Thanks.
I can hear myself, that's good.
They told me to do that.
So today this is not going to be a very buttoned
up talk.
Because I was telling them earlier it's hard
to come out when you're in school.
does that sound alright to you guys?
Is that, ok?
alright, sorry I was hearing an echo, I was
just making sure.
So I was in school a couple of years ago right
and it was really hard to get me to come out
to something like this so thanks for coming
out.
I promise this will be pretty entertaining
because what we've done.
I'm just going to tell you our story and some
of the pivotal moments inside of our story
and how we ended up taking an idea to a movement.
And, how we're getting ready to scale this
movement outside of Atlanta and across the
country and across the world.
So you guys are kind of in on the front end
of what's about to happen and this will be
kind of fun for all of us.
Beremedy started from just a really really
simple idea.
Everybody I met my entire life, it didn't
matter age, religion, creed, gender, who they
were.
From what part of the world they were from,
in conversation, there was some piece of them
that said "I would do something for somebody
else.
The problem is, I just don't know how.
There's not a real easy way to do that."
And in conversation I would ask "well why
not?"
And so they said here's the easiest way for
me to help someone right now.
Is to either text $10 to the next natural
disaster or to give up a Saturday to go volunteer
an organization that you may or may not love
and then you may get harassed by them afterwards,
right?
So my generation says that's scary to me,
I don't want to do that.
And texting to a disaster, man, we're seeing
like results of stuff years later, and where'd
my money go?
I want to make an impact in somebody's life.
So we set out with one simple idea, and it
was to create the easiest way for you to help
somebody else.
And this is our model.
Our model was to go into a local community
and to partner with non profits that exist
already.
We love them, we're not trying to replace
them.
We want to partner with them and they would
send us needs and they'd say, "Hey Blake.
We've got a middle school kid.
He's got holes in his shoes and his parents
can't afford a new pair of shoes."
Or, "Hey Blake, we've got a single mom whose
refrigerator went out.
She can't afford the new refrigerator and
she's got 3 kids and her food is in an icebox
right now."
I believe that you would help your neighbor
with that if you knew they needed it.
You just don't know they need it.
So our thought was to come around and ask
you to follow us on social media.
Follow beremedy with the idea of what would
your city look like if half a million people
got a notification at the same time with an
urgent need in the city.
Like a kid needs a pair of shoes.
Surely we have the resources in every community
to meet the needs of that community.
And that was our belief.
Two weeks after that idea, Atlanta flooded.
And this was Atlanta.
...So, if you've ever had an idea and felt
like you had to act, I felt like I was going
to be struck dead if I didn't act on this
idea.
So I went down, there was no organization
formed,I hadn't told anyone what was going
on.
I went down to this disaster, I took some
pictures from my cell phone and I found an
organization.
They said our biggest need right now is diapers.
I said Great, people would help with that.
So I went to Twitter.
I tweeted this....Lesson 101 in social media,
never put your phone number in a tweet.
Alright [laughter].
Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever.
Uh, don't do it.
In this case, it worked out really well because
my friends didn't know it was happening but
they said "Hey, I'll retweet that."
So they began retweeting.
My friends on Facebook said I don't know what
he's doing but I'll repost that.
Off of just one person.
People from Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South
Carolina all sent money or diapers.
We said, wow, this could work.From there,
it led us to December.
And what we did, is I did three test runs
for needs.
That was test run number 1.
that was test run # 1.
Number two was we found some school social
workers and they said a big need for us right
now, we had a cold snap where they high that
week was 30 degrees.
And they said, what we need is blankets for
families that don't have heat.
I said great, we'd post that need.
So we posted it and people began sending us
needs or sending us blankets and it was a
lot of fun and here's the way the we were
operating at the time.
We aren't, we're using Starbucks as a drop
off locations but we're not telling Starbucks.
[laughter] alright.
So I went to Michael's, bought some $2 t shirts
and I got some iron on letters and I ironed
beremedy on the shirt.
Right, and the letters were probably crooked
and I gave them to friends that lived in different
parts of Atlanta, all over town.
And what we did was when somebody said they
wanted to give us blankets, I would have my
friend that lived closest to them meet them
at Starbucks, wear the shirt and tell the
person to look for the guy in the beremedy
shirt so that we would intersect them before
they got to the counter.
Right, and so it went really really well for
a while and one night...I went to meet somebody
that I had never met before off of Twitter.
And...when I got to Starbucks, I was there
30 minutes early, I said there's no way I'll
miss her, she direct messaged me and said
Hey Blake, I got sick at work.
I left the blankets at Starbucks.
They're there waiting on you.
And I was like great, this is where we get
into trouble.
So I wait in line and I stand in this really
long line and a cold night, and it's like
the windows are fogged up.
It's packed, it's wall to wall.
Everybody's in there waiting in this long
line and I get to the counter and say "look,
I know this is really weird." and i said,
"do you have blankets for homeless people?"
And the lady was really loud, she's like "Yeah."
She's like "you're the guy whose collecting
blankets for homeless people."
