The Road to Austin

Chasing startup dreams in Texas

Mandy Dorans, Greg Evans and Jim Moss in the Austin Convention Centre. David Bebee/Record staff

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Dan Narvali alerts the crowd with one loud squawk from his megaphone. “Free pizza!” he shouts, causing a near-stampede.

It’s a humid Saturday night on Sixth Street here in Austin, closed to cars and crammed with thousands of young people walking between bars, looking for the next party.

At the centre of the free pizza swarm is Jim Moss, dressed as a large, fuzzy camera mascot. The crowd rushes to him as if he’s some kind of celebrity, asking for pictures, begging for hugs.

If Waterloo startup the Smile Epidemic came to Austin’s annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival to get noticed, they’ve succeeded. Their free pizza stunt, which was over in fewer than 10 minutes, was a ploy to draw more users to their new mobile app, with the hope it spreads virally.

But chief executive and co-founder Moss didn’t spend $35,000 just to hand out free pizza in Texas — for the tech startup, SXSW is his company’s best chance yet to break out in the crowded sector. Walking the streets and convention centre aisles here are potential investors with money to spend, all looking for the next big thing in digital technology.

Part spring break for Silicon Valley, part music, film and tech festival, a lot of business still gets done at SXSW in between all the partying. Foursquare, that geo-locational startup with 30 million users, was launched here four years ago. Now-ubiquitous Twitter was the star at the festival only two years earlier.

The Smile Epidemic — less than a year old and with only a handful of employees — came to Austin hoping it could bend a few ears with its baby-blue booth inside the cavernous trade show and a coveted 45-minute presentation on the main stage.

They also took to the streets with Cam, their mascot, for good measure.

“My job here is to get a lineup of potential funders so that if we decide to raise funding, we’ve left some good impressions. You don’t normally get a chance to have face time with people from Silicon Valley, and Austin and Boston, all in the same place at once,” Moss said.

People in Waterloo’s small startup circle may already know Moss’s personal story — how his struggle with an autoimmune disorder that ended his professional lacrosse career turned into an online gratitude journal, which became the root of the Smile Epidemic.

Two weeks ago, Moss and six others piled into an RV and headed south to Texas through Louisville, Nashville and New Orleans. Along the way, they visited an orphanage, food bank and homes for families with sick kids, evangelizing about the power of training our brains to be more optimistic.

But all that feel-good stuff aside, the Smile Epidemic still needs the business side of its operation to succeed to fund the non-profit stuff. They’re slowly inking contracts as happiness consultants who use specialized software they say can make employees more productive and more satisfied in their jobs.

“We need to balance the doing good and feeling good with the business side of it,” Moss said. “Business is still business.”

In Texas, their goal was to add 500 new users a day to their mobile app — a program that encourages people to share a picture of themselves with a note over their mouth explaining what they’re grateful for.

They had to compete for attention with the likes of Ashton Kutcher, tech behemoths such as Google and a feline web phenomena known as the Grumpy Cat, who drew a lineup that stretched around the block.

Most of the people in the Smile Epidemic are typical of many startups — they’re working for free, hoping for a return further down the road. They logged long hours of their personal time, and several cold nights in a cramped RV, to get here.

“It’s been a long trip and we’re all tired. But it’s a good tired,” said Jennifer Moss, who co-founded the company with her husband, Jim, and Greg Evans. “We’ve invested so much of ourselves in this, our own blood and sweat.”

The first morning they were in Austin, the group dropped in on the local Ronald McDonald House and left behind brown paper bags filled with snacks for families at area hospitals, sealed with stickers that read “You’ve just been smile bombed.”

The founders say the transition from a non-profit venture into a for-profit business wasn’t part of the original plan. But they say random acts of kindness like that will remain at the core of what they do.

“The business part came after we followed what we wanted to do from a personal standpoint. People attach themselves to something that feels right,” Jennifer Moss said. “We didn’t have any appetite to turn this into a startup. It just evolved into one.”

