Why we created 'How to Help a Few Billion People'

The world doesn't need more billionaires. We're featuring entrepreneurs setting out to help billions of people.

Oct 28, 2025

How do you scale world-changing ideas that prioritize helping billions of people instead of making billions of dollars?

We’re on a journey to find out with this video podcast, How to Help a Few Billion People.

I hope you Subscribe for email summaries and follow us on YouTube to be notified of new episodes (you can also follow us on the podcasts app of your choice).

Here is our inaugural video podcast introducing the show:

Why we founded How to Help a Few Billion People

If you ask an entrepreneur for a book suggestion, I can almost guarantee they will tell you to read “How to Make a Few Billion Dollars” by Brad Jacobs, and I can’t blame them. Brad is a money-making genius having built multiple billion dollar brands.

But the world does not need more billionaires.

The world needs innovators that make life better for billions of people, and in this podcast, we’re going to explore what it takes to build a world-positive venture that also manages its potential negative externalities.

We are going to shine a light on amazing entrepreneurs that believe the world is worth saving, not exploiting.

Extreme wealth is hero’d by much of society, even while it bears negative consequences. And yet, our system – especially our startup ecosystem – is rigged to celebrate venture capital raises, purse growth at all costs, and build obscene wealth for a few.

I’ve always thought there was a better way. And as an entrepreneur myself, I’ve consistently been living in a state of tension...

Do I increase the valuation of my company, or do I pay my team members more?
Do I maximize our earnings, or offset our carbon?
Do I build new partnerships for shared prosperity, or do I compete to seize new customers and expand our market size?
The list goes on

If we were VC-backed, the answer would be simple: Revenue and earnings at all costs — even if that means degrading the environment and exacerbating inequalities.

And if you look for any company-building advice, from Founder’s Podcast to First Round Review to INC’s click-bait headlines, they all tell the same story: As an entrepreneur, the only thing that matters is growing your valuation.

But why? Because it makes a good PR headline? Because it makes them rich?

And what is the REAL cost of pursuing profits above purpose? I’ll be honest… becoming rich does not look glamourous. Without exception, the for-profit entrepreneurs I know have all experienced AT LEAST one of the following: Depression, crippling anxiety, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, broken relationships, kicked out of their homes by significant others, been ousted by their Boards… If you look at profit-motivated entrepreneurship from the outside, it’s pretty wild that we celebrate people that take venture capital, when, almost without exception, EVERYBODY knows that taking the money increases their odds of being removed as CEO, increases their stress, decreases their health, and ensure they will experience more work and less life. And for what? To get rich?

You see… There is a problem with entrepreneurship today.

A BIG problem.

The pursuit of profits above purpose is degrading the environment, making social inequality worse, and fracturing society. And in the majority of cases, it degraded the lives of entrepreneurs themselves.

We see a better way, and we’re bringing it the spotlight it deserves.

Every few weeks, we’re going to be sharing in-depth conversations with amazing entrepreneurs like

Join us as we explore "social entrepreneurs" that prioritize purpose above profits, employees above investors, and communities above capital.

Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter, bonus episodes, and publication archives.

Links & Show Notes

Transcript from Episode #1: Prologue - How to Help a Few Billion People
Caroline Asiala (00:52):

Hey Mark.

Mark Horoszowski (00:53):

Hello.

Caroline Asiala (00:55):

There are a lot of business podcasts and YouTube channels out there giving entrepreneurs advice on everything about their businesses. But there is something that you have found to be missing. What is that missing piece?

Mark Horoszowski (01:12):

Yeah, and maybe it’s thinking about it not as a business podcast, but as a impact podcast that is using the power of business to create sustainable change. And that’s solving a problem that I was experiencing myself as I was growing moving worlds, this enterprise that believed it could make a positive impact on people and planet, even if that meant slower profits as I turned out to the world to look for advice. All the business podcasts were how to grow at all costs, even if that meant growing the income inequality gaps, even if that meant degrading the planet. And there’s a great podcast actually I do listen to, it’s called Founders, where David Profiles the most successful founders of all times, the Elon Musks, the Bezos, the Waltons, and he talks about their story and puts ‘em up on this pedestal of these brilliant entrepreneurs. But if I think about these entrepreneurs now, these are very fictitious members of society.

