How to Be an Authentic Leader: AI, VC, and Startup Culture with Amy Brown

from the crossroads of America in the Hoosier State of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening right now in the heartland I'm Matt Hunter CEO at powderkeg and I'll be one of your hosts for today's conversation I'm joined in Studio by co-host Nate spangle head of community at Powder Keg and on the show today is Amy Brown founder and CEO of Authentics like people had said hey you're going to raise raise venture capital I had no idea what they were talking about I didn't know that it was going to be a thing for me I really didn't Amy Brown is the founder and CEO of Authentics a machine learning software that analyzes millions of conversations to find Tendencies and trends that Healthcare organizations use to make educated decisions the business has raised more than 28 million dollars has more than a hundred employees or authenticians and is growing like crazy we are excited to have her on the show today to hear her story and learn from the growth and challenges that she has faced not only as a successful startup entrepreneur but also a successful mom Amy welcome to get in thank you it's so awesome to be here it's awesome it's awesome to have you here today and I'm so excited to talk because your team has been growing like crazy uh I have so many friends who've joined the team recently and they all say great things um I would love to just learn a little bit more about you personally first um did you get exposed to entrepreneurship at an early age have you always been entrepreneurial when I was growing up my dad is was a physician my mom a teacher however they grew up Farm kids and there's just something about that Farm agricultural upbringing that shows up no matter what career path you take and at a very young age just that Ingenuity hard work sweat all of that I was exposed to really young and then in my early 20s right when I became a mom for the first time I got an idea for a product a baby product and while I had a career that I was passionate about I ended up creating this side hustle of this baby product and was able to actually bring it all the way to Market and sell it into a big box retailer and that was really my foray into trying out entrepreneurial ships but I heard that you were an entrepreneur in age five oh my mom would tell you that yeah my mom would tell you that we were on a family vacation it was on a beach and I apparently was spending an afternoon coloring pictures and I got the idea to go out on the beach during the sunset and try to sell my my drawings for a nickel and it was so funny because when people are out running on the beach they do not have any money so I didn't make very many sales but my mom said at the time that she knew I'd be okay after that okay so a lot to unpack there first thing I want to ask both of your parents grew up on farms where at yes yes so in Owen County which is southwest of Indy and there's a little tiny town called gosport and that is where they both grew up and all four of my grandparents grew up there so it's a deep history in rural Indiana amazing and then we gotta we have to dive into this side hustle that you grew and got into a box retailer I think that's where I want to hear about finding out doing this while you were employed full-time what was your job at the time at the time I think I had a role everment programs for a managed care company and when I started going back to work after maternity leave I was looking for this product that I wanted for my baby and I couldn't find exactly what I wanted and so I just started coming up with this idea and developing a prototype and I was involved in a an Executive coaching Network and I was talking about my idea and someone said I could help you produce that and so one thing just led to the other and I just kept pursuing it and seeing where it would go oh my God so what was the product yeah can you give this guy can we yeah it's called Nola Bulls okay and uh named after uh my first child's name is NOLA but it also it's a replacement for traditional labels so nullables is is a two-part name and they they are a wrapable snappable design label that can be machine washed and reused and it's also that you can keep updating your information on your labels without it getting dirty and messy and I learned about Manufacturing in China I learned about just Logistics what it takes to get into a big box retailer I was able to get a celebrity endorsement from uh her name is Tori Spelling I don't know yeah she's a 90s uh yeah what was she in she had her big hit in 90210 which was a popular one I was growing up but then she got into reality TV was very very much known as a mom mompreneur type person and so I actually Stella my daughter Stella was five months old and we went out on and were filmed on in her reality show and all that good stuff so you can have fun on YouTube trying to find the little snippet I missed yes we'll see if we can find that b-roll for the Tic Tacs later absolutely what happened to knowables so uh you know it just was a massive investment of not only time but my own personal money and I got to a stage where it could either I could keep pouring and try to make it a thing or not and I just decided I wasn't passionate enough about that type of product to leave my career for it but still that entrepreneurial spark had been lit and so it was if several years later that I found the thing that I was most passionate about making the big leap for I love that and what did you learn during that time of growing a side hustle while also having a full-time job oh gosh it was so great to learn about an entirely different industry and it you you develop some muscles that maybe you're not using in your current career and it just having perspective is