Top­icsWhat is Impact? – An Intro­duc­tion for Founders 

Launch Your Impact Busi­ness

What is Impact?

More than prof­it: Why your start­up should per­form eco­nom­i­cal­ly and be  social­ly rel­e­vant.
Learn how to make a dif­fer­ence with your idea. 

What Does Impact Mean in Entre­pre­neur­ship? 

Impact is more than just a buzzword—it is a mind­set that takes your busi­ness to an entire­ly dif­fer­ent lev­el. At its core, impact is about the cre­ation of mea­sur­able social or envi­ron­men­tal val­ue. In oth­er words, impact entre­pre­neur­ship is not just about prod­ucts or ser­vices that solve prob­lems, but about the active and strate­gic con­tri­bu­tion  to solu­tions for press­ing glob­al chal­lenges. 

While tra­di­tion­al busi­ness­es pri­mar­i­ly focus on finan­cial returns, impact-dri­ven enter­pris­es pur­sue a “dou­ble bot­tom line” by com­bin­ing eco­nom­ic suc­cess with social and envi­ron­men­tal val­ue cre­ation. 

Social Impact

Your prod­uct or ser­vice can make a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence, for exam­ple by pro­mot­ing inclu­sion, cli­mate action, or edu­ca­tion. (Source)

Eco­nom­ic suc­cess

Impact is not a bur­den but an accelerator—many impact-ori­ent­ed com­pa­nies grow faster than the mar­ket aver­age. (Source)

Rel­e­vance

Sus­tain­abil­i­ty is no longer a trend but a mar­ket expec­ta­tion. More and more cus­tomers, investors, and part­ners are pay­ing close atten­tion­to an enterprise’s val­ue base  (Source)

Did you know? 

Impact entre­pre­neurs often tap into new mar­kets by pro­vid­ing inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to com­plex prob­lems. This leads to both sus­tain­able busi­ness mod­els and real soci­etal change. 

Why Is Impact Impor­tant for Founders?

In a world shaped by glob­al chal­lenges such as cli­mate change, social inequal­i­ty, and resource scarci­ty, com­pa­nies with a clear social or eco­log­i­cal mis­sion are becom­ing increas­ing­ly essen­tial. But impact isn’t just good for world or planet—it also pro­vides a strate­gic advan­tage for you as a founder. 

Busi­ness­es that cre­ate social val­ue ben­e­fit from: 

Com­pet­i­tive advan­tages

Sus­tain­able and social­ly respon­si­ble enter­pris­es earn cus­tomer trust more quick­ly and retain it for the long term.  (Source)

Investor inter­est

The mar­ket for impact invest­ing is grow­ing. Investors are increas­ing­ly seek­ing star­tups that deliv­er both finan­cial returns and mea­sur­able social or eco­log­i­cal out­comes. (Source)

Employ­ee moti­va­tion

Peo­ple want to work for enter­pris­es that pur­sue some­thing pur­pose­ful. An impact mis­sion attracts top tal­ents. (Source)

A sense of pur­pose

Build­ing an impact-dri­ven busi­ness gives founders a deep­er sense of being dri­ven by a mis­sion and of con­tribut­ing to mean­ing­ful change. (Source)

Lean Impact Guide

Our Lean Impact Guide pro­vides a step-by-step approach to inte­grat­ing impact into your busi­ness mod­el from the out­set.

Whether you’re just start­ing out or look­ing to refine your con­cept, our play­book guides you through key top­ics, start­ing in March 2025.

Trends and Exam­ples of Impact-Dri­ven Enter­pris­es

Impact-dri­ven enter­pris­es set bench­marks and inspire entre­pre­neurs world­wide. By com­bin­ing inno­va­tion with a clear mis­sion, they pro­vide solu­tions to today’s most press­ing prob­lems. Here are some suc­cess sto­ries: 

Too Good To Go

This start­up fights food waste while help­ing restau­rants and super­mar­kets reduce costs. Through an app sur­plus food is passed direct­ly to consumers—a win-win mod­el for all par­ties involved. 

Tomor­row Bank

Tomor­row Bank offers sus­tain­able finan­cial prod­ucts with a trans­par­ent impact approach, ensur­ing that mon­ey active­ly con­tributes to pos­i­tive social and envi­ron­men­tal change. 

Bore­al Light

Bore­al Light uses solar-pow­ered water treat­ment sys­tems to sup­ply remote regions with clean drink­ing water, deliv­er­ing both envi­ron­men­tal and social impact. 

Cur­rent trend

More and more star­tups inte­grate sus­tain­abil­i­ty and social respon­si­bil­i­ty into their busi­ness mod­els from the begin­ning. This is not just appre­ci­at­ed by cus­tomers, it is also reward­ed by investors. Impact invest­ing has become a key trend, with more funds ded­i­cat­ed exclu­sive­ly to pur­pose-dri­ven projects. (Source)

Improve Self-Reflec­tion and Qual­i­ty through Agili­ty

Self-reflec­tion is a key com­po­nent of Lean Impact. Ask your­selves reg­u­lar­ly:

  • „Are we reach­ing the peo­ple we want to sup­port?“ 
  • „How can we bet­ter uti­lize feed­back from our tar­get group?“ 
  • „What resources do we need to max­i­mize our impact?“ 

Start­ing March 2025, use our self-assess­ment tool to eval­u­ate your pro­jec­t’s matu­ri­ty lev­el and find con­crete approach­es for fur­ther devel­op­ment.

