This podcast is a video shot live in Boston. For the full experience, watch on YouTube!
I co-sponsored a beach cleanup with Planet Matters, Neurable, and my agency: Aloa.agency.
I also interviewed Planet Matters on their awesome ocean cleanup success. Felix Krainer is the founder of Planet Matters, a global sensation for sustainability. Join me and volunteers from Harvard, MIT and local startups on our quest to pick up beach trash. Felix Krainer created a TikTok movement to make beach cleanups exciting and viral. His innovative approach gamifies positive change, which is a novel approach to both business and life. Special thanks to Dr. Ramses Alcaide and the Neurable team for co-sponsoring the beach cleanup. Tune in to be inspired to organize your own beach cleanup and make a positive impact!
Follow Planet Matters.
https://neurable.com
I'm the founder of the flow agency, and I came all the way from Los Angeles here because all of our beaches are already clean, so I had to apply it on some ventree to actually find the drag. So get your act together, Boston. So I'm here with the man, Felix Kryna. How do I say it correctly? Kryna. And I'm here in Boston for a very special reason. What is the reason that we're both here in Boston right now? So we came to Boston to organize a beach cleanup with a couple of volunteers from Harvard, from the startup Nurable, and from other cool places near Boston making a difference together. You have turned the idea of cleaning up the ocean into something that is more of a movement than a one-off thing. So how did you create this movement on TikTok? Yeah, so I basically started off when I was 16 building theme and meme pages on Instagram to entertain a young German audience, and I always thought to myself, there's two passions that I have. The one is entrepreneurship, and the other one is sustainability, doing something for the planet, because I think that's the one thing we can work on that will benefit all the other things humanity is currently working on. So when you first began, what kind of videos did you post in the very beginning? So I first started out posting videos of people in Hawaii and in places like Italy or Spain that clean up the beach by themselves, and I edited it in a nice and entertaining way. So people actually want to watch it, because what often happens is that environmental videos are usually about a very sad topic where people rather look away, but we make it entertaining and fun and show that there's young people on the beach that are doing something to make a difference, and this gives them the urge to actually also join in and do the same thing, which is just to go out there. So a lot of people, myself included, they put their face on everything because we're egomaniacs who are in desperate need of attention and likes, and we crave that kind of validation. Sorry, something in my throat. So your whole thing is to depersonalize it and to make it a faceless page. What's the advantage and why did you want to make a page that didn't necessarily have your face attached? Yeah, I think it's great to pick out a certain topic like, for example, cleaning up the beach and to show that people all over the world can do it by simply walking out of their doorstep and starting in their local nature. And for that reason, we can create a great domino effect because if it would be only me, I would have to all the time be in every video and travel the world constantly looking for the best content. But as we have so many other volunteers worldwide, we, by the way, call them planeteers involved in setting up this movement and sending in videos of them cleaning up, we can choose from a broader variety of content and thereby attract many more views and use social media to actually motivate people for doing good, that's awesome. Getting to see the ocean and help clean it up. Have you got anything in your direction? No, a pair of broken sunglasses. Oh, yeah. Nothing super impressive. And you just kept them. Yes, I kept on by wearing them clearly they're gorgeous, recycling. When you started it, were you amazed at how quickly you got traction? Was that something you expected? Were you pleasantly surprised? Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised I started in February of 2022 and I posted a video every single day of a different person on some spot on the earth cleaning up the beach or cleaning up underwater, which is one thing that actually goes really viral on TikTok. So let's say for the first 30 videos that I edited, nothing really happened and I didn't really catch a lot of traction. But as it was so much of a hard project, I kept going and I always had this bigger goal in mind of finding a topic like plastic pollution that isn't sexy as such and turning it into something that people actually want to see by using the same entertaining methods other people on TikTok use, for example me posting on my meme pages, making it as entertaining as possible. And then on the second month, suddenly the first video got around 10 million views, which was quite surprising and I kept going and it grew really big and then the challenge of course was now we have that page with a couple million followers and we actually still need to turn this whole thing into a movement and start traveling the world and cleaning up myself because by that time I had mostly edited videos of people cleaning up worldwide but it wasn't me going wrong. It was something that you had done yourself. Yeah it was like a side gig at the start, right, that makes sense. When people like me and a lot of people, it's also a generational thing. They think about TikTok. It seems like it's very difficult to be able to do something of value on a platform like that because we see dances and trends and memes and stuff like that. It seems challenging to turn that into something that might be good for the planet on a platform that's often just for entertainment. Are you really optimistic about the platform of TikTok as a vehicle for change? Yeah, I think our videos really go to show that it is possible and the funny thing is with going viral on TikTok for example, there's a few ground rules that apply, no matter if you have an entertainment page or a beach cleanup page or it's the watch time that is important. You need to see that as many people as possible on average view your video as long as possible and you can achieve that with great hooks, yeah with funny stories, with giving people a specific