Welcome to Students Incorporated, a podcast exploring the topics of business, education,
technology and design.
I'm your host, Mr. Jason.
Join me weekly as my team and I produce content that's informative, positive, fun and uplifting.
Episodes include student conversations, interviews with thought leaders and inspirational stories
with an international flavor.
This podcast is created and produced with the help of students from the International
Community School of Bangkok.
Hello and welcome back to Students Incorporated.
I'm your host, Mr. Jason.
In our first segment of this episode, we'll be talking with Mr. Byron and Mr. Matt of
OhNow, a business that creates impact in Southeast Asia.
And I'm super excited for all of you to hear about what they're doing.
And for our second segment, we'll deliver part two of our story titled The Secrets of
Alderado written and produced by us, the season two podcast team.
If you missed part one, go back and listen to it first in episode 55.
Part one was titled The Disappearance.
But before we move on to our first segment, let's hear our quote of the day and get some
headline news.
Hey everyone, I'm Chania and our quote of the day comes from Jack Ma.
He is quoted to have said, never deceive others in business or in life.
In 1995, I was deceived by four companies, four companies that are now closed.
A company cannot go far by deceit.
This quote emphasizes the importance of honesty and integrity in both business and personal
relationships.
Mr. Jack Ma, a successful businessman shares his experience of being deceived by companies,
highlighting the negative consequences, dishonesty and deceit can have on a business.
All four of those companies have since closed.
The quote serves as a reminder that honesty is essential for long-term success and sustainability,
especially in business where it takes a lot of work to gain the trust of not only your
customers, but your employees as well.
And that's our quote of the day.
Now onto some headline news with Premi.
And now here's some headline business news from around the world.
American retail giant Target has followed in the footsteps of its biggest rivals Walmart
and Amazon in establishing a subscription program called Target Circle 360, a program
for free delivery in less than an hour for order under $35 for $99 a year.
While it may just have been another business decision to Target, the fact that the subscription-based
industry has grown explosively in the recent years may be something for businesses to watch
out for, as it is essentially a win-win for both companies and consumers.
By 2026, this industry will potentially be valued at $784 billion, according to Forbes.
After 50 years of economic partnership, Australian-Asian nations recently congregated at Melbourne,
Australia on March 4th to 6th at the ASEAN-Australian Special Summit in order to further establish
and strengthen their economic, cultural, educational and environmental cooperation.
Over context, ASEAN has been the economic powerhouse of growth in the recent years,
with economic growth of 3% annually.
As close neighbours, Australia has vowed to establish a Southeast Asian Investment Financing
Facility, which will aid Australian investments in Southeast Asian region, fund environmental
conservation and also support the Southeast Asian infrastructure.
And finally, a new addition in Bangna this year will be the official unveiling of the
Forestry-Yass MQDC Development Company's flagship project that displays your pursuit
of sustainability and quality of life.
The Forest District, which consists of numerous condos and villas, will all be integrated
into the District's green infrastructure that contains cooling systems, solar panels
and natural carbon dioxide absorbers, with greenery all around.
The Mulberry Grove Villas, which are nearing completion, should be completed by the end
of the first quarter of 2024 and available for homeowners to move into.
Additionally, there was a multitude of partnerships involved in the development of Forestry-Yass,
such as the company's funding by its bondholders, investors and foreign entities such as Canada's
world-renowned elder care centre, Baycrest, which helped with the development of Aspen
Tree, a set of condos designed for lifetime care.
Overall, the Forestry-Yass District will make Bangna a more lively place and also reduce
carbon emissions.
We are back with our first segment and I'm joined by co-host Premi and Chanya, along
with two special guests from Oh Now, Mr. Byron and Mr. Matt.
Premi will get us started.
Hello and welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for joining us.
To start off, could you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do?
Yeah, my name is Byron Hartzler.
I am from Canada originally, also American.
I have a wife and two kids.
Lived in Asia since 2011.
I like to create opportunities for people.
It could be economic, it could be developmentally, spiritually.
I want to create opportunities for people so they can take on a lot of different forms.
So I've been involved in businesses and a lot of other things, but everything is driven
by those things.
Yeah, so my name is Matt Wallace.
I'm from the United States originally.
I moved to Asia in 2008.
My thing really is about economic development, especially helping businesses create opportunity
in their communities.
So that means helping entrepreneurs to launch their own businesses, find their own ways
forward in a way that benefits the communities around them through additional jobs.
Wow, that's really inspiring.
Our next question is for Mr. Byron.
What did the early beginnings of Myanmar Adventure Outfitters look like and how did its journey
take shape along the way?
Thanks for the question.
It'll be a little bit long, but I'll try to keep it tight.
It's obviously based in Myanmar and we work in a fairly remote part of Myanmar.
And so idealistically, we went to a place to start a tourism company in a place where
there was no tourism yet at all.
And because we had a mission objective about what we wanted to accomplish and why we wanted
to do it.
And so, you know, we would always say that Myanmar is a fairly off the beaten track country
and we chose to live in an off the beaten track part of an off the beaten track country.
And so it was a little bit out there.
And so in order to start, we had to do a lot of research.
We're going coming to a new area and we're doing adventure tours.
