Is it financial success? Aka “build a system able to turn 1 penny at the entrance to a larger amount at the exit”?

The only responsibility of business is to increase profits (Milton Friedman)

Despite the fact that I am a strong advocate of the importance of money in order to build awesome and impactful projects, it is clear that “making cash” is not the ultimate goal of my new venture.

How about creating happiness? I would reply: No. Happiness fuels success. So it is a key component in order to reach the goal. It is a state of mind that I have to keep positive in order to move forward. But is not the goal I fight for and want to reach.

So, what is the purpose of a company?

A definition that I would tend to accept is:

The purpose of business is to create and keep customers. (Peter Drucker).

However, think about the “Social Business” concept introduced by Muhammad Yunus. (A “Social Business” is a company designed to address a social objective.) I do not think Peter Drucker’s definition fits well in that context.

I could also add that I do not wake up in the morning willing to “create customers”. In my context, I wake up in the morning in order to help conscientious entrepreneurs grow their new ventures while sharing my values.

So, here is the definition I propose:

The purpose of business is to help a community grow. (Thomas Pichon)

How do we measure such a goal?

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. (Peter Drucker)

(Thanks Peter for bringing clarification again.) “Financial” success can be measured in dollars. “Awareness” progress can be tracked by counting your number of followers / subscribers / readers… But as I explained previously, I would not consider these components as an end, but rather as key metrics.

So, if the goal is to be help a community grow, how can we measure it?

At The Collaborative Startup, we have decided to record each interaction members have with the community. Members credit points according to how helpful they are. Here is how you can earn these points today:

• help another member
• share ideas and feedback
• share your experience (tips, best-practices…)

According to the amount of points generated, we know how helpful community members have been for the whole community. This point system helps us track our progress.

But what is the aim of earning points for a community member?

1) The collaborative equity

One of our upcoming challenge is to share the company profits with all the members of the community, according to how helpful they are. This idea is inspired by giffgaff in UK that gave 2.4 million pounds in December 2013 to its helpful community members (about 4 million USD!).

Sharing value with the people who create it seems obvious, right? However, it is very rare in our economy, even among startups. Leaders like Joe Nocera criticizes:

Instagram isn’t worth a billion dollars just because its 13 employees are extraordinary. Instead, its value comes from the millions of users who contribute to the network.

He adds:

Communities need a great number of people to participate in them to generate significant value. But when they have them, only a small number of people get paid. This has the net effect of centralizing wealth and limiting overall economic growth.

Lanier’s message is that it can’t last. And it won’t.

Since decades, companies belong to their investors.

But as I explained previously, money cannot be at the center of everything. In order to help a community grow, (access to) knowledge and contacts are also key assets.

So I would like to introduce the concept of “Collaborative Equity”. Each time someone helps a business initiative by sharing his knowledge or network (aka “help the community grow”) he increase his amount of shares within the Collaborative Equity paradigm.

It is a complementary system to traditional equity.

Our “Collaborative Equity” at the end of January 2014.

Each time someone joins a business initiative like “The Collaborative Startup” in order to help the community grow, he increases his shares within that company.

2) The rise of community currencies

We are also building partnerships with other startups in order to enable our members to buy goods and services with this new community currency.

A community currency is often used as a synonym for a complementary currency. A complementary currency is a voucher meant to be used as a complement to another money system, typically a national currency.

“A community currency is an agreement to use something else than legal tender (i.e. national money) as a medium of exchange, with the purpose to link unmet needs with otherwise unused resources” (Lietaer & Hallsmith)

These complementary currencies help us set up a brand new game.

Today, private banks issue a certain amount of money. And we have to play a kind of Monopoly game with these rules. As the amount of money is finite, there will be winners and losers. A few players take mostly everything. (Today, the three richest people in the world possess more financial assets than the lowest 48 nations combined, according to the United Nations.)

We often undervalue our freedom of speech and creativity. It is in our right to issue new currencies and build complementary monetary systems if we think existing models could be improved. Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese explain:

“Money is a medium of exchange, and any community, no matter how small or how large, can design their own way to handle exchanges among themselves.”

The money system we use today worldwide is not an appropriate tool when the flow is about helping others. Often, people who truly help say that they do not expect anything in return. It can become an efficient strategy in order to build a strong network. But even in that case, it is still a strategy within an existing game, while it can become a whole new game in itself.

That is why we have launched our own currency system at The Collaborative Startup, in order to participate in a new economy based on mutual-help.

Rachel Botsman says that: “The currency of the new economy is trust.” I would rather say:

The currency of the new economy is helpfulness.

YOU are the leader of this historic evolution

I totally believe entrepreneurs who focus on growing their own community today are the pioneers and future leaders of this new economy.

Thanks to Elżbieta Bednarek, Gopi Mattel, Laurent Roger, Xavier de Ryckel, Sebastien Casaert, Zsofia Kerekes, Vinh Ton, Laura Gluhanich, Yara Qattom, Angel Steger and all the other members for believing in this true purpose of business. We are playing a huge game together where we will all win. Trust me.

I can help you more!

As always, if you are interested in growing such an adventure for your business, I am happy to help. Each week I hold several startup mentoring sessions. It is free and I do not expect anything in return. To tell you the truth, it helps me write better blog posts afterwards, and improve the way I teach. It is also about taking pleasure while sharing my passion and values with fellow entrepreneurs. You will definitely not lose your time. So please SCHEDULE YOUR STARTUP MENTORING CALL with me now. I beg you to accept this win-win deal with me.

Looking forward to hearing from you!