Ryan Smith is the founder and CEO of Recyclops, a technology-driven startup that innovates solutions for sustainability, starting with recycling. Ryan believes that recycling and sustainable options should be accessible to everyone, and achieves this by leveraging community and technology. For his work in sustainability, Ryan was named to the 2020 Forbes 30 under 30.
Ryan attended Brigham Young University, where he received his Bachelor of Science in Business Management with an emphasis on Strategy. While at BYU, Ryan was a partner in the Campus Founders Club, where he co-managed a $500,000 student-run investment fund with the purpose of investing in student entrepreneurial ventures. From 2015 to 2020, Ryan was the regional president of the Kairos Society in the Provo, Utah area, where he helped Kairos HQ to create a 2-year strategic plan on building their community. Currently, Ryan sits on the board of the Recycling Coalition of Utah, where he works with other industry professionals to improve recycling throughout the state.
In this episode, Ryan and Bryan discuss:
– Ryan’s life-altering mission trip to Russia, and how it taught him to get his feet wet and keep moving forward
– How exposure to other cultures, his faith, and his family empowered Ryan’s move into entrepreneurship
– The origin of Ryan’s company Recyclops and their goal of making recycling more accessible
The show is shared on the following platforms:
Transcript:
Bryan Wish:
Ryan, welcome to the One Away Show.
Ryan Smith:
Hey, glad to be here. Good to see you, Bryan.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah, great to have you here. Thanks again, Ryan, for hosting me for a week in Utah.
Ryan Smith:
Wasn’t long enough. We need to-
Bryan Wish:
Wasn’t long enough. Look, I’m excited to do this with you and so proud of everything you’ve been up to. What is the one away moment that you want to share with us today?
Ryan Smith:
I’ve been thinking about this. A couple moments immediately come to mind. A lot of them around my business and my journey and my business. Around different things around my family and around all that. But there’s one moment that I think sticks out to me and that is, that when I was 19 years old, I decided to serve a mission for my church. I saved up a bunch of money and decided to put all that money towards going and being a missionary. I was a missionary in Russia. As I thought about this as a one way moment, I thought about all these different moments. Many of the other moments branch off of this moment. That’s why I feel like it was such an impactful moment for me. Especially right now Russia’s nuts. But Russia’s always nuts. Going and spending two years in Russia as a 19 year old on my own without my family, it’s life-changing.
Bryan Wish:
One, you’re right. Time in the world, Russia has a terrible image. But for you, I can see why. 19 years old going in a completely foreign land, on a mission. Following your Mormon faith. Why it was so life-changing. I’d love to understand. Take us back to before you left. You knew that you had Russia upon you. You were going to be going for two years. How were you feeling at the time? What stage of life were you at? How were you thinking about life? Let’s start there.
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. I’d done a year of college. I’d gone and I did my freshman year of college. I was studying international relations. I had lived abroad as a kid, which was also pretty pivotal. But I had lived in South America a little bit growing up. Was passionate about travel and whatnot. But I decided that I definitely a faith-driven person and have strong faith. Felt that this was the right thing for me to do. I felt a calling in a sense, to go and do this.
Ryan Smith:
There was an interesting thing. As I went from, hey, I want to go serve a mission to, you don’t choose where you go. You’re assigned somewhere. I was assigned to go to Russia. That blew my mind. I remember the moment that I got a letter, it was a physical letter, that said like, hey, you’re officially calling me to serve a mission and assigning me to a place that I would go. I remember reading Russia and being overcome with emotion.
Ryan Smith:
I just felt in that moment that this is the right thing. This is what I need to do. This is where I need to be. I’m getting chills even talking about it now. Because it was one of the most powerful experiences in my life was when I read that letter that said I was going to Russia. I was pretty overcome with emotion in that moment. Just felt like it was the right thing. Then it settles in like, oh crap. Oh no. I talked to my dad about it.
Ryan Smith:
I mentioned I lived in South America. My dad as a young man, also was a missionary. He served a mission in Argentina and he learned Spanish through that. One of the things he said to me was… At this point, I already spoke Spanish because I had lived in South America as a kid. I knew Spanish. Frankly, I moved to Chile when I was 11 years old. I was there for three years. We moved there. I had three siblings who moved there with me.
