In this edition of our Let’s Talk Business guest blog we speak to Brooke Roberts, Cofounder of investment platform Sharesies. Sharesies sets out to make the most financially empowered generation by giving everyone the same investment opportunity, whether they have $5 or $500,000.
In this blog Brooke talks about the importance of purpose in business.
Why do we need purpose and goals to drive us?
Purpose ultimately drives you. So, having a really clear purpose and really knowing why you are doing what you are doing and the impact that it can create is important. When you know you can help drive the change required to make what you want to achieve possible, ultimately that enables you to really live out your life’s passion and relentlessly drive towards making that purpose known and felt.
Your purpose drives all of your decision making and your ultimate path. In order to deliver a purpose, you need to have really strong values that align everyone on how to get there.
How do you find things that you’re passionate about and channel those into your business purpose?
I feel like it’s so innate when you really know you're passionate about something. It’s the thing that when someone is talking about it you just can’t hold back from leaping in, or you read something and it just sparks so much interest in you, or you see something or you have an experience that you just really want to change and make better. There are so many ways that your purpose can come out to you in the world.
A way to measure your purpose and make sure you are on track is knowing that you’re making a really good impact, and that’s making sure you have a positive impact on your customers, your employees, your community, the environment and also that you have great governance and advice to help you get there and ultimately deliver that purpose.
How do you make time for your purpose?
Your purpose should underline all the initiatives that you do. If you have your own company or startup everything you are doing should be getting you towards achieving that purpose. So, at Sharesies, we want to make the most financially empowered generation and there’s a lot to do in that so every day we are making inroads towards making that possible.
Your purpose should be really ingrained into your actions, the tasks you do every day, the results you measure, it’s your why.
In the beginning, how did you discover your purpose?
It was a thing that commonly aligned all of the 7 founders of Sharesies. It’s why we were interested in giving up our corporate careers to go full time in creating Sharesies. We knew that this purpose was something we could create a massive impact around and knew that we had the drive to make it happen.
We were really deliberate when we started. We spent a lot of time on understanding our motives for starting Sharesies and the way we wanted to work together and what our values should be. We asked questions like, ‘if you were creating the best company in the world, what would that look like?’ ‘What would it feel like to work there?’ ‘What are things you’ve seen in work places before that you don’t ever want to see in your own company?’ and we just wrote these all down and they easily themed up to create our values that drive our purpose.
How does your why determine the direction of your business?
It sets the overarching direction. It’s working out the purpose, which is your why, and then working out what needs to be done to drive that purpose to make an impact.
What advice would you have for anyone who is just beginning a startup on how to grasp what their purpose and why is?
Ask yourself, why are you keen to spend your time and your life on making this business possible? What is driving you? You’ll find your purpose probably lays in that. It’s just really understanding while you are creating it, you are creating a company, not just a product and service. Your company needs values to drive your purpose.