This post is part of a series designed to help you prepare to launch a high-impact startup.
Start with why
Every organization understands what it does. Some organizations understand how they do what they do. But very few organizations have a deep understanding of why they do what they do.
Your organization’s purpose is simply the answer to the question: “Why do we exist?”
A common thread among successful enterprises is a deep understanding of their purpose. They start with “Why?” before figuring out the “How?” and the “What?”
Watch Simon Sinek explain the importance of starting with why.
Building strong foundations
Your organization’s purpose is it’s reason for existing; but understanding it isn’t sufficient for success.
We recommend that founders write statements describing each of the following aspects of their organization:
- Purpose: Why do we exist?
- Mission: How do we plan to achieve our vision?
- Values: What do we stand for, and how do we behave?
- Positioning: How do we differentiate ourselves from our competitors?
We’ll limit this post to purpose, mission, and values — and discuss positioning in a later post.
With respect to each statement, you have three jobs:
- Figure out the answer to the question;
- Write the answer in a concise, compelling, and memorable way; and
- Reinforce the statement within the organization and across your public brand.
What about your “vision”? Often, organizations also include a vision statement:
- Vision: “What are we aiming to achieve?”
However, it’s reasonable to collapse purpose and vision into a single statement, because:
- The reason for your organization’s existence (its purpose) will likely relate to it achieving some specified outcome (its vision) — so, one of these statements will likely reiterate the other in some way; and
- You don’t want to spend time creating, maintaining, and reinforcing any more statements than is strictly necessary.
Why spend time on this?
These statements will serve as rudders that help you steer your organization in the right direction. They will inform:
- High-level strategic decisions (e.g. whether a new opportunity aligns with your purpose);
- Quarterly objectives (e.g. whether a given project helps you in achieving your mission);
- Hiring decisions (e.g. whether a particular individual stands for the same things you stand for);
- Website updates (e.g. whether a piece of copy suitably reflects your differentiated value); and
- Much more!
They will also motivate you and the rest of your team. According to the former CMO of Procter and Gamble after a 10 year study of 50,000 brands, the 50 highest-performing businesses are the ones driven by brand purpose. These 50 businesses grew three times faster than their competitors.
As an example, consider Tesla’s stated purpose: “To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable transport.” As Elon Musk explained:
Putting in long hours for a corporation is hard. Putting in long hours for a cause is easy.
Purpose
The purpose is the most important thing to clarify. It answers the question: Why does your organization exist?
But, there are many true things you can say to answer this question. For example:
- “My organization exists because I need to earn a living.”
- “My organization exists because it wasn’t possible to stay fiscally sponsored indefinitely.”
- “My organization exists because the IRS enables it to.”
These may all be true. But your purpose statement isn’t merely a statement about why your organization exists.
It’s the most inspiring framing you can give to answer that question.
Mission
Your organization’s mission can be understood as the roadmap to achieving its purpose.
It defines your organization’s broad strategy: who it serves, what it does, its objectives, and its approach to reaching those objectives.
