3 tips for social entrepreneurs from Morgan Berman, a.k.a. ‘Morgan Moments’

Morgan Berman has a few tried and true tips, which she calls “Morgan Moments,” for better social entrepreneurship.

On the first day of Net Impact’s national conference, held last week at the Convention Center, the MilkCrate founder and ceramics enthusiast shared them with a room of wannabe entrepreneurs during a panel on the topic.

Her three “Morgan Moments”:

1. “Competition is good” — It’s OK if there’s another company similar to yours that’s making money, even if you’re not. “That means you’ve got something that people want to pay for,” she said.
2. “Go after one big fish” — Instead of trying to get a ton of small businesses to give you small amounts of money, try to get one big one to give you a huge amount of money. Scholly has done this really well, Berman pointed out: The scholarship-finding app gets universities and executives to sponsor downloads for many people.
3. “Sell something people are asking for, or find a way to get them to ask for it” — Berman heard from companies that they wanted a tool to track their employees’ social and environmental impact. So she made it — a paid, gamified version of MilkCrate’s app called MilkCrate for Communities.

Earlier in the day, B Lab cofounder Jay Coen Gilbert’s keynote addressed the growing popularity of B Corps and other triple-bottom-line businesses.

“We know not every company is going to be a certified B Corporation,” he said, “But everybody can be like a B Corp.”

Doing so matters in the long run for attracting both talent and customers. We’re looking forward to seeing more local founders take this to heart as Philly moves closer to becoming the “B Corp capital of the world.”

.@JayCoenGilbert: The moral arc of the universe bends towards justice, but requires us to bend it, which requires a habit of action. #NI16

— Laura Clise (@lauraclise) November 4, 2016