Youth, business leaders should connect, event told

Dave Wilkin, founder of TenThousandCoffees, speaks at an event hosted by Genesis: UJA Federation’s Centre for Jewish Innovation CAMILA GARGANTINI PHOTO
Dave Wilkin, founder of TenThousandCoffees, speaks at an event hosted by Genesis: UJA Federation’s Centre for Jewish Innovation CAMILA GARGANTINI PHOTO

Entrepreneur Dave Wilkin has made it his mission to solve what he’s deemed the “unfortunate love story” between industry leaders and young people.

Wilkin was speaking at a Nov. 17 event held at Creeds Coffee Bar and hosted by Genesis: UJA Federation’s Centre for Jewish Innovation, in partnership with the Annex Shul, Hillel Ontario, JVS, Onward Israel, The House, Moishe House, UJA’s Community Connect and UJA Young Leaders.

Wilkin, the 27-year-old founder of an on online networking platform called TenThousandCoffees, told the audience of close to 100 20- and 30-somethings about his career trajectory and how it was shaped by his desire to more effectively connect younger generations with professionals established in the job market.

The event, which included time for mingling and networking, was part of the 2015 speaker series run by Genesis, a UJA initiative that works to support emerging Jewish non-profits and provide mentorship, networking and skills training to young adults in the community.

According to a quick show of hands, the audience identified itself as a mix of aspiring entrepreneurs, those looking for new job opportunities, and those looking to develop new skills.

Wilkin, who is not Jewish and grew up in the small northern Ontario town of Lively, explained that his experience as a teenager starting a mentorship program that served communities north of Barrie led him to identify a gap between older industry professionals and youth.

“I saw that on one side we had all these youth with great ideas – this entrepreneurial and connected group who were simultaneously the most underemployed generation in history… and on the other hand, we had these heads of industries saying they weren’t going to exist in 10 or 15 years if they didn’t connect with youth,” he said.

While the two groups rely on another to thrive – youth to access job opportunities and career advice and industry leaders to gain insight into how to revitalize their businesses and ensure they’re sustainable – Wilkins said the two parties “were connecting using these random, archaic, Neanderthal tactics.”

CEOs and other leaders he spoke to were typically only meeting with young people who were the children of their friends, which Wilkin said is limiting.

Further, he said, conventional mentorship programs often don’t allow prospective mentors and mentees to shop around before establishing a relationship.

In 2010, Wilkin, who studied biochemistry at the University of Waterloo, launched what quickly became Canada’s largest youth consulting company, Redwood Strategic Inc. It grew into a multi-million dollar company and acquisition offers began to roll in, but Wilkin said the “small town in me starting talking, and I realized I wouldn’t only be selling the business, but my soul… I decided to reinvest all the funds into trying to really solve the unfortunate love story [between youth and industry leaders].”

Wilkin saw that meeting face to face for coffee was an effective way to build a relationship, share ideas and even create a job opportunity, but the model needed to be expanded so people weren’t simply meeting others in their existing circles.

And so, in January 2014, he launched the TenThousandCoffees website, which features short profiles of top leaders from a range of fields as well as those of emerging entrepreneurs or people looking for job opportunities.

People use the site to contact one another and set up coffee meetings that will involve what Wilkin called “mutually beneficial conversations.” He said the site has been so well received that he spent less than $10,000 on marketing and that schools and organizations were soon asking if they could “borrow” the website.

With that in mind, TenThousandCoffees has started partnering with several non-profits each year. Genesis is one such partner: TenThousandCoffees will donate its model to Genesis on a trial basis and allow people in the Genesis network to connect with one another using a specific-to-Genesis TenThousandCoffees hub.

“Genesis is thrilled to expose our community to TenThousandCoffees as a wonderful resource,” said Alana Kayfetz, Genesis’ director.


To join the network, contact Kayfetz at [email protected] or visit the Genesis website.