reason to watch your video until the end and that's what we figured out with a topic like plastic pollution, cleanups and you can figure that out with many different topics. I mean as you know the internet and especially TikTok is very broad, there's very different themes and this is one of them where you can really achieve a great traction. Hell yeah. So what is the future hold for Planet Matters? How are you going to take this movement into the next phase? So what it's first was is we were entertaining people through social media and actually motivating them to start picking up plastic and we thought how can we find a way to reward them not only by being seen by a broader audience but maybe by even giving them vouchers and gift cards and that's where the new Planet Matters app comes into play. Which is a platform where litter pickers can scan the trash that they collected on the beach or in nature and redeem them for planet coins and those planet coins can be then redeemed for offers like gift cards at shops or free trials and thereby we can bridge the gap between companies that want to do something for the environment and litter pickers that are passionate about keeping our nature clean but kind of seek a certain validation or reward for what they're doing. And yeah that's why the winner team right here gets the hand as the picture falls and you're actually getting a gift card from us. First of all the hacking of the TikTok algorithm to get some kind of planetary change is fucking brilliant let's start there. But also the gamification of change and turning this concept into a game that motivates people to do good in the real world is also brilliant and that's why I wanted to have you on and share your story because I think it's just so fascinating. So thanks for letting me be a part of that beach cleanup. It was one of the most fun things and obviously the group of people that we were able to attract doing this and co-sponsoring this event was just insane. It was some of the nicest, most thoughtful, caring students from Harvard, from MIT and founders and just some of the greatest people that you'll ever meet were all collected on the beach yesterday and we're all having a wonderful time. We made that beach cleaner and if everybody could do that and gamify that process I have to believe the world would be in a lot better shape. And the beautiful thing about beach cleanups is that you really see the difference you're making right on the spot. So if the beach like yesterday was dirty before we came here and after that it's clean, it gives you a very rewarding feeling and this can lead to much more and people who go on a beach cleanup can think about, okay, today I cleaned the beach but let me look at other aspects in my life where I can actually do something in terms of sustainability, for example, care for humans in another way and thereby feel good for myself. But only do this because sustainability is a thing we need to do and it's a chore and that's a beautiful thing about beach cleanups. It kind of feels like a treasure hunt while taking a walk on the beach and you never know what you'll find next. Hey, we're all some really glad to have you all here, man. How's your first cleanup going, buddy? It's going pretty good. I think I stepped on a hypodermic needle back there though and oh wow, did you? I'm sorry to hear that. I feel kind of, are you fine? I feel kind of funny, man. Hey, did you already clean up the sky? I wish you'd wrapped this up here. There's no trash in the sky. You're hallucinating, man. Did you clean it up? Cleaning up. Every day shows the time. But it's really well. Bye. Bye. Bye. Hang on, let me take care of it. Yeah, well, you know, I've said it before and I'll say it again, the great problem with this country is these foreigners who come in and they think that they can just pick up all of our valuable trash. We put it there for a reason, gang. Frankly, I'm shocked and offended and greatly disappointed of all of the things in America so far. What was your favorite experience and what was your worst experience? My favorite experience must have been going to the beach with you guys and feeling this community experience as a whole and like being part of something bigger and like showing that here in America, we're making a difference with all the resources we have and all the smart students from Harvard, all the smart guys up in the nurable office. So shout out to Ramz's guy watching us, watching, like Mr. Burns, scheming away. Exactly. Exactly. So I think America really shows that having a small idea and turning this into a larger vision and thereby influencing people like, for example, Ramz's is doing with his headsets. It's much more possible than in countries like Austria. I'll say the least favorite experience. What did you order for a drink? This is very special American lager. Very special. Can you show this? This wonderful American lager. It's a highlight from Miller. I don't know why he doesn't say American in the mirror. Oh God. The champagne? The champagne. You're telling me. Yeah. Let me taste this. Is that the highlight? Do you feel better about it now? Yeah. What's going on? And again to wrap up, thank you Felix. It's super fucking cool what you're doing. Shout out to Ramz's arcade, Dr. Ramz's arcade and all of the nurable team for co-sponsoring this beach cleanup. We couldn't have done it without them and that's the reason we're here in Boston. It was a great event. Check out Planet Matters. Check out what nurable is up to. Follow and if you want to organize a beach cleanup, I think we can both testify that it is a really great thing to do and it feels wonderful. So Felix, thanks brother. Thank you so much. Absolute pleasure. If you organize a beach cleanup, send us a video to get published on our page as well. That's right. If you want to get some rewards, you can test your planet matters up. Hell yeah. All right. And with that, the official podcast is over. My boy here, Felix, for Planet Matters. Let's get this going. Let's save the ocean. We're about to do Mad Dog, 3.57 over a million squibbles. It's just a baby amount. Just a baby amount. All right. Moving around your tongue. Did I put too little? Oh. Hey, your face is getting red, man. Yeah. Let's go. All right. Want some more? No. You're doing well. You're handling like a jam. Yeah. You're doing it really well. Yeah. Go really get out of search. Tastes like life. a lot of life. [MUSIC PLAYING]
