By now you should know that I have a massive passion for social good and more specifically business that are in business to do social good. And this is exactly why I absolutely love African Cartel, which launched today.
Sure, it was launched by Mark (who is my co-founder at WooThemes of course) and his wife, Xenia, so perhaps I'm a tad biased. But in all fairness, African Cartel really is an awesome project for a whole bunch of reasons:
- African Cartel highlights exactly how capitalism doesn't just fill all the gaps that exists in marketplaces. Here you have entrepreneurs that are willing to work hard to earn a living, yet they don't have a distribution model or the skills to simply create one (something which we take for granted online, because it's quite easy to setup an online business). African Cartel creates that platform and puts a distribution model in place which will hopefully give thousands of people worldwide access to this art.
- Poverty remains a big problem worldwide and especially in developing countries. "Established" entrepreneurs - like Xenia & Mark have done in this regard - can create opportunities for others to earn a living and build a better future for themselves. That is social good. Hopefully African Cartel can empower these artists (entrepreneurs) to paint a better life canvas for themselves.
- This is a proudly South African project which again showcases the immense amount of talent that we have in our beautiful country. I'd also venture to say that most developing countries have a natural and inherent cultural buzz that could spawn similarly awesome projects around the world.