#58 Unconventionalist Abb-d Taiyo: Empowering Change, Sustainability, and Purpose in the Digital Realm

Hey, so K, welcome back to the latest episode of the Be Better podcast. And with me today I have got Abdi from Drift Time all the way over in the. The motherland, I suppose for me the the uk. Abdi, how's it going?

Good, thanks. Thanks for having me.

Pleasure, mate. Pleasure, mate. So for people who've not heard of you or Drift Time and based on some conversations we were having in the green room just beforehand, you know, the sort of high level clients that you've just started working with, I'd be surprised if people don't know who you are, quite frankly. But yeah, for those living under a rock, who are you?

Yeah, so I'm Abdi Taya. I'm the co founder of Drift Time, which is a design and impact agency and I guess I'm a curious mind exploring the messy middle of progress.

I like it because progress does seem to be quite messy, doesn't it? I think when you, yeah, when you look retrospectively it seems really obvious and yeah, they just went from here to there, but it feels like it's more.

It'S never, it's never that.

More around the houses. Yeah, yeah. It's chaos. Yeah, yeah. So sort of design and impact, how does that mold together what is like a typical project or thing that you guys are up to at Drift Time look like?

Okay, so a typical project I guess would be to empower some form of movement or initiative or digital capability towards impact. So I guess the best way to kind of explain it is to give you an example. So we work with one of our long standing clients, only one, they work in the ocean conservation space. We've been working with them for three years now, coming up to four. And what we do with them is help work with their team, their sort of internal design teams and so forth and design develop a transparent platform that allows people to take direct action, transparent action towards the climate crisis.

Nice. So super cool. And has Drift Time always been doing that kind of work? Was that what it was?

Yeah, since we started. Absolutely. Yeah, since we started 2016, you know, we kind of always were, I guess to some extent purpose driven. I really don't like the term now, but it feels slightly overused.

But.

But no, absolutely. I think back then there was a lot of, there was a lack of understanding in terms of what that fully meant. Certainly now like after seven, eight years of running, we have a better sense of what that is and certainly more process behind it. But back then it was kind of like we want to be purpose driven and kind of back then it was more centered around kind of gut feeling, you know, like, do they feel genuine? Are the intentions real? And that's kind of how it started. But yeah, over time we kind of formalized that a lot more.

Yeah. So do you get into sort of impact measurement and reporting as well as the sort of. The design and the. So fully into all.

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. Both from an internal perspective. Us as a business, you know, we do our own impact reporting and then for projects that we work on, we tend to do like a sort of a year post the project being launched, we tend to do like.

A sort of series of calls and conversations to kind of identify what that impact was.

Nice. So a lot more than just here's a glossy brand and logo and maybe some digital assets. It's like you're really into it, which is really cool because there's. Yeah, there's a couple of design agencies we've spoken to recently, one based over here in New Zealand and, and they're very similar mindset and it's, it's interesting that I guess, you know what people who are. Well, if I have regular listeners, I think there's a few people. One of my mates, Hayden, the other night was saying, oh, I listen to your podcast. I had no idea. So shout out to Hayden. I think, you know, there's a. There's a fairly common held conception that marketing is generally smoke and mirrors. We're trying to make you buy something that you don't necessarily need and even some of the better marketing agencies who are around business for good, there's still an element of. Yeah, but we're still just trying to make you buy something. So it is quite interesting that marketing or design creativity and, and reporting, impact measurement, because they're kind of quite. Is sort of ying and yang really, isn't it? One, one in general, design and marketing and influence has been seen as more of an emotional. Well, for me it's like more of an emotional landscape. But you're underpinning that with. No, actually we don't, you know, we're not going to go in that direction because it's not going to make the impact or we're going to test this theory. Yes. Is that. How does that sit with you? Is that. Has that always been how your brain has kind of worked or is that just how you bought the company together with your co founders?

No, I mean, to be honest, no. Like coming from like traditional agency background, you know, the, I think the metrics of success were what the conventional, you know, expectations were. Like, it was. It was the glossy design that you did and how good it looked.

Right.

And I think it's only like, after a certain amount of time and kind of being a little bit more exposed to it and understanding what some of the challenges and issues that we face are, you start to realize how frivolous all of it is, you know, And I think I kind of learned that in my. In my career as I was going through kind of creative agencies and so forth, and up until the point where we kind of set up our own. So now it's a really thing. It's a contradictory thing for a designer to say. I care less about what it looks like and more about what it does.

Like, in terms of impact. So definitely something that we've had to kind of feel our way through. And, you know, for most people that are, you know, curious about it and exploring it, it's still relatively uncharted territory. People still don't fully know how to measure impact. And so, you know, people are still figuring out, I would say, like, regardless of the type of agency you are, whether that be marketing design or something else. Right. So I think people, you know, it's natural for us as humans to kind of fall back to what feels comfortable and conventional. But then this idea of trying to figure it out and certainly something that we're trying to do and not perfect at it at all, like, it's something we're continually trying to sharpen. It's scary because you don't know how to fully do it. And at the same time, you have to be willing to open the doors for scrutiny because it's not for us to say whether that's had the impact it's had, because we can, in theory, say whatever we want, you know, so it's. It's kind of. It's kind of inviting it. Making it invitational, I think is kind of the key to it. It's putting out there in terms of your interpretation and the work that you did and the subsequent knock on effect and impact it's had. But then being able to open the door and allow people to come in, inviting them in and saying, tell me how we could do this better if we could.

Not 100%. I think you've. You've nailed the whole business for good. Impact. Purpose driven. Yeah. However it's being currently labeled, it's do the best that you think you can do, but be transparent and open to criticism. And, hey, guys, you just. You didn't think about this or, hey, hang on. Actually, over here, you. You've had a downstream Effect. But okay, we had no idea that you kind of even existed. So thanks for letting us know. We're really sorry. We'll stop. Yeah, and I think this whole messy nature of we're all kind of trying to explore and work out what, you know, I guess there's arguments that back in the day, even, I guess some of your predecessors in, in the design world that kind of the guilds, the, you know, the master craftsman back in the days where they did have some rules and regulations around performance and impact and you know, you have to meet a certain standard to be in business. And there was more of that artisan feel around what I'm providing to, to a client.

It's still quite messy and unexplored at the minute in terms of business for good at scale with the level of connectivity we've got in the modern world. So no one's got the answers. And I think for me that's what, that's what's kind of exciting about it because it is, it is a case of, hey, we're all in this together. We're all trying to do the best that we can and we're all trying to learn and share that knowledge. So. No, I think you've nailed that on the head. So. Yeah. So young Abdi growing up was, was he always going to start a B corp? Um, what, what was, what was growing up for Abdi like? Like? Have you always been a purpose driven kind of person?

Yeah, I mean, I guess so. I, you know, I, I can't really say whether it was top of my mind. I, I feel like I've always, I guess in some ways been the good guy. I don't know. Like I. This, you know, I don't think it's as black and white as that, but yeah, I certainly feel like I wanted to do something that, you know, like one of my favorite quotes and I've, you know, I'm certainly not aware of this when I was a kid, but one of my favorite quotes is by a philosop horror, Horace Mann, which is be ashamed to die before you win some victory for humanity.

Oh, that's good.

