June 2018

I recently received a memo from a former employee who married and went with her husband to Asia to start a business in the red-light district of a major city. The value proposition was to provide baked goods and gourmet coffee to the international market by training and hiring employees coming out of the trafficking […]

As I sat down at my computer to write a blog about Business As Mission metrics using some grids from my university class on business startups, I opened a letter from a friend living in Togo, West Africa. It was passed on to me by IBEC consultant Rick Buddemeier. I realized that here was a

A start-up is a fledgling business enterprise. The American Heritage Dictionary suggests it is “a business or undertaking that has recently begun operation.” A start-up is a company working to solve a problem where the solution is not obvious and success is not guaranteed,” says Neil Blumenthal, cofounder and co-CEO of Warby Parker. IBEC has

I find it curious and interesting to know what others consider to be important. One of the ways I try to understand that curiosity is by considering requests for re-posting items which have originated on the IBEC Blog. Business As Mission is probably the most read BAM website out there and within the last six

I ran across the old German adage, “The customer is king” while preparing for a university class I teach on innovation and entrepreneurship. While it is true that understanding the customer is much more complex than a generation ago, and the metaphor may be a tired one, it is increasingly accurate today. Professor Robert C.