Slides from RSA public event with Rowan Conway et al

1. How to be an impact
entrepreneur

2. Who do you think of when
we say entrepreneur?

3. Source: The Atlantic

4. Why do we need a different
type of entrepreneur?

5. Complex challenges
• Inequality
• Climate change
• Economic insecurity
• A rapidly changing
future of work
Source: David Snowden

6. Impact Entrepreneurs:
1. See the system
2. Small can be big
3. Love the mission, not just the solution
4. Operate as part of a field

7. 1. See the system

8. Inspired by Frank Geels, et al

9. MICRO
Users and
Venture activity
MESO
Enabling system
conditions
MACRO
Infrastructure for
economic security
THE MICRO:
Ventures and individual activity
• Behaviours
• Encouraging new entrants
THE MACRO:
Societal change
• The wider value system – jobs vs gigs
• the narrative around future of work
• The tax / legal/ regulatory regime
THE MESO:
Institutional and organisational challenges
• Institutions
• Business models or organisations
• Power dynamics
• Networks and hierarchies
• Asset classes
• Social movements
Systems Change

10. 2. Small is big

11. “Before the state can act, the field must be
marked by a first generation of pioneers.”
“Innovators and activists are the only ones
capable of doing the hard work at the early
stage, namely spotting the new economic and
social challenges of the day and discovering
the basics of the new mechanisms that can
effectively tackle them.”
Nicolas Colin, 2018

12. Social entrepreneurs target
individual solutions that are
pieces of complex problems
Systems entrepreneurs
facilitate a change to an
entire ecosystem
Source: Geneva Global

13. The current ventures system focuses on
solutions
Source: Jennie Winhall

14. There is an alternative route…
Source: Jennie Winhall

15. 3. “Love the mission,
not the solution”

16. Impact entrepreneurs are committed to a
purpose rather than attached to a specific
solution. Solutions are not the answer.
They see the opportunities arising in challenges
like the future of work and are committed to
finding innovative ways to solve it.

17. Experiment with the system,
not the product

18. 4. Operate as a field

19. “Field-building” is to social
impact what market making is in
purely commercial environments:
It means developing capacity and
creating the enabling conditions
into which innovations can thrive.
Source: Cassie Robinson

21. Regulators
Corporate
partners
Workers
Gov
departments
Unions
Campaign
groups

22. The future is a systems
innovation challenge.
For that we need impact
entrepreneurs

23. Find out more at:
https://www.thersa.org/action-and-research/rsa-projects/economy-enterprise-manufacturing-folder/rsa-
economic-security-impact-accelerator
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUkKDqnpO6k