March 25, 2025 • 40 mins
After losing his job, Brian felt called to contribute to society in some way while looking for a new gig. He found mowing his own lawn to be therapeutic, so he figured why not offer to do it for folks in need. His accidental nonprofit I Want To Mow Your Lawn has grown into its own army of 1,404 normal folks who’ve mowed the lawns of over 2,000 people!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
There was this perfect stranger, this woman in New York
named Sloan who sent a snail mail letter in the
mail that said, I saw the story about you, and again,
this was a person that I was not. Ever we
didn't help her with lawns, but I guess it was
a time when she needed to hear or see something
I didn't. I didn't know what she was going through.
(00:26):
I didn't know this person. She wrote me a letter saying,
dear Brian, I saw the story about you mowing lawns.
It gave me some hope and inspiration. And then she
went on to say I once saw on a T
shirt either reason someone believes in the goodness of people,
and she left it off with you are that reason, sir,
(00:47):
and that it made it made me cry, and it
was something that I needed to hear in that moment.
It made me feel valued, like I was doing something meaningful,
and I wanted to scale up that feeling, realizing I'm
to something just bigger than myself.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Now, welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
Inner City Memphis, and that last part somehow it led
to an oscar for the film about our team. That
(01:24):
movie is called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems
are never going to be solved by a bunch of
fancy people in nice suits using big words that nobody
ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an
army of normal folks us just you and me deciding, Hey,
you know what, maybe I can help. That's what Brian Schwartz,
(01:48):
the voice you just heard, has done. Brian is the
founder of I Want to Mow Your Lawn, which started
with him deciding to mow lawns of folks in need
in his area, and it has turned into his own
army of one thousand, four hundred and four normal folks
moined the lines of over two thousand people. I cannot
(02:11):
wait for you to meet Brian right after these brief
messages from our generous sponsors, Hey, everybody, welcome back. So
(02:39):
here's the deal. I do business in a lot of
different countries and excuse office, what excuses excuses? And I
have an office in Shanghai and had a contingent here
from China when we did this interview, and Alex apparently
(03:00):
texted me the date and the time of the interview,
and I agreed to do that and put it on
my calendar and didn't. So while I had a bunch
of people from China in my office trying to do business,
our guest Brian showed up for his interview, and so all.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
The way from New York, all the way.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh my gosh. Anyway, basically I'm a loser and I
double booked by time and Alex aptly filled in for me.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
You know what had solved this bill? What's that We've
only talked about it like a hundred times, which is
what a Google calendar no, like I can put things
like the rest of the world, okay, has adopted these
things called digital calendars.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
The paper calendar that I have does. Batteries can never
go dead in it, except it's not.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
It doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
It does work.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Your process failed.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
I think you just need to send me a master
or something. But I'm not doing Google Calendar because I
don't want the battery to go out in my calendar.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I've never had the battery go out on my computer.
I charge it like, and I charge my phone like.
It's not a problem.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Anyways, Brian is a middle class dude from Wayne, New
Jersey who showed up and I know showed him, but
Alex handled the interview quite well. So let's go to
the conversation with Alex on working in Manhattan.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
You know, I grew attached to this company and sadly
they decided to let go of all the US employees
in my in my department, like outsourcing overseas. And this
is this is twenty fifteen. This is so, this isn't
the first time I've this is the first time I
ever got laid off and lost my job. So twenty fifteen,
thankfully bounced back to work for another agency that later
(04:59):
got acquired by some other company and got laid off
again twenty fifteen. So in that moment in twenty fifteen,
I was questioning my own self work.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
And to come, what were you married at the time.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I met my wife, Jennifer in twenty fourteen, so she
was with me like right in, like the heat of
it all one year of dating. We got married in
twenty eighteen, so she stuck by me during some crazy times.
So I knew that I needed to change and worked
(05:33):
for an agency where I was with for three and
a half years, and I learned there that the grass
isn't always greener, no pun intended, like because I heard
from a recruiter that offered to pay more with an
easier commute for me, and I was getting ready to
start a family, bought a house, and this is the
company that I was with when the pandemic started. So
(05:53):
we all started working from home. And it was June
of twenty twenty that I thought I was getting a
phone call from HR about paternity leave. I was we
were expecting our first newborn.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And how long from then?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So yeah, so it was June eighth of twenty twenty,
so he was slated. He was gonna be born in
July of twenty twenty. So it was June of twenty twenty,
like a month prior. So at that moment, my wife
is eight months pregnant. Let me I'm sorry, Let me
trace back a second. So it was before I joined
this company. It was Thanksgiving of this is an important
(06:33):
part Thanksgiving, Like right before Thanksgiving of twenty eighteen, I
was still with that one agency I was with for
a few years and received a call from my father
directly my biological father, that he they found a tumor
in his brain and required surgery. So I was in shambles,
(06:55):
like trying to understand what's going on and so. And
he was living in Boston with his new wife and
his two kids, who at the time were like young teens,
and my you know, coworkers pulled me aside. We went downstairs,
like I tried to get myself together, and he called
me and told me that it was pretty much a
(07:16):
stage four glioblastoma, like the most aggressive form of brain cancer.
And I think the commons person was my father, like
he was telling us it's okay, like he's had a
good life, he's got four kids. He was sixty five
at the time, young young, Yeah. I mean the most
(07:38):
admirable trait of his was his brain. His brain, Like
he was so smart, like doing stuff for like the government.
I'd never really understood with all the stuff he was doing.
But we went out there to support like some of
the surgeries he went through, some like treatments. The doctors
only gave him fifteen months to live, and this was
(07:58):
Thanksgiving of two thousand and eight teen. Fast forward, he
surpassed doctor projections. He met his first grandson, and this
was the summer of twenty twenty, so Tosher will Power,
he met his first grandson, and it was like the
early well towards the tail end of twenty twenty that
(08:19):
he saw this nonprofit get started, like he was one
of the first.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
To jumping ahead. Yeah, I'm jump get the phone call
from h your.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Heart Yeah so now okay, now, so going back to
this latest agency that was with in twenty twenty, telling
me there to let me go straight up, and they
knew that I was expecting a newborn, and they knew
that my father was battling an illness. Mind you, at
the same time, like I just had a grandfather who
just passed like months prior before the pandemic. Thankfully we
(08:51):
had a proper burial for him. I was really close
with him. And combine everything that just happened there in
that moment, thinking about losing a job that was pretty
much six figures going to zero and going to have
to collect unemployment, go on a mortgage forbearance.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
The first time you had ever done either of those things,
going unemployment and mortgage for a barance first time?
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah? Both, yeah, both, yep, that was the first time
I had to do that. So I was obviously very stressful.
