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Mission Driven Business

By: Brian Thompson
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  • Summary

  • Diverse entrepreneurs share their experiences, strength, and hope to help mission-driven businesses thrive. In a series of intimate conversations, attorney and CFP Brian Thompson and his guests provide practical steps to create businesses with impact and profit.
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Episodes
  • The Mission Driven Business Podcast Episode 80: Transforming Lives and AI with Wendy Gonzalez

    The Mission Driven Business Podcast Episode 80: Transforming Lives and AI with Wendy Gonzalez
    Jul 23 2024
    Brian chats with tech trailblazer and Sama CEO Wendy Gonzalez. Sama is a mission-driven Certified B Corp that seeks to raise the standards for both machine learning and global working conditions. The company’s innovative approach to ethically sourcing and training tech talent has lifted more than 68,000 people out of poverty since 2008. On the episode, Wendy dives deep into Sama’s unique for-profit business structure, including reserving a Board of Directors seat for its non-profit on its non-profit roots. She also touts the importance of conviction and self-awareness when building and running a business. Episode Highlights Mission-driven businesses can have more than one mission. Mission-driven businesses can have more than one mission, according to Wendy. For instance, Sama has a “triple bottom line” of bringing long-term value to people living in poverty, to the planet, and to the bottom line. “We were really founded on this premise that talent is distributed equally but opportunity is not,” she said. “We started with the mission first, and the core mission is what we then built a business problem to solve for around.” Hold earnings calls and learnings calls. You’ve probably heard of a company's earnings calls when the executives share updates about the firm’s financial metrics. Sama applies the same concept to its mission by hosting “learning calls,” in which the company provides updates on its impact metrics. “The idea from the very beginning is you have to track with rigor what our impact is,” Wendy said. “It’s no different than how you would track your financials.” If you’re a big company, consider B Corp Certification. Sama is a Certified B Corp, meaning it meets verified, high standards of social and environmental performance, has made a legal commitment to accountability, and transparently shares information. Wendy said the company pursued B Corp status once it transitioned from a non-profit financial structure to a for-profit structure because the B Corp Certification is the best and most recognized accreditation standard for impact-driven companies. “We were big enough that we thought B Corp Certification is going to be important for us, so that nobody believes that our transition in financing means that anything has changed,” she said. One downside to B Corp Certification is that it requires a lot of effort and expenses. If you’re a small company, you may not be able to afford the resources needed to comply with the reporting requirements, but if you’re an established impact-driven company, Wendy recommended looking into B Corp Certification. “If you’re a customer looking for a recognized seal of approval, that’s recognizable,” she said. Fire yourself annually. About once per year, Wendy does a mental exercise in which she fires herself as CEO and evaluates whether she’d rehire herself for the job. The exercise is an opportunity to reflect on the kind of leader her company needs and also where her energy and convictions lie. “If you’re the CEO, you’ve got to be not only the CEO your company needs today, but the one your company needs tomorrow,” Wendy said. Resources + Links Wendy Gonzales: LinkedIn Sama: Website, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, YouTube B Corp Certification Brian Thompson Financial: Website, Newsletter, Podcast Follow Brian Thompson Online: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Forbes About Brian and the Mission Driven Business Podcast Brian Thompson, JD/CFP, is a tax attorney and certified financial planner who specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning to LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs who run mission-driven businesses. The Mission Driven Business podcast was born out of his passion for helping social entrepreneurs create businesses with purpose and profit. On the podcast, Brian talks with diverse entrepreneurs and the people who support them. Listeners hear stories of experiences, strength, and hope and get practical advice to help them build businesses that might just change the world, too.
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    40 mins
  • The Mission Driven Business Podcast Episode 79: Niching Down with Hugo E. Gomez

