Podcast chat with Alex Stephany, CEO, Beam
What if crowdfunding could help lift people out of homelessness through training?
This transcribe is taken from The Voctech Podcast; Subscribe and listen by searching for “The Edtech Podcast” on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, and Google.
Sophie: Delighted to be here with Alex Stephany, who is the CEO of Beam, and I’m not sure about where you are, Alex, but it’s a glorious sunny day down here in the West Country.
Alex Stephany: I’m in London, and it’s a pretty glorious day out here as well, I’m pleased to say. But I’d be very happy to be in the West country, that sounds lovely.
Sophie: I think last time we met was up in London as well, and it was also a very lovely day then. So we’re doing well.
Alex Stephany: You’re bringing the weather with you. So yeah, happy to speak anytime. Especially in January.
Sophie: Exactly. So for those who don’t know Beam or Alex personally, just the little intro. So, it says on your LinkedIn page: I love to run and grow businesses by attracting and nurturing the most talented people and obsessing over product. In my last role as CEO of JustPark, I grew revenue over 10 fold in three years, built a top class team from two to over 40, raised funding from index ventures, and closed the largest equity crowdfunding for a startup in history. I’m now working with the seller team at Beam to solve the big and complex problem of homelessness. Beam is the world’s first crowdfunding platform that helps people from disadvantaged backgrounds to train up and get into rewarding work. Our initial focus is supporting homeless adults in hostels and other temporary accommodation.
Sophie: It says here: I’m also the author of a business book on the sharing economy, The Business of Sharing. And you cut your professional teeth as a corporate lawyer at Clifford Chance before a stint in consulting. Got a first from Oxford University in English, and the fundamentals of financial analysis by a CFA qualification. And finally, you say that many people who have kindly helped you over the years. So, you’re involved as a mentor with entrepreneurs through textiles. And yes, so you’re on Twitter, @AlexStephany. So welcome, Alex.
Alex Stephany: Thank you. It’s very embarrassing hearing your LinkedIn profile read back to you, but thank you for embarrassing me.
Sophie: It’s kind of an exquisite type of awkwardness that I like to inflict on my guests.
Alex Stephany: Well, I appreciated it. Thank you.
Sophie: So if we start at the beginning, where are you from, Alex? And where is the place you call home now?
Alex Stephany: So I’m from London. I’ve lived almost all my life in London, live now in North London, but I’ve lived in a few different places. So I lived in China after I left school. And that, I guess, was the first time that I saw kind of real extreme poverty. So that was almost 20 years ago, before this sort of huge period of growth. And that was quite an eye opening experience.
Alex Stephany: Next place I lived after that was was Paris. I wanted to go learn French. And this law firm gave me kind of a bit of a sabbatical to go and learn French, which was very nice. And then I came back to London and I had this experience of working with these sorts of, you know, very posh clients, being investment banks and private equity funds.
Alex Stephany: But another thing I’ve got to do when I was working in this law firm was to volunteer for a legal charity, which was totally the other end of the spectrum, because I was giving free legal advice to anyone in London that was interested. And at this legal charity there were queues around the corner, every legal clinic. And some of the people that we were seeing were in the most awful of life situations. And that was a very formative experience for me as well. I was living at the time in Acton in West London and I was seeing all the, you know, extreme poverty and social deprivation and disadvantage that exists in London, Which I always knew existed, but you’re pretty insulated from when you are growing up. You know, you’re born in the country, I grew up in a middle class, sort of suburban type environment. These were often people who, you know, didn’t even have the right to claim benefits, were hugely in debt, had health problems, had family who had been imprisoned or murdered in other countries. And it’s just a whole nother order of challenge. So yeah. Yeah, that’s a little [inaudible 00:04:05] history on the places where I’ve lived.
