EEPC Finalists Insights: Part 1
Meet Small Fires, EcoFoodly, and This Week’s Meals, three of this year’s Early Ethical Entrepreneur Pitch Competition Finalists and get ready to be inspired. As they share their personal stories of resilience, their discovery of purpose, and their visions for the future.
Small Fires
Q. Describe your journey so far as an ethical enterprise – what is your purpose, and why you embarked on this journey?
Growing up, I was a total bookworm. Living in New Zealand meant that I was in many ways disconnected from what was happening in the rest of the world. I turned to books to fill in the gaps, but found, while there were many characters and stories that reflected my own experience, there weren’t many that showed me what other places were like. When I got a bit older, I started watching TV and was surprised by what I found on the news and in advertising: stories of war, of tragedies, of things going wrong and people helpless to solve them.
It wasn’t until I grew up a bit more, had the privilege of traveling and visiting some of the places I’d seen on TV before I realized that the stories I’d been told were exactly that – stories, not fact. In the places I’d expected to see suffering, I found people just like me, happy and healthy, and working hard to make the world a better place to be.
The books that I needed to teach me about the world didn’t exist when I was growing up, and they mostly still don’t. These days, a children’s book is more likely to feature an animal as the main character, than a character that isn’t white. What’s even more troubling is only about 23% of children’s books authors are Black, Indigenous, or people of color. That means there’s a whole lot of stories and storytellers we’re ignoring in publishing.
Q. While everyone talks about innovation and novelty, describe how you came up with your idea and what it means to you to see it grow?
The idea for Small Fires came gently over time. I knew after traveling that there was work to do in creating and amplifying better stories about the world. It was when my sister was having her first baby that I realized starting earlier with diverse stories was going to be most effective (and to be honest more fun). The business model took some figuring out, through lots of chats with people in the impact space, and hugely inspired by the work of ygap who are pioneers of backing local change.
And finally, an idea was just half the process, I needed partners to help me bring it to life. I knew I wanted to work with people who were making change in their community, and who were part of cultural groups not often featured in books. I reached out to my friend Lillian, who is a community volunteer in Nairobi, Kenya, and asked if she was up for working on this wild idea with me. Incredibly, she said yes, and so we’ve been on a journey since!
Q. How did you select a business model to achieve your vision, and what model works best for your enterprise?
I don’t think we’ve mentioned exactly what we do yet, so, here goes: we make kids books in partnership with change-makers around the world. We do this to give people traditionally excluded from publishing an opportunity to tell their own stories about their own communities. A part of the revenue from each book and overall profit then goes back into supporting their work, empowering them to continue making local change.
We’re a for-profit social enterprise and we chose that model for two reasons. Firstly, because we want to be able to sell our books and eventually grow a thriving business in doing so. This model allows us to keep the door open to investment funding at some point down the track later. We also realised quickly that most publishing companies have a huge amount of financial and power inequity in them: in that often the authors of stories have little creative control over their work and aren’t highly compensated for their work. We wanted our books to do more than just educate young minds. We wanted to also show that these stories, that are often overlooked and undervalued, have immense worth. So our process is about leveraging someone’s lived experience, and turning it into a product that can continue to provide value and serve the storyteller (as much as the reader).
Q. What is the best part of being an ethical enterprise on a mission?
It’s amazing the creativity that emerges when you don’t have profit as your key driver.
Q. How do you extend your impact across to reach and engage with your stakeholders outside your direct clientele and partners?
There are of course two big areas of impact for us which are: 1) helping a new generation of kids access better resources about different cultures, to build empathy and understanding skills from an early age, 2) providing a sustainable source of income (from book sales) for our authors / change-makers, so they can continue to scale their impact in their own communities.
Like most impact-driven ventures though, I feel like we hold our standards quite high in everything else though! And we know there are lots of different ways that small contributions can add to bigger change. Diversity in literature is, unfortunately, still a massive problem. So another form of scaling impact for us also looks like actively advocating and supporting emerging authors in this space. We’re also big on sustainability, so making a plastic-free business and communicating how we make that happen is one way we can contribute to positive change in that space. Lastly, we have a couple of teeny, tiny, donations built into our product costs which are helping to get us into the habit of giving back based on what we get right from the start: we have committed to the 1% for the planet initiative and also use 1% of revenue to pay the rent.
