The Other Entrepreneurs Blog | Mitch Reaume & Fight For Something

So this chicken-scratch drawing was born, where I started envisioning the lines between charity and general consumption being blurred. Not in a way that diminishes the importance of generosity and those dollars that go straight out the door to charities, but in a way that calls out the reminder that the rest of the money we spend has an impact as well. That perhaps generosity and intentionality are closely connected.

So here you go, our overall mission is to see "social business" go from being a niche to a norm.

Like most titles, you can split hairs over how to define social business. Here's one common one: A business that has specific social objectives that serve its primary purpose. Social enterprises seek to maximize profits while maximizing benefits to society and the environment.

TBH I'm not actually super concerned with how people define it right now.

My translation: Any business that fights for something beyond just profits.

As someone who finds so much purpose in their work, it is challenging to have a job title that you know can create such varying internal responses in people. 

And while it might be more in my own head than others, it is for this very same reason that I struggle to tell people I’m an entrepreneur at times. For a long time I actually referred to it as “the E word”... as if it were Voldemort’s name that can’t be spoken. Largely because I don’t know what it conjures up in people.

At times, I’ve cringed a little when people refer to me as an entrepreneur. There’s such a wide range of what that means to people. In my opinion, the internet is sullying it and making it a dirty word. If you hop on Google or Youtube and start following the rabbit trail of entrepreneurship, you end up getting this archetype of an entrepreneur that is being projected out there… You’ll find a lot of big boisterous personalities, that want to tell you about how you can 10x and 100x your business and plan your exits… You’ll find schemes and pep talks. In those pep talks you’ll surely hear (explicitly or implicitly) about all of the wealth (notice the opening scene in this video, one of the first videos that will pop up on Youtube if you search entrepreneur) and freedom entrepreneurship can bring. If we’re going to call a spade a spade, this version of entrepreneurship feels like a lot of vanity to me. On the internet, entrepreneurs often feel more committed to projecting themselves as successful than anything. In the worst moments, it feels like a big farce meant to create this facade of an individual who breeds success wherever they go.