https://www.listennotes.com/e/12cb8f6fcc424f8392b88fc9549cb47d

Welcome to Executing the Vision podcast. I'm your host, Brad Hunter, president of Emerge Labs. On the podcast, we'll get to know the person behind the vision, their successes, their challenges, and their plans for the future. If you're interested in becoming a guest or know someone who might be a good fit, stick around to the end, and we'll discuss how to apply. Now, enjoy the show. Okay, everybody. Well, welcome to another episode of Executing the Vision. Today I've got Tyler Clark with me with a company called Zawadi. And I will say that in researching guests, you know, you kind of go out and look at different things. The second I came across your website, it really, to me, just really stood out, you know, really hit home. And it was one of those instant things of like, oh, my gosh, very excited to talk to this guy.

So.

So why don't you start off, kind of tell everybody just about your company, and then we'll kind of dive into your background.

Yeah. So Zawadi is. We call it mission outsourcing. So now we're not reinventing the wheel. There's a thousand outsourcing companies, but the difference is that we are actually employing camp refugees. So these aren't refugees relocated in the United States. They're actually still in the camps. And because of Elon Musk's amazing Starlink, we're able to connect them. The thing that a lot of people don't understand is most refugees are very highly educated, very highly skilled, and in my time working with humanitarian work, we saw this like, man, how do we get them jobs? And so we just started connecting them with US Companies, and it's been amazing just seeing the difference they can make. And as well as giving them an opportunity to give them a job and giving them an opportunity to provide for.

Their families, it does just seem like such a perfect meld of a good business decision. Right. Being able to get quality work done at an affordable price, melding with the idea of really having a massive impact, you know, on. On somebody's changing somebody's life. You know, it's not just kind of hiring another outsourced person, if you will, but to me, at least, when I saw it was just like, that just seems very powerful. So let's talk a little bit about you and understand, you know, how did you get to, you know, even considering doing such a business? And, you know, where did you grow up? What was life like? Like, you know, growing up.

So I grew up in Utah. Old childhood. My mom was a teacher, and so books and reading were always a big Part of my life. And then, you know, I went to business school at the Marriott at byu. I, for my church, I served a two year mission down in Mexico. And that's where I really came acquainted. You know, growing up in the United States, growing up in Utah, like, you know, you don't realize what you have until you see a different culture. And being down in Mexico now, to be fair, like, there's parts of Mexico, I mean, you can see anything in Mexico, but if you go to the rural areas, then you really see what poverty looks like. And that was a lot of the time I was down there. I just fell in love with the people. But it also, I came home and I was like, yeah, we got so much, like, you know, the fact that I got a warm shower that I can turn on my electricity, you know, little things that you don't realize. And anyway, I got married, I finished my mba, and this whole thing started of a professor from my time in Mexico reached out like, hey, can you help us build a library? And I was like, yeah, like, you guys don't have a library? Like, no, we don't have anything. So I reached out, we did our own fundraising and there were a bunch of companies in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where I was at at the time, and just awesome people reached out and helped and we built them a small library and from there kept building. Me and my wife ended up building 22 libraries throughout Africa, Latin America. And that's actually how we got connected with the refugee campus. We built a library there. And that's when we discovered, Man, Brad. I remember the first time I was down there, I was talking to this guy outside. I was like, so, what's your story? And he was just telling me, he's like, oh, yeah, you know, I have my master's degree from the uk, And I'm like, wait, what? Like, what the frick are you doing? You know, because, you know, I had a lot of perceptions that I think a lot of us have refugee camps, but then came to discover, like, there's. The amount of talent in these camps is insane. And like, there's no opportunities for them to do anything. They just want to work. And most of these individuals, they're there for 16 years. Like, it's not really a camp, it's a city. And it's just this part of our civilization that's been forgotten because they're refugees and they just want to work. They're sick of charity. They just want to work. They just want to have that opportunity.

And now, okay, how did you Go from the idea of somebody from Mexico and you were down there reaching out to build, to help build a library to you jump to 22 of them all over the world. Like, wow, how did that little transition, you know, kind of occur from going from one and then suddenly it bounced all over doing it? Yeah, that's just the idea that it was. Was it more on the donor base that like the, like, which, where was the, where did the push come from to take it from, like, you know, something that, you know, you necessarily weren't trying to do. Right. Somebody reached out to you.

