Chatting with Cahoots: an interview with Jade Musther of social business, Cahoots. Part 2

Read Part 1 of this interview here.

WCL: A number of small businesses are using crowd funding to raise the money needed for equipment or expansion. You set out to raise $10k and raised over $11K – how hard is it to run a crowdfunding campaign?

Jade: You need a couple of things.

Being an organisation that has a point of difference is huge. That’s step one. Beyond that, absolutely it takes work. We put together an initial one minute video that concisely and clearly explained what Cahoots does and why we needed the money. It was a bit quirky and colourful and a bit cheesy.

Pledgeme are very good at providing a playbook telling you what you need to do. One of those things is to contact every person you have ever met. You are reaching out through all your networks and to ask them to pledge and to ask them to spread the word.

We were also very lucky to get some Radio New Zealand coverage. Pledges spiked after that. It was the publicity we needed.

That led nicely into Pride weekend. We were in the Wellington Pride parade for fun but also promoting the fundraiser. So that was the big weekend it surged.

I tried to do updates frequently, and that’s a social media strategy that I am continuing now.

People seem to be engaging with it. The Cahoots instagram is doing really well right now.

Our social media is a source of clients and there’s an advocacy component to it as well.

WCL: Queer and trans run is self explanatory. Why is this advocacy important to you and Cahoots? Does it expose you to toxicity from some sectors of the community?

Jade: Cycling around Wellington is one thing. Cycling around Wellington with a big Pride flag on the back of the bike is a different thing. Even without the Pride flag I can get shouted and screamed at. So part of the reason for having the pride flag is cos I’m not going to be shut up.

At the end of last year I was run off the road going up Happy Valley Road to Brooklyn. I’m now using safety cameras on the bike and trailer.

To be fair, during the campaign and following the RNZ coverage, which were particularly public, I didn’t get any online attacks. Which is surprising now that I think about it as online attacks are really common. It will happen sooner or later.

The advocacy and representation is important personally because I, as a transwoman, should be able to fix your door. It should just be a thing that’s a non issue.

Representation in the trades is non-existent. Representation of women in the trades, cis-women in the trades, is very low. And that’s before you get to queer women or even gay men.

Starting with women in trades, the problem is a lot of them have such a terrible time in the workplace and through their apprenticeships that they drop out. Over the trades as a whole, thirteen percent, across all trades in New Zealand, are women. But that includes administrative roles. A lot of them are sidelined into administrative roles because the work environment is so toxic. They go into apprenticeships and they end up being sidelined into those roles because... well, if you ask some of the men, they can’t hack it in the work environment, but realistically it’s because the work environment often isn’t safe and accommodating.

Now that I’m in the position that I am in, and doing advocacy, I get the horror stories from people about their work environments. That’s why advocacy is so important. We think that because we’re living in 2024 it’s progressive, and in lots of spaces it is, but we need to ask “Why are only two percent of plumbers women”?

There are men out there who want these companies to be safe and inclusive, but there’s a lot of inertia to overcome and we’re a little part of changing that.

The flipside is there is a huge demand from clients for women, queer, non-men tradies. A lot of my clients are older women, who have had enough dealings with male tradies, [who], even if it doesn’t make them feel unsafe, talk down to them.

Obviously as the expert coming in to do a job there’s space to educate and discuss and say “Well we don’t normally do it that way because ....” but if you’re being employed by a person there has to be a dialogue. At the end of the day the client is telling you what they want you to do. If they want something really insane, you have to say “I can’t do that because your house will fall down” or whatever.

So we’re shaking up people’s dynamics a bit, but definitely don’t underestimate the demand. The demand is out there.

WCL: Do you have a network of other tradies to call on for larger jobs?

Jade: It’s mostly me - there’s an intention to include more people, to grow. Exactly what that will look like is still up in the air.

Cahoots has a non profit constitution. That was intentional from the beginning. We want to gain charity registration because there are people who want to donate to fund the work for less well off folks as well. We also want to be able to do grant applications and some grant funding is only available to charities.

We need to consider what governance looks like both in managing Cahoots as a charity and dealing with conflicts of interest between people who are working for Cahoots and people who are directing it.

