Hope for your cheese addiction
Small Steps Vol. 61: Giant Leap’s impact thesis for Change Foods 🧀 ; false alarms 🔥and next practice impact VC 🌳
“Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have - and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up.”
- James Belasco and Ralph Stayer
Kick start
🧀 Back in 2015, cheese was making headlines for being as addictive as crack. Cheese contains casein fragments that release casomorphins, which attach to the same brain receptors as heroin and morphine. While not everyone agrees that cheese is actually “addictive”, scientific studies (and most people’s failed attempts) demonstrate that giving up cheese is by no means a simple undertaking!
🐮 While Change Foods hasn’t set out to solve your cheese addiction, they are trying to save the planet from its harmful side effects. Check out our impact thesis in this week’s edition of Theory of Change.
What we’re thinking about
🔥 Anxiety and false alarms. Almost 15% of Australians between 16 to 85 have experienced an anxiety disorder in the last 12 months and shockingly the percentage of Australians who have lifetime experience of anxiety is unknown. Anxiety can be debilitating, and may need professional treatment, but it can also be terribly misunderstood. Julie Smith describes anxiety as a smoke alarm that doesn’t have time to take account of all the facts. Instead it combines information from distress signals, sensory input and memories of what was going on when the body last felt the way it feels. In the same way that a smoke alarm can go off when there is a fire, it can also go off when someone is making the toast. By changing our mindset around anxiety, Dr. Tracey Dennis-Tiwary believes that millions of people will be able to thrive in the face of adversity, rather than settling for being comfortably numb.
🌳 Next practice impact VC. Bethnal Green Ventures, an impact VC, recently explored the question “Should impact VC salaries be linked to impact metrics?”. For us, the complexity of setting impact targets mostly outweighs the benefit of linking goals, and much of the outcome is assured by backing businesses where impact is linked to every single dollar of revenue, but it's a question we’re actively thinking about as the space matures. We’re also impressed by Impact VCs like Alexis Ohanian, Co-Founder of Reddit & Founder of Seven Seven Six, who earmark 2% in non-dilutive cash on top of every check they write for founder growth and caregiving.
New paths
🧻 Who Gives A Crap is seeking a Head of Product Strategy
💼 Seer is looking for a Quality Specialist and an Accounts Payable Officer
👩⚕️ Coviu is hunting for a Full Stack Software Engineer
✈️ Swoop Aero has listed 17 new roles, including a Strategy Fellow and Graduate Mechatronics Engineer
🪃 Minderoo Foundation is currently recruiting for an impact investing portfolio manager
🧾 Are you interested in working for an impact business? Fill in our expression of interest form and we’ll put you in our database of impact interested people that we share with our portfolio companies.
🔥 Also, check out our Giant Leap Fund jobs board for over 100+ available positions. There’s even more jobs at ethical companies on the global B-Work job board.
Giant leaps
👶 Giant Leap is currently looking for a Rockstar Executive Assistant to replace one of our team members while she’s off having her first baby! Come join our purpose driven team and help grow our ability to back impact driven founders on a mission to change the world!
🔌 Our advisor Eytan Lenko (CEO of Boundless, the not-for-profit arm of Mike Cannon-Brookes’ $1.5 billion green fund), helped organise tomorrow’s National EV Summit in Canberra, to be opened by Climate Change and Energy minister Chris Bowen
🥗 Great Wrap became a B Corp Certified business.
👭 Giant Leap is supporting One Roof’s Startup Women Summit, a 2-day summit showcasing, celebrating and inspiring women in the startup ecosystem. Grab your ticket here.
👑 As a result of winning the Governor of Victoria Startup Awards, Seer and Amber spoke at the LaunchVic’s Victorian Startup Gala last week to a crowd of over 700 people!
For the road
🚀 Atto Accelerator 2022 applications are open. The Atto Accelerator 2022 is a 12-week program focused on empowering women founders to build and scale their startups. The program gives founders the knowledge and support to grow their products in preparation for funding or building good old-fashioned revenue from customers. Atto Accelerator is perfect for any woman founder wanting to take their product or MVP to the next level. Applications close: Aug 21. Program dates: Aug 31 - Nov 16.
⚕️ Australia’s new healthcare VC fund. Billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forest has launched a new $250 million venture capital fund called Tenmile. The fund will be purely focused on backing health technology companies.
👩💻 Technology wins from the breakthrough climate bill. With US$369 in spending on climate and energy, the US is set for a transformative clean energy and climate rescue package. Research and development in clean technology will receive $27 billion, with another $20 billion earmarked to help cut emissions from agriculture.
📅 Is it the changing of the seasons? Or is it the inexplicable lengthening of Earth’s days leaving scientists at a loss? Since 2020 the long-term trajectory of the length of a day appears to have shifted from shortening to lengthening, with no clear explanation (only a number of theories).
🍌 Bananas may help prevent heart attacks. Bananas and other foods high in potassium can prevent fatal blockages, with a study showing a 50% higher risk of having a stroke for people with the lowest dietary intake of potassium.
🍅 And lastly … a groundhog that wants you to know it was them.