Make Your Mark

Make Your Mark Plot Summary

Introduction

When Maria first launched her sustainable clothing brand, she had a vision that went beyond just selling eco-friendly apparel. She wanted to create a business that would transform how people thought about fashion consumption while supporting ethical manufacturing practices. But six months in, facing inventory challenges and marketing struggles, she found herself questioning everything. "Am I really making an impact, or just adding to the noise?" she wondered late one night. In today's hyperconnected world, building a business is no longer just about profit margins and market share. The most successful and enduring companies are those driven by purpose—organizations that solve real problems, meet pressing needs, and change the world in ways both large and small. These purpose-driven businesses transform not only industries but also the lives of those they touch. Throughout the chapters ahead, we'll explore how to discover your unique purpose, focus relentlessly on creating exceptional products, build authentic connections with customers, and lead with transparency and trust. Whether you're just starting out or looking to evolve an existing business, you'll find practical wisdom on how to create something that matters—not just to you, but to the world.

Chapter 1: Finding Your Purpose: The Compass That Guides Meaningful Ventures

When Bill Thomas took the stage at a conference, his presence was immediately captivating. Dressed casually in jeans and Birkenstocks, this Harvard-trained doctor spoke with remarkable passion about transforming the experience of aging in America. He laid out an ambitious vision for how we could conceive of aging as "an era of continual growth and renewal, rather than a period of decline." His energy was both motivating and mobilizing—you could feel the audience being drawn into his mission. After his session, someone asked him to describe his purpose in life. Without hesitation, he answered in just eight words: "To bring respect back to elderhood in America." In that simple statement, he captured his entire life's work. This clarity of purpose acted as his compass, shaping his choices and helping him separate what was merely interesting from what was truly crucial to his mission. Finding such clarity isn't always easy, whether for individuals or organizations. The process typically begins by examining the intersection of several key truths: What does the world hunger for? What are your unique talents? Who have you timelessly been? And who must you fearlessly become? A company's—or person's—purpose lies at the center of these forces. This work of introspection and clarity-seeking is rarely simple, but it's almost always rewarding. Once defined, purpose informs every move, adding meaning to day-to-day operations and motivation that goes far beyond profit. Purpose becomes even more powerful when it's put into action. Casey Sheahan, who served as CEO of outdoor clothing pioneer Patagonia for a decade, aligned his personal purpose of helping people live mindfully with Patagonia's mission "to build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis." This alignment created a company culture that continues to make Patagonia a proof concept for compassionate business. The most interesting revelation is how purpose and impact reinforce each other. Purpose compels you to act, bringing into focus the things that matter most. And the impact you have in the world affirms your purpose, fueling and empowering you to live it more boldly every day. This virtuous cycle is how ordinary people achieve extraordinary things. They listen to their purpose, achieve things because of it, and that in turn makes them hungry to live by their purpose even more fully. It's in this continuous dance between purpose and impact that greatness emerges.

Chapter 2: Product Focus: Perfecting One Thing Before Scaling

Andy Dunn, founder of Bonobos, recalls how his co-founder Brian Spaly began developing the idea for better men's pants in 2005 when they were roommates at Stanford business school. Spaly conducted lean consumer research among their classmates, asking what kinds of pants they wore, what they thought about them, and where they bought them. What he discovered was simple but profound: no one really liked their pants. This insight led to the development of "Spaly-pants," featuring an innovative contoured waistband and a tailored fit that threaded the needle on the "American pants are too boxy, European pants are too tight" conundrum. With eye-catching contrast pocket liners that emphasized attention to detail, these pants were an immediate hit. When Dunn realized his roommate's hobby could become a company, he joined as founding CEO, and together they sold pants relentlessly—at trunk shows, pants parties, and even at weddings in LA and Hawaii (where Dunn still gets grief for hawking pants at brunch and over poolside mai tais). The founders didn't begin angel investor conversations until they had tens of thousands of dollars in sales—until they knew "the dogs were eating the dog food," as their founding angel investor Andy Rachleff liked to say. When they finally launched e-commerce in October 2007, they continued their in-person selling efforts to feed demand to their new automated selling engine. Within six months of their e-commerce launch, they hit $1 million in revenue run-rate, which doubled to $2 million six months later. What's remarkable about this growth trajectory is that Bonobos achieved it with just one pant style—an exaggerated boot cut that didn't even offer inseam options (most customers had to get them hemmed). They had only a handful of fabric choices in about a dozen colors, no denim or khaki chinos yet, and no way for customers to try the pants before buying. Yet they saw hockey stick–style growth because they hit a nerve with their product: men's pants didn't fit well, and Bonobos offered something better. Six years later, that original boot-cut style represented less than 10 percent of their pants business, and pants made up less than 40 percent of their total business. They had brick-and-mortar "Guideshops" in cities nationwide where customers could try products on before having purchases shipped to their homes. But they would never have reached that point if they hadn't perfected their first product. The paradox Dunn points out is that even making two great items at launch makes it harder for customers to know what job to hire you for. It creates more risk, requires more capital, dilutes focus, and makes it harder to message who you are in those precious early innings. As Bonobos' CFO liked to remind him: "Money runs out faster than opportunities." The moral is clear: you don't start with the right to do product #2. You earn it by getting product #1 absolutely right.

