Introduction
According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship, there are around 10 million social enterprises globally, united by the principle of putting purpose before profit. They generate approximately 2 trillion USD annually, and create 200 million jobs across various sectors, from agriculture to financial services. 10X Impact Ventures is one such social enterprise based in the United States.
The concept behind 10X Impact Ventures came from years in the making. About 15 years prior, the co-founder of 10X Impact Ventures was the hot beverages buyer for a top 10 Fortune 500 company. She began her work on a sustainability journey, and coffee was under her direction. She met with suppliers, buyers, and roasters, all to learn that about 80% of coffee globally is produced by 25 million smallholder farmers, and approximately two-thirds of the farmers and their families struggle to reach an income that can provide basic needs.
Through her connections she connected to two other leaders, one in food processing and the other in global development who had the same interests, trying to figure out how to provide a livable income to vulnerable farmers through a business lens, not a charity focus, and thus, the co-founders became three. The question the three co-founders posed is “How can we 10X or more the income for smallholder farmers who sell coffee?” And the answer was “diversify the income sources.”
On the quest to discover the options to diversify income sources, the co-founders reached out to contacts to learn more about what entrepreneurs were producing with biomass, or waste from commodities. They research this in East Africa and Central America, especially in the zones where coffee farmers and other vulnerable groups reside. The options were various; they found there was ample opportunity to establish and grow lucrative businesses for significant income. It was everything from banana fiber for rugs and hair extensions to coffee cherry to export to international markets as syrup for beverages. The opportunities were abundant.
Opportunities and Challenges
The co-founder’s passion project was taking shape with conversations daily with people who could share lessons and experiences. Each day, a new idea came forward and the co-founders would do more research, reach out to additional experts, and have insightful conversations to keep building out the innovative idea for the social enterprise. It came to the point that they wanted to seek partners who could give advice and funds to validate research and start organizing a business plan.
The three co-founders tried to document the ideas in a clear and concise format to ensure that they were all aligned on the purpose of the social enterprise and what they intended to ask for when pitching the innovative idea to interested parties. The result was confusion. The ideas were many, and the opportunities were far reaching. The three co-founders realized that they had to focus their thoughts and find alignment in order to move forward.
The problem was significant because without a clearly defined foundational strategy, that all co-founders were aligned to and could pitch, they could not continue to move the social enterprise forward. They needed to define what they were trying to achieve, what motivation was behind it, and how they would achieve it.
NEXUS WIN Methodology
To tackle this critical issue, 10X Impact Ventures hired NEXUS Strategy and Growth Partners to work on the foundations of the organization. After NEXUS spoke in-depth with the 10X Impact Ventures co-founders to ensure they understood what the co-founders intended to achieve, they moved forward with a strategic plan and its following initiatives that are part of the NEXUS WIN Revenue Methodology under the Pillar: Winning Foundational Strategy.
STEP 1
Facilitated a session to define 10X Impact Ventures’ unique strengths and challenges.
STEP 3
Used the information from steps 1 and 2 to guide the co-founders in defining the social enterprises’ mission, purpose, and impact statements.
STEP 5
Defined the “ask” of investors based on the defined foundational strategy.
STEP 2
Delved deep into conversation to concisely define the problem 10X Impact Ventures intended to solve, and the solution they are passionate about.
STEP 4
Facilitated a discussion for the co-founders to determine their unique values, or those values that go above and beyond the ethical values of all businesses.
STEP 6
Identified the background experience and skills of each co-founder that gave them credibility to launch the start-up and developed biographies.
These strategic initiatives were planned and executed to address the challenges 10X Impact Ventures was experiencing directly. NEXUS facilitated sessions to ensure alignment and messaging were clear, concise, and consistent, aiming to develop a revenue plan and business brief to guide 10X Impact Ventures through their investor pitches.
Results
As a result of this strategic plan, 10X Impact Ventures now have a clear message to explain what they intend to do and why. They packaged the messages, developed a business brochure, and started sharing it with investors and other potential partners to become advisors and champions of the social enterprise.
As a result of the clear pitch and understanding of what they intended to achieve, 10X Impact Ventures experienced an opportunity to join forces with another start-up which made the possibility to launch happen much faster than originally planned.
These results exceeded their expectations and set the foundation of the organization and a new standard for their performance in the global social impact space.
Moreover, the project helped them move closer to their long-term goal of launching and identifying funds for pilot projects to prove the model.
Our experience with the NEXUS “Winning Strategy Foundation” pillar provided us with clarity and alignment in a remarkably short period, on core strategy questions we had been grappling with for weeks. This newfound clarity acted as a catalyst for our leadership team, generating significant momentum where we had previously been stalled. I highly recommend their services to any organization seeking to define their unique position and accelerate progress.
Are you facing a similar challenge? Do you wish to make break through and achieve your most pressing goals like 10X Impact Ventures did?
NEXUS Strategy and Growth Partners offers a free discovery session to help you gain clarity around your main challenges and how to solve them.
We can help turn your biggest challenges into results, just like how we helped 10X Impact Ventures.