The Scalability of Social Enterprise
Written by Ned Zimmerman-Bence, Co-Founder of GogyUpOur friends at Social Enterprise MSP and Impact Hub MSP have organized #SocialImpactWeekMN to celebrate the vibrant companies and organizations that make up an important part of the Twin Cities economy. We thought it was fitting to share our thoughts on social entrepreneurship and express our gratitude to our customers, our partners, and the phenomenal network of supporters we have in the Twin Cities, across Minnesota, and throughout the country.
Competitive Advantages of Social Enterprises
Entrepreneurs start businesses because they discovered an idea that might solve a problem. Whether or not the idea solves a problem, it must provide real economic value to its customers and end-users. Otherwise, the idea and the business it spawned fails sooner or later.
Social entrepreneurship is additive; it builds on the economic imperative underlying any entrepreneurial enterprise. When a social enterprise successfully executes an idea, it generates economic value beyond a transaction for a good or service. Depending on the enterprise and the problem it is solving, that economic value can be wide ranging: from being a catalyst for economic development, improved education, or better health outcomes. But it is the social enterprise's ability to execute an idea that provides economic value that defines the idea's viability and market success.
Sezzle, a Minnesota certified B-corp, is an excellent example. Launched in 2017, Sezzle provides financial education and payment options without fees and interest that make it easy for shoppers to budget and manage payments comfortably. The company's trajectory has been phenomenal and after a few short years, the platform is accepted by thousands of retailers across North America, from traditional "big box" stores to boutique clothing.
Sezzle's social mission provides it with a critical advantage over its "non-social" competitors, e.g., Square. Sezzle has greater economic value because it is increasing consumers' financial literacy, the social component of its business model. Along with the economic value of providing a means for consumers to acquire the goods they would not be able to normally purchase, Sezzle's platform builds "underbanked" consumers' credit histories at scale, enabling thousands to fully engage with the financial system.
The economic value Sezzle creates extends beyond facilitating transactions to include greater financial stability for its customer base and its partner vendors. That stability and the habits the platform teaches builds trust and loyalty, creating the "stickiness" that is the hallmark of every great business.
Literacy: A Business for 64,000,000 U.S. Adults
Five years ago, GogyUp set out to move the needle on the 1 out of 6 U.S. adults who were unable to read standard workplace training materials and documents and the 3 out of 6 U.S. adults whose ability to read severely limits their ability to obtain new skills and adapt to workplace changes. Our innovation is to combine assistive-reading technology, existing text documents, and structured but adaptable literacy instruction in one system.
GogyUp's assistive-reading technology empowers every adult, regardless of reading level, to understand the information necessary to perform a job safely and efficiently using an employer's standard documentation. Because we embed micro-lessons in phonemic awareness within those same documents, employees can also build their reading and comprehension skills over time as they review their employers' documents. Employers who use our platform for their training documents, benefit documents, etc. will see in real time how well their employees understand their jobs and, often for the first time, have actionable data for training interventions, revisions to their training, and automatically generated logs for safety audits and industry certifications.
A GogyUp subscription provides our customers with clear economic value in reduced accidents, improved efficiency, and greater employee retention. Beyond that transaction, through greater employee understanding, the customer will also enjoy a more capable and adaptable workforce. GogyUp also provides economic value to employees through increased document accessibility and improved literacy skills.
Because GogyUp can be applied to many different training use cases, the platform is applicable across various employers and industries, including healthcare, financial services, legal services, etc. Thanks to the Federal SBIR program and the USDA's National Institute for Food and Agriculture, we are in the midst of pilots with rural-based employers to study GogyUp's impact on employee training. Before the end of the year, GogyUp will launch a study to investigate whether the platform has a positive impact on patient capacity to manage complex diseases, specifically type 2 diabetes mellitus. Funded by the NIH's National Institute for Nursing Research, we hope this SBIR Ph I study will demonstrate that GogyUp's platform improves a patient's ability to not only learn about their disease but also indicate whether patient-provider communication improves - and therefore reduce a significant cause of health disparities.
