Design Economics Podcast with Vinny Tafuro

If we have a community of for profit businesses that prove that this model is a profitable, even bonus if it's more profitable, way to operate a business, to recruit by the best talent, to retain the best talent, to acquire more customers, to drive customer lifetime value, to drive your net promoter score. If we prove that these drive all these important KPIs, which we all know any business owner will tell you, those things are pretty correlated to your p and l. If we get there, we've shifted the demand curve and other businesses will follow us.

Hello, and welcome to season one, episode two of the Design Economics podcast, where we explore how design thinking driven by data is revolutionizing economics for the twenty first century. My name is Vinny Tifero, a futurist economist and your host for this episode. Today, I will be talking with Nathan Stuck, an entrepreneur, b corp consultant, and the founder of b local Georgia. Our conversation will focus on the collective impact of b corps on the wider market and economy as more examples of successful b corps illustrate how a better designed business can support better designed economy. And with that, I hope you enjoy this conversation with Nathan Stock.

Oh, it was a pleasure, Vinny. Looking forward to it. Always happy to talk b corps.

So if you could, start, maybe tell me a little bit about how did you go from entrepreneur to purpose and, you know, eventually, you know, really having this talk on reimagining capitalism, which is where I I really saw alignment with what we're doing with the institute.

Spare you the full backstory of my previous careers, but let's say 2013, '20 '14, I burned out on capitalism as it is, and saw all the bad sides. Saw the, you know, handshake contract no longer no longer valid. I saw the, you know, consolidation just, like, downsizing, pay cuts. I saw that part of the p and l magic. If you will, you can't see my air quotes, but I made them.

I saw just just some just some things where, like, you know, I I would say predatory lending that's legal, because at one point and then after I you know, two two layoffs in a year, and then I was actually selling used cars, which is also very exciting. And trying to talk somebody into, like, a two year old car on a six year note at 17 points of interest, and you're like, don't do it. And this person is so excited to buy a car, and you're basically trying to tell them, like, how to improve their credit score so that they don't make a terrible financial decision that's gonna put them in a worse financial spot than they are currently in. I saw all that. And then I was I read Capital in the twenty first Century, which was a terrible idea for somebody to burn out on capitalism.

And then I went, why don't I top this off with the MBA? So let me go study capitalism again. So I did, and I I ended up at UGA, and I ended up in the MBA program. And I already lived in Athens, so it was super easy. I got to go, like, Rodney Dangerfield.

I got to go back to school in my thirties. So I guess I was a little bit younger than whatever that movie is, but old enough to date myself with that reference. And, how do I I

remember that reference.

Kids, Google it. I make a lot of those references. Like, surely, you remember this from 1997. No. They don't.

During the MBA program, though, I got introduced. I think I joined the Net Impact Club, and there's an email about a meeting, some CEO who wants to do b corp. And I was like, I don't know. Sure. And that's that was it, man.

I got hooked, and that was we're just like, oh, this is the type and it wasn't even a social enterprise. They were an IT consulting company, and they just wanted to certify as a b corp. And they just started the company, and this is part of the foundation they wanted to lay down. And I worked on that project and then ended up going to work for them for five and a half years, and just best boss I've ever had, amazing company, really gave me the opportunity to kinda take the b corp mantle and run with it. And so started the b culture call within the b corp community, started b local Georgia, both of those in 2018, started going to every conference, meeting, everything I could, then started organizing events, which is kinda crazy when you go from, like, attendee.

Like, I used to see people's profile pictures on LinkedIn. I'm like, wow. They must be really important. These pictures of him speaking at a conference. And now you're like, it's it's not a big deal.

I've done that a lot, but you're still sometimes, like I don't know. I take it for granted sometimes how how weird my life is has has gone from, like, employee to thought leader

Yeah.

Through all of the b corp things. So, yeah, 2020, we started Build Southeast and a couple people that started that with me. I'm one of the last, last people standing that's still still running that thing. We're gonna be down in Florida this year, which is cool, so we'll be in Saint Pete. And then, yeah, and then people started wanting to pay me to do their b corp search.

So my old boss and I kinda worked out, like, an an exit plan for me to kinda, like, work into growing that business to the point where I could, step down. And I still do some things for them. But, anyway, that's the long story of the b corp journey. I think I just fell in love with a version of capitalism that wasn't completely premised on extraction and, you know, like, everybody's just basically and and don't get me wrong. I say capitalism.

I have business degrees, so I understand the p and l. I understand you have to make payroll. So I'm not here to bash. Like, like, wouldn't it be great if we existed in a world without money? But I I do I do like a version that's a little more transparent, where we are kind of at least considering our stakeholders and decision making, and we're trying to figure out a way to balance both profit and purpose.

So that to me was the draw, and, yeah, it's been a long strange trip.

Absolutely. Well, I you know, the thought leader, transition on that too. We're still early in this movement, unfortunately. You know, I I I think I I discovered b corps, when Couchsurfing announced they were going to try to convert to one back in, like, 2010 or 2011. And I'm like, here we are fifteen years later, and they're not the norm yet.

You know? So, kudos to you for making that transition too. Like, that that is we need people like yourself starting you know, that are willing to found something like that. And, I mean, I think your that that opportunity where you were working to transition converting them into a b corp into you being able to consult on that is just an awesome kinda opportunity. That's that's really cool.

Yeah. Still say it. Best boss ever. Most bosses find out you have a side hustle. And they fired you.

This one was like not like that.

You know what you should do? Start your own company. I'll help you.

Yeah. No. That's that's really awesome. I mean, that's and are are they a b corp now? Yes.

