Abe Niederhauser, Founder of Ads4Africa.org
I was introduced to Abe Niederhauser through my friend and colleague, Travis Washburn, as we toured through Body Worlds 3 in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2008. I was immediately impressed with his down-to-earth yet energetic and creative drive.
A while after we met I learned that he’d launched Ads4Africa.org, a website focused on aiding entrepreneurs in poverty-stricken countries via microfinance loans. This immediately caught my attention as I’ve been following the microfinance work of Muhammad Yunus for years. I was impressed that Abe, probably in his mid-twenties, had such a large vision and was actively engaged in humanitarian work across the world, and that he had found a way to do so from his home with limited finances.
When the opportunity arrived to interview Abe, I quickly jumped at the chance to pick his brain and learn a little about his vision, his values, and his work with Ads4Africa.
I’ve posted our interview below. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Reading time (full transcript): ~20 minutes.
Reading time (main ideas in bold): 5 minutes.
Total listening time (full transcript): 35 minutes.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Chris MowerCan you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Abe NiederhauserI’m from here. I grew up in West Jordan, Utah, so I’m a local boy. I graduated from BYU a couple years ago. What else do you want to know?
CMWhat did you graduate with?
ANI graduated in Economics, and I’m glad; I really like Economics. Even though a lot of the work I’m doing isn’t related to what I studied, I still think it was a really good major. I think studying economics really helps you to think analytically and weigh pros and cons and costs and benefits, which I think can be useful.
CMDo you have much business background experience? Did you study business at all?
ANI got minors in math statistics and business. I was originally planning on getting a Ph.D. in economics because I really like it, but then when it was time to head off to grad school, I was thinking about it—grad school is expensive, and my friends and family are here. Also to study Economics at the graduate level you have to have a lot of math and statistics, and so I took a lot of classes, and in those classes I met people who were going to be actuaries, and I decided to do that. I worked as an actuary for a couple years and took a lot of the exams, and I still do some stuff related. Then I got laid off. […] So I have some business background and about two years of work experience, and my business minor.
CMFrom my perspective, I’d consider you a young entrepreneur. A lot of times people feel like entrepreneurs are around 35 years old or so. When did you first get started doing entrepreneurial-type activities?
ANThat’s a good question. I think that it’s something that I always thought I’d like to do. I always envisioned myself graduating from college, getting a job and then I’d start some business on the side and work on them until they were big enough until I would quit my day job. I’m very risk adverse, and usually people think of entrepreneurs as people who enjoy risk. And ironically, I don’t know if you’re familiar with what an actuary is… their whole profession is about managing risk—definitely, a contrast there. While working as an actuary, I thought I’d be an entrepreneur but wasn’t really sure.
I’ve always had an interest in humanitarian work, and this is what led into my different entrepreneurial endeavors. I’d learned about microfinance and I thought, “That’s a great way to help people in need because it helps them become self-reliant rather than just helping them temporarily.” And so I always had thought I’d wanted to do something; I thought maybe I’d start some kind of business where the profits would go to help fund microfinance or something. I was always thinking of that but didn’t want to take any risks like that.
Over the years of thinking about it and learning about the internet, I came up with an idea which is Ads4Africa. And then I got it started with some of my roommates; shortly after we started getting it going, I got laid off from my job as an actuary. The company went under and so they laid off almost everybody. I thought, “Now that I’m getting severance, I’m going to take this time and focus on getting this humanitarian thing going. And I think when it’s done I’ll go and get a job again.” And as I did it, I realized how much I enjoyed doing it and working for myself. In addition, I didn’t want to pay someone to build our website and so I started teaching myself how to build the websites and do other things with the internet.
Since then, I still work with Ads4Africa and kept that going, but I’ve also been involved with starting some other business and have been able to so far make it into something full-time where I can just run my own businesses and support myself. And I think it’s getting to the point where I feel comfortable where I could support a family. And so, yeah, I’m kind of young and I just kind of fell into it. If I hadn’t lost my job, it probably wouldn’t have happened.
CM It’s interesting that you say that, because so many people say the same thing. If I had not been laid off, then I wouldn’t have done it.
AN Yeah, we’re all scared.
CMYeah, it’s scary; you’re scared of the unknown a little bit.
