A quick shout-out to Shelby Dills of UT's Texas Sweethearts - she invited us out to their 2hr self-defense class this week and we're going to be there to hand out free pepper sprays and talk about different items you can protect yourself with.

More at https://www.facebook.com/events/257551387655941/

Also, LeeAnn Cottom of The Coffee Spot in East Side Food Park has invited us to a 2hr event on Sunday March 4th.  Lots of delicious food trailers to entertain you - we'll be there 2pm - 4pm!

More about this at https://www.facebook.com/events/174090822704963/

Thank you! Keep the suggestions coming in..

Between August 1 and the end of 2011 we gave away around 800 pepper sprays.. but Esme Barrera's death on Jan 1 increased awareness so much in Austin that we've given away almost that many again in January alone.

We've met many new friends in the last few weeks and have received a lot of support - but nowhere more so than on UT campus where this week we were overwhelmed to hear that the Orange Jackets - the oldest honorary service organization at the University of Texas - chose to further our mission by partnering with us for their 2012 project.

Their aim: to improve campus safety by (amongst other things) giving a free pepper spray to each of the approx 25,000 women students on UT campus!

This is HUGE - now we can really start to scale our mission; we're already talking about ways in which the OJ's can help us publicize, fundraise and distribute.

With over 40 members the OJ's help will be a big boost!

Founded in 1923 as a women's honorary organization, the OJ's were named for their distinctive orange vests. The official hosts of the University, their three tenets are scholarship, leadership, and service.

Our aim is to create a program that we can then rollout to other universities and other cities, so we're confident our 25,000 pepper spray 2012 goal will be quickly exceeded as we expand our reach.

Our first self-defense class was a success, with Chad Haas and Michael Cargill doing an amazing job with the venue and the class content. Live demonstrations were followed with everyone in the class trying all the moves on each other - with 3 TV crews watching!  We're doing another class on February 25 in Steiner Ranch.

We also visited Kinsolving residence hall again, where UTPD were doing a self-defense class of their own. 

We're doing at least one giveaway each week - usually at the weekend - for details visit our Facebook events page. 

Austin's Bob Salon is the latest small local business to help our mission to give every woman in America a free pepper spray.

Bob Salon approached us this week to take advantage of our offer to sell pepper sprays at cost to businesses, groups or people who promise to give them away.

It's an awesome way for us to grow our mission faster than we could alone and we LOVE LOVE LOVE Bob Salon for helping us!

Please help us show our appreciation by calling or popping into Bob Salon for your next hair styling session.

3703-A Jefferson Street
Austin, TX 78731
View Map 

Call or text 512.914.7078

Visit their website www.ilovebobsalon.com

Teo coffee shop - or more properly "Teo Espresso, Gelato and Bella Vita" - on W 38th in Austin was where we spent a couple of hours this weekend hanging out with Sandra and handing out free pepper sprays.  Sandra invited her friends, and we had others visit after seeing the event on facebook.  It was a little cold perhaps, but it was nice to see more new faces who were appreciative of our mission.

On Friday night I went to The Annex at 1808 on E 12th street for the "For Esme, With Love" benefit. It was a great event; many bands, silent auction, sun dragon martial arts demonstration - and everyone was donating their time and products. I have no idea how much was raised yet, but there was a good turnout with a few hundred there by 10pm. 

I gave away about 100 pepper sprays and grabbed photos of most people that I saw. I tried a new thing for the first time; a donation jar for those who wanted to put a few bucks towards more pepper sprays.. it worked great! I was of course a little reticent to try this (our intent is to give away pepper spray, not sell it) but I was persuaded to try it by someone I had met at a previous giveaway.

$80 was donated - about half the cost of the pepper sprays we gave away. That's quite an amazing result I think - it pays for another 30 sprays that we'd normally have paid for ourselves! It will certainly be on display at every event from now on - but hopefully people won't feel pressure to "pay". I'd love to know your opinion in the comment section below..

Thanks again to all who organized the event. I met a lot of facebook friends, some of which you can see above. Please tag yourself on FB!

We will be at Casis Village Starbucks on Thursday at 2pm, then again at for For Esme With Love benefit at The Annex at 1808 on Friday at 8pm.

For more details:

Casis Village Starbucks
For Esme, With Love

The Starbucks was significant to Esme Barrera - she used to work over the road at Casis Elementary School and frequented the coffee shop. I got a call from Happy Day who works there and asked me to pop in and offer pepper sprays to local women and perhaps leave some there. 

