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Yesterday on my daily walk, I rounded a corner to the sound of a young girl playing her guitar. She wasn’t bad for a 10-year-old so I crossed the road to listen more closely and found her two younger sisters busy selling their product – homemade cookies. I doubt that they understood the term “lean […]

This reprint from the Business As Mission website is an important reminder of the important stakeholders for kingdom startups. Each should be recognized and served with excellence and integrity. We asked a team of BAM experts to give some practical advice for BAM practitioners creating business plans. For this post we asked them about key

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.

The cover article of the March 2018 Fortune magazine is entitled “100 Best Companies to Work for in 2018.” I am always curious to know why a company is selected. I decided to take notes on the top 25 and consolidate my notes into the “most often mentioned” reasons why a company is in the

While on long flights, I often bring a couple of books, my computer and postcards to write to my grandkids. Depending on how exhausted I am, I rarely read a whole book between the east coast and my home in Seattle. But this book held my attention. It is a classic. It is a “must

Part 3 of a 3-part series on human slavery and freedom business Last week we stated that the vital re-integration element for addressing the problem of human trafficking, particularly sex slavery, is an important complement to rescue and restoration. While in Cambodia recently we interviewed and observed seven businesses which were working hard to develop