How To Inspire People To Be Passionate About Your Business

So you know that nobody cares about your business right? (It’s okay, they don’t care about mine either. They care about themselves.) Want to learn how to get them passionate about what you’re building?

Listen to my interview with Tom Szaky, who founded TerraCycle in college, based on the idea of selling worm poop. In the program, Tom taught how to get employees, customers and press to rally around a startup.

Tom Szaky

Tom Szaky

TerraCycle

Tom Szaky is the founder of TerraCycle, a company that collects difficult-to-recycle packaging and products and repurposes the material into affordable, innovative products.

We’ve had hundreds of interns come through and become a part of the company. It’s because we say, “become a part of a revolution. Help us eliminate the idea of waste in a very big way.” People want to become involved in that.

On the other side, we have people signing up on our web site to collect waste and get paid for it. And we have literally tens of thousands of accounts, and in each account there are hundreds of people. That’s millions of people collecting garbage, and helping us grow our business.

I think the key thing here is to become a cause. You become more than just a money making vehicle. You combine the benefits of a for-profit and not-for-profit in one entity. And that’s when you get people who get very excited and want to help you. Because it’s not just about, “I’m going to help this guy make a lot of money.” It’s, “I’m going to help this company create something that truly helping the world.” In our case, it’s eliminating the idea of garbage.

[This program was done because of help from:  Laura Clark Portfolio / Penguin Group and George Chevalier of TerraCycle]

The full program includes:

  • Tom’s amazing entrepreneurial story
  • An inspiring example of how business can do good
  • Tips for generating others passionate about your business
  • Techniques for getting publicity
  • Discussion of what it takes to be an entrepreneur
  • Andrew’s obsession with wanting a private plane

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