from the crossroads of America in the Hoosier State of Indiana this is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening right now in the Heartland I'm Nate spangle head of community at Powder Keg and I'm going to be your host for today's conversation I'm joined in studio with our usual suspects Christopher Toph day CEO at Elevate Ventures and Matt Hunter CEO at powder cake and um I think I used that lesson in a big way with powder keg you know I I was watching this trend of the unbundling of Silicon Valley beyond the bay area for a long long time before I raised any money or decided to go all in on it on today's show we're going to dive deep into both these guys Minds we're going to learn a little bit more on how they think about business investing and hear stories of their successes as well as their failures throughout their entrepreneurial careers gentlemen welcome to the show thank you Nate good to be here stoked the Blessed weird pain in the seat yes if we're hitting failures today then I guess that's just going to take we're going four hours long yeah exactly this is going to be our Mega episode so tune in episode so most of our listeners know who you guys are know a little bit about you but I figured we could do a quick dive but I hope if we're doing our job right I'm hoping there's a bunch of listeners that don't know us it's going to be sweet that would be sweet yeah that's fair that's yeah um there you go well we're gonna help them learn a little bit more about you guys really quickly we're going to dive into your background right so I have a few questions to learn a little bit more about you guys where you're from kind of your upbringing um before we kind of get into the meat of today's show so tell where did you grow up I grew up in a town called Buck Creek Indiana it is about 15 miles from Purdue 15 miles how big is Buck Creek about 300 we had a three-way stop sign a blacksmith and a green elevator heck in a grocery store we had Meisner grocery store that it's about the entire tire store was about as big as a studio about 20 by 40.
this studio is not big for for those of you listening Matt where'd you grow up I grew uh I grew up in West Lafayette which is about zero miles from Purdue um it was a college town it was an awesome place to grow up I know exactly where butt creek is um I did not have a blacksmith in my neighborhood but I had an amazing Community to grow up in lots of college professors as you might imagine all my friends parents worked at Purdue my parents did not but they both got degrees uh additional degrees while we were in West Lafayette what did your parents do my mom was a guidance counselor she's a mental health counselor now um but she was even my guidance counselor in fifth grade which was very weird that sounds stressful and my dad was a Serial entrepreneur so he was in line to inherit the family business decided not to and went off and did his own thing so he did all kinds of different uh businesses s.
a. t prep business um he did uh oh gosh that was SAT prep was my favorite because he always had little songs and Jingles to memorize things yes and he helped me with my SATs for sure which was great I hope we don't have to share our SAT scores can we move to the next item well no I don't know best predictor of success for sure absolutely that would be a good one knowing that SAT scores of future successful that would be interesting uh tof what did your parents do uh so my father was an agronomist at Purdue and then we also grew up on a farm so we were 100 Acre Farm we used to farm with an old Farmall a three bottom plow and uh and my mom uh she would trade uh you know meat and things with other farmers and then she ended up becoming a librarian at the Purdue undergraduate Library that's amazing okay tof grew up on a farm so other than farming what was your first job my very first job was detasseling corn oh I think around 2.
85 that was like the prime summer job because that was actually the high pay oh yeah all the things yeah big money and it's really awesome in the dead of summer when it's super hot if you just got braces on oh my God brutal oh God that'll build some characters yeah that makes a lot of sense I'm seeing you can find optimism anything if you spend a summer detasseling absolutely uh Matt what was your first job uh let's see it was technically delivering newspapers the Journal and Courier yes had a small paper out my entire neighborhood probably 40 to 50 homes what time did you get up to do that to deliver I think like five yeah yeah wow five but fortunately my dad walked it most almost every morning with me so I had company and it was a good good opportunity to learn about business I was super into business at the time so I would use the opportunity to ask him all kinds of questions get some free labor get some free labor for sure yeah divide and conquer I love this I actually want to go back to one thing tough said or a point from Toph so if you grew up on a farm what is the one lesson that you learned from growing up on a farm that you apply to business today work ethic and thinking ahead three steps oh I love that that's a great answer tell me about thinking ahead three steps okay okay ready here's my story um and I actually did a thing for my son about it being when my grandfather died I did a little speech at my grandfather's funeral in the in the punch line was it's time I looked at my son I'm like it's time for you to paint the plow so here's the story uh my dad was really good at just saying hey do this right go do that thing and so one day um it was a little rite of passage and it was my turn to paint the plow and my dad told me to go out and paint the plow and so those are who of you may not know when you put the plow away for the for the season you paint the plow shears so they don't rust I don't know if it's a requirement but we did it in I don't know every year we did it so he said you're trying to paint the plow I went out and I grabbed the black paint and I painted the plow and uh went back in I was all proud I thought it looked great and um I went in to tell my dad had finished painting the plow and he said great let's go take a look at it and we walked out there and on the way to the plow we walked in the tool shed and he grabbed a hammer I'm like that's kind of weird it was Grandpa Hammer looks like we have another project to do and we walk over to the plow and he looks at it and he leans over and he takes that hammer and he hits one of the plow shears in a big old chunk of dirt fell off ex you know I basically painted over some dirt right and uh he looked at me and just walked away walked back in the house and I'm like it failed right and I own I do not want to fail again so I didn't think ahead right so you've got to paint the plow I gotta prep right so what do I need to go get to prep to actually paint the plow to do a good job so it's going to last until the next year that's an example wow I love that I love a good farming analogy that's that makes a lot of sense paint the plow we need to bring that back good alliteration maybe our tagline Steve Johns would be proud of that paint the plow paint the plow absolutely um okay so we get through first jobs where'd you guys go to college Purdue what'd you study I was actually in in construction management okay yeah which I haven't seen that from for you I haven't touched that forever but yeah that