doing things that require you to get uncomfortable and have a different perspective on life on industry or whatever is just it's so valuable and I learned a lot about myself and what I could do and I learned a lot about my passion for inventing and it was really good for me I don't have any regrets even though the business ultimately didn't make it it taught me so much that really has served me was there one struggle that you got through during that particular Venture that you feel like grew you more than others yeah I think in that business I learned a lot about the type of customer that I do well with in that particular business I was serving a consumer population and it was really humbling to go to trade shows with my little product and have moms who were in my demographic critiquing and criticizing and just like dealing with rejection and dealing with people saying your product isn't good enough or whatever it's really good good uh character building do you think it's important that entrepreneurs can deal with rejection it has to be it's a requirement right absolutely that like you just there are times when you know you are so convicted about what you're doing you are so passionate and you believe and yet you can't force others to believe you have to just continually hone your craft your message and hope that the timing you know of your message and the receiver are aligned you mentioned the spark was lit after that first Venture which of course we love here at Powder Keg hearing that this park was lit what what was that Venture seven years later I'm assuming it was Authentics it's Authentics yeah so I had a couple of different roles after nullables that gave me more experience that I I didn't know at the time I needed before starting Authentics and I'm just I got to do more leadership in healthcare which gave me more and more exposure to the problem that ultimately became like the passion that fueled the starting of Authentics and so I'm really glad sometimes you look at the things that happen in your life that you wanted to have be successful and at the time you're like why didn't this go my way and that's how I felt about nolables but then you look back 10 years later and you're like oh it's because I Was preparing for something else and that's how I see it talk to us about the problem that you were saying yeah so as in the healthcare setting I always had operations roles which often meant I was leading the teams of people who were talking to customers every day and in healthcare organizations and many industry organizations there's large contact centers where they're talking to mass populations of consumers and that was my role is to lead those teams and I was just blown away first of all by the amount of data we were producing every day in the form of conversations we were recording customer conversations as chat and text became a thing we were we were maintaining that data and we literally did nothing with it it just sat in storage and it was this unstructured messy data that was hard to organize hard to find what you wanted and it just sat in a storage closet and that was one thing I was blown away by the second was that we had sales marketing strategy c-suite all on one side of the house like developing a go to market approach and trying to figure out like what customers wanted and then in my side of the house we had all this insight about what customers wanted because they tell us all day every day in these conversations and there was no bridge between the two and that's really the problem that I can't became most passionate about solving is creating a bridge for voices that are pretty much lying dormant that could add massive value to the overall not only the healthcare business but the outcomes that we're all trying to achieve for patients and I really started Authentics with this idea of resurfacing those voices and organizing them and telling a story at the macro level and also at the micro level that helped leaders know how to be responsive to their customer population that's such a cool problem to be working on and I'm curious what kind of a tipped you over the edge to start taking action and what were those first steps that you took to take action chasing that idea down versus just leaving it as an idea yeah I had been this idea had been percolating in my brain for many months and as time grew I just couldn't un think about it anymore it was just was very present in my brain and so I started to imagine doing it imagine taking the leap and starting to have conversations with my husband and people in my close Network about what it would really be like to take a big risk at the time I was the single income earner because my husband we had decided he was going to be a stay-at-home dad and so I was the only source of income and insurance and so taking the risk felt really big and some would say rightfully so irresponsible I had four children Stella was only three years old so she's my youngest and you know it it it obviously was a really significant financial consideration but what ultimately led to the decision was just honestly it just felt like a calling like I could not do it and it just was so present and I had the support of my family and so we had conversations at the dinner table about the lifestyle changes we would need to make and started rearranging our financial and spending picture and and one day I turned in my letter of resignation and and then I was off how did you feel that day turning in that letter of resignation both liberated and terrified at the same time yeah understandable so you turn in your stuff on the last day yeah you're like I'm an entrepreneur now yes what did you do so I actually count uh my going hanging out my shingle if you will as the day I did a LinkedIn post and it was August 5th of 2018.