I want to focus on Ads4Africa. I’m very interested in the humanitarian aspect of it. You touched on it just a little bit, and how you were always kind of interested in the humanitarian things. Is there some inciting event that occurred that made you interested in humanitarian work, or some person maybe that inspired you to do this? Or is it something you’ve always felt, like you want to help serve?
ANI don’t think there’s one specific event, but there have been many events that have been small steps. Some of them have been certain people I’ve known. Growing up—I didn’t grow up extremely wealthy. We weren’t poor and struggling, but we weren’t really well off—I learned I didn’t need a lot to be happy. It was one of those basic things and I was happy as can be.
As I grew up I learned about money and finances and different things and I began thinking, “What is life really about?” I felt like I have been born in a country where I have everything that I need and so much opportunity. And there are other people who are born in situations where they can’t get out and they’re stuck in poverty cycles, and I feel like it’s no fault of theirs that they’re in those situations. I felt a responsibility like I’d like to do something to help them. I felt like I don’t want to live a life where I’m really focused on buying material things and getting a lot of money. And I would like to get a lot of money, not so that I can live an extravagant lifestyle, but so that I can help people in need. [… ]
I took an entrepreneurial class and there was one particular teacher who was into humanitarian stuff, he was also an entrepreneur, and he talked a lot about that. I took that class about 3 years ago and that was also a big stepping stone for me. […] Different things have kind of pushed me towards that and got me interested.
CMTell us a little bit about Ads4Africa and what it is.
ANAds4Africa is a search engine. Basically it’s powered by Google. All of us Google search every day, except there’s advertising on Ads4Africa. Whenever someone searches, those advertisers pay us and we use that money to help people in need. We use that money primarily for funding microfinance. I felt that this was a good way to be self reliant. Basically, it allows people to do something that they do every day, but when they do it, it will raise money for people in need.
CMFrom what I understand, correct me if I’m wrong, it didn’t start out as a Google search engine.
AN
That’s correct. Originally I had decided microfinance and I thought I’d like to start some kind of a business where I would use the profits to help entrepreneurs around the world. And it kind of started as a business, and then as I learned about the internet, I thought this would be a good way to start a business without having to provide a lot of capital to rent a place or do inventory for something. I can use the internet.
I learned about different things like advertising. The reason it’s called Ads4Africa is because as I first learned about Google Adsense, that you can place ads on your site, and Google will pay you, I thought, “Well what if we put ads on the site, but instead of Google paying us the money, we could use that money to help people in need?” And then I had the thought that the internet is very large, very fast, but there are really big sites that primarily advertisers target. And I think that there are a lot of smaller sites, like personal blogs, that individually they don’t really want to monetize because they wouldn’t give a lot, maybe a $1.00 or two in a month, or 6 months. But I thought an aggregate—a bunch of those—could raise a lot of money. And even a small number of websites could make up a larger portion of the web that is untouched.
And I think that in part, that’s what Google is trying to do with Adsense, allowing individuals to place ads on their site and reach that other part of the internet that is untouched. But I felt like there wasn’t a lot of incentive for people to do it because what’s one or two bucks, and why go through the trouble when they don’t know how to set it up? So the idea for Ads4Africa was to help people walk through putting ad code on their site so they would get money and that money would come to us and we’d use that to fund microloans for entrepreneurs around the world. So, yeah, it wasn’t search.
CMWhat pushed it over from being helping people to place ads to actually being a search?
ANWe wanted to extend into a lot of different things. For one, we talked about the advertising, and putting ads on sites. We also knew that Google allows you to add searches. People can put a custom search to search their own site or a particular topic, but you can also customize the search to do whatever you’d like. We had the idea that in the same way that people put ads on their blogs that they could also use the search engine and see the ads on there and those advertisers would pay us as well.
And so we had that idea, and my brother, I don’t even remember what he said, was the one who gave me the idea. He was talking about something, and then it came to me, “We could use the search in the same way.” So the day after that, we started the search. And basically in comparison with the ads and the search, people were much more likely to use the search. It was a lot easier.
