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I'm curious—what was the most challenging aspect of balancing mission with business goals? Did you find that it impacted your team’s motivation or performance in any way?

I've worked at a bunch of mission-driven startups. Pros: easier to understand and make decisions if the CEO is focused and clear on mission. More fun and rewarding personally to make progress on a meaningful mission. Better communication and collaboration. Cons: burnout, hard when mission changes

More often than not great colleagues. Mission priority can cut through red tape. Less tape means more tech debt, pro here being you can have more impact than similar scope elsewhere…but you wade through the debt. Fantastic benefits (on pat leave now!), overall great WLB outside of a few crunches.

Founded one! Pros: Many pros but most importantly being able to work in a way that aligns with my values. It also makes it easier to recruit the right people. Cons: When purpose beats profits, it sometimes means financials are tough. So the stress of maintaining operations through harder times.

pros: everyone feels like they’re heading toward the same goal cons: burnout from caring so much