Pre-episode Intro Mike: I don't know what's gonna happen next week. But you know what? I know I'm gonna do my best, I know I'm gonna wake up tomorrow morning, and I'm gonna do the best at what I do, and if it makes me money, cool. And if it doesn't, I'm gonna go to bed, I'm gonna sleep, I'm gonna wake up the next day, I'm gonna do it again. And I'm gonna figure out what I need to do to make it. And I'm gonna keep going forward. And I'm gonna keep advocating. And I'm gonna keep pushing. Chris: This is the Penny Forward podcast, a show about blind people building bright futures one penny at a time. I'm Chris Peterson, ... Liz: I'm Liz Bottner, ... MOe: I'm MOe Carpenter, ... Chris: And today, we are going to learn more about entrepreneurship, and leadership, from Mike Calvo, president and founder of Pneuma Solutions, and other companies in the past, he's been a fixture in the blind community for a long, long time, and we're excited to have him on to find out what he thinks is key to being highly successful in the blind community. MOe: So, you started talking a little bit about this, but could you give us a little bit of an idea of your financial journey starting up Pneuma? Mike: Sure. Um, to say that everything we've done is bootstrapped, we come up with an idea, and we run with it. I mean it's always been, "Put the idea out there, and see if it works, and, and, and hope for the best." We got some small investments, and, and the community has really kind of helped us. None of these companies are like multimillion dollar organizations. We haven't had large government contracts yet, I'm hoping. Because we're in the space of working with uh, enterprise, and with government, and with education, it's looking like we're possibly gonna make more money, but, you know, when you work with the blind community as consumers, we don't have a whole hell of a lot of money in our community. There's an eighty odd percent unemployment rate, you know, but it's made us a living. Both Matt and I do other things to supplement our income, but that doesn't mean that our hearts aren't first and foremost with Pneuma. So, it, it really is kind of a labor of love. It's not struggling by any sense of the word. Even if Pneuma weren't making a penny tomorrow, we would still keep it going. But thank God, knock on the wood, that, uh, we do make enough to keep the lights on, we make enough to keep the products going forward, and we're making enough to grow. Slowly but surely. You know, we, we measure our growth in the blindness community in a little bit of a different way than the mainstream. The mainstream measures it in millions. You know, we measure it in, "How many people are we impacting?" You know, right now, I think, at last check, we had about, uh, 17, 18 thousand computers online right now, and uh, there hasn't been a month yet that we haven't been able to make the bills. Thank God. You know, the public speaking, uh, is something that I've gotten more into, and, and I can address that, you know, as you ask me more questions I guess, but it's, it's something that is not just a potential revenue generator for me and my life, but it's also a way of really involving, uh, and, and, and helping spread the word and advocating, uh, for equal opportunities for us as blind folks. Chris: That is a good segway into my next question. So, let's talk about spreading the word and marketing. It seems like the word spreads very quickly in a small part of the blind community that is active on the internet. And we may all know each other. And if we don't, we probably will some day. If we're active in that part of the, the little corner of the world. And yet, there's 8.7 million of us that are working age, there's about twenty million of us total, and that's just in the United States. We're looking at more like two hundred million worldwide. What is your approach to finding those people, those customers, and persuading them to be a part of your business, and how is that different from marketing to your sighted customers, maybe your corporate customers, that might be, uh, interested in things like RIM or Scribe for, for Meetings, where they may respond to a lot of, sort of the, more traditional marketing techniques, the visual ads and stuff that, uh, everybody does, that, that might not be as affective in, in the blind world? Mike: That's a great question. Because it is different. Uh, ironically, the customer is the same. Right? Blind people like comedy. Blind people like sports. We as a community have the same likes and dislikes, and the same thresholds for frustration and, and irritation as the mainstream, but marketing is a little different to us, for us, by us. It's a little different because you're right. There, there is kind of that, that echo chamber, right? That's kind of what we, (Chuckle.) What we call internally, we call it "blindy marketing." You know? Um, that's our blindy marketing. And we go, and we, we, we push to, to our own community. And, then when we deal with the mainstream, it's a little different. Because generally, even, you'd think that products like RIM, or