High-Hanging Fruit Read online

  The old guard will fight back and they won’t always fight fair. They’ll deploy advertising designed to manipulate consumers, promote unfair regulations, attempt to control routes to market, and employ armies of lawyers to defend their turf. But all these tactics will only delay the inevitable. Major corporations will either lose fighting these insurgent players or be forced to assimilate their values and mission.

  High-hanging fruit is not just about an incremental change to the old way of doing business. While social responsibility was an important step for major corporations to adopt, it is often used to justify, ameliorate, or offset the negative consequences of regular business practices, with profit remaining the only true bottom line. Social entrepreneurship generally attempts to use business to achieve social objectives, and expands the concept of the bottom line to include people and the planet. But the entrepreneurs I’m talking about set out as a given that their businesses must contribute to larger social goals and minimize environmental impact, and also add a new dimension to the triple bottom line: that of finding deeper meaning through business by pursuing one’s highest and best use and helping others do the same.

  This revolution is poised to disrupt the world by combining the power of entrepreneurship with deep personal values, purpose, and mission. Since we launched Zico in 2004 we have witnessed hundreds and know there are thousands of other entrepreneurs following a similar path. No longer do the winners have to be Harvard dropouts or serial entrepreneurs who can trace their business genius back to their days of franchising lemonade stands around the neighborhood. They might begin as teachers, backwoods craftsmen, social activists, environmentalists, small farmers, anthropologists, Jesuit priests, or cancer-surviving moms. I believe that most of our shared social problems, from the economic boom and bust cycles to income and development inequalities to environmental degradation, can best be addressed through this new style of entrepreneurship. This is capitalism 2.0, and we’re only at the beginning of this movement.

  High-Hanging Fruit is not a how-to book or a step-by-step instructional manual. It is not a rigorous scientific study across multiple test cases. This story is my personal reflection on the journey of attempting to build a business with these higher goals in mind. It’s about one person’s, one couple’s, one team’s attempt to reach higher. I will offer lessons, thoughts, and insights I’ve gained in attempting to disrupt an industry ruled by a few dominant players. I’ll share our intentions and triumphs, as well as my doubts, fears, and mistakes along the way as we tried to change the way business is done.

  People talk a lot about the importance of being true to your values and seeking something beyond material rewards in other areas like art, music, writing, science, teaching, and drama. It is time to apply this maxim to business: to see business as an equally noble pursuit measured by more than just a single dimension. That’s what this movement is about. If you choose to join us, your life, the lives of those around you, and the legacy of capitalism will never be the same, and the next generation will thank you for it. Good luck and reach higher.

  CHAPTER 2

  HOW GREAT IDEAS ARE SOMETIMES RIGHT OVERHEAD

  “How flexographic printing is changing the world” was the name of the seminar I was sitting in on at a conference on printing and packaging in Miami, Florida, the winter of 2003. I was still a young mid-level executive with International Paper and so bored by the presenter I wondered what I was doing with my life.

  That night before I flew back home to El Salvador the following morning, I had dinner in South Beach with David Andrade, who worked for me as controller for one of the five IP beverage-packaging plants I ran at the time. We sat at one of the swanky restaurants on Collins Avenue, enjoying the ocean breeze.

  David and I ordered martinis and talked in Spanish about the conference and work in general. On the second round, we talked about our families and friends. On the third, we opened up and began to really talk about life, our hopes and dreams. At the time, I wouldn’t usually have conversations with employees that were so personal and revealing, but David had become a good friend and would soon move on to a job in the U.S., so I felt more comfortable being candid. No doubt the three martinis helped loosen my tongue a bit.

  “So, Mark, everyone knows you’re not gonna stay in El Salvador forever,” David said to me. “You’ll get promoted or recruited by some other big company, but what I want to know is this—have you ever thought about leaving and starting your own business?”

  The truth was that I had thought a good deal about joining a start-up, probably as the general manager or CEO who took over from an entrepreneur with a brilliant idea. Over the last ten years, I had become confident in my business skills. I was the guy who could build and lead teams, develop strategies, execute plans, reach goals, get things done. I could see myself taking a company from $1 million to $10 million, or $10 million to $100 million, or maybe even $100 million to $1 billion. But in those dreams, I never cast myself as the founder, the person who had come up with the new idea.

  “I’m not really the idea guy,” I said, looking out toward the night sky. “I’ve got friends who are always coming up with new products or services. That’s not me. But I would love to find someone with an idea I can believe in and passionately get behind. Assuming we can find the money we need, I think I could figure out the strategy and scale it.”

  When I looked back at David, he had a funny, expressionless face as if I had just said something idiotic. “Mark,” he said, gesturing around at the lively South Beach social scene, “the only difference between you and an entrepreneur is an idea, and you are as capable as anyone of coming up with one.”