(02:21):

They made obscene wealth oftentimes degrading the planet, absolutely exasperating, exacerbating income inequality and wealth inequality. And these are the entrepreneurs we hear hero. And so there’s lots of guidance on how to be that kind of entrepreneur. But if you’re trying to also solve the problems of our time and use the power of business, there aren’t these very detailed stories of what it takes as an entrepreneur to make it through the next round of your growth if you also don’t want to lay off employees or to grow your product and cloud consumption, but in a way that isn’t negatively impacting the environment or expand into a new market with respect to cultural differences that also exist there in trying to preserve the fabric of society. And I just felt like those stories were missing. And so it is impressive what some of these just purely profit-driven entrepreneurs go through the stories that we hear from them of how they were going through extreme depression and then they made it out to then become a billionaire.

(03:41):

And you’re like, I dunno, is suppression worth a billion dollars? Or they went and actually attacked the society, the social fabric of democracy, but then they became a billionaire. Those just to me are not the inspiring stories, but that’s what exists in the business landscape and the fortune that I have having grown moving worlds is I get to interact with all these impact entrepreneurs or social entrepreneurs or social businesses, different titles for a similar-minded person who says, I’m going to use the power of the market to create change. I’m going to tightly manage my negative externalities and I’m going to do that in a way that elevates all of our employees, not just the C-level team that can get stupid rich. And I get to have coffee chats with these entrepreneurs and we trade stories and the stories and the guidance we turn to each other for advice are these really tense moments when we do have to balance the growth of our organization that might come at the cost of the planet or a funding round that might be more favorable to investors, but if we don’t do it, it might create tension or inability to pay some employees.

(05:02):

And so these are the stories that I feel like are just not out there. And so first and foremost, I just want to solve my own problem. I want to be able to get guidance and advice and talk about these things in a more open way because the other thing that I’ve observed in my time at Moving Worlds is oftentimes when I talk to even some of my friends who’ve been there for me as I’ve grown moving worlds and who kind of understand what I do is there’s still a little bit of confusion when you’re like, yeah, for-profit Enterprise can still make a positive impact. And the inspiration that I hope can be unlocked when I can tell the stories of these social entrepreneurs to a more general public and say that even if you are driving business in whatever your organization is, there’s actually a way to integrate sustainability and social equity into your day job, into your workflows.

(05:55):

And by the way, here are these amazing examples of business models that do that. So I think that’s the other piece is I want to inspire more people to be aware of this. And I want us to hero not people that become billionaires while fracturing democracy or degrading the planet. I want us to hero people that have said, I would rather have less money and a more sustainable planet that my kids and my grandkids would be really, really proud about. And those are the stories that are missing. Those are the stories that I want to tell. And I’m just super fortunate that I get to know a lot of these folks. And so that’s why I want to start the podcast, bring these people and these stories with the hope of inspiring more to Follow Suit.

Caroline Asiala (06:33):

I think it’s an even bigger issue than just podcasts and YouTube channels for entrepreneurs, but it’s really the whole literature that’s available to them. Can you talk about how you came onto the idea for the title of this channel? How to Help a Few Billion People?

Mark Horoszowski (06:55):

Yeah. Well, so there’s literally a book called How to Make a Few Billion dollars. And if you talk to any entrepreneur, they’ll tell you it’s a great book if you care about making billions of dollars. And some people do, right? I’ve met some of these people. Their goal is like, I’m going to become a billionaire and got, I wish there was more analysis in that comment. I’ve got to interact with these people. Many of them are in second, third, fourth marriages. Many of them are still dealing with depression every time they sell their business. There’s all these challenges that they have as they’ve equated this massive wealth and it doesn’t feel purpose driven to me, and maybe there’s some judgment there, but just chasing massive wealth after massive wealth enterprise to enterprise just has me questioning what’s really driving you as a person, especially if we look around at the challenges that we as a society are facing right now.

