, so I started looking for opportunities around me. I found out that my high school wasn’t doing any recycling, and was inspired to launch my first social entrepreneurial venture. I was 16 years old.

I created my own recycling bins, put them around my school, and asked people put their recyclables into them. I’d take all the recyclables to the city recycling center, and get $0.05 to $0.10 per can or bottle. I poured all the profits into more bins and bags, and bus rides to the center.

I was on a mission to scale my operations.

Then I got a notice from the school, saying I wasn’t allowed to take recyclable materials off-premise (something to do with liabilities).

So after just two months and about $13.55 in profit – I quit.

I had no idea what to do next – but I kept looking for other opportunities to make a contribution.

My next idea was “Share-A-Portion.” The customers of any participating restaurant had the option to “share-a-portion” of their meal, which would be distributed to homeless people in the area.

But once again, I hit a few road blocks: 1) I didn’t know how to make money from the project to finance the whole operation and 2) The city was giving me a pretty hard time about food safety and quality.

And once again, I quit. It was too much.

Two years later, I came up with my next social enterprise. This was going to be a big one: the Ecologically Responsible Business Association (ERBA).

I’d work with large industrial complexes and manufacturing facilities, and show them how to retrofit their facilities with LEDS (very new at the time), grey water recycling, and other sustainable technologies could not only save the environment, but also save them money!

I spent the last two years of my university career trying to figure this out. I was so determined to make it work. I met with experts in the industry. I volunteered at an Environment Consulting firm (who eventually hired me as an intern) to learn more about business and sustainability. I even went to the IMPACT Conference hosted by the CoOperators and networked with like minded people and environmental advocates.

But in the end, I wasn’t able to put all the pieces together to make it work.

So I quit... again. And got a “normal job” – giving up my dreams of becoming a social entrepreneur and changing the world.

There are two points to all this:

1. Social entrepreneurs tend to be so mission-focused that they neglect practical strategy.

2. Most social enterprises fail because their founders don’t know where to get the business knowledge and support they need.

So I decided to launch a new social enterprise, to help other social entrepreneurs.

My mission is to help you discover yours, and bring it to life.

Along the way, we just might change the world.