And I was like "kinda, here's a real story."
And she loved it.
And the guy behind me didn't know, he heard
the story, kinda overheard it.
And he started one of those slow claps.
He went [clap] [clap] right, like really awkward.
The guy behind him is like "man, that's kinda
cool."
He started one too.
Before you knew it the whole line was clapping.
The whole place starts giving this standing
ovation.
I guarantee you the people in the back corner
were like "did somebody just get engaged?
What's happening?
What are we clapping for?
I don't know what's happening."
And Starbucks loved it.
They said look, you've got, you can use us
as a drop off location anytime you want.
Your Starbucks is on the house anytime you
come back.
Thanks for doing what you're doing.
We thought Wow.
We need to keep doing this.
We need to figure out what this means.
So it led us to December.
September to December and in December I sit
down with some guys that are way smarter than
me and I'm like, what do we do with this?
They said, we don't know how you make money
but the world needs it, go do it.
I was like great.
So I did.
Kept going.
And for Christmas that year, and this is the
entrepreneurial part of the story right?
Where I'm just like, just go for your idea
and believe in it.
For Christmas I asked for a passport.
Never had a passport before.
I got, I went and applied for it on December
23 and it came in the mail before New Year's.
If you've ever applied for a passport, that's
crazy.
I didn't have it expedited, it showed up in
the mail.
A couple of weeks later, earthquake happens
in a place called Haiti.
Unbelievable.
The devastation was crazy.
And I've never been out of the country before
and an organization that saw our work inside
Atlanta flood said we've got a private jet
going to Haiti, we want you on it.
So, my first time out of the country was straight
here.
And I didn't know what I was going to do,
I didn't know what my capacity was going to
be but I knew how to use social media.
So going in, part of our game plan was to
transport this lady.
She was 99 years old and she lived through
the earthquake.
One of the team members with us, it was her
great-grandmother.
So, we got to her, found her, knew there was
a house she owned standing in a town called
Grand Goave, which is about 7 miles outside
of Port Au Prince when we got to her, it turns
out Haitians are never alone and they had
about 12 family members with them.
We had a diesel mechanic.
We fixed down 3 broken down SUVs and drove
a caravan through the jungle to Grand Goave.
We get them to safety, this is their family.
Um, it was great.
You can see how frail she was there.
But when we end up in Grand Goave we find
a bigger issue.
We find that over a 100,000 people had either
moved out of Port Au Prince or they had moved
out of the hills behind there into this town
where nobody knew they were there.
And I said this is where we come in.
So I went back to Twitter.
And I tweeted this...So people again begin
tweeting.
People began facebooking.
250 people retweeted it in 30 minutes.
Now how many of you are on Twitter?
Ok, so for those of you that aren't on Twitter,
here's what happens.
If you get one retweet, you're excited.
Right, you're like "somebody just retweeted
us."
Like you're excited, you're showing, you're
showing somebody a favorite.
In Facebook terms, that's like getting 100
likes.
Alright, getting a retweet, getting a favorite
is a big deal.
So for us as a Twitter account, with maybe
25 followers at this time, we get 250 retweets
in 30 minutes and people began to give us
all the information we needed.
Hashtags inside natural disasters will revolutionize
disasters in the future.
They just will.
So what happens is someone tweets us the coordinates
of the town mayor and town doctor.
I was able to put them in a vehicle with this.
Somebody tweeted us the coordinates of the
US marines.
We drove to them off a GPS and said we need
help.
They said "yeah, you do.
Meet with us at lunchtime tomorrow."
So lunchtime tomorrow, I sit at this table.
Now to us this table looks like nothing.
In Haiti, this was a big deal.
This guy is the head of all the tent villages
for Haiti.
This is the town mayor.
The town doctor's hiding there.
That's what I look like with no shower for
2 weeks.
The head of the entire Haitian police shows
up at the table.
The head of all US Marine operations.
And 2 United Nations officials at this table.
All because of 1 tweet.
All because a group of my friends back in
Atlanta said "hey, we'll follow a Twitter
account and even if we can't help, we'll repost
the message.
We'll repost it on Facebook and we'll hit
like so that others will see it."
And this is the result.
And it was the greatest day to be an American
you've ever seen.
The US Marines said "look, we've got enough
food to feed the whole nation of Haiti for
a year.
We just need a plan in place to keep dropping
food."
I said Great.
I've got the town mayor here and tent village
guy, we're going to go to work.
So we did.
We sat down about lunch time.
We laid out a plan before nightfall and went
back to the Marines and said, here's our plan.
They said great.
Tomorrow we'll give you a drop of food for
500 people.
If that goes well, the next day we'll drop
for a 1,000 people.
If that goes well, we'll drop for 5,000 and
if that works, we'll carry your plan out.
I said great.
The next day, here's the first helicopter
drop full of food.
It was surreal.
It was amazing to watch this happen.
I had tears coming down my face watching this
helicopter land.
