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In Pursuit of Impact: Choosing Zebras Over Unicorns

All businesses wield impact — whether they label themselves as impact-driven or not. This impact permeates through what they create, how they create it, who owns it, and who funds it. These corporations ripple consequences beyond their products and services, reaching their workers, customers, neighboring communities, and the broader society and environment.

It’s a tough pill to swallow: our world is cluttered with businesses that decidedly land on the “or not” side. They proclaim high-sounding values like “don’t be evil,” yet the products they roll out, and their operational conduct echo Facebook’s motto: “Move fast and break things”. The reverberations are far from benign, causing disruptions in our children’s mental health, injecting toxicity into our democratic spaces, and enabling technology-assisted interruptions to our everyday life.

The impactful change that we, as a community, aspire to isn’t incidental; it’s intentional and meticulously designed. When I founded Armillaria, leaving Ecotrust behind, our mission was clear: harness technology for societal good. The task of securing like-minded investors, however, was an uphill battle.

The 2022 Philadelphia Media Founders Exchange entrepreneurs

The 2022 Philadelphia Media Founders Exchange entrepreneurs.

I used to summarize this predicament as, “Impact investors don’t understand tech, and tech investors don’t care about impact”. I soon realized the problem was far more intricate. Many impact investors, akin to their Silicon Valley peers, were still enamored with the unicorn narrative — high impact, high returns.

Constructing a future where technology genuinely serves humanity and our planet requires a paradigm shift: from unicorns to zebras. In our manifesto, “Zebras Fix What Unicorns Break,” we put forth the concept of zebra enterprises. These businesses, unlike unicorns, embrace financial sustainability, cultural fit, and community involvement. Their focus extends beyond product-market-fit to ensuring stakeholder alignment around a shared purpose.

The power of the zebra model lies in its versatility. It surpasses conventional definitions of social enterprises, adopting diverse ownership and governance models. Zebras care about their treatment of employees, customers, neighbors, and importantly, their exit strategies.

Participant Assistive Products by Keoke King, a B Corp company that designs and builds affordable wheelchairs for kids

Participant Assistive Products by Keoke King, a B Corp company that designs and builds affordable wheelchairs for kids.

Zebras are more common than you might think. They might look like regular businesses — like The Drivers’ Coop, a ride-sharing platform that operates on a collectively owned and governed model, reminiscent of Uber or Lyft. Or they might be developing commercial real estate with a twist, igniting community wealth creation. Zebras don’t shy away from profitability; they balance it with purpose. They seek sustainable growth, rather than an explosive ‘blitz scaling’ mentality.

These zebra companies are far from the mythical unicorns that the traditional Silicon Valley model venerates. Zebras exist in the here and now, working together in mutualistic relationships, nurturing a thriving entrepreneurship ecosystem. They are both black and white: profitable and improving society. They are about cooperation, co-creation, and collective prosperity.

The zebra movement isn’t just a business model; it’s an invitation for all stakeholders to co-create a more equitable and sustainable economy.

However, for the zebra movement to reach its full potential, we need a corresponding shift in capital. Unfortunately, too many impact investors are still viewing the world through unicorn-colored glasses. At Zebras Unite, we’re endeavoring to reconcile the alignment between zebra founders and investors, focusing on humanity-centered approaches that address both demand and supply needs in a given capital ecosystem and create new financial products that address these needs.

Our initiatives, like the Inclusive Capital Collective and the P6 Capital Initiative, have already begun to take shape, embodying our vision. These platforms, in addition to other projects underway in Islamic Finance, the Indian cultural economy, and startups in Germany, are starting to bridge the gap between entrepreneurs and investors.

DazzleCon. A participatory event by Zebras Unite.

DazzleCon. A participatory event by Zebras Unite.

The zebra movement isn’t just a business model; it’s an invitation for all stakeholders to co-create a more equitable and sustainable economy. It’s a call to action for entrepreneurs, investors, and consumers alike to choose zebras over unicorns, to choose collaboration over competition, and to choose a more inclusive and equitable future. Dr. Astrid J. Scholz is a co-founder of Zebras Unite, a global hybrid cooperative for and by founders and investors who are building the businesses that are better for the world. Astrid is also Managing Partner of Armillaria, a systems lab for equitable economies that is dedicated to co-creating global, distributed, democratic infrastructure for mobilizing the data, innovations, and capital.

Dr. Astrid J. Scholz is a co-founder of Zebras Unite, a global hybrid cooperative for and by founders and investors who are building the businesses that are better for the world. Astrid is also Managing Partner of Armillaria, a systems lab for equitable economies that is dedicated to co-creating global, ... Read more
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