Jetpack for Changemakers… the Backstory

Anthony Quinn
26 October 2017

Dynamic4 is a purpose-driven design and innovation company and certified B Corp based in Sydney.

We use our business to be a force for good by helping people, organisations, small businesses and startups create sustainable, successful businesses that have a positive impact.

We’re focused on making sustainable positive change for people and our environment – increasing equality, social justice and environmental sustainability.

Starting up is easy

Being a startup for good can be very rewarding. There is something deeply satisfying about seeing your ideas develop into a clear vision and plan, especially when you know the world will be better because of it. However, after working with over 100 startups, we know that being a startup for good also comes with many challenges. Here are some thoughts on some challenges faced by purpose-driven startups and social enterprises, and what we’ve found to work.

Actually, no it isn’t…

Over the years, we have had the opportunity to meet with numerous founders. We’d meet them, compare notes and swap stories. In those meetings, we started to notice some common themes. The people we met shared similar traits and all too often, the same challenging experiences. The following are a few examples, some of which might sound familiar:

Life gets in the way. Let’s face facts. No matter how highly motivated and focused you are, other things demand your attention. Life is bigger than your startup and should be a full experience
Being a changemaker, not a captain of industry. There are great people and tools in the commercial startup world that can be leveraged. The challenge is that no matter how many startup events or accelerators you have checked out, you keep going back to the fact that it is not your tribe
Conflicting advice fuels uncertainty and churn. Advice can be a powerful tool when used wisely. The challenge is when you get conflicting advice from numerous mentors. Making sense of conflicting perspectives can be challenging, difficult, and confusing

Good help can be hard to find

We’ve been around this space for a while and we’ve noticed that practical support for early stage, purpose-driven startups is either thin on the ground or fragmented.

We believe that it’s important to get behind people with ideas, to help them to develop a clear vision and a plan to rally the support they need to get past the idea stage. A strong pipeline of early-stage startups increases the odds of long-term positive change in the community.

If you are a startup for good, perhaps you have faced, or are facing some of these challenges. While they can seem overwhelming at times, there are steps you can take towards achieving clarity, confidence and direction.

Our answer?

Jetpack for Changemakers has been years in the making. It’s the absolute essence of action learning and insight from working with 100s of startups, including our own. We created this program specifically for people in the early stage of starting a purpose-driven business or a social enterprise because they, like us, are motivated to use business as a force for good.

A beautiful mechanism

According to Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, business has a higher order purpose. He says, “Business is a very beautiful mechanism to solve problems, but we never use it for that purpose. We only use it to make money. It satisfies our selfish interest but not our collective interest.”

There’s a growing movement of businesses becoming a force for good. As a certified B Corp, we think it’s only fitting to close with this quote from Audette Exel, of Adara Group at #BLD17

We make change anyway you can – as purpose driven businesses, you can do this and more! You just have to think out of construct. Believe in people including yourself. I see greatness every single day in everyone around me.
– Audette Exel, of Adara Group at #BLD17