Big Heart Ventures by Tina Ruseva

Purpose Beyond Profit for Entrepreneurs

What are big-heart ventures? In this book, the author discusses the concept of purpose-driven entrepreneurship. What is this? The author defines it as a business with both effect and efficacy, meaning that it can add value for customers (thus allowing profitability) while keeping ethics and the bigger picture in mind (the heart part). She believes that a false dichotomy exists between for-profit and non-profit businesses. A purpose-driven business is profitable but not at the expense of long-term values, both on a personal and global level. She discusses this dichotomy, a little about the history of entrepreneurship, and goes on to detail what she means about purpose-driven entrepreneurship.

I think, in general, that her ideas are good ones. We definitely have seen lately, and throughout history, how businesses quite often do what we as consumers and humans considered to be reprehensible or unethical. Big companies have made recent headlines about how they’ve abused the trust we put in them to keep our data and privacy safe. As consumers, we would be able to trust businesses more if they weren’t just about the bottom line but saw the bigger picture and acted ethically.

The author is of Bulgarian descent and has spent much time living in Europe. It is clear that English is not her first language. Still, having chosen to write this book in English, she should have had it edited by a native English speaker. I am not sure if it was edited at all. There is definitely awkward phrasing, wrong words, and incorrect punctuation. This does distract some from reading, and therefore, from the message.