How will you make impact? How much impact will you make?Try to quantify the impact you make (how much will you improve peoples life multiplied by how many lives will you improve) Guy Kawasaky in "The Art of the Start" claims that emerging entrepreneurs should focus on making meaning, not money. If your vision for your company is to grow it just to flip it to a large company or to take it public and cash out, "you're doomed". Kawasaki says that great companies are built around one of three kinds of meaning:
In his own way Guy Kawasaki is very right. Although he is a hardcore venture capitalist and not a development economist he still believes your efforts as an entrepreneur are wasted if they are not aimed at making meaning, or in our case, making impact. Impact Creating impact is similar to creating customer value. The same general rules apply. But where customer value aims at the customer on an individual level, impact aims at a community or society in general. When we measure impact, we take into consideration all costs, not just the business costs, but also social, environmental and economic costs. |