so I'm coming up on five years and I just said hey here's my business at that time I didn't really have a product I had a little bit of a prototype product I had zero employees no no clients because I I really didn't start even the the basics of the business until after I left my job and so the first three months were really around picking myself up off the floor every day telling myself it would be okay and just starting to like send out some emails to some people in my network and see who would have coffee with me and who might give me a chance to try out the idea after about three months I got my first paying gig so first win right three months in so you were a mother of four your family you're going for three months and you're like oh my gosh I don't know if this thing is gonna work yeah for sure riveting yes and there were there were I'd be scrolling on LinkedIn and I'd see like job opportunities executive director of this non-profit or P of this in healthcare and it was so tempting to respond to those in those early days where I'm just like terrified but but I remember one day I was I was dealing with fear management and I just had a moment of just surrendering to the situation and just saying if this is meant to be like I'm going to trust that it will be and if it's not I'm going to be okay we will be okay and it was when I truly like internally let go that the next day a contract landed right and then a couple like a couple weeks after that a big contract landed and when that happened I got the call it was in my house from a very large pharmaceutical company and even though the contract size now would be considered small to Authentics to me it was massive and I went downstairs to the dinner table and I was kids mom's gonna make it work out okay major moment for me so did uh when you left your previous job did you have funding secured or was it like full on risk like I gotta go find customers ASAP it was all around customers ASAP I didn't even people had said hey you're going to raise raise venture capital well I had no idea what they were talking about I didn't know that it was going to be a thing for me I really didn't it was all about like selling the idea first and using the Prototype that I quickly spun up and I'm glad I took that approach because having some initial Revenue helped me make that initial fundraise more successful but I really I didn't know what I was doing from a fundraise personally I've never done anything like that before so so two questions there and we'll go down One path first was you're not technical are you no I'm an operations leader when we went through the the kind of uh flyover of Authentics it says machine learning right yeah how as a non-technical Founder did you get an MVP that was good enough to sell to take on customers yeah really we didn't start with AI already figured out we started with what we wanted AI to do and I brought in a very trusted partner Michael Armstrong who's our CTO who has taught me basically everything I need to know about Ai and what he said is Amy if you want good AI you have to start with training the data and training the data properly to build a model requires humans who understand how to interpret what's being said in these conversations and so we spent the first year we had a UI a piece of software but all of the the working with the data was human data labeling and that's what created the foundation of our AI models that became our machine learning that you hear about so you were you were working with AI in 2018 2019 before it was cool yes before it was cool before Chad gbt was a thing and I'm really proud of how we approached it we talk about data labeling as a practice most companies that use AI do their data labeling outside of the US it's or they to a third party and it's all about finding as cheap a labor as possible to do data labeling and for us it was really important that the AI that we were building was going to be accurate and meaningful for the healthcare sector that we were serving and so we decided to and this is very expensive investment but hire our own team members who are who represent a diverse group of human beings who have worked inside the healthcare setting and so when they're listening to conversations and they're creating tags and labels that eventually turn into our AI models they're not just being able to understand the words being spoken they understand the context they understand the the the industry they understand what patients are actually going through and so it just makes their work so much higher quality and so yeah that's how we've approached it could you give a 10 000 foot flyover of what data labeling and like building an AI model looks like just like 30 seconds of from the top 10 000 feet looking in on that yeah so conversational data is just black right it's like it's all this lines of of text when you have a conversation and it gets transcribed it's just Reams and reams of of paragraphs right in order to interpret that and to turn that into AI someone has to categorize and label oh this part of the conversation is a point of confusion talking about Ai and so it takes a human being to do that in a really competent culturally competent way and so that's what data labeling is wow it's so important I think that uh people who are building things with AI Now understand just how much Humanity needs to go into it for those products to actually be effective yes and anyone who has used chat GPT understands that yes and I would encourage any listener who hasn't gone and tried using chat EBT go use it you'll be amazed in a lot of ways but also in a lot of ways oh okay yeah this is not human exactly and and I would encourage anyone who is considering purchasing AI of for any sort to ask those software companies how they train their data because that really matters and it will help determine the the actual Roi that you get from the AI quick break from our normal programming I have Erica schweire CEO from Elevate Ventures here in the studio today Erica thanks for being here yeah thanks for having me and you're going to tell us a little bit about this rally Innovation conference that's coming up yep so it's the largest cross-sector Innovation conference in the world we're going to feature six Innovation Studios so think hard tech software Sports Tech Ag and food Healthcare and Entrepreneurship is going to be our catch-all I love that so tell me what is who's it for yeah it's for innovators entrepreneurs investors honestly anybody probably listening to this podcast it's going to be a multi-day thing that's multi-day in downtown Indianapolis yep people coming in from all over the country and maybe even all over the world to be here that's our hope yep and the dates are actually August 29th to the 31st perfect and if people want to find out more information about speakers tickets things like that where can they go yeah so they just go to rallyinnovation.