(07:51):

And so the book is a catchy title, how to Make a Few Billion Dollars. And the Entrepreneur is a genius. I mean he’s multiple times created billion dollar valuation organizations and he himself is worth billions of dollars. And there is fantastic insights into there. And the world does not need more billionaires. The world needs the greatest thinkers of our mind to look around at the challenges that we are encountering. I think we should measure the impact of individuals, and I think we should put people on pedestals who help billions of people, not who exacerbate the income inequality of billions of people. And that’s how the title came to be. It’s like, what if we just reframed how to use the power of business as a massive wealth generating tool into a purpose generating tool? Not a how many yachts can you have tool, but how many employees can you create incredible livelihoods tool and not how many private flights can you take in spaceships, but how can you preserve our planet for future generations? And that’s where the title came to be. I want to hear the entrepreneurs who have aspirations for helping billions of people,

Caroline Asiala (09:17):

I think at least the entrepreneurs that I’ve talked to, even those that don’t necessarily see or are creating a business model specifically to tackle a certain social or environmental problem, wealth creation and massive wealth hoarding is usually not the thing that they say is the reason that they started their business. In my experience, aren’t almost all businesses just trying to support themselves and their families and do something that solves a problem for people or makes people’s lives better?

Mark Horoszowski (09:59):

Yeah, I think the majority of businesses start out that way. And I dunno, we can talk maybe about Uber just by virtue of universal appeal. Uber was so fun to use early on. Well, there was a black car service I think during that time I was using sidecar and Lyft, which was more like the peer-to-peer sharing economy. And then Uber went there with Uber, was it Uber X? Maybe I should be dating myself. Now you could argue at that time that hey, they’re absolutely tackling a mobility challenge. And it started to grow because it solved that need that a certain type of person with a certain amount of income was able to afford and to use. And I think for a while it made things better for people. It added convenience, it helped people stay more focused, lessen time in commute. But last time I flew, as I went to the parking garage where there is a taxi stand and an Uber stand, there was a hoard of people waiting at the Uber station, massive hoard, all looking down on their phones, looking for their car.

(11:16):

And then I just popped right into a taxi without waiting. And I checked the Uber fair, it was $85 to home, the taxi fair was $55 to home. So I’m like, somehow this organization has made people wait longer to spend more. And you could, yeah, okay, maybe there’s a safety element. I don’t know, maybe’s easier to drive, expensive maybe. So what happened? How did we go from serving the public good into that? And I would argue was venture capital and the public markets. So this is a long way of answering your question of I think so many businesses start out with these aspirations to create good. And then as they get into the funding conveyor belt towards public markets, everything gets stripped away that isn’t profit driven because that’s what the financial markets support. So just finished Seth Godin’s book. This is Strategy in there is this reference to systems. Systems will create the results that systems are designed to create. The financial system is designed to create financial wealth. And so that’s what it does. And every organization that enters and starts on that funding pathway will go towards that profit maximization, wealth maximization at all costs. And the scary thing for entrepreneurs, the things that, and I got to talk to a lot of these entrepreneurs, the things that they don’t realize is the second you take venture capital money, the chance of you still being around in six years is like 20%.

(12:51):

The chance of you still being a CEO within just a few years is like 40 or 50%. The chance of you getting such severe anxiety or stress or depression because of your business is 60 or 70%. So you’re taking money that as an individual founder is almost guaranteed to give you some diagnosable mental health problem is more likely than not going to oust you as CEO and will put you at growth or fail pathway where you are actually more likely to fail. Now the challenge in society is that’s what we hero. And I’ve always felt that there’s this really weird tension in the local tech news here. I’m based in Seattle, so Geek Choir is a great publication, love GeekWire. Every time an enterprise raises a series A, so their first formal venture capital round or a big angel investment round, so really early stage idea funding or a series B or a series C, these stage two, stage three levels of financing before they maybe get to public markets or get a big acquisition.

(14:09):

These are celebrated, they are posted, people are sharing them on high, they’re high fiving. And I know these entrepreneurs and these entrepreneurs are then at-home, stressed out six months later, 12 months later, 24 months later, they’ve lost their business, they’ve lost their organization, they’ve been forced out. Out of all my entrepreneur friends, every single one of ‘em has experienced some type of breakdown, been kicked out of their house, turned to self Medicaid on drugs or alcohol or dealt with major depression. Everybody has dealt with a serious something. And now I’ve kind of been on the entrepreneurial journey long enough to go, this isn’t an isolate. It’s not just that one person and it’s not that one person’s character. It’s like we actually have a system that strips purpose, that strips environmental sustainability, that strips social inequality, strips, all these things for the pursuit of profit generation and wealth maximization.