Between that and my wife having the first newborn, trying
to having to deliver the news to her was quite stressful,
combined with telling my father like who's you know battling
in illness, terminal illness and everything else going down in
(09:39):
the world with COVID and societal unrest and yeah, so
they told me twenty twenty and I think it was
like a few weeks later. Well, it was a few
days later that on a whim, I just said, you know,
I understand that volunteering in the time of job transition
(10:01):
is helpful for oneself, not just for your yourself, but
as almost like a conversational piece for possible employers. And
I probably could have just signed up to volunteer for
Habitat for Humanity or any other which was great too. Yeah,
of course by all means, yes, but I didn't have
(10:23):
I felt like I didn't have any control over anything.
So I just, on a whim utilize some of my
advertising website background just to create a website, adding some
simple contact information called I want to Mow your lawn
dot com. Very straightforward.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
That's funny you started a website out the gate rather
than just like a few days later doing it, maybe
for a couple of people first to eventually get around
to website.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, so I I it was a culmination of events
between millions of people losing their jobs, older adults being
vulnerable to the virus. The quote the yeah, just in
a parallel universe, I might not have I probably would
not have made such a decision. I'd still be in
(11:10):
my own world, commuting into New York City, living the
high life, working for an advertising agency, commuting every day,
versus leaning in and adapting to the times. I could
have just stayed holed up and been depressed at home.
But instead of just like putting out to my LinkedIn
network that I'm looking for a job, can someone help me,
like just asking for something, I wanted to add to
(11:31):
something I want to because I tried to. I tuned
out social media for a while, just just with all
the bad news going on, but I wanted to contribute
some way to I felt like I was still fully capable,
Like I'm very big into going to the gym and
staying active, and at that time, like the gyms were,
you know, on lockdown for a few months. So I
wanted to do something active. So just mowing my own
(11:55):
loan was a form of therapy for me. So it
just it made perfect say it as like kind of
like a social distant activity and thinking about my late
grandfather who just passed, and think about the stress that
some families were going through. It was just I put
just it made perfect sense in that moment to offer
just mowing to people that couldn't use it. And so
(12:18):
I advertised, I put that on my website, posted it
up on social media, and that same day I get
a call from a local news reporter and did like
a news story on it. And this was like before
I even I had no vision.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Before anyone's lawn.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yet, before I mooted anyone's lawn, I.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Think they should have waited until the lawn.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, but I guess the set of the saying you know,
uh laid off individual wants. Again, it wasn't like a
mainstream thing, just like a local TV spot. And he
I remember speaking with him, He's like, you sure you
want to do this? You probably get a lot of
phone calls. I'm like, sure, I got nothing to.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Lose, And did you give out your phone number.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Or I set up actually in that read before I
even I have like the business website address had the website,
but I also have like a business phone number, just
thinking ahead that I would probably get a gazillion phone call.
So no one was calling my personal cell phone. And
that's still the same phone number we used to this day.
(13:22):
And yeah, so the story came out, the story came out.
I put up a Facebook page and repurposed that and
through a few advertising dollars with some money that I
did have save up, just to keep my mind, my body,
my soul stimulated, because like it was super stressful. Right.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
So I heard you in another interview, and it's an
interesting thing that, I mean, you just lost your income
and yet I think you spent around five hundred dollars
in advertising on Facebook, you know, whereas you know most
people in that moment. I wanted to reflect on this
a little bit earlier too. It's just thankfully I've not
been through that, so I haven't had the experience I
(14:03):
mean telling you in the car. I mean, I've been
through divorce and other ugly things I didn't want, you know,
in my life, but I have not had a layoff
that i've you know, dealt with, and like the fear
of where you're going to make you know money and
how hard I mean, I'm sure it's hard for a
woman to tell her husband too, but for you know,
feel a man to come home and tell your wife
that you know and how you would, you know feel
(14:25):
about yourself. I'm sure you know all those are tough,
you know, and raising and then obviously needing to protect
your money too because you don't know the future, you know,
and yet you're willing to spend a five hundred dollars
that you probably shouldn't been doing.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Nuts. I don't know what got like. It feels like
a blur, but I feel like, at the same time,
like I could at least get the word out because
it was a win win for all. Right, I'm trying
to like do something good for humanity, do something for
myself that you know, makes me feel good. I felt
(15:02):
like that would also be a talking point for potential Again,
this was when I didn't even it didn't become a
nonprofit yet, Like, I had no visions, no plans, just
to stay busy until I figured out the next step
in my life, right, And I felt like I can
speak to that advertising aspect for any potential employer that
might come. So I did throw like a link to
(15:23):
like my portfolio on that website at that time. It
was so it was like a win win for everyone
with hopes that somebody would see it and consider reaching out.
And I did hear from some from some people along
the way for job opportunities from doing that specifically. So
and that was my mindset at the time, right, And
(15:46):
so putting the advertising dollars around, like to anyone that
was in within a five mile radius, sixty five years
and older, and I started to develop like a pretty
decent portfolio of homes within twenty mile radius, and I
was saying yes to everything. I think I found myself
going thirty miles each way.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
All right, It's like, how many homes s're in this radius?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
There's a lot of thousands upon thousands.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
But how many did you hear from.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I must have thinking back to the original campaign's probably
a couple hundred.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Wow, I assume you didn't cut off a couple hundred later.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
So no, to this day, maybe I'm around one hundred
and fifty myself real individual homes. Holy cow, I'm like
five years later.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
A total or on a regular base total okay, which
I'll get into.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, in terms of frequency you.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Would Rodene your nuts. But we'll get into that at
a minute.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Ye round, yeah, and now a few messages from our
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(17:05):
or if you prefer reading about our incredible guests, we'll
be right back.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So when I started to feel like it's getting to
be too much, I decided to kind of just put
a press release out to like a larger newspaper.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
And so when it was getting to be too much,
tell me, like what that was like in a week,
Like at that point, how many longs are you doing
a week?
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I was doing it like an average three to four
a day, like a busy day.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
That's a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, I had a few extra hours to spare just
folding up my personal gas mower into the back of
the family jeep. You know, grass clippings everywhere, gasoline smell,
and had a baby seat right in the middle.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And what's your wife saying about all this?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, it can't go on for good. So I mean,
I was probably Getna a car wash every week or so,
and she's.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Like, I don't want to be spending money on the
car wash or the gas. Yeah, like, yeah, you should
be applying to jobs rather than like, I mean, honestly
what she's saying to you.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
So a pivotal moment of that was in August of
twenty twenty, there's a larger newspaper that came out to
run a story which ultimately inspired a couple others that
were in a similar boat that were laid off or furloughed,
had the equipment and a means to transport it around.
(18:56):
A guy named Tom, a guy named Pete first two volunteers,
and so I was able to distribute out the tasks
at the same time from that same During that same period,
I heard from a local orthopedic surgeon office, and it
was brilliant on his behalf right, because his demographic is
mostly like older adults with back issues and stuff. And
(19:20):
he saw a clip of me somewhere with like lifting
up my mower putting in the back of the family jeep.
And so they purchased a six by twelve enclosed trailer
with like branding and everything, and of course we slapped
their logo on it. They're called the One Oak Medical.
So I was literally I was literally able to lug
around this trailer on the back of my jeep within
(19:44):
a matter of a couple of months of just doing something.
