Inspiration
An Old Company CAN Learn New Tricks
February 26th, 2009 by Bill Baren
Amazing customer experience every step of the process is becoming even more important in our current business environment. HEMA, a Dutch department store has taken this to the next level.
I’ve never seen anything like and have just emailed this out to all of my colleagues.
Take a look at HEMA’s product page. Make sure not to click on anything until the action begins on the page and turn up your computers speakers.
By the way, you don’t have to be a young company to be innovative. HEMA’s first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam. Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands.
How can you create an experience for your potential customers that will have people talking about you?
Interview with Xavier Helgesen, Co-Founder of Better World Books
February 2nd, 2009 by Amie Vaccaro
Buying Books with Heart and Soul
Next time you’re buying a book online – you may be able to help people around the world learn to read.
Better World Books is an online bookstore that supports nonprofit organizations with literacy programs such as Room To Read and Books For Africa ($3.1 million contributed so far) by donating a percentage of its revenues. In the process, Better World Books has saved 8,170 tons of books (millions of books) from landfills.
Co-Founder Xavier Helgesen explains how a business started by college students has thrived in the online marketplace ($21 million in revenue in 2007) while staying true to its triple bottom line mission of creating positive social and environmental impact in addition to financial value.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
- Why Better World Books targets the mainstream audience, not just the “green” consumer
- How to decide whether your mission-led venture should be a for-profit or nonprofit
- An innovative strategy for offering books on numerous e-commerce web sites at the same time
- How Better World Books overcomes the challenges of a rapidly growing business
LISTEN NOW (press play below)
TRANSCRIPT
AMIE VACCARO, GREEN BUSINESS INNOVATORS: This is Amie Vaccaro with Green Business Innovators. My guest today is Xavier Helgesen, co-founder of Better World Books. Glad you could be here, welcome.
XAVIER HELGESEN: Great to be here, Amie.
GREEN BUSINESS INNOVATORS: I was looking through some of your marketing materials, and I see that you describe your business as a self-sustaining, triple bottom line company that creates social, economic and environmental value for its stakeholders. And as far as I am concerned that is kind of the ultimate company, and I would love to hear you kind of explain that and explain your business model in that context.
XAVIER HELGESEN: Well, we are a stakeholder driven company; we are part of B-corporation actually, which is the network of about a 130 companies where management is obliged, not just to the shareholders to maximize profit but to the stakeholders to create social, environmental and economic value. So we focus on our triple bottom lines.
Our social mission, in particular, is to channel the book buying power of all of us out there. People will buy about $20 billion worth of books in the US alone this year. And if we can channel just part of that money to funding literacy programs, we can make a huge dent in the fact that 1 out of 7 people in the world cannot read, 1 out of 7 adults, and not to mention the next generation coming up.
Interview with John and Katy Weiss of Chickity Doo Doo
November 24th, 2008 by Judy Lawrence
Chickity Doo Doo first caught our interest due to its attention-grabbing brand name. But behind the name is a company that has transformed something you might think most people wouldn’t want (chicken doo doo) into a mass market product - an organic fertilizer made from 100% chicken manure, that’s being used as a replacement for synthetic chemical fertilizers in farms and sold in retail stores.
In this interview, John and Katy Weiss reveal the inner workings of their business and share the story of where the product idea came from. Who knew doo doo could be so interesting?
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
- How a waste material was turned into a useful product
- Creating a branding strategy for products sold at big box stores vs independent retailers
- Why higher oil prices means better business for Chickity Doo Doo
- How education plays a key role in Chickity Doo Doo’s marketing efforts
- How Chickity Doo Doo attains certifications in order to back up its product claims
LISTEN NOW (press play below)
TRANSCRIPT
JUDY LAWRENCE, GREEN BUSINESS INNOVATORS: Hello. This is Judy Lawrence from www.GreenBusinessInnovators.com, and I am here speaking with John Weiss and Katy Weiss from Chickity Doo Doo, located near Madison, Wisconsin.
Chickity Doo Doo is an organic fertilizer made from well, chicken doo doo, 100% organic chicken manure. I actually heard about your unique company while I was back in Wisconsin visiting some family and friends, and Katy, your mother-in-law told me about this young start-up company, and I was intrigued by the idea that the novelty of it, the practicality and the recycling aspect of this business. As you begin, I’d love you both to share the story of how Chickity Doo Doo was conceived, your backgrounds. I believe you grew up on a chicken farm, which seems like a natural fit, and then how the company is succeeding in growing. Welcome John and Katy.
JOHN WEISS: Well, thanks very much for having us. I can kind of give you a start, and Katy can jump in too with her thoughts on where we got to this point. My father specifically has been in the poultry industry for about 40 years. His name is Ray. And he and my mom owned a chicken farm together. We technically didn’t live on that farm, it was actually away from where we grew up, but we knew about the farm growing up and the farm they purchased back in 1975. My father and I, in 1999, decided to form a partnership and buy my mom out in order to refinance and do some other things on the farm, and that’s when I got involved. My background is actually in teaching and coaching basketball, and I decided in 1999 that this might be a little nice side investment, and it’s actually been running my life ever since then, thankfully happily.
