Purpose Isn't Soft. Profit Isn't Cold.
I've built companies from a "deep inner why" my entire career — and I've watched that conviction translate directly into performance. So when Bill Fotsch, founder of Economic Engagement and one of the sharpest minds on what actually drives business results, reached out to collaborate on a piece for Inc. Magazine, I was all in.
His thesis and mine are two sides of the same coin.
Bill has spent decades working across hundreds of companies proving that when employees understand the economics of a business — not just their job description, but why the business exists and how it succeeds — engagement rises, turnover falls, and profits follow. His data is compelling: top-quartile economically engaged companies grow profits nearly three times faster than their peers.
My work starts from a different place but lands in the same one. The companies I've built — Tiny Organics, WonderWoof, Natives Rising — weren't built around market opportunities. They were built around a deep sense of why they had to exist. That clarity attracted the right people, shaped every product decision, and created teams who showed up like owners rather than employees. That's not coincidence. That's by design.
What Bill captures in his framework — and what my bestselling book Built on Purpose tries to give vocabulary to — is that meaning and money are not in tension. They are multipliers. Purpose without economics is inspiration without infrastructure. Economics without purpose is profit without staying power. Together, they meet what this generation of workers is demanding and what every generation of customers has always rewarded.
Deloitte's 2025 survey of more than 23,000 young workers found that roughly nine in ten Gen-Zers and Millennials say a sense of purpose is important to job satisfaction. That's not a soft preference. That's a talent market signal. Companies that ignore it will keep losing their best people to ones that don't.
At Velveteen Ventures, this is the lens we bring to every investment. We back founders with a lived-in "why" — and we look for teams where that why has been translated into how the company actually operates. Purpose at the top doesn't count for much if it hasn't reached the person closest to the customer.
Build on purpose. Grow on purpose. The two have never been separate.
Read our full piece in Inc. Magazine here.
Betsy Fore is the Founding Partner & Managing Director of Velveteen Ventures and the author of Built on Purpose, a USA Today bestseller and Financial Times Best Business Book.