Scribe for Meetings, we could go knock on doors, and say, "Do you hire blind people? Here, we have a product for you." No! You can't do that! You've got to wait. You've got to wait. We have something on our site called the self advocacy kit. the SAC. As you need our stuff at your job, or at your work pla— at your school, or whatever, you go to, and you look in the SAC, and you see if we've got a, a letter, that meets your scenario, and you fill that in, and then you generate a letter to VR, or to whoever it is, and then you push for it. Because it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Can you imagine? We have a great remote accessibility training tool, but to go and find companies that hire blind people, it's just, it's slim to none. You've got to wait for those blind people to come to you. Liz: What sets your company, Pneuma Solutions, apart from other companies that exist in the same space, doing the same things? Mike: Um, I don't think there are other companies that are doing the same thing that Pneuma does. Exactly the way we do it. I was in a magazine a few years ago, and I said "You know, if you're blind, you have a much better chances of getting a job at my company than if you're sighted." And the reporter was being a little snarky, she said "That's, that's reverse discrimination." I said, "Well sue me." It's real simple. We are blind people first. We believe in building our community. We believe that blind people deserve the opportunity to thrive and to grow. And we deserve an opportunity to express ourselves, and to be understood, respectfully, of course, of others, and of everybody, but at the same time, to advocate for our own abilities, and to advocate for what we can do as blind people. And I like to believe that we build an environment that fosters that, that embraces that, we hire younger people that we can mentor, I grew up in the drug business. I grew up in the gang world. Because I didn't find acceptance anywhere else. And that's not a cop out. That's the truth. You know, I didn't meet other blind people that influenced my life until I was in my early twenties. And as long as we continue to not have blind people taking leadership roles, and mentoring, and talking, and helping other people understand what we need, not what it is to deal with our affliction, you know, then, we're never gonna make it forward as a community. I think that that's what sets us apart. We're not just here to sell products. We're here to build a community. And that is truly thanks to my friend Jonathan Mosen, who taught me the meaning of community, and has not only taught me that, but he has, he has truly, truly, exemplified that. In receiving the awards that he just recently did from both ACB and NFB for his, uh, his work in the blind community, and to me, I'm just, I'm just honored that we can even be a small part of this blindness world. MOe: I loved all of that, but thinking of the future, what, what do you have in store for you, or for Pneuma Solutions? Mike: I don't know. I don't know. That's what sucks about being a blind entrepreneur. I don't know what's gonna happen next week. But you know what? I know I'm gonna do my best, I know I'm gonna wake up tomorrow morning, and I'm gonna do the best at what I do, and if it makes me money, cool. And if it doesn't, I'm gonna go to bed, I'm gonna sleep, I'm gonna wake up the next day, I'm gonna do it again. And I'm gonna figure out what I need to do to make it. And I'm gonna keep going forward. And I'm gonna keep advocating. And I'm gonna keep pushing. Because the only reason the mainstream has a normality is because, you know, they've got statistics. We don't have enough of a world yet that belongs to us for there to be statistics. But dammit, we're building it. We're building it. And sooner or later, we're gonna be able to say, "You know, I project that we're gonna make this in the next quarter." I can sit in front of a bunch of VC'S and say, "Hey Man, you know, I've got this technology, and if, if, if you gave me half a billion dollars, I can get this much more market share." Can't do that right now. The only VC'S that want to come into this community are the ones that want to jump on board and do roll ups of existing companies so that they can continue the status quo. And that stifles innovation. And yes, I said that. When you get a VC that rolls up ten companies into one, it slows down innovation. Because they want the gravy train to keep on rolling. I'm a member of this community. Hey, listen. I, I, I like making money as much as the next guy. But not at the expense of a whole community. Of moving forward. I applaud companies that are exploring, companies like Be My Eyes. That are exploring AI. Companies like Aira, that are doing hybrid approaches to solutions by working, partnering with mainstream businesses, and with blindness organizations, to build that bridge. I applaud those organizations. Because they're innovating and they're trying to figure out a way to bring us in and across that bridge. That digital divide. So I, I applaud those, those organizations. Chris: On that note, what advice do you have for other blind people that want to contribute to building this world that you so eloquently described? Mike: Well thanks for the, for the compliment of eloquence. Um, for many years, all you would get for me was a lot of anger. A lot of frustration. Um, because, I was angry. You know, and, there's a lot of anger in our community. There's a lot of frustration. Because no one should ever tell you you can't. I tell people when they come to work for me, "Listen. There's two words that will get you fired here. 