Ryan Smith:
I was the second youngest. I had two older siblings, one younger. We were all living in Chile together. I was the worst at Spanish of the four of us. You think like, oh, the oldest would be the worst or the youngest would be the worst or some, no, it was this guy. Then my dad said to me. He said, “Hey, going to Argentina and learning Spanish was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.” I’m like, “Ah, freak. Spanish?
Ryan Smith:
That crap’s easy and I sucked at it.” Relatively sucked at it. “Now I have to learn freaking Russian? Russian’s a beast.” I was pretty nervous about that. At no point, did my conviction ever wane. Right when I got to Russia and it was really hard, I was like, ooh, ooh, am I sure I want to do this? But I was able to power through or find myself, I would say, more than anything through that and make it happen.
Bryan Wish:
Wow. Okay. A lot there to unpack and I definitely want to get to the Russian experience. But it seems like what I’m hearing is, you have these formative moments growing up like Argentina. Where you had to go and you had to learn a new language and you were able to build a muscle for taking on and learning new things. When Russia came knocking on your door or your faith came calling and Russia’s where you’re going to go serve, some of these past experiences while you were overtaken with emotion, let you sink into the moment and say you know what? I can do this. As you said, conviction never wavered because you knew it was the right thing and you could do it.
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. I definitely felt like that’s one of the things that I never lacked is that confidence that I could do it. There were moments maybe where it was like, do I want to do this? Perhaps. But there were never moments where like, I don’t feel capable. I don’t feel qualified. Yeah. Do I feel qualified? Maybe I didn’t feel qualified. But I didn’t feel like I could be more qualified at the same time. Yeah, I don’t feel like I’m ready for this. But I don’t feel like there’s anything I could do differently to make me more ready. Sometimes you just have to jump.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. You jumped. Okay. Take us there. You realize, hey, I’m going to Russia. You land in Russia. Where do you land first?
Ryan Smith:
Okay. The funny thing, this flight. Now in the world of a pandemic, I look back at my actions and I’m like, ooh, that wasn’t very responsible. But 19 year olds, not the most responsible human, I would guess. Swine flu was going around. This was 2009. I was great. There’s a missionary training center. You go there for three months, you learn some Russian, you learn what it’s like to be a missionary, whatever. I went and did that.
Ryan Smith:
Learned some Russian. You can only learn so much Russian from textbooks and not out there speaking. Especially with the way that I learned. But the day before I was supposed to fly out, I started to get a little bit of something. Little tickle. It was like, ah, am I sick? What is this? I was like, well, I’m not telling anyone. Because if I tell someone, they might make me stay longer. Let’s get this show on the road.
Ryan Smith:
I’ve been sitting, studying for the last three months, preparing. I’m ready to go. The next morning I woke up not feeling well. Feeling really yucky. But I said, no, screw it, I’m just going. I went on the airplane. Sorry, everyone on that airplane. Who knows if I had swine flu? I don’t know if I had swine flu. I didn’t get tested or anything. But man, I was sick as a dog. The flight was miserable. The worst day of my life. The worst day of my life.
Ryan Smith:
I probably have another day that ties it that’s in my business. But it was so bad. I was just so sick. I remember landing in Moscow. Then I had to actually get on a bus and transfer to another airport because I was flying. I was flying into more central Russia. I landed in Moscow. I had to get on a bus. I remember being on that bus and thinking, oh my gosh, I want to go home so bad. But I never want to get on an airplane again.
Ryan Smith:
Because it was just such a miserable flight. I was so sick. But I fell asleep on the bus. I woke up feeling a little bit better and was able to power through. But then I flew from Moscow to Samara, which is on the Euro-Asia border ish. Close there to the Volga river, one of the largest rivers in Europe and flew to there and started as missionary in my church. You usually have a companion, so it’s you and one other person. The person who I was assigned to, who was assigned to train me and help me get started, was a Ukrainian who didn’t speak English. Ferris spoke very little English. It’s like drinking from a fire hose right there from day one.
Bryan Wish:
There you go. Wow. It sounds miserable. But also maybe set you up for maybe some of the hardship that would come from being on your own for two years or with someone alongside you. But completely in a foreign land with new people and new environment to take on. Maybe your sickness was the warm up for the-
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. No I-
Bryan Wish:
Go ahead.
Ryan Smith:
No, I was just going to say, it definitely was the beginning of a, lessons in resiliency.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah.