First Steps Toward Cre­at­ing Impact

Your impact doesn’t need to be perfect—what mat­ters is tak­ing the first step. Every start­up begins with an idea. In order to imple­ment  your idea and achieve the desired impact you should address the fol­low­ing: 

Prob­lem analy­sis

Iden­ti­fy the social or envi­ron­men­tal issue you want to address. The best impact star­tups tack­le chal­lenges that per­son­al­ly moti­vate their founders. 

The­o­ry of change

Devel­op a strat­e­gy that out­lines how your solu­tion will cre­ate impact—from ini­tial action to long-term change. 

Impact Mea­sure­ment

Learn how to mea­sure your impact. This helps you track progress, learn from chal­lenges, and con­vince investors. 

Build a net­work

No one needs to start alone. Find men­tors, net­works, and part­ners to sup­port your vision. 

Ready to Cre­ate Impact?

Join the Impact Move­ment!

We use your data in accor­dance with our . Pri­va­cy Pol­i­cy.

Sources

Soci­etal Impact: Social enter­pris­es such as Viva con Agua and Good­jobs demon­strate how prod­ucts and ser­vices can make a real dif­fer­ence. Viva con Agua sup­ports glob­al water projects through the sale of water bot­tles, while Good­jobs pro­motes employ­ment in social and sus­tain­able sec­tors (Link to study).

Eco­nom­ic Suc­cess: Accord­ing to a study by Sage, ICC and PWC, 83% of com­pa­nies world­wide name sus­tain­abil­i­ty as a key goal, and 60% have tak­en action toward becom­ing more sus­tain­able in the past year. Com­pa­nies increas­ing­ly rec­og­nize sus­tain­abil­i­ty as a growth dri­ver.

A BCG study shows that busi­ness­es inte­grat­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty out­per­form their com­pe­ti­tion. The study high­lights a pos­i­tive cor­re­la­tion between a com­pa­ny’s social and envi­ron­men­tal engage­ment and its finan­cial per­for­mance.

Addi­tion­al­ly, a recent study by Ber­tels­mann Foun­da­tion on the inno­va­tion capa­bil­i­ties of Ger­man com­pa­nies found that the net prof­it mar­gins of the most inno­v­a­tive sec­tors were 27% above the aver­age.

Rel­e­vance: The Sage, ICC and PWC study also reveals that cus­tomer expec­ta­tions are the main dri­ver of sus­tain­abil­i­ty in busi­ness­es. 59% of all sur­veyed com­pa­nies and 40% of Ger­man SMEs aim to meet their cus­tomers’ sus­tain­abil­i­ty expec­ta­tions. This under­lines that sus­tain­abil­i­ty is no longer a pass­ing trend but part of stake­hold­er expec­ta­tions.

Com­pet­i­tive advan­tages: A study about size and devel­op­ment of the glob­al impact invest­ing mar­ket shows it’s dynam­ic growth. It is pro­ject­ed to increase from USD 1.33 tril­lion in 2024 to USD 1.88 tril­lion by 2029, with a com­pound annu­al growth rate (CAGR) of 7.17%. This sug­gests that sus­tain­able and social­ly respon­si­ble com­pa­nies are becom­ing increas­ing­ly impor­tant.

Investor inter­est: The FNG Mar­ket Report 2024 shows an increase of 80% of impact invest­ments in Ger­many in 2021 com­pared to the pre­vi­ous year. Invest­ment vol­ume grew from EUR 16.6 bil­lion in 2020 to EUR 29.9 bil­lion in 2021.

Employ­ee moti­va­tion: A 2021 study by Ger­man think tank Liotec found that com­pa­nies that offer incen­tives to employ­ees and that sup­port their ongo­ing moti­va­tion can gen­er­ate up to 20% high­er prof­its com­pared to com­pa­nies with­out moti­va­tion pro­grams. Fur­ther­more, employ­ees tend to stay longer and engage more in com­pa­nies with strong moti­va­tion­al cul­ture.

Sense of pur­pose: Com­pa­nies with moti­vat­ed employ­ees expe­ri­ence faster growth and have high­er sur­vival rates in com­pet­i­tive mar­kets. There is also a strong link between effec­tive employ­ee moti­va­tion and improved work­force health More info.

Cur­rent Trend: Accord­ing to the Ger­man Start­up Mon­i­tor 2024, 48.1% of Ger­man star­tups iden­ti­fy them­selves as part of the Green Econ­o­my, an increase from 46.7% in 2023 (More info). The Green Start­up Mon­i­tor 2024 con­firms this trend: 29% of star­tups are con­sid­ered “green” and 47% iden­ti­fy them­selves as part of the Green Econ­o­my – a record high in GSM his­to­ry.

Impact Invest­ing also shows strong growth: In Ger­many and Aus­tria, accord­ing to the FNG Mar­ket Report 2024, the vol­ume increased to EUR 58.2 bil­lion, com­pared to EUR 9.5 bil­lion five years ago and EUR 1.6 bil­lion in 2013 (Link). Glob­al­ly, the Glob­al Impact Invest­ing Net­work (GIIN) esti­mates the mar­ket at USD 715 bil­lion in 2020, rep­re­sent­ing an increase of 42.4% with­in one year.