By Caroline Winnett
If we think about the most impactful technology companies of the past two decades, none of them were founded with making money as the key goal. Instead, they aimed to solve a specific problem and produce a particular societal or industrial impact. Purpose is at the core.
Whatever you might think about Elon Musk, it’s hard to disagree with the rationale behind SpaceX—reducing the cost of spaceflight to expand humanity’s frontiers to other planets within our solar system. Facebook sought to connect individuals in previously impossible ways at a truly global scale.
These companies illustrate the importance of ambition and vision in finding world-changing success. Opportunity and a desire to succeed financially can get you far, but founders need to communicate their deeper purpose to bring employees, investors and potential customers on board. Vision is critical.
The word ‘inspire’ is used too frequently—and too cheaply—in entrepreneurship circles. At the same time, early-stage founders need to inspire prospective hires to join their company, potentially leaving stable and better-paying jobs to do so. Inspiration is what persuades investors to open their wallets and convinces customers to take a chance on a previously unknown company.
So, how can founders communicate their purpose and vision?
The answer lies in empathy, a fine-grained understanding of their product and market, and their plan for delivering real-world results with their solution.
Finding Purpose
In my role at Berkeley SkyDeck, I’ve actively worked to increase the number of female founders who achieve success by connecting them with investors and talent and by boosting their profiles within the industry. Through targeted initiatives and strategic networking, I’ve sought to create opportunities that highlight their potential and provide the necessary resources for their growth and development. This effort not only supports individual founders but also contributes to a more diverse and inclusive startup ecosystem.
Communicating Purpose from Within Your Organization
Most companies—whether technology companies or otherwise—have some form of stated objective or a set of shared values to which employees must ascribe. And in many cases, these are meaningless at best or entirely performative at worst. As the Harvard Business Review points out, Enron had the following corporate values: communication, respect, integrity and excellence.
We all know how Enron turned out. Your employees and potential employees aren’t stupid. They can instinctively tell when a company’s vision and values are real and when they’re just for show.
Founders can build credibility by communicating why they started their company. They may, for example, seek to solve a problem that matters to them on a personal level, and it can be invaluable to communicate this personal story.
One Berkeley SkyDeck company, Akin Mental Health, was created by two founders who had experience caring for family members who suffer from mental illnesses. Although a for-profit business, it’s obvious that its creation was motivated by something other than money.
Another SkyDeck alum, Deepscribe, was founded to drastically reduce the amount of time needed for doctors to prepare patient notes. The co-founder’s father was a doctor. He recalls the many evenings and weekends his father could not spend time with him—he was too busy writing patient notes.
Founders should be bold and talk about why they founded their companies, both externally and internally. A shared understanding of their reasoning is a valuable recruiting tool that inspires workers to push harder to help you reach your goals—because they’re also their goals.
Communicating Purpose to Investors
A well-defined purpose can also help founders close vital investment deals, as it illustrates their motivation as well as a detailed understanding of the problem and the best possible solution.
Investors are interested in more than just a superficial argument for why they should invest in a company. While things like TAM (total addressable market) and growth are essential, so is timing. Why is your solution right for this particular moment? What’s wrong with the existing solutions and why is your approach better?
As someone who has spent much of their career working with—and, in the case of the business I co-founded, for—technology companies, trust me when I say that few businesses are trying to solve genuinely new problems. Many times, founders’ personal experience with a persistent problem sparks the purpose for a company. It gives them undeniable credibility when communicating their purpose to investors, as it’s something they’ve experienced first-hand. If we have two equally strong applicants for Berkeley SkyDeck with equally novel solutions to unsolved problems, whether or not a company has a purpose ends up being the deciding factor.
Communicating Purpose to Customers
Humans are habitual creatures that tend to favor the tried-and-tested. For a startup to succeed, it needs to inspire enough trust among potential customers to break through the inertia of brand loyalty.
Purpose is vital. Amazon and Zappos achieved breakneck growth during the late 1990s by expressing an unwavering commitment to customer service. Jeff Bezos would famously say: “We’re not competitor obsessed; we’re customer obsessed.” Zappos defined its goal as “to live and deliver WOW.”
They clearly communicated their purpose and promises, then they delivered and now they’re unshakable pillars of their respective industries.
There are many startups competing for top talent these days. What’s the main draw for a young company? A brilliant and compelling mission and purpose. To forge a powerhouse company culture in a startup and lure top-tier talent, it’s imperative to unite the team under the banner of the company’s values, vision and mission. These are not just words; they are the bedrock of a thriving, competitive business. When everyone is fiercely committed to the same mission, a startup is a living, breathing, powerful entity. This is what truly matters.
Executive director Caroline Winnett leads the Berkeley SkyDeck program that hosts over 200 companies per year. During her tenure, Winnett launched the Berkeley SkyDeck Fund and Berkeley SkyDeck Europe. Prior to SkyDeck, Winnett was a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of NeuroFocus, a pioneer company in the neuromarketing industry. She is an angel investor, advisor, board member and recognized speaker for technology startups, accelerators and neuromarketing.
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