Ryan Smith:
Many, many, many lessons in resiliency.
Bryan Wish:
Well you say before you left, you had a bit of a resilience muscle. Or it sounds like perhaps you may have. But was it?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah, maybe I did at some level. I’d gone and I think anyone who’s had to experience a lot of change in their youth, whether that being just moving schools or moving, I think that you build up some resiliency. I had definitely done that having lived abroad. Having to go to new schools, make new friends. You gain some level of resiliency, but nothing, nothing compared to what I gained in the next two years.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Got it. Let’s-
Ryan Smith:
Show up on the map, the earlier resiliency.
Bryan Wish:
Well, yeah. I’m curious. Let’s dive in. When you look at Russia, would love in your experience there. Would love to obviously know what you were doing. But as you look back at this experience and peel it to the core of, I really want to know, what was so powerful about being there? Besides being in a foreign land and a new environment, that challenged you to grow. When you look back on this period of serving in such a powerful way, what were some of the things that profoundly shaped you?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. I think there’s two things. I don’t know. Maybe it’s more than two. But a few things that come to mind immediately. One is, I can do hard things. I can do things that I don’t want to do in a moment and I can do hard things. I can forget that what I want long term, like a bigger vision of what I want and the actions that lead to that, I can recognize that path. Even if some of those actions this moment, are things that I don’t really want to do.
Ryan Smith:
An example, just looking at that. As a missionary part of what you do, is you talk to strangers about something that’s really important to you, but they don’t care about it all. You do that all day, every day in a foreign language. Then you find people. You find people who are interested and who care and can share that conviction. You do find those. But the vast majority of your time, 1,000 to one, you’re spent talking about something that you care deeply about and you’re just getting beat down, rejected, rejected.
Ryan Smith:
You’re doing it all in this foreign language in a culture that can be at least, before you get to know someone’s pretty abrasive. Russians are, as you get to know them, are kindhearted, giving, loving people. On the outside surface though, not that way. They would use this analogy. The Americans are like peaches. They’re really soft on the outside and have these hard centers. Russians are like coconuts. They’re impenetrable. But then you go in and it’s just soft. It’s water. Doesn’t get softer.
Ryan Smith:
I think that there’s some truth to that. But most of the time you’re spent knocking on coconuts. Beating your head against the wall, it feels like. That was hard. I don’t love talking to strangers in general. Talking and doing that all day, every day, in this circumstance, it was powerful. It showed me that I could do hard things. It showed me that some things are more important than my personal comfort level. That if I can get behind that, if I can really internalize that, then I can do freaking anything.
Ryan Smith:
I remembered this moment when I was out there. It was raining so much. It was just torrential downpour. There was flooding in the street. Not crazy flooding, but it’s hard to walk and not get your feet wet. There’s potholes and puddles everywhere. You’re tiptoeing around trying to keep your feet dry. Then I had this moment where my foot stepped in a puddle and I was drenched. My foot was just soaked. From that moment forward, I was no longer tiptoeing.
Ryan Smith:
I was just walking through the water because, I’m already wet. For whatever reason, that moment for me, really it’s a moment that’s really stuck with me. Because I felt like it was an analogy for my mission. For my time in Russia that like, hey, I’m already here. My feet are already wet. I may as well just walk through the water. I can go and tiptoe around and try and be comfortable and try and do these things. But I’m already here. My feet are already wet. Let’s just walk through the water. That was a very powerful moment for me that I have gone back to countless times.
Bryan Wish:
I should have asked you all about this in person. What was I thinking? Well first, I love the analogy about knocking on coconuts and these impenetrable services. Then sometimes we break through one. But it’s what you learned about yourself to keep going back and having that conviction and belief within of who you are. It’s almost to me, I’ve been studying a lot of around belonging. Belonging to your sense of self. It’s not about getting other people to join you. Of course, the one or two or 10, 20 people you’re able to bring along for the ride. Amazing. But to be able to show up time after time for yourself and what you believe in, very formative, especially on your own entrepreneurial journey, right?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. Oh, definitely. It’s hard to imagine me being an entrepreneur without that experience.
Bryan Wish:
Totally. But then also, what I love the boot or the feet in the water analogy. You couldn’t really escape. You had to surrender to the circumstances in front of you and just make the most of your time there. There was no going back until your period. I think we sometimes find ourselves in these moments of heavier or thicker water than we’d like. But you learned how to stand in the rain and not escape it or evade it or numb it because you had no other choice. Very powerful lessons that you were able to walk away from in such a beautiful way.
