Blake Mycoskie speaks at Southeast

Blake Mycoskie has been an entrepreneur since he was 19 years old. Today, Mycoskie is one of the leading and most influential entrepreneurs in America.

Mycoskie is the founder of TOMS, a business that has the model of "One for One," meaning with every product purchased, TOMS will help a person in need.

He spoke at Southeast Missouri State University on Tuesday night to a crowd more than 500 people.

Before founding TOMS, Mycoskie was running an online drivers education course.

"I was working 80 to 90 hours a week," Mycoskie said. "My business partners and I were sleeping at the office and working Saturdays, even Sundays. Finally we launched our software company, but I was really exhausted and really needed to take some time off and needed to recharge."

Mycoskie decided to take a month off and travel to Argentina, one of the places where he and his sister, Paige, had visited during the reality TV show, "The Amazing Race."

"I was going to turn my phone and my email off -- everything," Mycoskie said. "Really unplug."

However, his vacation turned into the biggest business endeavor of his life.

Mycoskie met two women doing volunteer work in Argentina. The women told Mycoskie that they were collecting shoes from the wealthier families of Buenos Aires and donating them to children who needed them outside the city.

"I grew up in a middle class family in Texas and never really had to worry about food or clothing or shoes," Mycoskie said. "So I was quite surprised to hear that there were children two hours outside of Buenos Aires that didn't have shoes."

Where the children lived, it was a requirement to wear closed toed shoes to school. So, if a child did not have shoes, the child could not get an education.

A couple days after Mycoskie met the volunteers, he joined them in donating 200 pairs of shoes to children who needed them for school.

"I didn't really know what to expect, so I went with eyes wide open," Mycoskie said. "When I got there, it was amazing to see how excited these kids were to get a pair of shoes. They weren't even new shoes."

Later that night, Mycoskie went to dinner with a friend and shared his experience.

"Toward the end of dinner, he asked me a question that I really wasn't prepared for," Mycoskie said. "He said, 'What's going to happen in three or four months when they outgrow or wear out of them. Who's going to give them their next pair of shoes?'"

Mycoskie then thought of the idea of TOMS.

He had 250 pairs of shoes made by an Argentine shoemaker, Jose, in his backyard and garage and took them back to Los Angeles.

"I then invited my sister and her friends over for dinner at my apartment," Mycoskie said. "Instead of seeing food on the table, they saw all of these brightly colored shoes."

Mycoskie wanted to see how they reacted to the product itself before telling them about the mission.

"Then I pulled out some pictures of kids from my trip and started explaining to them the idea of selling a pair and giving a pair," Mycoskie said. "At that point, I've never seen women so excited to buy shoes."

Mycoskie opened a website to sell TOMS and started to sell them at American Rag, a store in Venice, Calif.

The leading fashion critic of the LA Times, Booth Moore, saw the setup at American Rag and wanted Mycoskie to be in her column.

"We sold 2,200 pairs of TOMS on our website by 2 o'clock that afternoon," Mycoskie said.

Mycoskie was still working on TOMS out of his apartment and had only 145 pairs of TOMS out of the 250 pairs he originally brought back from Argentina.

"I was wondering what in the world I was going to do," Mycoskie said. "Not only did we sell all of these shoes on the website, we already charged all of these poor people's credit cards, and I had no idea if we could have these shoes made in Argentina."

So Mycoskie went back to Argentina.

"I packed a small duffel bag full of necessities, took the newspaper article, flew to Argentina, went to Jose's house and said something like 'Muchos zapatos rapido,'" Mycoskie said. "And that's all I had to say when I showed him the article, and then we were off to the races."

Afterward, TOMS appeared in Vogue and on the racks at Nordstrom and has shoe factories in places like Argentina and prospectively in Ethiopia and Haiti in order to provide jobs.

TOMS has given away more 10 million pairs of shoes as of today.

Recently, TOMS has introduced eyewear, where the same "One for One" concept applies. For every pair of eyeglasses or eyewear purchased, a vision service is offered to someone who needs it, like prescription glasses or cataract surgery.

Jessica Kettler, 21, was one of a few chosen students to speak with Mycoskie before the public speech Tuesday night.

"I really respect his style of leadership," Kettler said. "He's very hands-on and very interactive, with his employees, too."

Kettler also said that she enjoyed his public speech.

"Some parts made my eyes water," Kettler said. "He was so real and so from the heart. I just think his mission is just so noble."

Jeff Timmerman is an anthropology student at Southeast who also attended Mycoskie speech.

"I was very interested in his business models," Timmerman said. "I thought he was really well experienced in what he's done. It's a one-on-one raw experience that he's learned from."

The Southeast Speaker Series will follow with Clarence Jones, a political adviser, counsel and draft speechwriter for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Jones will speak at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 22, at the Show Me Center.