At the lowest point of her life, something unexpected happened that helped Rohr pick herself back up. "I got over a thousand e-mails from people of love and support," she says, still looking surprised by it nearly three years later. "They were saying, 'What are you doing next?' and 'Thank you for your honesty.' Some came back with confessions of their own."
It was far too soon, the pain still too fresh, for her to realize what these messages were telling her about the way this failure would transform her life. But those notes of encouragement gave her the strength to reach out to friends for support. With their help, she put the contents of her apartment in storage and got out of Texas. She traveled for six months, staying with friends. "I went through a period of questioning my calling, or that I could be worth anything or do anything good for the world ever again," she says. "But at the same time, I had this sense that I was born to lead. I needed to get my crap together so I could be an effective leader."
Rohr decided she had had enough sitting around. She dyed her auburn hair back to its naturally darker shade and moved back to New York City, hoping that the city's energy would help jolt her back to life. She entertained a job offer from a VC firm before finally giving in to what her heart was telling her to create: a new nonprofit. She would create a version of PEP that operated outside the prison system. (PEP is still going strong in Texas. "We came very close to having the doors locked," says Bert Smith, who is now CEO of the program. "There were a number of people who were convinced that without Catherine Rohr, PEP would fail. I'm happy to say that it didn't.")
Defy Ventures has raised more than $1.5 million in donations and pledges from VC firms, hedge funds, businesses, and private foundations. Last fall, Rohr began accepting applications for the first class. After requesting referrals from the New York parole and probation departments and about 25 prisoner rehabilitation programs, Defy received more than 180 applications from former inmates interested in the free classes. Rohr looked for candidates who had high school diplomas or GEDs, who owned up to their crimes, and who were motivated to change their lives.
Today, when Rohr stands before a classroom of ex-cons and future entrepreneurs, everyone understands that the group shares a common story of failure—separated by degrees, of course. A few weeks after the program began, she told them all about what happened in Texas. "I was very hesitant to step foot in the classroom again," says Rohr. "I was concerned about how would these guys look at me. But I've never felt that. They are so respectful. I think that I'm able to be a better leader now that, in a way, we have a shared experience. I know what it feels like to let people down."
Here in the classroom, student Marlon Llin, who served 10 years for conspiracy to sell narcotics, stands at the blackboard. Llin, 37, is trying to figure out how much he should charge for the various services he provides through his new company, Mylo's Repairs. Kene Turner, an instructor from the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship and one of Defy's course leaders, is teaching the men about pricing. Turner asks Llin what he charges to remodel a bathroom. Llin says $150 to $200, and the customer pays for the materials. As the class watches, Turner shows Llin all the things he will have to pay for out of that fee, including insurance, gas for his truck, office supplies, and taxes. As it turns out, Llin isn't making nearly as much as he thought he was. "You're undercharging," says Turner.
Llin—and every other man in the room—has a visible "aha" moment. "I never thought about it that way before," says Llin. "I get it," adds another man in the back. They had been used to thinking like men living paycheck to paycheck, worried only about how much they needed to make per hour to survive and feed their families. Now they are seeing what it means to think like entrepreneurs.
At its core, the true purpose of Defy is to change the way these men think about themselves and their lives, says Rohr. One of her techniques is something she calls the Ten Bear Hugs. Every class starts with group hugs. It's a strange sight, watching these men, many of whom have done decades of hard time, warmly embrace one another and everyone else in the room. "Initially, we didn't like it," says Jeff Ewell, who was incarcerated for a little less than a year for conspiracy to sell firearms. He is creating an online music exchange that would let artists buy instrumental tracks directly from producers. "But now we have to get told, 'Sit down, stop hugging each other; we've got to get stuff done.' " Rohr's goal is to break down the walls these men have had up around themselves for much of their lives.
Fabian Ruiz spent more than half his life with corrections officers who, he says, "don't even look at inmates as people." At 16, Ruiz killed the man who shot his older brother. While awaiting trial on Rikers Island in New York City, he attempted to escape and was recaptured. He was tried as an adult and sentenced to 20 years to life. He spent the next 21 years in a series of maximum-security prisons in New York State. He was released about a year ago at the age of 37.
Ruiz learned about Defy from a friend. His brown eyes dance when he talks about his start-up, Infor-Nation. It will sell printouts of webpages to inmates of New York's prison system, who are blocked from using the Internet. Ruiz thinks his business has huge market potential. He really wants to win the business-plan competition—all the students do. The winners not only get the prize money, but they will also get to participate in Defy's six-month incubator program, helped by a team of entrepreneurs-in-residence and volunteer accountants, lawyers, and other mentors.
But the benefits of this program go well beyond prize money, says Ewell. Defy has helped him open up to other people, he says. "I've always been the type of person to attack everything alone," says Ewell. "The one thing we never learned to do was trust in another individual." But he developed a powerful bond with his fellow classmates. "We kind of became a brotherhood," he says.
To succeed, these men must learn to reject failure, which isn't always easy. Failure can have its own comforts, says Rohr. "When Jesus would go up to a leper or a blind person and ask, 'Do you want to be healed?' it always seemed to me such an idiotic question," she says. "Of course you want to be healed. But a leper was taken care of. If you're not a leper anymore, you have to provide for yourself. You have all these different expectations if you're no longer the blind man. That's how it is with our guys, too. And not all of them want to see."
In fact, almost half the class has quit—Rohr started with 50 students. Some left because they got jobs they couldn't pass up. Others just couldn't hack the workload. Those who have stayed hope that maybe they won't be known for the worst thing they ever did. Maybe they will be known for building something great. The same goes for Rohr, who hopes to eventually expand Defy Ventures to other cities around the country. "I've spent my whole life talking about grace and second chances," she says, "and I have now been the recipient of it."