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. I love that you use that word surrender, because that’s what it is. You have to surrender and embrace like, okay, this is it. This is where I’m at now, what am I going to do with it? This is the opportunity that I’ve been given. I can sit here and feel bad for myself or I can go and get things done and make the most of the circumstance that I’m in and walk through the water. It’s empowering. Even just thinking about that moment where my feet were wet, it was empowering.
Ryan Smith:
It was a release of tension to suddenly not have to tiptoe around and not step in the water. To suddenly be able to just embrace it and say, no, I’m walking in the water. That’s I think, such a powerful thing as an entrepreneur. As I have had difficult circumstances and difficult things to navigate. Facing the failure of my business. Dealing with challenges and problems and mistakes. Having to do layoffs and all of this. Having this ability to say, hey, this moment is what it is. I can kick against the pricks or I can embrace the moment for what it is and I can move forward and make the best of it.
Bryan Wish:
Absolutely. I think another thing maybe that I’m pulling away from this is, as you are the pilot of your own ship, on the entrepreneurial journey. On this journey in Russia, you were the captain of your own journey. You got to lead the way on your own terms. Yeah, of course, you were there serving and spreading what you believed in. But I’m sure you got to find the path for you that made the most sense while you were there and learn along the way. I think that’s powerful to be thrown into environments and learn how to swim and navigate on your own. Yeah. I can tell how formative just by the way you’re speaking about it and how it shaped you. It’s really beautiful.
Ryan Smith:
Well, one of the things Bryan, that’s so cool about it is, this two year period was a time where you’re basically, I don’t know, forced isn’t the right word. But forced to not think about yourself. This whole two years is about everyone else. It’s about other people. It’s about trying to bring people peace on their journey and trying to do that. The crazy thing about them doing service projects and just helping people in any way you can.
Ryan Smith:
That’s what this experience was about. But it was so powerful because it was all about everyone else. I got the most out of it. My mind has a hard time comprehending that. I remember coming home and having a hard time being like, okay, well now it’s about me and my school and my this, where it was hard to figure that out. After two years, always being about someone else. To have it suddenly be about me. But man, that was two years that were about someone else. Man, I grew more on those. It was more about me than I somehow I grew so much.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Actually, I would love to maybe go on this. When you were serving, there was something you believed in, right?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
It’s funny, let’s pull this back to business for a second and then bring it back. I’m starting to really think about business and building brands and individual brands for businesses. They’re vehicles to serve a greater purpose, right?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
The function of you making money, reinvest the impact and the business goes forward. But it’s the brand that you’re cultivating to serve customers and people. But to do that and do it well, I think you have to inherently have a pretty deep understanding of yourself as is, to actually be able to go out and serve in that way. You’re saying like, oh, it was all about other people first and then I could go make it about myself. But my question to you is, to be able to go serve so selflessly for two years. What were some of the raw ingredients that you had to develop prior to know who you were to develop that conviction to be able to go into a foreign land, speaking another language. To serve in a way that was about other people. You see where I’m saying?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah, I do. I think there’s two things that come to mind for me. One is, thinking about service. I grew up in a culture of service. I was an Eagle Scout and did Boy Scouts and did a lot of service projects. Service was just part of my family’s culture. This culture I grew up in this service, was something that you did and something that I was accustomed to in this idea of service. Then you have this other side of that. That is, I believed in what I was doing.
Ryan Smith:
I believed that what I was doing was the right thing. I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Like I said, that I had that moment of knowing this is what I need to do in my life. This is where I need to go. I had a strong conviction for what I was doing there. Taking that back to a business and even looking at brands. If you have a strong conviction for what you’re building and why, and you can focus on that, then the good’s going to come.
Ryan Smith:
The brand is going to be what you want it to be, and it’s going to get there. But you have to have that strong belief in the why. Why are we doing this? What is the purpose of this? I had a strong belief in that why. Then I had this culture of service that backed that up. When you put those two together, it gave me the strength and the courage and the resilience to power through the tough times and to do it because I believed in what I was doing. I knew that I was where I was supposed to be. That led to so much good in my life. You’re muted.
