The Strategic Value in Building a Purposeful Business
There is a massive shift occurring in business, in which we no longer face a trade off between profit and purpose. In which it actually makes strategic sense to build an organization that targets the societal and planetary grand challenges we contend with. Because a new generation of consumers and employees is demanding that companies achieve both. We see this in the products they buy, the brands they are loyal to, and the companies they seek to work for….if they seek to work for companies at all. I include that caveat because upwards of 70% of the youth in this rising generation don’t wanna work for someone else. They want to start their own — socially impactful- thing. And they are doing so. Because there has never been a better (or easier) time for entrepreneurs to start businesses whose very DNA is designed to benefit people and the planet.
But given that we have decades of frameworks, books, and methodologies on optimizing for profit alone, how do you go about launching and operating a startup that measures for meaning as much as it does for money? For those of you picking up what I’m throwing down — who know you want to found a purposeful organization, but aren’t sure where to begin — what can you do to set things into motion? How can you decide which niche to target? Which industry to enter? What vision to pursue? And…