Me and my wife joke are really. We have a really hard time saying no. Right. And so we kept, like, the funny thing was, like, we had no intention of, like, the one was fun. Like it was a part that I, I had been down there, I knew the people really well. So it was really fun to go back there and do it. But we kept getting requests from all over the place. I was like, how do they even know about this? Like, what's going on? And so we kept, like, people heard about what we were doing and it took it, you know, formed its own organization called Village Book Builders and just took on a life of its own. And so, you know, I kept doing that on the side. It was never a full time thing. It's just something I did. But a lot of people heard what we're doing, started taking it to the next level. A lot of people quit their six figure jobs to come help, which I always thought was nuts, right? But they, but they did it because people want to help. They want to make a difference, they want to be a part of something. You know, people want a mission, right? They want purpose in their life. And so we kept doing that. You know, it wasn't until this idea with Zawadi, then I'm kind of like, you know what? This has real potential to make a huge impact. So I left my job and doing that full time.

And how often when you would do one of these, how often would you be on the road? Like, how much time does it take to be build a library in a foreign country like that.

The good thing is, is so we'd always use local help. So it's not like I was actually down there building. Most of my stuff that I would do is fundraising. And our first library that we did, we actually had people come down and help build. And. And then we saw like, what the freak are we doing? We're trying to mix cement and all these locals are watching us, like, what the freak are these gringos doing right. And so it's like, now we're not gonna do that. So we'd always hire local help. It's always locals that we work with. And it's a lot of schools in, like, rural Africa that are requesting a library. And so our main thing was just like, hey, here's the funds. Go build it. And then afterwards, we would have mentor programs. The crux of that is we were always trying to, like, how do we know we're really making an impact? And that's the thing that always kept me up at night. Like, with humanitarian work, if you get into it, it can seem like a bottomless hole. Like, how are you really changing the world? You know what I mean? Because we all want to make a difference. We all want to do something. And that's why, like, with this, like, there's no better way to make a difference than to provide someone a job. Like, when we were doing libraries, it was always studies on, like, okay, you know, with how many kids that are reading, how many are really making a difference? And I think it's hard to argue against books and reading make an impact on kids, but there's still always that question, like, what. What's the real impact? But with Suwadi, it's, we're providing them a job that we don't need to study because here's their paycheck. The impact is huge. And this might sound weird coming from a humanitarian, but capitalism works, and it works really, really well. And there's no better way to bring people out of extreme poverty than capitalism. I mean, just look at China.

Talk me through the transition from the churches to the outsourcing. My guess is, so you're doing the libraries in a lot of different areas, and then on that, you kind of, I'm guessing, stumble across and just start being more exposed to refugee camps and just that whole world in general. And then the light sparks. Somewhere along the way, we started the.

Library there because there's 60,000 people, and we're like, man, we could really make an impact there. So we built it. I went down and traveled down there, and we had that conversation multiple people. And then had a conversation with some tech CEOs here. One in particular, his name, Sean Sorensen, with Connect. And, you know, we were talking about it, and, you know, he even brought the ideas like, hey, I hire this India company to do these lead generation. Just to create lists for our SDRs and our sales development team. He's like, I, why can't the refugees do that? Like, that's a Good idea. Let's give it a try. So we piloted that out for a couple months just to see like, hey, can we train them to do something simple? And they, they were amazing at it. They did phenomenally well. And the economics were there too. I mean, to be honest, like it's cheaper for the refugees to work and still make a killing compared to what, what you're making in the camp compared to like India or the Philippines or any other outsourcing typical country. And so we started that and we started selling to more companies and more companies and seeing like, man, we really got something. And so that's the, it's been an economic engine driving this whole thing. And so far We've brought over 200 people out of poverty in like four or five months. And so it's, it's a huge impact.

You know, how long have things officially been up and running then?

So officially, like when we started the pilot and everything, that was last year in November. So it's been about a year. But when we actually fully started this, like really with not just a pilot, not just testing it, that was in April.

Amazing. And just shoot six months time.

Yep.

Yeah, Congrats. That's awesome. Okay. And then, so what should people know about outsourcing in general? You know, if somebody's interested in that, that hasn't played in that field. Well, two things. First of all, somebody that just has never outsourced, right. Or if they have, you know, it's maybe they're getting on upwork and trying to find an individual to help them as a virtual assistant or do some of these services and it's of kind, kind of. They've had mixed results, which I feel like, you know, especially if you're talking a one off, right. If you're talking just a random entrepreneur that goes out there and tries to get some help, you know, talk to me about the differences between that method and working with your team.

