Why I started SOMOS and why we’re building simple tools for sustainable, mission-driven work.
Hey! I'm Khawar and I head things up at SOMOS 👋🏽
Social justice - conceptually, practically and very much in reality - is under attack.
We're living in a world where international frameworks for governance
are being routinely ignored when convenient, where even small,
piecemeal changes won over the last few decades are facing a monumental
backlash.
Simply trying to survive in systems designed to extract more than they give becomes harder every day.
Making Noise vs Shifting Power 💪🏾
If you were to spend the next 30 minutes scrolling your favourite
social media sites, I'd bet you'd easily find a lot of coverage for a
range of social justice issues.
Are some issues/viewpoints covered more than others? Yep.
Is shadow-banning a thing? Yep.
BUT is it easier than ever to make noise? Yep.
The bigger question? Where does all this noise get us?
Likes, comments, shares have been going up...BUT worker, migrant,
language (and a whole host of other) rights and the freedoms to live and
love how we want are being ruthlessly eroded.
Boring as it might sound, we need new structures and systems to shift power and navigate the global turmoil we're in.
As a startup founder, this is the bit where I'm meant to tell you how what I'm building gets to the root of all of this.
I can't do that - it wouldn't be true.
What I can say is this...
I want SOMOS to make it easier for people to carry out
meaningful social justice work without compromising their ethics, values
or integrity.
That feels like a good place to start.
Why I'm Building SOMOS 🤝
For the best part of a decade, I worked in commercial roles I hated to finance community work I loved.
I don't miss being on the inside of corporate law firms, banks or
insurance companies but I am grateful for getting a clear understanding
of the relentless damage these often spineless organisations do to the
world.
The ground-up, community driven change we need isn't going to come
from these places - whatever they put in their ESG reports or graduate
recruitment websites.
It'll come from everyday people coming together to share
their knowledge, experience and energy to build a better future for
people and planet.
The issue is that many of the people best placed to do that work are exhausted, underpaid, overextended or forced to leave the work altogether.
Too many full-time roles in social impact rely on insecure grants, temporary funding, political goodwill or leadership decisions that can change overnight. One policy shift, one budget cut, one funder change, one restructure — and whole teams can disappear.
At the same time, the people doing this work are often not neat, single-track professionals.
Someone working on migrant rights might also care deeply about language justice.
An educator challenging gender inequality might also be an artist, a researcher, a community organiser or a data analyst.
A social entrepreneur might need to combine paid client work, unpaid community work, advisory roles, teaching, writing and practical care responsibilities.
This kind of generalist, portfolio-based approach is not a weakness.
It can be a strength.
It can create deeper systems understanding, stronger coalitions and more holistic change. The problem is that we have not built enough practical infrastructure to support it.
Social impact professionals may not be driven primarily by money, but they still need to survive. They need income, energy, recovery, boundaries, tools and communities that help them keep going.
That is where SOMOS comes in.
What SOMOS is becoming 🌱
SOMOS started from the question of how mission-driven professionals could build more sustainable working lives.
At first, I imagined the answer as a broader operating system for independent social impact work: a place to manage services, clients, payments, admin and professional identity.
Some of that thinking still matters.
People doing independent mission-driven work still need better tools for pricing, selling, organising and sustaining their work.
But over time, the shape of SOMOS has become simpler and clearer.
Rather than trying to build one large platform, SOMOS is becoming a small ecosystem of practical digital tools across two connected areas:
Wellbeing and work & income.
That shift matters.
The more I worked on SOMOS, the clearer it became that sustainable mission-driven work is not only about finding clients or getting paid. It is also about having the energy, health and emotional capacity to keep doing the work without burning out.
Wellbeing and income are connected.
If people are undercharging, financially unstable or constantly chasing work, their health suffers.
If people are exhausted, under-fuelled, isolated or overwhelmed, their ability to build sustainable income also suffers.
SOMOS exists in that overlap.
We are not pretending that individual habits can solve structural problems. They can’t.
But practical tools can still help people protect some capacity, make clearer decisions and build more sustainable working lives inside imperfect systems.
The first tools we’ve built 🧰
The first SOMOS tools are deliberately simple.
They are not trying to do everything.
They are designed to support specific moments where people often need more clarity, calm or practical structure.
Food Journal by SOMOS 🥦
Food Journal is our first paid wellbeing tool.
It is a calm, macro-aware food journal that helps users log meals, hunger signals and daily context, then see calorie and macro estimates alongside patterns they can actually use.
It is designed for reflection, not perfection.
The aim is not to turn food into another pressure system. The aim is to help people understand their meals, energy and habits with more awareness and less guilt.
For mission-driven professionals, this matters because demanding work can disrupt eating patterns quickly: skipped lunches, late dinners, stress snacking, low hydration, caffeine reliance and inconsistent routines.
Food Journal helps users notice those patterns over time.
Breathe 🌿
Breathe is a free guided breathing tool.
It is designed for small moments of pause during busy, stressful or emotionally demanding days.
Users can follow a simple breathing pattern without needing a full routine, subscription or complicated setup.
It sits inside SOMOS because not every wellbeing tool needs to be big. Sometimes people need a low-friction way to reset, regulate and return to the day.
Rate Calculator ✨
Rate Calculator is a free work and income tool.
It helps freelancers, consultants and independent professionals think more clearly about hourly and monthly rates based on their income needs, costs, working hours and sustainability.
This matters because undercharging is not just a pricing issue.
It can become a wellbeing issue too.
If people doing mission-driven work cannot price sustainably, they are more likely to overwork, resent the work, leave the field or remain dependent on unstable funding and unpaid labour.
Rate Calculator is a small tool, but it speaks to a bigger belief: values-led work still needs practical financial infrastructure
The Bigger Picture 🌍
SOMOS is a project with ambitious goals.
I want SOMOS to become a values-led toolkit for people trying to build sustainable working lives around work that matters.
That means building products that are useful, calm and human. It also means thinking carefully about governance, recruitment, ownership, funding and how value moves through the business.
So far, we’ve already:
- gifted EQUITY in the business to our first ever grassroots community co-owner, Conversation Over Borders.
- delivered a two-year graduate style programme for two incredible young refugees in limbo
- crowdfunded from an awesome group of 29 individual investors to “community-strap” the business.
- put aside a significant option pool of shares for employees, advisors and our customers.
- created an Impact Fund to support aligned grassroots work as SOMOS grows
And we're just getting started…
Final thoughts
SOMOS is not a generic wellness brand.
It is not a productivity app.
It is not a marketplace.
It is a small, independent social enterprise building practical tools for people doing mission-driven work.
Some of those tools will support wellbeing.
Some will support work and income.
All of them should help people protect their energy, independence and values over time.
That is the direction now.
Simple tools.
Sustainable work.
More capacity for the things that matter.
Let’s connect…
- Subscribe to my newsletter, Build With... 🌱 to keep an eye on what we’re building.
- Reach out on LinkedIn! I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks for stopping by!
Khawar | Founder & CEO @ SOMOS 👋🏽
p.s. check out our Impact Fund and some awesome Projects We Love.