And so we're out in the countryside in the villages, in the mountains, rivers, as you're
doing a lot of research.
But along the way, you need local advice and wisdom and understanding about the area.
And so you're meeting with little villages with 30, 40 houses in them and talking with
the village leaders and try to get to know the area from their perspective, introduce
who we are and what we do, because for them, they've never had tourism there.
So they don't even really know what it is.
Most people are from an agricultural background.
They farm, they grow rice or corn and no one in that community is thinking to themselves.
When I harvest my rice, I'm going to go somewhere and take pictures of nature.
This is not something that is in their mindset at all.
So you have to explain the concept of tourism and how it can be a beneficial relationship
for them as we are coming into their community.
So for most of them, I was the first foreign person they'd ever encountered.
And so it's just this weird thing.
What is this?
What's going on?
And so they're really curious and want to know.
And so you have to build a lot of relationship with places and people.
And that's really what we're about.
We want to create relationships.
We want to build opportunities for people.
And so you got to know people in order for that to happen.
So as we grew as a company, at the beginning, I was doing a lot of adventure guiding myself.
But as we developed and got more, we trained more guides, we grew more.
And so by the time we were in our peak, we were doing mountain biking and motor biking,
rock climbing, trekking, stand up paddle boarding, river work, working hot springs, waterfalls,
overnight stays of villages, eating with locals in their houses like bamboo or wood houses
or whatnot.
And at the same time as we were building our company, we started in 2015, Myanmar was opening
to the world.
There was a big drastic change in Myanmar from 2014 onward, where there was a lot of
openness to outside investment and tourism.
And so the tourism numbers in Myanmar are growing rapidly at the same time.
And so we were seeing our profits doubling year over year.
Our team was growing.
We were looking at expanding into new places.
And at the same time, the more business you do, the more tours we're doing in these places,
the more we get to know people, the more we get to know their situations and build relationships.
And so it also led us into development projects with them.
So we did education sponsorships because a lot of the youth from these villages, they
don't have school.
And so their parents send them to the Chinese border, which is oftentimes exploitative work.
They're 13, 14 years old working in a foreign country and it's not so safe for them.
So if they can stay in school, we wanted to help them do that.
So we did projects with villages, water filtration projects, health education, clothing drives,
all sorts of stuff.
So the deeper we build relationships with them, I mean, the more business we did with
them, the more times we spent with them, the deeper the relationships came.
And so it also created opportunities for, yeah, to be missional in these communities
and help them in various ways.
So I would say everything was going great and smoothly.
We were looking at expansion.
Everything was awesome.
And then COVID.
COVID was the great tourism killer of the world.
Thailand was a victim to this as well.
Obviously they've survived okay now, I think.
But yeah, COVID was our killer.
It was the first nail in our coffin.
I will get to more of that.
I think you have another question later on and I will get to more of that next.
So thank you so much.
And that really is powerful.
And I think it makes all sense with what you were saying earlier about how you're passionate
about creating the opportunities or relationships with all these people and communities and
helping them along the way.
So I love that.
And also it's really cool to, I guess, the very early beginnings of tourism in that part
of Myanmar, being the first to define tourism or explain what it is and then to create it.
So that's really powerful.
And for you, Mr. Matt, we'd love to hear how you and Mr. Byron know each other.
Yeah, can I?
Go for it.
I think so the social entrepreneurship space in Myanmar is pretty small.
And so when Byron was trying to figure out what he wanted to do, he came and had some
conversations with us at Oh Now!
Maybe about even joining in with the kind of work that we were doing, helping business
owners get started.
But we were doing it down in Yangon and it felt pretty clear early on that Byron had
a call to a different place, to a more off the beaten track place than even Yangon.
So that was just fun in the early days to get to talk to Byron about his tourism, social
enterprise idea and then to be part of him even exploring those initial waterfalls, those
initial kayaking journeys and single track motorcycle rides.
And yeah, it was fun.
I was just part of seeing it go.
I didn't do much to support it, but it was fun to see it go.
Yeah, we got going.
We moved up there and Matt and his family came up and some of the other guys from Oh
Now! came up and we were all friends with each other when we lived in Yangon.
And so our kids went to school together in Yangon.
And so as we moved up country, they were back in Yangon, they were like, wow, we can go
and do all this thing on vacation.
And so they would do like a father son camp out for our boys every year.
The fathers and sons from Yangon would come up to Lashio where we were living and Lou
not having a summer camp, we would do something like that every Songkran or ThinGen.
And yeah, so we just, they kept on coming up because it was a great place to hang out
with friends and also experience nature.
So I just say one thing, business is one of the most difficult things to do.
It's so complex and challenging.
Traditional business takes it to another level of challenge and difficulty because a lot
of times you're working in operating environments that are just way more difficult than a traditional
business would ever choose to operate in.
So when you're a person who runs a business and you find other people who are trying to
do the same thing in similarly difficult circumstances, there's some camaraderie that develops there.
There's some shared experience or understanding in a way that most people just can't imagine
the kind of decisions you have to make when you run a company in a place that is so operationally
challenging.
So that's really been a key part of our relationship for 10 years.