When I first learned Google ads, it seemed complicated, but now that I’ve worked with it, it’s like an everyday language. But there are a lot of people who don’t understand what it is. But the search, a lot of people understood it because a lot of people perform searches. So people were a lot more willing to do that than they were willing to put ads on their blog or their website. And so that’s where it kind of switched.
CMJust to clarify, I imagine some people who are reading or listening to this are going to wonder if this will return the exact same results as Google would.
ANWe always tell people it’s the same as Google; it’s powered by Google. In actuality, there are slight differences. I’ve never had anybody tell me they’ve run into a problem with not being able to find something. You can compare the results. Most everything I’ve searched for, the results are identical.
When I searched for my own name, there were some things that were missing that I found on Google. But you know, I’m not a big web celebrity. I think it’s generally the same results.
CMI’ve used your search a number of times and have actually been very pleased. It really does give good results, and I was surprised by that. A little bit about the business aspect of Ads4Africa… first, I was checking out your website. It looks like you have a little team put together. How did you choose your team, or has it become more of an individual thing now?
ANI told my roommates about it and said I’d love for you guys to help me, and so all of us got involved. At the beginning it seemed like everyone was involved in doing a lot, now not as much. I guess it’s become more of an individual thing. I still have their pictures on the website, because it provides support for me, and I know they’re willing to help. I think a lot of the help they’ve given me is emotional support.
The two that are helping are Travis and Seth. Seth is my brother and Travis is my roommate. Travis did some graphical design work for us at the beginning. He actually designed the background Africa with everything coming out, which is great because I wouldn’t have been able to design that. So he did some graphical design work in the beginning.
Since then the website has been remodeled and revamped. I’ve done all the other graphical design work and I’ve learned more about the internet and how to do that kind of stuff. So now, I can do most of that on my own. And it doesn’t take a lot of work to maintain, so mostly it has become individual. But who knows what will happen in the future.
CMOne thing that keeps a lot of entrepreneurs from starting a business or pursuing the business idea is the funds to get started. If you don’t mind me asking, what did you start with and does it cost a lot to maintain?
AN I think because of the internet, almost anyone can start a business for almost nothing. I mean, you need a basic website, and also getting a website up, if you have someone else do it, it can be expensive, but we did it ourselves. At first we used different software, but now as I’ve learned to do it, I’ve built the websites from scratch with a text editor. And so now it’s based off of that.
You have costs with website hosting and domain names. Originally there were a few things, I can’t even remember what they were, that cost a couple hundred dollars. They probably weren’t necessary. The only thing that really seems necessary is getting a website and getting somebody to host your site, and that’s really all. If you’re a business you need to advertise, so also the cost of advertising.
CMDo you have plans to expand Ads4Africa or are you going to keep it a search site for now? What are your future plans?
ANI don’t know. Right now, we’ll keep it the search. Most of the work I do on it now is just kind of advertising and letting people know about it so that it will grow and we can get more money. As it grows, I’m not opposed to venturing into other things, but it’s basically going to just be a search for a while.
CMAnd do you plan to keep it a small, one-man operation?
ANIt really just depends on the funds. Right now, everything I do for it is voluntary. I don’t spend as much time on it as I used to because I’ve got to provide an income for myself. And that’s how I got involved in these other businesses that help me make a living.
CMSo Ads4Africa is non-profit.
ANYes, Ads4Africa is non-profit. And even with a non-profit, people who work for a non-profit or if someone started a non-profit, they still get paid themselves. Right now we get a good amount of money, but not enough to provide a decent income for anybody. And so you know, I don’t get paid.
In the future, if it expands and I need to hire other people to help, or I need to devote more time to it, then it may turn more into a traditional non-profit where we will pay those people for their time and we’ll use the excess to help those people. Right now, every penny that comes in is going out to help people.
CMYou, from what I understand, are using Kiva. How did you choose to partner with Kiva?
ANKiva is a very reputable company. They were actually I think in 2009 one of Time Magazine’s 50 top websites. And even as one of the 50, I know a lot of people who haven’t heard of Kiva. But they’re becoming a lot more popular. Especially in the last year, it seems a lot more people know about them. They help any regular person like you or I get matched up with people around the world who are looking for help—entrepreneurs who want to start a business so that they can become self sufficient and support their families and kids.
