What the Soft Power Index shows in numbers, the Brief shows in cases.
Four times a year, the Soft Power Brief examines a hard problem - or the organisations working within one - through three practical questions:
Have the economics changed enough to make action viable?
Which constraints are genuinely binding, and which are dissolving?
Can the model work without exceptional dependence on a founder, funder, subsidy, privileged channel, or political moment?
These are the Crossover Point, Chokepoint Map and Voltage Test.
Each edition profiles a small group of organisations in depth. They are selected not for narrative appeal, but because they offer useful evidence of how a durable operating, influence or market position can form inside a large structural challenge.
The Brief is for leaders, investors, boards and builders who need more than an inspiring case study. It is designed to help answer a practical question: is this a field worth backing now, what needs to be true for a position to work, and where is further evidence required before commitment?
What This Gives You
If you are deciding where to deploy capital, focus strategic attention, develop a portfolio thesis or build your next platform, the Brief provides a structured view of where models are working, where conditions are improving and where important constraints remain.
Each edition examines:
Opportunity economics - where the cost of leaving a problem unresolved is rising and the cost of solving, serving, verifying or scaling is falling.
Binding constraints - which barriers have weakened or dissolved, and which still determine what is possible.
Durability - whether an organisation’s position can survive beyond exceptional support, including a single founder, funder, mandate, buyer, privileged channel or political moment.
Strategic implications - what leaders, investors and builders should test, investigate, redesign, defer or avoid.
Published Editions
Q1 2026 - Hard Problems Become Market Positions. Five organisations profiled: Hala Systems, M-KOPA, One Acre Fund, Living Goods, Tostan. The founding argument of the Soft Power Index, in long form.
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