  Despite the effects of three martinis, David’s simple statement hit me like a lightning bolt. Why had I been telling myself that I wasn’t creative or smart enough to come up with an idea?

  And when exactly had I convinced myself that creativity and follow-through were mutually exclusive? As a kid and even a teen, I had thought of myself as creative. In fact, one of my declared career goals, when asked, was to be an artist. My family had often referred to me as “project boy” for all the crazy schemes I pursued. But somewhere along the way I had persuaded myself that I was a left-brained thinker: a doer, not a dreamer. But was that just a stereotype I had imposed on myself?

  With David’s simple observation, I had been given permission to ignore the story I had been telling myself for decades and began a new one of possibility. A switch flipped in my brain, and I couldn’t turn it off even if I wanted to. I suddenly couldn’t stop thinking of new business ideas.

  IDEAS ARE A DIME A DOZEN

  With David’s challenge echoing in my mind, I did what I always do: I dove in deep. On the plane ride back home to El Salvador, I began to make a list of ideas. I remembered a mantra I had often heard in brainstorming meetings: “There are no bad ideas.” By the end of the plane ride, I had already jotted down two dozen. I got three more walking by the airport stores and kiosks. Over the following weeks the list grew longer each day. The world suddenly seemed full of opportunities to start businesses. Why, I wondered, had I not done this before? David was right; not only could I come up with a great idea, I was an idea machine.

  Maura was happy that I was feeling so energized and excited. She knew me, in some ways better than I knew myself, and saw that the corporate career path I was on was becoming less and less fulfilling.

  Of course, I knew that whatever business I pursued, I needed and wanted full buy-in from Maura. So one evening, a couple of weeks into my manic brainstorming, I brought out my notebook after the girls went to sleep.

  Sitting on our patio overlooking the city lights, I flipped through my pages of notes and started with one I knew was a winner. “I want to consolidate the dairy industry across Central America.” I let the sheer brilliance of that sit in the air for a minute, and then went on to explain that in the seven countries of Central America, with a combined
population of about thirty million and an economy the size of Ohio, there were twenty-five independent dairies, none of which were large enough to be efficient. The opening of free trade with the U.S. had undercut small-scale corn growers in Mexico. The same could happen with dairy farmers in Central America, I told her. I already knew most of the players, as the business I ran for International Paper supplied the paper cartons for the milk. The small-scale milk producers were all at risk unless they consolidated and ran more efficiently. “Dean Foods revolutionized the dairy industry in the U.S.,” I finished, “and we could do the same in Central America.”

  Maura thought for a moment, nodding her head.

  “Dairy,” she said, looking at me, both puzzled and bemused, “you’ve hidden your passion for the dairy industry from me all these years. Let me ask you this: besides the opportunity to make money, why do we want to be in that business? So we can go to more boring Dairy Federation trade shows in Chicago? Isn’t that sort of the industry you’re trying to get out of? How is this important for you and me and the girls and the rest of the world?”

  “Well,” I said, suddenly feeling like I was being attacked, “the girls drink milk.” Maura cocked her head at me, indicating the lameness of the answer. Trying to get my momentum back, I doubled down and tried to convince her that there was a fortune to be made in dairy.

  “Okay, I believe you,” she said, interrupting my lecture. “You can make a lot of money from consolidating dairies. Is that your main point?”

  Clearly, this idea didn’t impress her. I flipped through the pages looking for a better one.

  “Okay. What about trucking?” This one I was pretty sure would wow her because I had become something of an expert on regional trade. I was a board member for the American Chamber of Commerce of El Salvador and we were active in the negotiations of the Central American Free Trade Agreement between Central America and the U.S. One of the expected problem areas was trucking. I reminded Maura that there had been a boom in the trucking business when the U.S., Mexico, and Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and that the same was expected in Central America when this new agreement was signed. The trucking infrastructure that existed across the region was poor, limited, and inefficient. I knew this well as the business I ran shipped packaging across the region, and it took days and was triple the cost to ship from San Salvador to San José, Costa Rica, than from New York to Pittsburgh, roughly the same distance.

  “So I’ll raise some money,” I said to Maura, “buy a couple of the best trucking companies, and then figure out how to make them world-class with new technology, best practices, good benefits for drivers, better safety.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “Trucking?” All the questions she had asked before hung in the air. “Tell me, what is it about trucking that excites and inspires you?”

  “Um,” I stalled, knowing that I would likely regret anything that came out of my mouth.

  “Trucking just doesn’t do it for me,” she said, reaching out her hand for the list as I surrendered it. She read aloud idea after idea: shopping malls in Honduras, clothing manufacturing in Colombia, ecotourism in Costa Rica, exporting chocolate from Belize. When she got to trucking again she was laughing so uncontrollably she couldn’t keep reading.

  “All right now, I admit some of these aren’t that great, but don’t you know the first principle of brainstorming is there are no bad ideas?” I said, taking the notepad back but laughing with her at the same time.