And it wasn't even a nonprofit yet.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
And you didn't reach out to this person. They reached out.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
They reach out to me, doctor Mahmoud. So I had
a chance to like visit with them, and they gave
me like a free like like check up and stuff
and a free back brace. So that was cool just
to keep going. And I still have it in my
in my driveway just pulling stuff around, so that that
(20:14):
was like a game changer right there, just not having
to use our family jeep. And so from there, I'm like,
you know, maybe you keep going see where this goes,
and you never know who's watching. And I guess one
thing after another, like a nationwide news thing picked it up,
like CBS Saturday Morning. Yeah, and for the name, but
(20:38):
it was Nancy Chen was one of the was the
the woman that was there in person. But yeah, a
producer like left me a voicemail. I'm like, is this real?
Like I have to like listen to it a couple
of times and call back, and it was like a
week later they scheduled a shoot at a couple homes
of guys that we were doing, and both homeowners were
(21:00):
gracious enough to also take part in that, and that
just blew things up, Like, uh, I'm still trying to
I think, to this day, I'm still trying to process
that surreal like thinking back, like I I I try
to like start up like these businesses, and I might
have sold one for a decent amount, nothing crazy, but
(21:21):
mostly failed. Like it was all like digital stuff, and
I can understand what it's like to receive any form
of media mentioned, So I didn't take it for granted, right,
and so I wanted to kind of parlay that into
something almost bigger than myself, Like.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
So what happened in that moment?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Like I started, I'm getting like, well, first off, I
gave the heads up to like my personal network that
this is airing tomorrow, and like after it aired, I
got a video text message from a friend that lives
in California showing the video in his living room with
his little toddler looking at it, and I'm like, is
(22:01):
this really happening? Like I'm like, I'm actually like, there's
this kid here like absorbing something two thousand miles away
from where I live. I'm like, and then I'm getting
I get a video from my step mom with my
father who was in his later stages, sitting in the
(22:22):
living room or kitchen with with my half brother, half sister,
seeing him like in tears, which you never really saw
a whole lot of, and like I remember him saying,
that's your brother. And I still have that video in
my my phone. I look at it.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Here and there and right now talk about it.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
No, he I knew that he was just proud of me,
and I think he saw what I was, I guess
trying to do in that moment because thinking about our
own mortality. And so that's that's what personal motivation that
keeps me me going, keeps me going knowing that he's
still proud and looking down and living through me. So
(23:03):
I just want to keep making them proud. So in
that yeah, So that news story just opened up Pandora's
box in a good in a good way. I'm hearing
from people everywhere from California to Texas looking for help,
(23:24):
wanting to help, donations like you're hearing like my VENMO
that I had set up there like just chink chin,
and I've started to hear from perfect strangers and connections
saying you should actually make this into like a nonprofit,
And I looked into it and ultimately started a GoFundMe
(23:46):
that and now allowed for us to create the five
oh one C three that it is today.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
That's kind of funny too. You didn't think about it
before the interview dropped.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, no, I didn't know where Again, I was just
following my heart. Yeah, kept mowing and yeah, just from
that point think just.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
So what were the volume of like do you have
any sets of it? If people reaching out either in
total or how many looking a volunteer, how many looking
for help?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Well, I'll tell you, at least to this present day,
that business phone number that I had set up, we
tracked over ten thousand phone calls to date last time
to date through this past season. Wow. So this past
year alone, three thousand phone calls have been tracked. Going
back to my advertising days, we had a voicemail tracking
(24:35):
system that I was able to have donated like an
enterprise software where we have like five hundred free minutes
per month and just putting a lot of the ducks
in a row. To this day, there's been multiple iterations
like focus a lot on the technology, have reinvested everything,
(24:55):
haven't taken a dime for myself. It's all just volunteer based, all.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Right, So keep telling us how it grew and how
to develop.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
An interesting An interesting part that definitely helped get things
going was I was creating like these partnerships, like to
a degree, like officially unofficially, some with like my network
that I've already built up, right, So I mentioned that
voicemail translation I'm sorry, the voicemail tracking platform that I
(25:27):
had worked with in the past from the ad tech space.
And then there was also someone else in my network
that worked for like a background screening platform and partner
with them in order to help like speak to people
that might be hesitant to receive a volunteer. So we
wanted to at the time screen volunteers. Fast forward to today,
(25:51):
we don't do that anymore because we have our own
mechanisms to do the screening of individuals that want to help.
But in that moment, they're based out of Houston, Texas area,
and so we announced this unofficial partnership on LinkedIn that
just by chance, some other volunteers saw this announcement and
(26:12):
that person this, there's this woman named Lauren who is
based out of Houston, laid off, a mother of two,
signed up and offered to help and got her set up.
And I followed that same methodology I did with for
myself just to generate some leads, to generate leads in
(26:32):
the Houston area, sixty five in older five miles, and
built up like a portfolio for this woman on her
behalf with like you know, I set up a profile.
This is all manual, by the way. Like I set
up like a profile for Lauren, and she had like
five or six seniors that she was helping in the
(26:52):
Houston community. And I was proactive. I reached out to
like a few different news stations in Houston that ultimately
found it to be interesting a woman, a mother of
two laid off helping out seniors, and they did like
a plug on her. So I was able to like
repurpose that for our social media and like start showing
(27:15):
like clips. And that was just when we had Facebook
so fast forwards today I've we have six active social
media channels like building up content and so that was
like how we built up like started like these pockets
of areas. So we have like from that segment, more
people signing up from Houston and volunteers and so one
(27:38):
of our most I like to call him a Vallin star.
His name is Jim. I think he saw like one
of Lauren's plugs and he's this guy is a machine.
He's been going NonStop helping like a disabled war veteran
in Houston and a couple others that we've sent his way.
We've been able to get him some equipment upgraded, so
(28:01):
all these little.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Things we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Again. We just started doing mowing. While we're on premise,
people are asking us about other services we might not
specialize in, which inspired us to add all these other
service offerings to the volunteer side and the client side. Effectively,
we operate almost like a matchmaker for people that are
(28:57):
looking for help and people.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
That want to help or other things. I'm sure, but.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Leaf removal, snow removal. We're also getting requests for like
home services such as pest control, tree removal, door widening,
so like not saying that we're offering it, we're at
least collecting this information with hopes to make more connections
with people to make these kinds of referrals. Maybe if
(29:25):
they can't do it for free, maybe they can offer
some deep senior citizen military veterans discount. We're kind of
like the tip of the glacier, building the trust with
people coming to their properties with hopes that we can
maybe establish this network of other professionals or volunteers that
might specialize in these things. Yeah. So, like, for instance,
(29:47):
we had a guy in Minnesota that went around to
do twelve different homes when it was a bad snowstorm,
and that got some publicity which helped us attract more
vo tiers in Minnesota. So you follow that sit I've
been following that same method in terms of earned media
(30:09):
and utilizing social media to help get the word out.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
And ultimately do more good at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah. No, And then like again like yeah, just more
than anything is the impacts. Right. We've been able to
track conservatively two thousand unique homes that we've been to,
and that's not accounting for some that are doing regular.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Visits like summer cutting these folks as grass every week
or every other weeks on an ongoing basis.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Right, And one thing that we you know, there's been
a lot of learning lessons along the way in terms
of expectations. So one of the things that we've we've
implemented is our expectations of service language, ensuring people know
that we're not a replacement for landscapers. We do what
we can when we can, almost as temporary relief. But
(31:01):
there is exceptional cases where again we just provide the
leads and we provide volunteer accident insurance coverage to volunteers.
