Brett Hagler, the founder of New Story a charity that’s transforming slums into sustainable communities worldwide. Brett and his team are determined to change the way charities work, and they’ve created their own software platform to maximize transparency, accountability, and user experience. Listen in to hear how Brett plans to build 1000 communities in the next 10 years, why he chose charity over social entrepreneurship, and why it’s crucial to follow your own path.

Famous 5:

Favorite Business Book? – Insanely Simple
What CEO do you follow? — Brian Chesky
Favorite online tool? — Audible
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be? —Don’t do what everybody else is doing. Spend time learning about the world and have an open mind.

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:15 – Nathan’s introduction
01:23 – New Story transforms slums into sustainable communities
01:50 – They created a platform to crowdfund homes and public buildings for communities in the Third World
02:29 – 100% of crowdfunded donations go to the people on the website - there’s a separate group of ‘Angel Donors’ who have invested philanthropically in their operations
04:30 – “Venture capitalists
05:00 – New Story is 17 months old and has already generated $3 million in donations
05:50 – “We don’t measure success by what’s in our bank account, but by the impact we’re having on the world”
06:26 – Brett went to Haiti after the earthquake...and couldn’t find a charity to work for that he was excited about
07:36 – “We took our frustrations and made a better product and a better experience”
08:09 – “I never knew where my money was going or where it was helping”
08:50 – Built a database software to be extremely transparent
09:50 – Why go into charity rather than social entrepreneurship?
10:17 – “We’re passionate about building a better type of non-profit”
10:50 – Their key metric of success is 4 communities
11:20 – Have so far built 4 communities - over 300 homes at $6000 per home. Aiming to have built over 1000 communities in 10 years’ time
11:56 – Connect with Brett on Twitter or at New Story
13:45 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Don’t do what everybody else is doing. Open your mind.
Follow your own journey - make a difference in the way that makes you fired up.
Give to the world. Spend time with people who have less than you and work out how to serve them.
Resources Mentioned:
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives