Traditional business theory teaches about competitiveness and how a company must outsmart it’s rivals to win. The objective is to win market share, make better products and grow faster than others in the same market.

Social entrepreneurship is different.

Instead of fighting one another, social entrepreneurs are fighting a systemic or societal problem. Therefore, competing with one another makes little sense. You’re on the same team, and you don’t have to defeat the problem all on your own.

Today we had lunch with 3 people who run 2 startups, each of which operate in the same space as our own startups. Over the course of our meal, we all shared our learnings and knowledge. We looked for new ways to collaborate and to help each other fix the problems.

To me, this is far more exciting than trying to out manoeuvre a rival.

By collaborating, we can solve issues better and much faster.

And in doing this, everybody wins.

Image is from a conference called AfricaThink that I was privileged to attend in October.