Q. Where do you see your enterprise 10 years from now, and what is your big vision?
Being a book lover, I would love our venture to move offline and into space one day so that we could host learning cross-cultural experiences beyond just books. But I feel that’s a goal really nestled into my own wants! The biggest goal we’ll be striving towards is a book for every country in the world, and eventually multiple books for each country. Because one story by no means captures the experience of everyone in a particular place. Beyond ourselves, we’d also love to see a thriving industry of publishers creating books that represent the diversity of people around the world, and sharing more of the wealth generated with the makers.
Q. What message would you like to share with any other aspiring entrepreneurs who are interested in building their own vision?
As a very privileged, middle-class, white woman, I’ve spent a lot of time reckoning with the role of people like me in aid or impact work. I’ve been lucky to have mentors show me that sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is step out of the way of others, and use the power and privilege you have to amplify the work of others. I would say to people like me if you want to make a change, identify who you want to help and then go and sit with them, listen deeply to their experiences, and if they’ll tell you, their needs. Try to see how much is possible for that community to do or lead for themselves, step back when you’re not needed, and fill in the gaps where you can (even if they’re not the most exciting ones). It’s the work you can do when others can’t do for themselves, that will be most beneficial. Knowing what that is can take a lot of work in itself!
If you want to make a change, identify who you want to help and then go and sit with them, listen deeply to their experiences
EcoFoody
I hope that EcoFoodly will grow from an idea to something that makes a positive and sustainable change to the world.
Q. Describe your journey so far as an ethical enterprise – what is your purpose, and why you embarked on this journey?
EcoFoodly started because I realized food waste as one of the most ‘stupid’ problems contributing to climate change. Food waste in supermarkets is a huge contributor to greenhouse emissions and climate change, all the while there are thousands of Australians out there who are food insecure. I started EcoFoodly to help create a vision of a sustainable future and to help Australians get access to cheaper and healthier food.
Q. How did you select a business model to achieve your vision, and what model works best for your enterprise?
Ecofoodly is a social enterprise that aims to solve a costly problem in supermarkets, food waste. By reducing food waste we can help supermarkets reduce the cost of lost stock and increase their sales. As a social enterprise, EcoFoodly hopes to use these savings to help support charities and organizations that are fighting food insecurity and starvation.
Q. While everyone talks about innovation and novelty, describe how you came up with your idea and what it means to you to see it grow?
I came up with the ideas when I was a student and working at Coles as a part time job. I saw first hand working in Coles how much good food was being thrown away just because it was past its ‘best before’ date or just because it looked less appealing than other stock. And as a student, I remember going around the supermarket looking for discounted products, perfectly good food but just approaching their ‘best before date’, just to save a bit of money. I realised one day that so much less food would go to waste if there was an app that allowed people to browse and purchase discounted food near them. I hope that EcoFoodly will grow from an idea to something that makes a positive and sustainable change to the world.
EcoFoodly app, designed to help reduce food waste and fight food insecurity
Q. What is the best part of being an ethical enterprise on a mission?
Having a mission such as ours to reduce food waste and fight food insecurity means that we really hope to make the world a better place by doing what we do. It gives us a lot of hope and belief when times get hard or we get a bad rejection, to get up and try again because we hope what we do will help a lot of people and make the world a more sustainable and better place.
Q. How do you extend your impact across to reach and engage with your stakeholders outside your direct clientele and partners?
One of our goals at EcoFoodly is to raise awareness of the negative effects of food waste and how bad it is not only economically but also environmentally. We hope through our social media we can show how easily it can be to make a difference and to inspire more people to create a more sustainable world.
Q. Where do you see your enterprise 10 years from now, and what is your big vision?
We hope to be in every supermarket and grocers around the world in 10 years. We hope that we can help change social norms, where people might decide to choose and use food based on their usability and not on their appearance. WE hope that Ecility and not on their appearance. We hope that EcoFoodly can help eliminate food waste and food insecurity in the world, as what we see as one of the most ‘stupid’ problems.
Q. What message would you like to share with any other aspiring entrepreneurs who are interested in building their own vision?
From my experience with EcoFoodly, I would share with other aspiring entrepreneurs to have a clear mission and reason for what they are doing. By understanding your motivations and the reasons why you want to accomplish something will help you when things don’t go your way and you need motivation to carry on.
This Week’s Meals
Q. Describe your journey so far as an ethical enterprise – what is your purpose, and why you embarked on this journey?
But my life proved to have different plans for me.