The following night, when the startup gave away pizza and passed out large stacks of cards drawing people to their website and mobile app, a reporter from Al-Jazeera caught it on camera. Mandy Dorans and the rest of the Smile crew worked the crowd, asking strangers what makes them smile.

The publicity stunt was so popular, a woman from Texas started handing out her own business cards, taking credit for organizing it.

In Austin, it’s always the weirder, the better. Hours before their pizza stunt, an all-zombie marching band drew hundreds to the same intersection. A group wearing giant pink moustaches offered free piggy back rides. Skipping competitions broke out in the street.

SXSW is the kind of place that welcomes new ideas and unusual pitches. Part of the Smile Epidemic’s arsenal of attention-seeking devices included a digital photo booth, created by Tim Muza and Narvali, built inside a papier mâché egg.

“(SXSW) attracts people who are building really cool things, and who want to discover really cool things,” said Alex Kinsella, manager of public relations and social media at BlackBerry.

“There’s no fear of trying something new here. That’s why you’ll see a lot of stunts. That’s because people are trying to get noticed, they’re trying to explain why the idea they have is something you need to pay attention to ... People are willing to take risks.”

During the festival, BlackBerry rented two homes and threw a weeklong house party with free food, drinks, a T-shirt press and live bands to promote the new BlackBerry Z10. The Smile Epidemic is a minnow compared to the Waterloo smartphone maker, so they had to settle for a more guerrilla-style marketing approach.

But SXSW is exactly where a company like the Smile Epidemic needs to be noticed, Kinsella said. Among the tens of thousands gathered here are some of the most influential people in the tech world.

“This is the right audience. The people who are here, they’re not jaded,” Kinsella said.

The Smile Epidemic is betting they’ve got the right people, the right product, the right pitch. After a long journey to get here, and a lot of money spent, they hope their little company is about to take off.

“It’s so exciting,” Jim Moss said. “I’ve been writing cheques for the last six months for this. It’s a big moment for us.”

Taking it to the streets

1.Smile Epidemic team members Mandy Dorans and Greg Evans made a stop at Blackberry House to do some networking on Rainy St where several companies were hosting get togethers.
2.A portable t shirt press was one of the features of Blackberry House in Austin at SXSW.

3.The Smile Epidemic mascot Cam played by Jim Moss was a big success and mobbed by SXSW attendees on 6th Street.

4. Cam was the life of the party for quite a few SXSW attendees passing by on 6th Street.

5. The Smile Epidemic conducted a Smilebomb on 6th Street in Austin giving away free pizza at a main intersection while providing info about the company app.

6.A SXSW attendee poses for a photo with a man dressed as Star Wars character Boba Fett and Smile Epidemic mascot Cam played by Jim Moss on 6th Street.

David Bebee, Record Staff

 

It's the journey that counts

Jim Moss introduces Austin to Cam, his company's camera mascot. Greg Mercer/Record staff

NEW ORLEANS — The border guard was suspicious. Seven young Canadians crammed into an RV were trying to cross from Ontario into the U.S., talking about their plan to drive to the Gulf of Mexico and then on to Texas.

They had a giant camera mascot stuffed in the bathroom, a big bag of sticky notes and enough markers to fill a school. The guard wanted to know their jobs.

“We make people happy,” said Jen Moss.

Moss wasn’t kidding. Her Waterloo startup, The Smile Epidemic, was going on a road trip to Austin, where it’s been invited to talk about how it uses technology to harness the power of positive psychology.

Along the way, they planned to carry out their company’s mandate to help people smile more often. That happy mission took them from an orphanage in Kentucky to a food bank in New Orleans and beyond.

Led by co-founder Jim Moss and his personal story of overcoming a debilitating disease by focusing on gratitude over negativity, they’ve heard countless stories on this trip of other people finding hope in dark times.

On Thursday morning, their RV pulled up to the curb near the Ronald McDonald House in New Orleans, loaded with bacon, eggs and English muffins. The food was for families who stay at the house while their child is in a long-term stay at the hospital.