So you've previously mentioned how hard COVID hit and that actually connects to our next
question which is what were some of the biggest challenges Myanmar adventure outfitters faced?
Okay, I will start before COVID because the challenges of Myanmar existed far before COVID
existed.
Myanmar has had a civil war for 60 years and the area of Myanmar we were working in, probably
the reason there was no tourism is because there was a not so distant, fairly recent
history of civil war happening.
And so we saw a lot of opportunity and for most of it, it was post-conflict areas that
we were working in.
But we had to evaluate all the time, is there something happening here or there or wherever
and try to build a map of like, okay, is there a conflict?
Is there a risk of conflict in these areas?
It's not a widespread civil war, but in our area, it was just flare-ups here and there.
So you have to have a pulse on what's going on geopolitically inside our region.
And so that's the challenge.
There's places that we started off going to that we stopped because it was not safe.
And adventure is fun, but you don't want to take people in a war zone.
So that's not the adventure that people are looking for, right?
And so we have to be careful with people's safety.
And so that was one big issue.
The next one I would say is buy-in from local communities, like I mentioned, we're new.
And then also from the government perspective, we're running adventure, which they hear as
risky, they hear as dangerous.
And we're saying, no, we can manage the risk, we can manage the danger, we can take care
and be responsible the way we do things, right?
So that's another aspect of it.
From a business perspective, we were, like I said, off the beaten path and off the beaten
path country.
It's hard to find us.
And so getting yourselves on the map and marketing yourselves and getting yourselves out there,
getting people to go further out than they've ever thought of going to Myanmar was a challenge.
And then COVID, though, is the next one.
We know what COVID did to tourism.
And then following COVID in 2000, I guess in the middle of COVID really, but in 2021,
the military of Myanmar overthrew the democratically elected government.
And it spun the economic situation in the country even further downhill.
And so COVID was bad for tourism, but we were still seeing, we had a light at the end of
the tunnel.
We were feeling like, oh, there's promise and opportunity still.
But with this military coup, it has driven the economy back in the dark ages of Myanmar.
So yeah, there's just no tourism, like almost zero in the country now.
And so for those purposes, really, we're working on selling that company at the moment
and moving on to other things in Thailand.
Thank you so much for sharing.
Those are definitely some difficult challenges.
And to follow up on that, we wonder what were some key insights you took away from that
that you can share with us today?
Geopolitically, you have to know what you're getting yourselves into.
Matt will speak to this in a short two, but this is a challenge.
I think you do your SWOT analysis and evaluate what your opportunities and threats are.
But everything's changing all the time.
So being flexible, especially when you're working in a complex economy and place, you
have to be flexible all the time.
Flexible, being flexible, being innovative, not taking no for an answer.
None of what Matt and I have done in Myanmar happens unless you have some drive to just
keep on pushing when everyone else says no.
Yeah, we had a lot of hurdles along the way.
I didn't even speak to half of them, but there's a lot.
You have to have some stick to it in order to pull it off.
Yeah, thank you for sure.
Adaptability, flexibility, perseverance, definitely like very important qualities.
We understand that you were working together now.
Could you describe what that looks like?
Well, I'll start with it and then Matt can get into it.
The situation in Myanmar was devolving, this active conflicts in the areas that we were
living in.
And so we had the decision to move to Thailand.
I lived in Thailand earlier in my stay in Asia.
And so Thailand was an easy, easy move for us.
But we wanted to work with still the remaining the Myanmar community.
I don't know if you know about Myanmar, there's a lot of migrant workers in Myanmar, from Myanmar
living in Thailand, upwards of five million, they say out of two and a half million officially,
five million unofficially.
And so there's a lot of people from Myanmar living here.
And because of the situation, a lot more are moving here.
And so I know what Matt does.
I know their company already very well.
So when we were looking at moving to Thailand, Onow was also looking at starting something
else up in Thailand as well.
And so it was an opportunity for us to finally engage in each other's business.
I think we had explored working with them years before.
And then this was the time to come together and work together.
So now I'm just serving the bus.
I don't know if that's true or not.
But I think so the reality is there are a lot of Myanmar diaspora in northern Thailand,
across Thailand, really.
And so for Onow, as we look to expand what we do to other parts of Southeast Asia, it's
a pretty natural step, almost like a half step to go to northern Thailand and do a similar
kind of business model for impact with that Myanmar diaspora that exists up here in Thailand.
So Byron has a ton of experience with that diaspora, with the Shan, especially the Shan
people.
And he has experience running a business.
He has experience supporting community and impact.
It makes a ton of sense for Byron to come along with us and even show us a little bit
different way to do it with that community in particular.
So it brings a lot of experience and knowledge that helps us figure out how to serve them
more effectively.
Yeah.
And to follow up, what would you say is like the main vision and passion for Onow?
Ah, yeah.
So what we really exist for is primarily young female migrant or refugee women.
We want to help them become financially capable and empowered entrepreneurs.
So financially capable, we want them to be able to navigate managing their finances in
safe and formal ways.
We want them to do it using their mobile phones and structures like banks and microfinance
institutions.
We want them to do it safely and securely because the Internet is a risky place.
