Max Marmer » Blog Archive » Differentiating “Emergent Ventures” from Social Entrepreneurship

A post for a blog friends of mine have started to try to describe and define a new class of ventures that are emerging. emergenttransformation.com

Q: How do you contrast these Emergent Ventures from Social Entrepreneurship? Are they a subset? A superset? A synonym?

A: First let’s define Social Entrepreneurship…

I consider Social Entrepreneurship to include any venture that creates a medium to high amount of social capital. That definition excludes businesses like semiconductor manufacturers, ad networks and coffee shops. But so many businesses are included in that definition that the term Social Entrepreneurship doesn’t have enough differentiation to be a really useful label.

The ventures we’re talking about on this blog do create a medium to high amount of social capital, but they have a few more defining features. But that does mean that these ventures are a subset of Social Entrepreneurship.

Defining Characteristics of Emergent Ventures:

1) They have information technology component at their core, and are connected to the Internet. This is what allows these businesses to easily benefit from complimentary products and services, rapidly scale, and quickly integrate into the fabric of society.

2) Social Entrepreneurship ventures are often about solving survival needs (Food, Water, Shelter).

Emergent Ventures solve enrichment needs (Knowledge, Community, Collaboration).

3) A portion of the value these ventures create and capture is economic and they make enough money to self-sustain, and often create a significant profit.

4) The ventures we’re talking about on this blog for the most part create a low to medium amount of economic capital. Terms 1 through 3 leave the door open open for companies like Google and Facebook, which create both a high amount of economic capital and social capital. And while companies like Google and Facebook probably could benefit from some of the discussions on the bleeding edge of harnessing social capital, they don’t need help attracting more resources and attention. (Other ventures to include in this category: Meetup, Quora, Asana, Halycon Molecular)

Examples of companies that would be emergent ventures:

Kiva

The Extraordinaries

Kickstarter

Sandbox Network

The Hub

Sparkseed

Assetmap

Supercool School

Trust Art

Ground Crew

Jumo

The Unreasonable Institute

Open Action

Enzi

Udemy

Unclasses

Let me know what you think and if you would add or subtract any companies on these lists.

« Implications of Startups That Exist to Maximize Abundant Social Capital Instead of Scarce Economic Capital

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