270 | Buy Nothing: Come for the Stuff, Leave with a Purpose with Tunji Williams
Our guest this week on the pod is Tunji Williams. Tunji is the COO of the Buy Nothing Project, the world's largest gift economy network, the Co-Founder of the Buy Nothing App and a social entrepreneurs.
And a special thanks to members of the Awarepreneurs Community for sponsoring this episode!
Resources mentioned in this episode include:
Interview with Tunji Williams on the Buy Nothing Project
NOTE: While it’s not perfect, we offer this transcription by Otter.ai for those who are hearing impaired or who don’t find listening to a podcast enjoyable or possible.
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, Tunji Williams
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of the Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience and is already transforming many bonds. Before I introduce our topic, and our guest today, I have one request. If you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to the show on, do a rating and review, it helps tremendously. Thanks so much for considering it. Today, I'm thrilled to introduce you to tungee William, and our topic is Buy Nothing: Come for the Stuff, Leave with a Prupose. Tunji is the COO at the Buy Nothing Project, the world's largest gift economy network, the Co-Founder of the Buy Nothing app, and a social entrepreneur 20. Welcome to the show. Hi, Paul. Thanks for having me. I'm not the most objective observer here, listener all objectivity is out the window, let me just be full disclosure, I think by nothing is awesome. We're going to talk about why that is. But I just want you all to know, I am a huge fan, I give money to buy nothing. I'll tell you a story just to give you a sense of why I'm really passionate about it. And then I want to hear from you 10. My child is between grad school as we record this between undergraduate school recently graduated and headed off to grad school. And I'm a long term member of our local Buy Nothing group here in downtown Albuquerque. And before as the name implies, before you go out and buy things, one of the things that's encouraged in our group and a lot of other groups is to post and ask. And so we're setting up a young person with their first house like apartment getting ready to go to grad school. And so I posted a bunch of things that we could really use sheets, and instapot, etc. And the response in our community give you an example one person was like, I love Seattle, not only do I have ones that are really nice sheets for you, but I want to give you two wonderful sets one flannel when it's cold and one lighter, right. Like that's what by nothing is like in our family, we love it. And I want you to understand listeners why I'm so passionate about the gift economy. And who better to help us do that, than somebody who's literally building it to scale to Andy Williams. So Tony, give us a little background as somebody we'll get to by nothing. And in a second. But if somebody didn't know who you were and a little bit about your history, both as a professional and as somebody who's passionate about positive change in the world, what would somebody want to know about you to kind of make sense what you're doing now?
Tunji Williams 02:49
Well, first off, right on for using Buy Nothing to get your your daughter set up in Seattle. That's so cool. And so awesome. Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it. Let me I'm a little nervous. This is like one of the one of the first buy nothing related podcast appearances I'm doing so I'm trying not to think too carefully about what I say and just be myself. But I really appreciate the opportunity. In terms of so glad you're here today. Thanks for saying yes. And I'll try not to buy it.
Paul Zelizer 03:19
Oh,
Tunji Williams 03:20
I in terms of what what to know about me to begin to understand me. I think it's just I am a person who I believe, whose life journey is kind of taking them or is taking him on a path to understanding what it means to belong somewhere, you know, there truly belong somewhere and to be part of something to be known where you are in your community. I think I've been searching for that. And in lots of ways consciously and subconsciously, in my adult life, and by nothing is kind of has begun to be a mirror for me to better understand that and my journey today.
Paul Zelizer 03:58
One of the things I don't do when we talk before we hit record, you talked about some experience you had as somebody being new to this country, like talk to us a little bit about what was that like for you? And how does that relate to this gift economy thing? There? You shared some really passionate things tell our listeners about that.
Tunji Williams 04:21
Well, probably a share, I got to share with you in some of the conversations we had before for today that you know, a huge part of my self identity is that of a first generation immigrant with a weird name, just kind of trying to figure figure out his way forward in America. I'm a first generation immigrant. I'm originally from Nigeria. I was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and I moved to the states for my family back in 1997. When I was eight years old, and we were we were in England prior to that. And we moved here to Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the my dad put his finger on the globe and pick the coldest possible place. Oh We ended up there. Without previous exposure to snow, we were dealing with like five to six feet of midwinter snow. So that's where we landed. And it was just part of my dad trying to find self acquisition for himself and continue to ascend in his career. He's a medical doctor. And he just he found in England that for someone like him, he had just kind of reached a ceiling in his career. And he saw America as a place where he could go, though, he would have to retrain as a place where that ceiling didn't exist. And he had the courage to pick up and start something new. But with that came kind of a brand new phase of life for the rest of us that the my mom, my younger brother told me and me, and it was my first I think, conscious experience really trying to survive as an outsider, socially, and being keenly aware of the fact that it was an outsider with a weird accent. And I was all the things people weren't expecting from someone that looked like me. And I had to figure out how are people seeing me? How do I see myself? And how do I navigate to kind of get what I want out of this place, this new place I find myself in. And I think so much of my, who I am, and what drives me comes from, from that experience, it's kind of like the nucleus of, you know, my internal clock.
Paul Zelizer 06:19
And before you got into by nothing, like you had this quite varied and really quite successful career, you've done some stuff in corporate law, you've done some stuff as a political adviser, you've done some stuff in tech, tell us a little bit about that part of your professional journey.