Sophie: That’s interesting. I remember going traveling, I left school, and I remember sort of similar situation. I was on a back of a truck and there was a kid opposite me who must’ve been about eight or something. And this is in Laos, and I noticed that his head had kind of these bumps all over it and obviously he was very unwell. And yeah, it’s just kind of this realization as a young person that for him he lived, you know, probably miles and miles and miles away from a local hospital, let alone if he can access that. And it is a real awakening of, you know, the types of problems that you’ve witnessed today are perhaps in the different end of the scale slightly. And it’s kind of interesting that you mentioned, you know, the people coming through that legal clinic because I suppose that’s part of it, is sort of this Catch-22 situation whereby if you haven’t got this one form then it prevents you from accessing other opportunities. And you probably saw every different version of that.
Alex Stephany: I guess I began to understand that the two things that I’ve been lucky were things that were very protective, and I think of them as scaffolding. And these two things: are training and education, and the all of the economic opportunity that that’s created for me. And the second thing is support networks in their various forms. Whether that is family, friends, colleagues, all things that, you know, are immensely beneficial to even all kinds of different ways, from professional prospects to just sort of general mental health and wellbeing.
Alex Stephany: And probably come to this later, but for me, this very interesting module of crowdfunding to support disadvantaged people to get into jobs is that it actually provides both of those benefits at once. So, you are crowdfunding for the training, which creates that economic opportunity. But you also give people support networks, and those support networks come from the people who fund the campaigns. And today, more than 200 people on average fund each person’s campaign. And they formed this amazing new support network for that individual. They send positive messages, they boost the confidence, they can also surface employment opportunities. And that’s, I think, fundamentally why we think this model is so interesting. We think of it as kind of building scaffolding for people that is protective and will allow them to become more resilient and more independent.
Sophie: I mean, I was looking at the comments around people on the Beam platform, and we will come to come to it in a minute. I want to delve into your prior work just a bit before we do, but I can totally see that. You know, you can see the encouragement and the starting to follow someone’s personal story in the way that we do and we’re invested in the kind of journeys that our friends and family are taking as well.
Sophie: But yeah, just before we dive into that, so, I love JustPark, just on the record. So I went up to London recently for an event and got completely stung in overnight parking. Usual situation: you’re pushed for time, just kind of wang your car somewhere and the outcome isn’t usually very good. So yeah. Great work on that. And I suppose part of your role during your time at JustPark was closing that record-breaking 3.7 million pound crowdfunding round.
Sophie: So can you tell us a little bit about what that was like? So going through that process. And also, how you think the sharing economy fits into the world of employment, vocational skills, the workplace. So how does the sharing economy fit into what we might be able to achieve in education and training?
Alex Stephany: So the crowdfunding was incredibly nerve wracking and scary and exciting. So we initially set out to raise a million pounds and were very conscious that if we didn’t raise that it would be a very public failure to what was a reasonably well known business. And it was my first kind of CEO role and it would’ve been pretty professionally embarrassing as well as bad for the company. So that was going through my mind. And what made that a much bigger fear was the fact, that relatively shortly before we did the fundraise, we were told that we were not able to promote, or it would be risky to promote the fundraise as EIS or SEIS. So investors wouldn’t get those huge tax benefits from investing. And subsequent to the raise we found out that actually it was eligible, but we thought the prudent thing beforehand was to not tell investors that they will be getting EIS.
Alex Stephany: And at that time it was, I think it probably still is, pretty unheard of to raise equity crowd funding without SEIS or EIS. And I went and found the one person who had done a fundraising on crowdfunding, both with and without EIS. And I said, “Well, did you notice a difference?” And he said to me, “Well, without EIS it was 10 times as hard, and we raised a 10th as much.” So that was the cause for real low alarm there.
Alex Stephany: But, you know, in the end it was fine and we ended up going almost four times over our original target. And the campaign had loads of momentum and I think it really spoke to people. Everyone understands from our daily lives that parking is a really broken thing. And I think the business just, then and now, really continues to resonate with people who know that there’s a kind of a big problem to be solved and that technology can really make a difference.
