Blake Mycoskie

Background
Blake Mycoskie (born August 26, 1976) is an American entrepreneur, author, and philanthropist.
He is best known as the founder and Chief Shoe Giver of Toms Shoes (stylized as TOMS Shoes).
Mycoskie was born in Arlington, Texas to Mike Mycoskie, an orthopedic surgeon, and Pam
Mycoskie, an author. After first attending Arlington Martin High School, he graduated from St.
Stephen's Episcopal School in Austin in 1994. Mycoskie, who began playing tennis when he was
10, attended Southern Methodist University on a partial tennis scholarship in 1995, and elected a
dual major in philosophy and business. After an Achilles tendon injury he sustained as a
sophomore, which effectively ended his tennis career, Mycoskie left SMU and launched his first
business, EZ Laundry. Originally focused on SMU, which had no on-campus dry cleaning
service, EZ Laundry expanded, ultimately employing more than 40 people, servicing three
universities, and generating close to $1 million in sales. Originally focused on SMU, which had
no on-campus dry cleaning service, EZ Laundry expanded, ultimately employing more than 40
people, servicing three universities, and generating close to $1 million in sales. Mycoskie sold
the company to his partner in 1999.
Following college, Mycoskie moved to Nashville to found Mycoskie Media, an outdoor
billboard company which focused largely on marketing country music. The company was
quickly profitable, and was bought by Clear Channel nine months after its launch.
In 2001, Mycoskie and his sister, Paige Mycoskie, applied for the cast of Survivor. A member of
the Survivor production team told them about The Amazing Race, which had yet to debut, and
they instead pursued a team position on that show. They competed in the second season of The
Amazing Race and finished in third place, missing a million dollar prize by four minutes.
Mycoskie moved to Los Angeles later that year.
In Los Angeles, Mycoskie co-founded the cable network Reality Central with Larry Namer, a
founder of E! Entertainment Television. Raising $25 million from venture capitalists, along with
other members of reality show casts, the network launched in 2003 with a plan of airing original
content and re-runs of reality programming. Although the network had moderate success, it
folded in 2005 after Rupert Murdoch launched the Fox Reality Channel and outbid Reality
Central for advertisers and programming. Determined to pursue an entrepreneurial path,
Mycoskie then partnered with the founders of TrafficSchool.com to create DriversEd Direct, an
online driver's education service which additionally offered behind-the-wheel training in hybrid
and sport utility vehicles. To promote DriversEdDirect, he created Closer Marketing Group, a
Santa Monica based marketing firm specializing in brand development and viral marketing.
Mycoskie visited Argentina on vacation in 2006. While there, he met an American woman who
was part of a volunteer organization which provided shoes for children in need. Mycoskie spent

several days traveling from village to village with the group, as well as on his own. "(I
witnessed) the intense pockets of poverty just outside the bustling capital," he wrote in a 2011
article for The Business Insider. "It dramatically heightened my awareness. Yes, I knew
somewhere in the back of my mind that poor children around the world often went barefoot, but
now, for the first time, I saw the real effects of being shoeless: the blisters, the sores, the
infections."
Inspired, Mycoskie returned to the United States and founded Shoes for Better Tomorrows.
Designed as a for-profit business which could continually give new shoes to disadvantaged
children, he created the "One for One" business model: the company would donate a new pair of
shoes for every pair of shoes sold. An early example of social entrepreneurship, the shoes,
similar to the Argentinian Alpargata, was created to appeal to a worldwide audience, which
would both sustain the company's mission and generate profit. Shoes For A Better Tomorrow,
later shortened to TOMS, was started in 2006; by 2013, the company had donated more than
10,000,000 pairs of shoes to people in need. The shoes are sold globally in more than 1000
stores.
In 2011, Toms expanded to include eyeglasses in its "One for One" offering -- for every pair of
sunglasses purchased, sight-saving medical treatment, prescription glasses or surgery is donated
to a person in need.While Mycoskie conceived the idea, a "Sight Giving Partner," the Seva
Foundation, was contracted to administer the actual program, which launched in Nepal, Tibet,
and Cambodia. In a 2012 interview with Fast Company, Mycoskie said it was helpful for him to
work with Seva. "I've been there when (people have had) surgery... and I've handed out the
glasses. But as Toms grows, it has to be less about 'What's Blake's most intimate, joyful
experience?' and more about 'What's the great need?'"
Mycoskie published the book Start Something That Matters in 2011. In it, he wrote about the
virtues of social entrepreneurship and the concept of businesses using their profits and company
assets to make charitable donations or engage in other charitable efforts, using his experience
with Toms to demonstrate both the intangible and real returns. For every copy of Start Something
That Matters sold, Mycoskie promised to give a children's book to a child in need. Fifty percent
of royalties from the book were then used to provide grants to up-and-coming entrepreneurs, and
Mycoskie increased this to 100% in late 2012. The book became a New York Times best-selling
business book, and a number one New York Times best-seller in the advice category.
At SXSW in 2014, Mycoskie announced the launch of TOMS Roasting Co., a company which
offers coffee sourced through direct trade efforts in Rwanda, Honduras, Peru, Guatemala and
Malawi. TOMS Roasting Co. will donate a week of water to people in need in supplier countries
for every bag of coffee sold. In 2014, Mycoskie announced that TOMS would launch an
additional "One for One" product every year.

In August 2014, Mycoskie sold 50% of Toms to Bain Capital, retaining his role as Chief Shoe
Giver. In a company press release, he said: "In eight short years, we've had incredible success,
and now we need a strategic partner who shares our bold vision for the future and can help us
realize it." He will donate 50% of the profits from the sale to establish a fund that identifies and
supports social entrepreneurship and other causes. Bain committed to matching Mycoskie's
donation to the fund, and will continue the One For One business model.