was my major I thought I wanted to go be a commercial general contractor when I grew up was that your first job out of school yeah yep yep what did you learn in commercial general contract and construction that you applied today manage by fact elaborate on that well if you manage by fact so like there's a lot of moving pieces when you build a building we're building hospitals and stadiums and all kinds of big fun complex projects and um and if you you know there's drawings and if you just manage by fact right and you scope out the project properly up front you negotiate the contract you make sure you understand what's in the contract not in the contract Etc um and you if there's a if the architect Envision something like the Taj Mahal but didn't really draw it that way and wants to change it after you built it then you have a discussion and you say hey the drawings don't show that and we can't just magically you know come up with another million dollars to change this thing the way you want it um and so we can either do a change order and if there has to be a schedule change or we keep cruising and it's interesting a lot of people have probably dealt with residential contractors and all the frustrations you deal with um that's because they're they're not managing by fact they're not planning they're not thinking three steps ahead well so am I ready to paint the plow yeah I'm ready to paint the plow Matt where'd you go to college so the interesting story there I grew up in West Lafayette vowed I would never go to school in the state of Indiana because growing up in a college town I was like I gotta get out of here I got to go see the world I had never been really anywhere a family vacation was always to the family farm in North Dakota and so got to see everything uh you know in the midwest section between Indiana and North Dakota but other than that I hadn't really seen the world and I um ended up at Purdue because I got into uh University of Chicago I knew I was paying for my own college education and I was looking at a full ride at Purdue or forty four thousand dollars a year just in tuition that's a little bit of a difference times four if I get get through in four years do I want to graduate you know with almost 200 000 in loans or potentially no loans and so I went to Purdue um and they had just started a general honors program there that sent me to Quebec for a week before school started uh what met one of my best friends still to this day on that trip to Quebec we ended up living on the same floor with all the other like everyone who had like a 1600 on their sat I did not have a 1600 on my sh I thought that was a humble brand right now everyone else no no I did not neither did my friend Derek but it was a really great freshman year just an awesome opportunity to um you know learn a little bit more I actually did engineering as well so I was doing an engineering business double major I thought I wanted to be an architect and one day own my own Architecture Firm so I thought oh if I pick up a degree in business and a degree in Structural Engineering I'll be set up pretty nicely to own my own firm um but while I was at Purdue I got a job as a cad detailer computer automated design detailer using AutoCAD basically doing the job of an architect so like the arc the license architect next to me is doing a similar job obviously better at work but a similar job to what I was doing as like an intern he just had the you know rubber stamp to be able to stamp the designs and you know so my designs would be given to them they look it over stamp it I hated that job and so that's that's a great example of why internships are awesome yeah is I got a glimpse into that world now granted it was a not a perfect glimpse into it we were designing you know car dealerships you know for Bob Rohrman across you know the Midwest Bob rorman that's the guy yeah um but I I transferred so this is a long way of saying I actually graduated from ieo I transferred to IU after my freshman year of course lost my full ride uh which is how I ended up needing to start a business was to pay my way through my final three years at IU um which yeah was one of the better decisions I ever made in my life actually wow going to the Rival yeah how do you feel about that I think it's awesome I actually almost went to IU I I was going to IU actually I was in accepted and I rushed my senior high school I was going to be a Fiji and I think the only reason I got a bid is because I was on fire at the hyper you know during rush weekend in high school and um but yeah I was moving in and literally uh six weeks before school started I changed my mind to last second because not about this construction management program at Purdue and that my mom had told me about it's like one of the top in the nation and she knew I thought I wanted to be a own my own General Contracting Company someday commercial construction and so I'm like wow then I've got to go do that yeah I changed my mind for last second I love it it's never too late yeah even after you put a year in yeah yeah there you go by the way did you guys hear about that uh the kid from New Orleans that just received 10 million dollars in scholarship offers from 168 schools I think it is he just picked Cornell no it's an amazing story it's a record-breaking um uh offer of scholarship for any high school student ever wow that's a lot of that's the last question why did they get so many scholarship I don't know the whole story um I there was one story I clicked on it for some reason I couldn't read it because it wasn't subscribed to whatever the publication was um but yeah he's he's just been apparently in the third grade he was pumping out Powerpoints and things when yeah they're like write your name five times I bought a 20 Page PowerPoint you know I love that he probably did okay on his SATs yeah he would probably bid on that floor yeah belong there yes I did not belong yeah all right so Matt you talked about starting a business in college to pay for the last three years at IU how did you make your first dollar on the internet first dollar on the internet I think was my records business in high school um I started a business basically digitizing vinyl records onto CD this is a time capsule right because now everyone wants vinyl but at the time everyone wanted their vinyl converted to CD compact disc for gen's ears out there um they're like a small vinyl um and I made posts you know on Craigslist and in the journaling Courier online and and all that so I think that's technically probably my first dollar is I gotta cut you know got customers most of my customers were like Word of Mouth you know knocking on doors around my neighborhood and talking to all my teachers every adult that I knew yes um but some of them I think I I got a couple online how old were you 16 16 17.