Alex Stephany: And then you’ll see a second question, Sophie, around kind of sharing economy and being … Well, what I see the similarity is, is these kinds of collaborative platforms are often connecting people. So, you know, Airbnb is connecting someone with a home with someone that wants to rent the home. Getaround is connecting someone who wants to rent out a car with somebody who wants to rent that car. And for both people there’s benefits. And the tech platform does well when it can safely connect those two parties and solve both of their problems.
Alex Stephany: Well, what Beam is doing is fundamentally connecting two groups of people as well. It’s connecting people who really need help with people who really want to help. And it’s that kind of one-to-one connection that I think makes Beam so special. When people donate, they get to follow the stories of the people that they are supporting and they get email updates when the individual is doing their training and starting work. And they can engage in those updates like they could with any social media post. They can like and they can comment and they can really see the progression that an individual is making.
Alex Stephany: So I think that’s where we see the sort of the similarity. It’s kind of connecting two groups to make the experience richer, more efficient, and kind of just more more human.
Sophie: And you mentioned your work previously with the pro bono legal work. How long has the idea for Beam sort of been there and been developing, and how did that transition into forming Beam as a formal charity and foundation?
Alex Stephany: So it took about a year between coming up with the idea and the platform launching. And over that period we spent a lot of time developing the models with some great charities and with individual people experiencing homelessness as well. And obviously building technology and the platform itself.
Alex Stephany: But the original idea stems from a meeting that I had with a homeless man at my local tube station. And this was a guy that I’d walked past loads and loads of times, but one time fortunately I plucked up the courage to speak to him and we got to know each other. The first conversation, I remember, he told me that he would sit there because there was CCTV and that made it less likely that he would be attacked. And we got to know each other over the course of a few months. Nice guy, in mid forties, Irish man, big beard.
Alex Stephany: At one point he disappeared for about eight weeks, and when I saw him again, he looked completely different. His beard had gone and he looked maybe 10 or 15 years older. And I went up to him and I said, “What’s happened? Where have you been?” And he said, “Hmm, had a heart attack. I’ve been in hospital.” And I walked home that evening to my nice flat and I just thought, well, nothing I’ve done has really made a material difference to this person’s life. He’s in a worse position now than he was when I first met him.
Alex Stephany: So I asked myself a question, which was, what could I have done to made a lasting difference? And actually the answer was quite obvious. It was giving him the skills, the training to support himself. And that was going to cost more than a coffee, but what if we all chipped in? Why could we not just crowdfund training for homeless people that they could use to sustainably support themselves? And that was really the genesis of the idea. And I went around and spoke to charities and some of them were interested and we took it from that.
Sophie: That’s amazing. And from the training point of view, who do you connect with to provide that training and how do you go about sort of aggregating that service as well?
Alex Stephany: So all of the training is provided by third party training providers, and we pick the best one for the job. So we audit them before using any of the training providers. And then the homeless people who are getting trained there, they also review the training providers so that we get any feedback. And, you know, it’s not something that we ever wanted to do ourselves because there’s already a great ecosystem of people providing high quality professional trainings. So it’s all about tapping into that.
Sophie: And I think I saw on your website that you’re looking for talent all the time in terms of people joining Beam, people with machine learning skills perhaps, and that kind of thing. What role does technology play currently, and how do you sort of see the service evolving?
Alex Stephany: So yeah, there’s two types of people that we’re generally looking to hire. So, some of them are people with start up experience. And other than that, people who have some experience working with these kinds of groups, or are just really passionate about making a difference in joining a social enterprise. So there are people doing [inaudible 00:14:45], but actually the bigger need right now is for people who are just really passionate about what we’re doing, who are interested in operational roles or business development roles or partnerships roles. Say yeah, check out the jobs page. If anyone is listening who is excited by what we’re doing, just drop us an email on careers@beam.org.
