At White Box Enterprises, our mission is to see an Australia where every individual who wants a job can access one. One way we do this is by building large-scale jobs-focused social enterprises from the ground up.
So far, we’ve successfully incubated four social enterprises: Australian Spatial Analytics (ASA), Beacon Laundry, Civik, and Civik People. But like any entrepreneurial journey, not every idea takes off. We’ve also tried some bold experiments such as Sheetly and Feraliser that didn’t quite stick.
Through these experiences—both successes and setbacks— we’ve gained invaluable insights about what it takes to build sustainable, impactful social enterprises. Here are five key lessons we’ve learnt along the way.
1. There must be a market need
It’s not enough to have a great idea or a noble mission. Without clear market demand, a social enterprise won’t survive. The key is to solve a real problem that customers are willing to pay for.
Take Beacon Laundry. Based in Bangalow near Byron Bay, Beacon filled a gap in the market, providing a commercial laundry service to an area with high unemployment, lots of hotels and no local alternatives. In contrast, Sheetly, a bed-linen subscription service, ultimately failed because it wasn’t solving a problem that people cared enough about.
As Sheetly co-founder Wendy Rattray recalls: “One of the fundamental principles of Lean Startup is you need to define the problem you're trying to solve for, and you need to try and come up with the right solution for that. If I'm being honest, with Sheetly we jumped straight to the solution without spending enough time running the problem to ground.
“Everybody I spoke to loved the idea. But that didn’t mean they were going to pay for it. There are ways to test behaviour rather than just initial appetite. For a direct-to-consumer product, like Sheetly, these approaches could have been better used to stress test actual purchase intent.”
Luke Terry, White Box CEO, sums it up: “If you don’t have a customer and someone who wants to pay for it, your business is nothing.”
Even when a market exists, it can change. When Hotel Housekeeping (now Civik People) started in 2019 there was a market for outsourced housekeeping services and the social enterprise had an anchor contract with Accor Hotels. Then COVID hit and the market disappeared overnight.
General manager Shannon Price recalls: “In that kind of rapidly changing environment, market needs can change really quickly. You have to pivot. We moved to other areas like labour hire which was in demand at the time. Staying agile allowed us to survive.”
2. Strongly consider the talent of the people you want to support
The heart of any jobs-focused social enterprise is its people. To set your people up for success, the work must align with their talents and capabilities.
Sometimes, the connection is clear. ASA was built around the unique strengths of young neurodivergent adults, who excel at data processing. Other times, it’s less straightforward.
With Hotel Housekeeping, which was set up to support former refugees, we learnt the limits of mismatched roles.
As Shannon explains: “We learnt quickly enough that only a small percentage of people are cut out for hotel housekeeping work— you must be very fit, have great attention to detail, and take pride in delivering a clean room over and over again. It wasn’t a good fit for everyone.
“We were fortunate enough to move to a model where we can work with different industries. This has allowed us to better match people's skills and circumstances to more aligned job opportunities.”
That’s also a strength of social enterprises like Beacon Laundry, where the work is accessible to anyone.
Irrespective of the cohort or the nature of the work, ASA CEO Geoff Smith says the key to unlocking talent is building resilience and confidence.
“Talent can only be unlocked if you build confidence. And so that's what we focus on. How can we support you to build your confidence, so you can show your natural talent? Any social enterprise, no matter what cohort they're trying to serve, needs to work on that first,” he says.
“But once you get that special sauce right, if you can foster that kind of resilience and confidence in people, they will reveal themselves for how talented they are and then you get real momentum and real outcomes, because job satisfaction equals life satisfaction for a lot of people.”
3. Find corporate partners who are mission-aligned
Strong partnerships underpin almost every successful jobs-focused social enterprise. The best ones go beyond contracts – and are built on shared values and deep commitment.
Civik, for example, was born out of a collaboration with major infrastructure services provider Ventia, to create employment and training opportunities for young people in basic civil work on the nbn® network.
