Clay Water Brick Book Summary - Clay Water Brick Book explained in key points

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Clay Water Brick summary

Name: Clay Water Brick
Rating: 4.2 (24 reviews)
Author: Jessica Jackley

Jessica Jackley

Finding Inspiration from Entrepreneurs Who Do the Most with the Least

4.2 (24 ratings)

18 mins

Brief summary

Clay Water Brick by Jessica Jackley is a memoir of a woman who founded Kiva, a non-profit providing micro-loans to entrepreneurs. She shares lessons for entrepreneurs with a social-impact lens.

Topics

Strategy Success Entrepreneurship

Table of Contents

Clay Water Brick
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? An entrepreneurial way out of poverty.

Turn on your TV and it won’t be long before you’re confronted by a charity ad featuring a tearful celebrity broadcasting from a region mired in poverty. Chances are you’ll feel sad and you may give a donation, but that’s it. You’ll soon forget about it, the celebrity will go home and the poverty will remain.

So what can we do instead?

Well, you can trust the thinking of an expert in the field. Someone who has spent years battling poverty in the third world. These blinks, based on the author’s real-life experiences, show how poverty can be ended, for good. They show how instead of relying on traditional charity, we should look to local entrepreneurs to create wealth and progress.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

how one man used his hands and the clay under his feet to get himself out of poverty;
how the author’s platform survived someone embezzling $100,000 on it; and
why microlending could be the solution for global poverty.

While conventional charities are floundering, entrepreneurs in developing nations are making a difference.

Designer suits, expensive cars, cash to burn: that’s how most of us picture the life of a successful entrepreneur. But not all entrepreneurs are enjoying life in the fast lane. Some of the most ingenious, resourceful and innovative entrepreneurs live and work in the poorest areas of the world.

In recent years, entrepreneurs from developing nations have become beacons of hope. Far from widening the divide between rich and poor, the entrepreneurial spirit could help us close it.

Entrepreneurship may even be a far better solution to poverty than any other current method. Why?

Well, consider how the average charity works. A person donates a given amount of money knowing that it’s for a good cause. They don’t know how that money will be spent, who it helps or the quality of the charity’s assistance.

Individuals that want to feel more involved in a charity’s activity may volunteer. The author herself volunteered in many organizations. But no matter whether she was helping out at a hospital, at a sports club, in a soup kitchen or a halfway house for teenage mothers – she couldn’t help feeling like she wasn’t making a lasting impact.

Moreover, seeing the same people return every day for assistance with little motivation to change their own lives is disheartening to many volunteers. Charities, of course, are an indispensable part of society. But there are more ways to make a difference.

As the saying goes: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The author understood the significance of this after gaining firsthand experience in East Africa with Californian nonprofit Village Enterprise. After interviewing local small business owners about their lives and the positive impact of Village Enterprise’s financial sponsorship, one thing was clear:

These people had the ideas, motivation and aspirations to fight their way out of poverty. All they needed was a little financial support. This gave birth to a revolutionary way of improving conditions in developing communities. The following blinks will tell you more about how it happened.

Microlending is a powerful tool in the fight against poverty.

A few billion people around the world live in poverty today. The global situation seems to worsen every time we turn on the news. In a world where so many people are struggling, what can we do to help? We can donate to charities and raise awareness, but it’s clear that a lot of money is the only thing that will improve the lives of the poor. Or is it?

It’s impossible to eliminate all poverty at once. But what if we focused on lifting individuals, families and communities out of vicious cycles, one at a time? This approach is far more realistic, and a much smaller amount of money is needed to make it work. How? Through microloans.

Great businesses don’t need great resources, just a resourceful leader.

The founder of a tech start-up in Silicon Valley and a craftsman selling building materials in an East African village may not have much in common at first glance. But, while there is a stark contrast between the resources they have access to, both share the same entrepreneurial spirit.

No matter where or how you start out, it’s your resourcefulness that makes you a strong entrepreneur. Patrick from Uganda started out with nothing at all. Having lost his family when rebels attacked his village, he escaped with his surviving brother to live with distant relatives.

A clear mission will keep your venture on track no matter what.

Starting your own business venture is rather like sailing out to sea. You may have a route planned, but it’s inevitable that strong currents will pull you in different directions. In order to get yourself back on track, you’ve got to keep your destination firmly in mind.

In the early stages of Kiva, the author was approached by two entrepreneurs with a similar idea. They were ambitious, had friends in high places and wanted to join forces. Their goals and values were a little different to the author’s, but she agreed to cooperate.

Honesty, even when things don’t go according to plan, is what wins loyal followers.

Whether it’s posting that glowing graduation picture on Instagram or proudly presenting stunning quarterly figures to your investors, most of us can’t resist the opportunity to show off our successes. Of course, we’re not all successful all the time. We just don’t share that side of the story.

It’s easy to see why: we don’t want to look like failures, especially to those who support or follow us. Yet, the reality is that people don’t place their trust in a successful exterior. It’s honesty and transparency that attracts loyal and committed customers.

Teamwork can revitalize a business and see it reach new heights.

Building a new business is one of the toughest challenges you can take on. So why go it alone? Two heads are always better than one, and surrounding yourself with supportive team members will allow you to overcome even the trickiest obstacles. So don’t be afraid to collaborate!

Clay, founder of a candy store in Honolulu, found strength in teamwork during difficult financial times. A passionate entrepreneur, Clay treated everyone that walked into his store like ohana (the Hawaiian word for “family”). He had a loyal customer base, but he still struggled to make ends meet.

Years of trial and error is what leads to sustainable success.

When the first iPhone came out, it was a revolutionary piece of technology. But compared to the most recent model, it looks incredibly underdeveloped. That comes as no surprise – not even Apple gets it right the first time. And Apple is constantly improving the iPhone’s technology.

The best projects aren’t the result of a stroke of genius. Rather, they’re borne out of innovation and refinement over many years.

Taking risks opens new doors for your business.

While every entrepreneur’s journey is full of unique challenges, there’s one tough decision they’ve all faced: the decision to risk it all and start a business. By investing time, money and effort into starting a business, entrepreneurs voluntarily dive headfirst into the unknown.

Take Katherine, a student from a Village Enterprise workshop in Tororo, Uganda. After learning basic business techniques, she felt pretty sure that selling fish was one of the most promising business strategies. Demand was high, and she decided to give it a try herself by buying fish from a local middleman.

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What is Clay Water Brick about?

Clay Water Brick (2015) explores the author’s unusual business career in connection with stories of successful micro-entrepreneurs all over the globe. These blinks reveal the strategies of entrepreneurs who make something out of nothing while making a difference in struggling communities.

Best quote from Clay Water Brick

Your mission is your identity and your guide. It tells the world and serves to remind you, exactly who you are and who you are not.

—Jessica Jackley

Who should read Clay Water Brick?

Aspiring entrepreneurs worried that a lack of resources will hold them back
Activists interested in sustainable approaches to changing the world
Those who want to see global issues from an optimistic perspective

About the Author

Jessica Jackley is a social entrepreneur and founder of the unique and successful micro-lending platform Kiva. With a focus on financial inclusion, the sharing economy and social justice, Jackley has played instrumental roles in a number of other enterprises. She holds an MBA from the Stanford Business School.

Categories with Clay Water Brick

Entrepreneurship

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