What if corporations were not viewed as greedy groups, but as agents for
social good? Bryan Papé, CEO of Miir, is working to make that dream a reality in his company.
“My grandpa owned a heavy machinery company, and later my grandma started a foundation. I wondered, what if we could put those together? What would that look like?” says Bryan. “The marketplace can be a powerful force for good. We want to use the business concept of selling products in the marketplace and giving back to break the cycle of poverty.”
Miir, named after naturalist John Muir, began with water bottles. Inspired to fix the issues with water bottles then on the market, Bryan came across a statistic that stated that one billion people don’t have access to clean drinking water. He thought it made sense to give back to people who needed water by selling water bottles. The sale of one bottle provides clean water for one person for an entire year.
Yet two years after launching Miir’s website, Bryan decided to expand into a completely different product line: bicycles.
“In Africa, we were working on a water project, and I noticed people were walking everywhere and it was hot. I also saw people biking, going to school or work, and they had more time. I came back from the trip inspired,” he says. “There’s a trend of people moving to cities and using bikes as a tool to get around town. I decided to create simple urban community bikes.”
For every bike purchased, Miir donates one bike, and so far they’ve given away over 3,000.
“There’s always the idea that the more products in different categories that you sell, it adds a layer of complexity. That’s true, but we’ve learned that as long as we keep a simple goal and our product is simple as well, we can work with many customers and accounts,” says Bryan. “For example, we sold bikes before bottles in REI. It’s hard to get bottles in REI. We developed that relationship, and then got our bottles in.”
Miir partners with organizations that work with people in the local communities where the projects occur.
“For our hydration projects, we partner with One Day’s Wages, who work with NGOs on the ground in the local communities. There are certain requirements for community investment, like time or money; some commitment from the community we’re helping so the project is more sustainable. If you just come in and do a water project and then leave, they won’t care about it, and it will be broken in a few years,” says Bryan.
To deliver bikes, Miir partners with BikeWorks and Bikes4Kids in the United States, and World Bicycle Relief in Africa.
“World Bicycle Relief’s model is to develop bikes and give the same bike to all communities. People can sell them or sell parts, and replace parts easily. Some nonprofits receive donated bikes and ship them, but then they break and there are no parts to fix them. World Bicycle Relief makes sure their bicycles are easy to maintain, and also train bike mechanics to fix their bikes. BikeWo
rks and Bikes4Kids do different work: instead of bikes going to landfills, volunteers fix them and give them to foster kids and refugees,” Bryan says.
In May, Miir embarked on the next phase of their company: a coffee and beer flagship café in Seattle.
“We had to move our office, and thought we should have a growler fill station because we sell growlers. Then we thought, what if we do a retail store? What if we served coffee and beer? We wanted to create a unique experience with the brand that makes sense and also engage customers in an authentic way,” says Bryan. “Most retail stores are transactional – either you buy or you don’t buy. We want to break that mold, have people hang out, and have a drink. We want to be more interactive than a traditional brick and mortar store.”
Each cup of coffee or pint of beer – along with every product Miir sells – comes with a code that can be entered on the site, so consumers see pictures of the project their money funded.
Ever evolving, Miir will expand into backpacks this August based on a relationship with a partner in Liberia to give back in education. Watch their website to see when you can purchase a backpack!
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