Bryan Wish:
Editor, we’ll take that out. Well Ryan, no, I appreciate you giving that layer right underneath it. Because before you left, the childhood and how you were raised and the beliefs you were able to develop, you were to take with you because you had that sense of inherent knowing to go bring out to the world. I appreciate you sharing the journey in such a articulate way and also the lessons learned. Before we move on, is there anything else from the mission or lessons that you have thought about, that you haven’t expressed before I segue.
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. One other one that I think is a really, really impactful moment in my journey that I’ve gone back to a lot. That is, I became aware of a quote on my mission and it said, German philosopher, Goethe, who said it. There’s a million different translations of it. I’m going to say it a way that I’ve heard it. But treat a man as he is and that’s the way that he’ll remain. But treat a man as he can and should be, that’s the man that he’ll become.
Ryan Smith:
For me, there are two things. Treat a man like they are, they’re going to stay that way. Treat a man like they should be or can be, and that’s who they’re going to become. I saw this. Two things that really came to me while I was in Russia. One is that, I’m not everyone else. That I had a background and I was raised in a way that I wasn’t everyone else. I almost learned that I wasn’t going to be as good as some people. Some people weren’t, I don’t know if maybe this sounds conceited.
Ryan Smith:
Some people weren’t going to be me. Some people were going to have a harder time in Russia than I was. Some people were going to have an easier time. That didn’t mean that they were better or worse than me. That didn’t mean that I was superior or I was inferior. It meant that I was me. The way to go and try and to lift each other up, isn’t to treat someone like they’re dumb. Or to treat someone even as they are. To treat someone like they can and should be and that people rise to the occasion.
Ryan Smith:
I know that I rose to the occasion when people did that to me. I saw it. There’s one moment in particular where I remember someone who I felt really strongly was just not living up to their potential. I was treating them like they weren’t living up to their potential. They called me on it. They basically were like, “I’m doing my best, leave me alone.” I had this moment where I just thought about this quote that I had heard and I thought, okay, I believe you.
Ryan Smith:
If this is you doing your best, then I trust you and I’m not going to pretend like you’re not. I treated them with that respect of like, hey, I trust you. It was amazing to see suddenly their best was elevated. Their best was amplified and they were happier. It was such a cool moment for me. I’ve seen that in business as a leader countless time. I feel like it gave me this increased level of empathy that has been so powerful and helped me a lot on my journey as a CEO.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Well, what I think is very clear. I think at the beginning what you were essentially saying was, you’re not going to compromise who you are. Your values to fit in to the crowd of being in Russia. You’re right. That doesn’t make you better or worse. But you weren’t going to change who you are to fit in. Right?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
Which is beautiful. Then I think along with that, like that quote, I think it’s profound. I think what I’m hearing you say, especially as the leader that I know you’d to be. Unless you’ve just been putting on an act for the last 10 years. You see the light in people and you want to bring out the best in them. You need to maybe trust they’re doing their best. But you probably saw more potential, let’s just say. It came off as maybe let’s say micromanaging.
Bryan Wish:
But you have an inherent belief in others being their best selves and seeing that potential to be lived. I think that’s very common for an entrepreneurial spirit who wants to be the best themselves and want other people. Other people sometimes just, they don’t have that same way of being, and that’s okay. But accepting that you’re right, not everyone is like us and that’s okay. It’s not our job to change and fix people. But push people if they want to be pushed.
Ryan Smith:
No, I love that. It’s not our job to fix people. They’re not broken. They don’t need to be fixed. They’re who they are. Does that mean that there’s no room for them to grow? Of course, they can grow. We can all grow. But just because you can grow doesn’t mean that you’re broken. I think that’s where my approach changed. I had this attitude of almost like, oh, because you can be better, you’re broken. I had this moment where, no, because you can be better, you’re human and so can I. I can be better too. Let’s do this.
Bryan Wish:
Sure. Yeah. But at the same time, I also think we all broke. We can heal pieces. We all have broken pieces. But you’re right, it’s not someone else’s job to do the work for you. It takes both to rise.
Ryan Smith:
Maybe it’s not right to say that you’re not broken. You’re right. We do all have broken pieces. There are pieces of all of us that are broken that need some repairing and need fixing. But it’s not my job to tell you you’re broken.
Bryan Wish:
This is my Russian conviction coming out. Back to you.
Ryan Smith:
Right.
Bryan Wish:
Okay. Beautiful. Beautiful lessons. Probably wasn’t a place to listen or talk about this six months ago with you. But I’m so glad after all these years I’ve known you, talk about this in such a way. It’s really special. I want to segue into everything you’re doing as well with Recyclops, right?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
It’s a different mission. It’s a different service. Similar lessons apply. What led you to getting started? Why recycling? Tell me more. I’m very curious.
Ryan Smith:
Actually, the journey starts right when I got home from Russia. I got home from Russia and I was going back to college. My freshman year, I mentioned I did a year of school before I left. That year was on campus. On campus housing had all the campus facilities, campus amenities, whatever. Moved back. Moved off campus. Was just in a random apartment off campus. That random apartment didn’t have recycling. I bought, I think it was a Sprite from a vending machine on campus.
Ryan Smith:
Went back down, finished it in my apartment, went to put it into recycling bin. I just moved in. Oh, we don’t have recycling bin in the apartment yet. Oh, someone will have to get one of those. Hopefully my roommate brings one, type of thing. Was living with three strangers. Or two strangers, I guess. I then went out to the dumpster to put the plastic bottle into the recycling dumpster. I discovered that there was none. That was the first epiphany for the Recyclops.
Ryan Smith:
Was, what? My apartment doesn’t recycle? Where am I living? What is this place? Did I just move into the crappiest apartment ever? It wasn’t the nicest apartment. But as I did some digging and some research, I saw that my apartment wasn’t unique. That something like 60% of apartments in the US don’t have recycling. That was like, whoa. At that point, I didn’t start anything. I actually called my dad and was like, “Dad, I think I should start a recycling business.”
Ryan Smith:
He works in facilities management. He actually has a decent amount of exposure to recycling. He was like, “No, don’t do it.” I said, “Okay.” I didn’t start Recyclops in 2011. Two years later, I was actually living in Brazil, doing an internship for… My older brother’s an entrepreneur and had started a company in Brazil. It was the startup of the year in Brazil in like 2012 or 2013 or something, called Baby.com.br. It was a baby online store for baby stuff. Diapers, baby clothes, strollers, whatever.
Ryan Smith:
They started this company in Brazil, he and his co-founder. I convinced him to let me come do an internship for him in Brazil. We actually made a deal that if I got high enough grades, he would let me come. If I got even higher grades, he’d pay for my flight. Well, I paid for my own flight. But I went and did this internship in Brazil. It was actually a really impactful moment for me because I was living with an entrepreneur who had started something.
Ryan Smith:
It was there that I decided to start Recyclops. To start a business. Started working on Recyclops. But the reason why, was because seeing my brother do this. To me, he was just my brother. He was just a normal dude. Then I saw this business that he’d built and they just raised like $40 million in venture capital. This was back in 2013. That’s a lot of money now, but that’s a lot of money then. Holy moly. I looked at this and was like, oh my gosh, there’s nothing about him that is so special that made him way more capable to do this than other people.
Ryan Smith:
The difference is, he just did it. I know how to do hard things. I know how to just do things. I decided I’m going to do it. I’m going to start a business. I had an idea. Had written down a bunch of random business ideas in the past and went through the list and saw this recycling idea. That’s how that initial journey started. Just feeling empowered by seeing someone else do it and recognizing that yeah, they’re smart. They’re intelligent. They are. Don’t get me wrong. He’s awesome. Someone I really look up to. But he’s also just a human. He’s just a dude. Oh my gosh, I can do this.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. Wow. I suppose you’re talking about Davis.
Ryan Smith:
I’m talking about Davis. Yeah. He’s the CEO of Cotopaxi. Anyone who’s listening has heard of them. If you haven’t, look them up. Awesome company.
Bryan Wish:
Yeah. We’re here to promote Recyclops and you. No.
Ryan Smith:
I know. I know. Probably Recyclops too.
Bryan Wish:
Oh, no. Look, how cool to have an older sibling who was born in the same family, who was just another person to you. Maybe to the outside world, people looked at him on a pedestal, just because of the nature of the world we live in. But to you, he was your brother and you could be just like him, right?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah.