My path to creating This Week’s Meals did not take a traditional route and looking back at the last 13 years, it is hard to pinpoint an exact moment when I thought or said I was going to impact this world through business. The life experience that brought me to the beginning of those years, made me assume my greatest contribution to the world would be to own a charity that supported the less fortunate than myself. But my life proved to have different plans for me. To get to understand and eventually accept what those huge plans were, what it means to take on huge plans, and what is required of a person wanting to follow a belief in themselves, meant I had to experience life in a way I did not imagine. Those experiences led me to observe the world in a new way.
My life experience dragged my mind through bullying in all sorts of workplaces. It made me become dependent on prescription medication to stop the anxiety caused by constant bullying. I became dependent on social welfare. I literally lived on the support of Lifeline. The people who answered my calls in those early years kept me alive until the day I got angry at the Gods for allowing me to suffer for reasons I could establish as sufficient for any human suffering. That day I do remember clearly. On that day, I demanded of the Thing out there, be it the Universe or God, or whatever word that was being used at the time to describe whatever higher power there was out there, that it tells me what was the purpose of human life because the life I was leading could not possibly be what it had in mind for the world or myself. That day I cut myself off from social media, from people, from the world and I went into myself to find answers to the purpose and meaning of life.
For the four years that followed, I experienced life in all its cruelty. I lived at the bottom of society, pointing my finger at the Thing, saying, “So this is your big plan for humanity.” I eventually found the answers I sought but it was not the Thing that gave it to me. I gave myself the answers. That beginning is a story in itself and when the time came for me to tell that story, I wrote, illustrated, designed, created, and published a 96,000-word book, Everything you need to know about Everything in Place, detailing the accurate meaning and purpose of life, through 8 theories on every aspect of human life and reality. Having realized the purpose of all life, writing a book was not enough. After all, what meaning is there in finding meaning only to set it aside to go to work or start a business that has no meaning other than to make money or a few changes here and there? If I could find the answers to the big questions of existence, then creating something meaningful for all life, could be easier than I imagined. And with that thought in mind, I waited for my mind to figure out what it came to do and the answer it gave was that it came to change the world. But everyone says that, right? What could my mind do that proved itself worthy of such a challenge?
The people who answered my calls in those early years kept me alive until the day I got angry at the Gods for allowing me to suffer for reasons I could establish as sufficient for any human suffering.
While writing my book I was back on social media, trying to promote my theories as a means of stopping the restless discourse about right and wrong, about what will save the planet, and humanity from itself. Realising that this world can no longer be taught through discourse, I decided to abandon the mediocre conversations about what could be and embarked on creating what is going to be. I knew I could fix all things, including shutting up the masses, if I did what I always do when I want people to be happy. I knew if I fed them in a logical way so that their mouths are too full to talk, and bellies full enough to learn about each other and appreciate each other in a new way, I could bring them trustworthy information that will make them think about life and solutions to life’s problems in a new way. And with those and a trillion other thoughts I created, This Week’s Meals, a social entrepreneurship that will begin our human course to ending worthless, ill-informed conversations and eventually bring a plate of food to every human on the planet.
Q. How did you select a business model to achieve your vision, and what model works best for your enterprise?
Something as determined as This Week’s Meals needs a foundation of its own.
As I said, my goal is to change the world and in seeking a business model for This Week’s Meals, I did what every person with a view to opening a business does. I ran the gauntlet of every business model canvas, until I again stopped and thought, “Wait a minute. If the meaning and purpose of life could not be uncovered through thousands of years of teaching about it, if my philosophy for life is to create a new foundation, then surely something as determined as This Week’s Meals needs a foundation of its own.”
With my mind ready to take on its next challenge, I decided to pit myself against the Thing once again. But this time I had to go against every teaching on how to create a business. I had to create a creator’s foundation for ethical business, and thus completed my final step in completing my MBA. I will never forget the comments made by the course coordinator on my final project. I laughed reading them. I could feel his excitement in knowing that I had done something new that was going to challenge prevalent thinking. It felt good to have my mind acknowledged in that way.
My project redefined social entrepreneurship as an identity for a creator wishing to end current business structures and offered a new business model canvas for a true creator. My new business model is called the Everything in Place business model (EiP). If Everything is in Place, we enjoy going to work, because everyone, at every level of organisation feels safe in their knowledge that what they bring to the workplace is contributing to the big change we all desire for ourselves and the world.
