"Don't procrastinate, just do it," says orthopedics entrepreneur turned early stage social investor John Ayliffe

After setting up and selling his highly successful orthopedics business, John Ayliffe and his wife Kathy turned their attention from hip implants to early stage social investment.

They now run a Swiss-based non-profit called 1to4, focusing on start-ups and including a new club called GiftVest that turns donations into seed capital for social businesses.

Taking some time to chat at Opportunity Collaboration – a week-long, deliberately informal retreat for NGOs and social entrepreneurs from around the world, focusing on poverty alleviation – John spoke to OC media fellow and Pioneers Post editor Tim West about the conflict between traditional NGOs and business, the recent ballooning of social investment, finding good role models to educate the investment community, and his mission to "enable the working poor to develop their own economic activities".