Chapter 3: User-Centered Innovation: Creating Experiences, Not Just Products

When Julie Zhuo looks at the evolution of product design, she sees a fundamental shift happening. "The word 'design' has traditionally been used to describe the happy marriage of function and form," she explains. "A chair can be comfortable and beautiful. An invitation can be clear and convey the personality of the event." But in today's digital world, thinking of product design as something purely visual feels limiting. Consider the transformation of Internet directories in the early 1990s. Yahoo, Lycos, and AOL started as hierarchical collections of websites organized into neat categories like Arts and Humanities, Reference, Science, and Government. As the number of websites grew exponentially, the challenge became how to improve these directories. A design-focused approach might have added drop-down menus or launched specialized portal sites with curated content. Instead, Google revolutionized the experience with a single rectangular text field backed by a sophisticated algorithm. The era of browsing was over; the era of search had begun. More recently, services like Dropbox succeeded by adopting the same pattern people were already familiar with—native folders within the operating system. There were no new interfaces to learn, no new screens to navigate. The familiarity of working within an existing, well-understood metaphor proved far easier than any new app could have been, no matter how beautiful. The best product experiences often involve invisible design—cutting out entire steps, ditching whole surface areas, or relying on existing patterns instead of inventing new ones. This approach to product design boils down to three principles. First, don't limit the solution too early. Working from "first principles" means asking what would need to happen for the problem to be resolved if you were free from all constraints. Second, reduce the number of steps required. An action menu with twenty items is harder to use than one with two because reading, processing, and deciding among twenty options requires your brain to take many more cognitive steps. Third, look for opportunities to lean on familiar patterns or mental models. If flicking upward expands an object, flicking downward should dismiss it, following the laws of the physical world. The future of design extends beyond what our eyes can see or fingers can touch. Like a successful restaurant experience that blends food, décor, service, and ambiance, a successful product isn't just what it looks like or what it can do—it's the entire experience it enables. As technology continues to evolve, the most magical products will be those that simply work, often invisibly, meeting our needs without requiring our constant attention. For all the parts of our experience that we do see, they should be beautiful and crafted at the highest level. But for all the things we don't see—they should simply work, as if by magic.

Chapter 4: Building Authentic Connections: The Art of Customer Relationships

Chris Guillebeau recounts a remarkable story about the power of authentic customer relationships. A simple blog post asking for donations for clean water in Ethiopia—with no preamble, no launch campaign, and no guilt trip—generated $22,000 in less than a day. Another time, a commercial service launch to the same community produced more than $100,000 in immediate income for a single product on a single day, from a relatively small audience. What made these successes possible wasn't viral distribution or outside promotion. In both cases, the donations, sales, and referrals came from a small group of people who had become, in Guillebeau's words, "an army of allies." This group willingly shared invitations and spread the message because of the trust built through several years of relationship building. When the time came to ask for funding or sell a product, activating that trust was straightforward. Building such an army begins by producing good work and taking a stand that matters. Then, make it clear that you welcome people to your mission by giving them something to believe in. Unlike a traditional army with a clear hierarchy, your role as leader of this volunteer army is essentially to serve. Every day, Guillebeau suggests asking yourself two questions: What am I making? Whom am I helping? Answering these questions—in both word and deed—is crucial for nurturing your community. Serving your army is equally important. As Megan Hunt, a blogger and fashion designer, puts it: "My marketing plan is strategic giving." This can take many forms: making expertise available through regular free sessions, sharing paid content for free on different channels, or simply being helpful wherever possible. When Guillebeau frequently went online to ask, "How can I help you?" he received various responses and learned a lot about his audience while providing actual assistance. This reciprocity creates a powerful bond. The more you give away, the stronger the connection you build with your allies. By continually increasing what you make freely available, even as you designate other areas of your work for sale, you build a reservoir of goodwill. Then, when it's time to ask for that sale or request a higher fee, people are more willing to support you. In today's interconnected world, building a community based on mutual interests has never been easier. You can deploy this community for social good, for profit, or in pursuit of a greater mission that combines both. The key lies in crafting a consistent message, making a real difference in people's lives, and serving those who've chosen to join your cause. Nothing is more important than these relationships—success is built on the creation of trust and value, which in turn motivates your army to spread your message further than you ever could alone.

