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Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.host. Hey everyone and welcome to How I Built This Resilience Edition. On these episodes, we're talking with entrepreneurs and other business leaders about how they're thinking creatively during such a disruptive time.
And today, we're going to hear from Taha Bawa, the co-founder of Goodwall. Goodwall is a social network that connects high school and college graduates with jobs and scholarships. Today, Goodwall has raised over $16 million with more than a million users on the platform. I spoke with Taha from his company headquarters in Switzerland, where he gave me a rundown of Goodwall's mission.
For people who've never heard of Goodwall, just tell us how it has to work. It's essentially a mobile-first platform that's designed for the next generation. We started off with high school students, helping them build up their first profile, showcase themselves in a way that accentuates their extracurricular activities in particular, connect them to opportunities, mostly scholarships and colleges. And then all of this happens within a positive and supportive community.
And over time, we've grown with our members into the college and young professional space. Our whole goal is to level the playing field and maximize the potential of as many people as possible. So it's been compared to LinkedIn. Is that a fair comparison?
I think there are similarities. However, we're really focused on our part, which is this next generation, starting as early as 16, and guiding them through, almost sure putting them through the future of learning and learning and those opportunities. I think there are various features that we have that they don't, and we're really focused from user experience perspective. And then from a community perspective, it's very different.
Post-The Tutsi on LinkedIn just don't work here. You wouldn't find students talking about being on the chess team, being on the robotics team, being on et cetera, et cetera, on Goodwall. I mean, if you are, let's say, 18 years old and you're interested in applying to college, what does it look like? You go to Goodwall, you create a profile for yourself and then what?
Yeah, you go into Goodwall, you create a profile for yourself. Our initial early adopters were mostly international school students who maybe didn't have as much guidance as others, or students based out of the US who maybe didn't have as much guidance from their parents or from college counselors. They'd come on here and see what other people are doing. They'd be matched with colleges and universities and also with scholarships based on their data and their profiles.
And then they'd be able to connect with like-minded youth. So for example, we had this girl based out of Jordan who was really into robotics and science. And unfortunately, there's no one really around her who had those similar interests. And she was able to find others like her in the US connected internet, NASA, did incredible things afterwards.
And essentially, many of our students have gone and found exclusive opportunities at universities like Oxford and others that we partnered with. And it's super fulfilling from that perspective. Yeah, it's really cause I was checking it out last night. And it's a little bit like if you didn't have a mentor or a guidance counselor, like here you go.
Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of our early adopters were privileged in the sense that they had a lot of ambition and maybe they went to good schools. But over time, we've especially, we've really put a lot of effort and a lot of energy towards helping youth who are maybe a little underprivileged. And that privilege is actually not necessarily a hundred percent linked to financial situation, but it can be.
For example, what we're doing now with UNICEF and other organizations in Africa, for example, is we're running programs there and we're really helping youth bring out their ideas, build up their confidence, show who they are and connect to opportunities. And it's been really, really fulfilling and we expect to do more underrepresented communities in the US, for example. We're doing more and more there. And that's where the biggest room for impact is at the end of the day, we are a social enterprise.
And it's very fulfilling to help youth who go to elite schools and connect them to the universities and colleges. But it's even more fulfilling and even more important for us to step in where the impact is the biggest, for example, youth in Africa who in certain African countries that just don't have any exposure, don't have opportunity, don't have the guidance, but do have access to a phone. And can as a result, so we're really trying to do more there in particular. And you started this company in 2014 with your brother.
Where did the idea come from? Yeah, so my brother's idea, both of us were born in Switzerland. We lived in Polisani, Iran, the US, came back to Switzerland. Our parents used to work in the humanitarian sector, so my father worked for our served refugees for around 30 years.
And we experienced a lot growing up. It was quite a contradiction going skiing on the weekend in a very affluent or privileged little bubble in Switzerland, whereas at the same time we go on some vacation and give candy out to refugee kids who were our age, 10, 11. And that really did shake us quite a bit and throughout our upbringing, we realized that we are where we are. I'm here, not because I'm smart, but because I was lucky.
