This article was first published in the August 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content bysubscribing online
The story of tech entrepreneurship is dominated by variations of a very familiar, overused persona: the hoodie-wearing college dropout, the socially awkward geek wunderkind, and, increasingly, the beer-guzzling bro. Catch an episode of Sky Atlantic's Silicon Valley and you'll find these characters in spades. The trouble with focusing only on the Zuckerbergs of the world is those stories we leave behind: the entrepreneurs whose tales don't begin with a passion for computer programming and don't end with a nice IPO.
Fabian Ruiz, a former prisoner from New York, spent 21 years in prison for killing a man he believed had shot his brother. Inside prison, Ruiz started a magazine covering hip-hop and prison news. He also learned plumbing and how to carry out electrical work, and studied liberal arts and law. When we met him, Ruiz was out of prison and a participant in Defy Ventures, a New York City-based nonprofit programme designed to help ex-offenders "transform their hustle" by connecting them with training and opportunities to become entrepreneurs in the legal economy.
Today, you can find a few programmes of this kind designed to help inmates and ex-offenders rebuild their lives. Free Minds Book Club in the US, founded by two former journalists, uses books and creative writing to support juveniles who were incarcerated as adult offenders. In the UK the Small Business Consultancy, founded by Amar Lodhia -- a former addict who was kicked out of school at 17 before becoming homeless -- has a mission to help people with similar backgrounds, many of them ex-offenders, kick-start their own entrepreneurial endeavours. The hope is that ex-offenders will not only fail to reoffend, but also that they will use the lessons they learnt on the streets to build their own organisations and potentially become employers themselves.
Ex-offenders have invaluable experiences, thought processes and skill sets that can help to make them successful entrepreneurs. Duane Jackson is one example -- he grew up in a children's home in east London, dropped out of school and then at 19 was arrested for attempting to smuggle 6,500 ecstasy tablets into the US. After serving two years in a UK prison, he faced the daunting task of finding a job. Struggling to get someone to hire him, he decided to make use of his self-taught coding skills and start his own company, KashFlow, to provide online accounting software. It eventually grew to employ 40 people and produce annual revenues of nearly £2 million. In 2013, Jackson sold the company to IRIS, a large provider of business and accountancy software. Drawing on his experience in criminality, Jackson understood that entrepreneurship called for an ability to calculate risk, an understanding of his competition and the value of forging a set of strategic alliances.
The mindset of an ex-con capitalises on the hustler's instinct -- the ability to make something out of nothing. During our interview with Ruiz, he rose from his chair and asked us to look around the room we were sitting in. He said: "There are at least 100 weapons in here." He pointed toward a plastic chair, which he said he could melt and turn into a razor. He continued to survey the room, telling us that the metal rod on the TV stand right in front of us could easily be fashioned into a sword. The entire plumbing system of the building? An arsenal of weapons. The sink in the corner? He could kick it, he said, and make a knife out of the porcelain. What to us would be invisible, or useless, or completely taken for granted, is to someone with Ruiz's experience obvious, useful and essential. What around us are we ignoring, and how could we productively make some use of it?
The startup world has been criticised for creating products and services that solve problems only the techno fortunate are privileged enough to have. Getting your laundry picked up with the press of a button; hiring a cleaner via an app; securing a date with someone who lives or works nearby; finding a taxi. In contrast, formerly incarcerated individuals bring a different perspective.
Solving real-world problems is not something for which Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have always been praised. Ex-offenders, however, do tend to think about issues that impact their own communities. More recently, Ruiz has set up a business to deliver internet information to those in prison who have restricted access. He remembers his thirst for knowledge and information when he was locked up, and sees in addition to the social service a good market opportunity. This sort of fusion -- a social service coupled with a market opportunity -- gives an entrepreneur an edge in a world accustomed to focusing mostly on the latter.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