That's awesome. That that obviously that that fits, you know, who they are, it seems then. How did you go so you took that idea. What rolled it into I wanna I wanna give this kind of TED platform talk about it and and kind of the the Milton free you know, you got me at Milton Friedman and you're kinda real your understanding of of the complexity of who he was and the influence that he had.

I don't even know. So we did some work during COVID for a start up, and so I got to meet their fractional COO. And this is during COVID when, like, you know, like, autonomy is just, like, dead. And I'm working at the, you know, the IT consulting company, and he approached me about, like, could you help us with this b corp certification? So I guess, technically, he was my first big client way back when.

And there's like he's like, I have, like, no budget. And so I went to my CEO, and he was like, yeah, dude. Spin up an SOW. Like, well, any revenue is good revenue right now. So we did that project with them.

And, and and Matt and I stayed friends, and then he bought the license for TEDx Folsom out in Folsom, California. And I was like when he reached out and said, here's our theme. It's reimagined. That's want somebody to talk about business, and I think b corps could be a really compelling conversation. And so I started writing something, and when I sent it back, he's like, yes.

This. I was like, oh, okay. So he's like, please apply. You know? I can't promise anything.

I have a committee that approves everything, but please apply. I would love for something like this to to be a part of the programming. And so I put a those things are a lot of time to put in, and and I got accepted, and I actually had the most epic this is the I had my fortieth birthday in Las Vegas. Uh-huh. Surprise like, surprises all galore.

Like, a bunch of best friends flew in. I knew nothing about it. Everybody leaves. I rent a car from my old employer out there, Enterprise. Drive through the desert, spend the night in Death Valley, drive out of the desert over some mountains into Morro Bay, spend the night there, have breakfast, drive to Monterey, big Steinbeck nerd.

So I nerd out on Steinbeck, go up to Salinas. I go down Cannery Row. And then after two days, I drove to Folsom, gave my TEDx, and then went to Yosemite, and then it just snowed. It was the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen. It was an epic week, man.

It was an epic week.

That is. That is phenomenal. Yes.

It was, it was quite the and, honestly, the TED talk, it was funny, though, because I was just thinking about how it's been two years, and, like, I could see myself in every hotel room. Like, I can still visualize each hotel room, the fireplace and the one, because, you know, you're on the beach. And so I had a fireplace and, like, just pacing back and forth and doing that that TED Talk and timing it and having to get the time down and then, like, you know, losing a a a transition point and going like, you know, and then you kinda, like, have the the mental anxiety attack of, like, I'm not gonna this is a disaster. But, yeah, I've I've also wanted to make sure that I had a good message that was easy to follow. And I think I've probably grown on the thoughts that I put out there.

You know, even Milton Friedman to a certain extent. You know, I used to really bash that poor guy. And in reality, like, I forgot. And it's funny. I have a friend here that challenges me on all this kind of stuff.

We're I we're pretty close in the, whatever we'll say, the capitalism, spectrum. But Yeah. Maybe he's a little more conservative. I'm a little more progressive, whatever. And, you know, we've had these really interesting conversations about, Milton.

And one of the things that I think I've come to give him grace is he is an economist. And, I mean, you touch on this as I was reading some of the stuff you sent me and stuff I've seen, from your organization. It's like, at his heart, like, none of his arguments are are dumb. Like, not you know, like, if you if you read the whole, like, the what what is the the Friedman doctrine or whatever, that business exists to create value for the shareholders. Like, if you think about the arguments he lays out that employees are going to wanna work for the company that can pay them the most.

Well, if you think about that from an economic standpoint, pulling resources to do social good or to invest in a more, you know, environmentally friendly supplies, whatever. Those, in theory, are gonna pull resources that could be allocated towards payroll or benefits or whatever. So you're going to have you you like, in theory, it all checks out. You know? Customers wanna buy a cheaper product.

Well, if we add all these things in, we have to charge more. Nobody's gonna wanna buy that. So, like, in theory, Milton Friedman was not a crazy person or really even an evil person. I just think where he missed the mark was that I don't think he saw that the shifting and this comes back into the, like, every paradigm has a has a has a shelf life that I don't think that anybody saw this this consumer movement and employee movement for jobs with purpose, for products that, you know, are more sustainable. I I just that was something that there was no economic theory on.

So in theory, his arguments aren't terrible. They just kind of there was a variable coming that he didn't really sense.

Yeah. I I I agree. And I I think when when I look at some of it, even his you know, the the famous, you know, 1970 letter that you mentioned. Like, in that, even highlights that health care might not be in the same profit first motive as the average business. And even in his own sentence that people use about maximizing profit, it says within the confines of the law and expected cultural norms or something like that, you know, like, there was a moral and a and a and a a boundary level to that that I think when we look at especially, some of the extractive things that have happened in health care, and insurance and things like that are just that's not stuff that I think he expected.

Almost, you know, not ignorant. No. I can't remember the word. Like, almost a little he was a little optimistic on on that. So it's interesting because that that whole greed side of it is, like, you know, it's greed, but it's greed with a level of self empathy.

Right? Like, who do you care for? How big is your circle? And I think, you know, what you found with with b corps is how big their circle is compared to companies that are not aligned with kind of that movement.

Yes. But at some point too, it's like, you know, I mean, even we're going through this right now with the what do you call it stuff, or as I call it, the whatever we call it now initially. I know. Right? Initially acronyms that need not be stated because everybody knows exactly what we're talking about.

Yeah. At the

end of the day, like, the purpose, the mission, the value, like, that toothpaste is out of the tube. Like, I you know? I mean, does Gen z frustrate me with their affinity for Shein and using ChatGPT every time they need to Google what time does a restaurant open? They they literally use this Google now. Like, so but they do still care.

They do still care. I do sidebar. I think it's our responsibility to turn that to educate and also help them become arts, architects, not arsonists, but we can touch on that later Yeah. With their passion. But the you know, the ship's sailing away from the harbor already.

