Whether you’re into opera, theatre, or rock 'n roll, going to the circus or going to a show, one thing is for real. You’ve got to book a ticket 🎟️.

And it doesn’t matter how often you go out, don't you always give a little grrrr when you see the price of the ticket go up thanks to the booking fee, especially when you know it’s going to a global almost monopoly that can charge pretty much whatever it likes.

In 2016 Josh Ross and Adam McCurdie decided to do something about it by founding Humantix.

They still charge a booking fee because, hey, gotta stay in business, right? But it’s less than the big guys and 100% of profits go to charity.

With 50,000 tickets purchased through their platform every single day, and over $16M donated to date, there’s a lot of good going on.

In this episode Josh takes us through the story of:

🙇‍♂️ How they studied industries and business models to find one that was ripe for disruption and would generate the most profits...so they could give them away

💪 What it took to build and grow Humanitix into the #1 Australian-owned ticketing platform

🥇 The importance of building the best product if you want to attract the biggest audience

🤹 Why the arts are so important to society and should be accessible to everyone

😌 The joy of giving your staff the chance to give away the company profits to their charities of choice

🏓 Why Josh is and will always be king of the Humanitix ping-pong table

We also debate whether the world needs billionaires and more, so tune in to find out more.

We gave AI a listen and here's what it had to say:

Booking fees have quietly turned into one of the most hated parts of going out, and the biggest players can charge almost whatever they like. So what happens when two Aussie mates decide the ticketing system should be faster, fairer, and designed to fund real-world impact rather than shareholder returns?

We sit down with Josh Ross, co-founder of Humanitix, the nonprofit ticketing platform that keeps fees lower where it can and sends 100% of profits to charity. Josh shares the origin story, from a travel-made pact to escape the corporate conveyor belt through to the brutally practical decisions required to win in event tech. We get into the unglamorous details that actually move the needle for event organisers: removing forced account creation, cutting checkout friction, improving page speed, and building customer support that people genuinely rate highly.

Then we tackle the hard stuff ticketing platforms often ignore because it is profitable: scalping and the broken resale market. Josh explains Humanitix’s ethical resale approach, why it reduces fraud, and why incentives matter when a platform can “clip the ticket” multiple times. We also talk nonprofit governance, what “enough money” looks like for founders, and why funding a tech charity can be harder than building a normal startup. Along the way, Josh unpacks their global expansion plans, how they choose charity partners, and the staff giving program that turns day-to-day work into direct giving.

If you care about ethical ticketing, social enterprise, and how to build tech for good that can actually scale, you’ll get a lot out of this one. Subscribe, share it with an event organiser or festival mate, and leave a review if you want more conversations like this, what industry should be rebuilt with incentives that serve the public?

Goodtrepreneur is the podcast about good people with good ideas for a better world.

Please 👀 follow, 👂listen, 🌟 rate and share 📢 to help spread the word and deliver on our mission to inspire and enable more people to create more world changing ideas - and succeed - more often.

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Can you really make money out of doing good?

Is it possible to make systems-level change on your own, or more effective to be part of a collective?

And is all the role of business, government or nonprofits anyway?

Questions like these take a big brain to work out and that big brain has a name: Mark Kramer.

He’s an impact investor, philanthropist, company founder, Harvard lecturer and co-creator of the world-changing concepts of Shared Value and Collective Impact, two frameworks that have been deployed the world over to make social and environmental impact a driver of business for some of the world’s biggest — and smallest — companies.

In this episode, Mark gives a Harvard-level masterclass on:

⚡️ The power of business to create at-scale solutions to social and environmental problems in a way that nonprofits simply cannot.

👴 Why most business models are built on outdated information and why those that update them for the current context will be the ones that win the future.

💡 Practical examples of real-world impact that is making companies real-world money.

⏳ The importance of thinking long-term and why that can be hard in a world where leaders are rewarded on a quarterly or annual basis.

🙌 The fundamental determinant of success when implementing a Collective Impact project

🇺🇸 What on earth is going on in the USA and why, in a business sense, it makes no sense.

🌪️ What it’s going to take to give humanity the jolt it needs to treat poverty, climate, deforestation and other big issues with the urgency they deserve.

Mark also gives a simple explanation of what business strategy is, explains the concept of impact investing and provides career advice for anyone wanting to do business and change the world while they’re at it. Yes, he is truly is an oracle of the space.