I was born and I could have been born two doors down and that my life would have been very different. And I'm confident because of the experiences I had rather than because I'm innately able to do so. And that's really what pushed us to say, we were lucky in this sense. What would happen if we were able to give those opportunities in terms of particularly experiences?
So education is one thing, but traditional education is one thing, but particularly experiences to millions of youth around the world. What would happen? How could we change things? And that's where we thought, okay, it has to be a mobile person, or it has to be a digital solution, and it has to be able to tackle millions.
And we wanted to go a step further. We said it's good to maximize one's potential. But hopefully we can do that in a way and we're very idealistic in that sense. In a way that it maximizes or improves society as well, or impacts society positively, which is our mission statement.
That if we had enough people that are exposed to not only improving themselves, but so often it's a form of education, knowing what's out there. If I hadn't gone to those refugee camps or if I didn't have the background where my parents are rich from Sri Lanka, would I really be so inclined to have this positive impact? Who knows? But I did have that chance and I do that as an opportunity.
So if we can give those opportunities and showcase through volunteering, through being aware, through connecting to people from different backgrounds, hopefully we can move the world forward. I think it's needed now more than ever, right? Yeah, for sure. Let's talk business for a second.
I think you've got around 15 employees around the world. You've got offices in the US, Germany, Serbia, the Philippines. I mean, you're growing. You've got presumably some cash runway.
But these are tough economic times. I mean, LinkedIn just laid off a thousand people. There are record numbers of people in the US filing for unemployment. So first of all, how has your revenue been and your business been impacted by the global economic slowdown?
Yeah, I mean, when it happens, I think the first week where we started to notice it was getting really serious. I remember it. The first thing we did was we had a board meeting and we talked about, okay, what's our cash situation and let's make sure we get through this however long I may be, while maintaining the team. For two reasons.
One is like you don't want to get them down where debt's viral, but also because we have the opportunity to have real impact in this time if we make the changes and adapt effectively. But we won't be able to do so. We don't have the team to do it. So we've actually hired over the past few months and we've actually grown over the past few months.
And we've adapted to do so. The first week was really about scenario planning and getting through that. After that, we assumed the worst, but we ourselves decided, well, there's definitely less demand for recruitment. There's definitely less hires, which hurts us, which hurts our users or our members.
And we said, okay, how can we help? Because if they come on and they know jobs, well, it's a very bad experience, but it's also it's hurting us. So what we did was we put together this program better together and other challenges where you can really develop work experience at the end of it. They get certificates that show that they've accomplished these different challenges, participated in it.
And at the end, it can be used as work experience towards all of our partner companies. So it's actually giving them something to do some hope. And at the same time, this is generating revenue for us. It's one example of generating revenue for us.
Another example is just before the crisis, part of our model is we work with large partners and a couple of these large partnerships, so like leading recruitment and leading education groups stopped or came to a halt. And then I don't know if this is despite COVID or because of COVID, other opportunities came about. We've now partnered over the course of COVID with market leaders in markets that we are not present in or we're very marginally present. And it's actually allowing us to take our extra market share and grow in a more significant way to temper our own ways.
Yeah. Let me ask you about the demographic that you target, right? I mean, and I'm going to use this term Gen Z, which I always cringe when I say it, because I remember like when I was in my 20s and people talked about Gen X and their slackers and I would just cringe and just hear older people talk about Gen Xers and I was like, what are you talking about? But just to make this kind of simple, we'll just say Gen Z.
So if you're Gen Z, I'm sorry, it's annoying, I know. This is a really challenging economic moment. If you are in high school now and you're going into college or if you're in college, there's a pretty good chance you're going to graduate into a world with very few jobs. You know, a world that we haven't seen certainly since 2008, not 9 and 10, but maybe far far more challenging than that.
