Last night I attended a Meetup with the founders of Orange Sky Laundry, a truly humbling experience.
The Meetup was organised by Paul and Joeri from BigJump, and held at River City Labs. Orange Sky Laundry is the mobile laundry service that provides a free service to homeless people, and you can learn more about Orange Sky Laundry here.
Listening to, and watching the presentation from Lucas Patchett and Nic Marchesi (the Young Australians of the Year 2016) was not only awe inspiring but incredibly instructive.
We business people can sometimes think we are pretty clever. We do some clever stuff, we sort some complex problems, and sometimes we can think we are pretty smart. However hearing the story that Lucas and Nic presented was truly humbling.
Consider the following:
- They overcame significant engineering challenges – mechanical, electrical and with volumes of water.
- They talked with their customers, and others that understood their customers to work out how to reach them and provide them with a free service.
- They conquered the convoluted corporations and tax laws to create an entity that can receive money from people around the world to provide a unique and valued service for free to homeless people in Australia.
- They overcame huge logistical challenges, that within two years delivers services in every state of Australia.
- They solved the HR problem of recruiting, on-boarding and managing 260 volunteers to deliver coordinated services to their friends on the street.
- When growing their army of volunteers they realised that operating the equipment on vans was too complex for part-timers – so they wrote the software to automate the operation. Then developed a Mobile App to make it easier for volunteers.
- They mastered social media and PR with apparent ease.
Success in life is for those that overcome the challenges and setbacks.
Personally, I have delivered 100’s of presentations and attended more than that.
Lucas and Nic’s presentation was the best I have ever attended. Why..?
- They were scripted (so every word counted) but they were genuine.
- They were rehearsed (so every moment counted) but they were natural.
- They used props and jokes – but were never corny.
- They told the story of so many individuals.
- They told the stories of their friends on the street, the people whose lives they had improved, by cleaning their clothes and treating them like real people.
Orange Sky Laundry. Donate and/or volunteer. I will.