In Tech, Everyone Loves A Unicorn—Here's Why Running A Zebra Is Better

Forbes

a day ago

Wietse Van Ransbeeck is the CEO and Co-Founder of Go Vocal, on a mission to make democracy more inclusive, participatory and responsive.
When my team and I co-founded Go Vocal in 2015, it was because we wanted to be part of reinvigorating democracy for the 21st century. Of course, there were many avenues we could have pursued to be part of achieving this. Launching a nonprofit might have seemed like an obvious choice, but that's not where we landed.
Today, Go Vocal is a SaaS company, supporting more than 500 local governments worldwide. We're also a B Corp, committed to meeting ambitious social impact targets as well as delivering profit for our shareholders.
B Corps like us are required to meet standards of verified "social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability." And we're in good company, with almost 10,000 businesses like Patagonia and Ben & Jerry's all certified by B Lab to balance profit and purpose.
Another way you might describe us is as a zebra.
Zebras are social animals that tend to live together in groups. More interested in collaboration than competition, they graze on the tough, dry grass that other animals are unable to digest, helping out their neighboring species in the process.
In tech, unicorns are shiny new startups worth over $1 billion, while zebras are the businesses willing to take on the chewy challenges of making our world a better place. And we're in it for the long game, valuing sustainable solutions over a quick, lucrative exit.
We're driven to serve our shareholders and our stakeholders.
While unicorns famously 'move fast and break things,' zebras tend to be more graceful. We don't want to cause damage to people or the planet—in fact, quite the opposite. We don't want to prioritize growth at all costs. We know the world's biggest challenges require long-term commitment.
That's why, when making our product roadmap, we prioritize developments that serve citizens over short-term client-focused monetization. And we're selective about who we work with—we only work with governments that are genuinely interested in championing democracy.
What we've found at Go Vocal is that our results are circular: When we deliver results for our shareholders, their trust in us grows, and their financial backing enables us to keep innovating in service of our clients and their communities.
Our economic system tends to favor binaries—business or nonprofit, profitable or socially conscious. With our distinct mix of black and white, zebras offer the world the best of both.
That doesn't mean it's always sunshine and rainbows in the Serengeti.
Because we value sustainable growth over the long term, it can be harder for zebras to attract new investment when competing with those sparkly unicorns. At the same time, as a company, we aren't eligible to apply for the grants offered to nonprofits working on similar social challenges.
Optimizing at both ends takes a lot of energy because we have both financial and impact goals to meet. But we know that our financial health is a prerequisite to prioritizing our impact. In challenging years, we must give more weight to the financials to ensure the longevity of our company, and then in the growth years, we can build on that financial buffer to think bigger about our impact.
These days, it feels like we're able to strike a comfortable balance. We reached profitability last year, and we have the ambition to keep growing. As our whole team knows, that's what's going to enable more meaningful impact.
Critics of social impact businesses like ours are quick to say that our values are only a marketing ploy, with no substance behind them. Or that our competing priorities of profit and purpose lead to inefficiencies.
Our company is proof positive that we can offer substance and profit at the same time. And we don't have anything to hide—the administrators of our B Corp certification, B Lab, help keep us honest about our impact, offering industry benchmarking for a healthy sense of perspective.
As an employer, we also know that the generation entering the workforce today is driven by the need for a sense of purpose at work, and we have plenty of that to offer. Companies wanting to retain employees will need to find ways to act like a zebra and offer something more than just a paycheck.
So, what can we do to grow our modest stripy herd?
1. Enact policies for purpose. Governments could offer tax incentives or subsidies for businesses with proven social or environmental impact and prioritize zebras in the public procurement process. If the purpose of government is to compensate for certain externalities, why not support zebras to be more competitive, so they can deliver even more impact?
2. Educate the next generation of zebras. Integrate social entrepreneurship into school curricula and entrepreneurship programs to encourage big-picture thinking about purpose alongside profit.
3. Celebrate businesses championing purpose and profitability. Currently, zebras don't attract any of the hype of unicorns. What would it look like if there were fewer headlines about record-breaking startup valuations and more about the tangible good being offered by zebras?
As we dream of a new zebra economy, we need to find new measures of success. That doesn't have to mean letting go of profit as a success indicator but making space for a new generation of foals who can balance profit and purpose for more meaningful work, shaping a more equitable world.
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