#6 Purpose -> Performance Case Study

You may have heard the stats about how purpose-led companies grow faster and are more profitable than their peers.

But perhaps you’re not seeing this reflected in your own business.

Translating purpose into performance isn’t easy, but it brings huge rewards for those that get it right.

Today, I’m sharing a case study of how I've helped a company achieve this.

5 min read

What is ‘Purposeful Advantage’?

The top 3% of companies are rewriting the rules of success, benefiting from significant advantages over their competitors.

By creating a clear sense of purpose, shared throughout their organisation, they unlock a range of benefits that boost their performance and profitability - while creating meaningful positive impact.

What’s at Stake?

Here’s some of the stat's for the advantages enjoyed by purpose-led companies:

> They grow at 5x the rate of their peers.

B Lab UK

> Their employees are 4x more motivated.

McKinsey

> Their customers are 23% more valuable.

Gallup

> They have 30% higher rates of innovation.

Deloitte

> They are 25% more successful at fundraising.

B Lab UK

To illustrate how a purpose-led company can achieve such success across these five areas, I will use a real example of a company that I have worked with over the last 2-3 years.

Case Study: Rem3dy Health

Using patented 3D printing technology to personalise Health & Wellness, and best known for the brand Nourished, Rem3dy Health raised its Series A in 2021 at a £52m valuation.

I have since helped the company triple sales, expand into new channels and territories, grow to over 150 staff, receive a King’s Award for innovation, and successfully raise £12m in equity and debt funding.

During this time, the company has supported nutritional interventions for 177,000 vulnerable infants and pregnant women worldwide and avoided 24,600kg of plastic waste.

The Founder and CEO, Melissa Snover, is one of the most impressive people I've worked with: driven in equal measures by commercial success and by vision and values, it has been a privilege to support her and the team over the last two and a half years.

Here's how we've translated purpose into performance:

Innovation

The company's in-house Technology team is responsible for the continued research and development of new products and production technologies.

This team has continually pushed the boundaries of what is possible with 3D printing and medical-grade precision manufacture of nutritional supplements, excelling at both the materials science and hardware needed to make this possible.

The company has secured over 20 patents, and recently received the prestigious King’s Award for Innovation.

The Tech team embodies purpose at its best: they know exactly how their work every day is contributing to the fulfilment of the company’s vision.  Even though they push themselves hard, the enjoyment and pride in their work are clear.

Customers

Rem3dy Health’s ability to form strong relationships with customers who believe in the company’s mission has been crucial.

This helped negotiate terms on a partnership with what became the company’s biggest customer, and subsequently an investor. 

Alignment on values and vision made it easy to understand each other’s true priorities during the commercial negotiations.

This helped me secure some unusual terms in the contract, but which were mutually beneficial to both parties.

This has led to a hugely successful partnership, with the products quickly gaining market share and reaching #1 category positions within months of launch.

Investors

I’ve helped the company raise £12m over the last two years in debt and equity funding.

Creating alignment with funders that runs deeper than an understanding of commercial strategy and financial projections builds excitement and momentum early in the process, making difficult conversations during due diligence and later stage negotiations easier.

When investors and lenders buy into your purpose, this can result in a shift in mindset towards "how can we make this work" rather than "what are the reasons this will not work".

In a difficult fundraising environment for start-ups and scale-ups, I've helped the company achieve a 58% increase in its valuation.

Employees

One of the most compelling parts of this case study is its impact on employees, especially those who are often the hardest to motivate and have the least connection to purpose.

As the company has grown, it faced challenges with its production team: high turnover, mistakes, wastage, and inefficiency—all higher than they should be.

We made significant changes to create a high-performance culture and strengthen the connection between these teams and the company’s purpose. 

Our hypothesis was that smaller teams of more capable and engaged staff would be more efficient and overall more cost-effective, even with increased pay.

In addition to higher hourly rates, we designed a bonus scheme with clear targets to reward team and individual performance. Regular team briefings, many done by Melissa, along with more training and support, were implemented.

The results have been incredible. Output, efficiency and product quality have all increased, and these gains have outweighed the extra costs of paying staff more.

Consequently, cost per unit has dropped, and margins have increased by 32%.

Growth

Since I started working with the company less than three years ago, revenues have tripled, representing a 39% CAGR.

Success stories like Rem3dy Health are rare - continuing to grow at such high rates throws up all sorts of challenges.

As anyone who has worked in these companies will know, a lot of this centres on culture, especially when headcount is growing rapidly.

Going from a start-up to a scale-up involves huge change.  In the early days, everyone is much closer to the founder(s), making it easy to lead by example and influence the team and culture directly, on a daily basis.

Over time, this gets diluted as levels of hierarchy and layers of bureaucracy are added. But in a high-growth environment, you must strike the right balance between control and speed.

I view purpose, culture and values as being like an operating system for a company, guiding the behaviours, actions, and decisions of its staff.

You have control over the design of this operating system, but importantly your people have autonomy as to how they apply it in their daily roles.

I believe this is the most effective way for a high-growth company to maintain its dynamism whilst introducing more structure and governance.

Next steps

1. Consider how your company could achieve greater success in these areas by being more purpose-driven.

2. Think about how purpose links to key performance drivers in the different parts of your business. What metrics would help you measure this?

3. Set targets for the improvements you could achieve over time, and track progress against them.

These steps form a core part of my ‘Purpose x Profit’ methodology.

If you’d be interested to learn more, please get in touch.

You can find out more at towardsbetter.org and see other case studies and testimonials here.

The journey towards a better way of doing business

We are on the cusp of a new paradigm of responsible business, and helping impactful companies pair purpose with profit will accelerate the shift.

I believe this holds the key to solving many of our greatest challenges and inspiring positive change throughout society.

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