And all of that in service of them being able, if they want to, to launch their own business.
There's a word agency that we often use.
There's very little that is as demonstrative of agency than a business owner choosing to
launch her own business.
So a lot of the women we worked with in the past, they were in factories, they were accepting
whatever job they could find or even maybe they were sent to another city or another
country to find work so they could send that money back home with their families.
And usually that meant go find a factory job, probably not a very good job, probably dangerous.
And so what we wanted to say to those young women was, hey, actually, you can do the same
thing that your village or your family want you to do, but you can do it in a way that's
more creative or more demonstrative of the right that you have to make some choices for
yourself.
So that meant helping her start her own business.
And let me just essentially tell you, in Myanmar, we did this with initially about 300 women
up until the point of the pandemic.
And it was a very high touch, one-on-one coaching kind of interaction.
And that's where we really realized that this is not a training.
It can't be a training.
You can't really train business.
It needs to be experienced.
And that means having a dedicated individual walk alongside that journey with those young
women as they launch a business.
So we don't want 25 in a room and just talk to them.
We really want a cohort or a group that work together and know each other and encourage
each other along with a dedicated coach who can talk to each of those individual women
and the idea that they have can actually come out and get its time and get its focus that
it deserves for it to be a successful business.
I love that.
Thank you so much.
And I think that's definitely one of the key issues here in South Seat Asia or, I guess,
Thailand, too, rural women.
So I think empowerment, the empowerment and like you mentioned, helping them to find the
agency and creating their own businesses so they don't have to fall into this mundane
cycle of factory jobs is dangerous and doesn't pay very well as well.
So I love that.
And to build onto this as well, we understand that for a business to make an impact, it's
not a guarantee.
What are some more specific ways ONAO can make an impact in people's lives?
Yeah, that's a great question.
And it's a really good point that it's not guaranteed that business will have impact.
We talk about a double and triple bottom line.
So the bottom line of a business is, is it profitable?
Most businesses start because they want to be profitable.
If you don't have just as much emphasis on the impact bottom line, then a lot of times
the impact bottom line will disappear in pursuit of either profitability or survival even.
Our company has been through that.
And so the way we really think about impact is not only do we need to survive as a company,
we also need to see very clearly that women are succeeding in their businesses.
We have to measure profitability.
We have to measure growth in their revenues.
We have to measure jobs created.
We need to build into our business model the plan for how we gather that data, analyze
it and make sure that that's the actual outcome of what we're building.
We're always curious about how companies are using technology to help boost their business
operations and efforts.
How has technology helped play a role in your efforts?
Yeah, I mean, it's been a huge part of what we do at ONAO.
In fact, at this point, I would say we're more of a technology company than we ever
would have considered when we first started.
And that's part of the changes in strategy and responding to the opportunities and the
threats that are around us.
But for us, what we found early on, this was kind of a three-step process.
So the first step was we realized we can't just do entrepreneurship.
We need to do that financial capability stuff.
We need to do the financial literacy and the digital literacy pieces.
But we didn't want our coaches to just train on those ideas.
So we set out to actually build our own chatbots that these young women who were still while
they were working with us, they were still in factory jobs six days a week, 12 to 16
hour days.
So if we built a digital tool for them, like a chatbot and Facebook Messenger, they were
actually able to learn about financial management, about digital literacy while they were away
from us.
So our team built our own chatbots.
It was a lot of fun.
It was a really cool experience.
Those chatbots have been used at this point by more than 300,000 people.
They've been incredibly effective.
Secondly, though, we took technology and we started to put it into our operation.
So technology to our customer is one step.
Technology to support our own operation was the second step.
And what that meant was we gathered a bunch of data from our business owners and we funneled
it to our coaches in a really efficient kind of manner so that a coach could do a ton more
support, far more focused on each individual, but for far more individuals.
So if you imagine a coach's job, right, they have a 40 hour week, they go out and they
work with business owners.
We analyzed that time that they actually spend and we realized that they were spending 28
hours of the 40 in reporting and reading and preparing for calls.
So they weren't actually coaching very much.
They were doing a ton more data entry and reporting.
So what we did with our technology was basically take all that away so that we could give them
far more time actually coaching individual business owners.
So instead of 45 minutes of like asking questions and getting the information, they could spend
that 45 minutes talking about the business and being strategic and forming plans.
And that meant the coaching experience was better, the businesses benefited from it,
and they could support far more.
So let me give you a number.
We were supporting 300 businesses before the pandemic.
With this technology change, we went to supporting more than 10,000 businesses with real time,
one on one individualized coaching experiences.
So it was just a massive benefit when we applied technology to our operation.
That was a huge step for us.
Yeah, wow, that's amazing.
And that's like quite the big jump too, right?
And like absolutely, as you've mentioned before, like flexibility and adaptability are very
important and tapping into digital literacy can bring so many advantages as you've seen,
as you've shown us in the numbers.
And now looking forward, what does the future hold for O now?
Wow, okay, so it seems like you're...
Well, you can hear me like stumble, right?
Because it's never clear.
That is so the future.
We make our plans, we plan our steps.
It doesn't always go the way we're expecting it to go.
So a lot of our team is still in Myanmar.