Similarly, Civik People’s success in helping refugees and humanitarian entrants secure sustainable employment with great employers relies on corporate partners, like Toyota and Australia Post, who not only champion the employees but get the whole business behind it.
As Shannon notes: “It can take time, because it can be a real change management exercise, but if the commitment is there to be aligned and to work on it together as a true partnership, then the results will come.”
The opposite is also true. We’ve learnt from experience that partnerships that lack senior champions or deep buy-in often fall short.
Luke says: “Stewardship from above matters. Without champions in key positions, partnerships risk being short-term.”
4. Take risks, but balance these
All start-ups are inherently risky. In social enterprise, the stakes are even higher because you’re accountable not just to investors but to the people you aim to support.
At White Box we embrace calculated risk-taking.
We are known for taking bold steps, but we balance this. Before launching a venture, we try to ensure there is a contract in place and that we have the right long-term partners.
Luke explains: “I think people would observe White Box as being risky. We are risk takers. We're bold, we take calculated risks, we go where others won't... But we’re also risk mitigators.
“We wouldn’t jump out of an airplane with just one parachute—or even just one backup. We’d bring four parachutes to ensure every possible scenario is covered.”
This approach was put to the test with Beacon Laundry. Launching a multi-million-dollar business is a risky move. As we were building the laundry, COVID disruptions threatened to undermine our plans. We quickly discovered that Beacon’s business would be highly seasonal. Event-driven contracts were vanishing overnight.
But as Luke puts it, “we had a couple of spare parachutes”.
“Thanks to five years of preparation and contingency planning, we ensured Beacon’s survival,” he says.
Wendy says the key in the beginning is to test ideas quickly.
“You have to take risks to get a concept off the ground, to prove that you've got something that a consumer wants to buy, but you need to do it as quickly and as lean as possible. Test the market quickly with minimal investment before committing further,” she says.
“To be fair, I think we did an okay job with Sheetly. We went from concept to closing down in five months, which for a failed business is actually a success story.”
5. Leadership matters
Good leadership is critical to scaling a social enterprise.
For Luke, the role of a leader comes down to three things: “To provide direction. To provide a bit of order. And to provide protection. Leaders must make their teams feel safe while also challenging them to grow.”
At White Box, we’ve seen the value of leaders who prioritise both people and outcomes –sometimes that is two people.
“At White Box, the majority of our businesses won’t have a lone GM or CEO, they have an equal footing people and pathways manager,” Luke explains.
“Someone needs to be in these businesses that is driving the culture.”
He also suggests that effective leadership often requires an “ownership mentality” – where leaders take personal responsibility and approach the social enterprise as if it were their own. This approach can foster commitment, innovation, and a willingness to go the extra mile.
“For the people driving these businesses, it's never just a job; they run it as if they own it. Whether that means stopping to resolve a missed backorder on their way home or working as a team to double-check every order, they find a way to make it happen,” he says.
“This ownership mentality is what drives success in the real world, and it’s essential for our social enterprises too. Running a business is hard work. Add a social mission to that, and it becomes more rewarding—but also more complex. Leading with an owner’s mindset can benefit everyone; employees, customers, and the entire team.”
It can become particularly important as social enterprises scale. Leadership shifts from being hands-on and operational, to fostering culture, managing complexity, and aligning vision with action.
Geoff explains: “Leadership becomes critical once you scale beyond 20 staff, because you start to have middle management and corporate structures. You need leaders who can translate big visions into action plans that can be operated by managers and leaders without stifling innovation.”
He also highlights the importance of mentorship.
“There’s a narrative that social enterprises lack professional development,” he says. “It’s true that there's no big buckets of cash for leadership, but you do get access to great people. If you say you're a social entrepreneur, you can get in the room. People want to help. What you do with that is up to you. But my advice is don’t feel like you can’t ask.”
These lessons have shaped how we operate at White Box. We don’t always get it right, but by learning from our successes and failures, we’re better equipped to fulfill our mission: creating meaningful jobs for those who need them most.