One can never have enough friends — and you never know where you’ll find them. So be creative and think outside the box and you’ll be able to find people that can truly help.
As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Montana Butsch.
Montana Butsch is an English / American social change advocate, non-profit leader, startup founder, and rowing enthusiast who focuses on helping teens. Upon concluding work at Oxford University, he focused to pursue social ventures in Chicago leading to the founding of the Chicago Training Center “CTC” as a vehicle for underserved teens. Following on from his notable work with CTC, Montana launched Spotivity in 2018 — a global tool for teens everywhere to make better decisions outside of school.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
After I returned home to Chicago from the Isle of Wight (UK) where I lived for a spell before High School — I was an athlete without the appropriate sport pairing when I luckily found rowing at my high school. My school happened to have the only rowing team in the state at that particular time. This lucky pairing ultimately led to college recruitment (Harvard, Princeton, and Penn to name a few — I ultimately went to Penn) and then to Oxford University (was a 2-year member of the Boatrace Squad). This subsequently led to my epiphany on the importance of access and a clear understanding of how to achieve it.
With this background, my first bucket-list item was helping other inner city youth achieve access through rowing and thus founded the Chicago Training Center in 2006. I left CTC after 11 years (after the team was the largest fully free competitive inner-city rowing team in the country) to pursue bucket list item #2 — Spotivity.
Spotivity is leveraging the tenets of CTC but to a Macro Audience of teens across the planet irrespective of social / economic classes. I am looking to help ALL teens find activities they can be passionate about and excel in.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?
Yes — I’m on old Hip Hop head (the formative music of my teen years was KRS One, EPMD, De La Soul, and Eric B & Rakim to name a few) so I was excited to be able to weave my love of classic 90’s hip hop into a marketing push via the #micdropchallenge. Thanks to this effort I’ve been able to gain involvement from Craig G and Sadat X to name but a few. The fact that they all respect what we are doing at Spotivity and were receptive to lending a helping hand is pretty sweet. Maybe in the future I can convince Snoop Dog and Cardi B to join the party!
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Too many to count! Being a founder is messy and fought with embarrassing mistakes — even if you are seen as a highly education ‘smart’ individual. Maybe the easiest example — and one that many can probably relate to — is getting attributions incorrect on social media after you press send. You can’t un-ring the bell so corrections need to be made quickly and apologies given as appropriate!
Can you describe how you or your organization is making a significant social impact?
We are a fully free platform for users (Teens and Parents of Teens) to help them make better decisions — informed via University Research. We are a utility that every teenager should use — and that every school counselor should encourage teens to use. From this teens will be better prepared, education engagement will be improved, and, ultimately, the entire community benefits — the full circle of Teens / Families / Schools / Afterschool Providers / High Education / Job Providers.
The use case I often give to explain our focus is this: Think back to teenage you (but now with a smart mobile phone) and imagine that your favorite school counselor was unbiasedly supercharged and residing in that phone for access whenever you wanted. Imagine that your usage of the platform resulted in positive feedback loops to support and encourage continual positive behavior (the free ice cream cone received upon a good report card when you were 10). And, think about what you might have done if you were alerted to all the world’s important points of access and activity choices, no path unknown. Now, imagine that power in the hands of all young people across the globe and how it would positively affect everything upstream: the schools they go to, the jobs they pursue, and the long-term societal outcomes that result. This is not science fiction — but happening right now.
Can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
In our first year of operations, a teen girl at a school I was speaking with pulled me aside and happily mentioned that she applied to 3 different jobs she found on our site. Now, I don’t know if she landed those jobs, but the fact that she found opportunities that tracked for her needs was exciting and was a clear example of success that could easily replicate.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
Easy:
- Partner with Spotivity to help with our roll outs so that we can help communities with Public Health / Teen Engagement concerns.
- Run interactions between Spotivity and Teen-centered afterschool providers so that we can help those agencies run better and safer programming.
- Support all after school programs regardless of connection to Spotivity so that access to opportunities for all youth can be more easily achieved.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
Leadership — the ability to empower others to make independent decisions that support agreed upon directives.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
- I knew it would be tough to tackle what Spotivity it tackling — but I did not think at the outset that it would prove to be as hard as it has been to date. Startups are HARD and don’t be of the opinion that yours is the exception. That will not help you execute.
- Double down on any/all partnerships you can that are mutually beneficial. They help with growth and lead to untold opportunities.
- Start an internship program as early as possible — and make that program mutually beneficial.
- Set up automated marketing funnels as soon as reasonably possible. They help. Lots.
- One can never have enough friends — and you never know where you’ll find them. So be creative and think outside the box and you’ll be able to find people that can truly help.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’m in it now! Spotivity is that movement.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“You can’t fix stupid.” Pretty self explanatory. And funny. But also on point. You can’t be all things to all people and you can only do the best you can. Put your best foot forward, be honest with yourself, and don’t get bogged down by naysayers, as, inevitably, they will always exist if only to be contrarian.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Tim Ferriss — I think we think alike in many ways, I’d be interested to see where our social groups overlap (we have some similarities in personal circles), and, most importantly, I think spotivity would spark a keen interest with him. One can never talk to too many smart people — there are always things to learn!
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Heroes: Why & How Montana Butsch of Spotivity Is Helping To Change Our World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.