Investor ? Entrepreneur ? Score your '22, and plan real impact for your '23

With a year so full of surprises behind us, it must be the perfect time to do two things. First, give ourselves a score for how did we did personally in '22, and second, look at new methods to track how we really want to be, corporately, in 2023.

Scoring '22

Whichever books you've read, or course you've been on, you'll know that life is made up of a surprisingly short list of things to worry about. If you think there's something missing, let me know ! So give yourself a score from 1-10 for how satisfied you are, here at year end, with the following.... Home (literally, the place where you live..and maybe work nowadays. How is it ?), Family (Christmas & New Year brings this to the fore for many of us), Work (did I invest my time and talent in something important to me ?), Friends (who did I spend time with, and how inspiring was all that ?), Health (physical, mental, maybe even spiritual), Leisure (did I take time to have fun away from work ?), Money (did I steward my finances wisely ?), Learning (did I try something different, did I learn new skills ?), and finally, and maybe most importantly, Service to Others (who is better off now because of my 2022 ?).

Clearly there are no good or bad scores, but if any are lower than you would like, that's probably nature's way of nudging you to make some practical improvements as we kick off the new year. We can all benefit from such a simple exercise, and why not share it with others. There's nothing like sharing your plans with others, knowing they'll be back in February to ask how you're getting along.

Planning Impact for '23

• Moving on to part two, how do we really want to be for '23 ? Not for discussion this time but when you think about it, most of us are very busy modelling ourselves on others. To be like our heroes, role models, influencers. No bad thing, but for now let's focus on the more immediate impact we'd like to have over the next 4 quarters.
• It's clear that "impact investing" is a growing 'thing'. Blackrock tell us it's a "rapidly growing segment within sustainable investing"- JP Morgan tell us its "set for growth" !! And Morgan Stanley published some fascinating notes on "building value from values" back in July . Truth is of course, every investment of my time and your time and money has ALWAYS had an impact - financial, social, environmental, and I would suggest, even moral, on the world around us. Isn't that in fact how we got here in the first place ? Good news is we woke up a bit last year, so what metrics are you going to use to measure success for 2023 ? We've got a personal scorecard now, but what about your business, startup or investment portfolio ?
• If you're a startup, I already spent some time summarising respected sources such as Forbes , A16Z, & Dave McClure on what make appropriate success metrics, With the help of our favourite Start Trek characters I added some thoughts, and you can read the full version of that here !! In all my work with CEOs and Mastermind groups, we usually boil it all down to the BIG Four - Product / People / Funding / Sales. So the question is, as you develop your goals for each of these..... what are the social, environmental, and moral impacts of your plan that you need to be intentional about this year ? .......How do you ensure everyone in your supply chain earns a fair wage ? .....How do you want your customers to describe you to others ? .....How could you reduce your energy consumption ?.......how can you show your product/service generates value beyond the mere financial ?
• As an investor its becoming commonplace to use the UN SDGs as a way of improving our impact, but when you have 17 items on a menu, it's tempting to go a la carte, and avoid those not to our own taste. Easier is to take each investment and at least include a comment on an IC (Investment Committee) memo under each simple impact heading - Environmental - Social - Moral/Values as well as Financial, and develop a series of tests and questions to be asked as your experience grows. So maybe that "growing rice in sea water" startup gets the nod over the "vegan fast food delivery service" in 2023 ?
• Just last week I finished a "Review of '22" here at SOSV, and whatever about the finances, it was clear to me that our proudest achievements include hatching companies like Phable who have treated over 2,000,000 chronically sick patients, and onboarded 10,000 doctors to their Indian "telehealth" platform, or Kno Global, partnering with the likes of Decathlon & Target to remove injustice from the fashion supply chain, That's the kind of measurable impact that will keep me getting up in the mornings well into 2023 !!
• Final thought - the word "priority" doesn't have a plural ! We can only have ONE priority. So for our startups or investments will that always be the $$$$ ?
• Good luck to us all for 2023, and if you're wondering how "Startups by the Sea"is planning to have an impact- check us out at here