Tunji Williams 06:39
I, so I met my, my wife, Victoria, back in high school. And we then re met each other on a dating app back in like, 2014. She'll tell you on our first date, I knew that Victoria and I were going to work, we're going to be together, I know, necessarily, we're gonna get married, we're gonna, we're gonna be together. And I don't know, we had an incredible first date. And at some point during that night, for whatever reason, I decided to tell Victoria, we're going to be together. And this is going to be a real adventure. I don't know why I felt I should tell her that maybe it was kind of a, you know, caveat. mTOR. You know, so if you decide to go another day with me, I've warned you, this is going to be an adventure. And that's what my kind of career has been like, I'm a restless person, by nature. I'm a person who really, for one reason or the other, I enjoy challenging authority. I like kind of questioning everything around me, my father taught me growing up to ask, you know, five to six layers of why in anything you're doing to truly understand. And if someone can't explain to you, those five, the six layers, or you can't explain to yourself, then you really don't know what you're doing, and you should reevaluate. So I've kind of taken that approach and everything I get engaged in or invited to do. And sometimes that leads me to get deeper and deeper involved. And sometimes it leads me to bail, you know, realizing that what I'm doing is not for me, and that's kind of the story of my career. I got started, my I would describe kind of my background is being at the intersection of practicing law, business law, political strategy, and technology. In the first opportunity, I got to really build something because the barrier to entry is so low is in electoral politics, I got a chance to manage my first political campaign at the age of 18. I think that's kind of where it started. For me beginning to understand who I am as a person what I wanted to do.
Paul Zelizer 08:32
When I'm 18 years old, and you're managing political campaigns that
Tunji Williams 08:36
I needed, I needed a life I needed a social life.
Paul Zelizer 08:41
Well, and also sitting over here, some of the language that's going through mind is, in my mind, as I hear your story, it can be as is that a, you know, serial entrepreneur, serial impact entrepreneur, looking to make a difference? And getting some things rolling. And then like, there's some other area over here that I want to see if I can help with that. I want to build something I want to help impact people's lives. Is that fair to say?
Tunji Williams 09:08
Absolutely. And I like your version of that, because it's far more noble. I think that's actually how it actually went down. I think for me, early on, it was just I wanted, I want to be in a position to try things out. And to have nothing between me and the lessons I need to learn to go on to do the things I want to do long term. I've always been very ambitious. Whether that's because I've just internally driven, or I want people to think highly of me, and I'm driven for that to happen. I've always been trying to chase something that would help me stand out and be noticed, for whatever reason, maybe it makes it easier to fit in. But that that's what I was looking for in politics is so cool, because every two or four years, you get an opportunity to work for very cheap, and prove yourself as somebody without any prior experience and they're not very many lanes where young people get that opportunity. So I think that's why I was drawn to politics. Oh, you're gonna let me manage this, this, this Statehouse campaign at 18 years old, where else do I get that kind of high stakes experience at this age, and I ran with it. And it led from one from that to another political opportunity to another. And you kind of get competent and confident in the skills you build building a campaign that are really, really transferable.
Paul Zelizer 10:20
Awesome. Couple of years ago, we did an episode on political entrepreneurship and social impact. And I'll put a link to that fabulous episode. And if anybody wants to dive in a little bit more about what some of the opportunities are, I'll put a link to that in the show notes. So not too long ago turned to us two years ago, it wasn't that long ago, this thing that you hadn't really heard a whole lot about called by nothing kind of showed up on your radar. Tell us about that. And what happened there? Yeah,
Tunji Williams 10:51
I got introduced to, it feels like I feel like else Alice in Wonderland, sometimes, like this is a portal that introduced me to a world that I had no idea existed, and it's a part of the world, it's a world I always needed to be a part of. So I guess this is where my story intersects with the Buy Nothing project. So it's about it's late 2020. I, I at this point, I had practice law for several years, I started in closed my first company, I'd worked leading strategy for a private equity backed software technology company. And we were building out a global team to take this product to market. And this is in the midst of the pandemic. So you know, as this job is getting better, I'm evolving in the job at the same time, I'm starting to just question myself in question everything. I mean, the world was you, I don't have to remind you, Paul, like, you know, mid 2020. It no one knows what's going on or where the world is going. But it's clear, there's a fundamental shift that that's happened. And I just find myself asking, like, what is what I'm doing actually matter if the world is not going to look the same next month? Like what is what is send selling end to end legal technology software really mean for me? For my daughter, for my community? How am I moving the ball forward? And I couldn't answer that question for myself. And I just kind of fell into a bit of a malaise. And I out of that que me just throwing things at a wall at the wall, trying to figure out, you know, what is a big problem, I can work at nights and weekends, that will give me that sense of purpose that I'm looking for. And we we my wife, and I actually just had our first our first child, Rosie, in June of 2020. And one thing that just kept on happening is that we were interacting with our, our older cousins and siblings more often than we than we had since we had gotten married. And it was all because they had children, or they have children that are just a couple of months, ahead a couple of years rather ahead of Rosie. So every time we were in the market for something for Rosie, one of them would would have it and would no longer be using it. And it was an opportunity for them that you know, people weren't meeting in person at that point. But to drop it off at our door with a note or something. Right. And we were saving like incredible amounts on baby stuff. And for me, that just was like a lightbulb moment where like this is this is great for us. But if if I didn't realize how rich my personal network was, or just you know, our simple family network was in this is the benefit that we're getting from kind of tapping into that value. What if everybody in the world could tap into the value of their close community networks in this way, what's out there that makes this easy and convenient, I couldn't think of anything. So I decided I want to start a company and start to test it out. And I call that company karma hood. And I was stupid enough to think that I had come up with the concept, the gift economy concept that kind of underlies the Buy Nothing project. But I was I was disabused at that pretty quickly after sending an email out to most of the people I knew, or no explaining the idea. In the first few emails I got back were like, dude, have you ever heard of the Buy Nothing project or freecycle? And that was the beginning of the discovery that's kind of led me here.