Sophie: I was reading the learner journeys and they’re pretty amazing. And you almost feel nervous reading the ones where their fundraising is yet to complete. So how long does the duration of fundraising tend to take? And what happens if people don’t meet their target? Is there any way that we can kind of help sort of boost that?
Alex Stephany: Sure. So there is a page on our website which is beamed.org/transparency, which has more than 50 live data points on all kinds of different things. So the number of people training, in work, different types of donations, how much money has been donated. All these sorts of things. One of the data points that it gives is the average length of a campaign in terms of how long it takes to fund. I think I’m correct in saying, last time I looked, there was about 34 days. So that’s kind of how long the average campaign takes to fund.
Alex Stephany: Now, we are a very unusual type of crowdfunding platform. On the average crowdfunding platform, You have lots of campaigns that fail to fund. And they kind of like that because it’s kind of a bit Darwinian and they want only the good things to fund, is the sort of reality.They don’t care if your idea’s not good enough to fund. Like, that’s just the people have declined it sort of thing. Whereas we obviously care, and we don’t want anyone to not fund. So we have a totally different approach. We bring people onto the platform in a really gradual fashion. And what that means is that we wait until the current campaigns are funded before bringing on new people.
Alex Stephany: So people get funded. But the more money that we can get through the platform, the more people we can get onto the platform. And at the moment the service is so popular and actually a lot of the people who are using it are referring other people to Beam as well. I would encourage anyone listening to this to go to beam.org and set up a monthly donation for one or two pounds a month or something. You know, as much as you feel you can spare. Be an incredibly enriching experience for you. And then the more people we have who are supporting the campaigns, the more people we can move to the model, the shorter the waiting list, the more people we can help. So, you know, one of our biggest challenges at the moment is just continuing to grow the people that we can help, where the blocker is the donations.
Sophie: And in terms of the kind of training that people have chosen so far, I noticed, you know, construction worker or hairdresser or PA. I just wondered, you know, if training providers are listening in and they have courses that they think would provide additional opportunities, would you like to hear from them? Because I just sort of thinking of, you know, with the white hat model and apprenticeships and sort of going down the digital training path as well, whether there’ll be a kind of diversity of what and how people are learning as well.
Alex Stephany: So yeah, interested in speaking to training providers, but most interested in speaking to employers. So all of the career paths are shown on each campaign. You can see these are people becoming accountants or crane riggers or lorry drivers. You know, all kinds of awesome things that we need as a society. And if your company is hiring these sorts of people, definitely get in touch. The people coming through the model, they’re highly trained, they’re getting the best training that they can have. It’s accredited training. They are leaving the Beam model confident, motivated, really, really keen to get on and start earning money. And anyone who can offer some opportunities to these individuals, I think, will be doing a great service to the individuals, to their society, but I think also for their companies as well. Because these are people who have remarkable stories to tell, who’ve overcome a lot with their lives, and I think will add a lot to the diversity in strength of any workforce.
Sophie: What you reading at the moment and why?
Alex Stephany: I’m reading a book called Grit, which is about how grit is the key determinant in success of people professionally. I think I’ve got quite a lot of grit already, but it’s interesting reading a book on it in any case. So that’s the thing I’m reading right now.
Sophie: And that’s interesting that you mentioned Grit. So, I’m kind of interested in How to Fail podcast at the moment, which I think is fantastic. Have there been any experiences which have developed that grit especially, do you think, in your own life?
Alex Stephany: I think the have been a few periods in my life when I’ve been out of work and I’ve felt how destabilizing it is and how demoralizing it is, and practically how difficult it can be to not have the structure in your life and the salary coming in and all of these things. And I remember thinking, wow, I’m struggling to get the job that I want and I’m not in work despite all of the incredible advantages I have. And, you know, what must things be like for someone that, maybe they’re in their sixties and they haven’t been in work a long time and they don’t have a university degree, and all of the many things that I’m lucky enough to have. And so I think being out of work probably kind of developed some grittiness in may because I felt the, you know, challenges of having to kind of prove yourself. And the period I was out of work was during the credit crunch when good opportunities were really thin on the ground, frankly. And it was a very tough market in which to find a good job.