Purpose vs. mission
Purpose and mission are close cousins; it can be helpful to contrast them to avoid recreating one with the other:
| Purpose | Mission |
| Inspirational | Concrete |
| Motivates and unites staff and stakeholders | Guides strategic goals |
| Endures over the long-haul | Can be changed (e.g. by developments in consumer behaviour, funding, or technological breakthroughs) |
See how these real-world purpose and mission statements vary for organizations:
| Organization | Purpose | Mission |
| Tesla | To accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable transport. | To create the most compelling car company of the 21st century. |
| Oxfam | To help create lasting solutions to the injustice of poverty. | To use a combination of rights-based sustainable development programmes, campaigns, advocacy and influencing to challenge the structural causes of poverty. |
| Starbucks | To inspire and nurture the human spirit — one person, one cup and one neighborhood at a time. | To establish Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining uncompromising principles while we grow. |
| Apple | To make the best products on earth and to leave the world better than we found it. | To bring the best user experience to customers through innovative hardware, software, and services. |
| Intel | To create world-changing technology that enriches the lives of every person on earth. | Utilize the power of Moore’s Law to bring smart, connected devices to every person on earth. |
| Walmart | To save people money so they can live better. | To be THE destination for customers to save money, no matter how they want to shop. |
| Patagonia | To save our home planet. | To build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. |
| Coca-Cola | To refresh the world. | To craft the brands and choice of drinks that people love, to refresh them in body & spirit. |
| Nike | To use the power of sport to move the world forward. | To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world. |
| To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. | To provide access to the world’s information in one click. | |
| 80,000 Hours | To get the next generation of leaders tackling the world’s biggest and most neglected problems. | To become the best source of advice and support for students and recent graduates who prioritise impact, helping them find satisfying careers that fulfil their potential to contribute to the world. |
| Nonprofit Builder | To serve foundations, nonprofits and social enterprises that are at the forefront of climate action and social change. | To make it easy for social and environmental change organizations to access high-quality support, so they can refine strategy, manage change and growth, and develop their leaders – to make the world a better place. |
| Spring Impact | To drive social and environmental impact at scale. | To help mission-driven organisations and funders scale their impact sustainably – through consulting, training, and programmes. |
| Directory of Social Change | To help you help others. | To be an agent connecting givers, influencers and service deliverers. |
| Pro Bono Economics | To end low personal wellbeing in the United Kingdom. | To use economic analysis and the unique insight to help the charities, community groups and other purposeful organisations that work every day to improve the lives of people with low wellbeing. |
| Ambitious Impact (AIM) | To help individuals like you make a large positive difference in the world. | To assist you in finding and transitioning to a high-impact career path by providing comprehensive support to help you succeed. |
Values
Your organization’s values are the heuristics you’ll use to achieve its mission.
Avoid bland, generic platitudes like “Ambition” or “Transparency.” Instead, focus on opinionated values that require a sacrifice, or recognize a trade-off. Good values are polarizing to an extent, and that polarity lets you screen out people who won’t be a good fit for your organization. (We’ll discuss polarization in a later post.)
See below for examples of weaker vs. stronger values. We don’t necessarily endorse or recommend the stronger values, but they’re demonstrative of how to write values . (If you find yourself disagreeing with some of the strong values, that means they’re doing their job!)
| ❌ Weaker value | ✅ Stronger value |
| Fast-paced
We emphasize quick decision-making, rapid execution of tasks, and the ability to adapt swiftly to changes and new information. |
Ship fast and fail faster
We operate with speed as a habit in order to learn and improve as quickly as possible. We’re in a hurry to prevent global catastrophes. |
| Focus
We prioritize directed effort, minimizing distractions, and maintaining a clear sense of purpose. |
Get comfortable saying no
We take on new projects deliberately, and we’re comfortable saying no. We’re honest about our areas of expertise and capacity. |
| Excellence
We strive for superior performance, delivering outstanding results, and consistently exceeding expectations. |
Hold customers to high standards
We’re a small agency by design, which means our capacity is limited. So we choose to support projects with the greatest positive impact. |
| Global
We embrace diversity, inclusivity, and a broad international perspective. We’re open to international staff and stakeholders. |
Excel remotely
We’re a globally distributed team, with members across three continents. We don’t care where you choose to live and work, as long as you produce exceptional results. |
| Impact-focused
We prioritize actions and decisions that drive meaningful, positive outcomes. This value emphasizes the importance of creating significant and measurable changes |
Hedge our bets
Emerging technologies, like AI and engineered pathogens, sure are scary — but so is climate change, global poverty, and factory farming. We support projects across a range of cause areas, as long as they’re doing great work. |
We’ll explore purpose, mission, and values further in a future post on brand strategy.
Stay tuned for our next post: Choose a name.