WHAT ARE MY MOTIVATIONS?

There are many reasons why someone might consider becoming an entrepreneur and starting business. Some of the more common ones are: 

- Can’t think of anything better to do 
- Avoiding a corporate career 
- Being your own boss
- Becoming rich
- Exploiting an opportunity
- Meeting a need 
- Doing something better/ improving an existing provision
- Changing the world 

  The popularity of TV shows such as the BBC’s Dragon’s Den and the Apprentice has popularised if not glamorised entrepreneurship, attracting even more people to starting a business. What popular myth doesn’t tell you is that starting and managing an enterprise is incredibly hard work – often much harder than working your way up the corporate ladder. Choosing to be a social entrepreneur is even more demanding, due mainly to the complex nature of your objectives (including social, environmental and financial outcomes) and, very often, the range and diversity of your stakeholders. To date many of your goals, or measures of success, will have been set by others, or at least developed with the close support of others. Starting on an enterprise requires that you need to decide for yourself what you want to achieve, what you consider to be a success and what it is you hope to achieve in the short as well as the long term. This applies to both you and the enterprise that you are thinking of starting.

Success is never assured. Often it takes a number of attempts to get to what you define as success. You need to be very sure about what you are proposing to do and the demands that this choice will make on you. If you are considering becoming an entrepreneur just because you can’t think of anything better – don’t. This is not sufficient motivation to make a success. Fortunes can be made out of enterprise. But most entrepreneurs do not become millionaires. Money alone should not be the motivating factor for any form of entrepreneurship; it is rarely enough. This is especially true if you are considering social enterprise, where personal financial reward is, at best, a peripheral motivation. Successful social entrepreneurs can be well rewarded but not as well as those who are only operating in the commercial sector. You should choose social enterprise only if you are motivated with creating positive change (social change, environmental change) through the agency of enterprise. Successful social entrepreneurs are more likely to be motivated by innovation, creating change, doing good, and improving existing services more than by money. 

Many people believe that social enterprise is an easier option than starting a commercial business. This is completely wrong. As a social entrepreneur you will be expected to generate profits, prove that you are creating measurable positive change and improving the planet, or at least not damaging it – otherwise known as the 3 P’s:

- Profit
- People 
- Planet 

So a social entrepreneur is measured on three counts (sometimes referred to as the social enterprise triple bottom line) whereas commercial entrepreneurs need only prove their ability to make profit. You need to be certain that you are prepared to work harder for less monetary reward, but immensely greater emotional reward. You will also need to be aware that since social enterprise tends not to be highly profitable, it is harder to fund the business and harder to attract investment. You need to operate with greater agility and learn how to attract support by means other than monetary reward – this applies to investors as well as employees.

Other social entrepreneurs have the same challenges and so tend to be very supportive of each other. There is the feeling that social entrepreneurs are creating a new order and a more sustainable world, which is another great motivation for entering this sector.