okay so for maybe we have a prospective 16 year old future entrepreneur out there if you had to give them one piece of advice to get their first customer what is it sell it before you build it oh can you can you elaborate so before you build it um I uh I made sure that there was a market for digitizing uh Records before before basically buying all the extra equipment to take my turntable and and at that time there just weren't USB turntables so to like get the preamp to put the turntable that I had at home into a preamp and then digitize that into the computer which was a Gateway uh shout out to Steve Johns who was on who was working at Gateway at the time and was on the show previously um and you know that would have been very expensive if I had gone out bought all of those taken the time to learn how to do it um and instead you know first get the customer and then then learn how to do it did that again later in college my dad was like hey I got this opportunity uh it's yours if you want it he was working at University of Notre Dame press at the time he said they need a typesetter and I'm like typesetter what the heck is that it's like basically designing the books you know how does the type layout on every page of of all the books of the University Notre Dame press he's like you do design you've learned how to use AutoCAD it can't be that different learning how to use Adobe Illustrator and I was like sure like how much does it pay you know I don't know 500 bucks or something like that holy cow 500 bucks big money yeah um and so I got that customer before learning even buying Adobe Illustrator which of course I could do at the union for like 15 and then learning how to use Adobe Illustrator and then I use that literally for that business I started in college the same way I would always sell it before I bought any of the software or hired any of the contractors to do the projects sell it before you build it I love that that's great advice so Toph you are now the CEO of elevate Ventures but before that what was your first entrepreneurial Endeavor my first entrepreneurial Endeavor was picking up corn that fell on the ground and putting it in a gunny sack and then walking them down to the elevator about a mile away to sell it how did you identify this opportunity well one day I was I went into the field to pick up one of the green wagons and I'm driving along right to go back to our grain band and I'm looking on the ground and there's these all these ears of corn laying on the ground and I'm like that's money yeah nobody else is picking it up so I grabbed my brother and we went out and started picking up chicken and gunning sacks I love that that's the most Indiana entrepreneurial Endeavor I've ever heard that we made at least like two dollars a gunny sack and it would take like four hours to fill up a gun that's good money free money there we go free money hey nothing wrong with that okay so then fast forward what was your first official business that you launched first official business was a painting company so I had a painting company in college I started right after my freshman year those things print money I was making 400 bucks net a house wow and at the peak we had 14 employees um and I did that for three years you were you had 14 employees as a college student yes what was the secret to managing that oh I I mean I screwed it all up uh the first year I tried to run it year round uh and so the first the first two summers were up in Chicago and uh and I tried to run it year round the first year and uh I kept on three of the professional painters and um that did not work out very well one of them actually staged a theft broke into our painting band himself and then stole the sprayer out of it and it was a complete disaster but recovered from that and then just did it during the Summers thereafter and yeah we were cranking so if you're running this painting business there's a theft that's staged right and many times like when you experience that first failure it can be discouraging right so talk to us about some other failures that you've had in your professional career well um going back to that painting company the very first house we painted was about 356 dollars roughly it took about I don't know four hours so obviously I underpriced that but it wasn't a big deal it was a short quick job the second job we went to do um had priced out at 12 000 and this was a house in Evanston Illinois modeled after Henry longfellow's house this thing was huge 100 Windows on it plus the old school uh storm windows yeah the wood frame strum windows so basically it's over 200 windows and the the guy's daughter was getting married that summer and wanted to paint the house out and do a bunch of work on it and um gave him a price and I was terrified because I'm 12 000 that is a lot all the money in the world in the world right yeah and he couldn't sign that thing fast enough and I'm like well that's kind of weird so we we start working on this I lost my ass I can't remember the exact number but we lost at least three thousand dollars on it I mean lost lost like not lost our profit margin like eight up to 12 000 and then went into costing more yeah cost more yeah so that that was a big failure um what lesson did you learn from that um I guess you know don't get over your skis like make sure you bring in the expertise you need before you go from zero to a hundred right I mean we're painting a mansion on the second day I didn't even know what the difference between latex paint and oil paint works I literally in that same house tried to mix up some the oil paint for the chimney I tried to put water in a five gallon bucket and I'm trying to mix it up and it was an expensive paint right because for the chimney and so it was like industrial grade paint basically and uh I ruined a whole five gallon bucket full of paint which was I don't remember two three hundred bucks or something like that so um yeah get the expertise you need early and often I love that that's good that's good advice um but if you had to pinpoint one failure that like is the the gem of all failures throughout your career what would it be um I was involved in a bottled water company and that's the one company failure that that I have that was a part of and um it frustrates me because we had a deal struck with some folks to buy this water source and uh the partners that we were involved in refused to sell it so that really stunk how'd you recover from that move on let's move on yeah Sun's gonna come up tomorrow Amen to that you know here's what it is be be transparent with whoever's involved and and uh and move on there we go all right Matt do you ever do you have a failure story that you want to share with the the listeners out there I think my biggest uh business failure was when I started when I was an or fellow e-commerce business like just traditionally historically very tough business to be in uh you're competing with Amazon you're competing with lots of other companies and at that time I didn't even understand venture capital and um started with someone who's a trend spotter out of Cincinnati worked with a lot of the cpg uh companies out there and um was basically Birchbox before Birchbox was uh kind of ahead of the trend of like non-toxic personal care products and cosmetics um I just didn't realize how early ahead of the trend it was I had some idea because I knew SEO at that time and I did search Chat traffic analysis and I had enough people who are kind of like yeah I mean that doesn't seem like it's a very big market right now I was like yeah but I mean it's transpire he says it's going to be a thing if you look you know it's starting to show up in magazines and stuff like that and um you know I I there were a lot of people who were kind of helping coach me through that but I probably stuck with it a little too long and ultimately the lesson is either uh time timing is everything and picking the right Market is everything