The Better Way Of Impact In Consumer Goods
I’m passionate about using the consumer goods industry to make money—but also to improve things beyond financial returns. #Impact #BetterForTheWorld
Most people with that idealistic mindset start from scratch, launching an offering they want to see in the world. That’s great. But there’s another overlooked way to drive impact:
Acquisition Entrepreneurship. Instead of building from zero, you acquire a legacy company and gradually improve it.
Some PROs & CONs:
Startup
✅ "The perfect product"— you define product, price, promotion, and placement from first principles.
✅ "Jackpot potential"— if everything is just right, you could scale fast and change the world.
🚫 "No product-market fit"— most startups fail, leading to zero impact.
🚫 "The vegan pizza paradox"— you may simply be swapping one “better” product for another (e.g., a new vegan pizza replacing an existing vegan burger in the diet of a customer). Net impact? Questionable.
Acquisition
✅ "There is a business"— you're post product-market fit. Rather than fighting for survival, you can focus on operationalizing your impact initiatives.
✅ "Small change, big impact"— the bigger the acquired platform, the smaller your changes need to be to get to a certain amount of impact. Picture Mars reducing their bars' sugar content by 1% vs. the sugar-free chocolate bar startup.
🚫 You must be careful not to change too much too fast to avoid alienating existing customers.
🚫 Instilling a new vision in an established, decades-old company takes time and effort.