(15:09):

And that’s I think what happens to these entrepreneurs who have aspirations to solve a real world problem as they get put onto the pathway for growth. And unfortunately what capital markets have shown us is even very well-intentioned businesses will take advantage of their consumers. And there’s a lot of different ways that they do that. There’s a lot of well-meaning businesses that just sit there and think about how to eke out more money even at the cost of society and social fabric. And that already exists and there’s lots of advice on how to do that. I want to tell the stories of entrepreneurs that buck that trend who go, I am willing to find investors that will be more patient with me even if it means more work for me. Now, I’m not going to report just on profit. I’m also going to report on the health of my employees.

(16:05):

I’m going to manage my environmental footprint and manage and measure the impact I have on the beneficiaries, the people, the customers that use my product. I’m going to go find those investors and we’re going to use different financial instruments. There’s a lot of different ones out there and we’ll explore that I know later in this podcast. But we’re going to explore these different financial instruments that let us grow enterprises where purpose can always be sustained, where we can always center people and plan it into our decision-making processes. And these are the stories I want to talk about because the system will allow us to build these types of businesses. We just have to be more creative as entrepreneurs and as customers and as business partners.

Caroline Asiala (16:47):

Yeah, I remember something that you told me a long time ago when I was learning about moving worlds and we were working together and it was that there’s so much focus on VC funding. There’s so much of it in the news and it’s an outsized coverage of what is really not representative of what actually funds entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial projects. Most of those projects will not get VC funding. And so what are some of those other mechanisms that entrepreneurs can use and you’ve seen be successful using to then be able to preserve their purpose?

Mark Horoszowski (17:34):

So in funding markets, most accelerators, which are these entities that provide usually advice and some mentorship, maybe a little bit of money to help entrepreneurs develop an idea that is then investible therein, I use that word very, very specific like investible. Many accelerators and mechanisms try and create businesses and try and help entrepreneurs pitch to investors as opposed to try and get customers to build sustainable revenue pathways. And sometimes you need seed capital in order to grow your idea. And by all means, there is still a place for venture capital in some of those places, but there’s also other capital when you don’t need it. But the mistake that so many entrepreneurs make is, oh, in order to get into that accelerator, I actually get pressure Moving world’s got this pressure. We decided not to fold underneath it to go reincorporate in Delaware as a C corporation because that’s the most friendly terms for investors.

(18:34):

And to raise on either a convertible note or a, it’s called a safe, it’s popularized by Y Combinator. It’s called a Simple Agreement for Future Equity. Now these instruments alone don’t force you down a pathway of venture capital, but it is the language of venture capital. What these tools essentially do is say, Hey, I don’t know how much my company is worth yet. Investors give me money. And then when I go raise an investment round, the investors will set a valuation for my business at which point we know what it’ll be worth because you gave me money earlier. You get a premium if you will, you get more shares than you otherwise would because you were early on in the process. Simply put now. So all these entrepreneurs, before they validated their business model, before they’ve really cemented their impact above their profit pathway, they’ve taken a step to raise angel investment rounds with a convertible note or a safe or they’ve reincorporated in a specific way in order to make it easier to fall down that pathway. So that’s a mistake that a lot of entrepreneurs make very, very early on. And once you start, you’ve put one foot on the conveyor belt and it’s starting to pull you and you kind of see this, that’s what it takes to grow and it’s hard and it’s scary to jump off. Now what can you jump off to? The absolute best thing to jump off to is just revenue.

(19:56):

Go talk to customers. I believe Canva, Melanie, if I’m right, who’s I think one of the most successful female entrepreneurs, certainly out of Australia, if not globally, who started Canva, their business is crushing it. And if I remember in her story, she shares that she got rejected like a hundred times. How many times were they trying to raise money and just getting laughed out of the room? And this is so consistent, the number of entrepreneurs that get laughed out of the room, dismiss the amount of time that entrepreneurs take. Trying to get funding instead of talking to customers is such a big mistake. And that’s actually why programs like Y Combinator are actually really successful in terms of getting profit driven ventures off the ground is because they just push entrepreneurs to get out of building, to go talk to customers and to go get sales.

(20:49):

It’s all about market validation. But if you’re not in that structured program, so many entrepreneurs are just out there trying to raise money for their idea. So the very, very first thing these entrepreneurs should be doing is trying to go and find customers to validate their business model, to see if people will pay them for the problems that they’re experiencing and then to validate that solving those problems is net positive for the world. So that’s first and foremost, that’s the best way. Now that’s a hard way, especially if you have to hire a team of engineers or maybe you need a capital improvements or a capital investment in a project or manufacturing something. Now even in those ways, creative entrepreneurs, and we can meet some of these people have found really creative ways to do that. They’ve started really small. Maybe they found grants out of educational institutions, maybe they’ve actually gone to bigger institutions that have such a vested challenge in solving that problem.