and um I think I used that lesson in a big way with powder keg you know I I was watching this trend of the unbundling of Silicon Valley beyond the bay area for a long long time before I raised any money or decided to go all in on it um and until I saw the signs and the search traffic starting to go up and everything else kind of moving in that direction from a cultural standpoint um I took that lesson and and I think we're timing it right this time there we go I I think what Matt just said so huge timing and luck right and like timing is such a big thing riding that wave just right being a little bit too early or a little bit too late and then sometimes that that one customer or that one investor you know out of a thousand that you talk to that that say no or I don't get it or that makes no sense um or you're too green or you know whatever it is it's it's wild how sometimes massive successes can hinge on just one or two decisions early on yeah it is very much like surfing right it's like yeah if you try to paddle into a wave before it's cresting you're gonna get you're just gonna get tired yeah yeah like that's all you're gonna get yeah there is no fun there is no flow you're just paddling and thrashing in the water but if you catch that wave just right and it's a hundred foot wave and you know how to ride it You're Gonna Go Far you're gonna go fast and have a freaking blast there we go that's good so when you're catching that wave right I'm gonna I want to go in the opposite side of the coin tell me about the happiest moment in your professional career wow the happiest moment in my professional career um I think it would be um when the company well gosh that's so hard there's there's like three moments but um there were there was one company in particular uh vyastar when we when we sold the technology that um uh it was a it was a it was a great day um and I could literally feel the pressure just release from my body um yeah I would say that that was that was one big one I love that Matt highlight of your professional career thus far I think a lot of times highlights are kind of in context of what they're contrasted against and so I I the first thing that came to my mind was uh right after the pandemic kind of hit in early 2020 you know we had our last in-person event with powder keg in February of 2020 but before the world shut down so for years we didn't have in-person events and uh being in that kind of mode with the team where it's like okay what do we do now because for for years in-person events had been what our community was centered around and so the thing that came to my mind was our very first unvalley conference where we were like this is the unbundling of Silicon Valley you can start a tech company you can grow a Tech Career from anywhere and we had I think uh 1500 plus people there stayed for an average of like I think it was like four or five hours for the entire day-long conference and just seeing the connections that were happening on the platform moving our whole Community online that was definitely a peak moment and uh super proud of the team and what they were able to pull off for that I love that so I mean you kind of mentioned it Powder Keg has long been known for its events for both virtual and in person but we're kind of talking about in-person events here what is the coolest event you've ever hosted coolest event I've ever hosted I tell you the craziest event I've ever hosted here we go this is what I'm looking for um Boston uh it's in Boston we're doing an event with a company called recess who puts on College pitch competition so college students from across Boston all the different colleges around Boston they're competing for grand prize of I don't know tens of thousands of dollars you know Amazon is sponsoring it it's on the same day as the Boston Marathon the Red Sox are also playing at Fenway Park which is across the street we're in the House of Blues in Boston three stories of students hacked that place and you know you wouldn't think that students would come out for a student pitch competition but that's because they didn't it was marketed as a concert because after the pitch competition Lil Dicky who has his own who has his own show you know on FX now huge at the time you know hip-hop artist hilarious guy he was the artist and so me and these 12 student entrepreneurs are the only thing standing between 3 000 people three thousand drunk students who have been partying all day because it's a national holiday basically in Boston you know it shuts down for the marathon it shuts down you know for the for the the Red Sox and um oh my gosh it was the hardest event I have ever emceed keeping students engaged you know I had to pull out every trick in the book to keep them interested in what was going on doing good interesting intros keeping the show moving dodging bottles that were being thrown at me yeah that that didn't actually happen but but uh let's go with that though yeah that's awesome it was awesome and it Crescendo didn't a little Dickie concert so I mean it was it was fantastic I'm sure they were so happy when you finally announced like little dickies going on oh my gosh the energy was insane I mean because it was like an hour and a half of build up for this concert oh I mean good marketing by recess right hey I just got back from a Taylor Swift concert where I literally had to wait five hours for the rain to pass and the lightning storm to pass um so I mean an hour and a half of pitch competition where you can order from the bar like come on come on yeah every yeah every time you uh there could have been a fun drinking game people could have played along with that one there I could identifying the problem the market all that fun yeah exactly um okay Toph this question is for you so in my extensive research I found that you were the managing director of two Sky Zone locations yep correct yep tell me a little bit about that how you go from technology and you're like you know what I always want to get kids across Central Indiana bouncing so um so I was a passive investor basically that's what my title was managing director because the part owner right another partner in it um but I did it for kind of two reasons number one A buddy of mine called up one day he owned a business in the same building that one of them was in and he's like there there's this business down here and it's basically these trampolines and I see school bus after school bus just pulling in there and just so happened the person that owned it um was his next door neighbor or lived a few houses away and he had to sell one of his several Sky Zones because he wanted to open another one and was just kind of over leveraged and need to get rid of one of the assets so anyway um so I did it more for like diversification of Investment Portfolio um coupled with I'm like how cool would it be to be a part of where kids get their first job and to create an environment and we end up opening another one so we had two of them and um and so we gosh we had them for seven years and I don't even know how many kids we impacted over a thousand for sure maybe a couple thousand of kids first jobs I don't think you know this but my brother-in-law's first job was at that Sky Zone really yeah that's awesome yeah so I used to go there every once in a while every probably every few months I'd go there on a Sunday night to the team meetings