How Much a Venture Should Impact Society to be Considered as Social?

During the last several weeks, I have been thinking about the real impact of a social venture, especially in developing countries. I believe that in some ventures there is a misperception between a social venture and a social impact. My belief is that real social ventures should try to focus on the unprivileged groups of society, rather than the privileged ones. Nonetheless, a social impact could be generated even by non-social ventures.

In a recent post, I stated, in reference to a friend’s thought, that current tech start-ups are focused in the profits more than in the impacts, consequently brilliant minds are being employed to make profits rather than solving world social issues. Even more, some projects are focused on small privileged groups. But, is this totally wrong for generating a social impact?

I am hesitant about the applicability of some “social” projects to certain developing countries. In specific, those projects requiring Internet connection, smartphone interfaces, high literacy rates, or electricity to be successful. Although some developing, or emerging economies have high mobile penetration rates, it doesn’t mean that there is a linear relationship (one mobile per person); even more, it doesn’t mean that all people have access to smartphones, or to mobile Internet. While the World Bank reported in 2011 a gross national income (GNI) per capita of $7,470 in Botswana, and $48,620 for the United States, this last has an average of 93 mobile subscriptions per 100 people, but surprisingly Botswana has 143. In terms of Internet users, the United States has approximately 77.9 users per 100 people, and Botswana only seven users.

Projects using these interfaces are reaching some privileged sectors, or in the worst scenario are failing as “social” ventures. I remember hearing about an interesting project in Mexico to bring computer clusters to distant communities, but the project failed in some communities because there was not electricity. So often, great ideas are worthless due to failures in planning. So, why a project that will help to a reduced number of people, or to people with more opportunities should be considered to be a social venture?

Additionally, there are several examples of business that were created without the idea of being social ventures, and they have become extensively recognized in the developing world, to the point of having a great social impact. For example, the origin of portable communications, specifically mobile phones, was not planned, or accessible for all population, however nowadays mobile subscriptions are almost doubling the labor force in the world. Probably those ventures never visualized the future trends (in some sense irrationals). As argued before, who will think that low-income countries will have a higher number of subscriptions rather than the richest country in the world?

How can we foresee the real social impact of a (social) venture? In fact, how can we establish if it is or not a social venture? Probably, some start-ups will generate a bigger social impact than the ones that are defined as “social” from their origin. Maybe that is why I am reluctant to listen to entrepreneurs defining their project as “social”, when they are targeting, since the beginning of the project, just a small group of privileged people, especially in developing countries. I prefer to hear someone being realistic about the impact of the venture, even if at the beginning it is not defined as social.