Start something that matters! A book review.
Carpe Diem. Seize the day!
The year is 2006. Blake Mycoskie, a twenty-nine-year-old entrepreneur, is on a one-year break in Argentina from his (then) business venture in online driver education for teens.
While there, he immerses himself in the local culture and even embraces the national shoe: the alpargata. It’s a soft canvas shoe worn by almost everyone in Argentina. Toward the end of his trip, he meets an American woman who is volunteering for a ‘shoe drive’ and is surprised to know that even in well-developed countries like Argentina, many, many kids lack shoes. Although she was doing her bit to supply shoes to these kids, quite often, the shoes were not of the required size, were in short supply, were not in good condition, etc., etc.
It is then that a business idea hits Blake – why not start a for-profit business where for every pair of shoes sold, a new pair of shoes is donated to a child in need? It’s a simple “one for one” concept. This book is about the founding of TOMS shoes, a venture with a unique business model and lessons learned along the way.
At this point in Blake’s life – he did not know the ‘shoe business,’ did not have any expertise in shoe-making, did not have access to a shoe-making factory, and did not even know if his business idea would work. After all, who would buy alpargatas’ in the United States?
This pretty much forms the first chapter of his book. Throughout the rest of his book, Blake outlines six (yeap, just six) guidelines for anyone thinking of starting something of their own. Those guidelines are –
1. Find your story – stories are the most primitive and the purest form of communication. We all know that stories evoke emotions, and emotions forge a connection with your audience. Blake recounts a story of how he met a woman at an airport who was wearing red TOMS shoes and went on to compliment her. Without knowing who he is, the lady starts telling him the TOMS story – “the company actually gave a pair of shoes to a child in Argentina when I bought these shoes for myself. This guy who visited Argentina got this idea….” and she goes on. Stories about people, things, and places resonate with people and connect us to that person, thing, or place. I am often reminded of a Steve Jobs quote “The most powerful people in the World are those who can tell a great story. Stories grab people.”
2. Face your fears – When you get a moment today, write down at least three fears that you have. It could be related to your health, education, life, or anything. Revisit these in three to six months’ time and see for yourself how many of these fears or doubts you had, actually occurred. The fears don’t change, but you’ve lived another day. The point he tries to make in this chapter is more often than not; your fears are unfounded. It has everything to do with your reluctance to start something and nothing to do with the actual end result. Think of it as one small step on a long journey.
Blake recounts the story of Pam, a young housewife who supported her husband and raised five kids. During her trip to a health camp after being diagnosed with high lipid levels, she got the idea to write a book about healthy eating and titled it Butter Busters. It took her one full year to write the book & no one was willing to publish it. After a first failed attempt and losing money, she and her husband managed to get it published eventually. At that point, Pam’s family was $60,000 in debt. When the book came out, 5,000 copies were sold out in 3 weeks, and when all was said and done, the book had sold 1.4 million copies. That woman’s last name is Mycoskie. She is Blake’s mom.
3. Be resourceful without resources – Blake talks about how he started the company from his apartment and conducted intern interviews at his kitchen table. He recounts a funny incident when after one late night of work, his brother Tyler slept in his bedroom. The bedroom was also where Blake was conducting his meeting with his shipping partner, UPS. During the meeting, a white-sheeted ghostlike creature arises from his bed, and the woman from UPS screams. It was his brother Tyler waking up, and the UPS guys hadn’t noticed that he was sleeping under a heap of bedding.
He makes a case that imagination trumps money every time. And how a lack of resources is not a reason NOT to start something. When Method founders Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry started their company, they bought shelves from craigslist and picked up cabinets that were thrown in a dumpster.
4. Keep it simple – This chapter summarizes how simplicity trumps business. When you think about the leading tech companies of today – Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple, they all started on a simple premise. Amazon’s business plan was written by Jeff Bezos while on a cross-country drive from NY to Seattle with his wife. The idea was simple – sell books online.
