Snowball Effect

We are running out of time to solve today’s pressing social & environmental challenges. It is therefore essential to spread and amplify the social innovations that already work. That’s what we do at Snowball Effect: we are the first school for aspiring social entrepreneurs to replicate in their region a social business that is already proven to work elsewhere. They learn and are guided by the best entrepreneurs to get started without reinventing the wheel!

If we win this prize, it will help us achieve our dream vision, which is to enable the replication of 100 successful social enterprises by 100 social entrepreneurs by 2025. We want to accelerate the movement to solve our challenges at scale while creating impact-driven jobs and matching people with fulfilling careers.

Laure and I are the first users of our solution (Snowball Effect). 

Laure was previously working in a social incubator and when she had to move from France to Austria, she wanted to replicate this organization there. However, she realized how hard it was to scale the project while talking to the founders of this organization (what’s the scaling model? Could the project work? What relationship with her? Etc.) As for me (Yoon-Joo) I always wanted to become a social entrepreneur from a very young age to make the world a better place. But I could never come up with the game-changing idea that would be worth it. 

We wanted other people to avoid the hassle we’ve been through. Therefore, we make the replication of social innovations mainstream and easy, so that any aspiring social entrepreneurs can become an entrepreneur by replicating what works!

Today, we offer a 100% remote program where the participants from different nationalities learn from the best social entrepreneurs and also learn in cohorts how to replicate a proven solution. Soon, we’ll turn that into the first “Netflix of replication’ and enable the replication of 100 social enterprises! 

There are lots of aspiring entrepreneurs - especially among the millennials - who want to launch an impact business (according to a BCG study, 40% of the graduates are interested in starting their own businesses). However, they struggle to come up with an idea that is “worth it” and sustain it afterwards. Indeed, +90% of those who are in the ideation phase do not turn their projects into a sustainable business model. Those people represent our target, which we estimated to +3 million people in Europe only. 

With Snowball Effect, they can get started without having to start from scratch. Because we are the first school for aspiring social entrepreneurs to replicate an impact-proven solution instead of reinventing the wheel. More precisely, they sign up to a 100% online program to: 

• Discover social businesses worth spreading and learn from their founders 

• Acquire the right skills & knowledge to successfully replicate and adapt a solution in their city

• Know whether it’s the right path for them, with coaching and introspection exercises

• Network with like-minded people from different countries and regions of the world!

With Snowball Effect, we offer an entire paradigm shift. Indeed, we often have this myth of the entrepreneur being the “superhero” who comes up with the smartest and disruptive idea, who raises millions and does everything by himself or herself to build the most successful company. 

But when we look at the scale and complexity of the challenges to address today, there’s no time for being the superhero anymore! We want instead to highlight collective success and foster collaboration at the global level to achieve the UN SDGs together.

Therefore, we put the emphasis on:

• How aspiring entrepreneurs can be innovative in the adaptation (rather than in the ideation) 

• How they can collaborate and build on what already exists (rather than being the best in the competition).

Of course, we are also innovative in our approach: although it is 100% online, we strive to build long lasting connections between the participants of our program and foster collaborations. Online sessions don't have to be boring anymore: brace yourselves as it won’t be the same with our innovative facilitation techniques!

We have an impact at 3 levels: 

First at the individual level: we empower aspiring social entrepreneurs so that they can achieve their dreams and goals. The impact KPIs of our programs are aligned to that empowerment goal, as we measure their increased self-confidence, self-awareness and “can do” spirit after the program.

Then at the society level: because the social enterprises that we encourage to replicate are ventures with concrete actions on the field, each replication is synonymous to a significant amount of jobs created each time. 

And at the environmental level: each time a solution is replicated somewhere, it means it multiplies its positive social & environmental impact elsewhere, thus generating a snowball effect of positive changes. This positive impact is also more likely to happen effectively and faster as the solution is spread with the initial founders’ help at the beginning.