    The Mission Driven Business Podcast Episode 79: Niching Down with Hugo E. Gomez
    Jul 9 2024
    Brian chats with entrepreneur and Hispanic marketing leader Hugo E. Gomez. As the founder of HispanicMarketing.com, Hugo helps U.S. businesses connect with the Hispanic market. On the episode, Hugo discusses the importance of niching down for marketing and creating personal branding on social media. He also shares the lessons learned on his journey from an employee to self-employed, including embracing uncertainty and trusting himself to figure things out. Episode Highlights Mission-driven businesses seek win-wins. HispanicMarketing.com is composed of four sub-brands -- Abogados NOW, Doctores NOW, Gene NOW, and SpanishLeads.ai -- that all share a two-fold mission. The first is to help U.S.-based businesses connect with the U.S. Hispanic market, and the second is to ensure the U.S. Hispanic market has access to financial, healthcare, and legal resources. “It’s a win-win for our mission because we’re giving our clients something new, and at the same time providing a lot of goodwill to the community,” Hugo said. Niching down is the path of least resistance. In marketing and entrepreneurship, niching down your market and services is a powerful tool for attracting customers. If you already understand your customers’ industries and challenges, it becomes much easier to get sales acceleration. “I’d seen so many great use cases of niching down that I thought that’s probably the best way to build a company,” Hugo said. “If you tell someone in a sales funnel that you know where they come from and their challenges, it’s so much easier to have a call about the next steps.” Start your business while you have another job. Successful entrepreneurship requires smart risk management strategies, which is why Hugo advocates for aspiring business owners to start a new company while they still have a job. That’s the approach he followed when exploring whether HispanicMarketing.com could be a full-time business. “You can have a job and your own business. That’s probably the safest and most respectful path for your own wellbeing,” Hugo said. “Building something and proving it out at the smallest level is a great proof of concept to see if you’re really interested in running a business.” Don’t forget marketing. When it comes to modern marketing techniques, Hugo is bullish on social videos, such as Instagram and Facebook Reels, because the social media companies do the work of matching your content to people who are interested in watching. He also recommends publicizing employees of companies rather than company pages. “Most people right now don’t want to follow a company page,” he said. They want to follow people who work inside the company. The ones with the personal video brands are going to do the best.” Resources + Links Hugo Gomez: LinkedIn HispanicMarketing.com Abogados NOW: Website, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok Doctores NOW: Website, Instagram, Facebook Gente NOW: Website, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X SpanishLeads.ai Brian Thompson Financial: Website, Newsletter, Podcast Follow Brian Thompson Online: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Forbes About Brian and the Mission Driven Business Podcast Brian Thompson, JD/CFP, is a tax attorney and certified financial planner who specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning to LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs who run mission-driven businesses. The Mission Driven Business podcast was born out of his passion for helping social entrepreneurs create businesses with purpose and profit. On the podcast, Brian talks with diverse entrepreneurs and the people who support them. Listeners hear stories of experiences, strength, and hope and get practical advice to help them build businesses that might just change the world, too.
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    43 mins
  • The Mission Driven Business Podcast Episode 78: Debunking Overnight Success with John Driscoll

    The Mission Driven Business Podcast Episode 78: Debunking Overnight Success with John Driscoll
    Jun 25 2024
    Brian chats with entrepreneur and mobile app pioneer John Driscoll. As the co-founder and CEO of Naked Development, John and his team are rewriting the rules of mobile app development, raising the bar for innovation and creativity. John shares invaluable insights on the courage, patience, and perseverance needed to navigate the unpredictable to succeed in business. He also debunks the myth of overnight success. Episode Highlights Mission-driven businesses pick their fight. John believes you shouldn’t start a business unless you have a mission because having a true mission is like picking a fight. To be successful, companies should have a point of view that influences how they see the world and, as a result, how they connect with their target audience. “Your company, whatever it’s doing, is connected to that point of view,” John said. “You have to point whatever you’re doing at a group of people, and by definition if you’re pointing at a group, you’re not pointing at the rest of them. It’s exclusion on purpose.” Have the courage to niche yourself out. John often uses the expression “niche yourself out” as a way to convey the importance of having an authentic point of view that connects with your target audience. Niching yourself out as a company takes real courage because, by definition, not everyone is going to agree with your decisions. “Whether it’s calling your company Naked, like I did, or something else, you are going to have people who disagree,” John said. “That might even be your family -- it was for me -- and you have to just be okay with it. You have to expect it.” Fire bullets before cannonballs. Many entrepreneurs struggle with when to move out of the research phase and into getting experience. After all, being an entrepreneur is all about managing risk, and while risk can be transferred, it cannot be eliminated, so it’s best to get real-world experience as quickly as you can. “A lot of people think they can curb their risk by doing more research upfront,” John said. “I’m not anti-research, but I am anti-waiting. You don’t get the rewards without the risk.” One strategy to prioritize gaining real-world experience is to fire bullets before cannonballs, an expression that John borrowed from John Collins. The phrase encapsulates trying something small first before you go all in on an idea. “I’ve blown it many times, where I’ve gone in and done the whole thing,” John said. “When you do that, and you get it wrong, whatever mistake you had made is compounded. Normally, if something works small, it’ll work big.” Real success requires patience. A very common mistake that John sees among young founders is impatience. He says many young entrepreneurs have an idea in their head of what success looks like, which is often overnight success. However, he believes overnight success is a myth. “Instagram is probably one of the biggest overnight successes you could mention,” John said. “The founders started Instagram, and a year or two later had a billion dollar exit. That’s incredible, intense growth, but people forget to mention the app, Burbn, that the founders had started before Instagram and completely trashed. Even that example of overnight success still took time.” Resources + Links “Fire Bullets, Then Cannonballs” by Jim Collins The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance by Tom Brady Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire by Dan Martell John Driscoll: Website, LinkedIn Naked Development: Website, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube Brian Thompson Financial: Website, Newsletter, Podcast Follow Brian Thompson Online: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Forbes About Brian and the Mission Driven Business Podcast Brian Thompson, JD/CFP, is a tax attorney and certified financial planner who specializes in providing comprehensive financial planning to LGBTQ+ entrepreneurs who run mission-driven businesses. The Mission Driven Business podcast was born out of his passion for helping social entrepreneurs create businesses with purpose and profit. On the podcast, Brian talks with diverse entrepreneurs and the people who support them. Listeners hear stories of experiences, strength, and hope and get practical advice to help them build businesses that might just change the world, too.
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    38 mins
Leadership Economics
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