com and sign up for communications they can also get their tickets I love you heard it here rallyinnovation. com we'll see you there how they train their data wow speaking of humanity one of the things that you mentioned in those first three months was just picking yourself up off the floor every day and just going back at it but you also mentioned this moment of surrender and it seems to me like those are different things but you did both of those in different ways and I know that probably wasn't the last time you picked yourself up off the floor if your entrepreneurship journey is like any other entrepreneur entrepreneur's Journey that's been on the show how do you balance that hey when do I Surrender versus when do I pick myself back up and pump myself up to go at it again yeah my Mo like many entrepreneurs I think is they were just so driven to action and a lot of us like control that start our own thing and so what I have found is when I tend to be too myopic on my own agenda I can it's like I can get the grip of the wheel so tight in my hands and uh a lot of times when I'm observant I'll find that things don't go my way when I my hands are that tightly gripped and so this is just from living life for decades and decades I've learned that the times I've experimented with letting go of the grip a little bit sometimes life starts to go my way a bit more and so that's usually I I know I need to surrender a bit when I'm feeling super anxious and and tightening up so those are my Clues are there any practices that you do that help you kind of clue into those I've invited lots of feedback into my life and people thankfully hold up a mirror to me a few times every so often to let me know when it appears that I'm I like for example I was told fairly recently hey Amy we can always tell by your behavior when it's board meeting week okay thanks for that clue so feedback for sure and also I just I try to be very self-aware self-examined I try to meditate uh pretty frequently work out and all those things help me clear my head in terms of knowing when to pick myself up off the floor like rejection is real and whether you're raising capital and I've talked to dozens and dozens of VCS who have passed you by or prospective clients you you have to find that inner sense of resilience and that sense of self-worth and that's usually those are the times where I know I need to really be my own self-advocate to get myself up again that's great perspective do you remember your first investor pitch remember yes I do it was actually a speed dating VC speed dating event put on by Tech Point actually and I remember exactly who it was who I pitched to and he was so nice because I couldn't get my iPad to like I had my presentation on the iPad and suddenly it blipped out and I couldn't get it and he was just like it's okay take your time two minutes you're a Healthcare Executive that's transitioning to starting a machine learning AI tech company that didn't know anything about VC right where did you start there how did you like find out what Venture cap like what VC stood for yeah I bought the book that and I listened to that while walking on the moon oh I think it's called Venture deals yes Venture deals yes exactly and I also started to tap into my network of folks who had done Angel Investing and that's where I just started to learn about it and those early Angel Investors that I got to know taught me a lot about it and I did have a couple of early Angel Investors but pretty quickly through introductions I met some of the Indie based VC firms and I got invited to speed dating events and I started just organically learning through baptism by fire I'll say you just did audiobook for Venture deals that's bold because they're like a ton of like tables and numbers oh yes there is and I remember listening to them on okay section four absolutely I love that and I think that speaks a little bit to the Tech Community throughout Indiana it's like you start having a few conversations with a couple Angel Investors and all of a sudden you're you're messing with your iPad at Adventure speed dating event that's pretty cool really cool and I am blown away by how many seasoned Tech Executives in this city open their door Timmy didn't have any reason I was gonna do nothing for them and they were just there to be a source of encouragement what was the first Mo what was the first like you're on someone's calendar that's oh they know their thing about tech who is the first person Scott McCorkle yes and I couldn't believe that I was getting time with him I went down to the Salesforce Tower where he was at the time and went up to whatever floor and I was so intimidated before I met him and about just the opportunity and and he was just so gracious and kind and patient and humble and made me feel like that I was right there with him and it was I was blown away amazing what did you learn in that meeting I learned that Scott was starting a new company right and that timing is everything on companies and I learned that he well he had so much success that he was going for it again and the entrepreneurial Journey continues like there's just start up life is challenging and hard and I was just so respected his humility about the journey itself and the fact that he just came with no ego about the whole thing and it really helped me feel relaxed about you know where I was at amazing I've had very similar experiences with McCorkle not every investor replies to investor updates and sometimes it's humbling just how few investors reply to investor updates yeah but he is one who will very frequently be like hey I saw this how you doing and then hopping on a call and just being like we've all been there like exactly it's okay yeah I I will say I've enjoyed relationships with investors and they all come from different perspectives and they're all valuable I really value investors who have been entrepreneurs because they just get you in a whole different way and so it's so great yeah totally agree talk about that first round of funding because that that's always a pivotal point for every startup but for Authentics did it take as long as you thought it was going to take to raise money did it take longer than you thought it was going to take to raise money and what was that kind of like deciding factor that was like okay this is it's go time yeah exciting Factor was I hit a point in my my growth with Authentics that I realized I'd seen enough early insights from our initial clients and I saw enough about what our clients were reacting responding to with our product that I could tell we