If you haven’t heard about this year’s Feast, put on by All Day Buffet, you’ve probably been on a serious social entrepreneurship diet. The Feast promises to be one of the most Unreasonable Events of the Year. I managed to catch up with All Day Buffet Co-Founder Michael Karnjanaprakorn to get the inside skinny.
All Day Buffet is a purpose-driven development and investment firm with a mission to change the world through business and creativity. Launched in 2007 as a for-profit organization, All Day Buffet is based out of New York City.
A little background on Michael: Since co-founding All Day Buffet, Michael launched The Feast, By/Association, and TBD. Previously, he was the Director of Brand & Business Development at Behance and has worked at the advertising agencies Naked Communications (London) and Trumpet (New Orleans). He’s a graduate of the University of Virginia and VCU Brandcenter. He’s an avid poker player, HBO fanatic, New York Foodie, and Foursquare Mayor of Sweet & Vicious.
Q & A with Michael K on The Feast:
Tell us a little about The Feast. What is All Day Buffet’s goal in hosting the event? The Feast is a cross-disciplinary series of programs addressing social innovation and new ways to make the world a better place. A creative look at the world’s toughest problems, The Feast Conference presents the most innovative solutions, insights, and best practices as a catalyst toward action. Our goal is to turn The Feast into the TED or SXSW for this community in New York City.
Why should we be at The Feast? Did you see the Jay-Z 9/11 Tribute Concert on FuseTV with Kanye West, Diddy, Santigold, Pharrell, Beyonce, etc? Did you kind of wish you were there? Well, that’s how The Feast will be like this year. We have a killer lineup with speakers like Kenna (Grammy Nominated Musician), Annie Duke (Professional Poker Player), and Rod Arnold/Becky Straw (charity: water).
We curate our audience as much as we curate our speakers. As you can see from our speaker list, we have speakers from education, design, music, etc., which in turn attracts a very diverse audience. We believe that social innovation occurs “between different kinds of people and disparate forms of knowledge”.
What is The Kitchen? “The Kitchen” showcases the world’s most innovative social entrepreneurs looking to make the world a better place. Ten entrepreneurs will each have five minutes to pitch their ideas before NYC’s entrepreneurial community. With judges from Investor’s Circle and Union Square Ventures, speakers from Change.org and The Hatchery and a host of rapid fire creative ideas, this kitchen’s sure to get hot fast!
Why does All Day Buffet only showcase for-profit businesses at The Kitchen? What did you look for in the start-ups you selected to be Kitchen Finalists and why? Good question. We believe that social innovation is a healthy combination of creativity + business + good. While there are a number of incredible non-profit organizations out there that use innovative and effective practices to achieve their missions, we wanted to focus on the blended bottom line that simultaneously generates income. We felt that if there was something truly unique, innovative and scalable to social businesses that are able to earn the income through their activities that we wanted to showcase. If mass adoption is going to take place on the scale that we’re hoping for, then people need to be able to live well by doing good. Successful mission-aligned income generating activities allow these social businesses to attract top talents as they are able to pay competitive wages and completely fund their activities. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who actually enjoys the fundraising process, but money is an essential part of making a large scale impact. While we will be highlighting some incredible non-profit organizations such as charity: water at The Feast, we wanted to have The Kitchen focus on the intersection of business and social good. How can anyone say no to living well by doing good, anyway?
What advice do you have for young social entrepreneurs? Look toward the future and look at all the different paths, opportunities, and possibilities presented to you right now. The sky is the limit. Everything in your past gets you to this point but it’s up to you to make the best possible decision on which path you want to go down. You are a product of your experiences. What experiences will you choose next?
- Never chase the money. Follow your passion and the money will come.
- Ensure that all steps move you closer to your goals.
- Do what makes you happy.
- Live life with no regrets. Regret for wasted time is just more wasted time.
- Trust your gut.
- Most importantly, have fun because life is short.
Tickets for the Feast are still available and can be purchased here. For all other logistical information on the feast, check out http://www.feastongood.com. We look forward to seeing you in New York next week!