As always, I'll take photos and put them up on our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/resistattack

We met YNN TV crew at Waterloo Records where Esme Barrera worked today. We handed out free pepper sprays to women in the store and talked about how women should pay extra attention to safety while these violent people are on the loose.

One question we've been asked a lot this week - where do we recommend for a self-defense class? Not a full-on kickboxing course, but a simple introduction class to basic self-defense and situational awareness.

Well, I'm excited to say that together with Chad Haas' teamhaasjudo.com and Michael Cargill's centraltexasgunworks.com we can now offer our own class - and this first one is FREE.

Taking place on Tuesday January 17 between 6pm and 8pm, you can sign up below:

Only 30 places though, so be quick!

Calily Bien at KXAN is following Esme's case closely and sent out a crew to meet me on King St yesterday. See the video and read the story on their website:

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/austin/passing-out-free-pepper-spray

Austin is in mourning after the murder of local woman Esme Barrera on New Year's Day. We're heading out to her neighborhood today to pay our respects and offer free pepper sprays to women in that area.

This is the third attack near Washington Square and we all need to get together and help prevent any further attacks. 

According to KXAN, the suspect:

"..is described as a black male in his 30s, about 6 feet tall, with a muscular build, dark eyes and a shaved head. He was also wearing a gray sweatshirt."

More information at statesman.com too. 

Anyone with information about the attacks is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 512-472-TIPS (8477)

684: it's not quite as big a number as I'd hoped, but that's how many free pepper sprays we've given away to women since we launched our mission 16 weeks ago.

That's an average of 6 a day! 

Our most recent giveaways were at meetings of young women's groups on UT campus - Omega Phi Alpha, Texas Orange Jackets and Texas Wrangler Darlins, some of whom are shown below. You can see more on our Success Stories and Facebook pages.

Can you help us with our mission to give a free pepper spray to every woman in America?

Omega Phi Alpha:

Texas Orange Jackets:

Texas Wrangler Darlins:

I was just sent a couple of copies of my favorite business book to giveaway to people who read this blog!

I've bought multiple copies myself already so these will be sent to two randomly picked people who share our mission with their friends on their facebook page.

What do you need to do?

• Share (not like) www.resistattack.com or facebook.com/resistattack on your facebook wall
• Tell us that you did it by posting on our facebook wall, commenting below or emailing me at james@resistattack.com.

We'll put your name into a bucket and draw two names out on Thanksgiving Day!

I was excited to get a call from Sonal Patel at Omega Phi Alpha who asked to do a pepper spray giveaway next Wednesday. 

Next week is their National Service Week, with the UT Conceptual Self Defense Group performing demonstrations on a plaza on campus. Students will be able to participate in these demonstrations to learn basic self-defense tactics.

In the evening, they will be hosting a free Rape Aggression Defense Class taught by the University of Texas Police Department open to all students on campus. The hour long class is a condensed version of the 14-16 hour class taught at UT by UTPD. The pepper spray giveaway will happen at that class.

I'm meeting Sonal tomorrow and will post more details (and an event) on Facebook then.

Coincidentally on the same day I am meeting the Orange Jackets new members and giving them pepper sprays too.

If you would like to host your own giveaway please read this which gives all the details

Over a nice breakfast of crepes and "pain au chocolat" this morning at La Cafe Crepe with Realtor Les Sherman and Jennifer Pedersen and Cindie Brooks from Chicago Title we discussed ways to expand our mission to Realtors. 

I have discussed scaling our mission before, and every day we tweak our plans a little as we talk to more businesses and women's groups.  

This morning's idea revolved around safety seminars - I am now looking at becoming certified as an MCE Instructor so that I can teach Realtors about safety.. plus I can hand out our free pepper sprays during those classes. 

The classes are only an hour long, and I will probably invite other businesses such as Michael Cargill who is a certified Concealed Handgun License trainer. 

More details to follow, but in the meantime please let me know below if you're a Realtor and want to sign up for a class..

In my earlier Scaling Our Mission blog post I talked about how businesses can get help our mission - in fact I think this is key to our long-term success. 

Well, I'm excited and proud to announce that Michael Cargill of Central Texas Gun Works has signed up and is fully on board! This is a very big deal to us, and I am very grateful to Mike for his support. 

We have delivered our first big box of free pepper sprays to Mike so expect that his giveaways start soon! His plan is to give pepper spray away to women who take some of his concealed handgun license courses. 

Mike is very highly thought of in the Austin CHL training business; it was easy for me to find some glowing testimonials online:

 We hosted a CHL class on campus last semester and had 60 students and faculty members take the class. .. If anyone has taken a class with a CHL Instructor named Michael Cargill, please thank him for all the support he's given us. 

and..

