It's been a long while since my last blog post. I just want to make it clear that my intention was never to blog on a monthly basis lol. Weekly perhaps, but not monthly. Asides from being ridiculously busy as of late, I am absolutely brutal at keeping secrets regarding myself. Sure I can lock it down for a lifetime if it involves someone else, but I just get too damn excited regarding my own stuff. Plus there was a big part of me that wanted to stay completely behind the scenes regarding my pet project. Well after this past Thursday, that's kind of hard now. Just a warning but this will probably be my largest blog post to date. Might want to grab a drink and a sandwich.
On Jan. 25, 2012, The Herald ran a front-page story about Tim Barber and his silent partner Chris Morris. Tim was a homeless man who had a simple yet brilliant idea for a new business and Chris was his trusty sidekick keeping him on task and positive. How often have you been late for work and drive past a Tim Horton's knowing that you can't stop no matter how bad you need that large double-double? Tim saw this and wondered how much the suits down town would pay for him to stand in line for them and deliver their coffee, with a small delivery charge of course. Then the idea grew to include any other coffee shop or restaurant in the down town core. After investing in a business licence and heat bag, along with a helping hand from a local print shop for flyers, Tim delivered a bunch of flyers to some down town offices. For the first couple of days, no orders came in. Then 1 did. Then a second. Sure it wasn't a flood of clients, but it gave him purpose and let him know that this just might turn into a decent idea. Someone got wind of the idea at The Herald and the rest is history.
It's at this point that I came into the picture. After reading the story http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/iphone/news/latest/story.html?id=6052183 I thought to myself "This guy could use some marketing help." So I called Tim and told him I'd like to buy him a coffee and tell him how I could help him. I'm pretty sure he was skeptical at first, but after listening to me for 5 or 10 minutes he agreed to give me a shot. I mean here I was talking about things he had never heard of like Twitter and Awesome Calgary, but the fact that I was willing to help for free sold him. Probably didn't hurt when he said I could plug my fledgling marketing business and I told him no. I wanted this story (and still do) to be about him. I'm only coming public now because of a conversation with my friend Mel where she convinced me that the contacts I have will help us grow his business faster if it's not a secret. Personally, I would much rather be Bruce Wayne to his Batman.
So we launched our Twitter presence on Jan. 30, 2012. We reached 100 followers within 24 hours. By the end of our first week, we eclipsed 200 followers. As we approach our 1 month Twitter anniversary, we are poised on exceeding the 300 follower checkpoint. In that time we've been tweeted to by an amazing community of people. We have some tweeps that we chat with on a daily basis (like @annemaccat and @sweetpea403) and we've even had a couple of conversations with the mayor of Calgary @nenshi (no orders yet Mr. Mayor but we know you will eventually ;). The offers for help have been numerous and generous. As for building a Twitter presence, I would say this has been a successful first month, but Twitter does not make a business.
Like any business, some form of operating capital is needed. Whether this is for supplies or marketing or even just to give a little buffer so one slow day doesn't shut down the business. It is absolutely remarkable that Tim has been able to start this and keep it going on the most minimal of resources. But with that being said, I knew we needed something. Enter Awesome Calgary http://www.awesomecalgary.org/ . I had attended their November pitch night. I loved the idea of a foundation helping people with awesome ideas make these ideas reality. With a carrot like $1000, I thought it would be awesome to submit Tim's idea, so without his knowledge, I did so. I mentioned it in passing but I don't think it really resonated with him and that was fine by me. I mean if we didn't get accepted I didn't want it to weigh him down. In the middle of February I was notified that we had made the final 4 for February's award. When I explained to him what this meant, he did his infamous Timmy Happy Dance. Inside I did too. This past Thursday we pitched Tim's idea. I wanted people to get a chance to see Tim's passion and positivity so we kept it a very basic interview style. http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/20651628 They saw in him what I did and he won. He was already winner, this just confirmed it to him. Our next step is Dragon's Den, but we'll wait until next year lol.
I've never been accused of thinking small. In fact, I would tend to agree with people when they say that I sometimes set unreachable goals. My reasoning is simple - I aim for the moon, and if I miss, I hit the stars. Although Tim's story of redemption is what drew me, after talking to the man for 5 minutes I knew that this had the potential to be bigger than anything he could have hoped for. The simplicity of his idea made it scalable. Why get only 2 people off the street when we could get 20 or even 200? Although Tim and Chris are incredibly hard workers, they are only 2 men covering a down town the size of Calgary. What if we had 4 or 5 other 2-man teams, each covering a different section of down town? With at least half of our Twitter followers located outside the down town core, what is the possibility of expanding to include the entire city? Waiters En Route needs some competition and we're hungrier. Now what if we replicate this to another Canadian city? And then the U.S? You see what I'm saying? If there's a way to dream small then I just don't know how.
So this is what I've been up to lately and it's only the beginning for Tim. I plan on taking him as far as I can. As I told him, my plan is to get him noticed by Arlene from Dragon's Den so a real marketing company can handle him lol. But even if that happens, I know I've made an amazing new friend who I'm proud of every day. Tim shows me that no matter how hard life kicks you, your only choice is to kick back harder. Otherwise you're not really living.
