I'm Sophie Krantz. I work with leaders to use their soft power to solve hard problems.
Leaders sitting on soft power often aren't using it to move the problems that actually matter. Their influence gets spent on defending the status quo.
This work begins where money and mandate run out. Where the budget cycle is the wrong unit, the institutional permission is the wrong gate, and the question of whether to act has nothing to do with what is already approved.
Most hard problems are stuck not because nobody cares, but because the people closest to them are waiting for permission that will not come. The work is to recognise that the permission is no longer the constraint, and to act on what is.
Three calculations decide whether to move: whether the problem has crossed the point where solving it is structurally cheaper than the status quo, whether the chokepoints that used to stop you have dissolved, and whether the model holds without the conditions that made it possible to start.
This work results in finding - and holding - a market in the mission.
Recent articles:
Do the maths: Is there a market position from solving this hard problem?
Some hard problems remain hard because the cost of solving them is too high to act on. Others remain hard because no one can agree on what leaving them unsolved is costing. Carbon has been the second kind for most of the last two decades, which is why it has largely been treated as a compliance obligation rather than a market position. The argument has …
Latent, Not Lost
Hard power, deployed through money and mandate, is no longer enough to solve the world’s most challenging problems. Health, education, climate, financial inequality, and justice remain the largest underserved market opportunities of our time. Institutional players are retreating. Building a market position in these spaces means drawing on the capital, t…
Beyond a Money or Mandate Starting Point
Leaders who care about solving a hard problem that affects millions or billions of people often start with the same questions:
Who has the money? Who has the mandate? How do we get close to them?
There’s an alternative: Begin with a calculation that tells you whether the economics support you building a commercially viable solution.
The Barrier Keeping You Out May Already Be Gone
Hard problems - the ones affecting millions or billions of people - are becoming market positions.
Most people with the resources and the ambition to build inside one have already done the market analysis. They know the scale. They have a view on the technology. They understand, at least in outline, what a solution would require.
What they often have not yet done is map the chokepoints.
Calculating the Second Curve
Most people working on hard problems, the kind affecting hundreds of millions of people across health, education, financial access, and climate, have calculated the size of the market. The number of people affected, the scale of unmet need, or the Total Addressable Market (TAM) if this were a venture pitch. That calculation is usually large and usually …
Q1 Soft Power Brief: Hard Problems Become Market Positions
Five organisations profiled in depth: Hala Systems, M-KOPA, One Acre Fund, Living Goods, and Tostan.