So, I mean, I I just don't understand how you're going to dictate whether companies can do things that their employees care about or not. I just I'm not I'm not fully aware of how this is going to work. I'm afraid of how it will work, but how we're supposed to just suddenly kind of pretend like a lot of our consumer base and a lot of our employees don't care about us paying similar wages to similar skilled people and similar jobs.

Yeah. I I think that the consumption you know, I almost know, like, is it overwhelm? You know, the the you know, okay. I want all of these things that I consider, you know, sustainable, you know, b corps, or I want people to be paid well, but my outlet is sheen. You know?

How many of us are like, well, I and I had somebody with this weekend was going you know, they're going through the meticulous process of, like, not renewing Amazon Prime and doing it because, you know, we're gonna be like, oh, they you know, do we wanna do that or not? And it's the system is designed. I mean, you know, there's just so much, you know, and this is when we get into design thinking. And and what I love about, you know, this movement is, you know, the grocery store is designed to encourage you to make bad buying decisions for your diet. Like, it's designed that way.

You know, even Whole Foods or the most organic local grocer is going to place candy by the cash register because it's going to confront children with their parents or a parent, myself include not a parent, but an adult, myself included. They go, well, that's a dark chocolate candy. It's way better than a Snickers bar. So so even at that that granola level, you know, that that local holistic level, we're still using, you know, impulse.

Or at Fresh Market where they get me with, oh, but it's Tony's chocolone. It's b corp chocolate. It's alter ego. Like, yeah, I'm like, oh, b corp. I'm supporting a b corp.

It's cool. It's fine. I don't eat that bar of chocolate. But I'll buy it now. Yeah.

No. You're right. The whole system is, you know, is I mean and let's be honest too with the Shein thing is, you know, I had a long conversation with a friend about this yesterday is there is an economic reality Yeah. For a lot I mean, and that is a problem inherently in the economics of sustainable goods and sustainable products. The Patagonia jeans cost a lot more than a pair of jeans from Old Navy.

You know what you're getting at Old Navy? Yeah. They're gonna rip in six months, and the crotch is gonna bust out. You're gonna bend over and hear a noise and go, well, these jeans are done. But, you know, there's the economic reality of some people have $20 to buy jeans that'll get them to the next six months.

They don't have a hundred and $80 to buy the jeans that will that will stay, you know, years and years and years, and Patagonia will repair them. And or that, you know, Pete and Jerry's organic eggs, you know, that are grass fed chickens, and they're, you know, like it's like I mean, let's not even get into the price of eggs right now. But you know what I mean? Like, the normal when you can go get the giant Styrofoam container for, you know, $2 and four eggs, or you can pay $9 for a dozen of grass fed eggs. It's like there is something to be said about the economic reality of being able to shop sustainably and support b corps.

And, you know, but also that there that there in, though, gets to a scaling point where those of us, I think, who can make those better purchasing decisions, need to.

Yeah. Well, that's I I I made the decision on eggs. It's gotta be at least four years now that I stumbled on Vital Farm eggs. And, because it's you know, I I had I had been buying local farm eggs, and I got, like, a dozen bad ones. And I didn't eat eggs for, like, a few months because it was just that bad.

I was like, so wait. Now I can get the grocery store quality and consistency, but it's pasture raised. They're a certified b corp, and I can look at a webcam and watch the chickens. And those eggs have consistently been, you know, seven or eight dollars a dozen, but I eat two to three eggs every day. That's a lot of eggs that are going into my body.

And so that's like, you know, I I don't really do grass fed beef yet, you know, because I eat beef. You know, it I I'm not at that level yet where I wanna spend that money. I I just see the value. But eggs are a baseline for me, and I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna buy that.

And for me, egg prices didn't go up because pasture raised chickens didn't get killed by the bird flu. You know? They didn't suffer the same way.

They're not genetically modified. Organism chicken things. Yeah. I used to work in that industry. It's a very interesting place.

Learned a lot about the chicken biz. I'm a man of many careers. That's why I was like I see.

I see.

Let's keep this career summary short. And Right. Burned out on capitalism MBA. Yes. So and b corps.

Here we are. So Yeah. But yeah. No. I think there is a lot of that.

Like, the system's design, you know, and even some of the approach of, you know, whatever we wanna say is is what comes out of of whatever's happening right now. I think there is and this has been the I don't know when I said this for the first time, and now I just keep repeating it. Sometimes I'm like, what was that term I came up with? But outcome driven systems design Mhmm. For a lot of these things and the overlaps.

And I think where you see some really cool companies in the b corp space and just the purpose driven space of, like, actually designing, you know, reverse engineering from the desired outcome to what needs to take place to get there. What KPIs need to be tracked? What are indicators that were successful? And then what are the individual program characteristics that will make this successful? And then from there, being able to isolate variables and actually figure out what's driving the success rate, what's correlated, what isn't, and how do we do more of the stuff that is driving the success rate and figuring so there's a really cool example I can use up here of a company foundation.

So they were a b corp. They didn't do anything nefarious. They're still a great company. They opened another location, different owners. It got really complicated.

Creature Conference Brewing company up here, in Athens, Georgia. And they have this this and they they've they've iterated several times on their kind of their their get comfortable foundations mission, and they finally settled on. They have a whole board that helps them with this. The UGA is very involved from an academic and a research standpoint. They've they've settled on third grade literacy.

You know? And they worked with all these educators and nonprofit leaders and researchers to basically identify the third grade is the tipping point where after that, you're either reading to learn or you're still learning to read. And then you can you can look at, you know, high school graduation rates, college rates, technical vocational school rates. You can see all of it. Incarceration rates, homelessness, like, all of these things correlated back to this one thing.