Keys to Success by Blake Mycoskie

Connect people to your product
"When Blake first started, he realised the most important thing was to be able to share the story
of TOMS and what they were trying to do. Whenever he was in New York City, he'd always wear
two different coloured TOMS shoes, because people would ask him why, and then he could tell
them the whole story. Sometimes you have to do these quirky things when you're first starting to
get attention.
"But even later on, he was very relatable to his customer. He started in his apartment, he had no
experience in retail, no experience in fashion He didn't even know who Karl Lagerfeld was the
first time he met him. Now when he speaks at universities, students look at him like, 'I can do
that too'."

Philanthropy doesn't compromise profit

"Most businesses spend a huge amount of money on traditional advertising and marketing. If
they're a footwear company, they will spend some on celebrity endorsements and athletes.
"When you look at their business, they're profitable and they give away a tremendous amount
every year. When universities like Harvard do studies on them, they see it's actually as cost
efficient to be incredibly charitable as it is to do advertising.
"And because the relationship you create with your customers and employees is such a huge part
of the business and is so much more profound and long-lasting than flashy advertising, more and
more companies instead of just writing a charitable cheque at the end of the year as a tax writeoff are integrating these programs locally and globally into how they're doing business.

"Life isn't about scarcity. We all can have plenty. It's about sharing it and doing it a way that
creates a stronger bond between your customers and employees and your company. For shareholders, that's going to be a better long-term benefit.

Live your own life, not someone else's

"At 29, he started TOMS and was very much living his own life. But at some level, the public
persona of you can become someone else's life. This year, he said, 'I'm not going to do a twomonth press tour because that's what I'm supposed to do now that I'm Blake who started TOMS.
What am I really interested in creatively? What's going to get me to jump out of bed in the
morning?'
"His dad, who's a doctor, [once] said to him, 'If you don't want to go to eight years of medical
school, don't.' He dropped out of college instead. But he has always just been really curious.
TOMS was almost a curiosity project as much as a philanthropy project. [he thought], 'Could
there be a shoe company where people wore the shoes and felt good about helping someone?'
"I think life is a series of experiments, both professional and personal, and the minute you stop
experimenting and being curious is when you stop growing as a human being."- Blake Mycoskie

Breaks are important

Blake said that, "I've grown to appreciate the importance of what I call the space in between. If
you think about a great piece of music, almost all the emphasis is typically placed on what you
hear, but really what makes music great is the silence and pauses in between the instruments.
"It's the same thing I've realised in my career. My creativity and ability to be an entrepreneur is
oftentimes what people celebrate, but I feel like the time you take when you're not doing
anything is what allows you to do that, and what makes it important.
"Also, you don't have to sacrifice a family life or deep meaningful friendships or time for holiday
to be successful in business, because those other areas of your life are what contribute to the type
of thinking it takes to have a breakthrough idea. If you're just focused on business, business,
business, and specifically the industry you're in, then most likely your ideas are going to be the
same as everyone else in the industry.
"But spending a lot of time with your kids [Mycoskie and his wife Heather are parents to one
year old son, Summit] might give you a way of looking at a business problem that is different,
because you're now looking at it through what I call the beginner's mind. Sometimes you have
got to get out of the space you're in to really excel. Blake said.
You can't manufacture enthusiasm
Blake said that, "I personally have to feel connected. That goes for the giving side of TOMS, and
the commercial side, too. Eyewear [which TOMS launched] is something I'm very passionate
about, because when I was young, I had to wear really thick glasses. At 22, I had eye surgery,
and now I have perfect vision.

"Every morning when I wake up and don't have to put contacts on, I'm thankful. So it's really
exciting to be able to help people with their sight [the purchase of TOMS eyewear has meant that
sight has been restored to over 360,000 people in need via prescription glasses, surgery or
medical treatment], but also from a design standpoint thinking about how to craft beautiful
glasses that people love to wear.
"If I lose my connection to something, then other people in the company start to feel that, and it
has a ripple-down effect. If I'm excited about what I'm doing, then everybody feeds off that
energy.

Start your morning well

"My morning starts with a double espresso. I got professionally trained as a barista I can do the
drawings on top and everything so the things that contribute to a great start to the day for me is
coffee, 20 minutes for meditation and an hour for exercise." Blake said

Blakes Achievement
One thing that is most unique about TOMS and Blake thinks that hes most proud of is that every
single pair [of shoes] is hand placed onto a child's foot.
TOMS Shoes has provided over 50 million pairs of shoes to children since 2006, TOMS
Eyewear has restored sight to over 360,000 since 2011 and TOMS Roasting Company has helped
provide over 250,000 weeks of safe water since launching in 2014. In 2015, TOMS Bag
Collection was founded with the mission to help provide training for skilled birth attendants and
distribute birth kits containing items that help a woman safely deliver her baby.
From shoes to eyewear and now a book, Blake's unique approach to business has awarded him
with numerous accolades. In 2009, Blake and TOMS received the Secretary of State's 2009
Award of Corporate Excellence (ACE). At the Clinton Global Initiative University plenary
session, former President Clinton introduced Blake to the audience as "one of the most
interesting entrepreneurs (I've) ever met." People Magazine featured Blake in its "Heroes Among
Us" section, and TOMS Shoes was featured in the Bill Gates Time Magazine article "How to Fix
Capitalism." In 2011, Blake was named on Fortune Magazine's "40 Under 40" list, recognizing
him as one of the top young businessmen in the world.
Lastly, Blake is an avid reader and traveler. He is passionate about inspiring young people to help
make tomorrow better, encouraging them to include giving in everything they do. His hope is to
see a future full of social-minded businesses and consumers.