Social Change through Innovation and Product Leadership: an Expansive View of Social Impact

Abstract

This capstone details my learning and experience leading product innovation for a Quincy, Massachusetts-based nonprofit hybrid incubator called QUBIC Labs, and for QUBIC’s portfolio companies. For my residency, I was tasked with defining and systematizing coaching systems for start-up founders so that founders become strategic, action-oriented, and reflective leaders of innovation. QUBIC’s mission is to reduce the barriers for Quincy-based entrepreneurs to write their endings and build wealth through creating new ventures and industries. QUBIC Labs specializes in supporting companies that focus on technology and blockchain enabled solutions because the senior leadership has identified these as domains that could lead to rapid growth, jobs creation, and the creation of public value. Incubators, accelerators, and hybrids teach entrepreneurs to launch businesses, but not all endow entrepreneurs with the same skills and provide the same support systems. Researchers have explored how the organization and execution of these startup vehicles can support and lead to desirable financial outcomes. To that end, consensus has emerged with best practices and essential offerings. Little research, however, has been conducted to investigate the extent that such mechanisms could lead to individual agency for target populations and how these practices might engender parallel social goods. Such research would be a valuable contribution to the field of business administration and have implications for social justice researchers. The time constraints of my residency prevent me from quantifying or measuring the durability of such outcomes for incubated companies and contributing in this manner. Rather, the focus of this capstone is to define the practices and strategies that could lead to such outcomes. The lessons of this capstone have implications for adult education, personal growth, professional agency, and social impact. A central argument of this work is that entrepreneurship is fertile ground for developing agency and a potential way for underrepresented populations to generate wealth. In the following pages, I delineate and discuss the modes of innovation and design practices in the context of business strategy that will allow entrepreneurs to increase their chances of success. I detail the experiences and practices used at QUBIC with startups and conclude with the implications of these practices on my own leadership; the implications of these lessons in the context of QUBIC as an incubator; and the broader implications of these lessons in the context of education in America.