So they've set out to and they had a pilot, and it was super successful with two classes, and they had control classes. And, like, you talk about designing something, and I know that's a for profit company kind of doing something in the nonprofit space. But what a the opportunity to really solve because I think we're at this point, not just with for profits, but nonprofits as well. And and I know your work touches on this a lot. This is, like, affinity for the status quo.

Mhmm. Like, you know, you look at I mean, I pick up trash a lot. You look at both from a litter standpoint. It's like, how do you figure out, okay, if the goal is no litter, where where is the litter coming from and solving all these things? And it's kinda like, how do we you know?

And then I could send to, like, homelessness. Okay. Well, what do we do? Well, we just kinda throw money at it. Well, what's the root cause of this?

How you know what I mean? Like, how do

we get down to that?

How do we actually solve for these things? And and a lot of these problems we're facing are going to require new models.

Yeah. Well, third grade literacy, I mean, we've I've I've come across that, you you know, the the third grade reading level, and I know it's it's actually interesting that the for profit sector is getting into that. I know the Florida Chamber of Commerce Foundation. They created the Florida Gap Map where you can look ZIP code by ZIP code to see how many children are not reading at third grade lead reading level. And they're almost you know, they're encouraging chamber members to adopt a school or a class to take care of.

And I think this is, you know, a good segue, like, in that first tenet of of design economics is, you know, understanding that paradigms have a lifespan. And, you know, if we look at whether it is, you know, your demand side left social safety net provided by government programs or it's your, you know, supply side kind of conservative libertarian economics that is, well, the invisible hand will take care of it. Well, both of those things don't take care of the root causes. And so, you know, I I can you speak to how b corps and the nonprofit or social sector are kind of working together? Go, okay.

How do we address things like third grade reading level? Like, address the outcome because I think business can address that. So how are b corps? How do you see that kind of alignment and and pushing the narrative?

I think through the assessment that everybody takes, I think there's an increased awareness in a business's impact.

That which is measured improves?

Yes. That is also measured improved. Oh, lord. You better prove it. Keeps me in business, though.

Keep it complicated, b lab. But I think for a lot of these companies too, you know, it's like it's not uncommon for me to sit down with a CEO and say, like, 50 employees and for them to tell me all about their volunteer program. What do y'all do? Oh, man. Everybody gets forty hours a year paid time off to volunteer wherever they want.

Well, how many hours last year did you guys hit? Oh, I don't know. Well, what percentage of the employees took advantage of the program? Like, what did you know? I don't know.

And I'm thinking to myself, hey. You've missed an incredible storytelling opportunity. We could spotlight some of our volunteers, the organizations they're spending time with, and there's so much here. But, like, we have this program great in in theory, and we haven't really designed it to do anything. And then from there, it's like, okay.

What if we track, you know, or if we you know, like, a creature comforts if okay. We have this and okay. We're tracking. So we have our outputs. How many books did we read?

How many kids did we did we read to? Mhmm. How many hours? How many volunteers? We have all those, and now it's what success look like?

Well, let's do their let's get their literacy testing scores at the beginning of the year, middle of the year, end of the year. And now let's be able to identify each student, how many books they read, how many books they were read to, number of hours of tutor, bam, bam, bam, and now we've started to figure this out. So I think you're seeing that, but I think you're also just that b impact assessment, the the the thing you have to take to certify. I think there is a a more of a push from outputs to outcomes, you know, like workforce development programs. What were what did you create?

And sometimes it's it's harder to say, but, I mean, there is I mean, it it's harder to prove an outcome other than to know that if you take h two b workers from, you know, El Salvador, One of these really poor, underserved, underfunded, extracted, if to the Yeah. The end of time, countries or regions or communities, and you pay them an American living wage for for seven months. Like, some of these places, it's like a year and a half worth of income. Yeah. And they come back the next year, and they come you know, like, so and they have benefits, and they can get dental.

Like, it's like, I think thinking more about, like, what is the impact I can have within the the day to day operations of my business, you know, whether it is the philanthropic foundation or whether it's just, hey. Here's what we're gonna do to be a better corporate citizen. I mean, there's another example I'll share where we had this as a mini keynote that built Southeast last year. It was Scott Collins who runs Canopy up in Kentucky. And and, well, he's done a very good job of threading the needle and and keeping this from you know, this concept of good business or business beyond just profit, kept it very apolitical up there.

He's done an incredible job. But his company, he he gave a talk about using social impact to solve operational inefficiencies. So he came up with this, like, car buying, home buying program for his employees. At the end of the day, it's it's a it's a facilities management company. So, you know, they're coming in when your office is closed.

They're emptying the trash and cleaning the bathrooms and wiping off desks and, you know, cleaning out fridges. So not glamorous work, high turnover rate in the industry. And so he created this car buying home buying program to effectively try to solve his retention issues. He had great people, great team, but somebody down the road offers him a thousand dollars and more a year, whatever they just go, they leave. Yeah.

So it's really interesting to see the innovation playing out as well where you see this crossover of social impact where you're helping somebody buy the first home that that family in generation after generation has ever owned. And, oh, by the way, it was good for his bottom line because now that employee is happy and isn't going to leave, and love is working there. And, yeah, also create a generational wealth for a family to pass down. Like, that's a win win. So I think you're seeing more and more of those cool stories start to come out of how can we leverage our business to really make a noticeable impact in the world.

And, you know, and it could be on your people. It could be in your community. I just think that there's there's multiple ways, and not all of these companies are true social enterprises like janitorial services, landscaping, IT consulting. Like, not all of them are are, you know, trying to solve food waste with a for profit company. But you do have a lot of that in this community as well, like the true social enterprise that saw a problem and designed a business solution around it and is monetizing that solution to to be a force for good.