So we have engineers and front-end and back-end developers and data scientists, and almost
all of them are based in Myanmar still.
We have a team of almost 40 that build our technology and support business owners.
A lot of them right now are facing some major challenges.
They're very young, on average about 25 years old, 26 years old.
They're facing some major challenges and threats to their life.
And so a lot of them are looking at leaving Myanmar and going to Thailand, going to Singapore,
going to Malaysia, finding work, escaping the current situation they're in.
So O now has to be flexible.
We have to figure out what is our actual operational model look like in an environment where most
of our people are looking to move away from Myanmar as fast as they can.
And I wouldn't say we have any answers, but I do know a couple of things.
Our model is really impactful and beneficial to the young women we work with.
We want to find a way to expand that model to other countries.
Number two, we want to share that model to a bunch of other organizations.
So our technology that we built is specifically built for an organization like ours.
And so now we're building it and giving it to many other organizations so they can scale
up their work with individual business support just like we did.
So those two things, we're going to take our model to other countries.
We're also going to give our technology to other organizations so that in the end far
more women who are on the margins have a chance to launch their own businesses and succeed
in their own businesses with individual support.
So that's really what is that's what we're out for.
It's what we're pursuing is a way to grow the company so we can grow our impact and
provide some cool jobs.
And at the same time, I would also drop the word because you have to the term artificial
intelligence.
If you're doing anything technology, you don't say that word.
You're a big trouble.
So we're doing that.
OK.
And if you want to know more about that, we can talk about it.
Artificial intelligence.
Yeah.
Could you tell us a little bit more about the whole artificial intelligence thing?
I can't.
I'm intrigued.
I can.
Yeah, I'm glad to.
So you know, in the past, we use something called a content management system.
OK, if you ever do any kind of on if you ever go to YouTube, I'm sure all of us do.
Right.
The second most popular search engine in the world.
YouTube on the back end of it, there's a content management system.
OK.
And whoever uploads a video, they upload it into the CMS.
And that's true for everything you've ever done.
If you ever go to Udemy and do an individual course, there's a CMS and a learning management
system as well.
In the past, when you created that content, it was the same for every person who used
it.
No matter who they are, no matter where they came from, they watched the same video.
They read the same information.
They looked at the same images.
We did the same thing for our chat bots and our technology for business owners.
It was the same information for everyone, no matter what their business type was.
But the problem is every business is different.
So you need individual attention.
Well, today, artificial intelligence lets us create a unique course for every single
person.
That's just one application of it.
Every individual business owner can have a different budgeting course.
Every individual business owner can have a different experience on their learning how
to manage their finances.
If you run a let's say a retail business that sells groceries, that's a very different
business than like a salon business that cuts hair.
So you can't expect to give them the same advice on how to do accounting.
Artificial intelligence lets us give very different tailored kind of experiences to
each of those.
And that's just one application of it.
I'd love to show you some to maybe I'll send you guys a demo and you can kind of play
around with it and see what I'm talking about here.
But everything is easier with artificial intelligence and also harder with artificial intelligence.
So you got to learn it.
All of you should learn it.
Thank you so much for your time.
For our last question, we always like asking our guests for advice.
So if you could give one piece of advice to prospective entrepreneurs who would love to
see the impact of their work on the lives of others, what would it be?
I'll start, I guess.
But there's a book by a guy named Simon Sinek called Storm With Why.
And it's a really interesting book.
You should read it.
But in it, I mean, the title explains it, but you have to know why you do what you do.
And if you're coming at your business from an impactful perspective, from impact perspective,
you have to let that drive everything that you do.
It cannot be an afterthought.
We're not about doing corporate social responsibility.
We want the business to be the thing that drives the impact.
And so it has to drive everything that you do.
So there's going to be times where you're going to have to make decisions.
Do I make decisions that are primarily a financial decision that hurts our opportunity for impact?
Or am I going to choose to ride on what we're about, which is making impact?
And so for us as a company, we had to make decisions.
OK, there are things that I was interested to do, but hey, we're not going to do it
because what we're about is creating opportunity for people in communities.
If it takes us away from that, it's not going to be what we do, even if it makes financial
sense.
And so you have to make some of these decisions that the way to do business from an impact
perspective is different than when you exist only for profit.
And so you have to make decisions that are looking at multiple bottom lines like Matt
talked about.
And so it has to be at the forefront of your mind in almost every decision making process.
Yeah.
So I would take the next step on that.
So we're essentially talking about being mission driven.
OK, so a company exists for a purpose.
And a company exists for a purpose.
And the way they achieve that purpose is they develop products, they develop services.
But those products and services are not the point.
The mission is the point.
So you as a CEO or as the leader, you have to be mission-allegiant, not product-allegiant.
And so a lot of times when we build our companies, we give into something called the sunk cost
fallacy.
We think, oh, I put all this work into building this product or building this service.
I have to keep doing it.
But if that product or service isn't achieving the impact you need, you have to kill it.
You have to kill it fast.
That doesn't mean killing the mission.
It doesn't mean killing the business.
It's killing a product or a service that isn't quite achieving the bottom line you really
care about.
So the way you decide to kill something is you learn as fast as you can if it's actually
impactful or successful.
