Blake Mycoskie set up five businesses, but later he sold them all at a profit. Feeling a bit burned out from work, Mycoskie decided to give it a break for a while and headed down to Argentina for some rest. But rest isn't really part of a businessman's make-up. It's in their nature to keep having good business ideas.
On a visit to a village outside Buenos Aires, he was shocked to see that many children didn't have any shoes or, if they did, the shoes were badly worn. Since shoes—particularly the local farmers' canvas(帆布的)shoes—can be bought cheaply in Argentina, Mycoskie's first instinct(本能) was to set up a charity to donate shoes to the children. But after giving it some thought, he realized that this was not a model that would work. One pair of shoes per child would not make that much difference, because they wear out(磨损). And if he asked people to donate repeatedly —to provide new shoes for the same child every six months—the donors' sympathy(同情)for the cause might also wear out pretty quickly.
Instead he came up with the idea of "TOMS: one-for-one shoes". He would take the canvas shoe to America, manufacture it and sell it as a high end fashion item at around $ 50 a pair. For each pair he sold he would donate one pair to shoeless village children. That way he could guarantee a continual supply.
Several years on, the business is very successful, supplying shoes not only to children in Argentina but also other parts of the world. But can the one-for-one model be repeated with other products? Mycoskie is doubtful. TOMS is a for-profit business, but does not yet make a profit. He says one-for-one is not an offer that you can just add to your existing business model; you have to build it from the beginning.
Some would also argue that the charity aspect is just a marketing tool, but in the end does that matter? TOMS is making a real difference to poor children all over the world and Mycoskie is enjoying being a businessman more than ever.
