How to communicate efficiently in a mission-driven startup?

At sarajevo.tech, we support founders and startup ecosystem players by showcasing their work and impact through storytelling. We are hearing different kinds of narratives and stories in our country, and that was the reason for starting this blog on startup stories to show you the most amazing people that are creating innovative solutions to the most challenging issues.

We spoke with Christina, co-founder of Heartbeats Innovation and Communications, on how to communicate your impact-driven solutions and her journey in establishing a business based on Responsible Communication and Innovation. Christina supported sarajevo.tech founders in their plan to launch the blog and we are happy to include some of her wisdom in our Medium platform.

Thank you, Christina, for agreeing to do an interview with you. You mentioned that every business, brand or product has a story to tell. What makes a good story?

I would say the most important criteria in Digital Marketing for a good story are being authentic, personal, creative, taking your audience on a journey, always invite to action and transferring an emotion.

But basically, every story is unique and that automatically makes it a good story. What I mean by that: As we all know, everything happens online nowadays — since the pandemic hit even more. As a brand, you need to have a presence, a brand face, in the online world. But as everyone is having an online Brand Face these days, it’s difficult to stand out in how this overload of messages is. In order to stand out, you have to tell YOUR stories about your business, your brand, and your products — because no one else has the same story. Only by the way how these stories are told it’s important to follow the criteria above, especially when it comes to being personal and authentic.

Previously, you worked as an independent consultant on Storytelling and Responsible Communication for many of the most famous brands including Red Bull, Nivea, Labello, Boden and Cisco. What was your experience working with companies then and now?

The biggest difference for me is the clients I was working with back then and I am working with now. Although it had been quite a big and successful brands, I had a chance to work with — under the surface all their structures and business models were still based on the “old ways”. With “old way” I mean that they are mainly profit-oriented and not mission-driven and as a result, they are not ready to deal with their impact in a responsible way. However, mission-driven businesses are the present and the future, and the transformation has already begun. Mission-driven start-ups and organisations, who are mainly our clients now, are pioneers in this transformation because they are brave enough to prioritise their mission over profit only. Working with clients like them, makes you understand that you really can — and do — make a difference in this world. And that’s for sure the biggest joy and drive for an entrepreneur in the field of social impact and responsible businesses.

We know you as one of the co-founders at Heartbeats Innovation and Communications, a boutique professional service agency focused on Responsible Communication and Innovation. We are curious to understand how that journey started for you and what lessons were learned along the way.

Everything started with a feeling in my stomach that I don’t want to support rich brands anymore that just get richer and richer by rich people giving money to them. I really have learnt a lot during my years in the corporate world — and a lot of things I am still using in my work. However, from the first time I recognized this feeling till to co-founding Heartbeats Innovation & Communication, there were still 2 years in between in which I was just too scared to start my own company. In the end, it needed a slight burn-out for me to activate the emergency brake and finally do what I am really passionate about.

In regards to lessons learnt: Be ready for a lot of uncertainty but also for a lot of opportunities you didn’t expect. As hard as it might be along the way, in my opinion literally every throwback or situation that was hard to digest, has led somehow to another opportunity. That’s something I learned to believe in. With our approach of Responsible Communication & Innovation, some industries or markets have not been or are still not ready, so a lot of patience is required too — also something that has not been my biggest strength and I had to practice.

And there is one more thing I want to mention:

You hear so often that you always have to believe in your business. For me, there were many moments when I had severe doubts and certainly didn’t believe in it. But the key was that we simply didn’t stop because we were passionate about what we were doing, and there was always something to work on. However, at one point you realize that your brand stands on its own 2 feet, that’s when the doubts begin to disappear.

The Responsible Communications Industry seems rather challenging and yet you have empowered many companies and startups to create and share their mission to improve the world. Do you have any advice on how to efficiently communicate within a mission-driven startup?

I would suggest definitely taking 3 things of communication into consideration:

1. Create a Brand Voice and make sure that you tick all the main boxes for Responsible Communication, such as gender language, inclusive language and diversity management

2. Measure your Impact (with recognized measurement tools) and communicate it based on your measurement system.

3. Communicate Stakeholder based, meaning: make sure that you shape your messages for the different stakeholders you have to communicate with. And last but not least: Have a Content Strategy and a Content Plan in place. Because without one, it is almost impossible these days to build up a relationship with your customers or other stakeholders.

Thank you for reading our story!

We are a small team dedicated to the startup community of Sarajevo, who collects entrepreneurial stories for sarajevo.tech and organizes awesome fireside chats and panels within Startup Grind Sarajevo. Stay updated for more events and stories and subscribe here.