 A+ Class. I highly recommend it to anyone in the Austin, Texas area. It was a blast! 

Please help me thank Mike for his support - if you need a CHL, give him a call on 512-731-3585, and get your free pepper spray!

Connect with them on Facebook too, at www.facebook.com/centraltexasgunworks

Are you a business that wants to get involved?

We launched our new mission on August 1, 2011, and since then we've given away many hundreds of pepper sprays.  A few dozen to joggers and Realtors, but the vast majority to college students (see Success Stories).

It's not as easy as it sounds!  Each group we meet usually points us at another, and slowly but surely word spreads.  Facebook and Twitter help too.  But although our mission hasn't changed, the experience has made me realize that this is not going to scale unless we get help!

On the one hand, we could organize larger giveaway events (like at last years Realtor Roundup for example) and perhaps give away up to 1,000 pepper sprays in one go - but we can't afford that.  Or we could continue with the 20-50 woman groups - but that will take forever.

What's the answer?

That's easy - we just need more people and more money!

Which got me thinking - who would pay for us to give away pepper sprays?  Then I remembered what Blake Mycoskie wrote about his first partnership with AT&T:

 If you incorporate giving into your business model, and give your business a mission larger than your bottom line, you also create opportunities that companies with more resources might not be able to enjoy. If it weren’t for this model, AT&T, Theory, Ralph Lauren, and all our other partners would not have approached us to collaborate. People want to feel they are making a difference.. 

Getting businesses involved

Businesses want to get involved with good things.. especially if they would normally advertise to your audience.  So we need to find businesses who target groups such as women college students, women Realtors, etc.. and allow them to sponsor our giveaways.  In return, they will (quite rightly) be associated with our mission.

 When you have a story that’s larger and more interesting than your product or service—or you—other people and companies will want to incorporate your story into theirs to share in the halo effect. For TOMS, those people and companies included the publisher of Vogue, who gave TOMS as a holiday gift to his extraordinary list of contacts.. 

Here's an example of a business that is helping us: Central Texas Gun Works

Do you know a business that could help us?  Call me direct on my cell, any time: 512-814-6192

Getting groups involved

Another idea for us to develop is to find groups to host their own pepper spray giveaway or fundraiser events.  The groups could be anything from a book club to a school cheer team.  Church groups to cycling clubs.

For a giveaway event we'll supply the materials at wholesale (we're have no intention of making money from giveaways) and help promote and organize their event.  The advantage to the groups is obvious - at the very least much cheaper products for their members.  But we hope that there are other advantages too, such as us publicising their group to a wider audience.

Do you know a group that may be interested?  Please get them to call me direct on my cell, any time: 512-814-6192

Getting people involved

Lastly, individuals like you can help in so many ways.  Send us a note, post a comment, like or share on facebook, tweet to your followers - just tell one friend.  If you've received a pepper spray, please send us a photo.  If you're a celebrity, send an autograph for us to auction.  Send a donation.  

I'd settle for you just tellng us that you believe in the mission - that women deserve the tools to protect themselves.

I'm always available - if you can help, please call me direct on my cell, any time: 512-814-6192

Check out this new infographic showing some tips on how to stay safe on campus, in the dorm and at parties. All common sense, but worth reviewing!

Courtesy of Simplisafe, makers of Wireless Home Security Systems.

We had a great visit with the Texas Zephyrs on UT Austin campus last night. Erika Woody and nearly 30 other members were having a meeting so we snuck in at the end and explained why we do what we do, and handed out free pepper sprays.

We also gave out some information about the Click2BSure iphone application that I've been checking out (we're not an affiliate or anything, but this looks like a very useful application to help with womens safety).  It was certainly well received by the members. 

We look forward to visiting this group again some time - in the meantime if you were there and in a photo below check out our facebook page and tag yourself!  

Funny how the word spreads - you can never predict how someone will find out about our mission! Yesterday Erika Woody - a marketing undergrad at UT Austin - contacted us having heard from her uncle in Denver that we were at Kinsolving House giving away pepper sprays.

Admittedly I do know her uncle, Ken Reed, from when I worked with him many years ago. Just shows it's a small world after all..

Erika happens to be a Vice President of a community service sorority at UT, the Texas Zephyrs. They're small, about 50 members, but have been established since 2001.

From their website: 

 Texas Zephyr is a service sorority committed to serving the University of Texas campus and Austin community. All encompassing, we work to benefit the lives of those in need-- be they young, old, sick, or poor. The funds, hands, and minds of Texas Zephyr work to develop, plan, and implement projects to serve our community at large.