And, but there's, you know, there's, there's, there's some room for interpretation there because you could say that humanity is the, the cause of all this nonsense that's happening. So. But you know, the, the kind of point I guess for me was to always feel like I'm contributing in some way or another, you know. And you know, growing up, I may not have been aware of it. I Kind of felt like I was heading in that direction, but didn't really know how to articulate it or explore it in some. So for me, all I knew is to play to my strengths, which is to be creative at that time. So I'm completely self taught, I don't have a degree. I kind of went down a very unconventional route of getting to where I am. And a lot of that included, you know, tons of blood, sweat and tears. Basically lots of figuring out. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, and again, that kind of led me to where I am in a sense that, you know, I've got. I worked very hard to get to where I was in terms of the agency world, but then kind of hit a wall and felt like, you know, is this, is this, is this, is this everything it's supposed to be? And for someone who had spent their whole life trying to work towards it, you know, and get to that point and it was, it was trickier for me because I come from a sort of mixed heritage background. So at the time of me trying to figure out specifically with no degree, it was very difficult to get any form of opportunity. So I had to go through this whole process of creating my own luck and, and so to kind of go through that and hit this point where I'm just like, is this it? You know, it just didn't feel like it was enough. So. So yes, I just, I felt like there was more we could do, like more we could take accountability for, more we can be responsible for. And, and, and that's kind of when we, we started drift time.

Yeah. So you, you were traditional, so you spent a good part of your career like traditional agency set up doing creative work, is that right?

Yeah, to a degree, yeah. So I, as I say, like, you know, learned the hard way in just kind of picking, picking tools up and learning it myself. Couldn't really get many opportunities. I applied to a lot when I was much younger, beginning of my career. Like I tried to find that mentor, I tried to find that team that could teach me those things, but no one was interested.

And so basically just did my own thing for a very long time. And at the same time I was doing a lot of music. So my avenue, my approach was to kind of do design covers and albums for all my music friends, which is kind of how I taught myself. So going through that, I ended up getting a small job in a recording studio doing their kind of in house design. Then kind of shifted to freelance and kind of doing more things. Got to a point where I just met the right people and luckily enough had an opportunity to kind of work for a team and again learn more. That team got acquired by bigger agency. That agency grew tenfold and is even now growing still and is one of the biggest marketing agencies in the world.

And yeah, and kind of, you know, a series of things fell in place for me to get to where I was. But then obviously, you know, backed by all the hard work and, and everything else as well.

Nice was that. I'm trying to remember the quote. Was it, is it Greg Norman? I think one of the golfers. The, the harder I work, the luckier I got. Or paraphrasing it badly along those lines, isn't it? Yeah, I think that's true. You know, I kind of definitely feel that, you know, we've been going for seven odd years here at Grow Good and you know, for the first few years trying to tell people what BCorp was. It was a desert of B Corp and purpose. People just like don't know. Just doesn't really sound of any interest, mate. Whereas now people are like rigging us going, hey, be.

We know what it is now we're really keen. So yeah, I think I kind of feel every.

Every good story has to have that time in the desert of, you know, wandering a little bit listlessly and aimlessly. Well, not aimlessly but just, you know, I think hopefully the upside is more enriched for, for the fact that you've had to do some hard yards or if you'd just been given, given it on day one. Yeah. Perhaps wouldn't have been so rewarding. So any bands that we would know.

That'S, well, that's the, that's a messy middle. Right? Yeah, yeah, but, or bands that, you know, I don't know, like you could.

Casually drop like you know, Iron Maiden or, you know.

Well, I didn't in, in terms of ones I designed for. So I, I, well, you know, the music that I was doing, I grew up on 90s hip hop. So a lot of the, my music friends and not the ones that I was doing covers for were all kind of hip hop artists. It was kind of underground MCs and beat producers and so forth. But at the, at the studio I was working at, that was more of an indie rock kind of place. And you know, they, they had all kinds of clients come through. Like one, one of the more notable ones are the Cure, for example.

Oh, wow.

So very, very odd scenarios where you're kind of, you know, standing next to these like hugely famous people.

But yeah, I don't Know, it's. For me particularly, I'm one of these people that don't really get starstruck. I like, for me, I don't know, it doesn't really quite affect me in the same way as it might do others. So they just. They just seem like normal people, you know, and they usually are, like, generally speaking.

Yeah. So.

Yeah.

Well, I guess it had to be. They had to be nice to you because you could ruin their artwork or make it look, you know.

I'm sure that wouldn't be the case. Yeah.

But that's quite super cool. I'm kind of the same. Yeah. Like famous people. It's like you still go to the bathroom and you still have probably just as many neurotic episodes during the day as you or I do. It's like you're just human. You're doing your work on a different level. And yeah, there's. Sure there's some. I guess there's special things about some famous people, but a lot of them are pretty down to earth people. Yeah, I guess it's. You can let it. Let it go to your head, I suppose. That's super cool. So. So, yeah. Musician or doing the design in the music industry into the agency. So like I said, agency was kind of. You kind of thought maybe the street was going to be paved with gold. This was going to be it. Like, it's going to be amazing. All of a sudden, I'm hitting the big time. I guess what we'd see in the movies or the TV screen, you know, like big parties, lots of fun times, good money, hanging out, doing cool projects. Was that kind of the life that you were living, or is it not as exciting as they make out in the TV and movies, as is often?

No.

Yeah.

No, not at all. I mean, that was.

That was.

That was. To be honest, that was never really on my radar. It wasn't. It wasn't really about the parties or anything like that. I could care less about that kind of stuff. It's. I think for me it was just more about, like, being able to do good work for good people. And when I was younger, I guess there was probably a slight confusion in that, in what success looked like. And I think for me at the time, success was at least because based. Based on. Based on my understanding of the design industry was it was around the clients you work for and the kind of, you know, the fun projects like being able to work for Nike and whatever else as well and do these, like, great things that won awards, you know, that was kind of what I thought it would be.

But then obviously going into agency world, you know, you kind of realize it's full of compromise. Like you're having to do all kinds of things to meet timelines, to meet budgets, to, like, you know, And I think at the time as well, particularly working for a company that design wasn't the. The forefront of what it is that they did. Design in itself was always considered a bit of a sideshow act, you know, and the value and importance of it, it was just kind of completely undermined. And everything, everything we tried to do to try and elevate that, we were always cutting the knees, you know, so. So for me, it just felt like, you know, we're not being able to, like, fully, like, utilize ourselves or really kind of exercise this idea of, like, challenging things and designing some really great, great results.

And so for me, it just felt like it was just constantly hindered, like it didn't really have the limelight it needed, and everything around us is designed, so it just didn't seem like it was valued enough.

Yeah. And was that the clients sort of saying, hey, no, that's a bit too much for us, or was that other colleagues internally sort of saying, oh, no, we can't present that to Nike because they're not going to go, or was it a bit of a mixture?

I think it was a combination of things, but I think also it's very largely like ourselves not being able to articulate it very well. So I think there's, you know, there's a. I don't, you know, I'm not, I'm not pointing fingers and saying it's someone else's fault. Like, we, we need to do better in kind of outlining that value and expressing that value and showing that value. So I think that was, again, you know, being younger and having no clue about this stuff, like you, you just go through and you think, oh, man, this is like, you know, it's not as great as I thought it would be and doing this work, but it's always constantly compromised and, you know, it's not, it's not what I wanted it to be. Whereas now there's a. There's a bit more understanding around it and, you know, certainly can do a better job in articulating the value of that. And I think that's, you know, it's, it's, it's combination of those things, but then also you being able to kind of identify those things and expressing the importance of it.

