Social Entrepreneurship, Clean Water for Everyone

Most of the time when the words social and entrepreneurship are linked together, the result is some feel good happy place company that is guaranteed to lose money. Many times when I have seen this, it’s in clean energy or some money drain market segment like that. Besides, most of these business plans I see in this space all have some sort of “give back” on the cash flow of the company. If I wanted to donate to charity, I’d donate to charity. When I invest my hard earned after tax dollars in a company, I want a return on that investment. I also believe strongly that companies like Apple ($AAPL) and Exxon ($XON) are “socially responsible” because they create jobs and value for society.

Today I was alerted to a company that is socially responsible. It solves a real pain point, a problem. It does it in an innovative way. The company is set up to actually try and return capital to investors. It’s called Portapure.

Portapure makes portable water filters to provide clean water to anyone anywhere. Water is a scarce resource. Clean water is even scarcer. This Chicago based entrepreneurial start up can make a gigantic difference in people’s lives. They have been accepted into Impact Engine.

This isn’t just a feel good company. If you are going to do something that is considered socially responsible, go through the same iterations that any start up goes through.

1. Find a pain point and solve it in a disruptive way
2. Make sure the market that will use your solution is HUGE.
3. Figure out how to execute, how to build your product and sell it to customers
4. Bootstrap it, then raise capital from investors, and have a goal of returning many times that capital back to them.

We could solve a lot of societal problems faster and more efficiently through the activities of entrepreneurs than we can through bigger and more government programs. Free market capitalism has raised the standards of living for more people faster and cheaper than any government. Remember that when you walk into a voting booth.

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