We've been able to send yard signs to show neighbors
like what's going on, like why someone's there, sending out
a tire through some of the funds raised, but ultimately
(31:24):
just providing some ounts of relief. But there is exceptional
cases where people have more time than others. Recently retired
super active I have some guys that are going around
regularly logging like tens. It's not hundreds of hours with
dozens of regular repeat clients. They're not as tech savvy
(31:45):
enough to like log into our platform and track their
hours and report back to us. So we're doing the
best we can to conservatively at least track the visits
that are being made. But we've at least made strides
with the technology allowing for volunteers to log into our dashboard,
add their hours, and talk about their experience, upload before
(32:07):
and after photos us In the past, it was myself
for one of our back end volunteers reaching out trying
to like pry that information or remind them. So now
we have the website as well as an actual SMS
texting feature where they can organically just text photos to
a phone number we have and it recognizes their phone
number that's attached to their account, so we can log
(32:31):
that information. Then we just have like a templated sequence
of like robotic questions that are automatically logging it. So
as I'm speaking to you now, connections are potentially being made.
I just saw it, like five in the morning, we
have a volunteer nearby that is looking for help. Can
you be of assistance? Came a long way to get
it to this point, Like there's so many parts that
(32:52):
have had to have come together, between having volunteers nearby
but also having like the technology to detect someone is nearby.
It was a couple of years ago I literally had
virtual paid assistants super part time on the books, manually
typing in Google Maps for someone that might be nearby
(33:12):
that we have like this huge Excel list. We have
over one thy four hundred actively enlisted volunteers all across
the USA and even some in other countries, and we
actually have like a volunt there's an actual visual map
now updating in real time. If and when they're reviewed
and approved, automatically it pins them into our visual map
(33:36):
and link. You can zoom in like like pins and
zoom and see their profile in their general area. Obviously
thinking about like privacy, so it just shows like a
general vicinity. But to be able to have someone sign
up and for us to alert someone like so proud
of how far we come. There's still a lot to
(33:56):
be done. I mentioned the two thousand or so homes
we've been to, but we've had way more requests than
we can handle, So still so much that could be
done in terms of the supply side. There's a big
demand for our service, have you know we've put a
lot of effort into also, like some of the search
engine optimization as well.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, it's an amazing tech platform you built and I
know you you're back and played. You've been working for
you know, many years now, so it's like, you know,
you you have a normal job, and yet you've been
building out this you know, tech platform and running this thing,
Like are you doing this night's weekends? Like it seems
like a lot of work to build out.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
It's very overwhelming. I saw a quote somewhere, it was
actually at the post office the other day that said
that at the end of the day, you're doing the
best you can with what you got, and that's good enough.
So I found myself like, I feel like, if I
didn't have some of these technology automation improvements in place,
there's no way it would have been able to sustain
(35:00):
without because obviously there's no paid salaries employees, Like mending
the ship, a lot of it still falls on me,
and there's still a human element, right, So yeah, there's
there's definitely I'm putting it way more time into it,
but thankfully I have my employer's blessing to do this.
On the side, there's no conflict as time permits. I
have my wife's support and family support to do that.
(35:22):
And of course I have a four and a half
year old son at home and a newborn that's two
months old, so that's definitely tiring. But I yeah. Another
thing I also forgot to mention as part of the technology,
we receive the grants from a local credit union to
(35:43):
improve on a couple of things. One is scoring the
homeowner leads that come in and helping determine the ones
that are the most in need versus the ones that
are not. So we ask everything under the sun to
ensure that it's not someone that could probably have forward
it or do it themselves, or might be taking advantage
(36:03):
of it. So we try to prioritize low to moderate
household income for starters. And of course, so many other
things we take into account is if they live alone,
or if they have children that are physically abled. So
there's like this algorithm in place that helps us find
the ones that are most pressing. So it's a form
(36:23):
of arbitrage just getting around to the ones that are
in need. And of course we have to take into
consideration if we have the coverage for it. And I
mentioned the so a few ways that homeowners are reaching
out to us. It's through the website, through social media,
through email, and through voicemail. We try to get everyone
(36:44):
to sign up on the website because it just has
everything that we need. But if they're reaching out over
the phone a little less tech savvy. We had another
grant that enabled us to automate translate what is being
said over voicemail in real time. They're telling us the
ZIP code, which allows for us to detect our nearby location.
(37:05):
So we follow that same logic that we do with
the website to alert somebody in real time that there's
a voicemail nearby, and we pass along that voicemail recording
to the volunteers that they can listen to and dial
back directly. Thinking back, yeah, thinking back to a couple
of years ago, I had like a call center agent
for overseas dialing back these voicemails, trying to make a
(37:28):
connection and asking this information. As costly, it's not sustainable.
So it's been a year of as they call it,
a year of efficiency and automation, just trying to scale
up this kindness platform.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
And you mentioned in a minute ago how many total
requests have come in to date. I don't think you
said the number.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
But multiply what we've been able to do by five,
it's like one in every five, so about ten thousand
lifetime to date. So there's lots of work to be
done in terms of recruiting help. But we're improving, Like
you know, I've we revamped our intake. I had help
(38:12):
with a Google Translate designer to fix our navigation and
the experience. Hired on some developers overseas to just improve that.
There's still work. I'm getting emails even to this day
about certain uploads not working or not taking long enough.
So there's all these like little intricacies. There's a lot
that goes on.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Under the hood, and you've got another job.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
It's impressive.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Thank you. It's hard. Again, There's been times where I
thought about shutting it down. I don't there's nothing left.
I don't have anything to prove to anyone. It's I'm
challenging myself to see how far it can go. And
when we make those connections and I get like those
(39:01):
thank yous not just from homeowners and their neighbors, but
volunteers for making those for helping set that up, because
I'll echo like feedback from one specific volunteer named Tom
that said he might have only spent ten minutes doing
long care for this military veteran and then ended up
(39:23):
speaking for twenty thirty minutes afterwards. With the guy like
speaking his zero off and he's like, what about the
human connection.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Which that veteran probably needed too. For sure, it's a
big loneliness epidemic going on in the country.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yeah, And that concludes part one of Alex's conversation with
Brian Schwartz, and you don't want to miss part two
that's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can
change this country and it starts with you. I'll see
in part two.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
You don't think to
There was this perfect stranger, this woman in New York
named Sloan who sent a snail mail letter in the
mail that said, I saw the story about you, and again,
this was a person that I was not. Ever we
didn't help her with lawns, but I guess it was
a time when she needed to hear or see something
I didn't. I didn't know what she was going through.