actually had this really cool opportunity to blow it out of the water I don't think Venture raising is for every business it depends on what your business is and also if you're trying to grow at a rate that is going to meet the market at a certain time and I just I came to the conclusion that my particular product and the timing of that that opportunity was going to be ripe for venture capital and so that's what kind of led to my decision and in terms of like my expectations I didn't know what to expect because I had never been through it before a very humbling experience in those early days I really had to get comfortable with being having people criticize my idea forced me to think about the business long term think about go to market strategy all things that I think I take it for granted that I had it all up in my head and I'd figure it out and I was forced to go through the process it was actually really healthy and it I don't know how many months it took probably a good six months or so of pitching and being frustrated and iterating on it how many pitch decks do you know per raised you iterate on it was so many was that a very organic process for you where is this kind of like it was in your head and you're taking mental notes along the way and it's okay this part they really lit up at so I'm gonna put that closer to the beginning of the pitch and this is where I lose people so I'm going to expand or did you take a more methodical approach where it was okay debrief after the pitch writing writing notes down changing slides what does your process look like when you're getting that level of feedback and that frequency of feedback yeah I was I started with a framework that I had read about someone gave me a resource like here's what your 10 slide should be don't go over 10 slides don't go over 10 slides yes and then with each round of feedback I would iterate pretty quickly with every round and I would respond to the feedback I had gotten I also learned though to listen to my own Voice through that whole process because one person's feedback is one person's feedback and that doesn't mean that the next investor is going to see it the same way and so I also learned oh everybody has their perspective and you have to figure out if the feedback you're getting feels authentic enough to actually incorporate it or if you're just doing it because this investor said to you but then this investor didn't care about that right so it's you learn as you go talk to me about authentic and the word authentic and what it means to you and why you decided to include it in the name of your company yeah it started with my decision to leave my corporate career a big part of my decision wasn't just the problem I wanted to solve but also the culture I wanted to spend the rest of my working years in I did some self-examination I already turned 40.

I was looking back on my career right before I left to start Authentics and I I realized that I grew up in the corporate world and very much wanted to be successful and so I looked around me at what it what I thought it took to be successful and I over the course of my career I started to adopt some behaviors tactics whatever you want to call it that looked like I was like I could compete and win in the environments I was in but once I got to the stage of my life I was I don't really like that about me anymore I really want to see if I can build something in a more authentic culture and for me that meant being less fear-based in my decision making it meant being always very competitive but not competitive against other people instead like with other people and so Authentics and the name really came from a desire to build a culture that allowed everyone to be be themselves and figure out who they are and I'm learning that it's not an easy process there's a lot of unpacking people have to do and they're invited into authenticity and so it's it continues to be a journey but it's when we take super seriously what were some of the things you did early on with the team to try to help Foster that culture and Community Beyond just acting as if yourself and showing up authentically or maybe we shouldn't just gloss over that because that's pretty big deal yeah no it's so much harder than just hey be yourself because we we are products of what we've had to survive what we'd have to cope through we all adopt these accessories if you will that you have to examine whether or not there you really want them anymore one of the practices that we started at the very early days that we still have is every authenticine is invited to choose a word for the year that represents something that they are working towards or is their Beacon for the year and everybody has an opportunity to share what their word is why and then we continue those conversations every quarter with each other as an accountability partner if you will and I have found that we've had some of the most deep and meaningful conversations as a company in those word sharing sessions and it's really it's a chance to explore who we are in using a word as a as a point of discussing it what was your word for the year this year yeah my word for this year is mirror oh why is that two reasons one is a verb and one is a noun mirror as a noun has all to do with how I look at myself when I quote look in the mirror and I think I have an opportunity to be more inclusive with my own vision of what I see both the negatives as well as the positives I think sometimes I tend to focus in one particular area and that doesn't necessarily serve me well and then as the verb I think part of my job as a leader today is to help hold up the mirror to others in a way that helps them see what I see or see either the blind spots or whatever and sometimes those conversations are like really fun because you're talking about something that's really awesome and then sometimes those are really hard conversations and I found that it's harder than I thought to hold up a mirror for someone else are you ready to transform your brand with award-winning video content that captures your vision and connects with your audience check out Alchemy the experts at building your brand using video from story driven social media Snippets that leave a lasting impression to compelling full-length documentaries they have got the expertise to take your brand to the next level Alchemy is actually our video partner here on get in they do amazing work all the videos across social across YouTube all that is done by Alchemy and they're an amazing partner to work with reach out to me Nate at Powder Keg or check out alchemefilmco.