Now that's a good question. And probably the, the biggest thing you need to watch out for when you're outsourcing is of course quality. Just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's going to provide what you need. Right. The other area is cultural differences. You can communicate to someone in Pakistan or Philippines or even Africa. It's like, hey, this is what I want. But due to cultural differences and norms, like they'll understand something completely different. Right. And so that's something that you always want to look for. It's really good to look at. Like previous jobs, what have they done? You Know, even with upwork, you know, you can look at previous customer testimonials and such. So one thing that we do a lot with is, of course, I'm the bridge as well as I. We do. We actually just had a cultural training this morning where we looked at all the different cultural practices like directness, indirectness. There's just huge cultural divides. A good example with this is the United States. We want to say yes. We nod our heads like this. If you go to India, Nepal, this means no and this means yes. Right. Bobbling the head. And so I mean, just something as simple as that. But little cultural stuff if you're not aware of, you can get the completely opposite thing you're asking for if you don't know. Yeah, so that's, that's the difference with us is like, hey, you deal with me directly, you deal with my team that's trained in American culture. And then we work, figure out exactly what we need. We do a pilot, work through everything, do the learning curve, and so that way we can get what you provide. Because at the end of the day, like, cost is one factor, but the most important thing is that your customers are getting what they're asking for.

How are things going? So is this your first business that you've launched?

This is my third. And so things are going really well. We've been positive since the start. We are debating right now if we want to keep growing this organically or if we want to go out and get investors. We do have a number of investors that are very interested in just supercharging what we're doing, but we're bringing in enough funds that we could continue to grow this organically. And that's what we're debating on.

Yeah, what a great spot to be in, huh?

Yeah, that's a nice problem for sure. Yeah.

And then so let's talk about actual solutions that are provided.

The biggest one we're pushing right now is customer service software development company. That tends to be our niche. And so we do their customer service, we do their tech support, back office work. We have a major tech company right now that we're working with that, you know, we're looking at all their professional services stuff that can be done remotely. Now, not everything can be done remotely, but when you can save a company 50% off what they're currently paying for vendors, it becomes very interesting to them. And so at the end of the day, it all has a business side. But for on our side, like we have 60,000 thousand refugees, we're trying to Employ. So we're trying to grow as fast as we can.

And is the general idea that. That where you're currently set up, there is no shortage in the distant future of highly trained employees, or is it the thing where you're looking at starting up in another refugee camp?

Yep. Actually, we've been in talks with. There's another camp in Kenya that makes our camp look tiny. There's over 300,000 people in this camp in Kenya, and same thing. A lot of really educated individuals. 91% unemployment rate in these camps. And then, you know, there's 10 million refugees in Africa. So we're never going to run out of people to employ. Right. But it's just a huge need. The thing we're looking at right now is like, okay, remote service. Where's the biggest opportunity? Like, I can do software development. We can do, you know, app and game creation. There's a whole list of things we can do. So it's really been like, okay, what verticals do we want to get into? And the process we've gone through is we pick one thing at a time. We master that, and then when we master that, then we go into the next one. Right? So so far, we've mastered customer service. Our agents are typically for. Are better than American agents, which has been surprising to a lot of companies, Right? And a lot of it is these refugees, like, they don't have anything to do. So I have to tell them, like, no, you can't work on the week, right? Like, no, no, no, you got to have a day off. You got to have balance in your life, guys. Because they want to work all day long, every single day, because they're hungry for it. So those are things that we've mastered. But right now we're looking at, okay, software development. Is that something we want to get into? Right? And it's either going to be software development or it's going to be video editing and graphics, right? And. But we look at all these opportunities, but it really has been, okay, what areas we want to get into. What areas are going to be the biggest supply and demand.

What's life like at these camps and how this is impacting the people that are there.