Do you think that's also partly a manifestation of now it's your company. Are you more, you know, you can bring you 100% to the company because you, you kind of, you know, when you founded the company, like, you know, it's, it's you. I, I definitely found that when I started my business I, I'd already had a moment of sort of transformation going on a bit of a purpose journey to, to get out of what I'd previously been doing to get into this whole business for good kind of world and starting my own business. It's, it was refreshing because it's, you know, it's me, the business is me. So I can bring me to the business and I don't have to compromise. There's no one telling me no, you, you can't do that. I mean obviously sometimes being to, to you, if people aren't ready for it, then there's an element of compromise to sort of bring people on a journey maybe. But yeah. Did you, did you find that sort of sense of relief and was that you know, the catalyst to starting something for yourself?

I guess so, to a degree.

Like, I think.

If I'm brutally honest, I think I do struggle with like kind of authority type figures telling me what to do. And I think the reason for that is because, because I'm completely self made to an extent and I've always had to rely on myself. You know, I think because of that I, I struggle because I constantly want to challenge like not, not in a bad way but like I'm constantly trying to seek better. Right. So.

One of the things I really hate is just convention. Like I really want to find unconventional ways of doing things because I truly believe that that's where progress happens. It's doing the things that are risky and a little bit messy and scary most times. But you know, in there you find some learnings or some way moving forward.

But saying that it's not about me, it's not about us as drift time, it's not about the team, it's about the thing we're trying to achieve. And I think that's the, that's the, that's where the emphasis needs to be. So again it's the idea of like it doesn't matter, like I'm my, I'm being completely objective when it comes to a particular thing given any given project, for example. Because the whole point of this is to work collaboratively, to work towards this greater goal of achieving impact. So it's always about that North Star. And so ego is just removed. It's taken out of it between everyone and because we're all trying to work towards the same thing. So it's really this idea, like, we have this philosophy through our approach and through our design, which is to assume we're wrong until we prove something right. And it tends to open up the doors for a lot more conversations, a lot more ideas and things to try out. And the challenge of all of that is really just to kind of mitigate risk. It's really kind of speaking with our client partners, communicating with them, being transparent and say, here's some kind of ways that we could potentially approach this. There's obviously degrees of risk involved and really just trying to find that middle ground of where they feel comfortable, because it's a shared risk. You know, we have things at stake and they have things at stake, and we are all one team trying to. Trying to create this impact. So, yeah, less about us, more about how we can empower them and the great things that they're doing and how we can achieve that impact.

Nice. Yeah. There's a phrase that I really love. It's called constructive discontent. So it's. It's not being contrary for the sake. For the sake of being contrary. It's just recognizing that what you've got could be better and constructively pulling that apart and just saying this. This should be better, and it could be better. And I'm willing to spotlight that and. And have a go with that rather than just, yeah, saying I don't like it. And that's, you know, that's it. And there's no. No other reason. So. Yeah, I think we're quite aligned in that. In terms of my personality types, I've always been quite a contrarian, you know, when it comes to anything. Yeah. You know, just like, yeah, car that I might drive or, you know, products that I might buy. I'll always try and find the niche, one that no one's heard about because I guess I want to support the. The smaller underdog. And it. It just have that differentiation rather than. Well, everyone else has got one of those. Yeah, it's. It's kind of interesting how people do that.

Yeah. But just to point out also, like, you know, by no means do you get it right every single time, like, because I don't want to. I don't want it to sound arrogant, but, like, you know, it's. It's just. It's just being able to try things, you know, and it will fail way more. Way more than it does succeed. So the point is to try and find those kind of incremental, kind of Things that you could maybe say, okay, this. This might be better. This could. This could be the way to move forward, you know, and it's a way of kind of informing your own decision making, I think. So it's just kind of setting up the space and the framework to be able to fail. And it not being devastating, you're able to just pick yourself back up and.

Carry on moving and take those learnings and kind of go, actually, look, that bit did work, but this bit didn't. So. Okay, cool. Let's keep that one maybe for the next time or bear in mind, you know, how and why that one works. Yeah, no, totally. How did drip time come together?

Well, I think it was just, as I say, like, you know, coming from agency backgrounds, it was both my wife and I, who are business partners. We set up the company in 2016, but we both kind of came from agency backgrounds and sort of hit that saturation point around the same time. Like, us both just thinking, you know, like, this isn't enough and we want to do things differently and sort of approach it in a different way, perhaps. So we just. We just kind of took the. Made the decision and took the risk to kind of just set up shop, basically, and then see what happens, you know. And, you know, always felt like, you know, when we started it was like, let's not allow this to come before.

Our relationship, for example, you know, like, if. If this feels like it's going to jeopardize that in any way, then we will basically kind of like, close and do something else, for example. But it's just, you know, everything's just gone kind of very smoothly and very nicely in a way.

So. Nice, I think. Yeah.

From then, as I say, like, you know, back then, there was a lot more kind of ambient around, like, how we would approach it and the type of people that we would work with. But, you know, over time, slowly but surely, you know, we kind of organically grew up. We're still very micro, you know, so not. Not big at all, but like, organically grew and grew at the pace that we felt was right for us rather than growth for growth sake. And, yeah, just kind of felt our way through. Got to a point where we can, you know, really take pride and ownership in terms of what we do.

Nice. So did you have clients to keep you going from sort of day one or. Or did you have enough sort of Runway cash from. From your work to say, right, actually, we've got a bit of time to build this ship and get going?

No, it was. It Was. Yeah, I mean we had maybe three grand in the bank and we luckily did secure a couple clients on day one, like when we, when we decided to open up shop. But you know, we had months of conversation also whilst we were still in our roles to lead up to when it was because, you know, we had to give. Like I had to give at least particularly me because I was relatively senior. Three months notice.

Wow.

So I had enough time to kind of like have this conversation, secure work and, and plan for when that treasure transition would happen. But yeah, it was, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't fun. Like it was really dry and really kind of just boring stuff. But like, you know, it was, you know, it was like our first. Yeah, it was our first few things and you know, again and, and you know there's huge compromise in the first year of business. Like, like you're really trying to kind of navigate and figure it out. And you know, back then also coming from agencies like both, both Saren and I, there was some legal elements where we couldn't take any work that we did. We couldn't show any of that. So. Oh well, starting out. So he's not this idea of. Yeah, exactly. Couldn't even do that. So it was really just this case of like having these conversations where we just talk about our experience and give them a promise. And that was kind of really it. And so all we had was this.

Like four paragraph manifesto which is all we want to look at this type of person. We don't want to work with this type of person. We believe in this and believe in that and really kind of just putting our values down in like a four paragraph written piece.

Giving them that and then giving them a promise saying, we can help you, we can deliver this. We have a good history and design. That's kind of it.

I sort of have pictures of you meeting with a potential client underneath a big billboard and going if you look around you, you might see some imagery that I might have been involved with. But I.

Yeah.

Or try to draw it. Like draw a logo badly. Just sort of imagine this one but with, with a different veil in it. And you might be getting close to something that I've done.

Yeah, no, the, the, the only thing we, the only thing we could have done was name drop. And that was kind of really. And that certainly I think helped. That always helps with the conversation, like depending on who you speak to obviously. But yeah, yeah, that was, that was helpful.

And so B Corp. So was. Had you heard of B Corp before you started Drift.

No, I think B Corp was on our radar, 2019, like, first. So when we set up, we, you know, again, as I say, we didn't really know much about what being purpose driven meant.

But I think it was 2019, when we really started to kind of expand our network a little bit more and meet new people was when we kind of heard about it and we were like, oh, this is something we should probably do.

And then. And I think 2019 is kind of when we started very casually kind of going through the process, but like really casually, like really ambiently between projects and things. So it was, you know, very little to any effort. Kind of really pushing for it at that time.

Yeah, I think that that's a lot of people. A lot of people who we work with, they bump into it, they have a play with it. And then, you know, particularly when you're in a startup environment and you guys had. You got kids, you know, you have got kids.