Paul Zelizer 14:18
What if everybody in the world could experience this that that talk about a game changing question. And whether it's through karma or recycle or by nothing are many other expressions of the gift economy there that that question countries like that is the game changing question in a capitalist economy? Is that fair to say?
Tunji Williams 14:46
I couldn't agree more. Not only question so fundamental. I think the impetus to ask the question is even more important. I think once people start asking that question, when They're experiencing their form of bliss or peace. Right? And if the next question is how can more people experienced this versus how can I get more of this or an unlimited supply of this? I think we're on the, on the pathway to enlightenment,
Paul Zelizer 15:13
love, somebody's not familiar by nothing, right? The world's largest gift economy. Now we're, that sounds like a bunch of great words that somebody threw in a blender comes out, it's awesome. But if I have no like, All right, well, that does that even me? Like, there's like millions of people around the world that are exchanging things, but like, how does this even worse if I'm not familiar with it?
Tunji Williams 15:39
So I was gonna call first first I was gonna ask like, how do you how did you figure out what our marketing strategy is? So it's exactly what we do is stole a bunch of words in the market, okay? Not real, hey, it's, it's really simple is you'll know is kind of a, you know, an active participant in the community member in the community community. It really, the Buy Nothing project is a worldwide community of local networks of people that have decided to come together to do three very simple things. One is offer up and share give out of their own abundance, meaning material goods and services that they have available to share with people around them. Right. So that's one is to give to is to ask, is to be vulnerable and open up to your community and ask for things that you may need or want both material goods and services. And the third thing is to express gratitude, to express genuine gratitude for the things that you've received from the community. And just generally, and that's kind of the the the engine that keeps this this loop going this loop of gratitude and mutual aid and provision. So that's what the that's what the Buy Nothing project is at its core. It's a set of guidelines, right, a structure for setting up these local, what we call gift economies anywhere in the world, you can set these up instantly, and engage in this dynamic. And the idea is to help people share if their abundance and meet the needs of their neighbors with the core, the core objective being to build resilient communities where people can have their needs met, and meet the needs of others and wants of others around them. The Buy Nothing project got started out in experimental form on Facebook groups, it was just to be the cheapest, like cost efficient way to see if this would work in the community where it was founded in Bainbridge Island, Washington just outside of Seattle. And it quickly turned into several Facebook groups in the first year with the first major one being in Seattle. And then over eight years, Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller, the two founders of the Buy Nothing project turned this into 7000, plus groups on Facebook with over six and a half million members, and 13,000 volunteers that run these groups and help build these local gift economies all across the world. That's what it is today.
Paul Zelizer 18:05
As somebody who's really excited about and tries to participate in the gift economy. I'm thinking of the book braiding sweetgrass, if anybody wants to learn, learn a little bit about somebody who's thought a lot about the gift economy, and particularly how it is a cornerstone of indigenous culture. Great book, I'll put a link in the show notes just recently listening to that. The way by nothing makes the gift economy so tangible and, and so it's the most effective, scaled version in the gift economy I've ever seen. I've been a fan of it. And I've seen people try to put their livelihoods more in that direction. And many of them honestly have struggled. And one of the things I love about by nothing is just how simple and how tangible and how inclusive it is. Like who's in our local Albuquerque downtown, buy nothing group look like Albuquerque, and I hate this language. But this is the language people use New Mexico is the first majority minority state. I wish we could just say we have a higher proportion of people of color than the rest of the US. So we look like where the US is heading. But people call us the first majority minority state. That's what the term is. So do whatever you want with that. But our Buy Nothing group will look like Albuquerque, which looks like the world and many gift economies struggle with things like diversity, you struggle with things like mutuality, and there's something about by nothing, that real simplicity that it's working in other experiments either struggle to get scale, or they don't look like the world. What's your sense Tandy? Not that the Buy Nothing group is perfect, but there's something that's working there when a gift economy resonates with a lot of people but a lot A lot of folks have struggled to find either sustainability and or scale what is by nothing doing right. When it comes to sustainability and scale.
