Are you a Gangster?

Walking up towards the exit from the SAF lecture theatre I saw two people approach me who asked that exact question. “Are you a gangster?” Unsurprisingly, it made a few other people turn their heads around in wonder, as they were also leaving the lecture hall after a presentation on social economy.

Little did they know about what made these two strangers say this and how it could be connected to one Christian Vanizette. Despite what some friends may say for the usual joke this had nothing to do with my Russian/Ukrainian background and the tales of Russian mafia wars...

As I smiled and replied “yes” the eavesdroppers drew closer towards us to try and understand what was going on. In fact, what these two strangers were referring to was a movement that originated in France about a year ago called MakeSense. It challenges people from around the globe to help social entrepreneurs to solve some of the world’s most stressing problems by organising creative brainstorm sessions that are called ‘hold-ups’ (yes, just like the ‘robbery at gunpoint’). When a hold-up is organised, 6 to 15 gangsters (that is, members of this movement) come together to meet one social entrepreneur with a specific problem to solve.

The challenge could be anything from the basic question of “How do I build an online community for my fair trade business?” to more complex ones such as “How do I scale internationally to support my microfinance charity in India?” or “How do I introduce new streams of revenue for my environmental initiative in Chile?” The case is then brainstormed in a structured way so that after two hours the gangsters are able to come up with 100 ideas and five possible solutions to a given problem.

Of course, the answers are not always right, and in fact, quite often they are truly out-of-the-box, but what MakeSense-ers are able to do is to give to the social entrepreneur an outsider’s perspective. By breaking down the business concept into tiny pieces, thinking creatively, and reconstructing it with a different view, MakeSense gangsters give the entrepreneur an opportunity to see those crucial improvements and flaws in their initiative – something that is paramount to any business survival and success.

One could compare it to a cool consulting case study, or an engineering problem. Whatever you may call it, there are a few of things that make hold-ups very special indeed. Firstly, by working with real world businesses that pursue an ethical mission to tackle an environmental or a social problem – the definition of social enterprise – it offers a sense of real achievement. Secondly, it teaches participants to think in real business terms – a skill which most of us don’t get taught in the classroom. Lastly it also provides a point of contact with lots of ambitious people who are passionate about making a difference.

As MakeSense is growing and new members are adding up, more and more hold-ups are being organized around the world. In the past 6 months it grew from a small community of around 100 gangsters based in Paris, to more than 500 across London, Vienna, Berlin, San Francisco, Shanghai and even Melbourne. The gang recently reached the hallmark of 100 organized hold-ups, and is growing exponentially as I write. Indeed, right now, the Paris hub is leading six hold-ups simultaneously to help improve six unique social businesses.

So, what kind of businesses do MakeSense gangsters get involved in anyway? One of the new enterprises that the London MakeSense gang is planning to work with is GiveMeTap, a social business that aims to create UK’s first free water refilling network. The idea is that anyone who has bought a GiveMeTap refillable water bottle can go to the nearest cafe or restaurant which is signed up to the scheme and get a refill of clean drinkable tap water.

Truly inspiring, this business hits on multiple social problem areas at the same time. Not only it is trying to tackle the stigma around drinking tap water (despite it being safe due to Health & Safety regulations for retail environments), and unthinkable masses of landfill waste that get packed up with plastic water bottles, it also challenges our perception of water as a ‘paid for’ commodity. A lot of people today may feel too shy about asking for tap water in a restaurant as it is seen as an act of ‘cheapness’ rather than a basic right. GiveMeTap is trying to challenge that notion and save the environment at the same time. Moreover, 70% of its profits from the sale of refillable bottles go towards building sustainable water projects in Africa.

However, despite all this, as the founder describes it “the challenge for GiveMeTap is to be able to scale significantly enough so that there is a refillable station every 500m around big UK city hubs.” It will inarguably struggle to gain a mass following unless one of the bigger retailers, such as Starbucks, will sign up to its scheme. Herein lies the challenge to solve for gangsters of MakeSense.

Another interesting business that MakeSense had previously organized a hold-up with is a microfinance startup called Emaji. Currently in its early stages of development, Emaji is building an online marketplace which will allow entrepreneurs in the developing and third world countries to sell their products directly to consumers in the west. The current issue with many market makers, especially Emaji’s main target market – craft-makers – is that they receive only a tiny profit from the products they sell in their localities, which often is not enough for sustaining their families. Drawing on their passion in entrepreneurship, the founders of Emaji plan to develop an easy-to-use e-commerce platform which will connect consumers with craft makers and their stories. The challenge posed to MakeSense gangsters was to think bold and to answer “How can Emaji become a Facebook of Fairtrade?”.

Still, if you feel that your greatest skill is not in strategy or marketing, but rather, for example, your coding abilities, there are gangsters who do just that. Earlier last week, Mike Mompi from MakeSense London gang helped organize a two day ‘hack-a-thon’ with Random Hacks of Kindness and MyBnk Social Enterprise, which challenged the problem of financial illiteracy and financial inclusion. The event brought together developers, designers and financial experts who attempted to come up with new solutions on the subject of matter and tested them right away.

Quite a bunch, isn’t it? The current status of social enterprise as a branch of entrepreneurship, or indeed as the sole way to do business, looks likely to grow exponentially as more and more people become empowered with technology, especially that of social networking. Increasingly, corporate social responsibility is becoming essential for support of large businesses and, logically, the next level up would be to build businesses which have a social aspect deeply integrated into their business concepts.

Last but not least, given the recent events of political and economic instability the politicians often agree that the old systems need to be reformed to become more socially responsible. In fact, UK is already a leader in social innovation with 1.7m people working in the social sector jobs and one in three startups having a social aspect in their business models.

So, if you still dream of changing the world and want to hang out and learn from social entrepreneurs feel free to email us at entrepreneurs@imperial.ac.uk. We’ll make sure to let you know about the next hold-up, and more importantly, hail you as a gangster.