I want to build a kind company.
An honest company.
A HAPPY company.
A company with a purpose. One that reflects the products it’s selling: packed with goodness, kindness, honesty, fun and passion.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s business. I don’t mean to sound naïve or hippie or fluffy in any way. I mean a humble company, but with a hint of Kanye. Working for multinationals for over a decade and coming from a family of entrepreneurs, I experienced the business life quite vividly. These experiences helped me a lot but also made me realize something: I will not settle for less on the values-front. Let me explain.
I had to summarize my business plan this week for investment pitches and I realised the section of “values, mission & vison” is still 4 pages… There was no way I could “kill my darlings” and narrow that section down. It just matters too much to me. So I thought was worth a blog post at least.
I honestly believe that when you carry out the right values and vision for your company, the right people will get involved. It is with great care I am building a new “food network” around me and I must say that everyone involved in Happy Bags up to now, makes this work a joy and nothing but a joy. Even my accountant is a sparkly, young mind with great insights and right values. I’m moving on to the phase of investment partners now and here too, I don’t just want to “follow the money”, it’s a tempting path, but it has never proven to be the right one in my life so far. The vision and values of potential partners will be crucial for a successful collaboration. It works both ways. It needs to fit.
I often hear people around me say “oh well, it’s always something, no working place is ideal”. And I agreed so far. You settle for whatever makes your world work, and we all need to pay the bills. And a Pinterest-life is not real. I know that. Believe me. And that’s fine, I’ve done it for many years and I loved each job I did for 90% of the time. I was lucky enough to turn my passion for music and marketing into a job, that helped. But now I’ve decided to go for that other passion and build my own products and company, I want to go for the 100% and believe that this exists. I start from scratch. Why not believe in a working place where you feel good all of the time. Where work-life balance is not something fashionable to talk about, but is put into action. I sure know why I’m going this extra mile. It always comes down to you and yours. And that’s just right. A company should embrace and enhance that. It’s karma. It comes righ back at them and will sustain and help achieve the goals. Happy people at home. I’m sure that’s great for business.
Check out this Ted Conference about achieving goals through focussing on your behaviour, rather than on the goals, it’s inspiring:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2PP3p4_4R8
And don’t get me wrong again, I’ve spent the last few weeks wrapping my head around finances for this precious company and I wasn’t exactly having the time of my life while doing that. It truly is impossible to spend 24/7 doing only what you love and making money somehow. But it’s not impossible to feel good within a company for 100%. The values and vision just have to match yours. So I’m glad I spent some pages and a lot of thinking on that in my plan, because I truly believe it’s the key to success. Because it’s the key to happiness. By focussing on the behaviour of the people of the company, you achieve the goals. It doesn’t put the goals before the values. It makes sure people want to achieve the goals together with you. It’s as simple as that. My 2-year old knows it already. She watches Dora. We watch Dora. We love Dora. She should come work at Happy Bags now I’ve come to think about it. Samen sterk 🙂
It all comes down to having a nice journey in which you get to do beautiful things that might change the world for the better.
The #happybagsjourney needs to be worth wile the destination, right?
And hey, I don’t know if I’ll ever have a business partner or a staff member or a board member or any kind of co-worker…this might all be in vain, because we need the kick ass product first of course!
But business plans force you to think ahead and draw that perfect company right before your eyes. And when I close mine, I see probably the best company in the world. I see one asking for values before skills. Because matching values attract matching skills. People with the same values will go that extra mile for the company and vice versa. Oh well, I could go on for ages about this.
And then the alarm clock goes off 😉
On to a meeting with the testing lab today for a debrief on the first Happy Bags tests we had in February and a discussion of the further tests, hopefully happening soon!
Keeping you posted, as always.
Let me know what values you value in a company, I’m curiouse! Do you agree with me on this topic?
Love,
Isabelle