Tunji Williams 20:12
I have to be completely honest with you, Paul, there are some things that I know. And there are some things that I don't. And I think since since I've become involved with the Buy Nothing project in terms of helping to begin to transition the movement into a public benefit corporation that can sustain itself and reach billions of people across the world. One of the things that's been important to explain to our prospective partners is that we're dealing with kind of an awesome social phenomenon, with the Buy Nothing project. And I think we only stand the cheap at it, if we try to reduce it down to something that we can hold. There's something magical that's going on. And I think in some ways, it's beyond explanation, or at least, you know, terms that I can access to help people understand this. So I do want to establish that that's not a cop out. So I don't have to give an explanation of what's going on. But I do think it's something important. And part of what makes it joyful to work on this is that I see what we're doing in building out a sustainable business, isn't that not a conquest, but an exploration? Right of the powerful natural human dynamics to power the Buy Nothing project and every day as we build this business out, we come closer to the truth, the essence of what that is. So we're not experts. We're not wizards. We're just, you know, frontline witnesses to something that's bearing fruit for millions of people already. I think there are there are there are tactical things. And and fortunate it's sequence sequences of events that position the Buy Nothing project to grow the way it has. I think one thing that's extremely important is that the Biden nothing. language means the same thing to so many people. As somebody that comes from a political background, it's I understand, and I think others will as well the importance of symbols, right. And I think I think the power of symbols like anything powerful goes both ways. But I think by nothing is a flag for this idea that we can come together wherever we are to meet one another's needs, not as a not as an ideal, or a platitudinous concept. But as a real practical thing, is so powerful and has traveled so far, I think it makes it easy for people to quickly organize around the concept. So I think it's a really key differentiator between the Buy Nothing project and other similar movements that have tried to get off the ground is that when you don't have a flag, that's universal, it means the same thing to enough people, it's really hard to quickly move to collective action. And we have the benefit of having crossed that hurdle. Because the work of so many people across the world, and Liesl and Rebecca's vision at the outset. I think second to that, is this idea of distributed ownership. I think it's natural, to human. Well, let me start here, I think one of the important things in trying to build anything that's that's going to last is to is to try to see the world not as you'd like it to be, but as it is, you know, without losing sight of your vision for the world, right, or a vision of the world of a world you'd like to live in. And I think that's so key to to to the Buy Nothing project, at least one Rebecca will tell you that it began as a social experiment. Their Their objective was not to was not to exert their will on the world with a concept but was to rather see what would happen if what would happen if and from from that, from that process. From that question. arose this beautiful thing with this distributed ownership model that has given so many people a stake in building community where they live. That sense of collective ownership, drives it every day, without any additional incentive. And that type of viral loop is really difficult to reverse, and has an incredible half life, right? In that durability, I think is what has allowed this this project, this movement to stand the test of time over the last nine years. So those are those are two things I would point you right out of the gate as differentiators key differentiators.
Paul Zelizer 24:26
So listeners are you know me as a granular guy and I'll just give you some examples in the past I don't know six months. I recently somebody I gave sourdough because pandemic and sourdough right somebody I gave sourdough starter to recently reached out to me and said you know what, I got really busy and my sourdough starter died. Can I get some more? And I said of course that she was like, Okay, I promise you what can I give you and I was like, pay it forward. Don't give me I've gotten so much right. You know, so I I've given sourdough starter and I have a little side hustle where I pay for some of my trail running adventures and shoes by picking stuff up at garage sales and things like that. And I sell trail running shoes and backpack and outdoor wear to fun, like self fund my own adventures and sometimes I wind up with stuff that doesn't sell. So I recently gave away four pairs of men's cargo shorts that are great for hiking and person who got it was so excited. I've gotten a ladder or really nice fiberglass ladder that would cost like $150 to buy at a Lowe's or something like that, you know, 10 foot ladder. That's what I paint my house with. Got a really nice leather seat that's like really custom crafted probably a, I don't know, $800 chair, like a recliner type doesn't recline like a comfortable leather seat that sits in my living room that I didn't have to go out and buy it would have cost $800,000, right. So you can see, these are not inconsequential items when you start adding them up over the course of being involved over the years. But it's not just the stuff or title today's come for the stuff leave with the purpose. And when I think about what's going really well, to me, it's like the stuff is there. There's a really tangible like, you know, when COVID started and people were thinking about masks, or mutual aid because people were losing their jobs and weren't sure how they're going to feed their families by nothing became a place where people can say hey, I need some fabric or some elastic to sew masks because for a while in Albuquerque, you couldn't buy a mask. Because we didn't have the world didn't know we wouldn't need so many masks so our local community you know, crowdsource the fabric needed for masks or crowd source foods so that families wouldn't go hungry through the mechanism of buying nothing. But you can also get sourdough starter or a ladder or pair of cargo shorts. Or when somebody's apartment burned and literally everything they own went up in smoke the community crowd sourced an entire startup new apartment of things you would need in a kitchen and in a living room. So I tell those stories to give you like come for the staff the staff is there. And people are really generous to the extent they can be but when the subtitle is leave with the purpose I hope you feel the center's how it's a little bit more I would actually say a lot more than just the stuff that it all representative of what happens in other groups because I've only been a part of this group is that is that resonating with what is happening with by nothing around the world?
Tunji Williams 27:46
HBO it's beyond resume I think you're hitting the nail on the head is that you know what will bring the average person into the by nothing community your experience is looking for something and not wanting to to pay full price for it.
Paul Zelizer 27:59
I'm gonna get a lot of for free. How cool is that? It just seems
Tunji Williams 28:03
like magic. I remember seeing the the first by nothing post that I wanted. And I just I clicked on it. I looked at the person's profile. I was like, Is this real? There's no why what's the what's the scam here, right. But that moment when you actually get it and you see you pick it up from that same person whose profile picture you saw, and you get that smile, and it's a real ladder and you get home and you use it, something changes, something changes in your mind something changes in your makeup, I think when you see that that's still possible, when you see that that's possible. And on the flip foot side of that experience, when you are able to offer up something that you know has become meaningless to you or just an idle, you know, piece of property and someone takes it or takes it quickly or I asked for it quickly. And is so happy and appreciative of it. It it causes you to see everything you own in a new light almost as like a an opportunity to connect genuinely with someone around you. And it changes changes the meaning of your possessions. These are not these are no longer things that we're just trying to accumulate and hold on to each one represents an opportunity to open up a story a new story of connection to people around you. It reminds me of the story that Lisa Clark our CEO with Buy Nothing project and one of the original co founders likes to tell she and her husband, Peter are avid climbers and they've climbed Mount Everest several times. And on one of the trips they went to they went with guides who took them to a small city near the base of the of Mount Everest in Nepal. And Lisa and her family had taken bags of clothes to kind of contribute to this community. And when they got to the community that the guide said Okay, here it is. Let's let's let's begin to hand these out. And Lisa and her family naturally started to unpack the bags having taken a look at the family He's and try to sort it out. You can give kids the kids clothes and, and adults, the items that are appropriate for them. And the guide said, Stop, stop, stop, you're doing it wrong. Just give the bags as they are one to each family. And from there, that process of the family sorting out and exchanging and being able to meet each other's needs with what's in their bag. That's the process that this village lives by. That's the process that strengthens, creates and strengthens the bonds between these families, it means that every family has something they can offer to meet the need of another family. So what's more important than the provision is the process by which these things, these material goods, find a home. That's what creates and sustains these resilient communities. And that just resonated with me like nothing else before because what it told me is that everybody has value. And I think in this in this contemporary, hyper consumeristic world, I don't know if consumers because it was a word. But you know, there's this world built around to hear Thank you. But in this world, we're you know, that we're driven by this this instinct to consume, it's nice to think that maybe we can we can give that that programming and update, and begin to use these things that just end up sitting around our house as a way to add value where we live, and to begin to build the human connections that we so desperately need. Right now.
