It's hard to
go a full day without hearing someone talk about how bad the economy is now
days. A lot of the time we blame political leaders, but how much of it are we
really personally responsible for? We decided to find out if Americans would
rather help someone build a business and grow the economy or help someone
remain reliant upon others.
Where the Idea Began
This idea
came as I was trying to raise capital to expand my business. I started a Kickstarter project to
raise the money needed. The goal was 10,000 and I only had a certain amount of
time to get it. If I didn't raise the full amount in that time I would not get
any of the money that was raised and it would go back to their rightful owners.
In order to accomplish my goal I had to get $200 dollars a day in pledges. The
first week went really well I was able to do just that. It was a lot of work to
convince others to support my project despite the fact that I was providing
them with a product in return for their pledge. At one point in the project we
hit a wall and pledges stopped. I kicked it into over drive
doing everything I could to bring more traffic to my project. I desperately
needed to accomplish this goal. I wrote article for multiple large blogs about
running projects as a college student, hit all the college campuses, ect. After
a week of this with no success I sat brainstorming what I could do to
accomplish this goal. In a moment of frustration I thought to myself "This
is so dumb. I am offering a great product and I still cannot get the money I need
to expand this business. While I know for a fact that there are people who sit
on an overpass all day and make over $100 dollars a day." That's when the
idea for this video was born.
How to Test
Its
estimated that tens of thousands of dollars are given to beggars daily by
individuals. We decided to see if Americans would give the same amount of money
to someone to help them start a business if they asked for it in the same
manner. So we picked a street corner, made two different signs. One for the Entrepreneur
and one for a homeless student living in
his car. We would both stand on the same corner for the same amount of time
during the same hours of the day of the same day of the week and see who would
get the most money.
The Results
We started
with the Entrepreneur first. He stood for a total of one hour on the street
corner. Not a large sample time but enough to get a feel for the public's reaction.
In that time he was given absolutely no money. Not even someone's spare change
from their recent starbucks run. Next up was to see how much the beggar could
raise in this time. It could be that he also would get no money and we would
find out that Americans are just plain heartless. That however was not the
case. After standing on the corner for 15 minutes as a beggar I had a man reach
out and hand me a some of money. I thanked him, the light turned green and he was
on his way. Within a matter of 15 minutes it was clear that Americans would
much rather give their money to a beggar than to someone trying to progress and
grow in their life. I didn't feel it was fair to take advantage of the public
more than necessary so I ended the experiment early knowing that I already had
enough information to draw my conclusion.
Are we the Ones Cutting our own Throat?
Does this
behavior have a debilitating affect on our Nation? What does this study show us
about the Human mind? What motivates us and calls us to action? Each of us
inherently wants to help others. It's part of our nature, we are compassionate
and seek to help those around us. Do we go about it the right way though? When
we see the Entrepreneur on the road we don't feel bad not giving him any money.
We say to ourselves there are other ways for him to get the money. He can work
for it, get a loan, find an investor, if it's a good idea someone will give him
the money and help he needs. We have seen it time and time again with company
after company. In our minds he is going about it the wrong way so we feel no
guilt passing him by. When we see the beggar, we are moved with compassion. We don't
think about the equal amount of programs established for them. The shelters,
work programs, schooling stimulus's, ect. All we see is someone that is dependent
upon us. Something that each of us subconsciously enjoys and seeks for. It
elevates us above someone else, provides feelings of self worth, and brings
joy. Do we feel power from making someone reliant upon us? Do we feel that our
power is threatened by helping someone become self reliant? Have we hurt the progression
of our country because subconsciously we are afraid to try and help everyone
become self reliant?
Thoughts a Comments
Let me hear
your thoughts, and feelings. Don't forget to check out the project that started
this whole thing right here
Ethan I really liked the idea of your experiment, and I think you do make a good point, but you're making some very drastic assumptions from an uncontrolled and severely flawed approach. The fact that a small assortment of commuters failed to pity or support the "young entrepreneur" whilst feeling sympathy for a "homeless student" looking for $10 for gas does not in any way confirm that "America is a bunch of enablers." You're clearly a smart guy, so you should know better than to make such brazen statements from a flawed experiment just to support your own views.
ReplyDeleteAltlnit,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment. I agree with you, this is not enough to say beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is how we always function as a society. There are to many variables that come into play to make it scientifically bullet proof. Simply changing a few words on one of the signs could have produced drastically different results. The underlying point that I think we need to understand, that I feel we miss as a society, is personal accountability. The concept that I was trying to illustrate as a whole is that we seek to always place blame on someone or something else. Never taking time to realize that we personaly are the ones causing the problem. If all we say is the economy is bad and wait for some political leader to come into office and fix it, then the economy will be bad forever. If we want the economy to change we each personally and individually need to change it. If ultimately in the end I cannot get the money to expand my business, that's not the economies fault, the Presidents fault, the investors fault, its MY fault. That is what I feel we do not understand as Americans.