We gave AI a listen and here's what it had to say:

What if the smartest business strategy starts with solving real problems? We sit down with Mark Kramer—co‑author of shared value and a key voice behind collective impact—to explore how companies can win by treating social and environmental challenges as core to competitive advantage.

We trace Mark’s path from philanthropy to strategy, then break down shared value in plain terms: new products and markets that lift outcomes and margins, operational shifts that pay for themselves, and industry‑wide moves that strengthen the ecosystem every firm relies on. You’ll hear how Enel fused innovation and sustainability to lead in renewables, why Nestlé’s health science bet outpaced legacy “sugar water” models, and how Walmart’s wage lift cut turnover and boosted productivity. We also confront the hard part: boards clinging to cash cows, quarterly pressure, and the courage it takes to rebuild a business model for a hotter, more fragile world.

From there we zoom out to collective impact—the structured way to coordinate government, business, and community around shared goals and measures. Mark shares a citywide “kindergarten readiness” win and the tough truth about supply chains like cocoa, where collaboration is the only path to a future market. We then tackle investing: why simple ESG screens fall short, how impact investing is growing, and what active ownership in public markets can do when investors co‑create sustainability plans with management. The throughline is clear: align incentives with reality, and profit follows purpose.

Goodtrepreneur is the podcast about good people with good ideas for a better world.

Please 👀 follow, 👂listen, 🌟 rate and share 📢 to help spread the word and deliver on our mission to inspire and enable more people to create more world changing ideas - and succeed - more often.

Learn more at goodtrepreneur.co

Humble, charming and whip-smart, Professor Mark Kramer is co-creator of both Shared Value and Collective Impact, two of the most seminal concepts in sustainability and social impact of the last 20 years.

But, while the words are thrown around regularly, how many of us really understand what these concepts mean and how to apply them?

In this special edition bonus episode, Goodtrepreneur has teamed up with the Shared Value Project to bring you a 30 minute Mini-Masterclass with Mark where he explains them once and for all.

He also outlines the fundamentals of a smart business strategy as well as what he thinks it will take the workd to get back on track when it comes to prioritising the health of people and our home planet.

Here's a quick summary to get you in the mood:

🤨 What is Shared Value?

Shared Value recognises that the success a company depends on the sustainability of the environment in which it's operating: a healthy and educated workforce, consumers that have enough money to buy your product, the natural resources needed to make it. Therefore there is a business benefit and competitive advantage to be had in helping solve social and environmental problems.

🤨 What are three kinds of Shared Value?

1. Creating a profitable new product or market, such as sunglasses made out of what would have been waste plastic

2. Improving efficiency, such as reducing costs by going solar

3. Strengthening the supply chain, such as training farmers to improve their soil in a way that also improves yield

🤨 What is Collective Impact?

A framework for systems change that recognises most social and enviro challenges are too big for any one organisation to tackle alone, so companies, govt and nonprofits benefit from working together to do so.

🤨 What are the five fundamentals?

1. Common agenda - we all have the same goal

2. Shared measurement - we all measure impact the same way

3. Mutually reinforcing activities - everyone has a clear role

4. Continuous communication - everyone knows what everyone is doing

5. Backbone support - it’s someone’s job to lead the team effort

🤨 What makes a smart business strategy?

A smart business strategy recognises that if you do the same as your competitors, you will end up competing on price and sooner or later that will end in an unattractive business model. So you want to aim for superior profitability. To do that, you need a competitive position that is serving a specific type of customer and delivering them value in a way no competitor can by tailoring everything you do to deliver that. As Michael Porter says, ‘if you're not making some customers unhappy, you don't have a strategy.’

We gave AI a listen and here's what it had to say:

The biggest mistake we make about “doing good” is treating it like a side project. Mark Kramer joins us for a sharp, practical conversation on why social impact and corporate performance are already linked, whether leaders admit it or not. When the workforce is unhealthy, when communities are unstable, when climate risk hits supply chains, profitability takes the hit too. Mark explains shared value as a way to stop managing harm at the edges and start building business models that solve real problems while creating competitive advantage.

Goodtrepreneur is the podcast about good people with good ideas for a better world.

Please 👀 follow, 👂listen, 🌟 rate and share 📢 to help spread the word and deliver on our mission to inspire and enable more people to create more world changing ideas - and succeed - more often.

Learn more at goodtrepreneur.co