Paul Zelizer 31:30
On the Buy Nothing site, it says We exist for the sole purpose of building a community.
Tunji Williams 31:36
That's it, folks, that's the main thing. Everything else is just about behavioral change to get to that point.
Paul Zelizer 31:42
So let's do that. In a moment, I want to come back. And then we are really excited to have you on the show. Because I think you were brought on for some particular skill sets to help what you were referring to help grow this into a public benefit company, not just a bunch of Facebook groups with its own app, some social entrepreneur infrastructure, I can't wait to ask you about that. Before we do that, I just want to take a quick break here word from our sponsor, do you have a business that's about making the world a better place, and you want it to grow both in terms of your impact, helping more people and your income, so you could live a good quality life? If you do, I'd like to talk to you about some research for a second. When scientists look at what actually contributes to humans reaching their goals, the single biggest predictor, whether it's a wellness goal, or it's a business goal, is what they call social support. In other words, a group of people who are on a similar journey, who can help you with specific strategies that work on that journey at the time and point of development that you're on, as well as emotional support for the ups and downs of that journey. Being a social entrepreneur has highs and lows, right? If you like that kind of support, where partners has a community called the AWARE partners community, over 270 really generous and really skillful social entrepreneurs. And that's what we do with each other. We share concrete strategies, as well as emotional support for the ups and downs of the journey. If you'd like to find out more, you can take a look at aware printers.com forward slash community. And thank you to everybody in the AWARE printers community who helped sponsor this podcast. In the second part of the show, what we like to do today is talk about putting on our social entrepreneur glasses. And most typically, when I have a guest on the show, it's the founder, it's the visionary founder. But in this case, we know each other from LinkedIn, I was watching like we connected and didn't have a ton of like interaction but I'm like, Oh, wow, look at this. By nothing is brought in are really smart social entrepreneur and somebody who's going to help build out an app and help maybe open some options about getting this movement from being so dependent on Facebook groups. So like, talk to us a little bit as somebody who's got some real social entrepreneur passion and some chops like what was it like to come into this existing movement, millions of people but of being somewhat loosely organized on a Facebook group and started thinking about things like creating more robust platforms, putting into some place some foundations as a benefit corporation rather than only a group of somewhat loosely associated Facebook groups, etc. Like, yeah, what are you seeing through your social entrepreneur glasses as somebody with those skill sets?
Tunji Williams 34:49
What I think anybody who's gotten an opportunity they don't quite deserve can relate to how I feel about you know, being broke. bought into the Buy Nothing project, getting this opportunity to extend the impact this this incredible movement already has. Paul's an avid LinkedIn user as am I and I had been for several years. And it's the way I've met so many of the people that I've gotten to collaborate with and learn from. And that was the way i i began the process of reaching out to to Liesl Clark and Rebecca Rockefeller, who are, in fact, the visionaries, and the fearless leaders that have built this thing on a volunteer basis, together with global volunteers for 10 years, in the face of doubt, right in the face sometimes of opposition to folks who didn't understand what they're going after. So I really see my invitation into the movement and into the process we're building now is an incredible gift, kind of exemplary of the gracious gifts that come out of this gift economy every day. So I'll start there, I think there are a million people maybe more and more qualified than me to come in and do what I'm what I have the opportunity to do for the Buy Nothing project today. But with that said, I did come in as naive as I was with with a clear vision of how I believe we could turn the Buy Nothing project that was at about one and a half million members across Facebook at that point, to 10 million plus. Right. And I think, in getting the opportunity to tell that story to least when Rebecca we began to see how our vision and motivations align. And in spending time riffing, and jamming is Lisa likes to call it we came to kind of have a mutual vision around what it would take step by step in simple terms, to experiment with finding an independent home for the Buy Nothing project separate from Facebook. And that's what we set out to do. And our goal from the very beginning number one has been to make this thing sustainable, so that we can steward it in a way that allows us to make the right decisions about the future the Buy Nothing project separate from a platform that has its own separate commercial interests, that being meta, right now a meta previously Facebook. So that was the driver. Number two was to make updates to the experience that would improve the experience by making it more inclusive, right, more accessible, more convenient, and more fun to use for the people who visited their buy nothing groups each day. Right. So we had an opportunity as we saw it to create an app designed specifically for the gift economy, culture, and for budding gift economy and mature gift economy. economies all over the world. We saw Facebook groups wasn't providing that we saw an increasing number of people unwilling to use Facebook. And in that we saw an opportunity to create a home. So that was the impetus. At least I met Liesl Rebecca at a time when they had been considering this move for a long time. But you know, spoken with numerous investors, but just hadn't found the right partnership to manifest this and bring it to fruition. And we were able to set and settle on a vision, we set up a public benefit corporation, which for anybody who doesn't know, really, it's a legal fiction, but it really is just a company, it's a it's a for profit company set up the way you would any for profit company, except this for profit company is different. And it's allowed to balance two interests, any normal path for profit corporation is required to service their stakeholders, everything they do must be in the interest of increasing the bottom line for shareholders, right? With a public