com to get connected with Alden and his team they will take care of all of your video needs what are some of the challenges you face with the team now over 100 people at Authentics amazing what are some of the challenges you've faced culturally as you've scaled yeah I never thought when I'd finally start my own company that I would do so in an environment where it was like so virtual covid and for me like I'm a very tactical tactile person so I like to see people I like to give hugs I'm told by HR like hey you gotta give everybody an option yeah but yeah so developing culture in a virtual or a hybrid environment super hard to do and so being intentional about connection with people and and all has been a real challenge I think we've done an okay job at it but are still trying to work on it what are some of the things that have worked definitely having points of conversation that are beyond the meetings beyond the work meetings I I think that having more personal conversation or sharing with each other and creating a space where people can be a little bit vulnerable and share who they are and tell a little bit about their surroundings like we have people in all different states and so just being able to share that part of your life that's been a really meaningful practice for us tactically how did how do you do that on the team today like because it's hard sometimes I think to find that line or no hey is this a chit chat conversation or are we getting down to business and when do you shift gears where it's that first like two minutes of Zoom like where are you from I'm from Indianapolis how's the weather there it's sunny out today and us midwesterners could do that for two hours if given the opportunity Yeah we actually create space like yeah we say hey this particular time is not about work it's about with this next hour is devoted to talking about our word or it's talking about either a particular event going on and everybody knows coming into that we also try to use breakout sessions to create smaller more intimate groups and then we we call everybody back to share out and so we try to create like a virtual coffee shop Vibe if we can it's hard I think that having the word though that pulls everyone together or it's I know for our team it's like oh Nate's doing a triathlon and Matt's working on his music and we know that because we're a small team but as you grow to over a hundred people having that one thing of maybe it's risk or maybe it's stability or whatever that might be and hey take any risks lately exactly and that can lead to a really powerful story and you're like oh yeah Dan and HR with skydiving last week let's go yes and I what you said is so right because when you select your word and you share it the whole company is encouraged to ask how are you doing with that word or what you just said How's your risk taking been lately and that is just allows the the relationships to deepen I love that so much yeah I'd like to actually talked about your career as a Healthcare Executive right and wanting to make a change and build this authentic culture but do you think there were any traits or characteristics from being a healthcare exec that's helped you as a a tech CEO yeah I think the number one thing I have lots of disadvantages and that I've never built a tech company before didn't know anything about tech it had never raised Capital before but what I did have going for me is I knew the problem firsthand and I knew my customer firsthand because I used to be her and so the thing that I feel really fortunate about is I was able to use my network and use my knowledge of the market to speak the language of our buyer know the buyer really well and be able to make sure that what we were building was going to make an actual impact is there a mentor or a couple of mentors on your path to mentioned Scott McCorkle but I'm curious if there are others who have made a particularly meaningful impact in your journey especially these last couple years as you've really experienced that hyper growth yes in my early days one of my earliest angel investor relationships and someone that had a lot of experience was um Bob Bay in line Bob was a part of the acquisition of a primo and teradata and he taught me so much about VC and Venture Capital raising he also really helped me in those moments where I was getting my first term sheets and I was like what laughs why and so there's some soul-searching moments where like you're raising capital and and bringing on shareholders for the first time and you have a board for the first time and you have to there's some humble moments and he was really helpful to me in that another one I'd mention is is also a local leader who is now a chief Revenue officer at Gregory annapelle his name is David Fisher David and I served it we work together and uh he has just been so great especially on pumping me up for the go to market challenges and has been just a great mentor who's always there for me he gave me a climbing rope he's a climber and I've Rock climbed with him and he gave me this symbolic climbing rope tied in a climbing knot and it's still with me in my office as hey I've always got your back I'll always catch you and it's just stuff like that that has helped me I love that is there a you mentioned the book Venture deals and we all know Lean Startup and hard thing about hard things and these ones that get named a lot in the like Tech and startup world but I'm curious if there's a a book or a podcast or even like a music album that has been particularly like impactful for you yes okay so first of all the book thing the business book thing I Venture The Venture deals was so helpful because it was something brand new