It's. I'm not going to lie, Brad. Like, for anyone that's been to one of these camps, it's pretty intense, as I mentioned before, with those 22 libraries. Like, we've been to a lot of countries, and I've seen poverty in Nepal and India and Latin America, but the camp's on a whole nother level, like I, I'm not a very emotional person, but it brought me to tears. And just hearing their stories, I mean, everyone in the camp has some level of trauma. Some parent that's been killed, driven out in the night as your mom's being raped. I hate even mentioning some of this stuff, but it's intense. But the thing that's beautiful about it is you would expect these people just to be angry, to just hate the world. But you'll never meet a people that's more hopeful, more looking to a better future. Like you think it would just wear them down. And to be, to be fair, it has. There's a lot of people where it just wears them down. They're just their souls just completely, completely destroyed. But for a vast majority of them, they look to the future and they're hopeful to the future. And that's the beautiful thing, knowing their stories and still seeing that they're smiling and that they're, they're laughing.

And then what is actual daily life in refugee camp? They've, they've been at this camp, let's just say they've been there for a year, two years they're there. It's usually they're there with their family, they've got some sort of family there. And then for the most part, is there any other things besides what you're offering as far as employment opportunities for them at the camp?

So nothing like what we're doing. There are a couple opportunities either working for unhcr, but that's a volunteer thing, to be honest, for most people, they just sit at home and there's nothing to do. It's better said that these camps are like cities. So I mean, you have little stores and like the refugees will trade with each other, but you have like 60,000 people in a 2 mile by 2 mile block. It's just jam packed with everybody. And they can't really leave the camp unless they want to go to another camp. It's not like they can go, travel around and go to the lake and go here or go on the weekend to go to the city. Right? That, that just doesn't happen. They're just in the camp. So for a lot of them, they almost go crazy with just not doing anything. You know, to be honest, when we first started, there were a number of people that just wanted to work. They didn't even ask about pay. It's just like, just like, give me something to do. Like I would love just something to do. And then the pay was like, oh, that's really Nice. That's fantastic.

And then the idea is somebody gets employed here, they're able to save up enough money that long, they're eventually then going to move out of the camp and be able to establish a permanent residence.

That's the hope. Because for most of the camp, the reason why they're there for 16 years is there. It's like a lottery system to get into the United States and Canada. Now, the beautiful thing is the United States and Canada are the biggest receiver of refugees. We do an awesome job with accepting them in. Right. But depending on policy or whatnot, that might shut it off. Depending on who's in administration, that can limit that. So the other thing, though is if they can get enough money saved, they can actually there are other African countries that will take them in if they can show that, you know, hey, you buy land, you're gonna, you're help gonna contribute to our society. And so we pay them enough. So not only does it provide for all of their needs, all the medication, food, everything, but we pay it so that way they can save money. And then hopefully our goal is, is that they can graduate from the camp and go settle themselves, which is an amazing business plan we're basically trying to set up so we lose all our good employees.

What else do we need to know about working with you guys? Just kind of the whole system.

Typically, if you have a customer service team or if you have back office work that can be done remotely, like account setup or different things like that, what we go through is we do a discovery call. So we want to figure out, hey, what are your needs? What are your headaches? What are some areas where we can save you money on what you're currently doing? We will not get into anything unless we're confident we can really excel at it. So during that discovery call, we'll go through the requirements. If it's something that we can't excel at, we'll say, hey, we're just not going to do that. But if it is something, then we'll start a pilot. We'll work through that process. Typically, the pilot is about a month where we go through learning curve working with you. And then after that pilot, we decide if we want to continue or not. After we continue, we do do a month to month. We don't really do contracts actually to refugee contract law, we can't do contracts, but nice for a business. That way, you know, ebbs or flows. Your business, if it's seasonal, we can grow with you, we can decrease with you. You're not signing A multiple year long contract with an outsourced provider. But we're just someone that can grow and ebb with your company as needed.

What are the biggest struggles you guys are facing right now?

The biggest thing that we're fighting with is getting the word out and as well as like the, the outsourcing market is pretty crowded. Like we're not the only people on the block. We have a really unique story. There's no one doing like what we're doing, but at the same time, like, you know, like I just, I got off a call this morning, we're setting up our SDR team, our sales development representatives, and we're setting up email campaigns, we're getting our list. So all the stuff that, you know, businesses face, but that's our biggest thing is just trying to get the word out as much as we can.

And if you looked at a PR firm at all.

I have not, no.