And after the first helicopter lands, we unload
all of the MREs, the meals ready to eat, and
the head of the Marines walks over and puts
his arm around me.
He says "Hey Blake.
We've got a surprise for you."
I said "yeah."
He says "we're going to go ahead and drop
for 5,000 people today."
So as he's saying this, we're looking out
and where you can see the, we can see the
ocean and this carrier comes up and parks
where we can see it.
This huge ship.
And what happens is there is a helicopter
on it.
And that helicopter is already loaded with
food.
And what happens is these helicopters just
took off, they cross each other in the air
and landed.
Every 30 minutes they switch places, just
unloading food and a couple hours later, we're
standing chest deep in MREs and these just
keep coming every 30 minutes so it was unbelievable.
It was so much fun.
And our campaign continued to go.
We kept tweeting about what needs were and
what was happening on the ground, and what
people needed to help.
And based off of that, um, a group called
Samaritan's Purse tweeted us.
And they said "Hey, we're coming into town."
We were able to meet up with them and they
were looking for a clean water source.
And they found one.
So now they build a clean water well in the
town of Grand Goave that's still standing
today.
A couple of days later, um, a group called
Doctors Without Borders, an amazing organization
where doctors from around the world come together
and they just come into disasters and help
people wanting nothing in return.
And so they tweeted us and said Hey, we're
coming in.
And I said great.
So we hopped in United Nation Vehicles.
It's kind of hard to see, but that's a UN
sign on that Jeep right there.
We block off roads with UN vehicles and start
landing planes with doctors in the middle
of this town.
All because a group of friends said "Hey,
I'll repost something on Facebook or Twitter."
It was amazing.
And then this story.
It was amazing.
We left Grand Goave after about 10 days there
and all of this work happening.
It was kind of sustainable.
beremedy's piece isn't to create sustainability
but it's to drive awareness and let organizations
that do great work Do great work.
So as we left Grand Goave and went back to
Port Au Prince, we were getting ready to fly
back out.
We found that this boy was having seizures
in front of the palace.
And so a couple days ago we're networking
the UN and all these major organizations,
and the next day we drop everything because
this little boy, one kid, was having seizures
in front of the palace.
We were able to tweet out the medication that
he needed, a photo journalist found the boy
inside this tent village, dropped a pin, we
were able to find him and give him the medication.
We hung out with his mom until he stopped
having seizures.
And that's what they look like.
It was unbelievable.
So when we left Haiti we knew that we didn't
solve the problems of Haiti, right?
So this is where the name beremedy comes into
play.
It's two fold.
1, we know that we're not the answer to somebody's
problems, all their problems.
And that's why we partner with organizations
that have systems to put them into programs
to make sure that they transition.
We're not just giving them something, we're
making sure they are part of system that transitions
them into a better piece of life.
The other side of it is that we wanted any
body to be a remedy.
Whether it's a six year old kid or a $1 billion
dollar organization.
Anybody can be a remedy for somebody else.
By simply tweeting and simply responding when
you can.
So, word began to spread, so we get back from
Haiti,I get back about 4 am and there's email
waiting on me from 11 Alive here in Atlanta
saying we want to tell your story.
Be at the station at 5 am.
I'm like great.
So I took my first shower in a couple of weeks,
headed straight down and 11 Alive told our
story and it begun to spread.
Fox came out and they began to tell our story.
And our story spread and it was a lot of fun.
It was fun to see it all happen.
And we were faced with the question that every
entrepreneur faces.
And when you start out as an entrepreneur,
you are creating something.
You have to write a mission and a vision statement
behind it.
And our mission and vision was to connect
you to your neighbor.
And I looked at this and said wow, we have
an opportunity to scale really fast, go nationwide,
go to disasters, do great work inside of disasters.
But that's not our mission.
And so we decided we're not going to do anything
else inside disasters, we're going to go back
and we're going to connect you to youre neighbor.
Because we want to do that all around the
country and around the globe and then when
we do that...then we can unite and countries
become our neighbors.
And we can do this on a larger scale more
effectively.
so we pulled back and we tested it and with
all of the media attention, risked not growing
again and started telling stories like this...This
is Miss Betty.
She's a single caretaker of her 40 year old
Down Syndrome son and her 2 great grand kids.
And her refrigerator went out.
And for me this is the exact example I use
when I'm explaining the idea of beremedy.
It was real. and a refrigerator is a good
thing to tell a story about but when you're
tweeting, trying to get one, that's a big
purchase for somebody.
And it's really scary as an entrepreneur,
you're scared to death that nobody is going
to respond.
And then if they don't respond, your idea
is going to go down hill.
And we posted this and in 5 minutes, somebody
said "hey, we want to buy them a new refrigerator."
So I got to go down and meet Miss Betty and
sit with her family.
And we went to Sears and picked out the refrigerator
she wanted and got it delivered to her house.
And when I walked in her house, this is her
home, that's her in front of her new refrigerator.
You guys have seen Charlie and the Chocolate
Factory, right?
A one room house.
That was her.
The crazy thing about that for me was that
was my hometown.