Seven people — founders Jim and Jen Moss, Mandy Dorans, Greg Evans, Lacey Heels, Tim Muza and Dan Narvali — had driven more than 1,700 kilometres and crossed seven states to get here.

As they whipped up plates of breakfast sandwiches, they asked the people there what they’re grateful for. Lynn Giuffria didn’t have to think hard for an answer. She lost two homes to Hurricane Katrina. The first was the place where she lived, left under nine feet of water. The second was the home where she has worked since 1983, the Ronald McDonald House.

In August 2005, Katrina tore off the building’s back wall and skylights, dumping historic levels of rain into the 130-year-old house in central New Orleans. For the thousands of people who use the colonial-style dwelling every year as a home away from home while their children are in hospital, it was a devastating loss.

But almost eight years later, Giuffria proudly shows off a rebuilt house and talks about the hurricane as a series of silver linings. The strangers who sent money from around the world. The companies that donated furniture. The new social services that sprang up in a city where there used to be few.

Leon Jones, who lives almost five hours away in Monroe, Ala., said having a place to stay and a hot meal makes his ordeal a little easier. He’s got other things on his mind — his two-month-old daughter Tierney is still in hospital, where doctors are trying to fix a hole in her heart.

“It helps a lot,” he said. “It takes away a lot of stress, and it’s one less thing we have to worry about.”

The day before, the Smile Epidemic team pitched in at the distribution centre at the Second Harvest Food Bank in New Orleans, where they spent the afternoon sorting donated food into boxes. The food they packaged is desperately needed in a city where one in five kids don’t have access to nutritious meals.

Earlier, they showed up at Propeller, a centre trying to rejuvenate a city still recovering from Hurricane Katrina, by giving office space to non-profit groups and entrepreneurs who want to create community-minded projects.

The Waterloo startup’s message of optimism rang true for Craig Magraff Jr., technical staffer at Propeller. He remembers when the centre was an abandoned auto shop, and says just the sight of it being rebuilt into something positive has helped lift up the neighbourhood.

“The biggest challenge about this project wasn’t that it wasn’t possible. It’s that people didn’t think it was possible for the longest time,” Magraff said. “Now, this has become a sort of flagship, showing that this can happen. This changed people’s perceptions.”

At the Home of the Innocents in Louisville Monday, the Smile team stuck Greg Evans in a pair of tights and put him inside their fuzzy camera mascot. They asked the children there to write what makes them happy on a sticky note, and Jim Moss told them how his own kids motivated him when he couldn’t walk.

The Smile Epidemic is in early stages of its evolution as a company. Their plan for the business side of what they do — working as happiness consultants for companies who want to increase workers’ productivity — is still developing.

They have a website, an app, and thousands of users who have taken on their challenge to publicly share their gratitude with the rest of the world. They say the science behind training our brains to be more optimistic can have huge impacts on companies and institutions.

But profits aren’t the startup’s main motivator. What drives them, they say, is being a part of something that can actually improve people’s lives.

Dan Narvali, who also works as a master control operator for a Toronto television company, said he joined the Smile Epidemic because he believes in that mission.

“This just sounded right,” said Dan, “We feel really lucky to do this. I’m proud to tell people I do this.”

Austin Arrival

1. The final stop on the Smile Epidemic's road trip is near.... Austin and South by South West.

2. Jen Moss, right talks with Ann Jerome, left Chief Development Officer for Ronald McDonald House as she organizes healthy snack bags ready to be delivered to parents at the facility who have children in the nearby hospital in Austin, Texas.

3. Ann Jerome , left Chief Development Officer for Ronald McDonald House in Austin, Texas the Smile Epidemic team on a tourt of the facilty.

4. Mandy Dorans and Dan Narvali walk past a Texas steer painting while visiting Ronald McDonald House in Austin, Texas.

5. Smilebomb healthy snack bags ready to be delivered to parents at Ronald McDonald House in Austin, Texas.

6. Mandy Dorans, Greg Evans and Jim Moss arrive at the convention centre for first full day in Austin Texas. The group started setting up their booth shortly after.