yeah and I'd give a little speech and I'd talk to him about you know what life was like and that's awesome why you smile and and treat everybody with respect when they come in not only because they're your customer but you're also you don't even know it but you might be relationship building yeah and we had multiple stories of kids that met people that owned businesses or whatever and that in that that high school kid wanted to go to college to be an engineer or do whatever right and they would get internships Etc so it was a it was a blast that does sound like a good one you just like I can just imagine tofu's like rah-rah Sunday night speech these kids are like I just want to get home and play video games or whatever all of a sudden Dove comes in and is like all right let's roll you may think you're just letting these kids bounce on trampolines but it so much more you're laying down your Life Path yet and you don't even know it I love that well my niece and nephew both just had birthdays and I got them when I was at the very top of their list which was a three-month membership to Sky Zone that's awesome yes I mean Kids Unlimited bouncing yes yeah yep okay um I love that tof that's a good diversification there just dishing out life lessons um Turned out it was actually one of the best deals I've ever done from a cash on cash standpoint I bet it was insane nice okay so we're talking we're going to talk uh investing business first uh first kind of question here I have for you is what is the best business idea you've ever had that you didn't act on okay I got one go go and I still think there's something here but someone throw it out there and if somebody takes it run with it um and I actually bought a domain I still have called Ripple rain I don't know if it's a good name or not but Ripple rain.
com is this domain I bought but I but I believe that there is we're in for a massive paradigm shift and what makes no sense to me is why the world is set up for and I'm thinking of consumer products here of why companies are just left to guess at what you want to buy um at any given point in time so why don't why don't you flip the whole thing on its head and just create a marketplace where I say okay my name's tof right and I'm a male and this is how old I am but but every human is typically in one of three phases fantasy uh research or decision like I'm gonna buy yeah and so this could be you could be in high school and you just have an affinity or a love for Ferraris or whatever and you I'm a high school kid and I want a Ferrari someday or I just love them I'm an Enthusiast whatever it is um and so that company knows how to Market to me very intentionally and if but let's say I'm ready to buy a TV I'm rated by a 60 inch you know flat screen or whatever it is I say boop I'm in buying mode I'm buying a 60-inch TV today or tomorrow or the next 48 hours and Company just say bam here's my 60 inch TV and it's going to cost you 650 bucks or whatever it is and it's just boom we make decision right there on the spot but they know how to allocate their marketing dollars depending on if you're in fantasy and I don't maybe there's a better word I don't know but but fantasy research or by mode and I tell them this is the mode I'm in and this is the product I want and it came to me when I was doing a remodel and I was looking for reclaimed wood flooring and holy cow what a disaster and what ended up happening is I didn't buy reclaimed wood flooring because I couldn't it was too hard it took too much time so there's there's something there just to shift the whole Paradigm on its head all right I like that that's a great business that's like 10 years ago yeah I wasn't sure what my answer to this uh question was going to be but then you said I had I had the domain and everything I was like oh okay what are all the domains that I've had over the years and there have been a lot I mean because that's that's the thing right like you have the idea it's like I'm just gonna like file this away in case you know magic strikes and uh I think probably the best business idea it's always you know hindsight's 20 20 right because at some point I probably had 50 different domains in probably 48 would have 48 of them would have failed but I at one point in time had like Learn Python dot com I think oh wow and it was you know when python was just taking off as a programming language and I registered a bunch of different programming languages I like Learn Python learned PHP learn to learn them because I started to see one I was learning how to program and at the time there was not a ton online there was like a thing called peep code that was like had a couple like hacky videos that were you know QuickTime you know dot MOV files that that's how I learned how to code you know and and not not well you know just enough to know that I am not a developer nor should I be a developer um but learning was uh was so hard I was like there's got to be a better way you know now fast forward today there's udemy there's all these different programs that have just printed money um helping people learn how to code and I think that's still a huge huge Market I have one more yeah um so in this is about in the 96 1996 97 10 frame um one of the business partners we had like four different businesses together when we were getting ready to start our first business together um we had we had two ideas one was to go into broadband and the other was to we didn't he was an attorney and so he did a bunch of patent research and the idea was um to file a patent on a the concept of a black box for a car oh wow and we didn't have enough money to do well either one so but we had to raise money for one or the other and we chose the Broadband company and I always wonder what would have happened if we would have done the black box one because it wasn't and it was three four five years later when those I think those patents were filed by whoever does that now and uh in every single car has a black box now they're probably doing okay yep I think it was one of the car companies first I can't remember exactly if this is the right story or not but for some reason it seems that one of the actual car companies filed the yeah a patent on that and it became standard yeah okay so we're in the ideation phase now let's think about what research what research do you need to do before you start a business oh I love it I love this question go ahead Joe so I actually think that the the the other piece of the question is just as important and that's after you start your business um so you never stop learning um but I think it goes back to what Matt said earlier get your first customer right so uh talking to people invalidating is this is this really pain or you just think it's pain so is it really pain and then would they actually pay to solve the pain um so it's just talking to people right leveraging your networks your relationships and you may not know the right people to talk to but you you're you'd be surprised at how fast if I came to you Nate or came to Matt and said I want to do X Y and Z and but I don't know anybody good chance you know somebody who knows somebody or you know somebody uh and so and so just being just devouring like curiosity mm-hmm I love that mat what is uh what do you think what research do you need to do before you start a business so I think um I agree with tof 100 it's it's talking to