From previous experience of mine in that I would definitely recommend, I think with what you're doing a PR firm for, you know, the one I worked with, it was like 2,800 bucks a month, six month engagement. And the amount of press that they got us was insane. And I think that what, you know, you would, something like this, you know, you're going to end up at Forbes, you're going to end up with on a lot of these big names. I could see this with the right PR person, you know, you just have to find the person that's kind of in that right space because it's all about their black book. Right? And the right PR person has a black book where instantly they're on the phone, they're sending emails to people at these different publications and media things. And with a story like you're telling, I think that you'd have a really good success rate. What else would you want to relay to the audience here? I mean, to me, I'm, I just love this whole thing. I've been involved in the outsourcing world for the past 15 years. You know, I've worked with different organizations in different parts of the world and usually, you know, it's like there's, there's never one that like I see and I'm very excited about. Right. It's more like, okay, well maybe these guys have good quality at prices. But when I saw yours, it was the first one, like I said, that was like, wow, this is really, just really different. Really like feels good to me and so want to do my best to get that word out there and help as much as Possible and really get a clear message to, you know, people out there how to get in touch with you and, and start working with your services.

Thanks you Brad. I really appreciate that compliment, especially knowing your background. I mean, that is a big compliment knowing your experience with outsourcing. Send me an email tyler.clarkie.com or visit our email sawadi.com and let's have a conversation. I think that's the biggest thing is just let's have a conversation. It's 15 minutes and we can look at your company. If there's opportunities, we'll find them. If not, I'll be the first one to say, hey, I don't think this is a good fit. But if it is, if there is an opportunity, it is a beautiful thing. One as a business owner to be like, hey, the price is amazing. But at the end of the day, like, we're all humans, we all like to help our, our fellow humans. We're all good people. And the thing that I love about this every day is I get to hear the stories and we share those stories with our customers. Like we're just finishing up our impact report for this month and just to let people know, like, hey, this, this is what the refugees were able to buy. One of my favorite stories, one of our agents, I won't use her name just for, for privacy, but we, when I was down there last, we were walking and I was like, so what's been your experience so far? And she was saying, you know what, my mom's been sick for a long time and we've never been able to buy the medicine for her. And ever since I started working, I've been able to buy her the medicine and that means she's still with us because she was really, really sick. It wasn't just some like anxiety medicine, which is important as well, but it was life threatening. But the coolest thing. So that was cool. And I've heard those stories before, but that was cool. But the coolest thing was she turned to me and she was teary eyed at this point and she said, my mother tells me every day how proud she is of me. That is the, is the best part because everyone wants to work the same satisfaction that we get from like growing our company, doing an exit strategy, like, you know, getting a sell, like all that stuff is real, but it's real for the whole human race and for them to be able to like, I provide for my mom. I did this. I am, I am doing this. And the respect, the self respect, they're able to have again in their life. Because nobody wants to live on charity. Nobody does. Everyone hates it. Everyone wants to look at the fruit of their labors and, like, look what I did. And that has been the coolest thing to see that. And it's the coolest thing just to be a part of, like, just to hear those stories. And that's what we share with our customers. Just like, hey, thanks. Thanks for letting us. Thanks for making this all happen here. Here's some stories. Here's some pictures you can use in social media or whatever. But at the end of the day, it's just cool to see, like, hey, you know, we saved money, but we're also, like, helping. We're helping these people have a better life.

Amazing to me. I mean, I love, you know, I feel like half the time listening you tell these stories, like, I feel like I'm on the verge of, you know, getting emotional. It really does. You know, just kind of understanding what's really happening and the change that you guys are really able to create, I think is a very powerful things. So thank you.

Oh, thank you, Brad. I appreciate you taking the time and I do that. I know he's just. He's actually one of the refugees that reached out to you and asked if we could be on the podcast. I appreciate you. You responding and letting us come on.

All right, well, great. Thank you very much. We'll make sure to, you know, include the information there on the description of the podcast. And, you know, also, we'll be doing our best to start sending your people. You're sending people your way.

I appreciate that, Brad. I really do. Thank you.

Okay, have a good one. Thank you.

You too.

Thank you for listening to Executing the Vision. If you'd like to be a guest, go to EmergeLabs US and click on the podcast page. If you like what you heard, please share the episode and subscribe. Ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show. You can find us on instagram @brad emergelabs as well as x Facebook and LinkedIn, where we strive to provide valuable information on business and life. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the show and what you'd like to see in future episodes. Thank you again and have a great day.