In Conversation with Nohelia Rambal, founder of GoodFind - An online directory, providing ethical alternatives to everything.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself 

Hi! I’m Nohelia Rambal. I was born and raised in Venezuela, and I have been living in London for the last 12 years. Currently based in North London with my partner and little girl. I became a Social Entrepreneur to fulfill my passion for social justice and sustainability. I’m the founder of Goodfind.io, a directory of ethical brands connecting shoppers with good brands doing good.

2. Tell us about your business and how did you come up with the idea? 

I’m passionate about Social Justice. From a young age back home in Venezuela, I developed a sense of caring for inequalities and injustices in society, such as income gap, homelessness, and equal opportunities. It wasn’t easy to understand how to work on it and start doing something about it, it took some time and learning. I started being more active about it in my late 20s once living in London. Mainly in the form of volunteering and joining challenges to help different causes through raising funds. As my corporate career progressed, I could feel the urge to work on this full time, so in 2019 I decided to quit my job as Marketing Director and work as a consultant for impact organisations. My aim was to help sustainable brands get seen and consumers find ethical alternatives more easily. It didn’t take me long to realise there was a way to do this on a bigger scale than one-to-one consultancy, and so Goodfind.io was born. Since then, the journey has been incredibly rewarding, and we have great plans to accelerate our impact in the future.

3. What is the mission & vision for your business? 

Purpose-driven businesses face enormous challenges when trying to compete against big brands with big pockets; we’re in a world where a few marketplaces and search engines hold too much power, and unfortunately, value profit over impact.

Goodfind is on a mission to change that, to make finding ethical alternatives to EVERYTHING effortless while helping positive impact brands to get seen and grow.

Our vision in the long term, is a world where brands don’t have to choose between profit and purpose. One where they can grow sustainably while looking out for both people and the planet. We’re working hard to help the economy move into that direction! 

5. In starting up your business, what were some of the initial challenges you faced, and how did you overcome them? 

When I started, my idea was to run this as a side project, not a business! It took a pandemic to stop everything else I was doing as a consultant to realise that I was sitting on a great idea that had legs as a business and could potentially create a big impact.

So my initial challenge was to convince myself that this was a business and not a hobby. I suppose not having started a business before, I had all sorts of fears. What helped me overcome that was the amazing initial feedback I got from everyone (and continue getting). Knowing that people constantly discover new brands and new ways of consuming ethically fills my heart and my confidence in this.

6. Tell us about your experience with the Hatch incubator? 

Hatch was such a great experience! Their sessions helped me build confidence in what I was doing earlier on in my journey. They partner with the most incredible organisations to run sessions that are truly valuable for early-stage entrepreneurs! 

Among the most memorable ones is the branding session with design innovation agency Outfly, and the customer/personas development session with insights agency Tectonic. Such game-changing content!

On top of that, I built a long-term relationship with my cohort, a group of lovely female founders. I really couldn’t have asked for more.

7. What does sustainability mean to your business and you?  

People tend to think the term “sustainable” only speaks to environmental good practices. For us at Goodfind it includes both social and environmental aspects, there’s no way to be sustainable if you’re missing one of those. 

As a platform we’re welcoming, and we recognise no brand and no organisation is perfect. But as a community of brands and consumers, we need to be able to stand by being called an ethical alternative.

The fundamental criteria to welcome brands in our community checks that 1. The brands offer products or services direct to consumers, 2. They proactively generate a positive impact (social, environmental, or both) while doing everyday business activities.

8. What is the impact you are looking to create with your brand? 

We’re a Social Enterprise, and as such, the impact we generate is as important for us as our ability to generate profits. So far, we’ve had a great start at doing this. 

The aim is to make sustainable consumption more accessible and help positive impact brands to get seen and grow. Today, after only 18 months since launching it, the platform includes over six hundred sustainable brands and we’ve directly partnered with more than two hundred of them.

Last year we helped more than twelve thousand consumers find an ethical product or service. Through our social impact campaigns, we’ve helped raise awareness about, and directly supported the progress towards, racial and gender equality and ethical consumption.

9. Which are the top 5 businesses to watch out for? 

This is a REALLY hard question for me, I’m in love with so many of them!

If I had to choose my personal favourites at the moment, I’d say the top five are Circla, the milkman for beauty products; The Dusty Knuckle, a bakery and cafe with a youth social mission; Byway, a flight-free travel agency; thelittleloop, a kid’s clothes rental service; and Pivot, jewelry made by homeless Londoners. All of them are part of the huge variety of brands available to discover on our platform!

10. If there is one industry trend you’d like to change what would that be? 

Overconsumption! If last year has taught me something, it is that I don’t need nearly as much as I thought I needed. We can all be so much happier with less.

11. What’s next for the goodfind?

We want to bring ethical and sustainable brands and products to the front row, giving them a fair space to compete in the market. This can only be done by building a state-of-the-art customer experience, offering the same level of variety, convenience, and ease of use of other platforms out there. Keep tuned!

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