benefit corporation, you're allowed to balance that primary objective against a public benefit, right, that you've identified and about which your shareholders are aware. And you can balance then your business decisions against these competing objectives. So sometimes it would make sense to make decisions that benefit, you know, the community or your shareholders or your employees. In some way other than increasing the bottom line, we're like, we're able to prioritize, we have the flexibility to prioritize those things over profits. It's an increasingly popular corporate status companies like Patagonia and the Honest Company, have assumed that status and it just makes it easier to do good and do well. So that was that was the that was the genesis test set to set up the company, there were a few things that we believe had to be in place, right. And we The goal was let's let's make this process as simple as possible. And let's just knock these things out like a checklist for me before I approach Lisa, when we're back at number one was founder buy in, right? It's becoming increasingly trendy and popular now to turn communities into products or for profit businesses. But when you've got a community that says bought in as engaged as committed, as the global Buy Nothing project community, it's not something you do willy nilly, or without careful thought, right and consultation. So getting founder by and getting the approval of Liesl and Rebecca getting their buy in getting them involved materially not only in the continued management of the communities, but also in the direction, the strategic direction of the company were building was absolutely key. And that was step one. I think Step two was thinking about what is the Buy Nothing project? Right, from a tactical level, you know, putting my lawyer glasses on what are the discrete, discernible assets behind this community? And who owns them? And is that formalized? So we did an evaluation of that quickly figured out what were the material commercial, you know, IP assets related to buy nothing project and what was necessary to protect those in confirm ownership. We did that as number two. Number three was if you're going to have a home, outside of Facebook, you got to build that home is shoddy is the the the minimum viable product, or the first version of it might be it's got to exist. So that was our next step. And we built the app. Right? We debuted that on November 26, of 2021. And within a couple of days, we had 100 plus 1000 users. And now we've got almost half a million, we expect to have nearly a million by the end of the first year. So that was the next thing was develop the vehicle develop the product, the starting point, as bad as it might be to begin. And that was really key. Because what we found before we put out the minimum viable product that we released on November 26, is we put out a waitlist to see like Who wants this. So we describe the product in our new landing page and asked who wanted it, we got about 70,000 signups on the waitlist from across the globe. And we found that 75% of the people on the waitlist actually indicated that they had never been part of a Facebook group on Facebook. So they were aware of the by nothing project, the concept, the symbol, the flag, but it never actually engaged. And that for us was confirmatory, that there is a massive opportunity to extend this the impact and the reach of these people who are not on Facebook for whatever reason. Right. So that was step three is to build the vehicle. Two more steps. Next one was confirm the channels of conversion. And I guess what that means in common parlance is that if we're going to, we're going to be asking people to begin to make the transition from Facebook groups over to the AP, we need to confirm that that pathway actually exists and people are willing to take it. And at what rate, are they taking it over time. So we had to set up experiments to see you know, are people moving? Are people dual posting meeting using both the Facebook groups and thereby nothing out? How are people using this? And what can we do to kind of optimize the rate of conversion or dual use. So we confirm those channels and the main conversion channels for people from financing Facebook groups over to the app or obviously via Facebook posts, from people who have used the app and aren't sharing their group of bad experiences or double posts, and then earned media. The Buy Nothing project shows up in over 2 billion search results on Google, there are over half a million news stories written on the Buy Nothing project. They're about eight news stories a week, local, national, international. And those
Paul Zelizer 43:02
huge thing here press with like three stars asked him to give out press because you guys are showing up in the press unlike anything I've seen. So anyway, I've just jumping in here to say I noticed that and I wanted to ask you about
Tunji Williams 43:18
it's really unbelievable. And I personally have never seen anything like it myself.
Paul Zelizer 43:23
I've never I do this for a living. And I've never seen anything like
Tunji Williams 43:26
it. And I whenever I'm in conversations with, you know, prospective partners and investors, I'm careful not to behave as though we somehow have a formula for that. I think the same the same secret sauce that built the phenomena is responsible for the level of interest in it. Liesl met with staff from the New York Times two weeks ago, because they told us that the story that they wrote back on October 22nd, or 21st, about the Buy Nothing project is one of their top three most read stories, right? What most reader engagement. So I think that just tells you that there's something in the water in the Buy Nothing project is speaking to I think beyond national zeitgeist, but kind of an international feeling there. This is a time that begin to change the way we think about consumption of resources, right in the way we relate to one another. There's an opportunity. And then the final thing we did in terms of just the strategic pillars of converting this from a community into a going concern that can support itself, which just are the early adopters of this movement, are they willing to pay for something? Are they willing to contribute financially to sustain this thing they so love, and in what form, right, and what additional value can we begin to add to make it worthwhile for those people and the new people we're hoping to attract to the movement. So that's kind of like the very simple in terms of articulating it. You know, five steps. We to think through what's necessary to get this thing up and running. But below those, of course, are lots of minor tactical steps necessary to push forward each day in building this out.