(00:26):
I didn't know this person. She wrote me a letter saying,
dear Brian, I saw the story about you mowing lawns.
It gave me some hope and inspiration. And then she
went on to say I once saw on a T
shirt either reason someone believes in the goodness of people,
and she left it off with you are that reason, sir,
(00:47):
and that it made it made me cry, and it
was something that I needed to hear in that moment.
It made me feel valued, like I was doing something meaningful,
and I wanted to scale up that feeling, realizing I'm
to something just bigger than myself.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Now, welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
Inner City Memphis, and that last part somehow it led
to an oscar for the film about our team. That
(01:24):
movie is called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems
are never going to be solved by a bunch of
fancy people in nice suits using big words that nobody
ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an
army of normal folks us just you and me deciding, Hey,
you know what, maybe I can help. That's what Brian Schwartz,
(01:48):
the voice you just heard, has done. Brian is the
founder of I Want to Mow Your Lawn, which started
with him deciding to mow lawns of folks in need
in his area, and it has turned into his own
army of one thousand, four hundred and four normal folks
moined the lines of over two thousand people. I cannot
(02:11):
wait for you to meet Brian right after these brief
messages from our generous sponsors, Hey, everybody, welcome back. So
(02:39):
here's the deal. I do business in a lot of
different countries and excuse office, what excuses excuses? And I
have an office in Shanghai and had a contingent here
from China when we did this interview, and Alex apparently
(03:00):
texted me the date and the time of the interview,
and I agreed to do that and put it on
my calendar and didn't. So while I had a bunch
of people from China in my office trying to do business,
our guest Brian showed up for his interview, and so all.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
The way from New York, all the way.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh my gosh. Anyway, basically I'm a loser and I
double booked by time and Alex aptly filled in for me.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
You know what had solved this bill? What's that We've
only talked about it like a hundred times, which is
what a Google calendar no, like I can put things
like the rest of the world, okay, has adopted these
things called digital calendars.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
The paper calendar that I have does. Batteries can never
go dead in it, except it's not.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
It doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
It does work.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Your process failed.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
I think you just need to send me a master
or something. But I'm not doing Google Calendar because I
don't want the battery to go out in my calendar.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I've never had the battery go out on my computer.
I charge it like, and I charge my phone like.
It's not a problem.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Anyways, Brian is a middle class dude from Wayne, New
Jersey who showed up and I know showed him, but
Alex handled the interview quite well. So let's go to
the conversation with Alex on working in Manhattan.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
You know, I grew attached to this company and sadly
they decided to let go of all the US employees
in my in my department, like outsourcing overseas. And this
is this is twenty fifteen. This is so, this isn't
the first time I've this is the first time I
ever got laid off and lost my job. So twenty fifteen,
thankfully bounced back to work for another agency that later
(04:59):
got acquired by some other company and got laid off
again twenty fifteen. So in that moment in twenty fifteen,
I was questioning my own self work.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
And to come, what were you married at the time.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I met my wife, Jennifer in twenty fourteen, so she
was with me like right in, like the heat of
it all one year of dating. We got married in
twenty eighteen, so she stuck by me during some crazy times.
So I knew that I needed to change and worked
(05:33):
for an agency where I was with for three and
a half years, and I learned there that the grass
isn't always greener, no pun intended, like because I heard
from a recruiter that offered to pay more with an
easier commute for me, and I was getting ready to
start a family, bought a house, and this is the
company that I was with when the pandemic started. So
(05:53):
we all started working from home. And it was June
of twenty twenty that I thought I was getting a
phone call from HR about paternity leave. I was we
were expecting our first newborn.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And how long from then?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So yeah, so it was June eighth of twenty twenty,
so he was slated. He was gonna be born in
July of twenty twenty. So it was June of twenty twenty,
like a month prior. So at that moment, my wife
is eight months pregnant. Let me I'm sorry, Let me
trace back a second. So it was before I joined
this company. It was Thanksgiving of this is an important
(06:33):
part Thanksgiving, Like right before Thanksgiving of twenty eighteen, I
was still with that one agency I was with for
a few years and received a call from my father
directly my biological father, that he they found a tumor
in his brain and required surgery. So I was in shambles,
(06:55):
like trying to understand what's going on and so. And
he was living in Boston with his new wife and
his two kids, who at the time were like young teens,
and my you know, coworkers pulled me aside. We went downstairs,
like I tried to get myself together, and he called
me and told me that it was pretty much a
(07:16):
stage four glioblastoma, like the most aggressive form of brain cancer.
And I think the commons person was my father, like
he was telling us it's okay, like he's had a
good life, he's got four kids. He was sixty five
at the time, young young, Yeah. I mean the most
(07:38):
admirable trait of his was his brain. His brain, Like
he was so smart, like doing stuff for like the government.
I'd never really understood with all the stuff he was doing.
But we went out there to support like some of
the surgeries he went through, some like treatments. The doctors
only gave him fifteen months to live, and this was
(07:58):
Thanksgiving of two thousand and eight teen. Fast forward, he
surpassed doctor projections. He met his first grandson, and this
was the summer of twenty twenty, so Tosher will Power,
he met his first grandson, and it was like the
early well towards the tail end of twenty twenty that
(08:19):
he saw this nonprofit get started, like he was one
of the first.
Speaker 3 (08:25):
To jumping ahead. Yeah, I'm jump get the phone call
from h your.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Heart Yeah so now okay, now, so going back to
this latest agency that was with in twenty twenty, telling
me there to let me go straight up, and they
knew that I was expecting a newborn, and they knew
that my father was battling an illness. Mind you, at
the same time, like I just had a grandfather who
just passed like months prior before the pandemic. Thankfully we
(08:51):
had a proper burial for him. I was really close
with him. And combine everything that just happened there in
that moment, thinking about losing a job that was pretty
much six figures going to zero and going to have
to collect unemployment, go on a mortgage forbearance.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
The first time you had ever done either of those things,
going unemployment and mortgage for a barance first time?
Speaker 1 (09:16):
Yeah? Both, yeah, both, yep, that was the first time
I had to do that. So I was obviously very stressful.
Between that and my wife having the first newborn, trying
to having to deliver the news to her was quite stressful,
combined with telling my father like who's you know battling
in illness, terminal illness and everything else going down in
(09:39):
the world with COVID and societal unrest and yeah, so
they told me twenty twenty and I think it was
like a few weeks later. Well, it was a few
days later that on a whim, I just said, you know,
I understand that volunteering in the time of job transition
(10:01):
is helpful for oneself, not just for your yourself, but
as almost like a conversational piece for possible employers. And
I probably could have just signed up to volunteer for
Habitat for Humanity or any other which was great too. Yeah,
of course by all means, yes, but I didn't have
(10:23):
I felt like I didn't have any control over anything.