It was Griffin, Georgia.
And I had never driven past her house.
In fact, I had never driven past her side
of town.
And I think that's a lot of us.
We have no idea about the needs that are right
around us and that was the town that I grew
up in.
When I walked in, it was the kitchen, was
on one side and, uh, with the refrigerator
and then to the left there were a couple beds
and to the left there was a rocking chair
and a TV.
And that was her house.
And I thought these were the stories that
we have to tell.
This is what we have to keep doing, so we
did.
We find out about this family.
They're an amazing group, we worked with a
group, an organization in Atlanta called Lazarus
organization.
They're a lot of fun, they do a Super Bowl
party for the homeless every year.
they do some really cool stuff.
And so we became friends with them and partnered
with them.
And this family was homeless and they had
all their children were born while they were
on the streets of Atlanta.
And the parents got into Lazarus, they helped
them get jobs, went through this whole program,
and finally they were able to get jobs, get
a home, and they were moving in they realized
they didn't have beds.
Perfect.
This is where we come in.
So we posted a need for a bed for this family.
And somebody responded within three hours
and we had two beds, we had bunk beds.
And I don't know if you've ever seen a kid
that's never had his own bed before.
Have you ever seen the look on his face?
When he gets his first bed?
But I promise you'll never forget it.
When that kid runs up to you and he's hugging
you and he can't, he's never had his own bed,
it wrecks you.
As great of storytellers as we try to be on
social media for that story, it will never
replace you being there in person and seeing
that kid.
It wrecked me.
I'm not an emotional guy and that, it uh,
it just messed me up.
I tell this story all the time because of
that kid.
Because of that, because we stayed true to
our vision and we fought through and we risked
not ever going the fast way, but going the
slow and steady way, our story began to spread
again.
And out of these groups, it was really fun
to see, CNN is kind of the big boy in this
right?
CNN called and said "hey, we want to do a
story."
And we were still really young, we're kind
of in our first year, kind of playing with
this stuff.
You know, we're just trying to meet a need
every once in a while and not official.
We've got a team that meets out of a Starbucks
every other Tuesday night and we're just kind
of figuring this thing out.
CNN said they wanted to tell the story and
I thought, we're going to do it and here's
why.
Because when this goes out on CNN we'll find
the holes fast.
Because no good deed goes unpunished and we
live in a world where people just want to
destroy anything that's even great in the
world of social media.
So as soon as our story comes out, we'll find
out why we shouldn't do this tomorrow if we
shouldn't.
And our story came out and we got one piece
of negative feedback, no actually 2.
1 that we weren't outside of Atlanta.
Number 2 is that we didn't have enough needs.
And I thought we could solve both of those
problems.
Those are great and that's all the negative
feedback we had.
So what happens is our team is working full
time jobs and CNN ran a story on Sunday about
us that was great.
But what happened was on Tuesday morning Twitter
announced that it was there 5 year anniversary.
CNN runs another story without letting me
know.
I wake up at 6 am and my phone's exploding.
I've got 115 messages on my phone and I'm
like, "What's happened?"
I look at my phone and CNN had ran a headline
that said this on Twitter's 5 year anniversary.
They named us one of the 3 best Twitter usages
in the world.
Number one was the Egyptian uprising.
How they used social media to overthrow a
government.
Number 2 is Charlie Sheen.
Right?
A couple of years ago when he had his whole
escapade, when he created a Twitter account,
he had 2 million Twitter followers in the
first 48 hours.
they talked about the power, when 2 million
people will follow you in 2 days to hear every
word you're saying.
It's amazing.
And number 3 was us.
And our story began to spread and so our team
of volunteers, they all leave work, call out,
come to my apartment.
I'm just ordering pizza every couple of hours
to keep them happy you know.
We're just sitting there, tweeting out, we're
trying to like respond to every Facebook like
that we get and every tweet that we get.
What happens when a CNN story runs like that
is they call them crumbs.
And so they run a story and then the affiliate
in New York will pick it up and they'll run
a story and then in Texas they'll run the
story, and then in California.
So we're able to see, hey I think a story
just ran here, and a story just ran here,
and it's fun as a volunteer too watch this
stuff happen.
Go across the country and somewhere around
midnight our team's exhausted.
I'm like you've got to work tomorrow, go home
and I'm sending them home.
As they're walking out Jamie looks at me and
she goes "Blake, you've got to see this."
I was like yeah, and she shows me this.
And I don't know what it says but I think
it's good because there's a thumbs up sign
on the page, right?
And so our story begins to spread around the
world.
It literally went there and that was the homepage
of the Social Media Club of Austria and the
story just continues to spread and continues
to spread and then we got to do a TED talk.
And that was a lot of fun.
The TED community was amazing.
It embraced it really well.
They said it was a great idea worth spreading.
We're humbled by that.
It was a lot of fun.
But just in light of kinda keeping this fun,
that's kind of our story and what we do but
there's a couple things I just want to unveil
a curtain on that we said.