No, this is up. Well, we're expecting our first.

That was. Right. Yes, I was your first. Right. So when you did the startup, you didn't have any kids to, to sort of, you know, be the focus of attention. So that's, that's not so bad. But yeah, quite often a lot of, you know, startup couples or companies, like, they've got a lot on their plate and you get. And I was the same, you know, I mean, I certified in 2016, but it took me about eight months because I'd get to the end of the week. You've had a massive week trying to keep the business going. And you kind of go, yeah, I could look at this assessment tool online or I could have a beer down the pub. Yeah, I'm going to go for a beer. So, yeah, it's quite easy to sort of kick kick the B Corp can down the road when you've got a thousand other priorities in your business. So what was it then that made you sort of go, actually, you know what, we need to do this?

Well, I think, I mean, so we ended up getting our accreditation in 2021.

Yeah.

So two years after we really started thinking about it. But I think it got to a point in 2021 where we're like. And it was time to kind of, you know, increase in popularity. More people were doing it.

And it just felt like at that time it was like, okay, I'm sick of talking about this. Like, let's just get it done now. And I think that's when the real kind of effort went in. So I think I spent like Two weeks properly going through the application, then bringing on board.

A bee leader, Phil Clark in Cornwall. Shout out to Phil. He's. He's on our board as well. But he kind of started helping us through the process as well.

Yeah.

And, yeah, and then we just submitted and then it was just, you know, the whole waiting game of, of waiting for the analyst and then going through the evidence and everything and that was that, you know, we kind of got the accreditation. But yeah, it just, it just took, I think, you know, because for the longest time it was just Sara and I, so we were constantly juggling client work and things that we were wanting to do internally. We were going through some other stuff ourselves in the sense that around that time, the reason why it took two years is because when we set up the company, we set up as a different name. We were called Curate Labs. And then we kind of shifted our name, changed the business name and everything. But we were going through a bit of a transition. Where we were, when we started, we were more of a generalist studio because that was kind of our background. That's what we knew. You know, we kind of did all things branding, packaging, digital, you know.

And I think we started going through that process as we were becoming drift time to kind of niche down and really take ownership of the thing that we knew we could do really well.

Because this idea of impact, you know, you can't do all things and realistically achieve impact, I don't feel. So you really need to kind of take ownership of the thing that, you know, you can control as much as you can in order to facilitate that impact. So, yeah, so for us it was a very important transition. And as we were going through that name change and niching down, we also kind of followed through on everything. B Corp said that it could, I guess, further.

Empower that notion and that idea.

So being a startup, many of the startups that we help will use the B Corp framework to kind of build the business around in terms of policies, procedures, ideas. Is that true for you?

Absolutely, yeah. Like it was, it was really interesting because it. Yeah, I mean, it's like I always, every time I talk about it and talk about people that are potentially going through the process, I say similar thing, like, just start going through it because it's like holding a mirror up against yourself and you will see things that you, you know, you really appreciate, but then you also see things that you never knew were there, you know. And so for us, yeah, it really kind of started highlighting things that we needed in place. It chat it like, you know, really celebrated stuff that we already doing, which was great, but one of the main things was it was stuff that we were already doing but never had formalized. You know, like we didn't have that habit or that process of getting it on paper and continually having it in place, you know, so we can actually evidence it. And so we were doing that stuff in theory. We were actually doing the impact measurement, but we weren't recording them, we weren't kind of logging them. We weren't doing anything to actually get it down on paper. And so it really helped us instill that. Just kind of think about, like, what do we need in place? How do we evidence this properly and how do we get it on paper so that we have something tangible to show.

Yeah, 100%. And that's the feedback we get from every client. That's exactly that. And I guess, yes, typically bigger companies might have got more of that rigor and documentation and process, but it might not be aligned to B Corp. Whereas, yes, smaller companies are kind of like, we're going to have to have a policy for that. We just do it. It's like, yeah, yeah, not, not going to cut mustard one client. We've also worked with Genora. They, they said a big thing for them as they were scaling was for Monique and Colleen. So Monique was the founder and Colleen the chief operating officer. That they knew that they had all this information in their head and they just presumed that the staff knew it all. But it was actually kind of going through the B Corp process where they had to put it on paper and tell everyone, hey, did you know that we have a flexi time policy? And the staff were like, no, we had no idea. And they're like, oh, well, we have, it's like now, you know. So, yeah, lots of little learnings through the assessment for sure. What was the hardest part of the assessment for you or the process?

Oh.

Good question.

I think the hardest part perhaps may have been.

Evidencing stuff like, not to say that we didn't have the evidence, like we had all the evidence, but some, I think some aspects were kind of a little bit gray in terms of how we show it.

Yeah.

And if. I think that was a kind of tricky thing because I think there was a bit of back and forth in terms of like, you know, how, how we showed this thing. How do we actually get on paper? So it feels, it doesn't feel like we just put on paper, you know, it feels, it feels like an actual thing. So I think, I think that was the tricky thing. It's like, because we, we had a massive folder full of evidence, you know, ready, ready for the analyst to go through and, and basically scrutinize. And I think there were some things that were just kind of like, like, how do we. Like we didn't even know where to start with it. You know, it was like, how do we even show this? Like, what, what are they looking for? So I think, I think there was some kind of. There was some elements where we had to try and get in touch with B to say, like, like what, what. What would you like to see in.

In the.

Something like this, in this scenario, you know, and that's where we kind of heavily relied on, you know, filter kind of help us with that to help us understand it. So I think maybe that was kind of the initial thing. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know. It's a very tricky one. You know, I would say the whole thing is pretty hard, but like, it's, you know, it's, it's really enlightening. Like, you know, once you get through it, like once you've done it once, it sort of becomes easy. Like, I think now I have a very good understanding of the whole process, you know, and even though that's all going to change, yeah, it's. There's a lot more understanding around it, you know, so it feels less daunting than it did before.

100. Yeah. Rigorous, but achievable is how we like to describe it. But yeah, it's like anything. If you've never done it before, it's. It's going to be harder than, you know, if someone said, hey, design me a brand logo with some packaging and what have you, you'd be able to knock it out, you know, relatively easily and quickly. Whereas for me, I'd be like, yeah, it's going to be stick men, if you're okay with that. Yeah. Anything unexpected that. That popped up throughout the journey to BCorp?

Oh, that's another good question.

Anything unexpected?

I. I wouldn't say no. I think.

Like, luckily we had a good.

Network of people that had, that had got the accreditation before us, so we were able to pick a few brains to kind of get a sense of it. And obviously, you know, having. Having Phil help us through the process, you know, there was a huge amount of insight there that we leaned on.

So I felt like we went through and we got some expectations. We had our expectations set, you know, like, in the sense of that, like.

And I think, yeah, just. I think, in fact, you Know, then I think, because we were still pretty small then and very careful about our spend. You know, I think. I think the one thing that was not a huge surprise, but a bit of a. Bit of a surprise was the, the cost of the legalities. Right. Not just the accreditation, but also like changing articles and everything as well. You know, that those are all additional fees that we hadn't considered.

Yep.

Super glad we did those things and we got the right people who are another B Corp Wells who super great team and helped us through the whole process and worth every single penny, but just, but just things that we never accounted for really. And even, you know, it's like a couple grand even. It's not even that much, but like for a small business that was kind of just an unexpected cost, you know.

It all adds up. Yep.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, you know, not a huge thing. We have the capital for it and we were able to kind of, you know, invest in that, so. And you know, by all means, like something that we wanted to see through so fully justified.

