Spring Vision

VisionSpring's journey, led by social entrepreneur Jordan Kassalow, begins in public health and culminates in founding an organization that provides eyeglasses to the rural poor in developing nations. The case details Kassalow's inspiration and motivation, as well as the challenges in scaling distribution to 'bottom of the pyramid' (BoP) customers. Initially, VisionSpring aimed to both sell glasses and employ local workers. After testing in India and El Salvador, the company shifted focus to solely selling glasses in 2008, altering its business model and organization. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to measure customer impact. Over time, VisionSpring explored various distribution models, finding two promising ones. The case concludes with the executive team contemplating how to scale these models to reach the 700 million potential BoP customers worldwide.