7. Dan Narvali looks up from working on a display tower at SXSW duiring set up.

8. Dan Narvali, left and Tim Muza set up their booth at SXSW.

9. Smile Epidemic Chief Happiness Officer Jim Moss helps set up their booth infront of a cartoon drawing of himself at SXSW.

10. Left to right Lacey Heels, Jim Moss, Dan Narvali and Tim Muza set up their booth at SXSW.

11. A busker performs with a hula hoop outside a tech mixer on 6th in Austin, Texas at SXSW.

12. A tech company representative sported a cowboy hat while attending a start up mixer on 6th Street in Austin, Texas at SXSW.

13. Mandy Dorans networking with other start ups and established companies at a get together on 6th Street in Austin, Texas.

14. Mandy Dorans and Lacey Heels accepted an offer of a piggyback from Taylor Newton and Jesse Ferraro of Lift, a company from San Francisco. The girls spent part of their first full day in Austin Texas networking with other start ups and established companies.

David Bebee, Record staff

Touching down in Texas

Lacey Heels looks at a mural inside the Ronald McDonald House in Austin. Greg Mercer/Record staff

With some spare time before they were to set up their booth inside the giant SXSW  convention centre here, they dropped in on the local Ronald McDonald House. And they came bearing gifts – brown paper bags filled with snacks for parents staying at the charity’s three ‘family rooms’ in local hospitals.

Stuffed with healthy treats the Canadians picked up at a grocery store as they drove across Texas, the bags were sealed with stickers that read ‘You’ve just been smile bombed.’

Austin’s Ronald McDonald House couldn’t be more different from its counterpart in New Orleans. Massive, modern and ornately decorated, the 30-suite house was built only five years ago on the site of the old airport.

Last year, some 790 families stayed here while their kids underwent series, long-term procedures in local hospitals, according to Ann Jerome, the home’s chief development officer. The centre – complete with a small fitness centre, video game room, pool table green roof for barbecues – lives off the generosity of groups like the Smile Epidemic.

“Every time a family leaves here, they say ‘I couldn’t imagine what we would have done without this place,’” Jerome said.

Happy Meal! Farewell New Orleans

1. Smile Epidemic team leader leader Jim Moss right talks to left to right Helen Stone, Leon Jones, Wykeshia Coleman, Victor Berrymon and Leevelma Prudhomme at Ronald McDonald House in New Orleans as the team made breakfast for staff and residents.

2. Smile Epidemic team member Dan Narvali cooks bacon at Ronald McDonald House in New Orleans as the team made breakfast for staff and residents

3. Smile Epidemic team members Lacy Heels, Mandy Dorans and Dan Narvali make breakfast for Ronald McDonald House residents and staff in New Orleans

4. Smile Epidemic team members Mandy Dorans and Dan Narvali break up in laughter with Lyndon Moody of Ronald McDonald House in New Orleans after the team made breakfast for staff and residents

5. Lyndon Moody of Ronald McDonald House makes a joke with Kevia Dyer with her sleeping son Tru, 2 in New Orleans after the Smile Epidemic team made breakfast for staff and residents.

6. Smile Epidemic leader Jim Moss scours a pan during clean up at Ronald McDonald House in New Orleans after the team made breakfast for staff and residents

7. Smile Epidemic team member Lacey Heels sits beside Ronald the clown decorated with a Smile shirt and reason for being happy note at Ronald McDonald House in New Orleans after the team made breakfast for staff and residents.

8. Smile Epidemic team member Lacey Heels adds the last note to a smile bomb on Lyndon Moody's office door at Ronald McDonald House in New Orleans after the team made breakfast for staff and residents.

9. Smile Epidemic team member Mandy Dorans gives a hug to Lyndon Moody of Ronald McDonald House in New Orleans after the team made breakfast for staff and residents.

