Home topics start-up-entrepreneur Tim Walmsley, Founder and CEO of BenchOn Startup Startup Can ‘For-Profit’ businesses still have a Social Impact? BenchOn’s founder provides answers Tim Walmsley March 29, 2018 ‘You can’t make a profit while you are creating social impact, that would be wrong.’ This was a statement made to me by a Year 11 student taking part in an Entrepreneurial Challenge Week, where the students were challenged to develop a social impact business within 5 days. Taken aback, I asked ‘Why?’. The five girls in the group conferred for a minute and then let me have it. ‘The drive for profit is inherently selfish and in order to have a focus on social impact, you have to be acting selflessly.’ So there. Generalisations aside, there was some logic to their thinking and I was impressed at their answer – even if they were very black and white in their assessment. The problem is, that way of thinking is outdated and they were confusing ‘social impact’ with ‘social enterprise’. Thinking that way blinded them to potential innovation and it showed in their initial business models. All but a few of the pitches were based on the concept that they would buy ‘x’, then sell ‘x’ at a higher rate and give all profits to a charity that was supporting their cause. Charities do use this model to good effect to reduce their reliance on donations, but is it the best way for an entrepreneur, or established business for that matter,