There’s these little microfinance institutions, these banks, all over the world, but getting in touch with them is difficult. And if you do get in touch with them, you’d only have access to the people around that one bank. But Kiva is an organization that helps you network. Anybody can network with Kiva and connect with all these microfinance organizations all over the world.
I learned about Kiva about 3 years ago in my entrepreneur class, and from there I’d always thought about it. Kiva is a great way to help. Given that I felt like they were very credible and could trust them, I decided that Kiva would be a great option for us to work with.
CMDoes Kiva choose the people who will receive the funds form Ads4Africa or do you have a part in selecting those people who will receive those funds?
ANWe get to choose everybody. I’m very careful about who I select.
CMHow do you select them?
ANI go through and I read a little bit about what they want to do and what kind of market they’re facing. It seems like there are a lot of people who want to start liquor stores, and I know they want to do that because there’s a lot of demand for liquor and a lot of people want to drink. But I don’t think that’s working toward finding a solution. I feel that a lot of times the drinking and the alcohol in some of those countries contribute to the problem. And so I don’t ever fund anybody who wants to start a business like that.
We look for people who sell goods, like clothing. One guy wanted to start a little cab business and wanted money to help buy a taxi so he could start giving people rides around town. A lot of people start markets where they sell food or supply sites or supply food to other distributors. Those things I feel like will actually contribute to society and help them, maybe employ others and take care of essential needs that people have.
CMAre there any personal characteristics that you’re looking for in these people, or just their business ideas?
ANMostly just their business ideas. The microfinance institutions screen pretty well, and Kiva screens really well too. Kiva actually has, I think, with the loans a 98% repayment rate, which is really high. All these people have a lot of integrity and they’re paying back their loans. So I don’t particularly look at any characteristics about them, any attributes, or personality traits. Mostly just their business plan and how I think that could contribute. It is kind of a subjective thing. I make a call on what I think is good and what I think is not.
CMKind of being an entrepreneur myself, or entrepreneur minded anyway, and having spoken to a number of other people, it seems that there’s a hump you have to get past when you first start something. Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s when you say to yourself, “I’ve got to take it to the next level or stop doing this.” Was there something like that for Ads4Africa? If so, how do you get over it?
ANI think there was. And whether I got over it is a good question. I had hoped it would grow enough that I would be able to do it full time and support myself. But it didn’t grow fast enough to do that, and I still want it do it, so there was a big hump, and we’re still working on climbing it I guess.
I think you could also say there have been a lot of hills that we’ve had to go over. And there’s been some that we’ve gotten over and figured out ways to do things and gotten things to the point where I feel like we’re actually making a difference and contributing to helping people.
I’ve realized I need to do something else to provide for myself, and that’s why I’ve started these other businesses. And yeah, all of them you have to break through to the point where you feel like if I don’t get a job I’ll be fine because I can provide for myself. I don’t have to worry about it. This is going well enough that it will work for me. I feel like that’s kind of what the hump was. I had to pull back on that. I still work on it, but not as much.
CMWhat was your biggest fear starting Ads4Africa? Or did you just charge in with no fear?
ANI actually didn’t have a lot of fear, I think because I wasn’t really intending to be an entrepreneur at the time I started, I felt like it was more of a little side project and I would go back to being safe with a job. I think later when I started realizing how much I enjoyed it and, “Wow, I’d really love being able to work for myself,” is when the fear started coming. I was like, “If I don’t make this or something else work out, I’m going to need to go back.”
And I was not so much scared of going back to get a job because I was fine working a job, and it wasn’t some horrible thing, but I think it was for me fear of lost time. I have plans and things scheduled out and financial goals. Taking time off to try to start businesses, and if they don’t succeed, can really cut into you financially. Maybe it’s because you spent more on opportunity costs than what you could have been making working a job.
CMMoving a little bit away from Ads4Africa, the question I want to pose is do you think people are naturally born with entrepreneurial spirit or do you think it’s something that anybody can get and pursue?
ANI think it’s probably some of both. I think there are definitely some people who are born with a predisposition for that; they just have the personality or the vision. They want to be an entrepreneur. Other people maybe aren’t sure, but they can develop what it takes. I think everybody could if they really wanted to. I think it’s really the risk aversion that drives a lot of people away. I think everybody would enjoy working for themselves a lot more than working for somebody else, there’s just more risk. […] I grow more risky every day.