Paul Zelizer 45:11
And I really appreciate your humility to end and as somebody who cares about by nothing. And listeners, I hope you hear like that 10 days, both super well versed in business law, and corporate structures, and also really passionate social entrepreneur, and understands the vision and the existing, sacred sacredness of by nothing. So you could say there's a gazillion other people, but again, it's somebody in the space and somebody who cares about by nothing. I think there's a right choice to do whatever it's worth, nobody asked me but that's not. That's not exactly a, like every day said somebody who has a deep experience of law, but as also understanding of what's existing and holding it as sacred. somebody cares about the gift economy and social entrepreneurship can build out a iterative approach to building an app and scaling a movement and a social entrepreneur kind of mindset. That's not something you find every day. So I appreciate your melody. And I think you are the exact right person for this role.
Tunji Williams 46:23
I'm beyond grateful, because I worry about that often. So thank you.
Paul Zelizer 46:27
And help us understand like a little bit like to build an app and grow a community and filing as a benefit Corp. These are all like, not cheap things. Like, again, I do this for a living, I have some idea what this cost, and especially at the scale, and we start going to multiple countries and having to create, you know, corporate structures in multiple countries around the world and an app that works both on iPhone and an Android. There's quite a bit being built out like, what are some of the early thinking I know there's right now an opportunity to donate both in one time and ongoing ways. I'll put a link to that in the show notes for anybody who wants to support this movement. I certainly have and will continue to, but like, how does this work as a social enterprise? Where you are now? And where do you think it's going to help be able to support an app, a corporate structure, some basic level of team to help keep this thing running smoothly?
Tunji Williams 47:28
Paul, there's so much to do. I think anybody from the startup world in the nonprofit world, really anywhere where you're trying to build something from scratch or scale something globally will be familiar with the you know, the feeling of being completely overwhelmed each day. And I think that the the antidote to that feeling is trying to break down the the massive goal into very small, discrete, manageable chunks, and each day, doing enough to keep you busy. And then beyond that, finding joy in that process. Beyond the outcome you envision. That is the journey for us so far, I guess in terms of the specifics in managing all the the various work streams around, you know, building out this thing, one of the most difficult parts for us is telling a story to what is now an expanding stakeholder base with respect to the kinds of partners we're looking to engage to build out the public benefit corporation, we're now talking to folks with interest beyond you know, parochial community building, and an interest in in value creation in the form of profit, and revenue. And some of the conversations you want to have with those people you need to have with those people sometimes feel icky, when your primary purpose is something non monetary. But it's so important that we're able to tell the story to a diverse set of stakeholders, because in order to build something that touches billions of people every day, there have to be lots of different entry points to the culture, right to the lifestyle that we're looking to promote. And I think you mentioned at the outset, it's so important that inclusivity remains a core pillar, an element of what we're doing, because it doesn't matter how right you are about something if there's no one following you. So part part of our goal is to build a message to build a brand to build tools that make it really easy for people to onboard to a lifestyle, that they're previously only able to talk about aspirationally and not able to live and we want to make it easy for everybody across the spectrum to live a life of thoughtful consumerism, and natural authentic community building. So everything we're building is answering that question. Does this contribute to building resilient, sustainable communities where resource needs are met? And if it doesn't, we don't build it. Right. So that's what's driving us I think, as well. From a builder perspective, in terms of just thinking about the size of the opportunity, that building out the Buy Nothing project into a public benefit corporation represents, I just like to think of it in terms of like, what's, what's the core? What's the core objective, right? There's this common universal journey that we all go through as human beings as consumers, right in the modern world, and I like to divide it into four stages of stuff, right? There's the pre purchase stage, that's when you're sitting in, you're getting bored. And you fill in the itch that you're you're going to buy something you don't know what you need to buy, but you need to buy something, because that's what we do. Right? And you're sitting with yourself, we want to be there for people in that phase to help them quickly and accurately take inventory of what they have, what they want, and what they need. So they can make clear minded valued aligned decisions around purchases, right in disposition, getting rid of stuff that you don't need. So pre purchase, that self inventory is so huge, and we want to be there for people in that part of the consumer journey. The next stage is the point of acquisition. When you've made a decision, I need to get something new. Buy Nothing project wants to be there for you to help you find the most valued aligned option to provide you information about stuff that's available for free where you are and and to help you conveniently quickly and cheaply get it. Right. So the point of acquisition, we want to be there for thoughtful consumers. The third step out of four is that post purchase ownership period, that's when you have the thing, right, Lisa Moore Becker writing their book that they publish with Simon and Schuster, the PI, nothing get everything planned that the average American household actually has like 300,000 things in it. And the average American uses under 5% of those things on an annual basis. So that's like almost like that's an option to enjoy 95% of those things. What if you could put those things during your ownership period to better use, so you're extracting maximum value from each of those things. And the people around you also have the opportunity to extract maximum value, we want to be there for communities and people trying to extract maximum value from the things that you own. And fourth and final is that predisposition or pre giveaway. Millions and millions of Americans, millions and millions of people, billions of people all over the world move out of dorm rooms every year, move vacate classrooms, as they prepare for the next school year, become empty nesters. And we want to be there for people as they make decisions about which things they give away and where those things go. We want to provide information about people in need of the things you're given away where you are, we want to make it convenient for you and trustworthy. The process for you getting those things from your household to where they're needed. So those four stages are the journey, the consumer journey that we care about. We want to build out tools, products, events, sub communities, to service people as they make their way through that journey every day. So that's what we're building. That's the underlying purpose. And that's why it just represents a massive, massive, massive opportunity that secondhand apparel industry alone in the US is an $82 billion industry by 2026. That number is staggering. But what's I think even more impactful is that that represents a mind shift a fundamental paradigm shift in the way consumers are thinking about the things they want, we still want the same things, but we're now determined to get them in more efficient, environmentally friendly ways. And that's a key shift. And I think we're sitting right at the forefront of it with the Buy Nothing project
