Blake Mycoskie wows Tulane

I walked in a few minutes late to hear the CEO of TOMS  Shoes address Tulane students tonight expecting to easily find a seat. I was mistaken. The crowd was at capacity, and students lined up against the back wall to hear how a young entrepreneur from Texas created a shoe empire.  While Blake Mycoskie’s TOMS shoes have sold a lot, they have also given away just as many to hundreds of thousands of kids from around the world who are in need. It is a business that uses doing good as a foundation, which gives each customer a stake, and allows the company’s network to spread.

When I arrived, Mycoskie had already captivated students, and was explaining his first sell. He was at a store in Los Angeles trying to pitch the concept behind his shoes, and the woman representing the buyer was very rude. He felt exasperated, “I started four companies, and this one, was actually about helping people, and I could not get anywhere.”  He finally got through to the buyer only because she thought he was her scheduled meeting, but was then inspired by his story and business savvy enough to realize her customers would relate as well. She bought 80, and displayed them at the store with a sign,”for every shoe you buy, he will donate one”. A few days later, Mycoskie received a call from the fashion critic for the Los Angeles Times.  That Sunday, he was  on the cover of the Sunday Calendar, and an hour after the story went online, he had sold 220 shoes.  The only problem, he only had 100 shoes made. Mycoskie did not panic: ” I did what any entrepreneur does, ‘go on craigslist and I posted internship opportunities.” Interns from around the city started showing up at his apartment, and as his “roommate watched football in his boxers on the couch,” he interviewed people for summer internships. Most did not stay, but for those that did, they were told to call all the online buyers and tell them their order would be delayed. He went back to Argentina and made 4,000 shoes. After being featured in Vogue that summer,  he sold 10,000 shoes, and took his family and friends to Argentina to participate in a shoe drop. He told the crowd that people always ask him: “when you came up with the idea to create TOMS, did it change your life?” He always says: “no, it was when I went with my family and dropped the shoes off and a woman was crying with joy as she told me that now her sons, who had been alternating which days they could go to school because they didn’t have the shoes to walk the two miles everyday, could now all go to school together.”

As he continued his success story, he explained how the media and celebrities continued to help spread the world. Three and a half years later, he has sold more than 400,000 shoes, and plans to sell the same amount over the next six months. Mycoskie represents the entrepreneur who has identified a powerful competitive advantage: a product that customers passionately promote.  In a world that is over-saturated with products and information, Mycoskie knew it was not the shoe alone that was moving it off the shelves. People wanted to buy a product that they felt was doing  social good. In a changing market for advertising, where shifting media outlets constantly shake the industry, the key to making a profit is finding a way for customers to do their own promoting.  Last year the Chase Bank Foundation created a contest allowing facebook users to choose which non-profit the foundation should award funds, and Pepsi chose to not advertise in the Super Bowl and instead, create a similar model  that allowed the market to promote their product. Mycoskie went on to praise Pepsi and AT&T (who featured him in a commercial) as righteous fortune 500 companies that were following his lead.  This may be a little of a stretch, but the message is clear: when people feel what they are buying contributes to a worthy cause, viral marketing is more powerful than traditional methods.

Mycoskie did all the right things to present his cause. For every point he made, he had an engaging story to back it up. It was easy to see why he was so successful. He was passionate and could skillfully craft a supporting anecdote. By the time it was over, even Scott Cowen, the President of Tulane could not leave without re-affirming what the crowd already knew, Mycoski is a great social entrepreneur.