'I can't.” Obviously if I'm telling you to do something illegal then you can't, and, you know. But, if I'm telling you to do something, and, and "I can't," no. "I don't know how," "I, I, I, I really don't know if I, if I can do that really well," "I don't know if I can meet the standard, you want me to do," all of that I can accept, but "I can't," You've failed before you started. Get out of here. You need to believe in yourself, Blind Person, because the world is just learning who you are. The world is just learning to believe in us. So, we need to come in believing in ourselves first. There's hope ahead of us. Technology's on our side. Before, we had a social problem and a technological problem. The technological problems are getting less and less every day. And the social problem, well hell. If you want to get to know people, get out there and start shaking hands. Start kissing babies. Start saying hi to people. Start going out and stepping out. You know, and is it frustrating? Yes. Of course, it is. You don't always want to be the ambassador, (chuckle.) for our community. And I'm certainly not saying that you should be. But, you know, make your world the world you want it to be. And if we can do that one person at a time, it's gonna be a better world. So, just get out there and be real. Be weird, (chuckle.) if you want to be weird. Don't try to be normal. Anybody in this panel who can tell me what normal is, I'll give you a thousand dollars. What is normal? Chris: I haven't figured it out yet. Liz: But, I mean, yeah. Mike: (at the same time: ) But yet we were all told as kids to be that way, right? Chris: Yeah. Conform, try not to look blind, for God's sake, try not to look blind. Liz: When you, when you're, you're told, "Oh, you don't look blind. You don't act blind." What, what does that mean? Mike: Yeah. "You don't—" I've had people tell me I don't sound blind. (Chuckle.) I'm like "What?" (Liz Chuckles.) Chris: Whoa! (Laugh.) Liz: Okay. Mike: "You don't sound blind." Chris: That's a new one. Liz: That is a new one. Mike: I'm like "What does that mean?" Chris: So, uh, before we go, can you let people know where people can find out more about your company and get a hold of you, if you're open to that? Mike: Sure. I'm at pneuma solutions, that's P N E U M A solutions .com, I can be reached at my website, mikecalvo.com mike@mikecalvo.com is my public speaking website, if you'd like me to speak at your event, um, but really. Reach out. And uh, we, we really would love to hear from what we call "rising young hackers." Hackers in the positive sense. Computer people. Matt and I are always looking for people to mentor and to work with, that are in the computer world, in the computer space, and that are budding young engineers. Chris: Well, that's great. I'm sure that there are plenty of people, and, and uh, Matt's an interesting guy too. We should probably have him on here some day to talk about his, his side of this journey. Mike: Love that guy. He's an honor to work with. I usually don't like having business partners, and he is truly one of the simplest business partners to have in the world. He really is. He's a good friend. Chris: Before we go, we'd like to thank our valued partners and sponsors, Wells Fargo, Thrivent, the APH Connect Center, World Services for the Blind, and Computers For the Blind. And we'd like to encourage you to join us at Penny Forward, where you can get all kinds of membership benefits, and right now, we have a contest going on. Where you can win one of, and I'm not kidding here, over fifty thousand dollars in prizes. Visit pennyforward.com/contest to learn all about that. And visit our website at pennyforward.com to learn about all of the things that Penny Forward is doing to try and help the blind community attain more financial capability. The Penny Forward podcast is produced by Chris Peterson and Liz Bottner with help from MOe Carpenter. Audio editing and postproduction is provided by Brynn Lee, text transcription is provided by Anne Verduin, and the music is composed and performed by Andre Louis. And it's, maybe a little more than a coincidence, that all of those people are blind. Penny Forward is a nonprofit organization founded and led by blind people. Through education, mentoring, and mutual support, we help each other navigate the complicated landscape of personal finance. We hope you'll join us. Now, for all of us in the Penny Forward community, I'm Chris Peterson, ... Liz: I'm Liz Bottner, ... MOe: I'm MOe Carpenter, ... Chris: Thanks for listening and have a great week.