Yeah. Nice. And have you found clients approaching you specifically because you're a B corp, or have you had potential staff or people reach out to you looking to work for you because of B Corp at all?

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, the clients bit is a tricky one, but I can say with near certainty that yes, that's happened. Like, you know, we do get approached not just because we're B Corp, but, you know, again, a combination of things, like because of our work, because of our track record, because of the stuff that we've done. Plus being a B corp is always a. Is always a nice additional thing.

And, and 100 with staff, like, you know, every time we put a job ad out and, and all the things that are kind of entailed with the business, like, you know, not just the perks, but our own philosophy around, you know, autonomy and so forth. You know, all of that stuff is.

Help, helps empower us in a way and certainly brings in like talent, I would say, compared to when we weren't, for example.

Yeah.

So, yeah, 100%. It's one of those weird kind of ambient measures like, you know, it's doing something, but you can't put an actual metric on it.

If you had to sort of say, yeah, it was X percent, whatever. Yeah, that's. That's fair enough. Yeah, that definitely echoes what we're. We're hearing and seeing, you know, over here. And the stats, you know, globally say that clients and employees are looking for companies that have the complete package and like you say, the B Corp, I think is a real, a real way of partly proving that you're doing what you say you're doing. And I think also for that client side of things, I think now we're getting to that critical mass of B Corps globally where it might be initially that the B Corps is the initial screen. It's like, okay, these guys are a B corp. Cool, right? They're on, they're on the list. Now we're going to have a chat to them and say, right, okay, now, now do we want to work with you compared to the other three that, that we found?

Yeah, yeah. I mean our approach is that the reason we did B Corp was for ourselves and not for anyone else really. Like. So, you know, I mean, it's totally fine if it, if it helps with that, but for us it was really just to kind of understand how we could benchmark ourselves and, and be better ourselves. Right. So, yeah, so for us, like we, it's, you know, we obviously do talk about B Corp a lot and very clearly highlight that we are a B Corp, but we never use that as the driver for the conversation. It's always, it's always a supportive thing. And like I said before, it's. For us, being a B Corp.

Is a.

Sorry, I'm losing my words here. It's an opportunity to lead by example. Like, that's kind of the way we see it. But the work we do is center around that impact. So it's about the goals, it's the thing that we're wanting to achieve. Like, so that is the thing that tends to lead the conversation. And B Corp is kind of more of a supportive thing based on our values.

Yeah. Foundation to sort of. Yeah, it's all built on or. Yeah, retrospectively so. Built on. Yeah. No 100% makes sense. And so what, what does being a B Corp mean to you as an individual?

Probably what I just said. So it's that, it's that opportunity to leave my example. You know, it's really. Yeah, it's really just that it's like, you know, I just see it as a way, like I think when a few years ago when this idea of being a purpose driven business started becoming a lot more popular and you know, B Corp certainly was like rising and this is all great stuff but, but for us at that time, it posed a challenge where we started bec part of the saturation, you know, there was a bit of a USP we had prior to this which was, you know, we're a purpose driven Ethical design company. And people found it interesting. They may not have fully understood it, but they found it interesting. And it was kind of somewhat of a usp. So at that time it was like, we can't use this as a USP anymore. Everyone's kind of saying it, you know, so like we need to better articulate ourselves and identify what it is that we do.

And so, yeah, so there was this period where, you know, all the, all the buzzwords today, sustainability, you know, whatever, like everyone was starting to use it and we sort of got to this point where we were slowly getting sick of it, you know, and we were like, how do we say what it is we need to say but then not say it?

Yeah.

And so we kind of went through this process of basically just showing it through our actions and saying nothing about it. So not even using any buzzwords, but just backing it up with the things that we did. And, and B Corp was one of those things that helped us kind of do that. 1% for the planet members helped us do that. You know, so there's, there's a series of things that we started doing to just show that we were purpose driven rather than to say just talking about it.

Yeah, no, that's makes, yeah, 100%. Yeah, no, totally agree. So being a company that is genuinely purpose driven, how do you balance the whole purpose and profit thing? So a client, you're looking at the future bookings, you're like, oh, we really do need to get a client booked in for say August. And a company comes along that doesn't align with your values, how do you navigate that?

Personally, but also I guess as a team, is that, is that something that you have happen or is there enough of a market now for, with aligned businesses where you're not having to have consideration around. Look, do we take the money or do we consider the bigger purpose here?

Yeah, so I mean it probably happened a few times in the past, but doesn't happen so much now. Like I'm surprisingly probably have this conversation a lot around purpose versus profit because I feel like.

Specifically now it's a bit of a myth. Like it's not true. Like you can find purpose driven brands that are also businesses, you know, that does exist. And so this whole idea of having to compromise purpose for profit is like, I don't, I don't feel it's a valid argument anymore. Like it feels outdated certainly in the past and there has been a couple times where people have come through our doors to say, hey, you know, could you do this for us? We have good budget and thankfully we've said no to a lot of them, like, because we haven't needed it. We've been in a good enough position to not have to need it, but more importantly not to compromise on our values because what's the point in doing it? Like, we've said this so many times where if we're going to do this, we might as well have just stayed in our agency roles. Like, what makes us any different?

So we've been very stern about that and we've said no to a lot of people, like, regardless of their budgets, because it doesn't feel like a good fit. As we, as the years went by, we better articulated ourselves. We very clearly stated, like, who we work with, the type of work we do, the type of results that we get, and now we don't get that person anymore. They didn't come through the door at all because it's very clear on our website that we are not good fit. You know, and typically people that approach it in that way are usually just looking for hands for hire. And we are not that. We come in as a partner. Like, we come to actually bring value to this and to challenge you, not just to do what you say. And so now most people that come through the door always feel like a really good fit because we're very forefront with our communications, our wording, our articulation in terms of what it is that we do. And so it makes it a much more rich conversation because then we can talk about what we're trying to achieve, you know, and talk about the impact and how design can empower that and sort of help them on that journey to achieve that in a greater deal. And so now, like, yeah, it's, it's, we're in a very lucky position and, well, I say fortunate position to.

Have these really good conversations and great people come through our doors and not have to worry about people that feel like they compromise our values because everybody that comes through feels like it fits that nice.

We've, you've obviously clearly got some good marketing brains in the company to create your own marketing that is filtering out companies that you don't want to deal with. So. Proof.

Proof, to be honest. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't even say it's marketing really, like, and again, it is very much a team effort. But like, you know, we, we, we abandoned things like social media in 2020. Like, we just completely got rid of it because we're just like, this is nonsense. It's like fluff. Like, we don't need that doesn't need to be another creative agency on Instagram putting up posts of their work for the sake of likes. Like that doesn't do anything for us. It's a waste of time and effort and it is very much a job, you know, for someone to like have to manage that. And so you know, I think at that time we were just like, let's just, let's just reallocate all that resource and put it towards something that feels valuable, like valuable output. And so we put a lot more effort in just thought leadership, you know, like just writing things not to self serve but to help others. You know, like our own philosophies, the way we've approached things, moments of friction that we've, we've found some great learnings from that we want to kind of share with others because it's a, it's a common thing that happens. And I think that's kind of when it kind of shifted from this idea of like marketing to just like having valuable output.

