Source Vagabond: An inspiring story - 21 Jul 2007
Every once in a while I meet someone who really sweeps me off me feet. Well today I met Yoki Gill, Founder & President of Source Vagabond. I have been in touch with other executives at his company over the past 2 year’s, (notably Eran Alony who’s also a really great guy) and each time I sit down with them in their tradeshow booth, I feel like I’m home. They even serve you natural herbal tea and home made organic cookies from Israel!
Source Vagabond makes an array of outdoor sandals and portable drinking systems. But what is really inspiring is that these people “live their values” and don’t just use them as marketing schemes. Their whole story sounds like something you’d find in a dusty old book shop in some far off imaginative world. It is that rare.
Business? While I was there waiting for my meeting, I witnessed, unobserved, a Sales Rep seriously writing down a distributors negative feedback comments on a new product and exchanging with him, his own personal improvement ideas! Remember, most of the time, Rep’s only listen to their “own” words and “nothing” is ever wrong with their products.
People? Well, you can tell when the person in front of you really is what they say they are. Everyone at Source Vagabond looks like they’ve just returned from a 2 week trek across Patagonia – there’s no faking it here.
Back to Yoki Gill, our conversation was based essentially on words like harmony, respect, and education. Harmony, because he has been successful at maintaining a very balanced lifestyle (it shows) at his workplace. He even has some nice stories about the effect it has had on his own employee’s families. Respect, because as he told me, “you never possess that value, you have to earn it everyday”. Education, because doing something on your own is not enough to make a durable difference (for example, preserving the Planet). Is is only when you teach and exchange that the “good” lasts. What’s unique about Source Vagabong is that these are not “clever words” on a company brochure. These are the words and truths the people of Source Vagabond live by.
I won’t dwell on the products because they speak for themselves but there is one object I saw for the first time at this show. Yoki has developed and launched an absolutely fabulous new item that will be for sale soon and that I really hope Laneo can help spread around the world. The object is for collecting and transporting plastic bottles you find tossed away in nature. Alone, it is a very simple loop that you attach to your belt or knapsack and it has a stunningly easy method to grab on to plastic water bottles. It’s surprisingly cool and an incredible statement of who you are as an individual. What’s even more moving is the story behind it, what it is made of and who makes it. This encounter was one of my favorites at the show because they live and breath the same values as we do at Laneo. To find out the details take a minute and their website to read more > Source Vagabond.
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