And it's those are the really incredible ones where you're like, wow. You figured out a business model around this. Instead of going the traditional nonprofit route, you went for profit, and you're figuring out a way now to get entire communities across the Southeast to compost. You know? Like

Yeah. Yeah.

Good for you. Proud of you.

Yeah. Or or proving. And this is something, you know, you mentioned landscape companies and that you have restaurants as well that have become b corp certified. And, you know, we have a a commercial landscape company here that that's a b corp. Like, when when you get to that point, you take an industry that typically will hide behind, well, we're low wage, uneducated, unskilled labor, and so, therefore, we can't pay minimum wage or we can't pay a livable wage, got you know, at that level.

And then you have a company that goes, well, you know, we have a 50 employees, or we have five or six restaurant locations, and everybody makes a livable wage. And we have this benefit and that benefit, and we're still very profitable, and we're growing as a restaurant or a chain or a company or whatever it is. And I think, you know and this is part of the b local groups, and maybe you can speak to this in in in your area and the companies you've dealt with. What collective impact are b corps having on, you

know, the business community?

Because this is you know, we talk about economics has been insulated from the business community. You know, that's going back to Milton Friedman. I think, you know, one of the things that I that I discredit him for or that I think is a reason for his lack of understanding is he really never worked for a for profit company. It was all theory for him. So how how is the b corp movement kind of integrating that to go, hey.

We're we're the example here. How do we how do we scale this?

Yeah. I mean and I've even been kind of a a a thorn in the side sometimes because b level release, you know, research or data or whatever. And I'm on the board of b academics as well even though I'm I mean, I teach a class in the MBA program on purpose driven enterprises and basically making the business case, for good business and how to, you know, create my little army of, you know, corporate moles when they go out in the world. But also teaching them to be architects, not arsonists of like Yeah. If you can present this as a cost savings, but also you really care about the company's carbon footprint.

If you can do both of those, you're probably gonna win more often than you get a than you get a thumbs down. So, yes. And now I'm like, where did I go? I just went off on a tangent here. I think the research side of it in b lab as well, b lab included, is sometimes it is too I don't know why we love to use, like, $3 words all the time, and and we don't write it in layman's terms.

We write it in in theoretical terms too, and I, you know, I think that is a disservice. So I think also giving you know, putting some of these businesses and telling some of these stories of, you know, Scott Colloms and that I mean, what a brilliant solution to that problem. Or you look at the, okay, how you know, what is the for profit business model of a social enterprise? You know, and you're able to hot spotlight actual companies. But I do think we have to get away from the theoretical and the the the academic jargon, and I think it sounds snooty.

It comes across as a little snooty, or holier than now. And then also, I I mean, I remember reading it was the first draft standard or the first roof roof whatever. The first feedback round from the draft of the new b corp standards. My feedback was like, first of all, no CEO is ever gonna read this. You're gonna get zero real feedback from an actual CEO because that they're they're worse than I'm doing this because I'm a consultant, and I'm still reading.

Also, you lost me in the in the whereas where like like, in the economic the the the theoretical proofing of the standard or whatever. You've just kinda, like, you you've lost your audience, and I think we just need to we need to do a better job of I think we have to learn that everything in life is sales. And how do you sell this? And I think putting some of the actual b corps on stage to share their story. Because at the end of the day, b corps are going to either be successful or be a a stepping stone on the way to whatever's next Yeah.

If the economic proofing is there. If we have a community of for profit businesses that prove that this model is a profitable, even bonus, if it's more profitable way to operate a business to recruit the best talent, to retain the best talent, to acquire more customers, to drive customer lifetime value, to drive your net promoter score. If we prove that these drive all these important KPIs, which we all know any business owner will tell you, those things are pretty correlated to your p and l. If we get there, we've shifted the demand curve and other businesses will follow us. I mean, you saw a microcosm of that plan in 2020 when it you know, for a short brief moment in time I mean, the winds were blowing in that direction anyway.

Like

Yeah.

Things like social justice, things like, you know, actually you know, whether or not you can say whatever you want about whether or not most of these companies actually cared about DEI. But some of these things as they became popular with a majority of consumers and employees, suddenly, everybody was doing them. And that's where we get some of the greenwashing and the wokewashing and the purpose washing, cause washing, all the different washings. It's really they see market opportunity. So if we can actually do this work and make it profitable, that demand curve shift, you will see more and more companies.

I mean, there's a reason multinationals are looking at b corp certification as a way to run their business. And I I I think that to me is the proof in the pudding that the demand curve is shifting.

Agreed. And I I think we it gets it gives companies more data points to use to make decisions. I find it it interesting, and this is the, you know, kind of the two things you you we we've talked about the both of, like, the second and third tenant. This architect's not arsonist, I love, in the fact that, you know, one of the things that with with our tenant too is not punishing creativity. And when you look at the economic the academic economic field, the brightest newest you know, the the most holistic new ideas are sitting in a different department completely.

You know? They'll sit in the entrepreneurship or business school underneath social entrepreneurship, yet they're really talking about holistic economic concepts that should be in the school of economics or even displacing that school. And so how do you what what what kind of what's expand on the architects that arsonist, side of this? Because I think that really fits into that that how do you get creative, especially, where things are theoretical and and not connected to reality sometimes.

I think we have to drive and, you know, you try to put on your, you know, 20 old memories or hat or ungray my beard.

Long hair again. Yeah. Remember.

Now I'm from Miami. It's all it's always been it's always been short. But, yeah, I think that there's the element of of how do you empower this next generation to come up with these solutions. You know, and I guess lecture I mean, at UGA, I've just lectured in Grady and engineering, social work, like, all of these and kinda catering to, you know, whatever it looks like. But kinda showing them, a, I wanna dispel you know, I realized when I walk into an engineering school or, you know, depending on the school, it was, you know, whatever.

