The topics were broad and the panel diverse.  Delegates presented on the issues of waste management, sustainable agriculture, reusable energy, transit repair services in developing countries, and sustainable forestry investment.  They came ready with their stories, ideas, and ready to share their successes and challenges.  As an individual in the process of creating a business plan to address a pressing social issue, this session offered key insights.

Throughout the session, three key recommendations emerged.

1. Know your model and the numbers that go with it
2. Prioritize and focus you challenges
3. Don’t limit yourself!

No matter the topic or the delegate, the advice came back in their three areas. 

Know your model and the numbers that go with it

It was clear which delegates had a good understanding of their own model, while others were struggling to truly identify what their business actually was.  Panelist Brizio Biondi Mora reflected that of all social entrepreneurs, 1% make the rules, 4% play their game according to the rules and the other 95% don’t even know what their game is.  He stressed the criticalness of knowing your business, you model, and having a deep understanding of what you do better than anyone else.  With this, you should also know where you are most vulnerable, where you will most likely take a hit.  A delegate working on renewable energy clearly had thought about this and was able to speak to her team’s scenario analysis, giving credibility to her work and a platform for more substantial recommendations.

Prioritize and focus your challenges

Some delegates were lacking clarity on their challenges and why they were seeking insights.  The panel stressed the need to talk concisely and concretely about your problems and what you have done to address them.  If you do not, they had no problem pushing you to ensure you will in the future.  You should have done your research about other like organizations to really understand your challenge and potential ways to avoid the obstacles.  Last, delegates who had asked themselves WHAT ELSE stood out.  Those that thought out of the box on their challenges and came with potential ideas got the panelists attention and most constructive feedback.  They pushed the delegates to think about diversification of products to allow for diversification of return and investment.  Blending things left and right, they were looking for ingenuity and brought a fair share of their own as well!

Don’t Limit Yourself

Many of the delegates were missing the BIG players, partnerships, and ideas.  The panelists were happy to provide them, forcing delegates to think about who are the big players that would want to partner, who are other people in the industry that could be collaborators, and how to use the increasingly blurred line between for profit and non-profit to their advantage.