customers talking to potential customers finding out if it's a real pain you definitely need to do the research of selling stuff before starting the business to know because people tell you all the time um oh yeah well I would totally buy that that's very different than them actually buying that that is the real data point do people take out their wallet swipe their credit card you know give you cash and say yep let me know when it's available I'm going to put my deposit down I want that bad enough um but even before that I love going deep on Research there is so much information you can pull online using the tools that are out there today so I always do Google Trends analysis looking at Key phrases related to the topic of the business the pain Point seeing which direction that's going if it's going down um then you know maybe think twice about it keyword research so thinking about the keywords and seeing how many people globally nationally and then you can even see trends for that now so there's lots of tools you can do keyword research with but I like using sem rush there's a couple really great companies here in Indiana too that part of what they'll do is is keyword research demand jump started by our friend Toph over here to Manuel is another friend of Powder Keg that that does keyword research and then um Reddit isn't amazing place to go so find the subreddit um I mean Reddit still I think one of the top 10 most visited websites on the internet amazing online communities there covering just about every topic you can imagine um and so finding your topic if you're thinking you're going to start a records business go to the vinyl you know vinyl lovers subreddit if you're thinking about starting a trampoline park you know going to the kids subreddit and seeing what moms are well you know what activities moms are taking their kids to um it's just a great place to get lots of ideas and in one you got the data point of like how active is this I've read it but then two actually reading the discussions and starting to like put together your own Trends analysis of like oh all these moms are talking about it's not actually the after school thing it's the before school thing or you know whatever that particular Insight is it's probably not a real thing because I don't have kids I don't I don't know if that's a but you can kind of like triangulate um maybe where there's overlooked opportunity yeah I want to put an exclamation point on that because when you do when you devour that when you read those things you do start to formulate your own thoughts and and your own position you know how how you're going to penetrate that thing what I want to mention is even after you start your business people would be shocked like so demand jump every so so a co-founder CEO demand jump for what it was seven years or eight years and every I don't know probably two or three months I would go Google what are the latest uh key SAS metrics and people are always shocked by that like don't you know that well yeah I know like the back of my hand but I always wanted to understand what's changing what's trending what are the latest benchmarks in and I'm I'm surprised at how many how many folks I come into contact with today that have businesses that aren't keeping up on basic research right you know reading books is great but like you should be Googling some of these basic things because then also when you when you look at the basic things you're going to find something else that's going to take you down a rabbit hole absolutely you go oh I didn't even think about that right and so just that ferocious curiosity is so critical because when you go in for the next round of financing and you're talking to investors or whatever you better bet they're doing it right and if you're not kind of up on the latest trends um it's not going to bode well I love that okay so you're talking about Investors there are countless entrepreneurs out there that have the idea have the research done that want to fund their company they want to get their company funded what's your biggest piece of advice for investor what's your biggest piece of advice for entrepreneurs looking to get their business funded my biggest piece of advice is make sure that's actually the right way to grow your business so before you go down the path of like how do I get the funding like getting the litmus test of like is this a fundable business and if it is what kind of funding makes the most sense it might not be Venture Capital it might be some sort of financing maybe you want to buy a business and find seller-based financing to take over and do a turnaround business there are lots of different ways to finance a business and um I think first and foremost asking that question and the way that I would answer that question is a competitive analysis looking at what are the other competitors out there how are they capitalized are they as niche as you are are they playing in the same Lane then look at the that competition and say hey I think I can compete can I compete just bootstrapping this business in that competition do I need to really capitalize in a big way which would be like Venture Capital financing and if so is my business fundable from a venture standpoint do I have a large enough total addressable Market meaning there's enough customers that I could sell to to turn this into a billion ideally 10 plus billion dollar business someday um and then you know kind of figuring out that path and there's the analog in every different type of financing whether that's um you know revenue-based financing or seller-based financing or whatever tof you are the CEO of the most active seed and early stage investor in the Great Lakes region Toph you are the CEO of elevate Ventures what is your biggest piece of advice for entrepreneurs out there that want to get their business funded be true to yourself so I think there's a lot of entrepreneurs that that say what they think people want them to say and and it comes off as not genuine um and and not believable and so like going back to what Matt said is I think the first question every entrepreneur should ask themselves is what do they want and that sounds like an easy question but it's not um and what I mean by that is there's a term out there called a lifestyle business lifestyle business does not mean bad small anything of that nature I have friends that have lifestyle businesses that are over 200 million dollars in Revenue that's a good lifestyle that's a good lifestyle and so me and to me there's actually a definition out there I think if you go Google it there's a such a thing as a lifestyle business but to me a lifestyle business is you stay in absolute control every step along the way right in demand's point there's a lot of different ways to get funding do you need funding at all like what type of business are you starting and some you need it right to stay up with the competition um but sometimes you don't and so that's the first question is what do you really want out of the business as an entrepreneur um but but back to if you're if you're coming into a venture capital firm um number one all venture capitalists are not created equal and so what I mean by that is make sure you understand where that Venture Capital firm plays so sector or stage what are their minimum requirements you know in terms of Revenue or growth or those types of things make sure