The students might be a little more progressive, a little more conservative, whatever. So, like, I'm not making this, like, oh my, like, oh my god. This is the most virtuous way ever to to run a business. I really am laying out the business case to them, and I'm empowering them, I think, to come up with crazy solutions and to design, like especially when you're in college, this is the time to play around with it. Come up with crazy ways.

Be creative when you get to your first job. And especially my MBAs are going into pretty, you know, mid senior level jobs when they come out with an MBA. And, like, how do you use this to be an agent of change? Because I I'll never forget. I had a student.

It was my first year teaching. Ironically, full circle, she also came to my TED Talk because she was she and her sister had moved out to California.

Oh, nice.

Nice. So I had the two tickets, and I was like, well, nobody's nobody on my end. It's kinda if y'all want them, come support me. So I remember her like, it was one of my, like, kinda, like, open office hours sessions on Fridays. I would just basically, during our class time, once they get their projects, I just if you wanna come, come.

If not, there's no lecture. But if you wanna use that time to work on your projects, you wanna come in and just ask me a bunch of questions. And she was the only one that showed up that day, and we were we were just talking about things. And it was you know, this is 2021, so still very, you know, very tinderbox of a moment on a lot of fronts. Yeah.

Yes. And I remember kinda just complaints about this and about that and, you know, looking at you know? And I'm and I'm trying to get through to her. I'm like, and I know that look. It's kinda like, oh, did you start opening closet doors at, you know, a institution that's been in America for more than fifty years?

Like, not kind of fun. Like, what you find in most of those closets. At any institution, no matter where they're located, southern, northern, whatever, you're probably, not gonna like what you see and kind of challenging her with you know, I was a student here twenty years ago, and twenty years later, after I started my undergrad, I'm now teaching a class on purpose driven businesses. You never thought I'd see that. So to me, it's that progress of, like, if I just, you know, tell this this school or this company or this whatever that their sins are irredeemable, then I have no opportunity to change the system.

You know? So we have to, I think, figure out our way of you know? And I've had this conversation in the b corp community, you know, when Nespresso certified and people their heads exploded. And I'm just sitting over here looking for me, designing the system perspective of, like, if we're really going to change capitalism, it's great that my little, like, one employee company is a b corp. And then I spent 11% of my expenses with other b corps and 13% with black owned businesses.

And that's great, but it ain't a lot of money, and it's not really pushing the, you know, pushing pushing down the scale. So we need these big companies, and I think we have to have that. Are we more interested in playing judge, jury, and executioner on things in their past, or are we more interested in going, you wanna take this journey? You wanna become a better business? And grab their hand and help them figure out how to do it.

Like, that same student, she stayed on, even after she graduated and was, like, signed up for, like, an a young alumni committee of some sort around, like, zero way sporting events and has continued to work with UGA on zero way sporting events. And they've done a couple pilots. And when I but do I roll my eyes when I go to a basketball game and get a beer and it's in a plastic cup, and I go get a second beer? And I said, you can use the same cup. And they said, we can't do that.

And I said, well, here's the cut back. And they say, no. You can keep it. I don't I don't need a plastic stadium cup. Like, just take it back and reuse it.

And the look on that face of, like, why wouldn't you want it? Because I don't I'm 40. I don't need a stadium cup.

I need a stadium cup today.

I'm good, man. So, like, does it does it does it irk me that we're not there yet? I don't see why this is so hard to roll out. But do I also realize we have to get buy in? We have to get everybody on board.

We have to figure out the logistics of it. We have to get somebody to sign off. And so the fact that we're even doing pilots and getting data means in three or four years, is it frustrating it hasn't happened yet? Yes. Absolutely.

Will it happen because of people like her efforts on this initiative and staying with it and continue absolutely. So that comes in like the again, we cancel it. It never changes. We burn it to the ground. It rebuilds without us.

But if we actually architect a better solution and start trying some of these things and actually become that agent of change, I think that's when we'll hit the magic sauce. But we do have an epidemic of that, of the kind of, like, holier than the redeemer of of whatever It's all

like nothing.

All things good or bad. And, yeah, again, you know, when you look at the supply chain of some of these big multinationals, but, like, we do have to accept that we probably aren't going to like what we find in their, you know, how they've treated cacao farmers or coffee farmers or any place they're getting their ingredients. But if we can help them change the way they do that, the impact is monumental. So at what point do we stop with the court of public shaming and kinda go, hey. If you're in this to win it, like, let's go, and let's do this together.

And and that's where I think we need to come together as a as a b corp community, a purpose driven community, is it's not our judge to to to judge you for your past. It's our duty to help you become a better version of yourself. And actually Absolutely. You're never gonna right those wrongs, but you can focus on the future. There's no you know, spilt milk.

There's nothing you can do about it. So let's focus on the future and really turn this ship around versus being like, well, we can never work with you because remember the 1989? We we have to be better than that.

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up because I I think, you know, I remember early on in my kinda, introduction, to conscious capitalism in that movement along with b corps. You know, really what stuck out to me at the time was, Chipotle and Whole Foods and how Whole Foods would work with non organic certified farms and give them five years to become certified, whereas the local farmers market wouldn't buy from you unless you're certified.

And I think it's really where it shows, you know, and part of it is the local farm can't afford to. Whereas Whole Foods, you know, the local farmers market, whereas Whole Foods had the economies of scale, to be able to purchase and do this and invest in their vendors. You know, but at the same time and I remember, you know, I was at a con a conscious capitalism conference the first year that Whole Foods had been bought by Amazon. And I was like, I wonder if if, John Mackey is rethinking his decision not to be a b corp because he kinda he gave them an you know, he he gave them an initial, like, oh, yeah. They're b corp.

