Founders Q+A: In Good Company
In Good Company on championing purpose-driven business
Sarah Kingston is the Co-Founder and Chief Impact Officer of In Good Company, a female-led tech-for-good start-up on a mission to drive growth for small, ethical and sustainable businesses. Sarah shares her thoughts on the challenges facing ethical businesses and consumers, how the ingood.app supports better buying, and how building a value-driven business is all about your people and purpose.
ESGmark®: What inspired you to found In Good Company?
Sarah Kingston (SK): I met my Co-Founder, Alex Birtles, in 2020 as Year Here Fellows, a social innovation programme. We hit it off discussing our love for exploring local spots and businesses making a positive impact.
Our conversations revealed a common frustration: whilst we loved supporting good businesses, it was tough to find them, and others said the same. We also saw, ironically, these good businesses were struggling to find enough customers. They lacked digital skills and time for marketing. That's when the idea for In Good Company was born: a platform to connect customers who care with ethical businesses in need of support. It was all about bridging the gap and meeting the needs of both sides.
ESGmark®: What makes In Good Company different from other online platforms for finding ethical businesses?
SK: We use apps and platforms for everything now - from ordering takeaway to finding a hotel or something to watch on TV that night. That's the experience we're bringing to the ethical space. Something that's as good and familiar as the things people already use in their day to day life. Fun, appealing and makes them feel good.
We saw that lots of the places which listed ethical businesses were more static lists, without pictures or reviews - missing the kinds of things which we just expect to see nowadays. And we’re focused on in-real-life businesses that people can visit, rather than online only. Places to go and things to do!
We also know that fear of greenwashing or not knowing who to trust is a real issue. Our partnerships with ethical certification and membership organisations, like ESGmark®, mean that we can display established and credible marks against qualifying businesses. This all helps build trust, and lets people know that when they choose to support those companies, their money is truly doing good.
We’re not stopping there though. We know there are real opportunities to help ethical companies get more out of data and tech more generally. So we’re developing extra data-driven digital tools to help businesses widen their customer reach, boost revenue, and amplify their positive impact, setting us apart. And we’re shortly launching our full mobile app for Android and iOS so that’s keeping us busy too!
ESGmark®: How do you ensure that your values are met with the businesses you work with?
SK: We vet every business that goes onto our platform against our criteria. For us, good companies encompass all businesses who are applying entrepreneurial spirit to tackle the environmental and societal challenges we face in the world today. The businesses we list need to have a clear purpose demonstrating that they are working to make a positive impact on people, the planet, or a community, and show that purpose is fully integrated into how the business operates.
Our certification and memberships partners help us identify many businesses, which also helps us ensure their claims are verified. However, we understand that often small or new businesses don’t have the time, funds or understanding to go for certifications and that’s ok too. In such cases, we evaluate them individually. If their commitment to being a "good company" is evident through publicly available information - company websites, socials, press - then we list them. We do encourage and support businesses to obtain relevant accreditations through our partners though as they move through their maturity curve.
It’s worth saying that our motto is ‘good not perfect’. We want to celebrate and shine a light on the businesses that are trying to drive positive social and environmental impact whilst also recognising that its a journey, not a destination. We think it's really important to support the companies who are generally trying to be better, whilst also surviving as a business. It's not easy so we’re here to help show the world the good they are doing.
ESGmark®: You have had some brilliant recognitions over the past few years! What has been your proudest moment so far since founding In Good Company?
SK: Thanks! Honestly the recognitions are great, but I’m most proud of the team and the culture we’ve built so far. We’re still a tiny company, so it may not seem like such a big thing, but we are proud to buck the tech trend - where just 24% of roles are held by women - with two female founders and two BAME female developers. The majority of interns we’ve worked with have been female as well and we try to recruit from university programmes that support diversity too.
I’m also neurodiverse, as is our CTO and both my Co-Founder Alex and I manage long-term health conditions. We openly talk about these conditions with our team and encourage them to be open about any struggles or differences in their own lives. We work flexibly and try to celebrate wins for every team member, no matter how small.
It’s important to us that everyone that works with us has a good experience. That includes our interns and freelancers. We ask for regular feedback and I’m really proud that they consistently say they love working with us, feel respected and included, able to be themselves and inspired to work for a company trying to do good. I couldn’t really ask for more than that.
ESGmark®: What has been your experience founding a business as a team of two?
SK: It’s great! And it’s difficult. They say that founding a business with someone is like a marriage and it’s true. I'm lucky my In Good Company work 'wife' is Alex. We're a dynamic duo because we think and work differently. Alex is direct, decisive, and always propels us forward, while I'm more cautious, needing time to mull things over. Alex as our fearless CEO and with her background in consumer tech, leads on our consumer marketing, oversees the tech build with our brilliant CTO Chris, is a whizz with all of our long-term financial modelling and led on our Innovate UK funded data project. With my background in impact, I lead on our certification and memberships partnership, good business engagement, impact, HR and basic finance. We both do all the other million things that make a business run day-to-day between us.
We have a great balance that keeps us moving with purpose. But running almost all areas (except tech development) of a business with just two people is tough! We both have to carefully manage our time and energy. And when there are just two of you, there is no tie-breaker and we don’t always agree. Those occasions are rare, luckily, and our communication has improved dramatically as we’ve learned to work together in the most effective way over the last two years. I couldn’t do this with anyone else.
ESGmark®: What advice would you give someone wanting to build a successful value-driven business?
SK: I’ll tell you when we get there!
In all seriousness, I think it’s to make sure you really care about what you’re trying to achieve and that you’re doing it with the right people. Building a business is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and I probably would have given up a long time ago if I didn’t believe passionately that what we‘re doing can really make a difference. I LOVE good businesses and I want to be part of driving us towards a world where they are the norm, not the exception. I know Alex and I are completely aligned on that as is the rest of our team and everyone in our ecosystem. That makes an enormous difference.
ESGmark®: What are your priorities for the next 12 months?
SK: 2024 is going to be such a pivotal year for In Good Company. We’ll soon be launching our mobile app as well as a companion app for businesses to manage their profiles, access digital tools and data, and connect to customers.
Our priority is to get our support to as many businesses in London and then across the UK as we can. We know we can make a difference. We saw too many good businesses close in 2023 and we’re determined to ensure that doesn’t happen this year.
ESGmark®: What are you reading / listening to at the moment?
SK: I’m reading Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde at the moment, my favourite writer. I know I’m supposed to be reading endless books about running a successful business, but at the end of the day I often need a lighter escape to transition out of the endless worries of running a business. And I’m usually listening to The Rest is Politics so that I have some clue what’s going on outside of the ethical business sector, or Lady Killers which is a fascinating historical/feminist/crime podcast that I’m oddly obsessed with.
For more on In Good Company, head over to their website or visit the ingood.app.
Speaking to our founders is central to keeping the ESGmark® community connected - read our other interviews with Lavender & Lemon on creating safe cleaning products, Canopey on ethical buying and building trust through transparency, and myPTA on socially responsible business and running an app.