At the same time, Texas Zephyr serves as a forum for developing lasting friendships and bonds. Growing strong ties through social activities and events, Texas Zephyr fosters a community of women who are individual, yet united in the common cause to make a difference, stake a claim, and be leaders in the world around them. 

They meet weekly, so I've arranged to visit them next Monday October 10th at 6:30pm in Parlin Hall. If you're a member, please join us. I'll talk briefly about why we're doing what we do, how to stay safe and of course give everyone a free pepper spray.

Last Wednesday night I got back from Dallas after 4 days away and dropped by Kinsolving Residence Hall on UT Austin campus to meet with some women students there. There was a pretty good turn out and we talked for a little while about how to stay safe, why we're doing what we do - and mentioned the Start Something That Matters vision that was one of my inspirations.

Thanks to Jenny Kutner and Angie Deng for organizing the evening. We gave away around 50 pepper sprays and a few students came up afterwards and let me know that they have other groups that we could meet. Can't wait!

We just ordered another delivery of pepper sprays which will be arriving next week so we'll be ready.

On Wednesday evening at 8:30pm I'll be visiting Kinsolving Women's Residence Hall on UT Campus to meet with the women students there and give them free pepper sprays.

Angie Deng kindly asked us to attend, saying "I was planning on making mocktails, talking about the danger of date rape drug and too much alcohol, and discussing ways to stay safe when you're out at clubs".

What is most encouraging about this is that we didn't organize it :)  Angie heard through word-of-mouth on campus about our earlier giveaways and contacted us. Thanks again to Jenny and Brianna for continuing the conversation on campus.

If you're a resident of Kinsolving, we'll see you soon. Stay safe until then!

Ever since talking to a next door neighbor who was a Realtor it's been obvious to me that they are in a very risky job. Often Realtors are women and meet prospective buyers on their own at empty houses. Put that way it's not hard to see why we've targetted them as a group we should help. Almost 2 years ago we wrote an article describing our top tips for Realtors to stay safe, but now with our new mission we can do something tangible to help.

Now that we have traction on local college campuses I'm reaching out to local Realtors to find the best way to meet with them and give them free pepper sprays too. Yesterday I started the search on Twitter and came across the Realtor Safety Report 2011 that was blogged by Lani Rosales. It's a great read and you should pass it to any Realtors that you know.

I'll post more about my discussions with local Realtors next week.

While I was reading Lani's profile I noticed a link to Quora. I'd heard of the site before, but it never got to the top of my to-do list. Last night I signed up and took a look around.

It's an interesting site, with lots of people asking questions and waiting for experts to answer them. Good answers can be "voted up" by anyone.

I quickly found some questions that I could answer, so I did! Here are some examples:

• What is the most effective weapon for protection?
• What is Mace?
• Are there any non-lethal weapons that are suitable for use on suicidal people with imminent intent to die?
• Why aren't non-lethal weapons used more often?
• Is wasp spray actually more effective against attackers than mace or pepper spray?
• Wouldn't a stun gun bring someone down even if he had congenital analgesia?

And on a different topic:

• Are there other successful hybrid companies, with a similar business model to TOMS Shoes?

It was a fun 30 minutes and I plan on going back regularly to answer more questions. You can view my profile and follow my answers at http://www.quora.com/James-Shaw-2 - and feel free to ask questions yourself. There are experts on any subject there.

This week I was lucky enough to be invited after hours to visit both the Texas Feminists and the Orange Jackets on University of Texas (UT) campus. 

On both occasions I was met with enthusiasm for our mission, and after a brief talk about why we're doing this and what our next steps are we got down to the business of giving away some pepper sprays!

Funnily enough, we hadn't found who to get permission from in time for the TexFem meeting, so we were unsure if we could hand-out pepper sprays on campus.. so like the Pied Piper we all marched out of the meeting room and down the street to my car.. by the next day at the OJ meeting all the necessary permissions had been obtained and that made everything a lot easier and quicker as you can imagine. 

I'd like to specifically thank Jenny Kutner, Brianna Guidorzi and Erica Brody for their continuing help in spreading the word and getting us in front of the people we want to help most. It's a great thing they are doing and I hope the good karma comes back around for them double.

A few of the OJ's said that they had contacts into other women's groups on campus, so I hope to arrange meetings with them very shortly. All in all though it was a satisfying week and there are now 50 young women that can better protect themselves should the worst happen. 

Do you know any women's groups in or around Austin that I could visit?  Please let me know below.