Why We Applied to the Ocean Accelerator
And why a church is one of the most innovative companies in Cincinnati
Friday night was Halloween. Most people were out trick-or-treating or at Halloween parties but I was at home finishing an application to the brand new OCEAN business accelerator program. OCEAN was founded by three entrepreneurs who discovered how much community and their faith played into creating successful startup companies.
A few years ago I started going to Crossroads church here in Cincinnati. I’d grow up in the church but grew disconnected from it in my 20s. I still wrestle with God and what all of that means, which is an important thing for all of us to think about. It’s not the time for that Medium post yet but I’m sure it’s coming soon.
Something struck me about Crossroads though. I started coming around the holidays and there were two initiatives happening that I found fascinating.
One was a Thanksgiving Food Drive. Basically Crossroads gives a big box and a grocery list to anyone who wants it and then that person or family goes out, buys the stuff and brings the box back full of enough meals to feed a few people. Thousands of people did this and I don’t know the exact number but they are feeding hundreds of thousands of people around the world who otherwise would not have a big Thanksgiving meal. How awesome is that? The best part is that the folks eating these Thanksgiving meals may or may not know that it came from Crossroads and that’s not the reason they do it. Some of the boxes even went to smaller churches for those church leaders to give out to their own people in need. No Crossroads logo on the box, no business card with the church address. Just a brown box full of food.
Another initiative was something called Angel Tree. People at Crossroads pick a child’s name and buy him or her a Christmas present. Noble right? Where it gets interesting is that the kids have parents who are incarcerated and Crossroads gives them these presents not from the church but from the parents. Now that’s cool.
That’s when I knew the place was unique. I was used to churches doing this sort of thing but it was usually followed up with a sales pitch to try and get them to come to church.
Sounds like how most businesses function doesn’t it? What felt unnatural to me when I was younger about the church is what still feels unnatural to me about the business world. In business, you offer a product or service for the purpose of getting people to pay you money. Unlike most churches most businesses are unaplogetic about that.
What felt entirely different about Crossroads was that these initiatives were overwhelmingly customer-first. This just means there were no apparent ulterior motives other than doing something good for the world because it’s the right thing to do.
If the most important reason for your existence as a company is to make money then you are company-first, not customer-first. A company in which profits are most important uses products to make more money. A customer-first company uses money to make more products. Most companies are not evil and have done amazing things to change our world even with a company-first approach but there is a subtle and devastating difference in the ones who have the courage to put products before profits.
This is exactly what Crossroads has done since it was founded in 1995 by 11 entrepreneurs. In April they raised $500,000 by asking its people to eat only beans and rice for one week and donate the money saved to the church. The money was used to fight heroin and poverty and to fund OCEAN, presumably to explore what kind of bigger impact could be made if a for-profit company starting acting a little bit more like a church.
That is why we applied to OCEAN.
Learn more about Crossroads at www.crossroads.net/explore and more about OCEAN at at www.oceanaccelerator.com.