These are the things that we wanted to separate
ourselves in the market from.
One was a quote that has driven me personally
that was said by a guy named Craig Groeschel.
He said to reach people no one else is reaching,
you have to do things no one else is doing.
So whatever market you're in, if you're creating
in the business world, you're going to have
a set of customers but to reach the customers
you're not reaching right now, you've got
to do something new to get them.
We're all watching Apple, for better or worse,
do that with the 5C.
Right?
I mean it's like why did they create a plastic
phone?
They're trying to reach a market that they're
not reaching right now.
So they're trying to do something they're
not doing.
So for our organization, one of the heartbeats
behind creating it was, man there's a lot
of people that are engaged in philanthropy
right now, right?
There's millions of people and there's tons
of money that goes, billions every year.
But my heart was what if we can get to the
people that aren't engaged.
What about the multi-millions that aren't
engaged?
If we could win them, then the people that
are engaged will follow.
Let's go after them.
And part of the equation to do that was we
felt like, I'll let this out, that philanthropy
is the key to the lifestyle brand.
And what better company to do a lifestyle
brand model after than Red Bull.
Red Bull is an ultimate lifestyle brand.
It's you wake up tomorrow and say I want to
be a part of that.
If you're an extreme sports person, you're
going to look and act like Red Bull athletes
because they've done it well.
And so that's what we mean by a lifestyle
brand.
And so in philanthropy I don't know anybody,
as much as they love helping people, some
of my friends do, wake up and say Man I'm
part of this and wear their shirts and live
that lifestyle every day.
It's just kind of part of their life.
And it's a part of their life they don't even
share much.
And so we said let's follow Red Bull in that
sense of the idea.
And so we find out Red Bull is having a soap
box race in Atlanta.
So think Little Rascals, you put four pieces
of wood together and four wheels on it and
you push it down the hill and hope it makes
it to the bottom.
In Atlanta, over 100,000 people come out to
this.
It's a huge deal.
And so we try to think creatively all the
time, we try to, in our team meetings, let's
think 20/20 and let's scale back to what reality
is.
Right?
So let's dream and so when we heard this,
I thought wow, here's an opportunity to get
our name in front of 100,000 people.
Let's just enter it for fun.
Let's not help any body, just do it.
And I get to our team meeting that happens
on Tuesday nights and I sat down and showed
them.
We have another tag line that we say.
"Here's something that could be great.
Let's push the creative envelope and make
it epic."
And after I pitched the idea they said man,
this is great, but it's not epic yet.
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
When we submitted this, Red Bull calls me
and says "Hey look we don't work with non-profits
much.
We love what they do but we don't do much.
If you can put spinners on this thing like
the picture, you're in."
I said "Yep, we'll have spinners" and hung
up before they could say no.
Because I knew we weren't going to get them,
and they knew we weren't going to get them.
So it, we were one of the first non-profits
to ever get into this.
So I pitch to my team "we're innovative, this
is awesome."
But they were like, "this isn't epic yet."
I'm like "man, what makes this epic?"
And we constantly pushed the envelope on that.
So a couple of days later here I'm meeting
with a group called Atlanta Mission.
They are the Southeast's largest homeless
organization, do amazing work.
And I'm listening to their creative side,
and how they're marketing and what they're
doing and programs.
And I find out that one of their programs,
the homeless can opt in to a year long program
and what happens is that they go into this
program.
They, whatever their next level is in education,
they go through that program and then they
also teach them trades.
Whether its automotive, woodworking, what
not and then at the end of this program, they
have a graduation and they go get jobs.
And I thought, man that's brilliant.
I thought what if we take this opportunity
to market ourselves and we market them instead.
And as we started talking through the game
plan was this...when we found out one of the
last steps of that program, they were like,
we've got all the pieces figured out, we've
got companies that hire them.
The hard part is a suit for them for graduation
and a suit for them to go to job interviews.
Because typically the ones that they get are
ones in thrift stores that we go and pick
up for a 70s party on Saturday night.
It's like the houndstooth, tweed, which are
both coming back right now.
But for them if you wear a houndstooth suit
to go get a job in, you're going to get laughed
at.
And that's what was happening to these guys.
We said here's a very easy way to impact these
guys lives.
So what we did was had them build our car.
This is the team.
The guy in the front, he's one of the operators
of Atlanta Mission, and the other guys are
all homeless guys.
We put together a small team of guys that
were going to build this thing.
And that was part of their project.
And what we did was we made a four part video
series.
We took a group in and we videoed their stories
and what building this car meant to them and
how it was going to create life change for
them.
So I told you think Little Rascals, there's
literally nothing to it.
I was really scared to try it, so I made one
of them try it the first time.
Uh, round two I finally went.
And it was great.
We had a lot of fun.
These started going and Red Bull calls us.
And they said "look, we see what you're doing.
Don't unveil your final product.
We want to partner with you.
We want to unveil it for you."
So what happens is on the Thursday before
the race, we had this whole campaign laid
out.