What's your sense? I mean, what do you think? I mean, do you think that's actually true? That is likely to be the case for the next three, four, five years or more?
Yeah, I think whether or not we go through a deeper session with mass unemployment, particularly for the youth, the next three, four, five years, it's very probable that youth at least in the short run are to suffer. They're normally the last to be hired, the first to be fired. And that's justified for various reasons, including ethical. Oh, they have less commitments than for example, someone with a few kids.
But it is incredibly difficult. And the mental toil of, let's say an 18 year old doesn't know what's coming up next. We need to be able to be resilient and we need to be able to learn how to learn and adapt, because we just don't know what's going to happen. So they could be a second downturn.
It could be a third downturn. It could be sustained downturns and us like across society, but in particular for the youth, we have an opportunity, they have an opportunity to take this and say, OK, it doesn't kill me. It might make me stronger. And I can learn from this and develop that resilience that five, six, 10 years from now, I'm able to deal with the next crisis in a more in a stronger way because I'm going to have to do that.
And some of the skills that need to be developed in my opinion are entrepreneurial thinking that ability to be flexible and resilient. We need to do more though, beyond just either these massive stimulus packages and the government is trying to do whatever they can for sure. This generation needs the government needs to intervene to be able to, or organizations need to be able to intervene to support them to the best of their abilities and turn off developing these skills and being able to be resilient. When we come back in just a moment, I'll talk with Ha Ha about college graduates who will probably face a shrinking job market over the next few years.
Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This Resilience Edition from NPR. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This Resilience Edition. Despite the economic slowdown, Ta Ha and his company, Goodwall, have been able to grow their team and stay afloat.
But his jobs are drying up across the globe. Many college graduates are looking for opportunities and can't find any. If you're like in your early 20s now and you're looking for an opportunity and you can't find one, what would you recommend a young person do whose graduating college or just entering the workforce and is kind of trying out different potential career paths? I mean, is it a good time to just steer clear the workforce for a while and get some more education, which in the US means more debt?
What do you think? Yeah, I think definitely trying is important, but this might just be an opportunity to start your own thing. You know, a lot of great companies came out of the last crisis because they just couldn't find jobs or that opportunity just wasn't there for a year. So maybe start one's own thing.
It's never been easier to start a business. It's never been easier to try something new. So if even if it doesn't work, that's incredible work experience. You know, when we talk to CHROs of some of the leading companies in the world, what are they looking for?
Or were they looking for the growth of the crisis? And definitely after is that ability to be entrepreneurial, even if you're working for Fortune 500. So it can't hurt. Best case scenario, you build something amazing.
Worst case scenario, you fail and you take those skills and you leverage those skills and you keep your mind active. It's so important for mental health perspective. Keep your mind active and then apply them when the market comes back, which it will at one point. Another opportunity, if maybe starting yourself isn't it, join some friends or join or reach out to small startups.
Definitely volunteer is an opportunity. There are a lot of NGOs, there are a lot of nonprofits that need help or need support right now. Build up your work experience, gain some experience that concrete, tangible work experience that differentiates you further. Rather than just having eight, 12 months in your resume, which are empty.
Unfortunately, it might not help on the financial side. And that's where that's where one has to be creative. And it's just really tough. And that's where what is the government intervention on that front need to be.
Because there's some that just can't afford to do what I just said, which is volunteer or build your own company. Because they don't have that safety net, they don't have that opportunity. And unfortunately, they're almost out of ideas because you go back to college, you just talked about extra debt. But for some, unfortunately, they're going to have to do it.
And that leads to a more philosophical discussion on why there's so much debt attached to college education, where in Switzerland, for example, I paid for my undergraduate, I paid around $1,000 a year. It's a leading edge. I mean, it's like one of the top universities. And so that's another discussion.
Yeah. You know, I agree with you. I think that this is a moment to be entrepreneurial. And it's challenging because you're right.
