1As a fast-growing social enterprise, can you share a key condition that contributed to your growth and impact?

Solving energy poverty requires an ecosystem approach that involves many things. But if I had to pick one key element that has propelled Husk Power forward, it is our people. We're only as good as the people who make up Husk, and we are blessed with a team that has immense passion and dedication for the Husk mission -- catalyzing economic and social opportunity.

2Anything that impact investors can do better to support social ventures as they scale their growth and impact?

Take more risk. Addressing hard-to-solve development issues in regions that are inherently risky requires being comfortable with risk, including providing guarantees in case of failure. Yet we often see social impact investors shy away from risk. If we want to achieve SDG7, we need a new mindset of greater risk appetite.

3Piece of advice can you give for impact entrepreneurs scaling their businesses and creating impact?

Always question your assumptions and prepare to have at least one pivot. Also, make sure you start with a business model that can scale, even if it means reaching more marginal communities on a longer time horizon than you'd like.

4What do you wish for Open Road’s next 10 years?

I hope you can provide critical support to social enterprises like Husk on a greater scale and a faster timeline. The clock is ticking, and we can't wipe out poverty without the Open Roads of the world.

5Anything else you want to share?

So often, social impact starts and ends in one country or region, and lessons and knowledge from one location are not transferred to another. The wheel is reinvented, and the opportunity for speed and scale are lost. Husk started in the world's largest rural minigrid market in India, and we're now using our decade of experience to scale in the second-largest market, Nigeria. I'm very proud of the teamwork and partner support that has made that possible.

1As a fast-growing company, can you share a key condition that contributed to your growth and impact?

In our business, rapid change is the only constant, so access to agile sources of funding is a key condition for REDAVIA's growth and impact.

2What can impact investors do better to support ventures like yours as they scale their growth and impact?

With our customers and market context changing rapidly all the time, high-impact companies like REDAVIA need reliable, agile, and truly supportive funding partners.

3What piece of advice can you give for entrepreneurs that are scaling their businesses and creating impact?

Starting and scaling an impact venture in frontier markets is both very challenging and very rewarding! Remember that your purpose is your superpower: Your impact focus helps you transcend setbacks, dig a little deeper, and ultimately overcome the challenges you face.

4What do you wish for Open Road’s next 10 years?

Open Road has been a key partner enabling REDAVIA's growth and impact to date. I wish for Open Road to scale its support while staying true to its essential values of being agile, on the side of impact, and there when needed most.

1As a fast-growing social enterprise, can you share a key condition that contributed to your growth and impact?

Early on, we built our culture around the idea that "however well we do, we always try to do better." That's helped us a lot, on the bad days as well as the good.

2Is there anything that impact investors can do better to support social ventures as they scale their growth and impact?

Especially with earlier stage funders, there is still a tendency to emphasize whizzy ideas and novelty over the team, track record, and execution.

3What piece of advice can you give for impact entrepreneurs that are scaling their businesses and creating impact?

Get really good at hiring - both the who, obviously, but also the why and especially the when. The right time is later than you think because it's easy to think you know what you need when you don't.

4What do you wish for Open Road’s next 10 years?

We have found Open Road's processes to be really best-in-class. Without losing your distinctive niche, it would be great over the next 10 years to see how that same approach could be applied to other instruments and a bigger pool of beneficiaries.