Oakland, CA – Back to the Roots, a sustainable urban mushroom farm that uses 100% recycled coffee grounds as its soil, , is now offering its Grow-Your-Own Mushroom Garden and other products at 35% off through Buy Young, an online marketplace created by OUR TIME, a national non-profit organization founded to stand up for Americans under 30. The marketplace was launched by OUR TIME and 150 of America’s top young CEOs with a summit in Washington DC at The White House, Capitol Hill and the US Chamber of Commerce on July 13.
The goal of OUR TIME’s Buy Young initiative is simple: to encourage Americans to support companies and organizations founded by entrepreneurs under 30 and offer exclusive discounts on products and services to OUR TIME’s fast-growing membership of more than 300,000.
Back to the Roots joins hundreds of young companies to reinforce the fact that young Americans are major contributors to the success of the U.S. economy and key drivers of job creation. So far, the participating companies alone have created over 7,000 jobs altogether.
Back to the Roots was founded by Alejandro Velez & Nikhil Arora during their last semester at UC Berkeley in 2009. Two months away from graduation, and heading into the corporate world of investment banking & consulting, they came across the idea during a class lecture of being able to potentially grow gourmet mushrooms entirely on recycled coffee grounds. Inspired by the idea of turning waste into wages & fresh, local food, they experimented in Alejandro’s fraternity kitchen, ultimately growing one test bucket of tasty oyster mushrooms on recycled coffee grounds. With that one bucket, some initial interest from Whole Foods & Chez Panisse and a $5,000 grant from the UC Berkeley Chancellor for social innovation, they decided to forget the corporate route, and instead, become full-time urban mushroom farmers! Back to the Roots is growing quickly and has created 17 jobs.
"Buy Young is a great initiative because it’s empowering young business owners by aggregating their voices and opinions to create real change” says co-founder Alejandro. “It’s vital to buy young – these are the companies, trends, and movements that are going to shape our future economy; by choosing to buy young you’re choosing to invest in innovation and our future,” says Nikhil.
There are not enough jobs in the government or corporate America, so OUR TIME encourages its members to make their own by aggregating hundreds of companies founded by young Americans into an online marketplace. These companies are offering at least a 30% discount on their products and services for four weeks as an incentive for Americans to “Buy Young.” Through various online, social media, and televised marketing campaigns, OUR TIME drives these businesses traffic and volume in order to help them grow. OUR TIME members are encouraged to apply for jobs with their vendors, who are encouraged to make job openings available to OUR TIME’s network as their businesses expand.
The founders of each company also submit answers to questions that describe their personal stories to inspire and educate others about entrepreneurship (view Back to the Roots' questionnaire here). OUR TIME features several company profiles per week on the homepage of their website and creates a variety of short-form content regarding small business development (view Back to the Roots' profile page here). In a macro sense, Buy Young is a consumer movement that engages our members to support the causes they believe in while saving money.
"I strongly believe that encouraging American businesses to innovate here, grow here, and stay here is crucial to job creation and to the future of our economic competitiveness. That’s why I'm a proud supporter of Democrats' Make It In America agenda, and why I applaud OUR TIME's work to promote young entrepreneurs through its Buy Young initiative." – Minority Whip Steny Hoyer
To sign up as a member of OUR TIME and receive discounts from a diverse group of American companies all started by Buy Young entrepreneurs, click here.
OUR TIME is a national organization founded and run by young Americans, leveraging pop culture, business partnerships, and online organizing to drive civic engagement through economic empowerment. To follow OUR TIME on Facebook go to: http://www.facebook.com/OurTimeOrg. Or to follow OurTime on Twitter, go to: www.Twitter.com/OurTimeOrg.
Source: Back to the Roots
