Changemaker Interview with BottleDream founder Kenny Cai
BottleDream is a social innovation company dedicated to making meaningful things interesting. It was founded on June 1, 2011, and is striving to become best social innovation content producer, linker and disseminator. It has used the way young people love to tell the stories of nearly a thousand young changemakers around the world, reaching nearly 180 million readers and audiences.
BottleDream is committed to motivate more people to become self-interested and altruistic creators, and promote a good life to reach people's hearts. On August 3, 2017, BottleDream officially became the fifth officially certified mutual benefit enterprise in Mainland ( referred to as B Corp™) and the first media-based B Corp™.
This time, we interviewed Kenny Cai, the founder of BottleDream. We are excited to share his story with our readers.
Kenny, do tell us the story of how you founded BottleDream.
Kenny: I was a UX designer at Tencent and before that I studied social work in college. I often wondered; What can design do for society? I then went to Hong Kong at the end of 2010 to attend a conference on sustainability and that was the first time I learned that I could respond to, or solve social problems in an interesting way. But at that time, however, there was very little information on the concept of social innovation in Chinese so I decided to become an advocate towards this. BottleDream started as a group of partners blogging in their spare time, translating the stories of change makers all over the world.
Why the name ‘BottleDream’?
Kenny: People thought we were a beverage company when they heard our name (laughs). Actually, we were founded on 1st June 2011 thinking that every child has good ideas about the world in his or her heart. After growing up, these bottles of dreams close and we hope to let people re-open their bottle and release their dreams.
What´s the criteria to become a B Corp™? How long did you take to get the certification?
Kenny: It took 12 months and we got ours in 2017. Their criteria is actually quite strict. You need to do the assessment, the interview, and also provide your financial statements. They evaluate the company from these different dimensions and you need to pass each one.
What does it mean to you for getting the certification?
Kenny: There is no real external meaning to it, it´s mostly internal actually – a compass which can guide us and provide a form of self-approval as well.
Many people are curious about how you can balance profit and sustainability. Would you please tell us a little more?
Kenny: Of course. We currently have 3 areas of focus:
BottleDream Changemaker stories
BottleDream Good Lab – creating content for CSR and business for good. We are providing professional services like an agency and currently 90% of our revenue comes from this B-end business
BottleDream Life – an online platform for the community. We are still exploring the C-end business model.
Tell us about the most exciting project you've been working on recently.
Kenny: I've been working on the 4/22 Earth Day campaign, the Biodiversity Conference in Yunnan this year, and the UN Climate Change Conference in the UK, all of which I'm looking forward to.
What's the relationship between humanity and nature, according to you?
Kenny: We human beings are a part of nature. I started meditation five years ago and would focus more on the relationship between the inner and the outer; we should be in the wilderness, in the sea, in the lake, not under steel and concrete.
So when we are destroying nature, we are destroying ourselves at the same time.
What would be a different way for BottleDream to approach the topic of sustainability for a domestic audience?
Kenny: We've been working on a variety of ideas including food, clothing, housing and transportation. I think some things are better suited to changing the underlying behavior from the bottom-up, and then changing the public perception.
Take DuoZhuaYu (多抓鱼) for example. They started in a niche market, second-hand books, selling unused books to at first introduce people to, then accept the concept of the second-hand economy gradually, which is great.
The adult world is full of realistic considerations yet BottleDream's slogan is to make meaningful things interesting. The team always seems full of creativity and energy. How do you manage to do that?
Kenny: I don't think realistic problems and fun necessarily conflict with each other. After all nobody would like their life to be boring right? What we try to do is experience life in a more interesting way, to translate those serious conversations into something we can laugh at. Life is full of differences for sure, but you can always find a way to have fun as an adult.
I see that BottleDream has also touched on topics like gender equality and education which resonate with you a lot. How did you approach these kinds of general and varied topics?
Kenny: BottleDream started from blogging and that’s why our topics are varied. However, we're very solution-oriented, not just throwing out issues randomly.
For example, Sexual harassment has been a hot button last year in China so we launched the anti-sexual harassment toolkit - a set of anti-sexual harassment regulations at workplace developed in collaboration with gender research institutes and law firms. This is free and open-source for everyone, so it’s much easier for SMEs to implement these projects.
After working with so many companies that are willing to do business for good, can you name one that may not be under the spotlight but are doing a great job?
Kenny: Sure, I can name one that we might want to work with in the future - BOSCH. They are very low profile and are the first manufacturing company in the world to become carbon neutral. You know working in the manufacturing industry one needs to do more than others to achieve carbon neutrality, including lots of technological innovation which is very impressive.
If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
Kenny: I would Improve my financial situation (laughs). If I don't need to worry about money, I can create a better and fairer environment for young people.
How do you practice sustainability in you daily life?
Which talent would you most like to have?
Kenny: I want to be able to fly. In terms of talent, I would say it's the ability to create music.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
Kenny: Nothing big. If you really need to ask me, I would say I had positive influence on some young people probably, helping them to know about social innovation and find their own way to participate.
Closing Notes:
While the concept of business for virtuous and social innovations are now maturing abroad, such terms may still be unfamiliar to parts of the domestic audience. Even if people have already heard these terms, they could feel that sustainability is far away from their life and not convenient enough to implement.
BottleDream is promoting sustainable lifestyles in a more grounded way, changing words into actions, so that this movement can happen in every corner of China.
I asked Kenny how do you like the era you live in now?
He said he enjoyed the excitement and diversity in this day, but he doesn't appreciate the ultimate fickleness and desire of increasingly chaotic times. The way to find balance between the outside superficial world and your inner peace is what we all need to tackle.
Perhaps practicing everyday sustainability is one way to save modern people from themselves.
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