(21:43):

They’re even willing to provide resources or capital, human capital space capital, equipment, capital or other in order to seed start these ideas. So there’s different ways to even move into some of those capital improvements to start small and to get going. Now, second to that, there’s also other methods even for-profit. Social enterprises done the right way, structure the right way can even receive philanthropic donations both through individuals or through foundations, more institutions. Now those instruments are varied. You either need to set up a fiscal sponsorship agreement with a third party or do something called a program related investment. Lots of details behind those. And maybe later we’ll get to feature experts on these podcasts to talk more about these different instruments. But there are ways to say in early stages if you can center your impact into your mission, into your articles of incorporation, into your governance documents, you are able to receive philanthropic or foundational capital in order to get the ball rolling.

(22:45):

Now, moving on from there, there’s also different types of instruments, whether it’s debt, whether it’s revenue based, which actually moving worlds. We raised on a revenue based instrument which just said, we’ll take a percent of our revenues and we’ll repay our investors with a percent of those revenues every year. So there’s different ones. And there’s a fantastic author, her name is Ani Powers, and she wrote a book called Adventure Finance. I highly recommend it. It talks about all these different instruments, talks about ‘em by different stage. And so they absolutely exist. They’re just not as common. And therein lies the big challenge is entrepreneurs before they’re aware of these, put their foot on that conveyor belt towards venture capital money or institutional funding before they’re even aware. And as soon as those legal papers start to roll out, it just gets harder and harder to unwind. And so one of my other hopes with this podcast is we help also educate more investors and family offices, foundations and corporate impact investing arms that there are other ways to grow than just equity based investments that require a 10 x return.

(23:55):

And just this is, there’s an idealistic part of me that’s fighting for this, but there’s a guy I’ve been following on LinkedIn, David is his first name, I’m not familiar with his last name at the moment. And his tagline is, I’m a VC who hates VCs. A VC is saying this type of model of pursuing a hundred x returns, even if it breaks 90% of the organizations that we’re funding. And he lays out the math, if you actually were a venture capital, but with more patient capital with different instruments, you would actually have better returns. And so it’s not just like impact a idealistic mark over here talking people from sector, from industry are saying, this model actually isn’t working as effectively as it could, but the system is going to generate what the system was designed to generate, which is these big hero exits, these big hero wealth generation events. And that’s what people are chasing even when there’s better ways.

Caroline Asiala (25:05):

I remember you mentioned an example of this, somebody that you were recently talking to who had one foot on that conveyor belt had already started going down that path. Talk to me about him and his story. What is he trying to build and why do you think VC is not the right path?

Mark Horoszowski (25:25):

Yeah, the core of the idea was a mentorship software that supports a very specific type of racial group. And there’s actually been a lot of these, I’ve seen a lot of different mentoring platforms that have launched to support veterans, to support small business owners, to support certain racial groups or those that have escaped that are like climate refugees or political refugees. There’s lots of different mentoring platforms that have all existed. And to my knowledge, and because they play in a similar space to moving worlds, I have more knowledge than the average person on this. None of them are going to have a hundred x returns on investment because they’re not designed to, right? They’re connecting human talent to human talent for mentorship exchanges. And is there a way to create a sustainable business on that? Absolutely right. In large part, moving worlds has done that, right? Corporations pay moving worlds money in order to educate their employees on social innovation and social equity, connect them to experiences beyond their workplace where they can volunteer their skills or get exposure to social innovation practice and then give them the insights, the tools and the mindsets to bring social innovation back into their day jobs in a way that makes sound business logic. And so there is a business model here. We’re proof of it. We’re growing on revenue, but it’s not venture capital growth. It’s not a hundred x growth.

(26:53):

This entrepreneur, just such a likable person, speaks well, obviously is in touch with his constituents, obviously knows his group, obviously mission-driven and is entering on a pathway that has such low odds of success. And the only mentorship platforms that I’ve seen that have really made a lot of money have pivoted hard into only serving mentorship within corporate environments where that mission is entirely stripped out. And those environments already exist. There’s already software for those. We don’t need another corporate mentoring software tool. There’s great systems out there. There’s a couple of behavioral psychologists that about 15 years ago really set me on the direction that it’s now moving worlds. So one is Dan Gilbert, the other one’s Dan A, and both of them talk about that the best way to understand human behavior is truly just observe humans. So what I didn’t say is to just think about it and think and predict what you’ll do in the future because that’s actually wrong. Dan, a’s book is predictably irrational, I love this book.

