Starting any entrepreneurial effort is extremely difficult and it will put your will and endurance to the test. I believe social entrepreneurs to have a distinct set of challenges they face due to the social impact approach to their work. The below list is not a complete layout of all the obstacles you will face, but I believe it can help establish a foundation and maybe make you feel less bad about yourself in the process.
Without further ado, here are the 6 stages of heartbreak for social entrepreneurs…
1) Others questioning the scale of your impact.
When we started our first social enterprise, we began by giving jobs to 10 people in Uganda. It was deeply meaningful to us and to those we were working alongside on the ground, but the initial response we received was “you’re only helping 10 people?”. I began feeling bad about myself and the seemingly minuscule nature of the social impact we were creating. Then I realized something… the same people who were asking this question weren’t actively doing anything to positively impact the issues they cared about. They were looking for us to do it. That’s on them.