So I just, on a whim utilize some of my
advertising website background just to create a website, adding some
simple contact information called I want to Mow your lawn
dot com. Very straightforward.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
That's funny you started a website out the gate rather
than just like a few days later doing it, maybe
for a couple of people first to eventually get around
to website.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Yeah, so I I it was a culmination of events
between millions of people losing their jobs, older adults being
vulnerable to the virus. The quote the yeah, just in
a parallel universe, I might not have I probably would
not have made such a decision. I'd still be in
(11:10):
my own world, commuting into New York City, living the
high life, working for an advertising agency, commuting every day,
versus leaning in and adapting to the times. I could
have just stayed holed up and been depressed at home.
But instead of just like putting out to my LinkedIn
network that I'm looking for a job, can someone help me,
like just asking for something, I wanted to add to
(11:31):
something I want to because I tried to. I tuned
out social media for a while, just just with all
the bad news going on, but I wanted to contribute
some way to I felt like I was still fully capable,
Like I'm very big into going to the gym and
staying active, and at that time, like the gyms were,
you know, on lockdown for a few months. So I
wanted to do something active. So just mowing my own
(11:55):
loan was a form of therapy for me. So it
just it made perfect say it as like kind of
like a social distant activity and thinking about my late
grandfather who just passed, and think about the stress that
some families were going through. It was just I put
just it made perfect sense in that moment to offer
just mowing to people that couldn't use it. And so
(12:18):
I advertised, I put that on my website, posted it
up on social media, and that same day I get
a call from a local news reporter and did like
a news story on it. And this was like before
I even I had no vision.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Before anyone's lawn.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yet, before I mooted anyone's lawn, I.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Think they should have waited until the lawn.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, but I guess the set of the saying you know,
uh laid off individual wants. Again, it wasn't like a
mainstream thing, just like a local TV spot. And he
I remember speaking with him, He's like, you sure you
want to do this? You probably get a lot of
phone calls. I'm like, sure, I got nothing to.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Lose, And did you give out your phone number.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Or I set up actually in that read before I
even I have like the business website address had the website,
but I also have like a business phone number, just
thinking ahead that I would probably get a gazillion phone call.
So no one was calling my personal cell phone. And
that's still the same phone number we used to this day.
(13:22):
And yeah, so the story came out, the story came out.
I put up a Facebook page and repurposed that and
through a few advertising dollars with some money that I
did have save up, just to keep my mind, my body,
my soul stimulated, because like it was super stressful. Right.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
So I heard you in another interview, and it's an
interesting thing that, I mean, you just lost your income
and yet I think you spent around five hundred dollars
in advertising on Facebook, you know, whereas you know most
people in that moment. I wanted to reflect on this
a little bit earlier too. It's just thankfully I've not
been through that, so I haven't had the experience I
(14:03):
mean telling you in the car. I mean, I've been
through divorce and other ugly things I didn't want, you know,
in my life, but I have not had a layoff
that i've you know, dealt with, and like the fear
of where you're going to make you know money and
how hard I mean, I'm sure it's hard for a
woman to tell her husband too, but for you know,
feel a man to come home and tell your wife
that you know and how you would, you know feel
(14:25):
about yourself. I'm sure you know all those are tough,
you know, and raising and then obviously needing to protect
your money too because you don't know the future, you know,
and yet you're willing to spend a five hundred dollars
that you probably shouldn't been doing.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Nuts. I don't know what got like. It feels like
a blur, but I feel like, at the same time,
like I could at least get the word out because
it was a win win for all. Right, I'm trying
to like do something good for humanity, do something for
myself that you know, makes me feel good. I felt
(15:02):
like that would also be a talking point for potential Again,
this was when I didn't even it didn't become a
nonprofit yet, Like, I had no visions, no plans, just
to stay busy until I figured out the next step
in my life, right, And I felt like I can
speak to that advertising aspect for any potential employer that
might come. So I did throw like a link to
(15:23):
like my portfolio on that website at that time. It
was so it was like a win win for everyone
with hopes that somebody would see it and consider reaching out.
And I did hear from some from some people along
the way for job opportunities from doing that specifically. So
and that was my mindset at the time, right, And
(15:46):
so putting the advertising dollars around, like to anyone that
was in within a five mile radius, sixty five years
and older, and I started to develop like a pretty
decent portfolio of homes within twenty mile radius, and I
was saying yes to everything. I think I found myself
going thirty miles each way.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
All right, It's like, how many homes s're in this radius?
Speaker 1 (16:10):
There's a lot of thousands upon thousands.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
But how many did you hear from.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I must have thinking back to the original campaign's probably
a couple hundred.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Wow, I assume you didn't cut off a couple hundred later.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
So no, to this day, maybe I'm around one hundred
and fifty myself real individual homes. Holy cow, I'm like
five years later.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
A total or on a regular base total okay, which
I'll get into.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, in terms of frequency you.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Would Rodene your nuts. But we'll get into that at
a minute.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Ye round, yeah, and now a few messages from our
gender sponsors. But first, I hope you'll consider signing up
to join the army at normal folks dot us. By
signing up, you'll receive a weekly email with short episodes
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(17:05):
or if you prefer reading about our incredible guests, we'll
be right back.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
So when I started to feel like it's getting to
be too much, I decided to kind of just put
a press release out to like a larger newspaper.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
And so when it was getting to be too much,
tell me, like what that was like in a week,
Like at that point, how many longs are you doing
a week?
Speaker 1 (17:54):
I was doing it like an average three to four
a day, like a busy day.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
That's a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, I had a few extra hours to spare just
folding up my personal gas mower into the back of
the family jeep. You know, grass clippings everywhere, gasoline smell,
and had a baby seat right in the middle.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
And what's your wife saying about all this?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah, it can't go on for good. So I mean,
I was probably Getna a car wash every week or so,
and she's.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Like, I don't want to be spending money on the
car wash or the gas. Yeah, like, yeah, you should
be applying to jobs rather than like, I mean, honestly
what she's saying to you.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
So a pivotal moment of that was in August of
twenty twenty, there's a larger newspaper that came out to
run a story which ultimately inspired a couple others that
were in a similar boat that were laid off or furloughed,
had the equipment and a means to transport it around.
(18:56):
A guy named Tom, a guy named Pete first two volunteers,
and so I was able to distribute out the tasks
at the same time from that same During that same period,
I heard from a local orthopedic surgeon office, and it
was brilliant on his behalf right, because his demographic is
mostly like older adults with back issues and stuff. And
(19:20):
he saw a clip of me somewhere with like lifting
up my mower putting in the back of the family jeep.
And so they purchased a six by twelve enclosed trailer
with like branding and everything, and of course we slapped
their logo on it. They're called the One Oak Medical.
So I was literally I was literally able to lug
around this trailer on the back of my jeep within
(19:44):
a matter of a couple of months of just doing something.