Nice. And presumably you get good referrals, people, you're doing great work, it's impactful. You're building up that network of people as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Luckily you know, we like love every single one of our clients, everyone we work with, like honestly like every single project like I have huge amounts of pride for and like they're all doing such amazing things and like, and again our role is just to empower that. You know, it's not about us, it's about how we can help achieve that. Those decrease of impact and, and, and you know, for us it's very much this idea of retention rather than new business. You know, I hate this idea of new business because it's, it's. Yeah, I don't know, it just feels like it's certainly a thing that still needs to happen like so we still do that but our focus is very much retention. It's, it's supporting those ideas and those client partners as much as we can on their journey up until the point where they're sustainable. They don't need us because we certainly don't want to make, make us a dependency. So yeah, you know, it is very much that. It's, we are in the service industry and we need to service.

Nice. You're taking, taking that literally. Which is good because yeah, it feels like there's a few, historically a few service companies who do want to create that co dependency and yeah, it doesn't really. We had one client and they sort of said we just really liked how you work with us, because you kind of just came in, did the B Corp stuff and. And did what you said you're going to do. And she said, I've literally got two consultants in my office that I can see from my desk. I don't know who they are and I don't know why they're here, but I know we're paying them.

I don't ever want to be that guy. It's.

That's.

It's not good for anyone. Yeah. And so how big is your team now?

So we're eight people at the moment and then four advisory board members.

Nice. So nice. Nice little size. And planning to keep it around that size or looking to scale, at least for now.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's a. There's a delicate balance between, like, the team is micro enough at the moment, where we're sort of at that golden space of being able to read each other's minds and know what everyone's doing. And again, because everybody has, like, we operate on a very high trust model and everyone has full autonomy in terms of the hours and stuff, so there's a huge level of support and dependency on each other to help, to help each other. I think as soon as you go past, like, the 10:12 mark, like, it starts getting trickier and.

We will probably have to start making compromises if we decided to go down that route. In terms of the structure, everything is relatively flat at the moment, whereas if we start going beyond that number, then hierarchy needs to be introduced. Things like managers and this is everything I hated about the agency life. You know, it's just like the bureaucracy of it. So.

Yeah.

And, you know, for me, I think very. I'm very conscious of this idea of allowing the team to make decisions without depending on us, even as founders, because they shouldn't have to. I shouldn't be bogged down with having to make decisions for other people. I trust them and I want to give them the space, even if they're wrong, to fail and to pick themselves up again and to learn from that. So.

I want to keep at the size, at least for now, because I feel like it's a very good.

Space.

For people to take ownership and to learn throughout that kind of process as well.

Yeah, no, totally. You know, I worked for a company in the. In the world of sort of surveying and engineering for about 18 months, and they had just got to about 70 employees. And talking to one of the founders who was my. He was the director who I reported to. He just kept Saying, man, like, this company had two sort of halcyon days. That was when it was the three of us as co founders working around one of our kitchen tables and we were just knocking out great work and we just knew what was going on. And then he said the next time was when we were at about 10 to 12 and we knew who everyone was and we could trust every said, now we're at 70. He's like, I don't even know who that guy is. It's like, you know, it's like I've got these middle managers and there's just like reports and, you know, we're, we're doing less good work in terms of exciting jobs and we're just having to crank out work to feed this beast. And yeah, I guess it's similar in some ways to sort of big design agencies. They just have this constant fiscal cliff of if we don't get another client booked in in two months, then that whole team has been made redundant. And it's.

Yeah, I mean, that's exactly how it works. You know, the bigger you get, the more responsibilities there are and the, you know, the model of the business has to change because you are feeding that machine. And, you know, even just the way you conduct business will change. Like, the likelihood is when you get to that size, you, you build based on time rather than value. Right? So, and again, I think it's really important, the fact that we work in the impact space, like every. Everybody needs to care about what it is that we're trying to do. Like, we would take the project on otherwise. Like, if it's something that feels like, you know, we don't really care much about this, then we wouldn't take it on because we want. We aren't a good fit. Like, the, the idea is that everybody has to be.

Emotionally invested in it. And I know that's probably a bad thing to say because people will certainly have a split opinion on this, but I feel like, you know, and again, excuse the language, but I feel like people need to give a, you know, particularly when it comes to like, impact and the things that we're trying to achieve, you know, and, and I'd expect that from ourselves and our team, you know, like, they need to care about what this thing is, and if they don't, then we shouldn't be doing this project because we're not going to give it that 110% it deserves.

No, I mean, I totally agree. I guess you can get too emotionally involved, but like you say, if you don't actually care about the work. That was a big part of my getting out of my previous work life was like this. It's kind of just not fun. It. I thought it was meaningful, but actually it's not that meaningful. And there's a whole lot of chicanery and yeah, corruption happening around the industry that.

This, this.

I don't want to be here. And so if you're not wanting to be there and you're not committed to it, you're not going to. It's not good. It's not mentally good for you and you're not going to be performing at your best. So, yeah, I think this whole purpose economy, or, you know, business for good economy, where you get to be you, you get to try and help solve challenges at a, at a higher level that are important to you, seems to be a pretty good sweet spot for humans. That whole sense of contribution and you know exactly what you've articulated, you're using the skills you've got to try and solve problems that you know are chunky and difficult to solve and no one really knows how to solve them. And so you're using all your powers to do something way more meaningful than, hey, Abdi, can you just knock out another piece of branding for this company so they can sell some more stuff like. Yeah, sure, I mean, I could do that. But actually, should we maybe reconsider whether they should even be here as a company? You know, that's probably what I'm actually thinking rather than, yeah, let's just whip out a new logo. Yeah, it's. Yeah. Interesting times to be in business for sure.

So you mentioned earlier the, the B Corp framework is going to be having a bit of an update. It's still at this point of production of this podcast, it's still not exactly clear 100% what they're going to look like, but the general thought seems to be that instead of at the minute where you just need to score 80 out of 200 points, find those points wherever you can, it's going to be possibly 10 sections instead of five and there's going to be some minimum requirements that you have to meet across all 10. So what are your thought? It definitely feels like ratcheting up of the level that you're going to need to meet. Yeah. Thoughts on the new framework or have you, have you had a look at it at all?

No, I mean, you know, very, very surface level and kind of touched on it. But, you know, I. This, this is the messy middle bit. Like, this is. This is where the progress happens. And you know, obviously, you know, B lab and the whole B Corp accreditation has, has been put under scrutiny with you know, things like Brewdog and even Nespresso who are a client of ours. And I could say, you know, again, like they, they are, they are doing their best. Like, but it's hard to deal like with such a mammoth company. Like again, there's so much bureaucracy, so they're having to go through all kinds of hoops. But equally impressive that they've been able to score. So again, probably some scrutiny there, but, but no, I think, you know, again, I think it's all the right stuff. Like again, you have to go, you have to move forward and I think they have to try different ways of doing it so that it feels more, more rigorous, more stable in that sense. So it will be the messy middle. I don't know how that's going to impact others. Like, I like one.

Not concern, but one, one thing for, I know a lot of digital companies like ourselves.

Typically digital design companies score low in the environmental section because a lot, a lot of the points are centered around buildings and owning those buildings. And we don't own those buildings. You know, we tend to work in co working spaces or have home offices or whatever, or you know, rent units or whatever it might be. You know, so it's, you know, historically speaking, there's generally always a low score in that section.

Yeah.

So if the criteria for that section is still based on this idea of owning buildings, which I'm sure it won't be, but if it is, there's a bit of a concern around that, you know, how that's going to impact some of these smaller design companies, you know, because there are certain things that we can really take ownership of and control others we can't, you know, because we're just not in those positions. So my only thing is like, hopefully it doesn't.

Sort of alienate certain types of businesses. Like, like based on size or whatever it might be. You know, like there's still, there's still that kind of fair game of, of being able to kind of get the, get the score you need.

