A conversation with our VP of Growth on how to do well and do good
There are plenty of amazing things that money can’t buy (love and class, for example). But when it comes to providing access to clean water and proper sanitation, funding is vital. With that in mind, we designed our business model – 50% of profits donated, 50% invested in the company’s growth. From the beginning, we wanted to provide a scalable and sustainable source of income for organisations working in sanitation.
For now, businesses like ours are in the minority. We hope that by sharing a bit of our journey (and our mistakes!), we inspire other entrepreneurs to give back. Doing good is incredibly rewarding, but it’s also good for business! Just ask our Co-founder and VP of Growth and Strategy, Jehan. Actually, we’ll ask him for you.
Before we get started, will you introduce yourself?
My name is Jehan Ratnatunga, VP of Strategy and Growth, and a proud co-founder of Who Gives A Crap. How's that?
That's great! Ok, so, how does leading a growth team at Who Gives A Crap differ from your experiences at other companies that don’t have donations at the centre of their business model?
No matter where I am, I like doing work that has some form of impact. When I was at YouTube, for example, I liked that it was very much about openness and giving people a voice. At Who Gives A Crap, the impact is obviously more direct.
Really, that’s the exciting thing about working at Who Gives A Crap. You know that the efforts you make to grow the business are going to have a real impact, because we donate a portion of the profits. There's something very satisfying about being able to say, "Hey, because I was able to grow this part of the customer base, or find this new market, the business has a greater impact in the world." It makes it really clear and motivating!
Does that mean that you feel the pressure?
Yeah, definitely. In a good way. I have to make sure we can grow the business in a sustainable way. We need to acquire new customers or break into new markets in a way that makes sense economically. I think about that all the time, especially when deciding how much to invest into the business so that we can grow our impact in the long term. If we’re going to invest, it has to have a long, sustainable payoff.
It sounds like a balancing act.
Absolutely.
Do you have a rule of thumb for determining what tips the scale?
Don't spend more money than you're earning. Pretty genius really. It may seem obvious, but there are many businesses, startups in particular, that grow super quickly in hopes of profitability later. We don't have that luxury because we're promising impact to our customers. We have to make sure that we are profitable. Otherwise, the promise of Who Gives A Crap doesn’t play out.
Ok, now what about the mistakes we’ve made? What can other businesses learn from our missteps?
So there are a couple of things. Initially, in the very early days, we made the mistake of being quite conventional in our thinking. We thought Who Gives A Crap would be a supermarket play. We assumed those were the rules of the game – that there was a standard way of buying toilet paper and that was in a supermarket.
I'm talking almost 10 years ago now, so the online market wasn't what it is now. Fortunately, we weren’t so closed off that we didn't experiment with online commerce because now that’s really the focus of our business. That's one mistake, being too focused on conventional wisdom.
You have to get weird with it.
Yeah, exactly. Think outside the box, ya know? It was also really important to learn how to blend gut intuition with what the data is saying. Sometimes those two things are at odds with each other and it's very easy to just pick one to prioritise. But often these conflicting signals can be really, really useful. You should think about how to balance them together.
The ol’ give and take. That's a good life lesson.
Oh yeah? How would that apply in life? Like when you’re dating someone and you think, “They’re terrible on paper, but something in my gut says this is the one…”
Yes! That's a perfect example. And both are important.
You’ve got to listen to both.
You've touched on this, but in the beginning, knowing what you know now, what's the number one thing you would have done differently?
Hmmm, let me think. Word of mouth was our first real wave of growth because the product was beautiful. People were taking photos of the rolls and that was big. Then online marketing was huge. After that was international expansion. Those were the three big waves of growth. I don’t think we would have done any of that differently, I think that was the right order.
Is this a “no regrets” situation?
No, no. That’s not helpful to anyone. Also not accurate!
You know what? We were very focused initially – it was just toilet paper in Australia. Over time, we've added more products and more countries. It’s led to a rich, diverse customer base who are incredibly environmentally and socially conscious. For us, more customers means more impact. So I guess I wish we’d thought about expanding earlier to have more impact.
Did you ever have doubts that all of this would work?
Of course! Every entrepreneur must have that gut feeling that says, "Is this really a thing??” And then some people will tell you it’s a bad idea. Eventually you realise nobody really knows what they're talking about (including you). You just have to go and do it. Fortunately, so far so good for us. We've been really lucky to find something that's resonated with so many people.
“I think our impact helped the business grow, even though it’s kind of counterintuitive because we’re giving away so much of what we’re earning.”
Even this idea of donating 50% of profits, that's kind of wacky.
Yeah. That was the clearest way we could state the mission of the business. It was important to us to make a difference in the world and actually put our money where our mouth is. But it’s definitely a risky proposition! In the end, I think it helped the business grow, even though it's kind of counterintuitive because we’re giving away so much of what we’re earning. But I’ve found that doing good is something that motivates customers (as well as our team).
You're a pretty businessy guy, you must have some businessy friends. What do they think about all this?
Honestly there's a lot of interest in how the business is growing. People want to know what’s the main thing that's making it work. And that main thing is obviously puns.
Haha, it sounds like you would also attribute our success to our impact.
Oh, impact is a huge, huge driver because it's so simple. You buy, we donate. I think that simplicity is really powerful. And we're really transparent about it! We report back on how much we’ve been able to donate and impact we're having.
If there was a young entrepreneur, maybe a Jehan from 10 years ago, who wanted to just start a social enterprise, what would your advice be?
Definitely go for it. Whatever the idea is, you have to just start. That would be my number one piece of advice. Two would be to definitely get ready to pivot. It's going to be a bit of a mess. And third is to have your central mission written down and clear in your mind, because it will help you make a bunch of decisions later on. Also puns.
Beautifully said. And I love that the lessons from this conversation are to get weird, do good and write things down.
And don’t spend all of your money.
Ok, last question. Are you more of a bamboo guy or a classic recycled?
Bamboo all the way. I'm just a little bit fancy like that.
If you’d like to hear more from our founders on our donation philosophy, check out our conversation with our Chief of Product and Purpose on the bittersweet nature of giving back.
