What is a Zebra business? And resources to guide you in building one
Many of the entrepreneurs building the next generation of healthy businesses are dedicated to figuring out how to make their businesses both profitable AND reparative to the world, what some may call a Zebra business, a concept articulated and shared by Mara Zepeda, Aniyia Williams, Astrid Scholz and Jennifer Brandel, business founders themselves and creators of an organization called Zebras Unite.
A Zebra businesses is an alternate model to what we hear about as the Unicorn—a high-growth, means-to-the-end, zero sum, hugely venture capital backed endeavor. In contrast, to a Unicorn a Zebra business balances profit and purpose, champions democracy and puts a premium on sharing power and resources. Why zebra business? As Mara, Aniyia, Astrid and Jennifer write:
To state the obvious: unlike unicorns, zebras are real.
Zebra companies are both black and white: they are profitable and improve society. They won’t sacrifice one for the other.
Zebras are also mutualistic: by banding together in groups, they protect and preserve one another. Their individual input results in stronger collective output.
Zebra companies are built with peerless stamina and capital efficiency, as long as conditions allow them to survive.
When we discovered the Zebra concept in the early days of The Big Whisper it gave us a sense of identity for how we had already intuitively been building. We knew there had to be another way of creating a flourishing endeavor that didn’t necessarily involve raising loads of money and “disrupting” something.
When we shared the Zebra concept in our first ever newsletter many readers who had not been familiar with the concept wrote to us enthusiastically, “I’m building a Zebra too!” There are a lot of us out there and it’s up to us to continue to band together and pave the way.
Interested in exploring the Zebra concept further? Below are links to five resources to learn more:
Zebras fix what unicorns break — the introductory Medium piece about from the founders of the Zebras Unite movement
Zebra business framework — a guide to the principles, beliefs and values of a Zebra company compared to a Unicorn company
The Dazzle — the introductory podcast episode from the Zebras Unite movement podcast series, the creators of the movement discussing how they came up with the Zebra concept
More Start-Ups Have an Unfamiliar Message for Venture Capitalists: Get Lost — a piece by The New York Times featuring the women of Zebras Unite and their movement
Zebras Unite — the website all about the Zebra movement along with opportunities for getting involved