Rule #12: Go Where Your Mission Lives

See the little boy in the image below? His name is Rifky and six hours after that picture was taken, he was hit by a motorcycle in Jakarta, Indonesia. He then spent several hours on a gurney in a hospital, laying alone in a hallway as his brain filled up with fluid because his parents couldn’t afford a $100 MRI. I was on a plane on my way back to San Francisco when this was happening and I didn’t even find out about it until I landed the next day. Fortunately, a local group that advocates for homeless children was able to collect donations for the MRI and the story ended about as good as it could have.

Rifky’s parents were rice farmers on another island in Indonesia, but climate issues reduced their crops to the point where they could no longer afford to grow crops. So, they moved to Jakarta in an attempt to find work. As is the case much of the time, work wasn’t easily found so the family wound up being homeless on the streets of Jakarta. 

And this is exactly why I chose to manufacture Entensa product overseas. 

By manufacturing overseas, we get to know the culture, we see the needs firsthand and are able to identify the real issues that are creating those needs. It’s how we learned that lack of medical care is a major contributor to deforestation — if a medical need arises, as was the case with Rifky, and the family doesn’t have the money to save a life, there’s a plentiful supply of old-growth timber sitting right outside of the village that can be harvested and sold to keep a child alive.

But we never would’ve learned this by sitting in our home offices, I never would’ve met Rifky and heard his story. There are countless other examples that I’ve seen and they all start the same way: a lack of parental education, a career that’s chosen for them, and several speed bumps the family is ill-prepared to navigate all conspire to add a high degree of uncertainty to a child’s future. 

For mission-driven companies, foreign manufacturing can offer a lot of benefits, cost savings being one of them. But that’s not the biggest reason why we’ve chosen this route. In reality, even one or two trips to Southeast Asia can entirely defeat any cost savings that we’d realize. But, by spending time in the culture, by getting to know the people and hearing the stories, we become smarter in our mission. And, it becomes really hard just to turn around and walk away. 

If you’re starting a business that has giving back as part of its DNA, you’re in for a ride, one that presents many more challenges than does a standard for-profit business. And where you choose to manufacture is one of the most impactful decisions that you’ll make. My advice? Decide where your impact will be, and get involved with business there. It may not be cheaper, it may not be easier, but the most important things in life rarely are. 

Keep grinding.