Alex Stephany: I think these sort of downturns probably developed grit. For people have left university in the last few years, all they’ve really known is, certainly if they’ve come out of a decent university and trying to get a job in London, it’s like a very buoyant job market, especially within the tech sector. And it is actually quite character-forming to have to fight a little bit more for the some great opportunities that companies are providing to people. And that’s very much been an experience of people in some, especially Southern European economies that still are in pretty bad shape up from the credit crunch, that the young people that really probably do have a level of grittiness you see less commonly, I would say, as a crude generalization, in the UK.
Sophie: It makes me chuckle because my friend and I were having a chat about … And we’re sort of on the tail end of millennials anyway, so we’re allowed to say this, but that’s kind of like the opposite, perhaps, of when … You know, some people that would fall under the millennial tag, which was kind of like, you know, straight in the door, already want pay rise and haven’t perhaps gone through that grittiness of having to fight. So perhaps that is a symptom of a kind of buoyant jobs market as well. But yeah, it made me think of that.
Sophie: Cool. Okay. So, if people want to to find out more, they can go to the Beam website. And what’s next for Beam, what’s the next six months look like?
Alex Stephany: So we want to grow the team a lot. So, as I mentioned, looking for frontline people to work with the Beam members and support them through the training and to work. I would frankly love to be doing this job myself because it is an incredibly uplifting, inspiring thing to be able to follow each of these individuals on their journeys. So we need to hire people to do that role, and business development people. We need to fundraise, obviously. We need to do more corporate partnerships. We have some incredibly exciting partnerships with some household name companies that will be coming soon. We’re also launching a new and improved version of the website.
Alex Stephany: So those are some of the things that we have to look forward to. We’re also building out a new feature, which is called fundraisers, which allows people to raise money for Beam by doing a cake sale or a marathon or any kind of thing. They start a kind of JustGiving-style campaign on Beam. And then the really nice thing about this is that as people donate, the actual people who are receiving those funds begin to appear on the fundraising page and you can see how they progress from within this fundraising campaign. So that’s a really cool thing we’re really excited about, because a lot of people are excited about Beam. And I think it’s a really nice feature that will empower them to go and, you know, help us to help more people.
Sophie: Fantastic. And will you be going beyond London at some point, do you hope?
Alex Stephany: Absolutely. I mean, hopefully beyond the UK, at some point. But it’s a question of doing it at the right time and in a way that really supplements that the work we’re doing in London rather than distracts us from it.
Sophie: Fantastic. Well, Alex, thank you so much for today, and good luck with everything.
Alex Stephany: Thank you so much, Sophie. It’s been lovely speaking.
The mission statement of The Edtech Podcast is to improve the dialogue between ‘ed’ and ‘tech’ through storytelling, for better innovation. The main audience are global education leaders, with a secondary audience of start ups, bluechips, investors, Government and media.
The Edtech Podcast publishes content relevant for the international edtech, teaching and learning, and continual education community. Our podcast series and brands include Future Tech for Education, Education 4.0, and The Voctech Podcast:Learning Continued. We also provide written executive summaries and community knowledge sharing events.
The Voctech Podcast is a new show from the makers of The Edtech Podcast, supported by Ufi Charitable Trust. The series explores the intersection of adult learning and tech, including, careers and HR tech, the skills gap and training, diverse workforces and new modes of working, and the foundations for up-skilling and re-skilling. The Voctech Podcast has a medium site, where audio interviews will be published in written form, and a newsletter. Follow the show at #voctech and #voctechpodcast and via @podcastedtech. Listen to The Voctech Podcast trailer here.
