Capitalism is broken. Inequality is at an all-time high, social mobility is plummeting, and our planet is on the verge of falling apart. The pandemic has made this disparity clearer than ever, with 8% of low-income families having at least one dose of the vaccine by the end of 2021, while 78% of upper-middle-income families were partly vaccinated at minimum during the same time frame. The rich are getting richer, with the top 10% of income earners making 38 times more than the bottom 50%. And climate change remains an imminent threat, with global temperatures set to rise by up to 5°C by the end of the century.
Yet despite these exacerbating issues, no solutions are in clear sight.
Joash, an ex-VC turned angel investor from Singapore, hopes to change that. He believes businesses have the capacity to do both good and well, or in other words, solve the many issues we face while making money.
“For far too long, we have relied solely on governments to fix climate change, inequality, and excess materialism, but the mounting evidence tells us it’s not working. Entire ecosystems are vanishing as we speak, extreme weather patterns are becoming more prevalent, and our global economy is in a state of constant flux. But it doesn’t have to be that way. My belief, and I know some will say this is wild, is that the private sector can solve this through what’s known as ‘profit with purpose’.”
Ambitious would be an understatement. Just 20 years young, Joash holds several titles to his name — he calls himself a “business student in the day, investor by night, and hospitality photographer in between”.
His investment journey began at just 13, when he started trading fixed income and commodities, before moving to stocks five years later. Around this time, he realised the problems with capitalism and sought to do something, “researching, reading, and speaking to different people about what could be done”.
Joash later broke into early-stage investing when he joined Saison Capital, a Web3/FinTech VC, where he led industry research, identified promising upstarts, and worked alongside founders to scale their ideas. He is now an Advisor and LP at 4WARD.VC, a ClimateTech VC, and makes angel investments on his own. Oh, he also runs his creative agency JOASH_L, which specialises in hospitality photography and has served some of the biggest names, from Marriott International to IHG Hotels.
“JOASH_L might seem out of place — numbers and creatives don’t usually mix — but photography is one of my childhood passions, and shooting for these large organisations is a dream come true. Within the hospitality scene, we’ve also started to see an increasing number of players make strong commitments to sustainability.”
Joash admits it’s no easy feat juggling his many commitments and has made many sacrifices, but the Pareto Principle and Parkinson’s Law have helped him manage his time and were his key motivators. His personal mantra is to “set big goals, then figure out how you’re going to get there, because even if you don’t, you’d be further off than if you’d never tried”.
Describing his journey from the public to private markets, Joash shares some differences: “Compared to investing in equities, angel investing is a whole new ballgame. The stakes are higher, and you’re forced to make bigger, bolder bets on what you believe will be the next unicorn. While you’d be lucky to speak to the CEO even once for a publicly listed company, you get to hustle with founders and watch them grow from zero to one as an angel investor, and seeing that is incredibly rewarding.”
Having said that, he cautions that angel investing is not for everyone: “I can afford to take risks as I’ve a long runway and don’t urgently need the money, but you must understand what you’re getting yourself into. Most startups don’t have proven track records, and you’re essentially investing in ideas with the belief founders will be able to execute. Unlike the stock market, angel investing isn’t passive, where you just sit around collecting dividends every few months. You’re a critical part of founders’ journeys, whether that’s in the form of linking them with partners, coaching on operational tasks, or guiding them through challenges they face. I’m a hands-on guy, so I prefer to be kept updated on what’s going on with my portfolio companies.”
Joash says the time spent at his previous VC has given him a good understanding of how venture operates, and he’s happy to be able to continue his journey with 4WARD.VC.
“Joining 4WARD.VC was the natural next step and just made so much sense as I had the opportunity to integrate two of my biggest passions: investments and sustainability.”
Today, he invests in ClimateTech and Web3. These might seem like two different niches, but Joash thinks they’re not in entirely different realms and actively seeks to integrate them as decentralisation brings about many benefits cross-sectors, from enhanced transparency to increased ownership. For instance, regenerative finance (ReFi) is a new paradigm that operates at the intersection of climate action and Web3 communities. Anchored in decentralised finance and regenerative economics, ReFi is an alternative financial system that promotes and restores environmental, social, and financial stability, along with monetary gains. This also goes back to his belief that doing good and well simultaneously is possible.
Beyond this, Joash shares four business models firms can take to be profitable yet purposeful.
When sustainability leads to increased costs, companies can consider either the premium price model or the increased market share model. The former involves passing the cost on to consumers who have proved to be willing to foot the bill, while the latter entails gaining a larger share of the market, resulting in greater overall profits.
In other cases, sustainability might result in decreased costs or increased profits. In such cases, the choice of what to do is evident from an economic standpoint. The former is possible through the cost reduction model, which is self-explanatory, while the latter involves the implementation of the innovation model, where a firm disrupts traditional markets to find more efficient and sustainable ways of doing things; Tesla is one successful example.
The transition to sustainable capitalism won’t happen overnight and will require a shift in the way we fundamentally do business. But the good news is that stakeholders across the board have already incorporated purpose-driven mindsets.
“The golden age has arrived, and change is happening, whether you like it or not. This is our only way forward, it’s now or never.”