Yep. No, totally. Yeah. And it's, it's the same with all the service companies we help. It's. Your environmental footprint is typically pretty small unless you're flying, you know, domestically to meet with clients that you could have a zoom call with. Yeah. Other than that, it's, it's, it's pretty hard to, to score phenomenally well on the environment stuff. Yeah. Like you say, if you don't Own the building. Increasingly, people trying to have conversations with landlords, but most of them seem to be like, I just don't really care about this form that you need to fill in. And no, I'm not putting solar panels and no, I'm not going to give you a water bill and no, I'm not changing energy provider on your behalf. So see you next year. Yeah, so it is hard.

So the Nespresso one, that's an interesting one. Was there any debate about taking them on as a client or were you got. Was or were you guys.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, you know, we, Yeah, I mean 100%, there's, it comes with a lot of baggage. Right. So we, we definitely were aware of that. So to give you some context, we're working with the sustainability department so that there is, you know, we're working directly with the people that want to see that change happen.

Yeah.

As I say, there's a lot of bureaucracy in that company. So there's, they have bosses and their bosses have bosses and so forth and it goes up quite a fair bit. So there's, there's a lot of.

Conversations that need to happen to kind of get, sign off and approve on, on certain things. But yeah, certainly, like, you know, I, I feel like every company deserves the opportunity to right their wrongs and do better. You know, I don't think it's good enough that we're just gonna, you know, poo, poo them and not work with them because they, you know, at least from my perspective, they are genuinely trying to change, like generally genuinely trying to like make a difference and shift things so that they feel relevant. Because, you know, like any big company, they don't want to be irrelevant. So.

So yeah, so I think they're putting those efforts in, but it's the bureaucracy that's holding them back. Sort of, sort of decision making, like top level decision making that's the tricky part to navigate. And so for them, and particularly with us, and this is a common thing with bigger companies, like smaller companies, one thing we've noticed is small companies are super ambitious. They want to save the world, change the world and do it tomorrow. However, they never have the resource or the budget to do so. Whereas big companies, they do have that resource and that budget. However, they're less ambitious because of so much red tape. And so with these big companies, it tends to be more incremental steps. So with them specifically, we're taking small steps to push them in the right direction and to show them the value not just of design but this idea of bringing purpose and profit together because those things can coexist 100%. And so for them it's this kind of slow burning process of re articulating what success looks like and in some ways tying that to purpose and profit. You know, there are success in multiple fronts and it can be a business as well. And that's how they speak it. It's just understanding with them. In order to get the sign off from the top people, you need to speak in their language and they, they see numbers. So if we can assign impact to numbers and talk about it in a different way. When you talk about things like, you know, rather than like.

Let'S say in retail, it's less about the, the value of a car and it's more about the value of a customer, like the loyalty of that customer, the advocacy of that customer, you know, that goes much further that you'll have long term business from that person than you would an initial car. Right. So it's kind of redefining to them what success would look like tomorrow. And that is centered around customers like communities, like actually working with them, doing like, you know, inviting them in again, like rather than trying to dictate what they are based on audience profiles and so forth. You know, so small steps with them and they seem to be kind of moving in the right direction, which is really good to see. And they're putting a lot of time and effort into it as well. So you know, it's not like they're just kind of taking it on and doing nothing about it.

Yeah, I think I'm in the same camp. I know there was some people in the B Corp community who were like, well if Nespresso is B Corp, I'm done. Like this thing's, you know, clearly not the right certification. But I'm very much in your camp, I think, you know, it took them three years I think to get B Corp. So they've made some big changes and they're not a high score in B Corp. They're an 80 something, 81 or 82 I think. So, you know, they kind of just got over the threshold with three years of transformation already. And I think the big thing as well with the bigger companies like this is I think it's a slow burn right now, but when it goes they have got the resource and clearly the work you're doing is going to be hugely instrumental in speeding up that slow burn to become a quicker burn. And I think when they do see the value of it, it can be quite a quick you know, it can be something like, you know, the new. Because you know that that size of company CEOs come and go pretty. And so all of a sudden you get a new CEO who's got a bold vision, and suddenly it's. It's go time. And all these little projects and little things can suddenly get connected and spread like a wildfire. And the change that an espresso can make, you know, even if they change by 1% over the next year, at scale, that is, you know, that's a massive impact. But that 1% compounds pretty quickly. So. Yeah, I'm, I'm really glad to hear that. You know, and having someone like you in the middle of that is really reassuring, you know, and having spoken to the Nespresso team in New Zealand, I got a real sense of the authenticity behind. Yeah, we're not perfect and we recognize that. But as I say to people like, show me the perfect B Corp. You know, there is no 200 point B corp in the world yet, so no one's nailed B Corp. There is no perfect business with no skeletons in the closet who is making, you know, zero negative impact by their existence so that it doesn't exist. So to shame someone for being slightly less perfect than you seems a little bit. Yeah. Not useful.

Yeah, I mean, you know, again, yeah, we're all heading in the right direction. And, you know, one of the great things about it is, you know, it's even them, like, they can at least be some form of a poster boy for.

Sorry, apologies, there was like some seagulls running on the ceiling.

So you get. When you live on the coast.

So again, it's that opportunity to lead by example.

Right.

Even though they're not perfect and even though there's a lot of things that they need to correct and still work on, you know, the more they do this, the more they are inviting that scrutiny and the more that they actually put these things in place, like leads away for other bigger corporations. And that's. That's a good thing. Like, you want more companies to become B Corp, or at least kind of put themselves under the scrutiny of it. So hopefully they, you know, start to kind of set that path and, and invite those kind of bigger companies to say, okay, maybe we should do this, because there's so much. There are huge amounts of companies that don't do it because they don't want to invite that scrutiny in.

Yeah.

And jeopardize or risk their, you know, public perception in any way. And they're failing to miss the point around Transparency, you know, that's, that's the whole point of this, like it's to be transparent. This is how you win people over. And it's okay to admit those wrongs, you know, to say, okay, we're working on this, like help us get better and invite them in again. Right. So, you know, and again this, this almost every single time will affect their kind of profits. And again, this is where the, the, the metrics of success need to change because that's always a short term thing. It may affect, because they're changing the way they do business, but then over the long term they actually make that back tenfold. And so it's kind of, you know, it's that shift of like short termism to like long term mindsets and helping them understand the value of that, you know, which is, which is always a tricky thing because you know, depending on who those decision makers are and how they, how they conduct that business, you know, we don't know if they're self serving or if they're just there to kind of get that paycheck or whatever it is, you know, so it's, it's a, it's a hugely complex thing, you know, and the good thing is, you know, there are companies such as ourselves who are kind of small micro businesses working with these bigger companies to help meet that ambition to kind of, you know, in some ways challenge them.

Right.

So, and that's happening more so now. Like, you know, bigger companies typically would always hire the biggest agencies, you know, because they had the budget for and they had the reputation. But now they're being a lot more open to it. They're open to kind of bringing in these like smaller kind of teams to help them work through this stuff and to collaboratively work towards this idea of impact again. And so, you know, hopefully there's a, there's a bridge there between, you know, the ambition from smaller companies but then the resource from the larger ones. And somewhere in the middle there is where magic happens, I think.

Yeah, not 100% and yeah, I think it just comes back to this whole messy period that we're in. You know, it's not linear, it's up and down, backwards, sideways, what have you. But the general direction, you know, the general trend is in the right direction.

Yeah. And also I think that that for me is again the positive about having an espresso is it sends a signal to other large companies like this is, it is possible.