The experience of creating both a personal philosophy and a business philosophy, gave me the courage to set aside old obsolete terminology, and write new business policies for business management, people management and organisational management. The aim was to do better than any policy a government could write to keep workplaces safe and productive. EiP is the only model that can suit This Week’s Meals because This Week’s Meals is not a business in a box. It is a business designed for expansion and change. I am confident in my business model because I created it for whatever business I bring into reality. It means that I am now responsible for Everything I create, and I cannot make excuses for not delivering on what I justify through experience and observation as a logical path to change. EiP is inclusive of everyone and it is created for its own expansion because it invites us to offer the correct working conditions that everyone has a right to, especially when their time is going to create profit for my benefit. It is a balanced model, grounded in experience, sound theory, and establishes the vision of the creator of a business as the sole driver for the existence of a business.
Q. While everyone talks about innovation and novelty, describe how you came up with your idea and what it means to you to see it grow?
I think Everything explained in the questions above explains how I came up with my idea, so I will focus on what it means to me. This Week’s Meals is an innovation based on my life experience and observations of the world. To see where it is now, despite not being a brick and mortar store as yet is surreal. I still have my initial hand drawings of the idea and all that went into it from 2017. These sit on my desk keeping me going as I constantly learn things to bring This Week’s Meals to life. Nothing in that original design and vision has changed. Those pages are still sent to people to explain my vision. It is a clumsy write up and clumsy illustrations, but they still get people excited to see them.
I am not sure what I would feel when that moment arrives for me to stand in front of the first store because I am enjoying this moment of creation too much. My blueprint for This Week’s Meals has attracted some of the most determined minds and they are not helping me because they see me as someone in need of charity. Instead they reach out in support because my foundation is firm and there can be no greater recognition of the work of my mind than having them say, “You thought of Everything.”
The thought that I am going to bring accurate information about every culture in the world into every household is almost a spiritual thought. To know that this hard work, determination and drive will let the next generation think about the value of our cultures and the food we eat, deep into the future is humbling, and exhilarating but most of all, motivating because it solidifies my vision and mission and the experience of mission that every employee who comes into my organisation will enjoy.
To know that This Week’s Meals will have, in some small measure, treated this planet with the respect it deserves, is something I will see as a life achievement.
Q. What is the best part of being an ethical enterprise on a mission?
The best part of being a social entrepreneurship is knowing that what I came to do is something I am doing through This Week’s Meals and every other venture I embark on. Learning to trust my own mind to create not just an ethical business but a foundation for ethical practice, has given me the core confidence to know that what we live today cannot be fixed. It must be set aside for a new foundation for what will be real and true for all.
Q. How do you extend your impact across to reach and engage with your stakeholders outside your direct clientele and partners?
I intend extending my impact by teaching people the only Place for competition is on a platform like this. Competition should not exist in business. In business we should be aiming to help each other become ethical for a world population of 7.3 billion to focus on purpose, so we can each create meaning for our lives. Going to work each day only to think of ways to be better than someone else is not the purpose of business or life. I designed this business to change our conversation about each other. This Week’s Meals is going to change the conversations in every household, and at every dinner gathering. There is no greater way to change our thinking than to teach people through food and since everyone must eat food, I get to reach everyone who is invited into the home of someone who buys in my store. When that visitor goes into the world again, my clientele will have given them new trustworthy information about the world to take into their next conversation. That is how I acted on changing the world.
Q. Where do you see your enterprise 10 years from now, and what is your big vision?
In 10 years, This Week’s Meals will be in every country, owned and operated by ethical individuals who want to bring change in their personal parts of the world. Through its grounded vision of educating people, it will be a veteran in extracting human intelligence about humanity, this planet and our future, so that intelligence can be used wisely to improve our interactions with each other and the planet.
Q. What message would you like to share with any other aspiring entrepreneurs who are interested in building their own vision?
My message for the world at large is contained in the opening line of my introduction of my book, Everything you need to know about Everything in Place. It took me over 3 months to get these words right and in the right order. These words speak to what someone needs to understand about life for them to see problems they wish to solve as mere challenges, that it is only in play that we solve big problems, and it is not the effort we put into things that truly count but the thoughts that uphold that effort. Without understanding the value of thought about life, all the effort in the world is worthless. So, my sound advice, grounded in personal philosophy, is to stop and think before you put something into this world because once a creation is in expansion, we cannot stop what it expands into. The opening words from the introduction in my book are:
“What if I tell you life is a game called “The Game of Life,” that I hold its meaning and know how to play it to win? Would you play?”
But to lighten things up, my final piece of advice is: Go buy my book. Philosophy works.
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