“What the F*#$ Are We Doing?”

Photo by Sander Sammy on Unsplash

In these volatile times, remember that growth should be the result, not the purpose, of your startup.

Let’s see if you can figure out what the three “why we exist” statements have in common?

OK Capsule exists to help companies elevate the delivery of supplemental nutrition for people and planet.

De Lune exists to lift the period burden by setting the new standard for happy, healthy, and whole menstrual cycles. We envision a world where people actually look forward to their periods!

Findaway Adventures exists to improve the world by providing more opportunity for young, change-the-world companies and their founders.

Did you figure it out? The answer is that none focus on growth as their primary reason for being. They exist to provide something useful and needed and wanted by the world–something that will actually change the world in some well-defined way. And they also suggest a little bit about how they are going to deliver on their mission.

The problem

I’m seeing a lot of pressure on the companies that I work with around growth. Usually, the pressure is coming from the founders themselves to lock into this investment model or that one. Such models–and Findaway Adventures is included by virtue of our FIndaway Growth Model–are predicated on achieving growth through higher levels of monthly sales or revenues.

Given the rocky economic and social period we’re going through, one marked by large financial losses in the markets, investors are hoping to make up for lost wealth. So investors may be pressuring their investment companies to grow faster.

Growth is critical to your company’s health and impact. Growth will help you achieve your vision and fulfill your mission. But growth is better understood as a byproduct of that purpose rather than the purpose itself. And so lately I’ve had to remind founders that their purpose statement has virtually nothing to do with growth. Your purpose statement has everything to do with improving the world.

And I would submit that when a founder or the investors around a founder get focused on growth at all cost, the company starts making sacrifices that can damage morale, the product you put out into the market, and your relationship with the customers who fell in love with your company because of your real purpose statement. And sometimes that damage can be irreversible.

How will you know you are so busy doing “what” you and your investors think you have to do in order to grow that you forget “why” you got into this business in the first place? At some point, you’ll pick your head up and say either to yourself or a trusted colleague, “What the F*#$ are we doing?” It’s a rhetorical question, really, one that stems from doing too much of the what and too little of the why. Your F-bomb, or whatever exclamation you make, will be proof that you are feeling out of integrity with your purpose and that a re-alignment is needed.

The solution

Listen to your F-bomb, grasshopper.

Then act on it. Succumbing to the pressure for growth is based on the fallacy that purpose is a “nice to have” but not “need to have” part of your business. Most studies I’m familiar with have shown that purpose-driven companies have more intrinsic value and receive higher valuations from private equity investors than non-purpose-driven companies. Cutting corners on product quality, team development, and customer education–to use obvious examples–do brands and their investors no great favor.

Go back to your playbook and to your strategy. Remind yourself why you exist, who you serve, how your team behaves toward one another and toward your customers, and what you need to do right now to change the world one customer at a time. That’s where your strategic focus should always remain, even in and, perhaps, especially in, a time when so much of our daily lives are focused on what’s broken.

If you don’t have a playbook or “why we exist” statement at your company, devote your next meeting to creating one. And establish these two complementary ground rules for the meeting: there are no bad ideas and “growth” projections are not to be included.

Focus on using your business to make the world a better place, and the world will likely want more of what you have to offer. Those monthly revenue figures will go up just like the investment models forecast them to, and you will celebrate those victories in your journey, a journey that is a marathon and not a sprint.

Let me know what you’re doing in your change-the-world-company to stay true to your purpose.

Sincerely,

Rob Craven, scalepassion

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All credit to my ghostwriting partner, Dave Moore, who is instrumental in getting my thoughts out in a coherent manner & into these blogs. Thanks Dave!