you understand that on the front end and then you're asked so so number one you've got a match whatever you're doing matches how they invest because a lot of venture capitalists will take a lot of meetings just to kind of be in the know and up on latest trends Etc and they really never have any intention in of investing in the first place um so that that's another part of research right to make sure you know who you're talking to uh how they invest in in being true to yourself um and the last thing I would see on this note would be I got a bunch of other things I'd probably say but another biggie is and this is really hard for entrepreneurs and I've suffered from this myself squirrel right so and it's so true right so go narrow and deep go narrow and deep Damon John I heard a thing that he was talking one day and I can't remember what it was on but but he said he said hey uh the the found out if it's one or two founders of Under Armor but apparently uh Damon John started his company the same year as Under Armor was founded and he's like look at the two different companies where they are and Damon John's really super successful right he's crushed it and but under armor is like you know oh multiples of magnitude bigger and uh he says Under Armor focused on I can't what they started off with but I'm gonna make it up but it's like they focused on a dry fit t-shirt and he's like I focused on all this cool stuff because I wouldn't be able to sell you anything and everything Under Armor went narrow and deep companies would go narrow and deep Amazon right went super narrow and deep when they started there's also some other factors that came into play but but that's a big one I love that you've LED several businesses what is the greatest joy in owning a business I believe that the greatest joy is is building a culture where people can rise to their capabilities as fast as those capabilities enable them to do so one story I love to say it was it was back in that Broadband business we I had a friend we were hiring the only openings we had were for csrs customer service reps and like that opening that opening position was like 27 Grand or something like that and a friend of mine called up and said hey tof I've got this family friend and um you've got to meet her she's awesome and she she's uh her anchor major with Biology in college and she was several years out of school she was managing a restaurant and it's like hey I don't I don't want to go down this career path I want to go down a different career path but she's kind of too far in and she was making like I don't know 60 Grand or something and she's kind of too far in where people weren't giving her a shot right because she was managing a restaurant and so we met the all three of us got together we met and I'm like holy cow you just tell she's just ready to conquer the world and um I'm like I'd love to bring you on but like the only thing we have is is these these CSR positions and uh she didn't ask how much it was anything at all she said I'll take it I'm like okay when you want to start and she's like Monday I'm like okay two years later she became her boss as boss's boss she became our director of Ops and so like I just get chills I almost get emotional like like I just and then she went on to get like an MBA or something at Notre Dame and the executive NBA program and now she's running some team at a bank Etc totally just just crushed it and and but it's just awesome to see I don't care if it's whatever occupation it is people achieving whatever they want to achieve in in building a culture where that can happen and not like you've got to do this for three years and then that for five years and this for 10 years and then maybe you someday will be screw that if you have the capability why shouldn't be able to do it right now I love that Matt what is the greatest joy in owning a business I mean I I think I have to agree with tof on that I mean just helping people grow and I I like thinking about how do I help this person grow even more than they currently think is possible like I have had so many mentors in my own life that have helped me kind of shift into that next gear whatever metaphor you want to use dig deeper um I I love watching kind of people's uh mental glass ceilings shatter as they realize they're way more capable of what they originally thought that they were capable of doing but I think the other big Joy of owning a business is Leverage and I think of that that word specifically because I've had you know different self-employed businesses you know businesses because they're Incorporated but I'm the only employee I think that that's actually just self-employed it's not actually owning a business and I I differentiate the tube by saying you know self-employed when you stop working that business stops working whereas when you're a business owner you can take a day off like I just did this last weekend to go see Taylor Swift and you come back and more got done maybe than even if you were in the office because he slept out of the way for a little bit no never and I I think that's leverage right when you have people who care about the mission they're living out the core values of the of the culture a lot of times especially at certain stages of the business you can actually remove yourself from the business and actually deliver more value to your customers to your community and therefore to your team as well than even being involved in the business now I don't mean that obviously long term necessarily um but even you know looking forward you know if Powder Keg has acquired someday down the line the fact that that can live on without me continuing to put in you know whatever 10 12 hours a day to building the business but can live on in a different um under different ownership that's really exciting to me because ultimately what I'm trying to do with you Nate and with Meg and with the team is set the vision create the culture so that it can live on Long Term and it can be this sort of pure creative act of willing something into existence that didn't exist before and that's what we're doing now is we're setting the tone for what can be amazing the trajectory I love it um okay we're getting into into our lightning round we got a couple minutes left so we're gonna give the essential lightning round at the end but I have a few quick ones ready so Toph what is one essential habit that every entrepreneur needs sleep did not see that one coming from tof but I respect it Matt what is one essential habit that every entrepreneur needs tof took mine um one essential habit that every entrepreneur needs is to practice mindfulness it is so easy especially if you're working on a high growth startup it's so easy to get caught up in the the things that are happening there's always something urgent there's usually something more important you should be focused on than the Urgent thing um or a couple of important things and it's really easy at least for me to get lost in just jumping from one task to the next how can I do more more more more more and if you don't practice mindfulness you can go you can go on like that for the entirety of your career with that business but it's in those moments where you're able to be mindful and take a step back and pay attention to your thoughts pay attention to your emotions that you actually get clarity and kind of can see the forest through the trees