10. Smile Epidemic RV moves through the French Quarter in New Orleans on the way out of town after the team made breakfast for staff and residents.

11. Smile Epidemic team member Mandy Dorans makes a friend, in the 9th Ward area of New Orleans. The team went to see some of the area that was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina to witness the perserverance residents have had in trying to rebuild.

12. Smile Epidemic team member Tim Muza walks in the 9th Ward area of New Orleans after the team made breakfast for staff and residents. The team went to see some of the area that was hit hard by Hurricane Katrina to witness the perserverance residents have had in trying to rebuild.

13 David Jyles plays with his dog scooter in the 9th ward area of New Orleans where Smile team members visited

14. A damaged building is reflected in water in the 9^th ward area of New Orleans.

15.  A Citrus fruit tree in a front yard of a property in the 9^th ward.

16.  The Smile Epidemic RV takes the causeway out of New Orleans after spending two days in the city.

David Bebee, Record staff

 

Served with a smile

The Smile Epidemic pose with staff and guests from Ronald McDonald House. Greg Mercer/Record staff

When Hurricane Katrina hit, Lynn Giuffria lost two homes.

The first was the place where she lived, left under nine feet of water. The second was the home where she has worked since 1983, the Ronald McDonald House.

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina tore off the building’s back wall and skylights, dumping historic levels of rainfall into the 130-year-old house in central New Orleans. For the thousands of people who use the colonial-style dwelling every year as a home away from home while their children are in hospital, it was a devastating loss.

But almost eight years later, Giuffria talks about the hurricane as a series of silver linings. The strangers who sent money from around the world. The companies that donated furniture. The new social services that sprang up in a city where there used to be few.

On sunny morning this week, she was marveling again at the generosity of strangers as a Waterloo-based startup cooked breakfast for her and the families at the rebuilt Ronald McDonald House.

The Smile Epidemic, traveling across America talking about the power of positive psychology, spent almost two days in New Orleans. They pitched in at a food bank distribution centre,

Over an over again, the Canadians heard stories of renewal and hope in a city that has plenty of excuses for despair.

Leon Jones, a father staying at the Ronald McDonald House, was one of about a dozen guests who were served breakfast by the Smile crew. He’s got a lot on his mind – his two-month-old daughter Tierney is still in hospital, where doctors are trying to fix a hole in her heart.
 
Jones, who lives almost five hours away in Monroe, Alabama, said having a place to stay and a hot meal made his ordeal a little easier. A cooked breakfast is just a small gesture, but it let him keep his mind on bigger things.

“It helps a lot,” said Jones, below. “It takes away a lot of stress, and it’s one less thing we have to worry about.”

Foodbank Smiles

1.  Jen gets the sorting started as the conveyor belt brings donated food along to be sorted at the Second Harvest food bank in New Orleans.

2.  Mandy and Lacey get in the groove with other employees on the line. The Smile Epidemic team volunteered at a New Orleans food bank sorting food.

3.  Jim and Greg pack cereal in to boxes with fellow volunteers.

4.  Dan and Mandy gather some footage as Jim digs in.

5.  Grag reacts to an overloaded belt full of cereal.

6.  Jim and Greg laugh at their efforts to catch up

 

Propeller Visit

1.  The Smile Epidemic team walks through the front entrance of Propeller, a socially minded project incubator.

2. Team members left to right Lacey,Jim,Greg and Jen talk with Propeller Project Manager Julia Stewart.

3. Propeller member Mark Strella offers a critique during the Smile Epidemic team presentation.

4. Lacey checks out a common area in the renovated offices of Propeller.

5. Greg makes a point during the team’s presentation at Propeller.

6. Project Manager Julia Stewart has a question during the presentation.

7. Greg listens to Jim’s portion of the presentation.

8. Jen talks with Propeller staff Danielle Kraus as she writes what makes her happy about Propeller for a smilebomb.

9. Tim photographs Propeller member Craig Magraff Jr with his contribution to a smilebomb.

10. Lacey and Mandy talk in the Propeller lunchroom next to a smilebomb on the bulletin board

David Bebee, Record Staff

Pitching in

Mandy Dorans pitched in at the Second Harvest Food Bank in New Orleans Tuesday. Greg Mercer/Record staff

The distribution centre at the Second Harvest Food Bank in New Orleans might have been the happiest warehouse in Louisiana for a few hours Wednesday. Volunteers from the Smile Epidemic spent the afternoon there, sorting donated food into boxes. 

