Ozan SonmezFounder, The Brutally Honest Mentor · Building Brutally Honest Tools helping global startups and ecosystem players become better

Most impact startups begin with grants and donations rather than commercial models #mrozansonmez

Name: Most impact startups begin with grants and donations rather than commercial models #mrozansonmez
Uploaded: 2025-04-09T07:49:57+00:00
Duration: 1 min 13 s
Channel: Ozan Sonmez
Description: Short excerpt from a YouTube video by Ozan Sonmez arguing that most impact startups begin relying on grants and donations rather than purely commercial…

9 Apr 2025 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:13

Short excerpt from a YouTube video by Ozan Sonmez arguing that most impact startups begin relying on grants and donations rather than purely commercial models. He explains donor expectations (local, on-the-ground impact), national-border constraints on funding, and operational/regulatory hurdles—such as needing local registration or regulatory approval—that slow startups and complicate funding eligibility.

Chapters

Most impact startups start by relying on grants and donations. There are very few impact startups that I've seen over the years that truly start with 100% commercial model and of course for any donor to feel sympathy or to even be eligible to give money to an impact startup they will need to prove they are on the ground they're providing local impact especially grant institutions, government institutions. They will not give you any money if you're just trying to figure out how to impact another geography and other population. So it's very national border oriented business when you're doing impact and that's the challenging piece operations wise it's more challenging because most impact startups are registered as not for profits in one domicile and in order for them to operate in challenging environments they are asked to get a regulation approval regulatory approval or they need to incorporate their structure in that domicile in order to be eligible to operate in order to be eligible to ask for funding and that also requires some time.