Karen Lynch MBE joins Startups 100 visitor decide panel 

Karen Lynch MBE, the previous CEO of award-winning social enterprise Belu Water, has been introduced as visitor decide for subsequent 12 months’s Startups 100 Index.

In collaboration with Startups’ panel of consultants, together with fellow visitor decide, Chris Forbes from Cheeky Panda, Lynch will assist to determine the winner of the Social Impression award from the record of the highest 100.

The chosen change-maker will probably be a UK startup which is really impression first. Main the cost in Company Social Accountability (CSR), they are going to be chosen from a shortlist of companies by Lynch; herself an skilled entrepreneur-for-good.

Telling Startups why she determined to associate with the index, Lynch tells us: “If you take a look at the legacy of those awards, some wonderful companies have been noticed comparatively early on. The record is an actual flag to wave for social entrepreneurs. It’s a degree of endorsement.”

Who’s Karen Lynch?

Lynch’s social impression journey started in 2011, when she grew to become CEO of Belu Water. After greater than twenty years in what she calls the company world, she started to get itchy toes.

“I used to be jealous of individuals with a vocation,” she says. “I assumed I used to be going to retrain as a vicar or go and work for a charity. However what I used to be actually good at was working companies.”

Having discovered what she was good at, the following step was doing one thing good with it. Steering in the direction of extra significant work, Lynch found the world of social enterprise by Belu Water.

In 2023, the trailblazing model is a million-pound titan stocked in nearly each main regional and nationwide wholesaler. And, it does all that whereas donating 100% of its internet earnings to WaterAid.

Possible, in case you’d have informed Lynch that truth twelve years in the past, she wouldn’t have dared to consider it. Coming from a background within the finance trade, she knew she confronted a monumental problem to show Belu right into a profit-making enterprise.

“We primarily needed to rip it up and begin once more from each facet,” she remembers, “model, enterprise mannequin, funding, construction, product vary. I did not actually know whether or not we might get there after I set that aim from these early startup days.”

Lynch’s success story has made her a legend within the entrepreneur networks. She has since used her platform to arrange the mentoring service, Professional Impression in 2014, and because the Vice Chair for the UK’s membership physique for social enterprises, Social Enterprise UK.

“The wonderful thing about social enterprise is that there is a actual human drive,” says Lynch. “Our work is all about giving social entrepreneurs entry to among the world’s finest founders on a one-to-one foundation for recommendation cash can’t purchase.”

Social impression in 2023: the brand new enterprise regular

Because the mastermind behind Belu Water, and its spectacular progress journey, Lynch can lay declare to being one of many first social entrepreneurs to efficiently steadiness the so-called ‘triple backside line’ (TBL).

The TBL principle states that an organization ought to add as a lot weight to social and environmental issues. It due to this fact measures success by way of three P’s: revenue, planet, and other people. From Lynch’s perspective, a TBL is now the norm for startups.

“I believe any enterprise that has its mind engaged is noticing that pressures are rising from throughout,” she feedback. “Groups need extra objective, as do buyers. Changing into a registered B Company was a brand new factor. Now it is the beginning block.”

Because of this shift, Lynch sees there being little distinction at this time between the challenges going through conventional companies, and people with social profit at their core.

“I believe the challenges confronted by social enterprises are precisely the identical as each different enterprise,” she says. “It is about determining your audience, versus the place you might be losing money and time and funding and attempting to get to them.”

In fact in at this time’s market, that’s an particularly powerful nut to crack. The price of residing disaster has depleted shopper spending energy, whereas sending provide chain and enterprise overhead prices skyrocketing. Lynch is aware of first-hand the impression this has on startup house owners.

“We have to really actually recognise how bloody exhausting it’s,” she presses. “I have been going by the startup journey with Professional Impression audio system during the last 18 months. There’s not sufficient time, not sufficient sources, not sufficient cash. It is exhausting.”

Regardless of the struggles, such turmoil can really make community-oriented organisations ripe for fulfillment. SME house owners are more and more turning a private battle right into a force-for-good, main the way in which for disruption. Ardour for the trigger gives a strong gas supply.

Examples embrace onHand. The on-demand volunteering app was based by Sanjay Lobo after his dad was unable to discover a carer to hold out family duties throughout lockdown. Since then, it has partnered with over 150 cross-sector manufacturers to help their CSR goals.

“We’re completely going to see extra social enterprises rising the place the founders are experiencing the societal situation themselves, and so they need to resolve it,” Lynch predicts.

Might you be the following Startups 100 social impression hero?

It would appear to be a step change coming from the businesses that need to do good. However as Lynch reveals, the primary factor she needs to see from Social Impression entrants is the dangerous: the errors, trials, and tribulations that make up each startup origin story.

“What I need is an trustworthy narrative,” she stresses. “Not the elevator pitch, I need to hear the actual story full with the ache and the obstacles which have been overcome.”

Lynch proposes social entrepreneurs take a no-nonsense coverage with regards to submitting their entry. “Take a look at the awards entry as if we had been buyers”, she advises. “More and more the issues buyers are searching for most is directness and information, not fluff and spiel.”

Virtually talking, the enterprise construction should additionally sign to the judges that the corporate is locked into fixing a societal drawback for the long-haul; not only a short-term charity partnership.

“A traditional crimson flag for this is able to be a hand sanitizer enterprise that boomed in COVID and is now floundering,” she says. “I’m searching for sustainable enterprise fashions that even have additional progress alternatives.”

Greater than something, Lynch advises: suppose on the enterprise case for making use of. Past the advantages of that includes on the Startups 100 Index, she emphasises that even the applying course of will be therapeutic for at this time’s startup house owners.

“Chances are you’ll be fatigued as a founder, it’s possible you’ll be surrounded by obstacles proper now in 12 months three – use the Startups 100 as a purpose to take inventory,” she recommends. “By that entry, focus the power and revitalise your group behind this nice alternative.”

Are you a mission locked UK startup that’s fixing a giant societal drawback? Apply to the Startups 100 for an opportunity to be named Social Impression award winner for 2024.