If you take six months to figure that out, you might burn everything you have in that
six months and the mission will die.
But if you can learn everything you need to in a day or a week or a month, you can make
that decision to kill something much sooner than you're preserving, conserving your resources
to figure out how best to deliver the mission.
So know what you exist for.
Know that at the top and then be super flexible and really sometimes brutal in cutting the
things that just aren't contributing to the mission that you really set out for.
And that is a tough call.
And sometimes people get really upset about that.
It's hard.
It's so hard to do.
It's really hard to do, especially in a team.
But be mission driven, not product driven or service driven.
Be mission driven.
All right.
Thank you so much again for joining us.
It's been very really inspiring and really insightful.
Thank you so, so much again.
It's been an honor and honor to have you on the podcast today.
Our pleasure.
Thanks a lot.
And that ends segment one of this episode.
I hope you've been inspired by hearing Mr. Matt and Mr. Byron's journey and work with
O now.
The topic of this segment was businesses that create impact.
So I'd like to go back to something Mr. Matt said.
He talked about the importance of a business being mission, Allegiant and not product Allegiant.
This is a great takeaway from this segment.
Businesses that desire to make a positive impact in people's lives should stay true
to their missional bottom line.
Not just their products or services because those after all can change over time.
So thank you for that great message.
All right.
Stick around as we will continue with part two of our story, the secrets of El Dorado.
But first we'll be right back after this short PSA.
One, two, three, four.
We've been keeping a current project quiet for a while now, mainly because it's not
completely done yet.
It's no secret that we have a much smaller podcast team this season, which means all
five of us are fulfilling multiple roles this season.
On top of that, we all have other regular responsibilities outside the show.
Currently, our show can be found on Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Amazon podcasts
and YouTube.
We've hosted so many interesting guests over the last year and a half and we've learned
so much from them.
According to the data we've collected, our show has seen over 5,200 downloads from all
over the world.
We thought we'd share some of the more interesting places our show has reached and where some
of our listeners are coming from.
Many you've heard from some of these places like Boardman in the USA, Sumaprakhan, Thailand,
Paris, France, San Jose, California, USA, Brussels, Belgium, would be Canada, Singapore,
Guadalajara, Mexico, Azerbaijan, Istanbul, Turkey, Hong Kong, Zimbabwe, Spain, Peru,
Morocco, New Zealand, and Australia and so, so many others.
Because of this, we want to make all that great episode content available in other online
formats as well.
So we're working on completing a website which will include not only episode, audio,
and video, but we will also include a blog section that will be full of well-crafted
articles.
We will also make it easier to contact us and send us any inquiries about sponsoring
episodes.
Don't worry, we'll be sure to announce it when it's ready.
But we thought we'd give you a heads up.
We are back for our second segment and we will continue with part two of our story.
Part two is titled, Uncovering Secrets.
But first, Chania will give us a quick recap of part one from our last episode.
In the last episode of The Disappearance, we meet the characters of the story, Ava,
Lily, Ethan, Sierra, and Professor James Hawthorne, and learn a little bit about their background
and personality.
Located in the heart of California, the story starts off with Lily, Ava, and Sierra at Ethan's
Cafe.
At the cafe, Sierra introduces Lily to Ava, her best friend.
We hear from Lily that she is supposed to meet an acquaintance of hers in the cafe.
This mysterious person she was going to meet never shows up.
A cryptic text message sparks mystery and intrigue from the trio of ladies in the cafe.
Thank you Chania, and without further ado, let's dive back into our story as we join
Ava, Lily, Sierra, Ethan, and the Professor as they begin to uncover secrets.
You pick up where we left off at Ethan's Cafe.
By now, it's closer to noon hour and Ava and Lily have been talking together about
life and other things for the better part over an hour or so.
Occasionally, Sierra would pop over to their table in the cafe to chime in when time allowed
her to, mainly between taking orders, delivering orders, and cleaning tables for other customers
of the cafe.
Lily seemed to have forgotten about the text messages and was talking about forensic science
in college with Ava, saying that forensic science was very challenging and required
an in-depth understanding of scientific principles and techniques.
She also told Ava that she wasn't getting enough sleep due to the amount of homework.
However, there was something about that text message that just didn't sit well with Ava.
Maybe it was just her curiosity or maybe it was her investigative nature that kept it
on top of mind.
Either way, Ava wanted to bring it up again with Lily.
Can I see that text message again?
Ava asked Lily.
Sure, it'll be replied, Lily passed her phone to Ava just as Sierra was talking back
in.
Are you guys still trying to figure out what that message means?
Sierra said as she walked by.
Ava reads it again to herself.
I know we don't know each other very well, but it's very important that we meet tomorrow
morning in person if possible.
It's quite urgent and there's something I need to give you for safekeeping.
Ava thinks to herself again.
This is a message from a person named Chen, probably a guy, and Lily didn't know him
very well.
Ava looks up at Lily and asks, who's Chen?
Before Lily could respond to Ava's question, Ava says, I think we need to find who Chen
is first and then maybe you'll be able to solve your little mystery of why he stood
you up this morning.
