A recent article reminded me that an idea that becomes a social enterprise (or a regular start-up) is often rooted in problems that the founder has seen or experienced first-hand. Specifically, I ran across an article titled “The Vision Thing,” a profile of the social enterprise VisionSpring in Entrepreneur magazine’s March 2010 issue.
In the profile, founder Jordan Kassalow explains the genesis of VisionSpring. As it turns out, the moment of conviction for him happened to him in Mexico in the 1980s, when he was doing aid work there. Kassalow, an optometrist, says that a woman told him that all she wanted to do was to read her Bible, which she had not been able to do for some 10 years. After outfitting the woman with a pair of glasses, the woman “took one look at her Bible and fell to her knees, crying and clutching [Kassalow’s] legs.”
Kassalow’s reaction? Entrepreneur describes his eureka moment:
“I thought, ‘My God, what an impact,’” Kassalow says. “From AIDS to tuberculosis, glasses are at the end of the list when it comes to medical aid. But losing eyesight is a silent robber of economic productivity. Hundreds of millions of poor people lose their livelihood in their prime working years.”
Jordan Kassalow ultimately founded a company in 2001 that became VisionSpring, and in 2009 distributed more then 200,000 pairs of glasses in eight countries, with half a million expected to be distributed in 2010. Amazing!
After reading this article, my mind turned to an example of another social enterprise that I know, one called Café Esperanza in Guatemala. The current director of the organization, Rick Carey, spoke at my church several weeks ago about some of his experiences, including a eureka moment of his own. At one point during his work in Guatemala in 1996, Carey was in a meeting with local church elders, offering to help them construct a new church building, provide funds, medical help schools, or offer other support. “How can we help?” Carey asked. An elder stopped him and simply said, “Just teach us the Bible.” Carey realized that he was focusing on what he thought the local community needed, and not what they actually desired from their American friends.
While not all readers of this blog may be religious like those in Kassalow and Carey’s stories, I think that the point of both of these examples still rings clear: to be able to solve problems, you have to be able to understand them first. Successful problem solvers must understand the needs that are out there before they can effectively meet them.
Are your eyes open to needs that you can meet? Maybe start by donating $4 to provide one pair of glasses, or by buying coffee from Cafe Esperanza to support those in the Quiche region of Guatemala. Or found your own start-up to solve problems that you see, like making gift-giving easier.
Source: Image of Jordan Kassalow copyright Natalie Brasington, from Entrepreneur magazine’s March 2010 issue.
