This is the Firestarter Podcast which is the world's first podcast for social enterprises in health.

This podcast is the third of a 5-part workshop on "How to create a nurse-led social enterprise in health" run by Dave Dawes from Entreprenurses Community Interest Company. If you would like to attend future versions of this free course, please click here.

The podcast covers:

• Who has the power and control on your social enterprise?
• How many directors should you start with?
• How members can overturn the decisions of the directors and even remove them - the "Doris the Cleaner" effect
• Why founders are sometimes sacked from their own board
• Who do you want to be accountable to?
• The interesting clauses in Entreprenurses CIC - the "nuclear button"
• Fundraising is much much easier as a registered charity (and Dave's 204 rejection letters)
• Why social enterprises fail (and 50% of them do in the first 4 years)
• The main reasons that social enterprises fail are:
  • Cashflow,
  • Tax and VAT issues,
  • Too low profit margins,
  • Keeping unproductive employees and
  • Market shifts
• Why cashflow is the number 1 cause of social enterprise failure
• Why you need to choose your bank manager very carefully
• The most common tax mistakes businesses make
• What social firms are
• Why most business plans are a load of tosh
• The best plans are created between the 1st pint and the 7th pint
• The barstool test for your mission statement

Podcast 12 - This can be downloaded here (33 Mb)

The music is "Fire Dance" by djbouly and is brought to you under a creative commons licence.