Chapter 5: Transparent Leadership: Creating a Culture of Trust and Ownership

Joel Gascoigne, founder and CEO of Buffer, takes transparency to remarkable levels. "As of February 2014, there were 1,320,813 people signed up for my product. 129,855 of those people actively use the product each month, and in January 2014 we generated a total of $325,000 in revenue. My salary is $163,000." This level of disclosure isn't unusual at Buffer, where the default approach is to ask, "Why not be open about this?" with everything they do. The company shares salary and equity numbers with the team. Any emails among team members are cc'd to mailing lists so the whole company can see every conversation. Even external email conversations around marketing and press are bcc'd to lists so team members can learn how these tasks are approached. If Gascoigne meets with an investor, the team knows about it, with access to a shared Dropbox folder containing all seed round investment documents and other information. This radical transparency produces profound benefits that would otherwise be impossible. First, it breeds trust—the foundation of great teamwork. When details like individual compensation, revenue, and profitability are kept secret, it's hard for team members to trust one another. When everything is completely open, people can see that the company has been thoughtful and fair, allowing the team to focus on common goals rather than politics. Second, sharing all information is essential to innovation. As Keith Rabois, who held executive roles at PayPal, LinkedIn, and Square, argues: if you want people to make smart decisions, they need full context and all available information. You can't expect people to make the decisions you would make without giving them the same information you have. Third, transparency attracts loyalty from customers and users. When you share details of your business and decision processes, you become more human. Sharing failures as well as successes shows that you're doing everything possible to make customers happy. Over time, this develops incredible trust and loyalty—people know you "have their back" and become vocal supporters and friends, bringing new customers. Fourth, transparency leads to fairness and responsibility. By sharing compensation openly, Buffer makes it clear they're dedicated to being fair. They've even developed a formula for salary based on role, experience level, location, and seniority—a significant step toward fighting compensation inequality. Finally, transparency allows you to gain invaluable feedback. Though it can be scary to share the "why" behind decisions knowing others may criticize you, it's also rewarding. Team members weigh in with ideas to improve all aspects of the business, and you hold yourself to a higher standard knowing you'll share the details of your work. Gascoigne suggests starting with simple steps: share some email conversations company-wide, make an internal report public, or share meeting notes with everyone. "The only thing I can think of that I would change about our transparent approach," he reflects, "is that I wish we had done it sooner. As soon as you start making adjustments toward being more transparent, you'll find out how valued this openness is by employees and customers. It's also surprisingly liberating."

Chapter 6: Iteration and Experimentation: Embracing Failure as a Path to Success

Sebastian Thrun, who led the teams that created Google Glass and the Google Self-Driving Car, approaches product development like mountain climbing. "The first step is to pick a peak," he explains. "Don't pick a peak because it's easy. Pick a peak because you really want to go there; that way you'll enjoy the process." The second step is to assemble a team you trust and that's willing to learn with you, because the journey won't be perfect. You'll make mistakes, have to turn around, and recover. Finally, maintain your sense of purpose even when it feels like you're on the wrong path. For Thrun, the journey itself should provide daily satisfaction rather than just end-goal gratification. "If your goal is to IPO and get rich, then you're going to be in for a very long, very sad ride. Because most people don't IPO and don't get rich," he warns. Since our most important asset is time, deriving happiness from what you're doing today is more fulfilling than focusing on deferred goals like buying a fancy car in the future. When it comes to innovation, Thrun emphasizes the importance of rapid iteration and embracing failure. Using the mountain climbing analogy, he points out there's no way to reach the summit without taking countless steps. You could spend weeks planning the perfect route, but ultimately that's just wasted time if no one has climbed this particular mountain before. "Innovation is about climbing a mountain that no one has climbed before. So there ought to be some unknowns along the way because no one has solved the problem yet," he explains. This is where the value of fast iteration and fast failing comes in. When you fail while innovating, you've actually accomplished something valuable—you've learned something. While it might look embarrassing in hindsight, with people saying "You should've known that," the truth is you couldn't have known because it was uncharted territory. As Thrun notes, "Almost every entrepreneur I know has failed massively many, many times along the way." He identifies three common mistakes in product development. First, there's "the eternal thinker"—the perfectionist who builds all the components without putting them together until just before launch, assuming everything will work perfectly (it never does). Second is being discouraged by failure—trying something a few times, spending months in development, then giving up when it doesn't work. The third mistake is being driven by fear, changing course when a competitor does something new. This is a bad idea because you're already behind your competitor. Instead, Thrun advises having faith in your vision. For those uncomfortable with iteration and failure, Thrun suggests reframing how we think about failure. "The failures that come out of experimentation really don't relate to you as a person. It's just the course of innovation; failure is a systemic part of that process," he explains. It's like a car running out of gas—no one takes offense because the "failure" is inherent to the car, not to your ability to operate it. If we think of failure in innovation as having to refill the gas tank regularly, we can take it much less personally. Ultimately, Thrun believes that adopting a "growth mindset"—being comfortable with not knowing—is essential for innovation. "If you know everything, you can't possibly innovate, right? It's impossible, because there is nothing new to learn or discover." Like mountain climbers who feel small in the mountains and enjoy that feeling, innovators must embrace the vastness of what they don't yet know, finding joy in the process of discovery rather than the illusion of certainty.