(28:07):

Dan Gilbert’s book is Stumbling onto Happiness, I think is the title. And what they both talk about is if we project ourselves into the future and think about having this wealth and having a boat or whatever else you dream of doing or being a philanthropist, anything you dream of, you just think of power and of social status and how could that not be great? But if you actually go and look at the humans that are in that position, they were depressed when they sold their business. And then some of these I mentioned earlier, the majority of ‘em actually aren’t even CEOs. They’ve been kicked out by their boards. The majority of their organizations failed after receiving capital. Those that did had marital and or social problems along the way, their health has worsened. And so you look at all these people and what these behavioral psychologists say is as precious and unique of a person as you are, you are not so precious and unique that you will be any different. You are more likely than not going to fall into those same situations. And so that’s this entrepreneur that we’re talking about. So coming back to this story, is it possible that he will defy expectations here he could. And if somebody’s going to do it could be him.

(29:26):

I was impressed. The odds are not in his favor and not barely not in his favor, maybe a 10% chance. And so I see these situations time and time again and just the system is designed once you start down that financial pathway to strip away purpose, to strip away protections for planet and people for profit wealth maximization. And so you’re going to see and have seen beautiful, beautiful businesses that have just, the founder has been kicked out, the soul has been stripped, and some people got rich, but it was investors. And I dunno my belief, we just don’t need rich investors, richer investors. We need some, don’t get it wrong. We need investors, but we need impact investors. We need investors who go a more sustainable and equitable planet is actually a whole lot more important than me having a fourth or fifth house at a private plane or whatever else is being purchased.

Caroline Asiala (30:37):

I think it’s really important to drive home this idea that the poor application of VC funding is not only bad for people and the planet, it’s bad for the bottom line. And if you had better allocation of appropriate funding mechanisms, you would make more money. Am I understanding that right?

Mark Horoszowski (31:09):

Yeah. Well I think, and there’s always exceptions, right? There’s this case, there’s that case maybe in the case if you were a VC behind Facebook or Google or Amazon, hard to say that maybe you would have more money if you didn’t fall into those markets. But these are the exceptions. These are billion dollar valuations are literally called unicorns because they shouldn’t exist. These are such rare beasts in the wild that, well, I mean maybe, I dunno, maybe unicorns exist. Pretty sure they don’t, right? They’re mythical creatures. And so I think that there are exceptions. And as humans, we get so enamored by these exceptions and by these stories. And these are the stories that are told in the business case studies and in the news and in the headlines. And so people just dream of that, of starting that venture.

(32:13):

And statistically the ventures that we start will not become that big and we don’t get to hear those stories. And those are the stories that now I just look around the state of the world, the state of politics, state of environment. I and entrepreneurs are making these things better and they’ve actually limited their own profit potential. They’ve actually minimized their wealth creation opportunities in order to create more purposeful businesses. And as I talk to these entrepreneurs, they’re under more stress because they care about the planet and their employees. But the difference between them and their for-profit peers is they’re not at the rates that I am observing. I actually don’t have firm data on this, but what I’m seeing is that they’re not being kicked out of their homes. They’re not experiencing the type of health crises and mental health challenges that the for-profit peers are doing.

(33:38):

They’re not being exited as the founders of their organizations. They’re not being talked about badly in the news and having their social reputation damaged because they genuinely care. And so they’re pursuing purpose above profits and they’re enshrined that purpose legally into the soul of their business. It’s literally in their articles of incorporation, it’s in their governance documents, it’s in their contracts that they have with their employees and their customers. And that means that they’re able to say, we can make less for the sake of the society and system that we’re a part of. And I just think that is so cool, and I just want to tell more of those stories.

Caroline Asiala (34:24):

I think it’s important to recognize that it’s not all about how much you care, but what system you enter into and what are the implications and incentives built into that system that define your future or the future of your business.