It's a great movement, but you don't have to be a b corp to be a successful for profit company. And, unfortunately, you know, the acquisition by Amazon is a very specific example of how being a b corp could have stopped that, from happening. Yeah. So it's interesting. It's a journey.

It's not black or white. It's not one or the other. Yeah.

And, I mean, there's companies that I know that have certified and then ten years later kinda gone like, we we we've we've gotten as much out of this. And not in a bad way, but either it was like, okay. Well, the fees have gone up or Yeah. You know, it's so baked into our DNA anymore that, like, that that, but I don't I don't know that we're gonna renew this. So I've seen that happen.

And, honestly, most of them, though, you know, no matter what you know? And I would I even just put a blog out where I was like, look. I don't even care if you certify. This isn't about the certification. It's using this as a process to become a better company.

And, yeah, I mean, you get into the certification and the legal requirements where it does give you some of that, ability to have conversations that your fiduciary duty does not allow you to have. But I do think just from a general foundational standpoint of it never hurts to look at your company a little bit harder. Like, take that look in the mirror. You probably and honestly, like, from everybody I've worked with, even I mean, it's very rare where I meet with somebody. I'm like, oh, this is the easiest certification I've ever gotten.

Yeah.

No. Usually, they have, like, horrible data and you have to clean their data. But, like, some of the the companies who are really good companies come to you and, like, they're not at an 80 on their first pass, and there are improvements we're gonna have to make. Or it's there's some fine tuning, like, the the we have a volunteer time off program, but we have no idea what we're doing with it. There is And they're not they're not using it.

Yeah. So, like, nobody leaves this process of going through that assessment. That's why I even say for companies that aren't even or for entities that aren't even eligible. You know, like, we've I've I've seen business schools take it. I've seen nonprofits take it.

You're never gonna certify. You're not gonna submit, but it's a free tool to kinda go through it. Like, I don't know. How are we judging our our worker engagement?

Yeah. Well, I look at it the same way. Like, when you know, if you're filing your taxes, do you take the standard deduction, or do you itemize your deduction? And, you know, you might you might decide to take the standard deduction because and when you itemize it, you go, oh, well, it's not worth it this year. But at least you got a snapshot that year to go, you know, in five years, maybe it's time to itemize.

You know? So it's like if you have the tools to measure, it's not just, you know, we start with, you know, what measure gets improved. But also by measuring it, at least, you know, as you've mentioned a few times, like, it becomes part of your awareness. And, I think that's key, which can make you be more creative in how you run your business.

And I would argue too, like, even from the once you have some of these new outputs, outcomes, KPIs, whatever business jargon we wanna label, It does provide some excellent storytelling opportunities because, again, back to the toothpaste out of the tube, like, we could sit here and say, like, we're gonna call some of these things something different for the foreseeable future, but, like, caring that every employee has equal access to opportunity and a common positive experience while working for us is not going away. Yeah. So, you know, having these, like, employees are still gonna care about it. Your customers are still gonna care about what sort of of a corporate citizen you are and your ability to put numbers behind claims of this is the percentage of revenue we donated. This is the percentage of pro bono time that we gave back in consulting services or the Yeah.

You know? And, and and from an employer branding standpoint, I think it's really powerful too because you're able to kind of show that we're you know? And then the next step is how do I get them to start tracking? Like, can we drive outcomes? You know?

So but I think there's just so much there's there's the exercise itself and what you will get out of it is just so valuable as a whole, and I just think it makes every organization better. And, again, maybe even if you're not really thinking like, boy, I can't wait to be a b corp. Yeah. Like, it doesn't matter. Just take the assessment.

Just take it. See where you're at. Yeah. Speaking of storytelling, this is great for our third tenant and, the idea of visual you know, economic literacy. And I'd like to talk a little bit you mentioned, be academics and kind of this mismatch where where they're not talking to CEOs, and, you know, we're not actually telling CEO stories of why they became b corps.

Tell tell me a little bit about kind of that interaction, and what b academics is doing and your experience, with both storytelling and that side of it as well. Yeah.

I mean, I think storytelling, it humanizes some of these CEOs and these founders and their businesses. And I do think, you know, like, the easiest way for me to get a reluctant business owner on board, you know, because I've had that happen, was one of the student projects. And son and a couple of the other executive team were very adamant. Father, CEO, very, like, we're not doing it. Hell no.

And then they put them on with another CEO. That that that there and there is I mean, anybody who's founded a business, whether you're solo, however long you survive, like, there is a certain level. I've had friends close their doors, and that's the first thing I tell them is never feel like a failure. Like, you did something nobody does. There is a respect level for people that can do this.

And then to scale a company and maintain and make payroll and grow it over a hundred employees is a commendable shave probably a decade off your life feet. So when you're able to put those people on a phone call together and say, hey. You tell them why it's been good for your business. You know? And I remember one of my my old boss's favorite quotes was, you know, I don't know what the ROI was on b corp.

We we, it's there's too many confounding variables to be able to sit here and go, oh, it's 8% year over year. We brought in a deal here. We brought in a deal there from the b corp community. We, you know, we did some business with other b corps. We you know, then we spent some money with other b corps, and, you know, we go on campus to recruit, and some people would come up and go, yeah.

I've sought you out because you're a b corp. So it's anecdotal stuff, but we're not able to tell you that it was a certain percentage. But I remember him talking to this other CEO and me being on the Zoom, and he said at the end of the day, he goes, all I know is we've we've grown significantly. So I can say it hasn't been bad for business. He's just like but at the you know, like, but that was kind of the thing.