Chapter 7: Making Small Kindnesses Matter: The Subtle Power of Business Details

Arianna Huffington once observed that "it's easy to miss the real point of our lives even as we're living them," noting that eulogies never mention professional achievements like increasing market share or clearing an email inbox. Instead, what we hear in eulogies are stories of "small kindnesses"—those seemingly minor but deeply meaningful gestures that make a lasting impression. This insight applies powerfully to business. Just as details make good art great—subtle word choices separating great poets from amateurs, small flourishes defining superlative architecture—tiny considerations can make a business truly exceptional. As Shane Snow explains, these small kindnesses are all about focusing on people before profits, and paradoxically, this approach often yields huge returns. Research by Wharton professor Adam Grant shows that the most successful people in workplaces tend to be those who give selflessly without expectation of returned favors. Similarly, studies by Jim Stengel, former global marketing head at Procter & Gamble, demonstrate that businesses "centered on improving people's lives outperform their competitors." Snow experienced this philosophy firsthand when ordering temporary tattoos from a website called Tattly. When his order arrived, it contained not just the two fox tattoos he'd purchased but two additional designs as well. This wasn't a packing error—it was a deliberate strategy. As Tattly founder Tina Roth Eisenberg explained, "From the very start, we always gave an extra Tattly away in every order. It's a simple way to delight our customers." The cost of these free tattoos was negligible—a few cents in materials, no additional shipping cost, and minimal labor. But the goodwill they generated was invaluable, virtually ensuring customer return. This wasn't Tattly's only small kindness. The company added "P.S. You look great today!" to its "About Us" page, decorated shipping envelopes with stickers, used real postage stamps instead of printed business postage, and even redesigned its invoice to make it pretty and slightly humorous. "Most people wouldn't even give an invoice design another thought," Eisenberg said. "But I do. It's another way to communicate with our customer." These thoughtful details might seem like inefficiencies to some businesspeople, but to companies like Tattly, they're investments in customer relationships. Two and a half years after launch, Tattly had grown to a team of ten shipping four hundred designs worldwide to shops like J.Crew and Urban Outfitters, with companies like GE, Twitter, and NPR ordering custom tattoos by the thousands. Snow sees similar small kindnesses in other successful companies: Uber drivers placing fancy candy jars in their cars for passengers, Tumblr writing its terms of service in plain English with humor, Google keeping its home page minimal to respect users' time and occasionally replacing its logo with themed "Doodles" on special occasions. This approach represents a dramatic shift from the business paradigm that dominated the last century. Instead of focusing on themselves, thoughtful companies now ask, "How can I put a smile on my audience's face, in lieu of getting in their face?" These small investments in kindness yield big dividends and help new companies rapidly build credibility and customer loyalty. As Dr. Grant's research shows, the more companies give, the more successful they become. A culture of tiny kindnesses isn't just good for the world—it's good for business, creating emotional connections that turn customers into advocates and first-time buyers into lifelong supporters.

Summary

Throughout this exploration of purpose-driven business creation, we've witnessed how meaningful ventures arise at the intersection of personal passion and solving real problems that matter to the world. From Bill Thomas's crystal-clear purpose statement "to bring respect back to elderhood in America" to Bonobos' laser focus on perfecting just one product before expanding, the most successful businesses share a common thread: they begin with why they exist before concerning themselves with what they sell. The journey of building something that matters requires both vision and practicality. It demands the patience to iterate relentlessly, like Sebastian Thrun's mountain climbers taking countless steps toward the summit, embracing failures as valuable learning opportunities along the way. It calls for genuine connection with customers, building what Chris Guillebeau calls "an army of allies" through authentic relationship-building and generous giving. And perhaps most surprisingly, it thrives on transparency and small kindnesses—those seemingly minor details that communicate care and build lasting loyalty. Whether it's Buffer's radical openness about salaries or Tattly's extra free tattoos in every order, these gestures speak volumes about a company's values. What these stories reveal is a profound truth: business can be one of our most powerful vehicles for positive change when approached with the right intentions. By aligning your unique talents with the world's needs, focusing relentlessly on quality before scale, embracing both failure and feedback, and leading with transparency and trust, you can create something that not only sustains you financially but also makes a meaningful mark on the world. The journey may not be easy—it rarely is—but as Seth Godin reminds us, if you wait until you're fully ready, it's almost certainly too late. The time to start making your mark is now.

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Jocelyn K. Glei

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