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Eight years ago, I moved to Nicaragua.

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It was the beginning of a two-year journey
that got extended by five years

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because of one phone call.

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Like any good son
moving to a new country,

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I looked for a way to call my mother
to let her know I was okay.

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A couple of bus trips
and several hours later,

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I finally found a phone

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that could make
an international phone call.

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Unfortunately, it cost me two days' wages

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to make a five-minute phone call
to a teary-voiced mother.

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Little did I know that fateful call
would have me loading phone cabins

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on the back of a donkey cart
two years later

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to start a social enterprise.

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I'll be honest, five or six years ago
I didn't call it a social enterprise

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because I had no idea what it was.

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What I did know
as a Peace Corps volunteer

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was that I saw lots of problems
that could be solved

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through entrepreneurship.

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And so, what I want
to talk to you about today

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is how we built a social
enterprise in Nicaragua

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that became one of the largest
phone companies in the country

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by lowering the cost
of a phone call by 90%

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and disrupting the local telecom industry.

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So, six years ago,

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my friend, Edgar, and I rented
a wall inside an ice-cream shop.

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We installed five phone cabins,

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and, little by little,
we grew the company

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just opening call shops
around the country.

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After two years of sacrificing a salary,

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we started to look for ways
to expand our business

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beyond the call shops

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and grow our profits.

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So, as many of you know,

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when you visit the developing world,
you see cargo bikes.

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Cargo bikes are the most effective way
to transport goods into rural areas.

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They transport coke,
oranges, even ice cream,

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into small villages through these bikes.

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Which got me thinking:

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"If we can transport ice cream
into rural areas,

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why can't we transport
our low-cost phone technology

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into these same areas?"

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So, my friend, Edgar, and I
did a quick brainstorm,

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and we decided to build
a mobile call shop.

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We called it "llamadas pedeleadas",
or "pedalled phone calls".

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While it's easy to understand
what a phone cabin is,

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it may be more difficult to understand
what a mobile call shop is.

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So let me walk you through
the process of how we've built it.

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We took a cargo bike and installed
a used car alternator on the back.

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When you're pedalling,

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it's generating electricity
that's stored in a used car battery.

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From the used car battery,

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we have a computer UPS
to convert the energy to 110 volts

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that will provide the energy
to our low cost technology,

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allowing people in remote areas
to make phone calls

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where there's no electricity.

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So, if I were to ask you,

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what allowed us to scale
to a 100,000 customers,

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the phone cabins, or the bike,

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which one would you choose?

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Audience: The bike.

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Brian Forde: The bike, right?

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If you did chose the bike,
you would have agreed with CNN

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and every other social investor
I've spoken with over the last few years

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since I uploaded
a video of it to the internet.

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You see, like any proud innovator,
I was excited to show off my invention.

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So sure enough, five hours later,
after uploading it to the internet,

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it was live on CNN,
in front of millions of people.

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But, as you can guess,
the bike was a commercial failure,

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(Laughter)

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and the phone cabins served
100,000 customers last month.

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Which got me thinking.

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I started to realize that,
much like the beer industry,

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sex sells on social enterprise.

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(Laughter)

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Only we have our own version of sexy.

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It's sexy keywords.

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What I fell into the trap of

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was building a product
that followed trends, buzzwords and fads,

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instead of listening to
what my customer needs were.

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So, if I were to describe this bike,

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it would be a locally sourced,
pedal-powered, microfranchise,

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employment generator.

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What it's not is commercially viable.

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(Laughter)

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And trust me, we tried to make it
as commercially viable as possible.

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We tried it with our own employees,
we tried to microfranchise it,

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we tried it in big cities,
we tried it in the smallest villages.

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What we ended up with
were more flat tires than revenue.

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(Laughter)

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So, while I'm truly flattered

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that we got so much press
and investor intention,

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and interest in our bike,

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my concern is that
if we sell social enterprise

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with the latest fads or keywords,

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that the media
and the investors will move on.

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So, now, I want to talk
about just two of my quick learnings.

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One: Business model sins
cannot be washed away

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with the holy water of helping others.

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Two: you must design your products
for your customers,

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and not the latest fads.

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Because what I've found, quite simply,

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is that a new take on an old solution

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can have the most financial
and social impact.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)