Red Bull takes us to 11Alive and has us unveil
our car live on the air and we all wear suits
to represent what the need was that we were
taking up.
And we put the Commuter Dude live on the air
and he raced down it and tested the car live
on the air and Red Bull loved it so much they
flew their stuff in three days early, just
to have it there for us.
It was amazing.
So we had a lot of fun and we launched something
after this called a Remedy Party.
Teamed up with a group called ScoutMob in
Atlanta.
Great daily deal app, 50% off all your restaurants,
all these restaurants in Atlanta.
We offer 50% off at a restaurant for the night
for people to come and give suits.
So people started showing up the night before
the race and people are dropping off suits
and it was fun.
It was great.
We put funny hats and stuff on people and
took pictures.
And then we started having interesting groups.
This one group of really cool looking dudes
walk up and we're like "hey man thanks for
coming out."
And they're like "yeah, we're from Oakley.
Oakley has a car in the Red Bull race and
we saw what you were doing so they flew us
out early so we could bring suits to you guys.
We loved this."
We still have a relationship, I'm friends
with some of the guys at Oakley because of
this.
And then this really sharp dressed dude walks
up and I'm like "hey man" and I was like "what's
up" and he goes "I'm Usher's personal shopper."
And I'm like "yeah you are.
You need to be mine."
And he brought out 20 suits that were just
the sharp suits.
I've never seen a suit like this in my life
and he goes "Let's take 20 of the guys, put
them in these suits and we'll take them back
Nordstrom and we'll have them custom tailored
to fit these guys."
Unbelievable.
From a Remedy Party the night before the race.
So race day comes and this is our team.
We put really funny glasses on and we just
went out of the box.
Nobody had a clue who we were.
We're a non-profit.
They didn't know, they just thought we were
cool.
People just started bringing suits and bringing
their kids out.
This is what a 100,000 people looks like on
race day and it goes for about a half a mile
and spills over into Piedmont Park and there's
this second video screen showing the race
live.
In the bottom right is the CEO of Atlanta
Mission.
His name is Jim Reese.
He came out that day and he gave me a hug
and said "Blake, look.
this coming year we're celebrating our 75th
anniversary.
so we've been around 75 years, we're the Southeast's
largest homeless organization, but we've never
been seen to this demographic in this light
before.
For the first time in 75 years, we're cool."
I was like "thank you."
I'm like awesome, I gave him a hug and said
let's go race.
So we did.
So once the race happened we just acted like
idiots.
We put Go Pros on the front and back of our
car, we raced them down.
Um and what happened was Red Bull was running
a live blog.
For most people, it was just team so and so
was going and team so and so is going.
We went and they went crazy on us.
And you have to do a 30 second skit before
you start to push your car down the hill.
And what we did was we brought out for no
good reason a 7 foot giant penguin, I made
my roommate be.
And he came out and pushed our car and danced
in our skit with us and as he pushed the car
off the front of the hill he fell off the
front of the hill, tumbling all the way down.
And we made ESPN's not top 10 list because
of it.
And so they documented all of that and what
we did was they told us, before we pushed
our car, hey look we're pulling for you guys,
you've got to finish big to get a good score.
I was like awesome so we're trying to figure
out how we're going to finish big and as we're
getting to the bottom of the hill, I lean
back to Josh, he's in the back seat.
He has no control over this and I say "Hey
man there's a wall in front of us, we're not
gonna hit the brakes.
We're just going to hit the wall."
And he's like "NOOOOO!"
I was like "yeah, we are."
So we crash in the wall at like 25 miles an
hour.
Our car completely exploded and so it, if
you can remember the car, that was the back
fin that was completely ripped off and that
was the front nose of our car.
Let's see if we can go back.
The front nose, so you're seeing by my wheel
where that logo was.
Our car was completely gone and I was left
holding a handle.
That was it.
Um, so it was amazing.
We ended up providing the next 6 months of
graduates from their program suits.
It was unbelievable.
So um it was a lot of fun.
We really try to create a lifestyle brand
out of what we're doing.
Um they said to leave time for questions and
I just want to tell you this.
We've taken this model and we've been working
really really hard on this.
From day one from the CNN story, we've been
asked what are you doing outside of Atlanta.
And right now we're working on a plan to do
that.
And it's going to be a lot of fun.
And one of the things that we say is that
our vision has always been local but it's
never been small.
And so we're going to take this local model
as far across the world as we can in the next
coming years.
And we hope that you'll join us and the other
tagline that we say is if a movement is going
to have an impact, it has to belong to those
that join it, not those who lead it.
Meaning that you have to embrace this.
We can post needs all day long but unless
you believe this, unless you follow us, unless
you retweet, unless you respond when you can,
we go nowhere.
And it makes no impact.
So we're asking you to join us as we get ready
to do this next step and I think we'll impact
people around the world in a way that's maybe
never been done or just a new model for doing
it.
And it will be a lot of fun.
So, thanks for having me.
This is how to follow us on social media.
And, what kind of questions do you guys have?