Mark Horoszowski (34:43):

I think that’s so well stated. It’s using the conveyor belt. If you get on the venture capital conveyor belt, you are going to go that way. If you get on the impact investing conveyor belt or the flexible financing investment, you then are being directed on a different pathway. And as an entrepreneur you have a choice. And as a customer who buys from businesses, you have a choice. And as an investor, you have a choice where you going to put your instruments. And I think it’s that willingness to say, I might actually be signing up for a more challenging growth journey because I have to manage more hard things. I have to manage my bottom line and my impact and my negative externalities, like my carbon footprint and social inequ issues, maybe wealth discrepancies on my team. It’s a harder pathway, but it’s a more meaningful one.

(35:39):

And that’s the inspiration that I have from the entrepreneurs that we serve in moving worlds. And the ones I get to talk to is we’re encountering these really hard challenges that aren’t as clear cut, but in a way that is so deeply fulfilling because when you get it right, you make your employees happier, you make your business partners happier, you improve the lives of people, and then you really get a sleep at night. You’re like, wow, every day I’m providing for my family and I’m creating a future that my kids would be really proud about. And I think that is way more fulfilling than yachts and private planes.

Caroline Asiala (36:19):

Who is it that you want to talk to on this show?

Mark Horoszowski (36:24):

So many? I have a growing list, and this has been really fun just to think about, but I’ll list a couple examples. So one is a guy named Anish. He started an organization called Aya. Their first go-to-market product is called without. I’m going to elaborate on him just a little bit more. I think his business model is so easy to understand and it’s so represents the type of entrepreneur that we’re talking about. So Anish is in India and he sees waste everywhere. And one of the most persistent and unfortunate wastes are plastic chip bags. They’re actually made out of multilayer plastic, like up to seven layers. I didn’t know this. So chip bag can have seven different layers of plastic. Some is colored, some is metabolized because of this, it’s impossible to recycle. It is just waste, and it’ll break apart into microplastics and it’ll end up in oceans and waterways and in your food and in your body.

(37:25):

That’s what everybody said, it’s recyclable. You just have to deal with it. Well, Anisha has figured out how to recycle it, and he’s figured out how to recycle it in a carbon neutral way. And the other thing he’s done is he’s employed people that were, in theory, unemployable, not his words, but what other people said, which were people who were given the kind of title by society of waste pickers, people who you’ve probably seen footage of this, people walking through trash piles and separating waste and figuring out how to make income from that. So he’s employing these people, putting them into safer working conditions, paying them not only wages, but benefits, healthcare, educational stipends. So he is employing unemployable people. He is recycling unrecyclable plastic, and he’s turning that into a product that has second and third and fourth life that can then actually be recirculated after it’s use case.

(38:26):

And part of the reason I love Anish is because we’ve been at this for a long time and he sends out these quarterly updates. And in these quarterly updates, the stories are not just, here’s how I made money. This really, really hard thing that happened to me when I had to deal with one of my employees who just stopped showing up at work. Or here’s what happened when I realized that we had to start using a more intense chemical as part of our recycling process. Or here’s what happened when I realized some of our packaging was, it’s these stories that go, oh, it wasn’t like my investor was beating me up at my board meeting and I had to figure out how to triple our profits next quarter. That story’s been told this. There is a human side and a planet side of the challenges that I’m experiencing.

(39:12):

And he’s navigated those so well. He writes these great newsletters where you can actually see some of the things that he’s made missteps on or some of the personal challenges he’s been encountering. And I read those and I’m a better entrepreneur as a result because I go, I’m not alone. And he navigated that differently than I did, and I’m going to learn from that. And there’s a lot of entrepreneurs like this. And so these are the entrepreneurs I want to talk about, the ones that are willing to really open up and talk about the challenges of their business model, but also the very real tensions that exist on a day-to-day business when they’re managing their business model against the health of their employees and the health of our planet. And so yeah, we’ve got a big growing list. Some of these folks are doing how to make technology more accessible to folks.

(40:06):

Some of these are looking at agriculture, some of these are looking at carbon sequestration. Some of these are looking at just media marketing communications. Others are looking at infrastructure, whether that’s how do you get saltwater into people’s mouths in a safe and climate neutral way? Some of these are power companies both off grid and grid connected. So I really think across industry are the entrepreneurs that we’ll be exploring. But the shared theme is, I’m choosing purpose over massive profits and I’m balancing more tensions than just making my investors happy. I, I’m actually balancing the health of my employees and planet alongside that purpose and profit motive. And I want to dive into those, hear how people are navigating through that, use that to help lift all of us social entrepreneurs up, but also use that to inspire more people to integrate social entrepreneurial concepts into their businesses regardless of where they are.