One Question That Can Grow Your Business
June 6th, 2008 by Bill Baren
One of the main themes I loved at the Sustainable Brands Conference 2008 is that Sustainability is a Journey. The paradigm shift from looking at sustainability as a destination to seeing it as more of a process that never ends has a allowed me to embrace more of my own journey as citizen of this planet and as an entrepreneur.
Sometimes our journey towards innovation and towards a more sustainable world can start with a simple question.
One question that launched a company: “Can a sandal protect your toes?”
The answer was the Keen Newport.
Fast forward less then 5 years, and you’ve got Keen Footwear with sales nearing $150mil per year.
Here are some questions that successful companies have asked:
For Dow Chemical it is, “How do you bring drinking water to every person on this planet?
For Seventh Generation, a socially-responsible company selling environmentally-responsible products for a healthy home, it is, “What does the world most need that we are uniquely qualified to provide?”
For Burgerville, a sustainable fast food chain in the Pacific Northwest, it was, “How can we provide affordable healthcare to every one of our employees?”
And for Green Business Innovators it is, “How can we help 10,000 small and medium sized businesses be more successful by being green?”
Innovation can spring from the desire to answer the question and can serve to unify and inspire your entire team.
What question do you have that can start the next important innovation in your company?
(Imagine photo taken in Prague at the John Lennon wall by Patrick Dominguez)
Interview with Mark Pastore, Founder, Incanto Restaurant
May 25th, 2008 by Bill Baren
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
- When starting a new business, is passion more important then experience?
- Innovation comes from being conscious about what you do and continually asking the question, “How can I do this better every day”
- “Sustainability is leaving the world better off before you touched it.
- How serving foods that aren’t popular can be the best marketing tool you’ve got… a sustainable business is not based on a marketing ploy, it’s simply a commitment to live your life and run your business sustaineably.
LISTEN NOW (press play below)
TRANSCRIPT
Bill Baren:
I’m Bill Baren of Green Business Innovators and I’m here at the back offices of Incanto Restaurant in San Francisco. Incanto is committed to delicious Italian food with sustainable practices. I’m joined by Mark Pastore, the founder and owner of Incanto. Thank you, Mark. Thank you for allowing us to enter your world.
Mark Pastore:
It’s nice to be with you, Bill. Thank you.
Mark Pastore: Sure. I grew up in an Italian-American family and had a life changing experience when I was 21 years old in Italy. I always loved cooking growing up, but when I went to Italy, it made me really think about eating. Europeans eat differently than Americans do. When I came back to the United States, I started a career that lasted about 13 years. But at the back of my mind, I was always interested in food and I would spend all of my spare time reading cookbooks and traveling on food-related vacations. Ultimately, the passion grew strong enough that in 2001, I left my old life and decided to start an Italian restaurant.
Bill Baren: So you’ve made your passion and your love your career these days?
Mark Pastore: Yes, which many people warned me about, but I can’t say that I have any regrets.
Bill Baren: Did you have any formal training or a methodology that you used when you first started?
Mark Pastore: No, I would like to tell people that I’m an untrained professional. I guess, I had started two businesses prior, neither of which had been in the food world. So I had a little bit of background about how to hire people and, hopefully, manage a business. But I was a complete novice to restaurants and to the food world. In fact, I’d never even worked in a restaurant until the day we opened our doors.
Bill Baren: So was that training in the line of fire?
Mark Pastore: It was, I was a deer in the headlights for the first few months, but I’ve been fortunate to be able to work with some exceptionally talented people in this field. I think, why train somebody who’s never been in the business if you can work with really smart people who have more experience than you and you’re going to end up learning.
Bill Baren: So how were you able to come upon these partnerships?
Did You Hit the Snooze-Button Today?
May 21st, 2008 by Bill Baren
In the last 50 years we have increasingly seen major changes in the social, political, economic, scientific and spiritual structures of our society. And in the last 10 years, more people then ever have been empowered to steer the direction of our planet and the people on it.
We are living in a critical time…
Our Ideas ** Our Innovations ** Our Actions
…are going to dictate the course for human kind in the next century and beyond. We can either thrive or perish. We are beginning to wake up to the power we each have to create, to be conscious and to change. Each of us has the power to innovate and push the evolution of human kind forward.
Our planet will be fine. It will adapt. Let’s hope we adapt right with it.
It will take shifts in consciousness and it will take tremendous innovation in order for us to come the next level of our existence.
Crisis is a great catalyst for change. It is vital that we admit that we have a challenge ahead of us and look at this challenge as an opportunity to evolve to create a world of unparalleled abundance for all the people of this planet.
Let’s change our businesses. Let’s change our thinking. Let’s change our planet. Let’s do all that with FEARLESS abandon!
The time is here. The time is NOW. We’re up to the challenge! Come along, join our conversation and INNOVATE.