Lily responds, I met him only a couple of times over in the science department labs
during the first semester this year.
We did not talk much, but I do know that he is also from China.
He is or was working as an assistant to one of the professors at the college and he graduated
several years ago.
We exchanged contact information and briefly talked about where we were from in China.
Besides that a little bit, we really did not interact with each other or in the same circle
of friends.
At this point in the conversation, Sierra is standing right over Ava and Lily's table,
looking down at them with a half smile.
I have an idea for a fun lunch break activity.
Since Ethan's making me work a longer shift today, he's allowing me to take a 90-minute
lunch break which starts in five minutes.
Anyway, why don't we go over to the science lab and see if Professor Sharpton is still
in and just ask him if he's seen Chen around.
Professor Sharpton won't mind if we show up and ask him, especially if I bring him
a pastrami sandwich.
He comes in here two to three times a week for lunch and has his own tab.
I guess Ethan and him have an agreement or something.
Actually, many of the professors from the college have that agreement with Ethan.
No wonder why they all love this place.
Lily, how about it, Sierra asks Lily.
Sure, are both of you going to come with me?
They ask Ava and Sierra.
Ava responds, yeah, I need to stretch my legs anyway.
I've been sitting here all morning working on this story for the bee and it's not really
going anywhere right now.
So yeah, let's go.
I can drive.
My car is parked right in front already.
Sierra watches as the clock turns to noon and then informs Ethan that she'll be back
around 1.30 p.m. after her long lunch break is over.
Sierra appreciated that Ethan was totally fine with her taking her long break over the
peak lunchtime of the cafe.
Ethan always schedules more staff to work during the summer season.
His position would be covered by two other part-time staff who just clocked in.
Ethan was happy if his customers and employees were happy.
He did as much as he could to make sure that his VIP employees were well taken care of.
Sierra being one of those VIP employees, Ethan knew that she often did the work of two people,
which meant she was saving him money every shift she worked.
And the customers loved her.
It would be a sad day when she moves on from the cafe to a different job.
He knew she was wanting to start her teaching career and figured that she would probably
be leaving this job after the summer was over.
Before Sierra was able to leave the cafe, Ethan had a quick question in her favor to
ask her.
You see, Ethan still had Silicon Valley blood flowing through his veins and was always working
on side technology projects.
Ethan hands Sierra what looks like a small paper clip.
He asks, I'm working on the small tracking device system and I finished the small transmitter
part last night late, but I haven't been able to test it out yet today.
Anyway, could you put it in your pocket and take with you?
I want to check it and see if the tracking software I wrote last week will work with
this small transmitter I built.
Basically, I need you to give it a field test for me.
That's all.
Sierra was half listening to Ethan's explanation, took the small paper clip and put it in her
pocket and said, sure, no problem, Ethan.
Thank you, Ethan said as the three ladies left this cafe.
A few minutes later, Ava found herself parking the car in front of the four story science
building at the college.
Lily, Sierra, and Ava enter the building and make their way to the front reception desk
area and notice that no one is around.
Makes sense, since the semester is pretty much done.
They decide to go check out the labs and see if anyone there is working.
They walk over to the lab elevator, which is secured by key card entry only.
Lily's student ID allows her to gain access to the basement lab area, which consists of
many different lab rooms, which are also secured by key card entry only.
The labs are in the basement of the building, which helps keep the different experiments,
equipment, and chemicals away from the upper floor offices and classrooms.
Lily notices that only one of the lab rooms is open and that Professor Shepton is in there
helping supervise several students who had begun working on their summer projects.
However, Lily didn't recognize any of the students' interns.
Lily looked to be an upperclassman or post-graduates.
Either way, Lily didn't think much about it, nor did she mention it to Ava or Sierra
at that time.
After having a brief conversation with Professor Shepton, the trial found out from Professor
Shepton that Chen actually works as an assistant to Professor James Harthorne in the history
department, which is one building over.
Professor Shepton also revealed that even though Chen doesn't technically work as
an assistant to any of the professors in the science department, Chen still had the freedom
to use the labs when projects overlap between the two different departments, which they
do a lot.
The trio also noticed that Chen's name was on one of the lockers in the hallway outside
the lab room.
As the trio was leaving the science building, Sierra notices that Ava has a big smile on
her face.
What's with the big smile, Ava?
Sierra asks.
Ava quickly responds, I love doing this kind of stuff, you know, trying to solve a quote
unquote mystery.
Besides, this is so much more interesting than my half-written article I was working
on back at the cafe.
Lily asks, do you have time to go with me to the history building?
We can just walk there from here since it's close.
I'm a bit nervous since I don't really know anyone from that department.
Sure, Ava replies.
No problem, I have like an hour before I have to go back to work, Sierra says.
The three walk over to the history building and enter through the front.
They then search the main floor directory and find that Professor James' office is
on the third floor.
They walk to the elevator and push the up button and wait.
The elevator dings and the door opens.
There stands Professor Hawthorne, ready to exit the elevator.
Professor Hawthorne looks up as the doors are opening and there stands three people.
Two of them he somewhat recognizes, Lily and Sierra, having been former students of his
from a previous year.
But he didn't recognize Ava, but he could tell that they were all together.