As you're starting out in Starbucks, wearing
t-shirts, are you paying for this out of your
pocket?
Are you using your own capital as you're getting
started.
Totally.
100 percent.
And there's obviously different models for
doing that.
They call it bootstrapping when you just go
and pay for it all out of pocket.
I was working at a creative company before
Haiti and the guy knew what I was doing with
beremedy and the day that Haiti came.
He saw the earthquake and he called me and
said "Hey Blake.
You're fired, go do it."
So I got rid of all my expenses that I had
before I got on a plane to Haiti so when I
came back I spent the next 11 months couch-surfing.
I literally slept on friends' couches wherever
I had a meeting the next day or wherever we
were meeting in the evening, I slept on some
friends' couches in that town close by there.
So it was all until about a year later we
had somebody else to come in and begin to
fund us.
Great question, did you guys hear her?
Did you always want to be a social entrepreneur
and what was the pivotal moment?
Um, so no, I didn't always want to be a social
entrepreneur.
I was a baseball player and I thought that's
where I was going to go in life.
We all have dreams.
I really wish I was playing for the Red Sox
the other night but I'm not.
Um, so I didn't, it was never a dream, it
was never attractive to me, in fact it was
really scary.
And for me I kind of have a life quote I say,
when you don't know what to do, do the next
best thing and I did.
SO after baseball, I began working at a creative
shop.
I actually told them their sites were ugly,
some friends of mine, and they would look
better if you did this to them.
And their clients loved it.
And so I ended up working my way in and learning
how to do that.
But a pivotal moment for me was working through
that creative company and social media came
along.
I honestly when I saw Twitter, I said one,
what's a Twitter?
Number two, I thought great, here's another
place to find out you just had a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich.
Right?
So I was like "man, I don't have time for
that."
None of us do.
And then I looked up and realized that this
may be the greatest communication tool that
the world has seen.
You can communicate a message to millions
of people at one time.
And if they have notifications on, you're
basically texting over a million people at
one time.
That's power.
The other piece of the pivotal moment for
me was growing up.
There's a story.
Where I was hanging out with a friend, and
this is the piece, that I'm saying, pay attention
to your life.
Some of the greatest social entrepreneurs
or entrepreneurs in general....all of them
are answering a problem.
The social entrepreneurs are typically answering
a problem that's internal that resonates with
them.
And that's why they're driven to risk everything
to make it happen.
For me, I was growing up, in middle school,
I won't forget it.
I was hanging out with some friends that lived
in a really bad part of town.
I wasn't able to spend the night there.
And I was hanging out and that day their refrigerator
went out.
And I remember the mom looking over and yelling
at the dad saying "If you hadn't spent $50
here, we would have the money for this."
And he shot back "We'll if you hadn't spent
$200 here," and they just began this huge
fight.
And I was really shy growing up, I would have
never spoken in front of anybody.
And I remember sitting there, scared to death
watching their parents fight.
And I didn't know what to do with that.
Later that night, I went and spent the night
with a friend of mine, named Ike, and they
lived in the country club and we were outside
playing and walked in through his garage.
There was a four car garage and as they opened
it up, there were three refrigerators sitting
in there.
His dad was a hunter, he was just storing
meat in there.
And I remember thinking, these are really
good people.
They would give that if they knew someone
needed it.
Regrettably, I never said a word.
I was shy, I was scared to death.
And I didn't realize that was a pivotal moment
in my life until years later when beremedy
came along and somebody asked me that question
and I thought that was a moment that shaped
me.
And that was probably subliminally why I use
the refrigerator illustration.
Um, but if you're looking at a social entrepreneurship
at any level, look at your life.
Look at what you're passionate about.
Because that's what's going to be what helps
you drive you to answer a problem when there's
no resources around to make it happen.
Great question.
Do we do anything at Christmas time?
We do, um, right now we are kind of.
We do every year for Christmas we do certain
things.
This year, we're just going to keep doing
what we do right now.
Um, because we're working really hard on our
next steps, so we'll continue to post needs
and one of our models is to post one need
a week.
And it's typically on Thursdays and so everybody
kinda knows when to look for it, we rally
behind it.
During Christmas, depending on how many needs
we have, we could go to multiple needs in
a week, but we're just going to stay on point
and continue to create momentum for our next
step and then next year, look for some fun
stuff for Christmas.
That's a great question.
How are we funded?
We're figuring that out, honestly.
We're in the middle of figuring it out.
We've um we've had some generous people on
the way that have put some in.
We're looking at some strategic partnerships
that will create revenue streams inside of
what we're doing.
And just the really small stream that we started
doing in the beginning was simply, I don't
think I told you this, when we post a need,
you can either give an item that you have,
or we use Amazon Wishlist, so you can do a
one-click purchase and they have it in two
days.
So we have people around the country right
now, purchasing items, so we get a small kickback
from Amazon but that's obviously not sustainable
at this point.
I'm a professor here and I guess listening
to your stories, it really reminds me of my
....students is that they can get a job at
a creative company....that they could have
a job that would provide them with a paycheck
to buy a suit for someone but I don't know
that I can really pull them out and ....let
them see the future or see the potential.