But also like you say that that accountability that they're now part of a global community of over 6,000 businesses who are going to really look at them because some of them want them to fail. It's like they don't want them to be a B Corp. And so, you know, they definitely can have their feet held to the fire a little bit. And if there's any transgressions, I would imagine it's going to be picked on pretty quickly. So I think. Yeah. And just the fact now that, I mean, I don't know how many employees they've got globally, but it's. It's going to be a few. You know, there's now thousands of employees around the world who know what this B Corp thing is, and they've now had a level of awareness around, you know, hey, it's not just about. I'm sure there's probably hundreds of people working in the company who just care about making more money for themselves and for the company. And that's cool, you know, you do you. But increasingly just that mindset is being challenged. And I think the more people like yourself, who get, you know, get out of the. Of doing the less meaningful work and transition and prove, actually, you know what, it. It works just as well and I feel better and I'm having a better life. I just think there's more and more people doing this and proving that actually you can have your cake and eat it, so why wouldn't you?

Yeah, yeah. And I think also, you know, that scrutiny can come both externally from either the B Corp community or wider community and, and also internally into people. Like, there's. Now, you're not setting that benchmark, you're setting that standard. And, you know, hopefully employees within Nespresso can start to challenge that as well if it feels like it's not being, you know, upheld, you know, and it's much like Bulldog. Like Bulldog. There was, you know, I think a lot of the staff within that, like, I genuinely cared about what Brewdog stood for. But then I think there's kind of, you know, a chain of. Of bad decisions and things that have led to kind of, you know, where that is today and, and just all the mess around that, you know, but it doesn't mean that they can't be redeemable. Like, I think there's, again, there's always opportunities for people to correct their wrongs and go down the right path. You know, it's just. It's just giving them the opportunity to do that. Yeah. And then being brave and courageous enough. Yeah.

Yeah, totally. Because I think if. If the people who are all about business for good and purpose and impact. If we can't forgive people for their transgressions, like actually what hope is there? You know, it's like we're not perfect. You know, I certainly don't make perfect decisions in my business every day and I've certainly worked in industries that are less than perfect historically. But that's all, all part of the journey. And you know, there's a lot of experiences you can take from, from the bad stuff that's happened or wrong turns you've made and if anything, you know, there's I think possibly more learnings from, from the dead ends and, and, and bad, bad, you know, turns than the good ones. And so yeah, yeah. And throw people out for that seems a little bit. Yeah, yeah.

And, and you know, just to kind of add to top of this, you know, this goes way deeper. This is, this is something systemic in a sense sense that, you know, the way, the way things operate is that they were just playing the game really in, in all fairness, right. The game of capitalism, the game of like how economies work. Like they are in a system that benefits them to do that. And unfortunately the system is, doesn't really benefit purpose driven, not yet. There's huge movements happening, you know, with the Better Business act, for example, like other, other initiatives and movements that are going to be hopefully changing what those standards standards are so that there are more incentives and more benefits for people that are doing business the right way, you know, and so hopefully again it's the slow burn, but those things will eventually change. And for bigger companies that are still operating in the old ways, like, you know, purely profit driven, they will become irrelevant. And unless they change like, you know, and most companies will change because they want to stay relevant, like that change will come, but it's just slower than we hoped.

Yeah, yeah. Not 100. So looking 10 years into the future, what, what does the B Corp movement look like for you?

Oh God, that's a good question. I have no idea.

I, I, I, yeah, I mean if I knew that I probably had a much better place.

But.

I, I, to be honest, yeah, I don't really know. Like, I, I, there's so much change that happens in the world that, you know, even looking that far ahead kind of makes no sense because it will never happen. It will always change. So for me it's more a case of just always being open to change, you know, because that is the only constant really. And, and it will change, it will evolve, it will and change in so many ways.

And I think, yeah, for, you know, in terms of B Corp movement, it's really just to kind of match that change and to. To flow and flex with it. Right. So I think that's the best thing we can do, like, is to kind of in some ways build resiliency, you know, and that's kind of probably what any business needs to do, really. Because, you know, even just outside of B Corp, like, the world just changes so drastically all the time. Like, even with all this, you know, AI talk, which is like just overwhelming. LinkedIn at the moment, which is like, again, I'm starting to get really bored of it. But, but, you know, like, there's going to be huge change everywhere in every direction. So, you know, all we can do is just look to look to be resilient and build things in a way that can. Can move that. Move with that change.

There was a great phrase I heard once, this guy, I think he's Australian guy called Stuart Candy, and he's a. He was a futurist. I don't know if he still is. This was probably about 10 years ago and it was a. It was a line that really made me just sit up and think. And he said that there is no. The future is not linear. There are as many potential futures as you can imagine. And that, that just kind of literally blew my mind. It's like I've never. I'd always just seen time in like a linear past and future. And then he's like, no, there's like, oh yeah, because, you know, I could open the door or not. I could leave out that door or this door, or I could sit down here. It's like, oh, my God. There's like a million other. Yeah, whole.

That's the multiverse right there.

100%. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, See what Elon gives us with the data link and plugging us into the Internet. I'm not sure anyone's ready for that.

Oh, the whole, the whole, the whole neuralink thing has all been approved now, hasn't it? Which is pretty nuts. Yeah. In terms of. Do you know, are you aware of neuralink?

This is the plug in your brain into the Internet.

The. The mesh. Yeah, the mesh that gets in the brain. So I think he recently got FDA approval for human testing.

Wow.

Which is pretty nuts.

But having been in the medical device industry, FDA approval doesn't really mean much.

That's actually why it's quite scary. Yeah.

I mean, it's nuts though, because there's now this whole. There's this. There's the beginnings of this debate around how this is going to allow us to compete with AI, you know, which is, again, even scary. But I don't know, things are so early, man. Like, people are kind of talking about things like AI and stuff, like their experts. But to be honest, it's just, you know, it's too early days to see how this stuff is going to happen.

I still maintain that the robots will be given all our jobs and after about an hour, they'll come back and go, your jobs are all really, we're going to the beach for a beer, you're back working.

That's, that's my theory.

No, well, we're sort of, we're at time. Yeah. Is there, is there any, any other final thoughts or anything you'd, you'd say to our listeners around Purpose or B Corp that you haven't, haven't already? You've articulated a huge amount and very appreciative for that. But, yeah, any sort of final thoughts or any advice for people who are maybe kicking the B Corp can down the road and.

Yeah, I mean, no, maybe no final thoughts, but just, just, just do it. Like, just if you haven't gone through the process, go through the process, you know, it's very enlightening. And even if you don't get the points, like, it's not about the points, it's really just about benchmarking yourself so that you understand where that improvement needs to happen.

And, you know, just follow your gut as well. Like, you know, if, if you know you're doing something right, like, just, just follow that and try to empower that and enhance that as best as you can. Take ownership of it, you know, and it doesn't have to be perfect, like, you will get it wrong, but be okay with that, you know, because that's how progress happens.

Yeah, perfect. Well, Abdi, thank you so much for your time. We'll leave you to fight off the seagulls for the rest of the day. And.

Good luck with that. Yeah, thank you so much, mate. It's been real great to get to know you over a couple of Zoom calls recently. And yeah, just keep, keep doing, clearly, the amazing work that you're doing. You're, you're a tail wagging some big dogs, clearly. So, yeah, keep up the great work.

No, likewise. Pleasure being here and thanks for having me.

No worries.

Hey, it's Tim here, that B Corp bloke from Grow Good. If you want more content on purpose, B Corp, how to do more good in the world as an individual or a business, then you know the drill. Hit the like and subscribe. Check out some of our other videos. They're probably floating around out here somewhere. You know how it works. Thank you so much. See you next time.