Early-stage, mission-driven start-ups are increasingly expected to make their impact visible and credible to funders, partners, and support organisations. Yet the impact frameworks available to them were developed for larger, mature organisations with stable products and substantial data, and they privilege what can be counted over what is meaningful. This creates a mismatch: the demand for impact evidence is growing, while the tools meant to provide it do not fit the dynamic, resource-constrained reality of early-stage work.

This graduation project, conducted with the Secrid Impact Fund and its start-ups, asks how early-stage, mission-driven start-ups can be supported in assessing and communicating their impact in a way that fits their context and development stage. Through a literature review, an analysis of existing impact frameworks, and exploratory research with founders, five recurring limitations were identified: existing frameworks fail to capture qualitative and narrative impact, are overwhelming, are ill-suited to experimental ventures, are not embedded in daily practice, and insufficiently capture systemic change.
In response, the project developed Trace, an impact companion that travels with a venture across its year in the Fund. Trace combines an app for capturing small moments of impact as they happen, a quarterly report that turns those moments into structured reflection, and a set of impact games that establish a shared language at kick-off. Grounded in systemic-design theory, Trace reframes impact measurement from a periodic accountability task into an everyday, narrative-driven steering mechanism for founders. ... Read more