We now continue our coverage of Mark Bittman's transition from influential bestselling cookbook author and food columnist for the New York Times to chief innovation officer for startup Purple Carrot, described as "a meal kit delivery service for vegans."
Bittman is chronicling the transition with a twice-monthly column for Fast Company, writing about the process "of going through the startup process, an as-it-happens story."
The third column in the series is out, entitled "Why My Startup Shouldn't Choose Between Money And Mission."
An excerpt:
"As any startup person will tell you (and many have told me), the whole enterprise is about constant re-invention, and so we find ourselves struggling with a slew of high-impact questions. Whom do we hire first? Where do we physically settle? How do we move the mission forward while solidifying the business? How fast can we grow? How fast should we grow? And so on.
"Those of us running the company have different roles, experiences, and priorities and—even more confounding—we get conflicting advice from our various gurus. It’s one thing to spout platitudes like 'We’re not a business with a mission, we’re a mission with a business' —as if we were Trappist monks—but it’s another to start to assemble a broader team of people who understand both that there is a mission here and, within that context, that our top priority is to build a profitable company."
It is an interesting perspective on an issue that many companies face, and you read it here.
Bittman is chronicling the transition with a twice-monthly column for Fast Company, writing about the process "of going through the startup process, an as-it-happens story."
The third column in the series is out, entitled "Why My Startup Shouldn't Choose Between Money And Mission."
An excerpt:
"As any startup person will tell you (and many have told me), the whole enterprise is about constant re-invention, and so we find ourselves struggling with a slew of high-impact questions. Whom do we hire first? Where do we physically settle? How do we move the mission forward while solidifying the business? How fast can we grow? How fast should we grow? And so on.
"Those of us running the company have different roles, experiences, and priorities and—even more confounding—we get conflicting advice from our various gurus. It’s one thing to spout platitudes like 'We’re not a business with a mission, we’re a mission with a business' —as if we were Trappist monks—but it’s another to start to assemble a broader team of people who understand both that there is a mission here and, within that context, that our top priority is to build a profitable company."
It is an interesting perspective on an issue that many companies face, and you read it here.
- KC's View:
