Why a business?

One of the questions people ask is 'why is Wild Mosaic a business?'. Many others assume it's a charity.

The charity model feels intuitive for this. People believe in the importance of wildness and so donate to support it. This makes sense and works for many organisations. For example, the Wildlife Trust I partner with.

My intention is to do something different. I want to show that people value wildness, not purely as an altruistic action. But one that is an important part of who they are and how they feel connected to the wilder world. Something good that they do for themselves, as well as for the planet.

This is how I see its potential impact:

1. It keeps me focused on finding and showing the value of wildness. For my business to succeed and grow, I need to keep doing this better and to persuade more people of this value.

2. It shows that people value land as habitat. Land is generally valued for what can be extracted from it. Dug up, cut up, homogenised. Often for people far away. My intention is to reverse this process. Show that land has value for the life it can support. And show that people value this renewal.

3. The potential to scale. I don't know the size of the current and future market. In many ways this is an experiment. How do people engage with the concept of wildness and biodiversity? There may only be 100 people in the UK who see value in paying to part of this. There may be 10,000. It might be a potentially global phenomenon where it becomes more normal to talk about the life you help support rather than the car you drive (I can dream!). Being set up as a business means I can expand to meet this demand.

My inner critic rebukes me... so, you think you can create value for £5.99 a month, when Netflix can offer endless hours of entertainment for not much more?

I answer, in those terms it's an unfair contest. I mean, I've been a Netflix subscriber for years, but over that time it's never helped me bring back life.

Those are the benefits that I see of being a business. There are also some strong downsides, which I struggle with. But that's for another time...