Just Enough to Matter
Just Enough to Matter
I’ve been sitting with this thought for a while now — it's an idea that still needs shaping, testing, and probably a lot more refining. But it feels worth sharing in its raw form.
What if there were companies that weren’t fully for-profit or strictly non-profit, but something in between?
Companies that exist to solve meaningful, real-world problems without getting caught up in the race for hypergrowth, chasing valuations, or playing political games. Companies that don’t revolve around fundraising milestones or exit strategies. Just... businesses that do the work. Solve the problem. And sustain themselves while doing so.
It’s not a new idea entirely. OpenAI, for instance, started as a non-profit with a mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Over time, it transitioned to a capped-profit model through a limited partnership structure. Investors could receive up to 100x returns, but it’s still governed by a nonprofit board. That shift wasn’t necessarily about greed — training frontier models is expensive. It takes enormous capital, and once institutional investors are involved, certain expectations naturally follow.
But that’s not the kind of organization I’m talking about.
I’m thinking of companies built to solve unsexy, ground level problems. The kind that don’t promise 100x returns, aren’t competing in crowded markets, and often fall outside the radar of typical startup enthusiasm. Problems that are either too slow, too local, too “low-margin,” or just too hard.
These are the problems that don’t attract venture capital. Not because they’re not worth solving, but because they don’t scale the way VCs need them to. There’s often no moat, no IP, no billion dollar market. But there is human need.
So here’s the idea:
A semi-for-profit model.
Imagine a company that is selffunded (or lightly funded), with a cap on profit. One where investors are simply repaid the amount they put in plus a modest, fixed interest. Nothing exponential. Nothing designed to compound. Just enough to cover the opportunity cost. Think of it as the kind of return a bank might offer, predictable, fair, and grounded.
The goal here isn’t to make money — not even for the investor. The goal is to make impact. To build something that needs building, solve something worth solving, and do it sustainably, without financial pressure distorting the mission.
Maybe it starts with someone who deeply believes in the problem. Someone with a track record. They don’t need to run it full time — maybe it’s a side project or a passion. But they’re involved. They seed it, shape the early vision, hire the right team, and step aside when the time is right. What matters is that it’s built with care, and handed off with trust.
Take education in India as an example. Not just school education. I’m talking about practical, daily-life learning — for adults, for working-class communities, for those who never got the basics. How to manage money. How to read critically. How to access government schemes or navigate the digital world. These are areas where there's immense need and very little innovation.
Startups usually stay away from this space — not because it’s unimportant, but because the returns aren’t there. The CAC is high. The LTV is low. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.
Now, I know this idea assumes a lot. It assumes ethical leadership. It assumes discipline. It assumes people won’t get greedy. It assumes long-term thinking in a world built for short-term wins.
But still — I believe it’s worth exploring.
Even if the real world isn’t always perfect, I think concepts like this need to exist, because they stretch our imagination of what companies can be. If enough people start building these sorts of mission-driven, cash-sustainable ventures — even on the side — we might just see a shift. Not a revolution, but a quiet evolution.
At the end of the day, blind optimism has fueled some of the most meaningful things ever built. Most good ideas don’t start with a business plan — they start with a question:
“What if this could work?”
This is one of those questions.
One I’m still exploring.
I hope to apply this model myself someday — maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon. Maybe when I’ve had the time to think through it more clearly, when the structure becomes more real than abstract.
For now, I’ll keep sitting with it.
And maybe — just maybe — someone else out there will too.
Final thought
Ideas like this may never dominate headlines or raise billions. But they can quietly, steadily change the shape of the world we live in. And sometimes, that’s enough.
What’s Next?
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- Has this blog sparked new ideas for you?
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I write when inspiration strikes, and only when I have something meaningful to share. Let’s keep experimenting, learning, and growing — together.