Bryan Wish:
He can be just like you and have the same values and experiences. The fact that you grew up, I’m sure served as one motivation. What am I doing with my life? I’m seeing him do these things. But then too, inspiration is saying, no, I deserve to be able to go out there on my own too. Why not? I think it’s not often we have everyday people around us who pour into us or set the example for us the way let’s just say, Davis perhaps has done for you. It’s amazing that you said, okay, I’m going to go do this myself and take my own journey head on. What were some of your next steps? What did you say, I’m going to do this. I can do hard things. Then what?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. I’d say, I felt empowered by what I’d seen and what it felt like to do it. The next step was just doing it. I know that sounds so simple. It sounds like nothing. But it’s just a matter of saying, okay, where do I start? I started calling from Brazil, random apartments. I was focused on apartments. I started calling apartments and trying to understand better the pain. Why aren’t they recycling? Doing tons of research.
Ryan Smith:
Looking at companies. Looking up everything I could about why isn’t recycling happening in apartments? One of the pieces of advice that Davis gave me at this point was, if you want to start a business, you have to be an expert in what you’re starting. Go start by becoming an expert. I tried to learn everything I could about recycling and about recycling in apartments. Felt like I learned a lot. Now looking back almost 10 years later, I didn’t know anything.
Ryan Smith:
But it’s like, okay, I’ve got this. I got a decent understanding of why recycling wasn’t happening at apartments. Came up with some solutions to combat that. Then when I got back home, I just started talking to apartments. I was going where I shouldn’t go. Like sneaking into, there was a landlord conference. I heard about it. I went to it. There was an off-campus housing office. I went there and I was like, okay, they have this housing guide and it says what amenities apartments have.
Ryan Smith:
But it doesn’t list recycling. Maybe I can convince them to put recycling in there and that can help us generate demand. I go there and I talk to them and they’re like, “Oh, sorry, no, one’s here for you to talk to today. It’s just me, the secretary. Everyone’s at the landlord conference meeting with all the landlords.” I was like, that sounds like a place that I should be. I went over and went into the conference, sat down at a table, ate free lunch and talked to a million landlords.
Ryan Smith:
Then I went and talked to the person who was running the event and said, “Hey, I’m a student. I know I’m not really supposed to be here, but I started this recycling company and I want to make recycling happen here. I want to just tell everyone about it.” They’re like, “Well, you can’t pitch your business here. But we’ll let you get up and say, I’m a student. Recycling’s available at apartments. Come talk to me and I’ll tell you about it.
Ryan Smith:
I did that. But part of it’s, I wasn’t supposed to be there. But I had learned how to go and be bold and go to somewhere and talk to a stranger. Wasn’t comfortable going and talking to that dude and saying, can I get in front of everyone? Wasn’t comfortable sitting down at some random table in a place you’re not supposed to be. No, it wasn’t comfortable at all. But I had learned how to do things that I wasn’t comfortable with because I believed in what I was doing.
Ryan Smith:
I did that time and time again, until I finally got my first deal. Got an apartment who said yes. The apartment that said, yes, I met them at a housing fair, where they were selling housing. They were supposed to be talking to people about selling housing. I was in there pestering them about recycling. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I wasn’t supposed to be having those conversations. But no, I went and did that. Finally, got someone to say yes from that. Then it snowballed. One thing led to another and next thing I knew I had this little business. I had to make a lot of change. I’ve made a lot of changes since then. The business does not look the same. But I got started. Once I got started, I felt like there was nothing that could stop me.
Bryan Wish:
Wow. The boldness and the conviction on just going up to different people. It’s clear you developed that from a prior time in life. But a lot of that snowballed. Then I have a question, but I want to build on. That’s where you got started. Where is the business today? Then I want to come back to a question on the personal side that brings it together.
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. Today, I saw that apartments didn’t recycle. That was the first thing. Later, I learned, a few years later. I discovered that it wasn’t just apartments, the struggle. That was full municipalities. There’re municipalities that are on the outskirts suburban centers and getting into more rural areas. But when I say rural, I’m not talking like farm town. Those too, I guess. But I’m talking like Beaumont, Texas, two hundred something thousand people.
Ryan Smith:
But two hours from Houston. Some of these good population centers that are a little bit off the beat path. Discovered these places didn’t have recycling and that’s about 34 million single family homes. There’s 16 million apartments. You put them together, we’re talking 50 million households, 38% of homes in the US. I said, okay, this is a big problem. Let’s go tackle this. Let’s do this a little differently. Through some trial and error, ended up stumbling upon using the gig economy to solve these problems.
