From the Living Room to the World: Social Business Unpacked (Part 1 of 8)

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Hi, this is Tony McWilliams, and I’m here with my daughter.

Hi, and I’m Lindey Duckworth, and I’m with my dad.

And welcome to another conversation that we’re having about the topic of social business. Again, this is an overflow from our table, from our family meetings. And of course, dad, it’s a passion of yours.

And just to recap, if you missed anything before this, we were talking about this idea of social business, a business like Tom’s or Warby Parker, where I’m a part of a generation, and I think we all are too. I mean, the world is on our fingertips, right? I’m holding the world in this rectangle of a thing. And I want to make a difference here somehow, somewhere. I think that’s why social business is a beautiful vehicle, because a lot of the things that are close to our heart cost money. It’s not that money is like the answer to everything, but money answers a lot of need. Money answers a lot of issues. It does. This isn’t heresy, right? No, and it’s not outside of common sense. It’s just I need money to trade for things that I actually need. That’s the kind of answer, not your eternity, not your soul answer. It’s literally an answer for daily things.

And so I’m part of a generation who I want to be a part of something bigger than myself. I want to be a part of this exchange on a grand scale, this exchange for my dollar meaning more than just what it can get for me and mine.

Well, yes. And so what we’re trying to do, if we’re going to save lives, we’re going to need to find a way to fund our mission. And that’s what social business is about, is a different way to get it funded by going into the market as opposed to thinking that only donations can get there. The market is where the money is, and that is a reality.

Yeah, it seems like a free flow in the market.

Yes, but you know what? You still have to play by the rules in the market.

Yes. You’ve got to have something to offer the market.

Anyway, you know what? We’re getting off on another subject already that I would like to converse about at another time. But I would first like to back up and go into the area of social business and kind of break it down a little bit in more detail. Can we do that?

Yeah, let’s break down social business. What does it actually mean?

What I’m going to do is share with you some of the details of trying to understand social business. But we’re going to break it down into three categories.

Wait, is there a quiz?

Maybe.

Oh, man. It’s not that hard. The one thing you’re going to be hearing from us a lot of in maybe even before this particular episode is over, this particular conversation. So anyway, we are going to be talking a lot about social business 3.0. If there’s a 3.0, then there must be a 1.0.