Caroline Asiala (41:05):

I’m so excited for this.

Mark Horoszowski (41:07):

Good. I’m excited too.

Caroline Asiala (41:10):

Alright, mark, is there anything else that you want to say that you haven’t had a chance to say?

Mark Horoszowski (41:15):

Yeah, maybe this is the nerd in me, right? I was mentioning behavior psychology earlier. Let’s talk about all these different financial instruments. I was happy to go into those. I think that the other piece I want to share is one thing I’ve been so fortunate about is getting to support through moving worlds. We’ve supported over 2000 entrepreneurs in over 110 different countries. And there’s the quote, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. And the challenges that entrepreneurs have rhyme and there are frameworks that entrepreneurs lean on knowingly or unknowingly that help them move through their bigger challenges. And that’s something I really want to also popularize here in the podcast. So as we’re talking about finding product market fit with entrepreneurs, there are frameworks that help us do that. So yes, we’re going to hear the story of a niche and without and how they found first taste of product market fit.

(42:19):

What we’re going to unpack and demystify is that as impressive as a niche is he’s not a one in a billion genius. There are lessons that we can glean from and research that’s been done that say part of the reason he was successful knowingly or knowingly is because these are some of the steps that he followed. And that’s what I want to leave everybody with is even if you don’t know what to do, you’ve encountered this problem. You have no idea how to solve it. You don’t need to know how to solve it. None of us know how to solve it, but chances are, if you take this next step, your odds of success are going to increase dramatically. So we’re going to pull in these frameworks. We’re going to make those just easy to digest, easy to use, easy to leverage. And I think that’ll be really empowering not only for the entrepreneurs, but I also think for other people, no matter what business challenge they might be encountering,

Caroline Asiala (43:11):

There’s a roadmap.

Mark Horoszowski (43:13):

There’s a roadmap, there’s a roadmap. And oftentimes it’s not great. It’s not

Caroline Asiala (43:18):

Mark Horoszowski (43:19):

Google Maps, it’s not going to be that precise because the roads that we’re following are not built yet. It can’t, but it is more than a compass. It’s more than just saying, go west, right? It’s saying, move this way. And when you encounter this pause, think about these things, talk to these types of people, do these things, and the solution will emerge even if it feels impossible. And I think that that is so often an unlock for not only entrepreneurs, but just us in our personal lives. We can encount these challenges. It’s just helpful to know other people have been there and gone through it and maybe just understand how they started. And it’s like you got to pick up momentum, and if we can just help you take the first step, that’s going to start picking up momentum and then that cascades

Caroline Asiala (44:16):

And not feel so alone that you’re the only person that’s thinking about this.

Mark Horoszowski (44:21):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that one’s so huge. Last year I was speaking at a conference and afterwards got to meet with some of the other entrepreneurs that we were speaking about. The conversation we ended up having around the table was what’s just like a quote? What’s something that somebody told you during your darkest time that just helped you that get through? People ended up sharing quotes and stories. We walked out of there and there were tears, there were hugs. It was just this incredibly moving thing. And I was walking back with one of the entrepreneurs who hopefully I hopefully join us on this podcast. She recently had a mission aligned exit that was really cool to read about. And her quote was, actually, I’ll get it slightly wrong, but it’s like you don’t know how strong you can be until the world forces you to be stronger.

(45:23):

And we were just walking back talking about how rare it was to have time and space like that as entrepreneurs to just step out and talk more with a group of other entrepreneurs that really understood the tension that we’re experiencing. Because there’s lots of guidance on how to navigate difficult conversations with venture capital and that whole space. And if that’s where you’re at, there’s great guidance and I can even point you to resources that would be useful for it. But that inner turmoil where you’re balancing the health of your employees, the health of planet, trying to sustain your own purpose and social connections in the journey feels so isolating and almost coming back to the very first question you asked me, right? These are the untold stories that I just think will make life easier and even more meaningful for the entrepreneurs that pursue this pathway.

Caroline Asiala (46:24):

Awesome. Woo. Let’s do it.

Mark Horoszowski (46:26):

Cool. I am pumped. Thank you for this. This is fun to talk about and I’m so excited to start getting some guests on here.

Caroline Asiala (46:33):

Thanks, mark.

Mark Horoszowski (46:34):

Thank you.

How to Help a Few Billion People

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