“So… what do you do exactly?”
“In our childhoods, people ask us about our career plans by asking us what we want to be when we grow up. When we grow up, we tell people about our careers by telling them what we are. We don’t say, “I practice law” — we say, “I am a lawyer.” This is probably an unhealthy way to think about careers, but the way many societies are right now, a person’s career quadruples as the person’s primary identity. Which is kind of a big thing…”¹
I’ll have some words towards the end about what exactly I am vs what I am doing. Still, if you’ve found this post you’re probably actually wondering what I am doing out here in Cambodia. In short, I’m the founder of Why Not Earth?
We are a marketing agency with a robust software background which supports already existing NGO’s (non-government organizations) dedicated to helping Cambodia do what they are doing, just better. We do web design, media creation, marketing campaigns, and data insights, all for no cost to the charity. So far, I have used my own personal savings to fund these projects (although donations and subscriptions are starting to roll in, much love!).
From sex trafficking, to plastic recycling, to jobs for women, to wildlife conservation, our efforts help scale each cause in a meaningful and efficient manner.
This effort fills a major gap in Cambodia: digital infrastructure. While there are many NGO’s focused on building the water, education, and food production infrastructures, few focus on helping Cambodia transition into this digital age.
We help people like Rehash Trash build a website to allow them to sell their recycled plastic products to users from all around the world. We help Fauna in Focus setup their media campaigns to help conserve Cambodia’s precious wildlife. We help a small business owner get listed on Google Maps :)
How does it work specifically? How do we scale? How do we remain sustainable?
I come from an ad agency in my past, and we were fairly successful. My wonderful little squad of 4 developers created a software that helped our clients maximize their ROA (return on advertising). The success of said software was published in case studies by cloudflare, google amp, and many marketing resources. If you feel like wasting 30 mins of your day watching me ramble about it, you can watch my presentation at Google's mobile conference in Amsterdam this year here:
All that to be said, it worked. It worked because of our focus on accurate data collection and AB testing. That, combined with our large client budgets (millions per month) allowed us to fine tune our marketing ads and landing pages to drastically increase our conversions (if someone actually bought something) for lower cost. Most agencies charge a price per conversion. If someone bought a $250 Mexican food catering order, the client is charged 6%-12% fee of that conversion. Our clients, who had typically been used to paying much higher fees for less performance were happy to test our product, and because of its statistical success, we almost always started to outperform our competitors (thanks machine learning).
Good for you kid, how’s it help Cambodia?
Today, we are building a similar product. Just like burritos need to be sold in America, hand-made recycled plastic handbags need to be sold in Cambodia. “Meredith” is open source (public/transparent), and always free to NGOs. We help organizations like Rehash Trash sell their product online², allowing supporters from all around the world buy the BEST laundry basket you’ve ever had. They also help give women jobs, and clean-up the trash around Cambodia. Seriously, you should support them:
Anywho, with a “flip of a switch” we can allow NGO’s like Rehash Trash to sell their products to a wider audience. For a slight increase in price, you also support our product, allowing us to continue offering our service for free to NGO’s.
ITS FREE MONEY, DUDE.
Did you know that Google offerings qualified non-profits $10,000/mo in Google Adwords spend for free??? I know, its insane! Everyone should know and use more of it. You ever notice those top links in your google search results when you search “Best charity to donate to Cambodia?” Ads can automatically take those top two positions with a little bit of marketing savvy (which we have). Normally, we have to pay Google for every click those ads get. However, non-profits get $10,000 worth of clicks each month for free. We help our clients setup their ad campaigns to get more donations/revenue for their causes.
Practical stuff aside, who am I?
I’m a dude that got tired of the grind and just wanted to help people. Instead of making bank accounts bigger I wanted to help others live better. Being a founder means you wear many different hats at many different times. Sometimes I’m here to recruit coders to help build our front end, sometimes I’m here to find funding or ways to be sustainable, sometimes I’m here to remind us all to take more naps. I love naps. I’ve got a handful of tricks in my pockets and I’m tossing them around Cambodia. If you’re interested in helping, feel free to send me a message on any one of these annoyingly diverse social media platforms! :P
https://www.facebook.com/paulchrisluke
All my love,
Chris
¹ https://waitbutwhy.com/2018/04/picking-career.html
² We are still in development stage. Join our engineering channel to see where you can contribute here: https://discord.gg/EBpyFM3