With Michael Bolton blasting from a nearby stereo, they danced, laughed and went about their work enthusiastically, working alongside volunteers from a local insurance company. In short order, a wall of boxes were cleared out of the warehouse, filled with food and packed for shipping.

Second Harvest needs all the help it can get. New Orleans has the second highest rate of hunger in the country, according to Catie Quinn, supervisor of volunteer services. More than 260,000 people at food banks, homeless shelters and after-school programs in southern Louisiana relied on them for food last year.

A few hours earlier, the Smile Epidemic visited another building that’s also giving people in New Orleans a reason for hope.

Propeller is an incubator for socially-minded entrepreneurs and non-profits trying to improve life in New Orleans. Built inside a vacant former rim shop, the centre provides cheap accommodation to startups in their early years, much like Waterloo’s Accelerator Centre, where the Smile Epidemic keep their office.

Among the startups they house are a group that helps people expunge criminal records for non-violent crime, a company that builds free websites for mom-and-pop stores, and a public lab for open-source technology. 

The Smile Epidemic went through the building asking people what makes them happy and documenting the answers on video. Many said they were happiest to be a part of a renaissance in their city.

The Waterloo startup’s message of positive psychology rang true for Craig Magraff Jr., the New Orleans-born technical staffer at Propeller, below. He remembers when the building he’s in now was an abandoned site, and says just the sight of it being rebuilt into something positive has helped lift up the neighbourhood.

“The biggest challenge about this project wasn’t that it wasn’t possible. It’s that people didn’t think it was possible for the longest time,” Magraff said, “Now, this has become a sort of flagship, showing that this can happen.”

 

 

 

 

 

The distribution centre at the Second Harvest Food Bank in New Orleans might have been the happiest warehouse in Louisiana for a few hours Wednesday. Volunteers from the Smile Epidemic spent the afternoon there, sorting donated food into boxes. 

 

With Michael Bolton blasting from a nearby stereo, they danced, laughed and went about their work enthusiastically, working alongside volunteers from a local insurance company. In short order, a wall of boxes were cleared out of the warehouse, filled with food and packed for shipping.

 

Second Harvest needs all the help it can get. New Orleans has the second highest rate of hunger in the country, according to Catie Quinn, supervisor of volunteer services. More than 260,000 people at food banks, homeless shelters and after-school programs in southern Louisiana relied on them for food last year.

 

A few hours earlier, the Smile Epidemic visited another building that’s also giving people in New Orleans a reason for hope.

 

Propeller is an incubator for socially-minded entrepreneurs and non-profits trying to improve life in New Orleans. Built inside a vacant former rim shop, the centre provides cheap accommodation to startups in their early years, much like Waterloo’s Accelerator Centre, where the Smile Epidemic keep their office.

 

Among the startups they house are a group that helps people expunge criminal records for non-violent crime, a company that builds free websites for mom-and-pop stores, and a public lab for open-source technology. 

 

The Smile Epidemic went through the building asking people what makes them happy and documenting the answers on video. Many said they were happiest to be a part of a renaissance in their city.

 

The Waterloo startup’s message of positive psychology rang true for Craig Magraff Jr., the New Orleans-born technical staffer at Propeller. He remembers when the building he’s in now was an abandoned site, and says just the sight of it being rebuilt into something positive has helped lift up the neighbourhood.

 

“The biggest challenge about this project wasn’t that it wasn’t possible. It’s that people didn’t think it was possible for the longest time,” Magraff said, “Now, this has become a sort of flagship, showing that this can happen.”