And it wasn't even a nonprofit yet.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
And you didn't reach out to this person. They reached out.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
They reach out to me, doctor Mahmoud. So I had
a chance to like visit with them, and they gave
me like a free like like check up and stuff
and a free back brace. So that was cool just
to keep going. And I still have it in my
in my driveway just pulling stuff around, so that that
(20:14):
was like a game changer right there, just not having
to use our family jeep. And so from there, I'm like,
you know, maybe you keep going see where this goes,
and you never know who's watching. And I guess one
thing after another, like a nationwide news thing picked it up,
like CBS Saturday Morning. Yeah, and for the name, but
(20:38):
it was Nancy Chen was one of the was the
the woman that was there in person. But yeah, a
producer like left me a voicemail. I'm like, is this real?
Like I have to like listen to it a couple
of times and call back, and it was like a
week later they scheduled a shoot at a couple homes
of guys that we were doing, and both homeowners were
(21:00):
gracious enough to also take part in that, and that
just blew things up, Like, uh, I'm still trying to
I think, to this day, I'm still trying to process
that surreal like thinking back, like I I I try
to like start up like these businesses, and I might
have sold one for a decent amount, nothing crazy, but
(21:21):
mostly failed. Like it was all like digital stuff, and
I can understand what it's like to receive any form
of media mentioned, So I didn't take it for granted, right,
and so I wanted to kind of parlay that into
something almost bigger than myself, Like.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
So what happened in that moment?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Like I started, I'm getting like, well, first off, I
gave the heads up to like my personal network that
this is airing tomorrow, and like after it aired, I
got a video text message from a friend that lives
in California showing the video in his living room with
his little toddler looking at it, and I'm like, is
(22:01):
this really happening? Like I'm like, I'm actually like, there's
this kid here like absorbing something two thousand miles away
from where I live. I'm like, and then I'm getting
I get a video from my step mom with my
father who was in his later stages, sitting in the
(22:22):
living room or kitchen with with my half brother, half sister,
seeing him like in tears, which you never really saw
a whole lot of, and like I remember him saying,
that's your brother. And I still have that video in
my my phone. I look at it.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Here and there and right now talk about it.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
No, he I knew that he was just proud of me,
and I think he saw what I was, I guess
trying to do in that moment because thinking about our
own mortality. And so that's that's what personal motivation that
keeps me me going, keeps me going knowing that he's
still proud and looking down and living through me. So
(23:03):
I just want to keep making them proud. So in
that yeah, So that news story just opened up Pandora's
box in a good in a good way. I'm hearing
from people everywhere from California to Texas looking for help,
(23:24):
wanting to help, donations like you're hearing like my VENMO
that I had set up there like just chink chin,
and I've started to hear from perfect strangers and connections
saying you should actually make this into like a nonprofit,
And I looked into it and ultimately started a GoFundMe
(23:46):
that and now allowed for us to create the five
oh one C three that it is today.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
That's kind of funny too. You didn't think about it
before the interview dropped.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Yeah, no, I didn't know where Again, I was just
following my heart. Yeah, kept mowing and yeah, just from
that point think just.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
So what were the volume of like do you have
any sets of it? If people reaching out either in
total or how many looking a volunteer, how many looking
for help?
Speaker 1 (24:14):
Well, I'll tell you, at least to this present day,
that business phone number that I had set up, we
tracked over ten thousand phone calls to date last time
to date through this past season. Wow. So this past
year alone, three thousand phone calls have been tracked. Going
back to my advertising days, we had a voicemail tracking
(24:35):
system that I was able to have donated like an
enterprise software where we have like five hundred free minutes
per month and just putting a lot of the ducks
in a row. To this day, there's been multiple iterations
like focus a lot on the technology, have reinvested everything,
(24:55):
haven't taken a dime for myself. It's all just volunteer based, all.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Right, So keep telling us how it grew and how
to develop.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
An interesting An interesting part that definitely helped get things
going was I was creating like these partnerships, like to
a degree, like officially unofficially, some with like my network
that I've already built up, right, So I mentioned that
voicemail translation I'm sorry, the voicemail tracking platform that I
(25:27):
had worked with in the past from the ad tech space.
And then there was also someone else in my network
that worked for like a background screening platform and partner
with them in order to help like speak to people
that might be hesitant to receive a volunteer. So we
wanted to at the time screen volunteers. Fast forward to today,
(25:51):
we don't do that anymore because we have our own
mechanisms to do the screening of individuals that want to help.
But in that moment, they're based out of Houston, Texas area,
and so we announced this unofficial partnership on LinkedIn that
just by chance, some other volunteers saw this announcement and
(26:12):
that person this, there's this woman named Lauren who is
based out of Houston, laid off, a mother of two,
signed up and offered to help and got her set up.
And I followed that same methodology I did with for
myself just to generate some leads, to generate leads in
(26:32):
the Houston area, sixty five in older five miles, and
built up like a portfolio for this woman on her
behalf with like you know, I set up a profile.
This is all manual, by the way. Like I set
up like a profile for Lauren, and she had like
five or six seniors that she was helping in the
(26:52):
Houston community. And I was proactive. I reached out to
like a few different news stations in Houston that ultimately
found it to be interesting a woman, a mother of
two laid off helping out seniors, and they did like
a plug on her. So I was able to like
repurpose that for our social media and like start showing
(27:15):
like clips. And that was just when we had Facebook
so fast forwards today I've we have six active social
media channels like building up content and so that was
like how we built up like started like these pockets
of areas. So we have like from that segment, more
people signing up from Houston and volunteers and so one
(27:38):
of our most I like to call him a Vallin star.
His name is Jim. I think he saw like one
of Lauren's plugs and he's this guy is a machine.
He's been going NonStop helping like a disabled war veteran
in Houston and a couple others that we've sent his way.
We've been able to get him some equipment upgraded, so
(28:01):
all these little.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Things we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Again. We just started doing mowing. While we're on premise,
people are asking us about other services we might not
specialize in, which inspired us to add all these other
service offerings to the volunteer side and the client side. Effectively,
we operate almost like a matchmaker for people that are
(28:57):
looking for help and people.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
That want to help or other things. I'm sure, but.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Leaf removal, snow removal. We're also getting requests for like
home services such as pest control, tree removal, door widening,
so like not saying that we're offering it, we're at
least collecting this information with hopes to make more connections
with people to make these kinds of referrals. Maybe if
(29:25):
they can't do it for free, maybe they can offer
some deep senior citizen military veterans discount. We're kind of
like the tip of the glacier, building the trust with
people coming to their properties with hopes that we can
maybe establish this network of other professionals or volunteers that
might specialize in these things. Yeah. So, like, for instance,
(29:47):
we had a guy in Minnesota that went around to
do twelve different homes when it was a bad snowstorm,
and that got some publicity which helped us attract more
vo tiers in Minnesota. So you follow that sit I've
been following that same method in terms of earned media
(30:09):
and utilizing social media to help get the word out.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
And ultimately do more good at the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah. No, And then like again like yeah, just more
than anything is the impacts. Right. We've been able to
track conservatively two thousand unique homes that we've been to,
and that's not accounting for some that are doing regular.
