Part 1 — What Does It Really Take To Start a Purpose-Driven Business?

So you have an idea inside you that’s screaming to become a business — welcome to the club of over 500,000 startup founders who will launch their companies this month.

We are told that 90% will fail.

Perspective

Despite the 90% failure rate, I’ve invested the past 35 years into a serial entrepreneur calling where I have thrived, failed, survived, bounced-back, reinvented and pursued the great dreams that keep my heart pumping.

It’s from this perspective that I encourage you to build a purpose-driven business.

What’s a purpose-driven company? My definition:

WorkLife integrated through building a lifestyle business around my purpose (calling + gifts) to enjoy my idea of success and prosperity, my version of #BestLife. To do this I connect the dots between business, purpose, success and faith. I do what God has created me to do.

I’m not building it to get rich quick, or around the goals of venture capital entrepreneurs. Rather, I’m on a journey doing something I love, something that I believe matters, to make life better for me AND other humans. It’s a lifestyle business, built for my life, not some investor’s idea of work/life balance. I’m not building it to become the next unicorn, but I am building it to create ample revenue to accelerate and scale … and to be wildly profitable.

My personal expectations are to be prosperous and successful. To make all I can. Save all I can. Invest all I can. Give away all I can.

To invest my time equally between pursuing wisdom, wealth and generosity.

I spent my first 17 years building a staffing company, a technology education company, and a marketing company.

I spent my second 16 years helping many CEOs grow their technology and tech-education businesses through my turnaround practice, RPM Strategic.

Now I’m three years into growing CanaGlobal, a startup training and CoLab space in Los Angeles for purpose-driven founders.

Know What You Want

Now on to the first step. The first step begins with asking these two questions, What and If.

What would you set out to accomplish if you had all of the resources and knew you could not fail? What would make you happy and how will you know when you get there?

If you could wave a magic wand and change your life, what would it look like in five years?

To me this is designed success. It’s up to me to decide what I want out of life, and then build a plan and business to get there. This is an exercise that I’ve done for most of my life. In The Accelerator Startup Bootcamp at CanaGlobal, this is how we start the bootcamp. We start out by stretching everyone’s perception of what’s possible. By learning to think bigger, we 100X what’s possible.

Here’s how you can do it.

Imagine your life in five years. Both work and life. If you could change everything, what would you change?

• Your personal income?
• How much you have saved/invested?
• Would you be debt free?
• Would you have the freedom to control what you do with your time?
• How about your health and fitness, would your body look different?
• How about your wisdom, knowledge and understanding — what would your ability look like?
• Would you be earning an amazing income doing what you love?
• Where would you live? Would your house be paid in full?
• What would you drive?
• What would your lifestyle look like?
• Would you have the faith to pursue your dreams?
• Would you know your purpose?
• What would your relationships look like?

Take some time and paint a portrait in your mind. Can you see it? If you can’t see it, you can’t have it.

Your Perception of What’s Possible Frames Your Future

What’s my number one rule for setting impossible-seeming goals? I don’t have to “know-how” I’m going to reach the goals when I set them. That’s something I work through planning and preparation after I set the goals. If I limit goal setting to only the things which seem realistic, I’d inadvertently be limiting what possible — to my past limited experiences.

My future’s not determined by my present circumstances, it’s determined by my perception of what’s possible, the size of my dreams, and God’s master plan for my life. All things are possible with God. This is good news for the purpose-driven entrepreneur.

Once I begin to set a clear picture of my life in five years, I calculate the costs of achieving my goals. I look at how much time, energy, focus and money will be required to achieve my goals.

After I write my vision statement down, I calculate the annual personal income required to achieve my stated goals.

Year 1 personal net income

Year 2 personal net income

Year 3 personal net income

Year 4 personal net income

Year 5 personal net income

Why is this important? Because now I have a personal income requirement that must be met with my business model. When you set big dreams, it requires you to plan bigger.

Building a purpose-driven business starts by planning and preparing for the life you want — for your personal version of success.

Building a Purpose-Driven Business Requires Vision and Diligence.

A vision is a precise, clearly defined goal with a detailed plan and timetable for achieving that goal. Diligence is a learnable skill that combines: creative persistence, a smart-working effort rightly planned and rightly performed in a timely, efficient, and effective manner to attain a result that is pure and of the highest quality of excellence.

I am often asked, “when is the right time to start my business?”, the right time is always now. Today is the time to start your planning. There is a reason why someday is not a day of the week.

Dream Big. Plan Big.

Stay Tuned For Part 2, How To Validate Your Product/Market Fit.

What’s the big problem you are out to solve? How is the problem epidemic, and how did we get here? What’s the solution and your role in it? How do you roll these answers into a business model that will attract your target audience creating ample revenue and profitability?