Last week I was summoned by a millionaire to give my contemporary business advice to an up-and-coming artist. Intrigued, as one would be, I accepted.
Later that day, after an engaging conversation with the artist, I used the opportunity to dig in the depths of this rich man\u2019s knowledge.
Originally he had hoped I would join the artist full time for a piece of the pie, but I told him I was already signing for a VC deal with my own startup*. Naturally he inquired what my startup was about, and what I answered triggered him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDo you want to try and save the world or do you want to build a successful business?\u201d He asked pressingly, bordering on mockingly. Reflecting on that evening now, I do realise the real difference between us, and it was in front of me all that time. When this man started, he saw an opportunity to make a boatload of cash, jumped on it and executed it really well. *With my startup, FruitPunch AI, We are uniting a global nation of change-makers and educating them in AI for Good, to solve humanity\u2019s greatest challenges.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n About this column<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In a weekly column, alterna<\/em>tely written by Buster Franken<\/strong>, Eveline van Zeeland, Jan Wouters, Katleen Gabriels,<\/strong> Mary Fiers, Tessie Hartjes, and Auke Hoekstra, Innovation Origins tries to find out what the future will look like. These columnists, occasionally supplemented with guest bloggers, are all working in their own way on solutions for the problems of our time. So tomorrow will be good. Here are all the previous articles<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week I was summoned by a millionaire to give my contemporary business advice to an up-and-coming artist. Intrigued, as one would be, I accepted.Later that day, after an engaging conversation with the artist, I used the opportunity to dig in the depths of this rich man\u2019s knowledge.Originally he had hoped I would join the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1783,"featured_media":518898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7809],"tags":[827,9273],"location":[],"article_type":[],"serie":[],"archives":[],"internal_archives":[],"reboot-archive":[],"class_list":["post-239900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-start-ups","tag-vc"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":{"subtitle":"The dinosaurs are almost burnt up and the tree huggers are building the next unicorns. ","text_display_homepage":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"Buster Franken","author_link":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/author\/buster-franken\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/xkvyciKx-kingkongvsgodzilla-300x168.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Opinion<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Opinion<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["start-ups<\/a>","VC<\/a>"],"unlinked":["start-ups<\/span>","VC<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 6 years ago","modified":"Updated 6 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on September 6, 2020","modified":"Updated on September 6, 2020"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on September 6, 2020 8:22 am","modified":"Updated on September 6, 2020 8:22 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1783"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239900"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=239900"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=239900"},{"taxonomy":"serie","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/serie?post=239900"},{"taxonomy":"archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archives?post=239900"},{"taxonomy":"internal_archives","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal_archives?post=239900"},{"taxonomy":"reboot-archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ioplus.nl\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reboot-archive?post=239900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Knowing him and what he was implying I waited a second to give my answer. He can be lighthearted or merciless, depending on if what you\u2019re saying aligns with his world views.
\u201cIf I\u2019d have to choose, I\u2019d rather try to save the world\u201d I said, walking straight into his trap.
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t tell your investors that\u201d he answered. A grin appeared on my face. That is exactly what I told my investors.
I went on to passionately declare the rise of impact investment and the need to have a clear connection to the UN\u2019s Sustainable Development Goals<\/a> to even be considered for investment. But he wouldn\u2019t have it.
The rest of the conversation was, in hindsight, a downwards spiral in which our paths diverged too much to find common ground. In his eyes I was the tree hugger and in my eyes he was the dinosaur. A real King Kong vs. Godzilla<\/a> situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe real difference<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Not only were the Sustainable Development Goals not invented yet (only in 2015 actually), there was also less attention for sustainability in general and the tree huggers were living in communes and organising festivals, not building startups.
But the times they are a-changin\u2019. Governmental regulations and even consumer behaviour are slowly aligning the financially sound investment with the environmentally friendly investment.
I tried to take his words to heart and it feels arrogant to think I have better ideas of running a business than a millionaire. But, after a few restless nights the best I can do is agree to disagree.
Time will tell if I can make money saving the world. I do know that if we want to keep enjoying this world we live in, we have to align our higher purpose with what we do during the workday. We are not going to solve the SDGs relying only on donations of evening hours and profits of otherwise unsustainable businesses.
And slowly but surely, this ethos is becoming profitable as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n