How can entrepreneurs maximize their social impact?

My partner Jennie Winhall spent much of this rainy weekend in Copenhagen working on a presentation about Alt/Now - her incubator which puts cohorts of social entrepreneurs together to maximize their collective impact on a big social issue. The last cohort focused on redressing economic inequality; the new cohort will be tackling the future of work.  

I find Jennie's work inspiring, but I am not a social entrepreneur. So I have been asking myself: how can conventional entrepreneurs maximize the positive social impact of their for-profit businesses? Here are some ideas.

1. Raise EIS funding, and use it to employ people

The UK government's Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) gives individuals generous tax incentives to invest in early-stage businesses. It is very popular, and has played a key role in fostering the development of the startup scene in the UK by increasing the availability of angel-investor capital.  

But as a socially-conscious entrepreneur, you can also think of EIS as a mechanism for redistribution. If you raise capital from angels or from an EIS fund, and use it to pay new employees, you are transferring money from wealthy individuals to less wealthy individuals. This acts directly to reduce economic inequality.

2. Better still: build ventures that create a lot of jobs

Artificial Intelligence is currently on-trend, and as a result entrepreneurial orthodoxy is to found startups which replace analysts with algorithms and customer service agents with chatbots.

But maximizing automation is not a necessary condition for building a successful and scalable business. There are many contexts in which human creativity and empathy are still valued highly by customers. My personal shopper at Thread.com does a much better job of picking clothes I want to buy than Amazon's recommendation algorithm (thanks Luke). At Bought By Many, our highest satisfaction scores come from customers who have spoken directly with one of our contact centre team in Haywards Heath - even though we're an online business.

It could be hugely beneficial to the redevelopment of post-industrial regions if we as entrepreneurs came up with business ideas where employing more people enhanced the value proposition.  

3. Think expansively about organizational purpose

On his podcast last week, Ed Miliband talked about the current government's appropriation of his 2015 general election policy to cap household energy prices. He wasn't angry; in fact he called it a "reason to be cheerful". Although he failed in his objective to become Prime Minister, measured against his purpose of reducing (fuel) poverty, he is succeeding.

Adopting this point of view as an entrepreneur can take you to some interesting places. If you have an ambitious, aspirational purpose that involves making the world a better place, competitors learning from you and emulating you is a good thing. They amplify your impact. 

4. Hold yourself to high standards in how you do business.

Entrepreneurs generally found startups because they believe they can do things better than the incumbents.

This principle of "raising the bar" can be extended beyond your product (what you do) and into your operations (how you do it).  

Practical examples of this might be implementing accessibility best practice in your app; or committing your company to the "rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency" required for B-Corp status.

Those were my ideas. What are yours?