because I was over 40 and been in so many corporate environments there wasn't like a particular business uh model that I was drawing to it was more like an amalgamation of all of those and just my experience but music albums yes I got introduced to an artist named Trevor Hall and he's I think more popular on the west coast but he's making his way Midwest anyway he has an album called the fruitful Darkness yes and it's about what you would think it is it's about every song is about the struggle of when you feel like you you cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel how do you embrace the darkness that you're in and that came to me that album came to me in 2019 when I was just getting my legs under me and it was helpful to me throughout that whole year is there a favorite lyric or song that you like from that album yeah so there's a song called what I know and the lyric is what I know is that I don't know and now I'll dance and I'll sing and I'll live full and I'll give it all to the call of the unknown and when you're in this time of putting it all out there and we talked about surrender you have to be okay that you don't know absolutely the fruitful Darkness yeah fruitful Darkness yeah yeah that's wonderful I'm gonna be listening to that one I haven't heard it cool you should check it out yeah that's wonderful I think it's about that time I think it is about that time Matt all right Amy this is our favorite part of the show okay it's called the lightning round it's Nate's favorite part yeah so I'm going to ask you a couple questions it's all rapid fire quick first thing that comes to your mind there are no wrong answers unless it's the wrong answer so no there's absolutely no wrong answers so here we go outside of the amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem what is Indiana known for corn it's corn most popular answer corn and basketball yeah Corner basketball and basketball all right we'll take that what is one Hidden Gem in Indiana I gotta promote gosport Indiana they have bed races every August what is a Bed Race a bed race is where you take an old hospital bed that has wheels on it and you it's a competition of who can pull the hospital bed down Main Street as fast as possible and it's like a relay type race it's really fun is there someone in the bed yeah that's happening oh yes amazing we're gonna have to find some b-roll footage b-roll yes I might need to get a team honestly that's something you should powder cake oh my gosh yes okay who's someone that we need to keep on our radar someone who's doing big things so I watched a pitch a couple weeks ago and it was the co-founder of it's called navigate maternity no way that was our last interview she was just in this room yes she was here less than an hour ago oh my gosh she impressed the hell out of me she wished she spoke right before I did and I've been following her ever since a geek I've been like oh you're so awesome and as a we're both moms of four kids so impressive yes that's fate yeah that is plus one on that yeah so now you gotta subscribe to get in if you haven't already because you gotta hear her story she was that was amazing too amazing oh my gosh Serendipity I am bumped up right now oh my God that's awesome I had no idea yeah yeah they did not see each other in the hallway this was not scripted I want everyone to know that that's wonderful I do have a couple one more quick one here you're the CEO of a high growth tech company where do you go to unwind hmm hmm or what do you do to unwind I'll give you either one okay I love a good IPA and I'll go about anywhere to have a good idea what's your favorite I don't know if they're still around but Indiana City Brewing on the east side of downtown yes I love their ideas to have our events there yes love those ipas and so I love drinking a good beer at the end of the day and I I love rock climbing and usually I have to leave the the Indiana area to do that but I do love Hoosier Heights on the northwest side of town too oh I love that climb on yeah there we go amazing this was a spectacular conversation thank you so much for sharing the insights and making like VC Venture scale companies and Tech see it's accessible to whether your background's in healthcare whether your background is anything right pick up a couple books talk to some people you can navigate your way there right you can absolutely and everybody's experience brings something to the tables that's what I've learned thank you so much for this opportunity it's been great thanks Amy congrats on everything we're all rooting for you thank you so much this has been get in a powder kick production in partnership with Elevate Ventures and we want to hear from you if you have suggestions for a guest or segment reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email to discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana check out our newsletter at powderkeg.

com newsletter and to apply for membership to the powder cake executive Community Check out powdercake. com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listened to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at casted have you covered cassid is the first and only podcast in video marketing platform made specifically for B2B Brands I love this about them the platform makes it possible to publish Syndicate amplify and measure the value of your podcast and video content in fact we use it for our podcast here at Powder Keg and if you're a startup you should listen up because cassid for startups is definitely for you they are offering exclusive deep discounts of up to 82 percent off retail price for qualifying startups connect with casted casted. us slash powderkeg