How to turn an idea for a better world into a $50 million business

Lessons From Olio Co-Founder on Building a $50 Million Business for Good

Tessa Clarke co-founded Olio in 2015 after failing to give away her own spare food before a house move. Ten years on, that frustration has become the world's largest food-sharing app: 8 million users across 63 countries, $50 million raised, and recognition from the United Nations as a scalable solution to climate change. Her TED talk has been watched over 1 million times, and in 2023 she won the Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Award.

In the latest episode of the Creative Capes podcast, Tessa shared how she turned scaled idea into an international purpose-driven business.

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Aim for business, not charity

Doing good and building a business are not opposites. Olio, the food-sharing app used by millions of people, was built as a business from day one. Co-founder Tessa Clarke and her team chose this because they had no experience running a charity, but plenty of experience running businesses.

A charity is not the only way to create impact, and it comes with its own limits, depending entirely on funding. Businesses can be built for impact just as directly, and they are often easier to scale.

Add B2B to scale your impact faster

Individual customers join one at a time, and each one brings a small amount of supply. Businesses are usually a faster, larger source of revenue for the same service.

Tessa encourages mission-driven founders to get onto that B2B model or B2B2C model as quickly as possible. Startups bring the innovation and the creativity. Corporates bring the scale and the distribution. Partnering with them is one of the fastest ways to unlock impact.

Olio now charges retailers, schools, and production companies to redistribute their surplus food for a recurring fee per location per year. It solves an existing problem (waste disposal) while adding value they didn't have before: better employee morale, less reputational risk, and real ESG progress.

If your product is loved by individuals but hard to monetise, you may need to look for the businesses facing the same problem.

Focus on their problem, not your solution

People (and businesses) don't care about your solution. All they care about is, "I've got a problem. Can you help me fix it?"

Different clients often have completely different concerns, even when you're offering them the exact same thing. What worries one might be irrelevant to another, so the same solution needs a different framing depending on who you’re talking to.

Tessa shared that while Olio offers broadly the same service, they use very different language to recognise the specific nuanced angles to the problem of particular organisation.

Before explaining what you offer, get specific about the problem you're solving. Use the other person’s words, not yours.

Flip the questions to get investment

Tessa and her co-founder have raised roughly $50 million in equity financing across five rounds, and a large part of that came down to how she chose to answer questions.

Research shows female founders tend to be asked prevention-based questions: "what happens if it all goes wrong?" Male founders tend to be asked promotion-based ones: "how fast can this grow?"

Whichever question you're asked, answer as though it were about growth, says Tessa. Use a promotion-based response.

Tessa also recommends setting the frame before the conversation even starts. Open with a team slide with credentials and logos visible. Those logos are stamps of approval. For Olio, that meant Stanford MBAs, and time at McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and J.P. Morgan. It changes how the room listens: everything that follows gets proper attention.

The lesson holds far beyond fundraising: you can shape the frame you're heard in, and it's worth doing that deliberately.

Start measuring your social impact

Revenue and headcount aren't the only numbers that matter.

Olio worked with a third-party consultant to measure its impact beyond food redistribution. They contributed to better mental health, less loneliness, more community connection, and more physical activity. Last year that added up to £385 million in social value. Over its lifetime, Olio delivered £1.1 billion by a team of just 40 people.

If you measured your own organisation's impact this way, what number would you be proud of?

Did you know that Tessa Clarke is part of our Executive Programme faculty, along with other outstanding Founders, CEOs, CDOs and Investors?

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