He was like, foundationally, when we did that, we didn't have a handbook. We didn't have any of the stuff. So we were able to grow into what we became. And and that is those are the types of stories I think are very important for other business owners to hear that it's not something like, you know, like, we all sit in the woods and talk to the trees. And Yeah.

I mean, it's some of that is just

If they wanna hear their peers. They wanna hear their peers.

But most of us are just trying to make payroll, and also just trying to put our head down on our pillow at night, and be proud of what we've built and what we're how we make our money and the the, you know, livelihoods we provide and all those things. And from a bi academic standpoint, you know, I think the really cool thing we're doing there, I always one of my favorite quotes, it's another one of my own. Be a narcissist. No. Is, will change will change the world when we change how we teach capitalism.

And I think it's important. And, again, this isn't some sort of, like, brainwash. Like, this is just some sort of, like you know, I remember having that class in in my MBA, and I'm friends I'm still friends with the professor. We've done some exact ad stuff together, but all he he always, like, talked about. He's like, you gotta show those returns to the street.

You gotta you gotta be listening to the street. And, like, the yes. That's the way our system is set up. So how do we kind of change that system, and how do we make these you know, maybe they're longer term returns, But how do we show these returns? And, you know, that comes back to my whole, like, we have to make this a profitable movement because when it is profitable and the demand curve does shift, business schools will teach it because it will be in demand.

And we'll be able to kind of show this, like, hey. How to be a decent person and make money at the same time. Because as it is right now, we kind of set people up for, like, Gordon Gekko greed is good, maximize shareholder profits at any, you know, at any cost. And, you know, you're seeing more and more of this because it's not that message isn't resonating anymore with younger people. But, you know, I think we have to be careful in in how we teach it, that it can't be to, you know, sit in the woods and talk to the trees No.

Listen to the leaves. And, like, it has to still be very business oriented. And then we can bring in those other disciplines, though, that maybe teaches how to talk to the trees and teaches how to design our environmental give back program, you know, like, those types of things that we can do. But b academics is honestly helping get a lot of like, we're teaching b corp classes in a lot of universities. And I think it's really cool to see that growth and to see that, we are at the inner you know, we are teaching in business schools.

This is these are real business owners with real p and l's and real job creators. Like, this isn't something that's just some mythical idea in economic theory. These are real people. And so between having people write case studies, putting on conferences, and then you have this weird intersectionality within the be academics community with somebody like me who, I guess, because I do teach a class, I am an academic, but I'm not an academic. I'm not a PhD.

I'm somebody with business degrees that's worked in the private sector my entire life since before I when I was a shit. So eighth grader. I started reffing hockey. So, yeah, I've been, you know, working for a really long time in the private sector. So I think having some of these and some of the other people at some of these other schools that are, you know, part time lectures or whatever are same as me, where we're coming in and teaching this from a practitioner's perspective versus and, yeah, I talk about Milton Friedman, and I do a lecture and, you know, I teach it.

But for the most part, I'm coming in and showing them, like, practically speaking, here's how I see companies do this. Yeah. And here's what the business case is, and here's why this you know? And then they get to work with real companies. And I'll share one quick story before I know we're probably I don't know.

I ramble so we probably have time.

But Coming up on on

on Yeah. I had a Oh, good. I had a student working on a project with the CEO. The student asked me, I don't understand why this company would do this. Like, what?

So I just responded, well, have you asked them? No. I haven't. So let's ask them. Next call.

So the next call we get on, we ask them, why? Well, like, what's the what's the business driver for you? Because everything you seem like a really like, and he is. He's a really sharp business guy. Really cool.

And he said, I see this as the evolution of of humanity. And I also know that every job fair I go to, I'm standing at a job fair next to every other engineering firm and every other engineering job fair going, come work for us. Yeah. And I see this, and we do you know, they have a community foundation, and each, local office picks their own cherry. So they're doing some really cool stuff because I see this as an opportunity to bundle all the good we're doing, storytell better, and recruit the best talent coming out of engineering programs around the country.

And you're like, well, there you go. Can I record you saying that? Right.

That's a great because

And that's the cool because now I've opened up this skeptical student who probably took my class because he heard it's pretty easy to get an a in or something. And, and and and he's like, oh, I've I've I kinda opened his mind to this, like, thinking differently around what we're designing and how we're designing it. And at the same time, knowing that it is part of his reason was definitely p and l related. And that's okay. That is more than okay.

That's when that's when we know we're starting to win, when they he sees this as a competitive advantage for his business. So anyway

Absolutely. Absolutely. It it that that I think that's probably a good place to stop, Nathan, because I I think that that competitive level is is perfect. That that that's what business is doing competing to be better.

Yep. That's that's again, that's when we know that there's something there's something happening here.

Yeah. So how do, listeners connect to you, both for the the b corp movement, maybe b academics, as well as, you know, your consulting as well? So

so I'm primarily LinkedIn. It's the only thing I've ever early adopted way back in the day. I'm on LinkedIn at Nathan a Stuck, and then the company is at Profitable Purpose Consulting. B Local Georgia is on there as well, and so is, B Academics and Build Southeast. So Build Southeast, by the way, is BLD Southeast, so you should be able to find us.

And then B Local Georgia is also on Instagram.

Well, I appreciate you being here, Nathan, and, we'll put, all those links in the show notes as well. And, you know, look forward to having a continued conversation, having you back as well.

Awesome. Thanks, Vinny.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Design Economics podcast. We will be back next month with another engaging conversation. You You can find the Design Economics Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Please check out our show notes on our website, designeconomics.io. The Design Economics Podcast is produced by the Institute for Economic Evolution, and I am your host, Vinny Tafiro.

Thank you for listening.