Paul Zelizer 53:28
all of us spend some time on my personal story and then I want to be respectful of your time and our listeners times. I did some consulting with a friend who was starting a new business locally and in exchange this was the pandemic My girlfriend was loving going to actually two different gyms but one of them was a spinning gym and when COVID hit right Jim shut down literally you could not go to the gym. And this is really distressing for her and she's a single mom social worker and you know like most dollars in a monthly budget are allocated when you're a single mom and you make a social worker salary she makes a good so your supervisor but still has a single right we did a trade with a friend and we got a pretty simple but good quality spinning bike that a home use one and got her set up and it was something to use and it was like a way to burn off stress right and the trail running world we call it running off the crazy but she was a spinner so she was spinning about the crazy right and after a while when he got clear you know we don't know how long it's going to shut down and maybe it'll just be a month or two here something it was very basic but it worked. But then it got clear wasn't just going to be a month or two and she got some have some opportunities to do some side work and she wound up buying a peloton because that's what you did in 2020. Right. Like riding the bikes and suddenly she had the Cadillac One We had this other one that we traded for in the gift economy, right friend, his business shut down. I was helping him start something else all due to COVID. Right? It was like our little community like scrambling and suddenly when she got this peloton, we had this nice but simple home bike. It was effective, but it wasn't, you know, very sophisticated. And I put it on by nothing. And another single mom came over and got this bike. And about two weeks after I gave it to her, she was so grateful and said thank you a gazillion times as I helped her loaded back in her Subaru and drove off. About two weeks later, she circled back around and took a picture of her and her like three year old daughter who was riding like another kid sized version, the two of them in the living room, riding bikes staying in shape, and just taking me profusely for giving them a bike. And I was in tears when I read it, right? Like, it was awesome giving it to them and the input, the fact that they would circle back around, and she said, it's not just impacting my well being during the pandemic, but it's also affecting my daughter and our relationship, this thing that you gave, helped our family stay in a pattern of being active amidst this huge amount of uncertainty. And not only are we physically healthier, but riding together is bringing us closer. I started my eyes started leaking, I'm sorry. It was the idea of hey, I like tearing down and I was like, that's fine. Not the Yes, it's the stuff. But having experienced that, why would I ever not want to have that in my life? Right? Why would I Who wouldn't want the more that were? Yeah, I could have sold it on Craigslist, because it was a piece of exercise equipment. And in 2020 20, you can sell stuff used quite robustly because of supply chain disruptions. But you cannot put a price tag on a mother and a daughter, like seeing their community lean in and their single mother and young daughter like finding a way to navigate these really challenging times together, stay physical and stay close. I don't know I want that I want more of that in the world. And that's what buy nothing means to me. Yes, it's the bike. Yes, it's the sourdough. Yes, it's the ladder. But it really is about that kind of community building.
Tunji Williams 57:35
Lots of things money can't buy. And that feeling you describe is one of them? Most certainly. Yeah. It's why I'm here. And it's the reason why we the only way we'll sleep with ourselves at night, all of us involved in this is if we manage to steward this responsibly and ethically all the way through as big as we want to make it we can't lose sight of that. And we intend not to.
Paul Zelizer 57:56
Certainly I can hang out and talk by nothing all day, and you're busy listeners are busy, we'll put a link in the show notes to the main Buy Nothing group some of the press things that have been raining down on you all from New York Times The Washington Post. A recent one in Philadelphia Magazine, like you know, we'll give our listeners some of that we'll put links to the app, we'll put links to places they can go donate if there was something that a group of social entrepreneurs and impact founders might want to know either about by nothing. Or some of the things you've learned about being a social entrepreneur thinking about scale, and building out things that can help more people. And we haven't yet talked about it. And you want to leave our listeners with this as we start to say goodbye. What would that be?
Tunji Williams 58:50
This I think the flower that is the wisdom nugget or flower that's blossoming for me and my life right now is that the easiest or fastest way to begin to better understand the world is to dig deep inside of yourself and be honest with yourself about who you are, and what drives you in what you're looking for. And you may not find out the answer as fast as you want. But the process of searching, I think allows you to begin to see others around you more clearly. And in so doing I think the answer to some of the things that may be challenges for you the things you can't see become begin to bear themselves. The world is an awesome puzzle. I think it starts with looking inward. And then beyond that, I think it's just communities like this, like what you've built, Paul are so crucial because you have to find people also looking to work on themselves and work on the world. And I think that that viral loop of encouragement is what is going to lead us all to a world that we can be proud of and truly enjoy.
Paul Zelizer 59:44
And thank you for your work and thank you so much for being on the show.
Tunji Williams 59:48
Is my unique pleasure. Thank you. Well.
Paul Zelizer 59:51
I want to thank you for listening and before we go I just want to remind you we love listener suggested topics and guests. I mean we love them and really appreciate when people who know who we are and are listening regularly say, Hey, here's a story that I think would be a great fit. If you have an idea. Just go to the AWARE printers website. And on our contact page, we have three simple guidelines, we try to be really transparent about the kinds of stories and who we say yes to, can't say yes to everybody. But if it's a listener, and you're checking those boxes, please send it on in and we'll do our best to try to have somebody on the show. So for now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.