7 inspiring mission statement examples – and how to write your own

For those who have started – or want to start – a business, writing a mission statement is fundamental for helping yourself, your investors and your audience understand who you are as a brand.

In a nutshell, a company’s mission statement is used to define the purpose an organisation serves to its audience. It should be a bold, strong message that unifies your employees and motivates them to aim for a clear and ambitious target.

Your mission statement will set the tone for your entire operation – which is both a blessing and a curse. An authentic and inspiring declaration will bring a positive tone to your business. But if your statement is imitative or untruthful, you’ll quickly end up lost.

Startups has helped thousands of entrepreneurs to set up a business. Using our unique expertise – as well as knowledge and experience from the very best – we’ve pulled together the below guide to writing a mission statement. We’ve also included examples to give you a clearer idea of what you should, and shouldn’t include.

What is a mission statement?

Mission statements define a company’s operations and objectives, two of the key things all entrepreneurs need to decide about their business when just getting started.

Having these will give you a purpose – hugely important for defining who your organisation is and what it wants to achieve. That strong sense of direction is beneficial not just for yourself, but also for your employees, partners, and audiences.

Paul Finch is the co-founder of Growth Studio, a global startup consultancy. Finch says “a mission statement, if written down and bought into by the entire company, [helps] you be consistent with the decisions you make and answer really fundamental ones.”

5. TED: “Spread ideas.”

Why does this mission statement work?

As an organisation that makes money from creating content, TED’s mission is to produce content that can be ‘spread’ wide, demonstrating its influence in mainstream media.

Simultaneously, the short, adjective-free description of ‘ideas’ shows it is an inclusive brand that doesn’t discriminate about what makes a good or bad idea.

How does the brand live up to it?

The TED name has become synonymous with video clips of 10-minute lectures that often go viral for their thought-provoking ideas.

What can your brand learn from it?

Less is more when it comes to mission statements. Keep it to a short phrase that encapsulates your main purpose – don’t worry about cramming everything in. The easier it is to remember, the more likely it is to stick in people’s minds.

Maria Levitov is co-founder and director at Snow Hill, an investor relations advisory. Levitov says that, when drafting, “try to adapt your mission statement for an impatient reader – everyone is increasingly short on time these days and attention spans are shortening accordingly.”

6. Vinted: “To make second-hand the first choice worldwide.”

Why does this mission statement work?

Sustainability is the most obvious theme here. That Vinted wants buyers to make second-hand purchases emphasises the app as eco-friendly.

But Vinted doesn’t just put the onus on its customers to buy second-hand. Instead, it stresses its desire to make buying pre-used items an attractive offer for buyers.

That tells us the platform is dedicated to improving its product and supporting consumers to change their behaviour by making it easy to find ‘first choice’, high quality goods.

How does the brand live up to it?

Vinted has marked itself out from its ecommerce competitors with much lower listing fees. That means its products are a lot cheaper than other, first-hand marketplaces, driving more consumers to find cheap second-hand goods on the app.

What can your brand learn from it?

Keep your mission statement broad. Vinted is currently predominantly used as a clothes app in Europe. However, it doesn’t limit itself by using that descriptor.

Instead, Vinted opts to say ‘second-hand’ to give it more freedom to move into other sectors like furniture or books. It also goes for ‘worldwide’ to signify its growth objectives have no measurable boundaries.

7. LinkedIn: “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”

Why does this mission statement work?

In a concise eleven words, LinkedIn tells readers exactly what it has to offer and why it’s different to the rest of the market. Although a social networking website, the word ‘productive’ highlights LinkedIn as a strictly professional site designed to help workers to network, unlike Facebook or Twitter.

That LinkedIn wants to connect “the world’s” professionals is also telling – the platform dominates globally, indicating the scale of its operations.

How does the brand live up to it?

LinkedIn currently has 830 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, making it the biggest professional networking platform in the world.

What can your brand learn from it?

Mission statements are more likely to be read internally than externally. LinkedIn is speaking to its employees, not its service users (referred to as ‘them’) in this example, ensuring a unified team front.

David Newns, serial entrepreneur and investor, stresses that a mission statement helps “your leadership team and wider team [know] exactly what the company is trying to do, so they can make sure that they use their time in the best way possible.”

How to write a mission statement

Based on what we’ve learnt above, here are the Do’s and Don’ts of writing a mission statement:

• Don’t forget about the how; allude to your business strategy
• Don’t overcomplicate things – aim for one sentence maximum and simple language
• Don’t be humble – mission statements should sound ambitious
• Do be original. Don’t just copy another business’s mission statement.
• Do include your value proposition. What do customers get from your business?
• Do stay broad. You don’t want to have to keep revising your mission statement
• Do write the statement for your company, not just your customers

Finally, remember that your business has to live up to your mission statement. Feel free to be ambitious, but make sure you are still able to follow through on your promise.

Can I change my mission statement?

If you’ve inherited a mission statement, or you’re debating whether to update yours in light of the current economic challenges, you might be worried about the negative repercussions of making edits.

Perhaps your business has outgrown the statement. Or maybe you just think it needs to be realigned to reflect the changing demands of the market you are in. Can it be done?

Executive leader coach, Simon Konkader, says yes. “But”, he warns, “don’t take it lightly. If you start changing the statement every one, three, or five years then you will not attract the right investors or employees as they don’t perceive the company to have the right management board or direction.”

Mission statement vs company vision

It’s the ultimate question for today’s business leaders: which came first, the mission statement of the company vision?

As your mission statement defines your company’s purpose today, your vision statement details where you aspire to be tomorrow.

Because of this, mission statements tend to put the emphasis on the audience, and how the business will serve their consumers day-to-day. Vision statements are your opportunity to look further into the future. Get out your crystal ball and try to think about where you want to be in five or ten years time.

For example, let’s go back to our first case study, LinkedIn. Its company vision is very different to its mission statement:

While the LinkedIn mission statement is definitely still bold, aiming to support its user base to progress further in their respective careers, the company’s vision goes bigger.

According to the LinkedIn vision, users aren’t just networking more, but also earning more. Meanwhile, its ‘professional’ user base has grown to become the global workforce, subtly demonstrating that LinkedIn wants to help anyone in a career, regardless of their sector or employer.