Can Impact Be Your Primary Guidepost? Yes – But Don’t Forget the Balance Sheet

Editor’s note: John Karony, CEO of SafeMoon, is a contributor to Grit Daily News. He recently interviewed Dan Young, entrepreneur, mentor, and CEO of Xidax Gaming PCs about the odds for success in running an impact focused company at the recent Fund Launch Live event in Las Vegas:

Karony: Welcome. Dan and I are here at Fund Launch Live. It’s good to be here. We’re spreading the good word of crypto and proper and safe crypto management. Beginning with “Don’t lose your key phrase, don’t send out your key phrase, and don’t click janky links. But beyond that start, tell us, Dan, what do you do?

Young: I’m the CEO of Xidax Gaming Computers. I’ve been a crypto enthusiast since 2013.

Karony: Why do you love what you do, Dan?

Young: It’s fun because the world is evolving so quickly. You know, it’s the Moore’s Law times 10 action? I think we’re going to make a big world shift in the way transactions happen, so it’s cool being part of the shift.

Karony: How do you hope your work might impact others?

Young: I think the big thing with crypto and blockchain is that it may take the action we’re creating to a lot of nations that don’t have normal fiat currency that’s “transactable” – to allow transactions to happen for new realms of people, and they can do crypto banking, do a lot of things in that aren’t currently possible, and improve their lives quite a bit, too.

For one thing, it surmounts the infrastructure requirements by allowing people to bring and to store digital value into a country with significantly less than the normal amount of banking infrastructure required. You don’t need brick and mortar. If you got a cell phone, you could have access to digital banking in the form of cryptocurrency.

Karony: I think another bonus in this is that cell phones get issued to a lot of people in these countries for multiple uses; they can use them for education as well. It’s a big deal. But on this track, do you believe impact can be the primary measuring point for a self-funded and profitable business?

Young: Measuring on impacts? Yes, I think the concept is highly Important. But remember that balance sheets are important, too. If you run out of ammunition. you can’t scale and keep things operating. So, I think if you know where the profit needs to be coming from and how you’ll be funding the company’s growth and it’s transparent, yes, this is a fair equation and measuring progress by impact is good.

Karony: Yep. I agree. You know, that’s kind of the whole thing around venture philanthropy. It’s targeting essentially philanthropic ventures but making sure there’s a business model behind it and an ROI, so you can redeploy the capital and expand as needed for whatever you’re trying to do, whether it be monetizing whole systems. But there’s also the whole point of having a solid balance sheet, so you can take care of yourself to take care of others.

Young: I think one of the best examples of this is probably what Elon is doing right? You know, he obviously makes profit, but he’s able to give back and create cool new ecosystems …

Karony: The Tesla Roadster. Yeah, dude! Do you think he’s going to put a rocket booster on the back?

Young: (laughing) I think he will. He’ll need some proximity sensors. He doesn’t want to vaporize the car behind him…

Karony: Yeah, I don’t think the transportation agencies are really going to give high acceptance of this idea on the street. It would probably be a strategy of “I will not use this on the street.” – There’s a code of behavior for the people on the street, and then there’s a bypass for the alternative system. But seriously, how important is impact as a consideration in your own work and business?

Young: I think it’s very important. Impacts are important for creating jobs, in fact it’s hypercritical, but also, you know, we are selling computer hardware for the purpose of creating new impacts as well. So yeah. We’re selling products that help people create cool things. So, designing around the purposes of impact is awesome.

But don’t forget the balance sheet…

Karony: Wise words. Thank you, Dan.