Scaling Impact Shouldn't Be This Hard | Alessa Berg, Tessa Clarke & Heather Terry (Part 2)

Building a purpose-driven business is hard. Scaling one is harder. In Part 2 of this two-part episode, three women founders share hard-won lessons on growing a social enterprise without losing the mission: how to price against “free,” survive multi-year corporate sales cycles, stay profitable, and keep going when systems change feels slow.

You’ll hear from Tessa Clarke, Founder of Olio, the food-sharing app fighting food waste; Alessa Berg, Founder of Top Tier Impact, a global impact investing network spanning 80+ countries; and Heather Terry, Founder of GoodSAM Foods, an ethical, sustainable snack brand with zero middlemen in its supply chain.

Tessa explains why Olio’s biggest competitor isn’t another startup but the bin, and how a “never be beaten by the bin” pricing philosophy shapes the entire business model. Heather makes the case that cheap prices hide real costs (“someone is suffering for you to buy it at that price”) and why she’d rather scale slowly and profitably than fast and fragile. Alessa shares how to handle the moment your company outgrows its systems, and why the thinking behind AI tools matters more than the tools themselves.

If you’re a social entrepreneur, impact founder, or sustainability leader trying to grow a business that does good and makes money, this episode gives you practical frameworks and honest advice from founders who’ve done it.

What You’ll Learn

• How to compete when your real competitor is free, convenient, and doing nothing at all
• What to expect when selling to large corporates, including sales cycles of three to eight years
• Why “no impact without sales” should shape every mission-driven business
• Why profitable, slow growth can disrupt a broken industry more than fast scaling
• How to recognize when your business has outgrown its processes, and what to do next
• How to use AI tools effectively by focusing on the logic and thinking behind them
• Why community and belonging are essential, though unpriced, assets for founders
• The financial basics every impact entrepreneur needs to know
• How to sustain yourself through the long game of systems change

Timestamps

00:00 – Intro: from founding an impact business to scaling one

01:05 – Pricing a sustainability service when waste is “too cheap”

02:20 – The downside of selling to large corporates

02:53 – The hidden cost of cheap products

03:25 – Profit isn’t the enemy of the mission: “no impact without sales”

04:30 – Outgrowing your systems as you scale

05:17 – Using AI with intention: cognition over tools

05:53 – Advice for social entrepreneurs

06:15 – Systems change takes decades, not years

06:25 – Find your community: roots that make your branches grow

07:30 – Know your numbers: why finances are the lifeblood of your mission

08:00 – Closing

About the Show

IT SHOULDN’T BE THIS HARD by grounded is a podcast show for business leaders, social entrepreneurs, and sustainability professionals navigating the messy meaningful work of responsible business and conscious leadership. Co-hosted by Phil White and Heidi Schoeneck, each episode brings together social impact entrepreneurs, corporate changemakers, and sustainability leaders -who've been there and are doing it- for lively, playful (and sometimes provocative) conversations about why it's so hard to do the right thing (and do the right things). This episode was produced and narrated by Paloma Jacome.

Additional Resources

🤖 Meet Gaia, Grounded's sustainability AI: https://grounded.world/gaia

🌍 Get Grounded: https://grounded.world/

#Sustainability #ImpactInvesting #FoodWaste #SocialEntrepreneurship #WomenFounders #Business #ItShouldntBeThisHard