I am walking the talk... Google this: Welcome to XClave by Markus Allen
This appears to be a pyramid scheme...
Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
131–140 of 265 posts
Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
#132You mean like Amazon that doesn't make a profit, and passes on their vast, amazing operational efficiency basically for free?
Or Walmart that makes very thin margins and uses their power to force profits out of the value chain (they sit down with suppliers and require them to reduce margin) and has a policy of keeping margins extremely low themselves, thereby creating massive surpluses and helping people with little financial means more than any other program?
People focus so much in 'profit' when that's usually a narrow slice of what's going on.
When people are paying you for stuff or services, most of what is happening is value creation of some kind.
If people are not willing to pay you, it might be a sign that what you are doing is not useful to them.
The amount of 'surplus' generated for the customer is usually not even measured, particularly for consumers (it's called 'consumer surplus' and it's their version of profit).
If you are creating a ton of consumer surplus, then worrying about your narrow slice of profit doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
If you're an NGO not creating a ton of consumer surplus then you are a value destroyer not a value creator and you're basically burning money, truly wasteful. (I'm not saying NGOs are that, but they can be).
There's no such thing as 'Capitalism 2.0' - build a company, create surpluses, be a good actor, and take some margin as profit, or not, whatever you want, it's a side show.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just wondering, how do you vet the people that apply? I can imagine a lot of people would love to "earn" a free 2k a month and would happily play along doing the bare minimum amount of work required. I contemplated doing something similar in London (not paying money per-se, but providing a location & good hardware for the students to use) but was kind of worried about ending up with an office full of freeloaders that…
> Just wondering, how do you vet the people that apply? I can imagine a lot of people would love to "earn" a free 2k a month and would happily play along doing the bare minimum amount of work required. I think people that never worked in the public sector, particularly in something like social services, overestimate the goodness (for the lack of a better word) of average people. People that do this usually come from…
You comment was downvoted but I upvoted it because you bring up a valid point. I've noticed first hand the free-rider problem and I have mixed feelings.
I thought it was interesting that all students with the free-rider symptoms did not feel good about free-riding. They tried to help out and feel bad when we meet for 1-1 and they haven't done much.
Sometimes, I feel like I'm actually fighting against FAANG because these companies are spending billions trying to capture as much of my students' attention as possible and I have to spend more time helping manage my students out of these distractions.
I'm actually starting to wonder if the free-rider problem exists because of FAANG creating addictive content and the media glorifying a certain lifestyle. If students were not exposed to these distractions, would they still be free-riding? I honestly don't think so and my next year's plan is to try and simulate this.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
#134I'm trying to help people host their own websites instead of trusting their social data to big tech. It started as an open source blogging system, but I think it takes a hosted option to be sufficiently accessible. Still a very new project: https://simpleblogs.org/
Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are you planning to keep this sustainable for the long term? Burning out one's personal finances doesn't sound like it furthers your mission/passion.
The way I see it, I'm paying to study how people learn and how people's standing in society affects their learning. It is very interesting and definitely opened my eyes and helped change my philosophy in life. I haven't learned enough to confidently strategize a way to keep this sustainable, because I noticed a pattern between people who don't do well and their personality (but I can't quite put my finger on it). I'm…
You probably should add a 5-20% take of atttendees first 6 month or year pay. You could argue that is 'expensive', but the value add for the students is probably more than they made otherwise with no upfront cost. Your incentives are aligned, and this could help you enroll even more students.
The alternative of you no longer providing the service is worse.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way I see it, I'm paying to study how people learn and how people's standing in society affects their learning. It is very interesting and definitely opened my eyes and helped change my philosophy in life. I haven't learned enough to confidently strategize a way to keep this sustainable, because I noticed a pattern between people who don't do well and their personality (but I can't quite put my finger on it). I'm…
You probably should add a 5-20% take of atttendees first 6 month or year pay. You could argue that is 'expensive', but the value add for the students is probably more than they made otherwise with no upfront cost. Your incentives are aligned, and this could help you enroll even more students. The alternative of you no longer providing the service is worse.
> ...but the value add for the students is probably more than they made otherwise with no upfront cost.
I really don't want to set a precedence of charging students for something I don't think they should be paying for. I'd rather have them keep their money so they can help improve the world in their own way.
> The alternative of you no longer providing the service is worse.
Worse for who? Society? I don't believe it is my job to fix societal problems. I can help in a way that makes it fun and interesting for me and if any of the graduates want to continue providing the service and charge 5-20% of the students pay, they are free to launch their own service. Everything is open source.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
#137Consider the social impact of the way digital marketing works today: it is completely based on surveillance. This creates mistrust and it is the reason conversion rates are so small. Makes people feel used.
Based on my research while doing my postgrad at Cambridge, I figured out a way to scale empathy: no need for personal data, no need for intrusive technologies, no need for excessive details.
Today we work on this social impact if you will: make people feel understood.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are you planning to keep this sustainable for the long term? Burning out one's personal finances doesn't sound like it furthers your mission/passion.
The way I see it, I'm paying to study how people learn and how people's standing in society affects their learning. It is very interesting and definitely opened my eyes and helped change my philosophy in life. I haven't learned enough to confidently strategize a way to keep this sustainable, because I noticed a pattern between people who don't do well and their personality (but I can't quite put my finger on it). I'm…
> because I noticed a pattern between people who don't do well and their personality (but I can't quite put my finger on it)
can you talk about this?
Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
You probably should add a 5-20% take of atttendees first 6 month or year pay. You could argue that is 'expensive', but the value add for the students is probably more than they made otherwise with no upfront cost. Your incentives are aligned, and this could help you enroll even more students. The alternative of you no longer providing the service is worse.
> ...but the value add for the students is probably more than they made otherwise with no upfront cost. I really don't want to set a precedence of charging students for something I don't think they should be paying for. I'd rather have them keep their money so they can help improve the world in their own way. > The alternative of you no longer providing the service is worse. Worse for who? Society? I don't believe it…
> I really don't want to set a precedence of charging students for something I don't think they should be paying for.
What do you think students shouldn't be paying for? Education?
Some people pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for learning materials and a certificate of completion. Up front. With no guarantee of future income. And no refund if you don't finish.
Offering learning materials that only cost money if you profit from them seems like a much better alternative.
Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Just wondering, how do you vet the people that apply? I can imagine a lot of people would love to "earn" a free 2k a month and would happily play along doing the bare minimum amount of work required. I think people that never worked in the public sector, particularly in something like social services, overestimate the goodness (for the lack of a better word) of average people. People that do this usually come from…
You comment was downvoted but I upvoted it because you bring up a valid point. I've noticed first hand the free-rider problem and I have mixed feelings. I thought it was interesting that all students with the free-rider symptoms did not feel good about free-riding. They tried to help out and feel bad when we meet for 1-1 and they haven't done much. Sometimes, I feel like I'm actually fighting against FAANG because th…
The economy of distraction is indeed a fucked up economy... there are just 24h in a day. And we have billionaires competing for our attention. Creating opium-like content and experiences (tv, social media, videogames).
I wonder myself how deal with that in a systemic level. A society of consumers is bad... but a society that is a audience is worse.