CMWe kind of touched on this a little bit earlier. There’s a fear of failing when you start something. Is it really so bad to fail at something your start? What’s your opinion about failing at something?
ANThat’s a good question. If you’re looking to start a business, you should expect to fail. Before I found some things that actually felt like they were working I tried a lot of different things, and I still have a lot of different things that I think maybe I’ll come back to.
I think failure is part of what helps us learn and grow, and I think it’s what helps you become an entrepreneur. I think the entrepreneur is someone who fails but doesn’t give up. They’re determined to find something that will work.
And when you fail, you learn. I’ve had a lot of failures, and I know in the future I’ll fail a lot more too. And it’s okay because I keep getting better and learning more and figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
CMWhat would you be doing if the internet did not exist? Do you still think you’d be pursuing humanitarian work now?
ANI think I’d still be pursuing humanitarian work, whether I’d be an entrepreneur is another question. Before the internet, people had to go out and find a shop and open up. Usually you had to have some sort of physical location. How did you contact people and advertise? Did you have to put up billboards, newspaper ads, magazines? All these things you can do on the internet for a lot less or for nothing if you do it right.
I still think that I’d still be involved in humanitarian things in other ways. I think that’s something that I’ve been interested in. I would probably do a lot more… I do some serving in my community, but I’d probably do a lot more of that type of thing.
CMEntrepreneurs are driven by a lot of different things such as fame, fortune, nice cars, maybe the desire to help someone else. What is it that drives your entrepreneurial spirit?
ANThat’s a good question. I think for me, it’s more freedom. The freedom in itself isn’t what’s important. I think it relates to my goals as a humanitarian, and my goals as an entrepreneur. I try to evaluate what the most important things in life are and what the things that I want to spend my time doing are. Sitting in an office all the time is not one of them. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but when I have a family some day, I’d like to spend time with them and have them be my number one priority.
I think there’s a vast amount of happiness helping people. Those types of things, spending time with family, doing something you’re passionate about, serving people around you, are the types of things that I call the most important. The most important things are really what drive me in all this. […] And I hope that in my entrepreneurial endeavors, I can do some of those most important things in helping other people.
CMDo you have any books or anything that you would recommend others read if they were interested in doing the same types of things as you or just about entrepreneurialism in general?
ANYeah, I’ve read a lot of books and there are a lot of good books. There are a lot of bad books too. I did like the “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” books. I don’t think they specifically tell you what to do, but they’re great motivation. I really like “The 4-Hour Work Week.” I know that you’re a fan of Tim Ferriss. I’m a fan of Tim Ferriss. I like “The E-Myth Revisited.” It’s a very good book. I think anyone looking to start a business should read that. It seems like there’s another book that’s on the tip of my tongue that’s really good, but it’s not coming to me.
CMOne last question. Do you have any advice for other people looking to start or are on the verge of becoming an entrepreneur?
ANAdvice… jeez, I could use some advice myself. It takes hard work. You’ve got to be determined. We talked about failure, you’ve got to be able to overcome failure and not be discouraged. And I think that is one of the most difficult things—not becoming discouraged. There have been a lot of times I’ve been very discouraged, and it’s been tough. So I think that if you want to be an entrepreneur, and that’s really what you want to do, then you should do it and don’t give up and be determined. Hold to your dream.
Did you enjoy this interview? Don’t forget to share it!
Also, keep up-to-date by subscribing to my RSS feed.
Fantastic job on the interview. I really admire people who see something more important in life than a big LCD TV and a nice home, and find happiness in helping others. That humanitarian spirit coupled with entrepreneurial drive is what we need to promote in this country, not more central government and welfare. I like how you have it styled and you bolded the basic information from each paragraph. I’d like to see more of this type of thing – interviewing the lesser-known entrepreneurs who really make up the economic backbone of this country. People like you and me (literally) who have tried and failed at business, then tried again and succeeded.
Again, nice job.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by ferrisswatch. ferrisswatch said: Entrepreneur Interviews: Abe Niederhauser, Founder of Ads4Africa …: I know that you're a fan of Tim Ferriss. I'm… http://bit.ly/bPuBhr [...]