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Visits like summer cutting these folks as grass every week
or every other weeks on an ongoing basis.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Right, And one thing that we you know, there's been
a lot of learning lessons along the way in terms
of expectations. So one of the things that we've we've
implemented is our expectations of service language, ensuring people know
that we're not a replacement for landscapers. We do what
we can when we can, almost as temporary relief. But
(31:01):
there is exceptional cases where again we just provide the
leads and we provide volunteer accident insurance coverage to volunteers.
We've been able to send yard signs to show neighbors
like what's going on, like why someone's there, sending out
a tire through some of the funds raised, but ultimately
(31:24):
just providing some ounts of relief. But there is exceptional
cases where people have more time than others. Recently retired
super active I have some guys that are going around
regularly logging like tens. It's not hundreds of hours with
dozens of regular repeat clients. They're not as tech savvy
(31:45):
enough to like log into our platform and track their
hours and report back to us. So we're doing the
best we can to conservatively at least track the visits
that are being made. But we've at least made strides
with the technology allowing for volunteers to log into our dashboard,
add their hours, and talk about their experience, upload before
(32:07):
and after photos us In the past, it was myself
for one of our back end volunteers reaching out trying
to like pry that information or remind them. So now
we have the website as well as an actual SMS
texting feature where they can organically just text photos to
a phone number we have and it recognizes their phone
number that's attached to their account, so we can log
(32:31):
that information. Then we just have like a templated sequence
of like robotic questions that are automatically logging it. So
as I'm speaking to you now, connections are potentially being made.
I just saw it, like five in the morning, we
have a volunteer nearby that is looking for help. Can
you be of assistance? Came a long way to get
it to this point, Like there's so many parts that
(32:52):
have had to have come together, between having volunteers nearby
but also having like the technology to detect someone is nearby.
It was a couple of years ago I literally had
virtual paid assistants super part time on the books, manually
typing in Google Maps for someone that might be nearby
(33:12):
that we have like this huge Excel list. We have
over one thy four hundred actively enlisted volunteers all across
the USA and even some in other countries, and we
actually have like a volunt there's an actual visual map
now updating in real time. If and when they're reviewed
and approved, automatically it pins them into our visual map
(33:36):
and link. You can zoom in like like pins and
zoom and see their profile in their general area. Obviously
thinking about like privacy, so it just shows like a
general vicinity. But to be able to have someone sign
up and for us to alert someone like so proud
of how far we come. There's still a lot to
(33:56):
be done. I mentioned the two thousand or so homes
we've been to, but we've had way more requests than
we can handle, So still so much that could be
done in terms of the supply side. There's a big
demand for our service, have you know we've put a
lot of effort into also, like some of the search
engine optimization as well.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, it's an amazing tech platform you built and I
know you you're back and played. You've been working for
you know, many years now, so it's like, you know,
you you have a normal job, and yet you've been
building out this you know, tech platform and running this thing,
Like are you doing this night's weekends? Like it seems
like a lot of work to build out.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
It's very overwhelming. I saw a quote somewhere, it was
actually at the post office the other day that said
that at the end of the day, you're doing the
best you can with what you got, and that's good enough.
So I found myself like, I feel like, if I
didn't have some of these technology automation improvements in place,
there's no way it would have been able to sustain
(35:00):
without because obviously there's no paid salaries employees, Like mending
the ship, a lot of it still falls on me,
and there's still a human element, right, So yeah, there's
there's definitely I'm putting it way more time into it,
but thankfully I have my employer's blessing to do this.
On the side, there's no conflict as time permits. I
have my wife's support and family support to do that.
(35:22):
And of course I have a four and a half
year old son at home and a newborn that's two
months old, so that's definitely tiring. But I yeah. Another
thing I also forgot to mention as part of the technology,
we receive the grants from a local credit union to
(35:43):
improve on a couple of things. One is scoring the
homeowner leads that come in and helping determine the ones
that are the most in need versus the ones that
are not. So we ask everything under the sun to
ensure that it's not someone that could probably have forward
it or do it themselves, or might be taking advantage
(36:03):
of it. So we try to prioritize low to moderate
household income for starters. And of course, so many other
things we take into account is if they live alone,
or if they have children that are physically abled. So
there's like this algorithm in place that helps us find
the ones that are most pressing. So it's a form
(36:23):
of arbitrage just getting around to the ones that are
in need. And of course we have to take into
consideration if we have the coverage for it. And I
mentioned the so a few ways that homeowners are reaching
out to us. It's through the website, through social media,
through email, and through voicemail. We try to get everyone
(36:44):
to sign up on the website because it just has
everything that we need. But if they're reaching out over
the phone a little less tech savvy. We had another
grant that enabled us to automate translate what is being
said over voicemail in real time. They're telling us the
ZIP code, which allows for us to detect our nearby location.
(37:05):
So we follow that same logic that we do with
the website to alert somebody in real time that there's
a voicemail nearby, and we pass along that voicemail recording
to the volunteers that they can listen to and dial
back directly. Thinking back, yeah, thinking back to a couple
of years ago, I had like a call center agent
for overseas dialing back these voicemails, trying to make a
(37:28):
connection and asking this information. As costly, it's not sustainable.
So it's been a year of as they call it,
a year of efficiency and automation, just trying to scale
up this kindness platform.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
And you mentioned in a minute ago how many total
requests have come in to date. I don't think you
said the number.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
But multiply what we've been able to do by five,
it's like one in every five, so about ten thousand
lifetime to date. So there's lots of work to be
done in terms of recruiting help. But we're improving, Like
you know, I've we revamped our intake. I had help
(38:12):
with a Google Translate designer to fix our navigation and
the experience. Hired on some developers overseas to just improve that.
There's still work. I'm getting emails even to this day
about certain uploads not working or not taking long enough.
So there's all these like little intricacies. There's a lot
that goes on.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Under the hood, and you've got another job.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Yeah, it's a lot.
Speaker 3 (38:38):
It's impressive.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
Thank you. It's hard. Again, There's been times where I
thought about shutting it down. I don't there's nothing left.
I don't have anything to prove to anyone. It's I'm
challenging myself to see how far it can go. And
when we make those connections and I get like those
(39:01):
thank yous not just from homeowners and their neighbors, but
volunteers for making those for helping set that up, because
I'll echo like feedback from one specific volunteer named Tom
that said he might have only spent ten minutes doing
long care for this military veteran and then ended up
(39:23):
speaking for twenty thirty minutes afterwards. With the guy like
speaking his zero off and he's like, what about the
human connection.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Which that veteran probably needed too. For sure, it's a
big loneliness epidemic going on in the country.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Yeah, And that concludes part one of Alex's conversation with
Brian Schwartz, and you don't want to miss part two
that's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can
change this country and it starts with you. I'll see
in part two.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
You don't think to
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Bill Courtney
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