Have you ever thought of a unique invention or idea that could improve someone's life, but never had the guts to try and make it a reality? I think most of us have. People think of incredible ideas all the time and brush them to the side just because they're either scared they won't have enough money to make it happen or that the idea isn't good enough to actually make a difference. The reason I wanted to read the book "Start Something That Matters" by Blake Mycoskie is because he was able to make his ideas come to life, and in doing so he has significantly improved the lives of 35 million children around the world while also making money. In this book Mycoskie guides you through the process of creating a startup that can do well and good at the same time, while telling the story of how it's worked for him. .
Blake begins the book by using the first chapter to summarize how he got the idea for his most successful company, and how it got it's feet off the ground. The company he created is called TOMs, short for Tomorrow's Shoes, and he got the idea while Vacationing in Argentina in 2006. While touring the country, he noticed two main things. One was that a huge population of Argentinians sported the native shoe called an alpargatas, which lead him to wonder if there was any kind of market for them back in the US. The other thing he noticed was that there was another huge population of Argentinians, except this one consisted of mostly children that didn't have a single pair of shoes to their name, and had to spend every day walking through the streets without anything protecting their feet. It was right when those two observations came together in his head that he got the idea for TOMs, which is for every alpargata he could sell in America (and eventually across the globe), he would give away another one to a Argentinian child in need. So with this idea and only one partner, his polo teacher Alejo, he began creating his startup company.