Ryan Smith:
What that looks like today is, we are in 27 states doing environmental collection services. We’re in small towns, but I’m also in big cities. We’re doing specialized collection. We do a compostable diaper program with a partner in cities from LA to DC, to all over the place. Then we’re doing these residential, traditional recycling. People put their recycling in a bag. If you’re in New York city, you see people have bagged recycling and flattened cardboard.
Ryan Smith:
Same idea. That’s what we do. It enables anyone to pick it up in any vehicle. Enables us to bring recycling to where it’s never been. To bring other sustainability initiatives like the diaper pickups to places. To bring programs that have never been around. Yeah, we’re doing this all over the country. We will be in every major Metro, maybe missing a couple, by the end of this year. Probably be in 40 states by the end of this year, something close there too. Just rocking and rolling. Making a big impact. We’re recycling. We’re diverting from the landfill around a million pounds a month. Tens of millions of pounds have been recycled since I started on my journey. Tens of millions more, hundreds of millions more to come.
Bryan Wish:
That’s beautiful, Ryan. Your persistence and your determination is extremely clear since I’ve met you. But to see it coming together in multiple ways of bringing the vision to the world. Not just apartments, but as you said, municipalities. Bringing gig workers and creating impact for families. You’re serving the global society. I think very, very, very special and excited to continue watching. The question I had for you. If we look at your life right now and we say Recyclops and your mission work in Russia.
Bryan Wish:
Let’s just say, if you put them side by side and you say, you separate yourself from both of those. You’re looking at them and you’re looking at them as extensions of yourself. If I was to ask you, Ryan, and this is going to be not an easy question. If I was to say Ryan, what is the, let’s just say the purpose, both you’re serving. Both you’re bringing to the world. But when you think about really what you were selling in both of those experiences, you weren’t just selling the Mormon religion. You aren’t just selling sustainable. You’re selling something that a core belief in who you are. What would you say that is?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. I think two things come to mind. Whether it’s selling Jesus or selling recycling. There’s two things that come to mind. The first thing that came to mind was doing good. That’s one thing that I felt like whether I was out trying to be a missionary, my intention was to do good. Whether I was doing recycling, my intention is to do good. But the other big piece of it, what are we trying to give people? That’s happiness. One of the things that’s been so in both circumstances, seeing that the joy that people find for finding that inner peace that can come with a relationship with God or a higher power or whatever your belief system.
Ryan Smith:
There’s that inner peace and the joy and the happiness that brought someone, that was so powerful. Then at Recyclops, it may sound cliche, but part of our purpose as a company, as we’ve defined it, is bring people happiness. The reason why we defined it that way is because, we saw that it was happening on its own. We said, man, if this is bringing people happiness, we should not just have that be a side effect. We should have that be part of what we’re trying to accomplish.
Ryan Smith:
When we look at that, why that’s bringing people joy, we just had so many people who we brought recycling to their community. Their city had never had recycling. We brought recycling there and people have said to me over and over and over again, how happy it makes them. How grateful they are. They always felt guilty throwing stuff away. This gives them so much peace and happiness and joy. I never expected that reaction from people.
Ryan Smith:
That wasn’t on my radar when I got started really, was how happy this would make people. But man, it is very real. It is something that we push for. That we recognize now that this makes people happy. It’s not surprising. Doing good makes people happy. Recycling is good. Duh, of course it makes people happy. But yeah, it’s been a powerful thing.
Bryan Wish:
Awesome. Well, Bryan, this has been an incredible time together. I so appreciate your just can do authentic spirit. Where can people find you or Recyclops, all the things?
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. You can find me on LinkedIn. Search Ryan Smith and Recyclops. There’s a lot of Ryan Smiths out there. I think slash Ry Paul Smith on there. But yeah find me there. Also, check out Recyclops on Instagram and Facebook, wherever else. Love the support. We’re all about launching some of these initiatives. We’re getting ready to launch some pretty fun initiatives in a bunch of cities with specialty collection of things like batteries and light bulbs, things you have a hard time with. Keep an eye out wherever you’re at, for that.
Bryan Wish:
Awesome. Well, thanks, Ryan. I really, really appreciate doing this with you and excited for you and what’s ahead.
Ryan Smith:
Yeah. Hey right back at you, excited for you and what’s ahead. Love watching your journey too.