Impact entrepreneur Xavier Helgesen talks with Better Ventures about ensuring impact, thinking big, and doing the right thing
Entrepreneurs face many common challenges — financing their startups, attracting customers, scaling faster than competitors, and essentially building something from nothing. Impact entrepreneurs however, face an added challenge of ensuring that the success of their business is intrinsically tied to making people’s lives better.
As an experienced entrepreneur, Xavier Helgesen is familiar with this struggle. As founder and CEO of pay-as-you-go solar startup Off Grid Electric, which has raised over $23M to bring clean, affordable energy to people throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, and founder of Better World Books, an online used bookstore with over $70M in annual revenue, Xavier knows a thing or two about impact entrepreneurship.
As part of Better Ventures’ PreSeed Program, he spoke recently at Impact Hub Oakland about his work and passions. Along with his deep commitment to making the world a better place with scalable business models, his charming personality and great stories quickly won over the crowd. Some highlights from the evening include:
Intrinsic Impact: The best way to codify your social mission is to build impact into the product so it’s inseparable.
“In Better World, the mission was also the supply chain… it was so, so deeply integrated. In Off-Grid’s case, because the service directly delivers the social mission, it’s so intrinsic to it, there is no business without it.”
https://youtu.be/4XiRLuXt-SU?t=1h10m33s
Thinking Big: When asked what advice he’d give to a recent college graduate, Xavier honed in on the effort to always think big. Despite his large-scale successes, this might be his biggest regret.
“Think big. Believe it or not, most of the business mistakes I’ve made in my life are because I didn’t think big enough, either about what the current company could be, or what I could be, or what the vision for a company could be.”
https://youtu.be/4XiRLuXt-SU?t=1h3m58s
Passion: Like all good impact entrepreneurs, Xavier is deeply passionate about making a difference in the world.
“I had this idea in my head even before we started this that I wanted to do something that was really good for the world.”
https://youtu.be/4XiRLuXt-SU?t=13m8s
Watch the full video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XiRLuXt-SU
—
About Better Ventures PreSeed
Better Ventures PreSeed convenes thought leaders, networking, and resources to advance a thriving impact startup ecosystem in Oakland and the greater East Bay. This program offers speaker events, workshops, and other support to help early-stage entrepreneurs launch and grow successful businesses that also benefit the community.
About Better Ventures
Better Ventures is an Oakland, CA-based venture firm that backs early-stage technology companies building venture-scale models that generate positive social and environmental outcomes. Their companies are leveraging the power and scale of technology to address big societal issues from work and education, to health and sustainability. They invest at the seed stage and provide resources and support to help companies get to the next level.
Xavier Helgesen appeared on the mainstage at SOCAP15 as part of a panel focused on the challenges and triumphs of social entrepreneurs that was moderated by SOCAP Co-Founder Kevin Jones. Xavier and Kevin were in conversation with Matt Flannery of Branch and Co-Founder of Kiva, Becca Stevens of Thistle Farms, and Alloysius Attah of Farmer Line.