I mean, not everybody can do that. From an employer's perspective, you mentioned human resource officers. And by the way, you're right. I mean, a human resource officer is very attracted to an applicant who started a business or tried to start up and it failed, you know, because as you say, that's incredible life and work experience.
What are some of the characteristics and sort of ways that quote unquote Gen Z works that might be different from previous generations? Maybe their expectations, for example. Yeah. It's something that comes up quite often.
The expectations are huge. I think even if we look at the generation before, part of it is there needs to be and it always has been this need for grit, for determination. I think post-COVID, we're going to have very likely and incredibly resilient and determined generation. I think it's really great for, I mean, it's very tough, a lot are going to suffer.
And I hope, I hope it will be as few as possible. But coming out of this, generally on the whole, there's good reason to believe that this generation is going to be really conscious a bit like after World War II, really conscious of financials, very conscious of how lucky they are, how privileged, how quickly things can change, how precarious the society within which we live is. Actually, it's a disease that, yes, it's serious, but it could have been a lot worse. It could have been 10x worse.
It could have been 100x worse. And it's brought our global economy to its knees. And we feel like we're off in the masters of the universe. And that's not just Gen Z but across demographics.
And we clearly aren't. And I think a little bit of humility goes a long way. I mean, I love the energy of younger people coming in because their ideas are just so radically different from the way people in my business have seen their profession. What is your advice for employers looking to harness the intellectual power of Gen Z?
Yeah, and it's a really good question. They're basics of management that have been the same for every demographic and every niche within that demographic. It's look at maximizing the potential of the particular individual, right? So different people react differently to different forms of management.
Within this, we can talk about trends, but the ability to give them that chance to express themselves. The need for trust, it's always been there. Oh, definitely so. I mean, even more so because they know what they're capable of.
But then also, must not forget, they are still with very few years of experience and being able to be there to give feedback. So to tell them what they're doing right, tell them what they're doing wrong, both sides is critical. So just leaving someone out there in the wilderness is not going to necessarily lead to great results either. But getting that safe space, giving that trust and creating an environment of being, okay, I'm here to maximize your potential.
And the order, the direct order may have worked or they may have been able to get away with it in the past, but you know, there's some people that might still be okay with it. But generally speaking, that's especially for you for a lot of potential. That's just not conducive for maximizing the potential. So what do you see your business and what you're doing in five years from now?
What do you want it to look like? Yeah, I think for us, it's always been about really helping as many youth as possible, as inclusive as we can. And so we're already serving youth in 150 countries. We'd like to go deeper in certain areas through our partnerships or alone, serve more youth in a more significant way, provide more opportunities, just really the best experience.
That's probably what's most important. I think that's where we can have, where we can make our contribution towards society, that's where we're good at. And now it's just about going to that next level. Yes, it's a challenging period, but we're going to be okay.
We're going to get out of this. And then it's about, okay, really taking this opportunity and doing the best we can because we are in a privileged situation. If we were unlucky, which is in the case of many other startups, I friends who have term sheets for massive round of financing just evaporates and we hear the stories. And then they're just unlucky.
So we're in this lucky position to be able to operate and to be able to do what we're doing. Let's make the most out of it. And I think that's our duty. I think that's, yeah.
Ta-ba-wa. Go founder of Goodwall. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.
That's an excerpt from a conversation with Ta-ba-wa, co-founder of Goodwall. To see our full interview, you can go to Facebook.com.com.com. How I built this. And if you want to see all of our past live interviews, you can find them there or at YouTube.com.com.
And if you want to find out more about the How I Built This Resilience series or other virtual NPR events, you can go to NPR Presents.org. This episode was produced by Candice Lim with help from Will Mitchell, Tyrell Ockhart, Matt Adams, Ali Prescott, Gianna Capadona, John Isabella, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Thanks for listening. Stay safe.
And I'll see you back here in a few days. I'm Guy Raz. And you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR.