Xavier shares how he created a company that impacted the world, donated $20M+ to global literacy, maintained double digit growth for years and sold to a charity founded by the creator of Amazon's Alexa for millions of dollars.

What You Will Learn in Today’s Podcast Interview:

How and why Xavier sold his company to the creator of Amazon’s Alexa

A framework to evaluate what problems in the world you connect with

What a B Corporation is and how it works

How rapid growth can lead to needing an investor

Why Xavier would have had more options if he grew at 25% CAGR instead of 40%

Xavier’s views on the “Triple Bottom Line”

The value of transparency and public commitments

How to approach working with venture capital

How to integrate Conscious Capitalism into your business model

How a strong mission and vision can lead to outsized long-term growth

How to align your company’s vision and mission with a buyer

How to learn and approach the sale of your company as an entrepreneur

Tips for founders on how to pass along knowledge in your company

Podcast Summary:

What does it mean to bake your mission and vision into all aspects of your company? The guest on today’s episode, Xavier Helgesen, explains to us just how he did that as the Co-founder of one of the first B Corporations, Better World Books. B Corps formally combine public interest goals with profit earning throughout their business model—other B Corps you may know include Patagonia and Tom’s Shoes. Xavier shares how Better World Books raised over $20 million dollars for global literacy and donated tens of millions of books, while also maintaining double digit growth 15 years in a row. The company’s rapid growth led them to take on investors and ultimately sell to a charity, which is unique in and of itself, but the charity also happened to be founded by the creator of Amazon’s Alexa. Today’s episode hits home the power of building a company while intentionally linking it to the life you want to live. The underlying values and mission of a business can range from charity work to financial stability, and Xavier emphasizes the added growth a business can experience by integrating that mission into the company’s cost and future plans. This conversation focuses on how to intentionally align a social cause with a company’s mission at each stage of starting, growing, and selling a business—it is an inspiring story of how a “conscious capitalism” oriented company proves that good business is not just good marketing.

About the Guest:

Xavier Helgesen is an entrepreneur, technologist, global citizen, and builder of world positive companies. He co-founded Better World Books, the first ever b-corporation. Better World Books is an independent online bookstore with a unique triple-bottom-line mode