Do you have any words of wisdom for a student
that can kind of help us as faculty with our
students....?
Wow, um, you needed a mic for that.
No, you needed a mic for that.
And that's a question that we almost should
all unite around.
As professors, students, people in the city,
how do you allow somebody at this stage of
life to see potential for the rest of their
lives so they can make an impact?
Right, so whether....I'm a believer whatever,
here's my take on it.
Social entrepreneurship isn't for everybody.
Um, but what is for everybody, the thing that
I found for people that are successful, they
find that they have a couple skill sets that
you have potential to be great at.
And what you need to do is take your skill
sets.
And if it's accounting, whether you're a great
business person, whether you're great with
any of these fields that you go in, be the
best that you can in that role.
Because as a social entrepreneur, the greatest
lesson that I've learned was not to be a jack
of all trades.
I thought when we started this, man, I've
got to get at accounting, I've got to get
good at all these things that I'm not great
at.
And I realized all you do is simply stay inside
your skill set and put a group of people around
you who are great at things you're not.
And so if you become the best accountant that
you can and you find out, man, here's a cause
that I'm crazy excited about, take your accounting
skills and just tag it on.
Either go to work for them or work for a company
that has or volunteer your time out side of
that to make sure that somebody that was in
my shoes has somebody so they're not falling
on that side of things.
So my piece to you would be the best thing
you can be and take your skill sets and use
them for someone else.
....Yeah, luckily to date every single need
we've posted has been met.
So, we hope to keep that track record.
Our next step will create a stream of needs
so it will change a little bit.
Our model will change a little, but the heart
beat will stay the same.
But to date every single need has been met.
And we have a lot coming up so if you guys
would, I'll just point blank ask you to join
us and if you can help, respond and if you
can't, just share the message.
We'd love for you to join us.
Yeah, they did.
Did people every tell you you were crazy and
did you get opposition from your family?
Yeah you did.
Luckily my family was supportive.
They didn't understand and they were scared
to death, honestly.
They just sat me down and said "Blake you've
got to figure out revenue stream.
You've got to figure out how to make your
self sustainable."
And I knew I did and that was part of it.
the other thing that I got from a lot of business
men at the time was that this was the wrong
time to do it.
The economy was in the downturn, people don't
have excess money or items to give.
Blake your model is going to fail, it's not
going to go.
And you have to listen to the people that
are smarter than you, you have to.
Experts in the field, you have to listen to
them but if you believe in your gut go for
it.
But I would say don't risk everything.
Don't risk literally everything.
Thanks for having me.
We certainly appreciate Blake being here.
I'll tell you what Blake one more question?
I was wondering you know, I've been following,
a little behind on the news, with the Twitter
IPO and how do you think that will affect
your growth just because you know in our classes
we talk about the debacle and the Facebook
IPO so there's a lot of stuff riding on Twitter
and so I just wanted to know.
Yeah, so the question is how is Twitter's
IPO they're facing potentially going to affect
beremedy?
Um a lot of that's going to affect Twitter
more than it's going to affect beremedy.
But beremedy is affected because we leverage
Twitter.
So what you typically see around these times
is these companies scrounging to create products
to build users.
If they do that successfully, if they create
a better experience, they create more engagement
then it's a win for beremedy.
If they change things too much and users fall
off then beremedy's at risk.
So this is why we've done a partnership with
a development company um, and so we've been
building our own new website.
Our own tool.
And that, the whole purpose of that was we
looked up a couple of years ago and Facebook
changes algorithms all the time.
So I don't know how familiar you are but what's
in your news feed changes every couple of
weeks.
And so from an organization standpoint, there's
groups that have millions of followers or
likes on Facebook and they can't hit your
news feed.
So if you go and like us on Facebook today
it doesn't mean you're ever going to see our
posts.
Facebook now says it's got to be engaging
to you for you to care about it for it to
show up in your feed.
So when we post the need, it's tricky for
us because people aren't going to like that
post.
Here's a middle school kid without shoes.
Everybody's not liking that.
Right?
So Facebook deems it as irrelevant and it
doesn't hit a news feed.
So basically Twitter, Facebook, any tool that
we're going to leverage, we're at their mercy
and there's always risk.
We're trying to develop our own backbone and
leverage them in ways that we've always leveraged
them but the core of us is not at risk.
So, but I have a lot of opinions on Twitter's
IPO too.
Dr. Ruben Boling: Let's thank him again.
I have one question I want to ask real quick....and
a measure of the success of this I guess.
I think that's cool.
I think that's a real outcome and I think
that's what Blake is looking for as well so.
Do what he said, go like him, go tweet him,
go do all those kind of things.
Make him even more popular than he is because
you can see he's a cool guy doing a cool thing.
I really think he has a great future.
Why?
Because he is so passionate about it and his
planning and making sure he has a structure
to carry it out.
Thank you once again for coming.
And that's it.
