Social Venture Foundation and Competition Context
📌 The session featured Margot Duchan from HBS Social Enterprise Initiative and Brian Mese, runner-up in the previous year's New Venture Competition with his venture, Wave (West Africa Vocational Education).
🎓 Wave was founded by three HBS MBA students from the class of 2013 to address unemployment in West Africa, initially focusing on the hospitality and retail sectors.
📑 PowerPoint materials from the session will be made available on the New Venture Competition website.

Defining Social Enterprise and Business Plan Elements
💡 Howard Stevenson defines entrepreneurship as the pursuit of opportunity regardless of controlled resources; social entrepreneurship focuses on creating pattern-breaking social change.
🌐 HBS defines a social enterprise as being in nonprofit, for-profit, or public sector, requiring sustainability and a direct social purpose.
🧩 Key business plan elements discussed are Problem/Opportunity, Mission, Theory of Change, Strategy/Business Model, Team, Scaling Strategy, Measuring Results, and Risks.

Wave's Theory of Change and Evolution
🌍 Wave identified the problem in West Africa as a dual deficit of jobs and skills, choosing to focus on skills development in the growing hospitality industry.
🛠️ Their initial theory linked training to employment, but iteration showed that basic educational deficiencies (like English proficiency) were also barriers, leading to the introduction of an emotional intelligence assessment tool.
📈 The organization evolved from an initially planned for-profit model to a nonprofit structure to gain the patience needed to fully develop the operational model without immediate financial pressure.

Team Composition and Strategy
👩‍💻 The founding team comprised three ex-consultants, necessitating the recruitment of others with operational expertise (e.g., from the Education School) to legitimize the plan for the competition.
🔄 The core team has since narrowed, with one CEO full-time in Nigeria and two co-founders working part-time, while an operational team of 4-5 people is active on the ground.
⭐ The team developed an informal board of advisors during the competition, which is now formalizing due to recent funding from a venture philanthropy group that invests only in nonprofits.

Scaling and Risk Assessment
🚀 Scaling plans require considering how to maximize created value while maintaining quality, whether through organizational growth, launching new sites, or replicating the model.
🎯 Wave's initial scaling projections were ambitious; the pilot program provided legitimacy, though on-the-ground reality showed that direct outreach (visiting schools/NGOS) was more effective for recruitment than a purely social media strategy.
🛡️ Risks should be proactively presented, categorized into Market Risk (theory of change flaws), Operational Risk (implementation issues), and Team Risk (commitment levels), to demonstrate foresight to partners and investors.

Financials and Key Takeaways
📉 Sustainability requires attention to revenue sources; the choice between for-profit and nonprofit impacts team alignment and the ability to serve the lowest-income segments (the "bottom of the pyramid").
🤝 Effective partnerships are crucial; Wave found that connecting with existing NGOs and local network "know-everyone" contacts yielded better recruitment progress than mass marketing.
⭐ Overarching Advice: View competitions like the New Venture Competition as a platform for rigorous preparation; the mental energy spent formalizing the plan increases commitment and makes success more likely, regardless of winning.

Key Points & Insights
➡️ Start with the Problem/Passion: Wave began by identifying a shared passion (reducing West African unemployment) and worked backward to a suitable solution, emphasizing the importance of "heart" in social enterprise.
➡️ Refine Theory of Change Iteratively: Be prepared to discover unforeseen barriers; Wave had to incorporate addressing basic educational deficiencies (like English skills) beyond just vocational training due to assessment results.
➡️ Proactive Risk Disclosure: Presenting risks (Market, Operational, Team) upfront, especially regarding full-time commitment, prevents being put on the defensive during investor scrutiny.
➡️ Leverage Institutional Resources: Utilize professors for insight on disruption/innovation and tap into the broader intellectual capacity available at institutions like HBS and MIT, especially for emerging markets expertise.

📸 Video summarized with SummaryTube.com on Nov 25, 2025, 02:14 UTC