Once upon a time, there was a woman who got really ticked off because her disabled brother was unable to get a job. Employers told him ‘no’. So she started a business herself and offered him a job.

The year was 1999. The startup location was in Amsterdam, right around the corner from where I was living back then. Today that business has 17 branches all over the country. Two years ago, in 2012, it was acquired by a larger enterprise, but the business philosophy remains the same.

Valid Express only employs couriers who are physically disabled or chronically ill.

It became a thriving business soon after its start – in spite of the usual hiccups – and continues to thrive. What matters is whether you care enough.

In the video below, made in 2011, Nicolette Mak explains how the business came about. She was working as a free lance courier herself, realised that her brother could do that too, and quickly calculated that if the benefits people would give her brother a car, they’d have their money back within a year, as he’d no longer need his benefits. The benefits people said no. That’s when she decided to launch the business because she also realised that her brother was not the only disabled or chronically ill person who wanted work but couldn’t get a job.

When the video was made, Valid Express was one of the Netherlands’ top three courier services, and the greenest (most environmentally friendly) of those three. This video is in Dutch, so you may want to scroll down to the next one, which is in English.

There is a lot more to the story, and you can listen to it in the TEDxTalk Nicolette Mak gave in the Netherlands, also about three years ago. She didn’t have it easy. She did not finish primary school, as a kid, and missed out on secondary school too. She went back to school later, in spite of being told that she might not be good enough.

Her English though good is not excellent. What she calls ‘social money’, we call ‘benefits’. But is that really important?

Caring, it turns out, is a competitive advantage, and one that takes effort, not money.

— Seth Godin

Nicolette started up another business at around the same time, by the way. Dutch Dynamite is a liquorice gin (20% alcohol), and it is her creation. Dropjenever.