Why is the "So What" essential?

So if it’s not about growth, then what really matters for Social Enterprises?  I’ll give you a couple of clues: it’s not about the amount of money you have in the bank and it’s not about how many people you have under your staff.  Social enterprises are concerned primarily with the So What?  This pithy question forces us to fully understand an innovation’s purpose in the present time, but also it’s possible scalable outreach in the future.  After reading, It’s Not About Growth For Social Enterprises, I gained a better understanding of how challenging the growth of an innovation’s impact is versus the growth of the organization alone.

This article and this week’s topic area of venture development and growth relate by revealing the challenges an organization and an investor would face at a given point during an org’s lifetime.  To really crank up an organization and prove to investors that their product or service is worth the business relationship and money, they have to be able to bring significant evidence that addresses not only their goal/mission but more importantly, it answers the So What?  The answer (backed up by the proof) is a serious consideration for investors, but what is also needed from investor to org is their belief in your core functions and what you are setting out to do with your innovation is of good quality.  If they don’t necessarily agree with your core values, then it’s not worth it for you or them to continue this relationship.  At the end of the day you want an investor who will support your organization’s ways of functioning.   Touching back on good quality innovations; an organization would be wise to formulate models and measurables to assist themselves as well as investors and potential adopters of the ecosystem how easy the model is to recreate and easy to understand. 

Speaking of ecosystems, cultivating it so an org can have a successful innovation may mean a range of different actions.  In the case study, Environfit International: Cracking the BoP Market, the cookstoves did not reach their desired scales and sales due to a small but significant gap: the husbands of the wives who liked the infomercials.  The men had the final say whether or not they would purchase the cookstove on what little disposable income the family had.  This gap wasn’t known until Mr. Anchan went from retailer to retailer to discover this overlooked factor.

 Identifying these gaps ahead of time and providing the evidence in order for the husbands to agree that IAP is linked to biomass stoves their wives use, would make much more of a successful impact!  Cookstove sales would increase and cases of IAP/illnesses in women and children would decrease.

What I find fascinating, challenging, and possibly frustrating are these gaps!  Try putting a puzzle together without using the picture on the box.  But this missing puzzle piece can determine whether an innovation will be more likely to succeed or not.  And in the case of Environfit, time is ticking to figure out a cost-effective way to raise their sales without it impeding on the long term sustainability of the organization.

Do you think Enironfit will ultimately fail for missing to address the Indian husbands or do you think they will recover and prove their innovation is worth it?