so by practicing mindfulness as a habit as an entrepreneur you can actually make much better decisions take better care of yourself and you'll probably sleep better too there we go I love that that's great inside map a quick break from our normal programming I have Erica schweyer 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 um we're going to feature six Innovation Studios so think hard tech software Sports Tech Ag and food Healthcare and Entrepreneurship is going to kind of 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 through 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'll love it you heard it here rallyinnovation. com we'll see you there if you started a business and the only employee was chat GPT what would that business be the only employees you have one employee the employees chat GPT I would write I would have chibi chat GPT right the next great Jr Tolkien series yeah Publishing Company yes I like that but but a guaranteed winner yeah oh I love that hmm I think oh yeah yeah Matt if you were going to start a business and the only employee could be chat GPT what would the business be I think the business would be something around creativity and creative spark and I think it would be some sort of chat bot that would be a subscription business for those who want to do better in their career live a more meaningful life live a more connected life with themselves and the people they love and care about um to really help hone their creative uh craft so helping them with writing prompts helping hold them accountable being kind of that coach and Mentor because creativity is one of those things that's very vulnerable if you're truly tapping into something creative and allowing things to kind of come up from your subconscious um I I actually think that by removing the human element you could actually tap into a deeper level of creativity for more people and it's not a fully formed business idea but I'd be something in that space something to do with creative spark yep I like that Matt and his pyrotechnic names yep I love it you know I'm a fan of pyrotechnics absolutely okay gentlemen now time for our normal lightning round first question besides the amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem what is Indiana known for Innovation boom full stop right there Matt besides the amazing entrepreneurial ecosystem what is Indiana known for I'm going through all the answers that have already been sent on the show I'm trying to give a new one um [Music] education oh that's a good one yeah there's a I mean there's some prestigious universities in this school or in the state there really are yeah that's a that's a great one um and you've gone to two of them so there we go Gotta catch them all exactly uh Toph give me one Hidden Gem in Indiana um the beach Indiana beach nope the beach on Lake Michigan we have 45 miles of gorgeous Sandy Beach that makes you feel like you're in heaven with Gorgeous sunsets and it is amazing and we need to show that to the world absolutely it's a good time up there yeah love that Matt give me a Hidden Gem in Indiana there are so many but I'm gonna pull one from my childhood and it's called Feast of the Hunter's Moon oh my gosh piece of the harsh moon is amazing I know right Feast of the Hunter's Moon so it's it's uh held at Fort we ought none which is a French uh Fort from again gotta be the 17th yeah 1800s yeah back in the day they do all kinds of like reenactments of historic battles which actually happened there in that area there's a ton of um uh there's a ton of History around that area from um prophets Iraq who is the prophet um he was like the Obama of the Native Americans he like United all the different claims um so much history up there um gosh it wasn't it wasn't I should know this I should know this Tecumseh that's right Tecumseh we should have known that from Camp Tecumseh that's true it's like a national Bluegrass Fiddler's Convention held in Battleground Indiana a historic battle happened there been there too as well um it is beautiful and um just like the most accomplished Fiddlers of violinists and of course all the supporting you know mandolin banjo guitarist that sounds like a good time from all over the world famous band once said If You're Gonna Play in Texas you gotta have a fiddle in the band that should be a song yeah it probably is no idea that it is a song Oh no I don't know come on come on you're kidding oh my God he goes to Taylor Swift is the extent of his country music okay um final question yup Matt oh Matt first uh we're gonna go I'm looking at my answer because I know my answer to this one I can't remember the last name okay but I'm looking up right now I don't remember what the last question is Matt who is someone that we need to keep on our radar someone doing big things um you know your answer I'm going to say Ashley flowers who is Ashley flowers she is the second most either listened to or downloaded podcaster I think in the world uh only behind or at least in the US only behind Joe Rogan is she the True Crime yeah crime junkies crime junkies yeah I just found out about her literally a couple days ago and actually if you if anybody knows Ashley can you please have her reach out to me I want to meet Ashley because I have a lot of fun things that we can do and I want to invite her to do and um but she's a massive influencer and she lives in Broad Ripple Indiana I love that yeah and there's I'm not run into her and by the way there are like literally 20 000 Ashley flowers in Indiana that are like doing other things that are Global impact in nature and all different Industries and sectors and nobody knows our names so let's start with the first one flowers Tov is looking I'm looking for you Ashley yes I love that Matt who is someone we need to keep on our radar someone doing big things that the first person that came to mind is probably because they just announced their new fund is Scott craigie Scott craigie co-founder of Moby uh had a tremendously successful exit just founded Ivy Ventures 20 million dollar uh Fund in Partnership um with innovate map good friends of the show Good Friends of Powder Keg um and he's also the co-owner of the Vogue theater historic Vogue theater in uh in Broad Ripple so I think just keeping an eye on Scott because they just launched this fund they're going to be doing more things I know he's a eir at techstar is there for a while too um just super connected and a great guy obviously has already done amazing things um so I don't know if that's a fair answer because he's going to keep doing big bigger and bigger things but that's what first came to mind for me I love it well guys this was a great episode thank you so much as to you know of my both business and personal Role Models this has been I mean an amazing deep dive into how you guys think about business and Leadership and and just what's growing here in Indiana so one I really appreciate all the effort you guys put into the show and let's just get another guest back and keep diving in on what's going on in in the Hoosier State let's get in let's get I love it in 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 a 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 powderkeg. 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 cassid have you covered cassid is the first and only podcast and 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