  “Well.” She paused, taking a breath and regaining control of herself. “What we’re doing here is the step after brainstorming when we cull the herd. I don’t want to squash your excitement for becoming an entrepreneur and I have no doubt if you decided to launch one of these businesses you could succeed. But if we’re going to mortgage our lives to launch a business, it needs to be something we can both be passionate about. What about all the stuff we’ve talked about, Mark? Having fun, traveling to great places, making a positive impact on the world? Where does that fit into any of these ideas?”

  I looked back at my list, scanning it for ideas by which I could redeem myself. As moneymaking business ventures, I could make the case for all of them, but I could now see that they were hollow—and might lead me and us to the same exact unfulfilled spot I was in now. Making money was important to both Maura and me. We had our girls to support, after all. And we both wanted to become financially independent enough to be comfortable in life. But the truth was that we could work toward those monetary goals without leaving the career path I was on and taking on the risks and difficulties of starting something. To start a new business required that the venture profit us, and the world, in other ways as well. Maura was reminding me that the right idea had to have a motivation deeper and higher than just typical business success and making money.

  A HIGHER FORM OF IDEATION

  As I thought about Maura’s questions, I realized I was starting from the wrong place. I had fixated on the business opportunities I perceived needed to be filled instead of leading with more fundamental and meaningful personal questions: What problem in the world do we want to address? What impact do we want to make? What meaningful good or service do I want to contribute? What do I have to uniquely offer to the world?

  For some people, the question of what they have to offer the world is relatively straightforward. We all love the stories of prodigies who show amazing aptitude at a young age—the adolescent violin virtuoso or the ten-year-old physicist—people who seem to be born great at something. At the other end of the spectrum are those who don’t really care about what they produce, so long as it has a market and is profitable, much like a celebrity CEO who might be a keen manager, wiz with numbers, and gladiator at the negotiation table, motivated to win big for his or her team, whatever team that is. Despite being an icon of success, his or her story answers all the important questions about achieving remarkable success except the most important one: why?

  Most of us, myself included, fall somewhere in between. We weren’t born with some preternatural talent to offer the world, and yet we want careers that are more than simply maximizing income and our social status. Increasingly, we expect our professional endeavors to line up with our values, interests, personal histories, and beliefs. We want to have a clear and deeply satisfying answer to the question, “Why did you spend all that time and effort producing that product or service or starting that company?”

  Of course, keeping this question in mind from the beginning will help you avoid getting off track. But that requires you to examine your personal history and inner desires to see what truly interests you. What are your talents, abilities, and passions? What excites you? What local or world problems would you like to try to solve? While you may not find the perfect idea or lifelong passion, with some hard work you can greatly narrow the field and select an idea that closely aligns with who you are, when you are at your best, and who you want to become.

  After that evening with Maura, I put my brainstorming notepad aside and over the following weeks Maura and I took long hikes together in some of our favorite spots around San Salvador. Instead of going straight for the big idea, we discussed our personal lives, histories, and dreams. We retold stories to each other of our families, people who influenced us and whom we admired. We examined supposedly “successful” people whose lives we never wanted to emulate. We reflected on when we were happiest, when we had the most fun, our proudest moments, and the dreams we had for ourselves and our girls. We weighed the pros and cons of continuing our nomadic expat lifestyle and discussed various countries, states, and cities where we might want to put down roots.

  As we talked, several guiding principles and key shared interests bubbled up right away. We had both grown up in religious households that emphasized our shared responsibility to others, especially the poor and underserved. We realized that this upbringing had shaped us substantially. Maura had dedicated herself to caus
es and organizations beginning in college to help people who didn’t have the same advantages she had. She said it kept her grounded whether tutoring inmates at Cook County Jail, comforting AIDS hospice patients in Chicago, or being a camp counselor for intellectually challenged kids. She worked and volunteered for nonprofits and then pursued a master’s degree in public health. After graduate school, she worked in various capacities championing women’s and children’s health and education. For me, my parents helped me develop my moral compass, which influenced my decision to attend a Jesuit college and subsequently join the Peace Corps. I lived in rural Costa Rica for two years, where I worked with small business owners, mostly single mothers, to help them grow their businesses through access to micro loans. When I returned home, I couldn’t see myself just getting an MBA so I also pursued an environmental management degree. While in El Salvador we built houses with Habitat for Humanity, supported schools in poor communities, and planted trees in urban areas. Whatever business we started, we determined we didn’t want to intentionally harm others or the environment and ideally wanted to make a positive impact on people’s lives and health.

  We also talked about how we wanted to stay healthy both for our own longevity and happiness as well as to be good role models for our girls. We were active and into biking, hiking, skiing, swimming, and yoga. We were part of a generation that was becoming ever more keenly aware of the interplay between mental, physical, and spiritual health.