Michele Sipolt Kapustka loved the mail and sending cards/gifts to others. One day she spotted a ball at a pharmacy and thought, “why not send this instead of a card?”. So she started sending balls (yes, inflated rubber balls) with a message written ON them with a sharpie saying, “have a ball.” This simple act turned into a business idea when an old man at a post office requested her to send one to him, and he was willing to pay money for it. Today, it’s a thriving business. Don’t believe me? Here, check it out yourself - https://sendaball.com/about-us/ 😊
Craig Newmark (a computer security architect) wanted to keep his friends updated on local events in San Francisco, so he created a mailing list. When more and more friends wanted to be informed through his mailing list, he created a website that was modeled after newspaper ads and was free. That website was Craigslist, and today Craigslist is in 700 cities and 70 countries around the world.
Back in 2000, a 25-year-old schoolteacher at a Bronx public high school, Charles Best, frustrated by the lack of resources, started a website called DonorsChoose.org, where schoolteachers make specific requests for items their school needs, and donors get to choose whom and what to donate. The website has raised more than $100 Million and is instrumental in helping students in more than 35,000 public schools across the country.
Some things to consider –
Keep a notebook with you at all times - journal all your thoughts and ideas, no matter how stupid they seem to you at that time.
Schedule everything - everyone has the same 24 hours in a day.
Don’t let technology enslave you. Use it but don’t get enslaved by it.
Clean up – Clean up your closet, your drawers, and your home. Make your bed first thing in the morning. Donate stuff you don’t need.
5. Build trust! – Trust in business is based on empowering your employees, enabling a free flow of ideas. Leading with a softer, human touch and helping others do their job better builds a community, not just a business.
Zappos is a classic example of building trust with employees. Although it was acquired by Amazon at a valuation of $1.2 billion, the Zappos culture has remained. The company has a policy of giving out $3000 to any employee who takes the company training but does not take a job outside (meaning, does not quit after training).
Another unique trust-building exercise is where employees are encouraged to give out bonuses of up to $50 to any other employee they feel deserves it.
Blake argues that building trust is not just a business strategy but is also mission-critical. Talking openly with your staff, giving them more freedom, trusting them to grow into their roles, and following empathy in customer service are some of the lessons Blake espouses in this chapter.
6. Giving is good business – Giving is not just a good strategy, but it earns you partners who are willing to go the distance with you on your entrepreneurial journey. That’s the gist of Blake’s message in this chapter. He cites the case of Lauren Bush, who enjoyed a career as a model while still in college. After being selected as a representative of the UN World Food Program, she had an opportunity to visit many third-world countries and see impoverished children and women. She began to think about what she could do to help end child hunger.
Around the same time (2004), when the eco-friendly movement was taking off, Lauren married the two thoughts together and started a charitable company called FEED Projects. Their product? A non-gender specific, eco-friendly bag that would guarantee a child in a developing country a free year of school lunches for every bag sold. Lauren then innovated further to start the FEED2 and FEED100 line of bags which feed 2 children for a year and 100 school meals to a child for one year, respectively.
The company has sold more than 500,000 bags and donated enough money to provide for more than 126 million school lunches around the world. Not bad for an idea that started off as an eco-friendly bag by a fashion model, huh? Read more about them here - https://feedprojects.com/pages/about
Blake talks about his ODWS (One Day Without Shoes) program, where companies observe one day in a year without any footwear to raise awareness of how a shoeless child would feel. Employees are requested to share a photo of themselves without shoes, and for every pic shared, a shoe will be donated. Watch the program video here -
One Day Without Shoes (Click on the link to open the video)
My favorite quote from this chapter is – “Commit to seeing the world through the lens of how you can initiate meaningful change.”
That’s it. That’s a wrap. Share with me in the ‘comments’ section what & how you feel about entrepreneurship, what ideas you have for yourself, and how you would like to make a change in your world. As Blake mentions, you don’t have to start a venture, you can just begin by changing your mindset. Be well.