As we work alongside founders who are creating impactful solutions for the planet, we’ve learned that optimising for success means focusing on actionable insights and practical strategies.

Here are our five top tips to help you grow your sustainable business and scale your impact.

1. Build your brand around your values 

Sustainability is more than a buzzword; it’s a commitment that resonates deeply with consumers when authentically integrated into your brand story. Founders need to clearly articulate their purpose and tie it to their product or service, and it should be applied to everything you do; your product, packaging, customer service, supply chains, back-end office. As a startup, realistically you can't do everything you’d want to – yet – but start with some key principles around how you want your company and team to behave, and do your best to stick with them. 

"Your story is your brand’s foundation. Make it real, relatable, and relevant to your audience," says Paul Finch, Co-Founder of Growth Studio.

2. Embrace agility in problem-solving 

Set yourself solid goals – targets, end-outcomes, and milestones to achieve. Be laser focused on those goals, but be prepared to change how you get there. If something isn’t working as expected, get to the bottom of why, and then change tract. Kill bad ideas quickly (“don’t fall in love with your babies”), pivot fast, apply learnings to future endeavours. 

Don’t be afraid to be curious, and be inspired by others – often many successful founders have cracked the problem you’re trying to solve in other sectors. Look at how they’ve done it, what learnings you can apply, how you can do better.

3. Put collaboration at the heart for growth 

Don’t go it alone. Collaboration with ecosystem partners, mentors, sector media, and other startups can multiply your efforts. Other sustainability-focused founders know your pain, and have often experienced and learned from all of the challenges you’re currently facing. When you add that you focus on sustainability, that not only has a frustratingly real-world impact that you’re struggling to realise, twinned with an often indifferent commercial and investor sector who are less interested in ‘good’ businesses, it’s a really hard, lonely road. Share your pain, be generous with your support and network – it matters. 

Finally, selling to one potential customer is often more effort than selling to one person who has a community of hundreds or thousands of potential customers. Think about how you can amplify your sales via others.

4. Make data-driven decisions

Sustainable growth isn’t just about doing good, it’s about proving it. Leverage tools and analytics to measure impact and refine strategies. Create a really simple but effective sales funnel, and analyse it regularly. An often go-to reaction to poor sales is to invest more in marketing, when often the data would tell you that a slightly higher bottom-of-the-funnel ore retention uplift can have a much higher impact on sales and profit. Oh, and it’s often cheaper too.

5. Stay close to your customers

Understanding your customers is critical. The most successful startups know their customers, their customer’s problems, and their buying behaviours inside out. We Brits are terrible at striking up conversations with existing and prospective customers, but it reaps rewards and dividends. Constantly seek feedback to improve your product, positioning, pricing, user experience, customer service. Ask customers “what would make this a 10* experience or product? Why would you not buy this again? What problem did this solve for you?”

For more startup news, check out the other articles on the website, and subscribe to the magazine for free. Listen to The Cereal Entrepreneur podcast for more interviews with entrepreneurs and big-hitters in the startup ecosystem.