But then also what does growth look like in terms of growing our network, bringing other people on? I would love to have a situation where we had the specialities ticked off. So if someone calls for a sparkie, we have a sparkie who is working under the Cahoots brand, so we do unified branding and things. And doing the same thing so essentially we are offering work on a sliding scale, they’re queer and doing all that stuff.

WCL: Your website says Cahoots builds practical community resilience. What do you mean by that?

Jade: Because of the groups of people we are engaging with, we’re feeling like we’re not just turning up and doing jobs. Either they’re really into bikes, or they’re into supporting queers in trades. Or they just want to use some of their dollars to support less well off folks. And so they make the decision to use Cahoots.

Because they’re engaged on that extra level they tend to stay engaged. It’s not like “Oh Cahoots did that job for me” and then they move on. They tend to stay engaged and engage through social media and even events.

So you build community ties. And at the other end, when you are doing work for the less well off folks, these are people who might struggle to get work done otherwise so they have to come to Cahoots because we’re an option available to them, but again, there’s a community building.

We do work with the Newtown Community Centre. I do some stuff with the Tool Library and we’re doing some tool workshops next month. Cahoots is running one for women and gender diverse folks. We get lots of requests for education in that space.

Once we’ve skilled people up over the course of a couple of weeks we’re going to be developing the garden space outside the Newtown Community Centre. It’s all community building and feels like we’re building something that is more than just a network of jobs.

WCL: Why choose Wellington to base a business?

Jade: I live in Wellington because I like Wellington. Wellington is compact, which is good for biking around, it’s got a queer vibe which is good. The hills pushed me to build the new trailer which in itself is something that opens doors, not just for Cahoots but potentially for others as well. In the future will it be common for a tradie to have a bike trailer? Maybe. And if it is then those have to work in Wellington as well as in flatter places.

[Wellington has presented] a challenge but it’s a challenge that has spun into an opportunity.

WCL: For you, what are the pros and cons of running a business?

Jade: The cons are that it’s constantly terrifying. The cons are financial on both a personal and a business level. That’s the big con.

Then there’s the responsibility of developing the brand, being the face of the thing, but I enjoy that stuff. That’s a responsibility but it’s not a con.

Pros are getting to build a thing that I’m proud of. I don’t know if that would be the case if I was running a business that didn’t have the social good that Cahoots has.

That’s what is engaging and passion stirring for me. It’s what I set up Cahoots for, how do I do the things that I do but wrap it into a social good? It’s really rewarding to build something that I’m proud of and that I believe in.

Then when you get recognition for that – it’s a little heart melt moment. Someone gets in touch and says “I really love the kaupapa of what you do and I really want to donate some money to you” That’s incredible and helps fund the work for the less well off folk.

WCL: Advice to anyone wanting to set up their own business?

Jade: I think we’re going to see more people doing it because of the job losses in Wellington. I’ve had several people cancel work because they’ve lost their job or are scared of losing their job. A lot of those people [losing their jobs] are the sort of people I would have as clients.

Advice for people – really, at the end of the day you need to be passionate about the thing you are doing. If you’re thinking about doing it because you think it makes financial sense, maybe you’ll struggle to have the energy for it. But if it’s something you’re passionate about, you can drum up the passion in yourself and others. That’s what carries you through when it’s hard and when it’s scary.

Community is your friend because people can help you out with all sorts of things. People will have skills you don’t have and can help. But it can also feel quite lonely because nobody has the same investment as you do. Nobody has the same sense of dread when things go wrong or the same sense of joy when it goes right, so it can feel lonely. Maybe be ready for those things, and expect those things.

I’m very much a person who does things. So I just stumbled to where I am and just went in and thought this seems like a good idea, let’s do that. I was oblivious to a lot of things.

If you’re that kind of person, just go for it. If you’re the kind of person who wants everything planned out then there’s a different direction for you. There are people who start businesses with a strict business plan, everything planned out, that’s not me. I can’t give advice on that.

My advice is to be passionate and wing it.

If you would like to read further on some of the topics raised here have a look at these titles in the WCL collection:

• Reimagining capitalism : how business can save the world by Rebecca Henderson
  
• People over profit : break the system, live with purpose, be more successful by Dale Partridge, (eBook)
  
• A crowdfunder's strategy guide : build a better business by building community by Jamey Stegmaier
  
• The purpose revolution : how leaders create engagement and competitive advantage in an age of social good by John B. Izzo