The Search for “What’s Next?”
In their journey from basketball (and Wall Street) to B Corps, Gilbert, Houlahan, and Kassoy had a general sense of what they wanted to do next: the most good for as many people as possible for as long as possible. How this would manifest, however, was not initially clear.
Kassoy was increasingly inspired by his work with social entrepreneurs as a board member of Echoing Green (a venture capital firm focused on social change) and the Freelancers Insurance Company (a future Certified B Corporation). Houlahan became inspired to develop best practices to support values-driven businesses that were seeking to raise capital, grow, and hold onto their socially and environmentally responsible missions. And Gilbert, though proud of AND 1’s culture and practices, wanted to go much further, inspired by the stories of iconic socially responsible brands such as Ben & Jerry’s, Newman’s Own, and Patagonia, whose organizing principle seemed to be how to use business for good.
The three friends’ initial, instinctive answer to the “What’s next?” question was to create a new company. Although AND 1 had a lot to be proud of, they reasoned, the company hadn’t been started with a specific intention to benefit society. What if they started a company with that intention? After discussing different approaches, however, Gilbert, Houlahan, and Kassoy decided that they would be lucky to create a business as good as those created by existing social entrepreneurs such as Ahmed and Reem Rahim from Numi Organic Tea and Mike Hannigan and Sean Marx from Give Something Back Office Supplies. And more importantly, they decided that even if they could create such a business, one more business, no matter how big and effective, wouldn’t make a dent in addressing the world’s most pressing challenges.
They then thought about creating a social investment fund. Why build one company, they reasoned, when you could help build a dozen? That idea was also short lived. The three decided that even if they could be as effective as existing social venture funds such as Renewal Funds, RSF Social Finance, or SJF Ventures, a dozen fast-growing, innovative companies was still not adequate to address society’s challenges on a large scale.
What Gilbert, Houlahan, and Kassoy realized, after speaking with hundreds of entrepreneurs, investors, and thought leaders, was that there was a need for two basic pieces of infrastructure to accelerate the growth of—and amplify the voice of—the entire socially and environmentally responsible business sector. This existing community of leaders said they needed a legal framework to help them grow while maintaining their original mission and values, and credible standards to help them distinguish their businesses in a crowded marketplace, where everyone seemed to be making claims that they were a “good” company.
To that end, in 2006 Gilbert, Houlahan, and Kassoy cofounded B Lab, a nonprofit organization dedicated to harnessing the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. The B Lab team worked with many of these leading businesses, investors, and attorneys to create a comprehensive set of performance and legal requirements, and they started certifying the first B Corporations in 2007.