Beekman 1802: Kindness, Purpose and Business Strategy

How Beekman 1802 turned kindness into a competitive advantage, a purpose-driven business strategy that builds trust, belonging and sustainable growth.

I discovered Beekman 1802 thanks to Episode 039 of the Eric Ries Show on YouTube.

What immediately struck me was not simply the story of a brand that “made it,” but the weight of a business decision that many applaud in theory and very few pursue in practice: taking kindness (a deeply personal belief) and turning it into a strategic capability that defines how the company grows and competes in the long term.

It is fascinating to see how Beekman 1802 has managed to scale while preserving, and even amplifying, those values that originally sparked the idea of starting the business.

Kindness, for them, is the organizing principle of the entire company, not just a marketing angle nor a temporary positioning choice.

The founders began by asking themselves a demanding question: what would happen if kindness weren’t just a personal virtue, but an operating system for every decision?

The consequences are visible everywhere:

• in the brand and in their physical space (their flagship store is called “The Kindness Shop”),

• in product formulation, where kindness is explicitly written into ingredient choices to make the value concrete and verifiable,

• inside the organization, where a kindness curriculum inspired by the best practices of hospitality was first designed for onboarding and then requested directly by customers who wanted to feel part of the same cultural narrative.

When people recognize themselves in what the company stands for they feel they belong to something meaningful, that their presence matters.

The most thought-provoking part for me is that the founders draw a line between purpose and mission, pushing back against a widespread misunderstanding in the business world.

Too often, purpose is mistaken for generic morality or charity, while mission is given a moral halo it does not necessarily need.

Walmart can have a mission of delivering low prices; a luxury brand can have a mission based on exclusivity. Those are missions, perfectly legitimate ones.

Purpose is something else entirely. Purpose inspires, guides, aligns people towards the same shared values and direction. Mission is the daily value created in pursuit of that higher purpose.

A company’s purpose must be intentional, and actionable.

For Beekman 1802, purpose means contributing to human flourishing, a broad enough ambition to evolve over time, yet specific enough to guide decision-making every single day.

And when purpose is real, it shows up where it matters most: in trust.

The trust that Beekman has earned with its “neighbors” over years is, by their own definition, the company’s most valuable asset, more than brand recognition, more than physical assets, more than any marketing campaign.

This is not soft value. It drives strategic enterprise value, especially when it comes to acquisitions or exits.

Investors and acquirers are no longer just buying products and revenues, they are buying the culture that produces them.

And culture cannot be copied.

Of course, growth tests every conviction. The founders speak candidly about resisting the “Shark Tankification” of entrepreneurship, the temptation to exist mainly for fundraising.

The idea that the goal of a company is simply to raise money, transforming business into a never-ending pitch instead of a commitment to impact.

After ten years of bootstrapping (and precisely because they had built real value without external capital) they chose investors only when they found partners willing to support the long-term purpose rather than dilute it.

Capital is welcome, they say, but only if it protects what made the business worth building in the first place.

One of the most powerful reflections concerns the difference between kindness and niceness.

Niceness tries to avoid discomfort and conflict. Kindness faces the truth and respects people enough to be transparent.

In a business context, that means offering clarity even when difficult, making decisions that honor both performance and dignity, and acknowledging that honesty is the highest form of respect.

They use a simple metaphor: ignoring a piece of lettuce stuck in someone’s teeth is nice; kindly pointing it out is kind. Kindness takes courage. It is never indulgent.

Beekman 1802 is evidence that culture can become a compounding business system, capable of strengthening itself at every interaction.

Kindness creates communities, not audiences.

• It attracts loyalty rather than attention.

• It increases value without inflating vanity metrics.

• It scales because it is shareable and teachable.

• It transforms a business into a legacy. When kindness becomes operational — embedded in processes, incentives, everyday behavior — it stops being an abstract virtue and becomes a competitive advantage that competitors cannot copy.

In a marketplace obsessed with growth, Beekman 1802 reminds that companies that will shape the future are those that do not simply sell products, but make people feel part of something.

At that point, purpose is no longer a story a company tells about itself. It becomes a place where people choose to stay.

The real question for every leader is simple: what would remain of your company if the product disappeared for a moment?

Would people stay because they believe in what you stand for, or would everything fall apart?

Beekman 1802 shows that when culture drives the business, belonging replaces mere appreciation. And that is the difference between a brand you like — and a brand you choose to live with.