Designing Impact Business Unicorns
Over the past 20 years, the world has witnessed a flourishing of business innovations addressing social and environmental issues, yet many initiatives have not reached the impact they and we would have hoped. However, there is much to learn from what they have achieved.
At Hystra, we have been fortunate to gather considerable understanding of these innovative business models over the last 16 years in a series of projects funded by corporations, foundations, and aid agencies, covering most essential services and products (healthcare, energy, safe water, sanitation, nutrition, mobility, housing, agriculture, last-mile distribution, menstrual health, and ICT). All in all, we have visited and developed an intimate understanding of over 200 of the world’s most impactful models from a database of over 2,300 projects identified with the help of sector experts. This research has been complemented by over one hundred hands-on consulting engagements with social enterprises and corporations.
Despite differences in sectors and geographies, these impactful models shared a set of common traits that we have assembled in the framework Impact Business Unicorns (IBU). Impact because this is the relevant yardstick, Business because we are focusing on models that aim at being financially sustainable, and Unicorns because we need models that can be scaled fast.
This white paper discusses the six IBU concepts with practical tips, examples and actionable next steps:
The Whole Solution: Achieving 100% of the benefits for 100% of your customers, 100% of the time
Nothing But The Solution: Designing the right products for the right clients
For All Stakeholders: Generating additional revenues from stakeholders beyond your direct client base
Leverage Unlimited Resources: Unlocking growth by identifying and mobilizing available tangible or intangible assets
Maximize Productivity of Critical Resources: Unlocking growth by optimizing the use of the most expensive / value-adding resources
Ignite Exponential Growth: Bringing your solution to scale by leveraging network effects
In addition, two articles on toolkits complete this series:
Impact Leakage Analysis: Understanding where ‘leakage’ occurs between your total target population and your number of regular users/ buyers
Value Equation: Assessing whether your business is generating sufficient value for your clients
This is not a prescriptive, deterministic framework, and we certainly don’t pretend to have the recipe to success. Rather, think of this as a series of good questions, provocations and inspiring examples to help you systematically explore opportunities to strengthen your business model.
