Is investing 100% of your advertising budget into social enterprises an effective way of marketing?

We are doing this experiment with the launch of majamba.me, the network that rewards good. Instead of investing money in Advertising, we will be investing in social enterprises via majamba credits.

Quick Intro to majamba
You see, when you travel, you get rewards; when you shop you get rewards, so we thought why not create a social currency network that rewards good. The more good you do, the more credits you get. And with your credits you can decide to get fair trade gifts (that's the investment in social enterprises) or reward others who support you.


Expected Impact
Well, for every member who joins majamba.me, we will be able to empower one person who lives around the poverty line (http://majamba.blogspot.com/2011/09/100million-members-100million-people.html), so we are focussing on driving membership starting 2nd of October.


I will be happy to share the results of this experiment...

majamba, the network that rewards good

Folks, this is our briefest video. We have managed to tell the story in 30 seconds.

Free Handmade Gifts!

Thanks To Dr. Deepak John Mathew, Nandini, Shyam, Alex and Jeannine. Here is the launch video!

100M Members = 100M People Empowered

Turning social interaction into social good

The basic idea behind majamba.me is to turn social interaction into social good. Now if we can convince 100 million members to join, we will be able to empower 100M people on the planet living close to subsistence level and make a dent on global poverty.

Here are the details behind the claim: 

1. People spend thousands on gifts during family events and festivals. Of course, we know how things go during Christmas. However economic uncertainty does impact gifting, donations and other altruistic actions undertaken by normal people. 

2. One thing that is UP during the uncertain times is the time people spend on social networks. Comparing notes and finding out new things, recommending, interacting and just passing time, yes, people are spending around 20% of their time on social networks. 

3. So let us say we were to find an ingenious way to reward people around $1K of handmade goods as social gifts for doing the social things they like to do on the Internet. 

4. Now imagine, 100M people getting rewarded $1K per annum. Yep do the math, that's around $100B of gifts. 

5. Let us take a scenario that these gifts are sourced from artisans and families that are living at subsistence level, mostly around $2.50 a day. Now an average boost of $1,000 of additional income will make a sizable impact on their quality of life. So $100B worth goods will have a positive impact on around 100M people living around the poverty line. 

Aha, you may be wondering who is footing the bill - advertising! 

Companies spend well over $600B on advertising and sales promotion. Now people are spending around 20% of their time on social media. So if companies start to put around $120B on advertising on social media and start to use networks like majamba.me that reward people for doing good. This will set off a virtuous cycle where more people will be getting gifts for free; helping each other; a services exchange will emerge; more companies will use these platforms (competition is a good thing as it expands the market quickly) to get their message to the customers in a cheap way and more jobs and dignity for the artisans of the world. 

Yes, you got it! It's just simple social innovation! Coming your way on the 2nd of October 2011.

Congratulations! You made it! Now what?

Millionaires around the world

That's right, according to Cap Gemini there are 11million millionaires in the world (Credit Suisse believes that the number of millionaires is 26 million, but I like the methodology of Cap Gemini which factors a more conservative estimate of the financial assets based on macro-economic factors).

Yes, 0.16% of the world have assets more than 1million US dollars. Their total wealth is $44Trillion. Switzerland, Japan, Germany and the USA have the biggest accumulation of millionaires. India and China show the biggest growth. That's phenomenal!

I find the numbers staggering:

• Only 0.16% of the world population is made up of millionaires. That's a lot lower than I thought.
• However, the top 0.16% control $44Trillion of the world's wealth. That's around 22% of the $200Trillion estimated world wealth according to various estimates. $44Trillion is important when you consider that the world's GNP is $77Trillion.

Now let us contrast this with other set of numbers:

• And more than 3Billion people live on $2.50 a day.
• Consider this: according to various estimates (inc. World Bank, OECD), the total amount that is donated to charities is around $700Billion (not just the millionaires giving but all the people who give to charities). 
• So it is safe to surmise that donations alone will not make a dent in global poverty (however, charity plays an important role during short term crisis management - floods, earthquakes). After years of marketing and tax rebates, charities are attracting a very small proportion of the total wealth (actually 1.6% of the wealth of the top 0.16% of the world or 0.35% of the total global wealth). 

Here are my take-aways:

• We have been measuring the wrong things. If we teach people to maximize wealth and we continue to publish the wealth list, then people focus on wealth accumulation. We need to focus on how much "social capital" is the person creating (not just personal wealth).
• We need business innovation to create jobs for everyone. Because jobs create dignity, increase disposable income for shopping etc. and shopping is fun.
• Imagine, a system where the more good you do, your social currency increases and with your social currency, you can go shopping! Suddenly, you are having fun AND changing the world at the same time. That's majamba.me!

http://www.youtube.com/user/majambaME

What is confidence?

We really find out much more about our nature in tough times. Who are we? How do we react to uncertainty? Do we freeze? Do we become über religious? Do we just roll the dice without thinking things through? Do we get caught in the cold comfort of analysis and dare I say paralysis? Do we think its fun and become addicted to chaos (yes, it is possible).

Or do we just put the blinkers and navigate towards the goal, using analysis, pacing ourself but always moving forward. I think that is confidence. Confidence is about having the courage to move forward.

How do you know you are right?

We don't know. I must admit - the most difficult thing to do as an entrepreneur is knowing whether the "customer facing proposition" is the right one. It is even more difficult for me as I have spent 15+ years in the "corporate" world where you have a lot more resources to research trends, test concepts etc. Of course the downside of most the decisions taken in the corporate sector is the compromise that dilutes the vision and the processes and the politics that sap energy.

So which one is better - the entrepreneurial adventure or corporate world?

As the name characterizes - the entrepreneurial adventure is like a very fast moving roller coaster. And the corporate world is relatively stable even if the overall company is going up or down. The systems ensure stability. For me, clearly the adventure is better; it feels good to have the opportunity to build a "fair trade based" corporation that combines the best of a nimble and creative entrepreneurial environment plus the sense of stability that comes when you are working in a gigantic $50billion+ revenues corporation.

On the 2nd of October, we will launch the customer proposition - let's see what will happen!

The Rise of the Good

2nd of October, is the birthday of our hero, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. That is the day we will be launching majamba.me, the world's first fair trade social commerce network. We tried to imagine "What will Mahatma Gandhi do in todays world?" The result is majamba.me