What Is An Impact Entrepreneur? And How Do You Become One?

Everyone wants to have an impact on the world – particularly in the business community – but relatively few people actually do. They start out with big plans, but they often get watered down or, eventually, peter out to nothing. 

That’s a shame. Right now, the world needs individuals who can strike out and do something impactful. We need a hundred or a thousand Elon Musk’s solving civilization’s challenges and improving things. 

That’s not quite what’s happening right now. There are plenty of people making money, but most thinking individuals have a nagging sense that we’re headed in the wrong direction. Things just aren’t right. We can’t continue down the path we’re on, either spiritually or environmentally. It’s just not going to work long-term. 

Because of this, we’re seeing the emergence of a new class of entrepreneurs. These people understand the importance of making money, but they’re not dominated by it. Instead, their goal is to have a positive impact on the world. They want to build the technologies that will become revolutionary tomorrow. Their aim is to solve many of humanity’s problems and help everyone move forward to a more prosperous, productive and happy world without as many compromises. 

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, you’d probably like to include yourself in this category of people. You want to have an impact on the world and bring some sort of project to fruition.

But how? That’s the question we address in this post. We take a look at some of the specific tools that you can use to generate high impact, no matter what you’re doing. Remember, it’s not about the money; it’s about results. If you add value, cash will naturally follow. It’s just the way the world works. 

Many entrepreneurs are stuck in small-time thinking, even if they genuinely believe that they have big ideas. Their unconscious minds hamstring them, preventing them from really embracing the full scale of their projects. 

When this happens, it holds them back. They’re unable to fulfill their potential. They can’t create the impact they want. 

Changing your mindset is a challenge. Often, you can’t see your own blindspots. That’s why it can help to have a mentor. They can point out where you’re going wrong and what to do about it. Their insight often allows you to see where you’re unconsciously holding yourself back so that you can have a bigger impact in the future. 

The next step is to focus on the area you’d like to have an impact in. This part is key. If you can’t define the objective of your activities, it’ll be hard for your brain to make good decisions about what to do next. 

Here are some ideas of high-impact focus areas that entrepreneurs are obsessed with at the moment: 

As you can see, the list of high-impact activities is large, and growing all the time. We currently live in a world wracked by fear, anxiety, pollution and hopelessness. Impact entrepreneurs don’t act solely for themselves. Instead, they prioritize the good of all, getting more, the more they give. 

The next step is to set a timeframe that specifies precisely how long it will take to achieve your goals. You might want to solve global hunger, but if it takes you 200 years, you’re not going to be around to see the fruits of your labor. 

Setting times frames is challenging. As Bill Gates likes to quip, people usually overestimate what they can get done in two years, but underestimate what’s possible in ten. 

Setting a time-frame involves carefully considering what you’d like to achieve, and by when. When creating an itinerary, think about what makes sense for your chosen impact area. 

For instance, if you want to cut CO2, that’s something that you’d need to do in the next ten years, not the next fifty. Likewise, if you want to improve the world’s spiritual health, that’s also something you’ll want to do now, rather than later, mainly because of the risks of nuclear war. 

There’s only so much you can do by yourself as an impact entrepreneur. If you really want to succeed, you’ll need to broaden your networks and leverage connections with other people. 

How far you get in this area really depends on your gregariousness and your willingness to meet other people. When forming a network, try to create one that can directly support your impact area. Look for people who are also in your niche and sympathetic to your cause. Don’t give up hope. Remember, anything that interests you will also spark passion in other people as well. It’s all about building a tribe. 

Once you have a group of people on your side, you can get them to help you in multiple ways. It’s not just about providing services. It’s also about giving you ideas and insights for how you can become even more insightful in what you’re doing. 

Some impact entrepreneurs don’t actually bother building much of a professional network first. Instead, they simply go out and announce to the public what they’re trying to achieve. In other words, they go directly to their audiences and then use them as brand ambassadors. 

Think about what Tesla does, for instance. The car firm barely spent any money on marketing. Instead, it hosted a bunch of launch events touting its products and creating hype around the impact that they would have.

What’s more, its promises were tremendous. No more filling up at gas stations. Off-grid electricity supplies for homes. CO2-free vehicles that can drive themselves – just astonishing. 

Granted, you don’t have to become another Tesla to have an impact, but you should take a leaf out of the car giant’s marketing recipe book. Get your message out there by hosting a product launch under marquees or sending out free samples. Tell people about the impact that you’d like to have. You’ll soon find that you get plenty of support. 

Social entrepreneurs are relatively new as a movement (though they’ve always existed in one form or another). However, despite this, you can still learn a great deal from them. The more you can pick up from their successes, the more likely you are to have an impact on the world as well. 

Some social entrepreneurs are hosting masterclasses. These are opportunities for you to find out how they do what they are doing in their various fields, and what you might do to emulate them. 

You can follow a blueprint if you want. In most cases, just avoiding the big pitfalls is enough to put you on the path to success. 

Impact often requires a paradigm shift. If you’re doing things in the same way as everyone else, you probably won’t engender much of a change. 

Consider Walmart and Kroger, for instance. Both these firms had a massive effect on the grocery market in their heyday, but it is hard to imagine something similar happening in the future. If a third or fourth competitor entered the market under the same business model, what difference would it make? Not much. 

But now think about the impact of Amazon Fresh. Here you have a grocery store that completely eliminates the checkout process for customers. The impact of this going forward is going to be enormous. The entire industry will have to change. If it doesn’t, Amazon will grab most of the market over time. 

Impact and aspiration go hand in hand. However, many people are afraid of “blue sky thinking.” It’s not practical or substantial enough. It’s not “reality” and, therefore, impossible. 

To see why this type of thinking is folly, try going back 100 years in your mind and view the future as someone from 1922 might have seen it. Imagine if you had told them that, one day, there would be nuclear-powered submarines, missiles that could eradicate entire cities, and a productive economy that meant that everyone could live like kings. 

They’d tell you that you were making up stories, but that’s precisely what happened. What once seemed like magic is now our reality in the modern world. 

Don’t be afraid to be aspirational. Even if something seems impossible, run with it. There will be people who say you can’t do it, but that’s all part and parcel of being a high impact entrepreneur. 

So, an impact entrepreneur is somebody who is solely looking to make a difference in a particular arena. As individuals, they’re less concerned about the money. However, that tends to be a happy byproduct of their activities.