May I help you?
Prof Hawthorne asks.
Lily speaks up first since she could tell he recognized her.
She had taken one of his archeology classes the previous year and really enjoyed the way
the class connected well with some of her forensic science classes.
Lily spoke up and said, Professor Sharpton said that you have an assistant working for
you by the name of Ching.
If he's here, could we talk with him?
We tried to text him and call him, but I didn't get any replies.
Hmm, funny you asked, said Prof Hawthorne.
He's supposed to be here today, but he never showed up this morning, which is not like
him.
If you know Ching, you know he's very punctual and responsible.
The reason why so many of his professors wanted him as their research assistant this year.
So I was pretty lucky to get him.
I tried calling him earlier today as well and did not get a reply, which is not like
him either.
He's pretty good about returning calls, especially when it's related to his responsibilities
here in this department.
However, before he left work yesterday, I do recall him telling me that he was going
to come back later in the evening.
He said he'd come back around 8pm I think.
He wanted to use one of the science labs in the other buildings for about an hour or so.
Lily steps forward and shows Prof Hawthorne the text message she received on Ching last
evening.
She had received the message around 9.15pm.
Prof Hawthorne pulls out his phone and tries to call Ching again.
It rings for a while and goes into voicemail.
Ching, Prof Hawthorne here.
If you get this message, call me back when you get a chance.
Thanks.
Prof Hawthorne knew that Ching was working on something special in the lab.
Something Ching had even talked to him about recently.
He also knew that Prof Sharpton, the science department chair, had approved Ching's side
project so long as it did not interrupt Ching's other responsibilities at work.
Prof Hawthorne asks Lily, so you don't know what Ching was going to give you for safe
keeping?
No, and I'm not sure why either.
Lily responded.
Meanwhile, Ava is taking notes on her phone as the conversation continues between Prof
Hawthorne and Lily.
Ava is thinking to herself quietly about the series of articles she's needing to write
this summer for the beef and is again quietly hoping this situation could turn into maybe
a larger story.
Sierra chimes in and says, hey guys, I got to get back to work soon.
You can stay and chat if you want, but I have to head back.
I'm sure Ethan is swamped and needs me back at the cafe.
Lily and Ava decide to head back to the cafe with Sierra as the conversation with Prof
James Hawthorne was ending anyway.
As the trio were leaving, Prof Hawthorne said, I was going to head over to Ethan's to grab
a bite to eat, so maybe I'll see you over there.
As the trio left, Prof Hawthorne heads back up to his office.
The entire conversation about Chen sparked a memory of an interaction he had with Chen
the week before.
He hadn't thought much about it until now, especially after seeing the text message Chen
had sent to Lily.
Now back in his office, Prof Hawthorne grabs an old book from his shelf, opens it up to
one of the inner pages which was hiding a folded up piece of paper Chen had given him
the week before.
Prof Hawthorne would often hide papers and notes in his old books.
This was done more as a habit from his old days doing field work on dig sites.
As he took notes at dig sites, he would slip those notes into a book for safekeeping.
Let's face it, you can't carry a filing cabinet with you into the field, and back in those
days, they were not taking laptops out to the field either.
On this piece of paper was written some sort of formula, along with several Chinese characters
that Prof Hawthorne had not been able to translate yet.
He had tried to use his language translation app, even looked in some old books, but could
not find a way to translate the characters.
Next he calls Prof Sharpton to inquire about Chen.
The conversation was short and a little awkward.
After hanging up, Prof Hawthorne noticed that Prof Sharpton seemed a little abrupt and not
himself on that call.
After the brief call with Prof Sharpton and as he was getting ready to leave his office,
Professor Hawthorne knew he had seen those Chinese characters somewhere before.
Ah, he thought to himself, he remembers where he's seen them before, goes to the filing
cabinets and retrieves a Manila folder from the back.
Inside of the folder was an old manuscript from the 1930s.
The manuscript had never been published at that time because it was deemed not credible.
But there were several things in the manuscript that Hawthorne was still curious about, and
he's pretty sure some of those Chinese characters are in the manuscript.
The local library had allowed him to borrow the manuscript several years ago when he was
doing research for one of his old books.
However, he forgot to return it and the library never called him about getting it back.
So there it sat, in his office in the back of a filing cabinet.
As Professor Hawthorne makes his way over to Ethan's Cafe for a late lunch, he's
got two things on his mind, a delicious pastrami sandwich and the items in his briefcase.
The folded up note from Chen and the old manuscript.
And that ends part two.
Thank you for listening.
Tune in next episode as we continue with part three of our story titled, The Map.
And we have the privilege of talking with one of the marketing directors of Harper Collins
out of New York City.
As we end this episode, I hope you've been inspired by our guest's story in segment one
and the missional business they have dedicated themselves to.
And I hope you stay curious about what will happen to our characters, Ava, Lily, Sierra,
Ethan and Professor Hawthorne next.
As always, this podcast would not be possible without the hard work and support of our international
student production team.
All music and sound effects are courtesy of Pixabay.com, a vibrant community of creatives
sharing copyright free images, videos and music.
And we are signing off until next time.
Be your students incorporated because your voice matters.