How GogyUp will move the needle is through its business model: through partnerships with adult education programs and workforce development NGOs, we can develop a distribution network through trusted venues that will facilitate GogyUp's adoption in our target population: the 64 million working-age adults with limited literacy. The vast data generated by thousands of emerging adult readers will anonymously inform our instructional model, increasing instructional and training outcomes for both our customers, their employees, and the thousands of “public students” who learned about GogyUp through our partnerships. The recurring revenue from subscriptions will allow GogyUp to quickly scale adult education infrastructure that is freely available and contribute to a significant surge in the literacy rates in the available workforce.
GogyUp Gratitude Roll
All of us at GogyUp have much to be grateful for over these past five years, including the following:
First and foremost are the 87,000+ end-users who generated 338,000+ sessions so far this year. They provide us with strong validation of our technology and our model as well as the revenue that shows we are providing economic value.
There are our partners: Cara Collective and Communidades Latinas Unidas en Servicio (CLUES) who introduced GogyUp to their adult learners and generated a 221% increase in proxy hours this year!
The USDA's National Institute for Food and Agriculture for the SBIR funding to study GogyUp's potential for impacting rural workforce development. We are also grateful for our partners at Michigan State University's Center for Economic Analysis for collaborating with us on the research.
The NIH's National Institute for Nursing Research for SBIR funding to study GogyUp's impact on type 2 diabetes patient education along with our partners at the Community University Health Care Center (CUHCC) and the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health and School of Medicine for their collaboration and critical partnership.
The phenomenal team at Kestgo who introduced us to the world of hospital environmental and nutrition services.
Justin Erickson of Community Venture Network for the opportunity to present to network members from across the midwest.
Dr. Carolyn Chrisman, Corey J Mehaffy, and the following Missouri economic development agencies for introducing us to the manufacturing and healthcare leaders in their area:
Kirksville Regional Economic Development, Inc (K-REDI)
Missouri Rural Enterprise and Innovation Center (MREIC)
Missouri Northeast Small Business Development Center (SBDC)
Hannibal Regional Economic Development Council
Hannibal Regional Port Authority
City of Hannibal Industrial Development Authority
Hannibal Industrial Development Corporation
Impact Hub MSP that provides us with a home, community, and phenomenal network across the Twin Cities and, literally, the world.
Coalition on Adult Basic Education (COABE) for their tireless efforts to expand education for working learners and the opportunity to present at their national conference this past April.
Beta.MN for maintaining a vital and amazing support community with opportunities such as Beta Bridge.
Our mentors and advisors who hold us accountable and share their time and expertise to help keep us on our path to achieving our mission:
Terri Albert (via University of Chicago's Polsky Center),
Mike Conroy (via Minneapolis Small Business Development Center),
Paul Taylor (via Beta.MN and the Minnesota Cup),
Terri Barreiro (via the Impact Hub MSP).
Our Year Ahead
2022 will be the "year of traction" for GogyUp as we combined what we learned with the resources we have earned to build out our B2B and direct-to-consumer businesses.
Our Goals for 2022:
Establish pilots and partnerships in 12 additional states.
Double the number of Snap Reader Pro subscribers each quarter.
Receive a Ph II SBIR grants:
The USDA's National Institute for Food and Agriculture for a multi-year study to evaluate GogyUp's economic impact on rural communities.
The National Institute of Health to expand our 1 year pilot into a multi-year, national study.
Receive a 1-year, Ph I SBIR proposal to the National Science Foundation to study GogyUp Reader's effect on in-the-moment comprehension in adults with limited literacy or English proficiency.
Ways You Can Help Us Achieve Our Goals:
Help increase our app store visibility and digital presence:
Search for “Snap Reader by GogyUp” on your devices’ app store and install it.
Search for “GogyUp Reader” on your devices’ app store and install it.
Follow and re-share GogyUp's posts on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Expand our customer and partner pipeline:
Connect us with an employer who would be interested in piloting GogyUp with their front line employees. A sample intro note to a potential customer is available here.
Introduce us to adult educators and other programs serving adults and families who would partner with us to expand their literacy programming. A sample intro to potential partner is available here.
Share your expertise with us:
Join our advisory network.
Volunteer to be a grant reviewer.