Assembling your A-Team with Scott Lingle and Austin Lehman

from the crossroads of America in the hoer state of Indiana this is get in the podcast focus on the unfolding stories and extraordinary Innovations happening right now in the [Music] Heartland the most successful folks you know plans fail for lack of counsel with many advisers they succeed it's a proverb ancient wisdom and it's still true today I'm Matt hunkler CEO at powderkeg and I'll be one of your hosts for today's conversation I'm joined in Studio by co-host uh Nate spangle who's our head of community at p and on the today is Scott lingle co-founder and chairman at remodel Health along with Austin Layman CEO at remodel Health Scott lingle is the co-founder and chairman of remodel Health a software power leader in the health benefits space uh the company is a four-time Inc 5000 SAS business in the employee benefit space that is just disrupting the industry previously was a VP of sales and United Healthcare runs several operating companies we're going to get into all of that today Austin Layman I know from a decade ago uh he's currently the CEO of remodel health started his own businesses previously um and he's been at the helmet remodel for since 2018 uh after a decade of working in finance helping so many high growth tech companies grow and scale um and in 2023 remodel heal surpassed $100 million in savings for customers is on track to reach $1 billion Austin Scott we have a lot to cover I'm really excited to have you here thanks for being here yeah thanks for having us excited to be here I definitely want to get into the origin story but first we love to just learn a little bit more about your own individual backgrounds do you both um have kind of your own first entrepreneurial memory and Scott do you mind maybe going first of yeah your first first memory that was maybe some entrepreneurial inklings for sure kind of always knew I was born and made to be an entrepreneur it took me a long time I didn't pull the trigger until age 45 we'll get into that love that but uh paper route uh so how I kind of knew so my brother and I had a paper route and they had this contest every year for new starts where go door knocking and you know I was like a 12-year-old 14year old kid and we would door knock and it was like huge competition between me and my brother uh to see who could get the most starts and then it wasn't so much like getting paid as much as it was like earning points and you got like things like Walkman and things like that but killed it doing that and knew that someday I was going to start my own thing I love that I was I was a paper out kid too cool yeah age 12 to 18 guys you're aging yourselves yeah yes paper used to be this even know what that is how about you Austin what was your first entrepreneurial I was actually living in Speedway Indiana and we did a we were selling candy uh at our I went to one of the speedway elementary schools right there and so I remember walking around and hitting some kind of tier where you got uh some kind of video game that was a really cool thing that I brought home I think it was a Mario game at that time so uh sold a bunch of those I remember one guy that was maybe a diabetic or older and he said I can't uh eat it but I'll give you the Mone money to buy your own candy so that was a real win love that sweet so humble beginnings from there to the business you're running now do you mind just giving the listeners kind of a brief overview of remodel health and and everything that you do sure so it's in the health insurance space and it's shifting from group to individual health insurance so the way I think about it is similar to in financial services pension to 401K so everybody transitioned that in the 70s and 80s as new legislation came out new legislation's come out that has also facilitated that trans transition from group to individual health insurance for really similar reasons pensions got really expensive uh and so they had to switch to 401k and group health plans are getting real expensive and we're switching to individual and so we're right on the front end of that wave that really is happening and happening across our industry that's a really helpful way of framing it that's very cool talk to me a little bit about the software how is that kind of a unique competitive Advantage for what you're doing because it seems like it's really contributed to a lot of the fast growth that you've experienced so we built technology to create so the thing that group plans have done a pretty good job is creating a seamless experience a seamless enrollment experience and so we had to replicate and as much as we can make it feel like that so it's on the front side it's a Brokers it's administrators evaluating what would it look like to do individual plans instead of group plans to do the new way the 401K way instead of the pension way and then you have to then all those individuals have to make their individual plan selections again think about pension one person makes all the decisions 401K you each make your decisions about the plan so it's very similar and so now we have to create a platform where all those individuals can enroll in plans and one cool thing we're just talking about today actually um was we're a we're health insurance guys that started a tech company and so we started with that took we've got relationship with the carriers we know how to make commissions on those kind of things and that's been a real advantage and a real strength in the market for us so there's a lot of change management we save money a lot but there's a lot of change going from like a fully insured group plan to the individual market and our software really just helps with that change management that's very cool people may may no I did start my career in the health insurance benefits uh space I was at Apex benefits for 2 years while I was in orell know those guys well it is change management was something that I had no idea I was going to learn about at a young age but it's very real pain it's like implementing new programs the Open Enrollment process all of it so I I I resonate with what you guys are talking about we're not going to take our listeners too far into the weeds let's talk about deductibles Co I'm curious Scott with your background just kind of being a VP at United Healthcare how did you kind of make that transition from executive at a big Healthcare company to entrepreneurship that seems like a a big jump and and not only that late in life so 20 years at what used to be Golden Rule Insurance and they got bought by United along the way and while there even though I knew like someday I'm going to pull the trigger and be an entrepreneur I kind of built a company within a company and I built a new channel of distribution and in doing that just gave me a lot of confidence that I knew how to build like winning teams yeah and then finally at age 45 me and the co-founder a guy named Justin Clemens uh he was the number one sales guy on my team we started dreaming up what it might look like and uh we went into that was there a mentor or two at United Healthcare that made a big impact for you your for sure PL plenty of mentors what did you learn from them yeah I had a boss uh by the name of Susan Fowler and um and what I learned mostly is just how to delegate really really well and how do you do it uh what's the secret I'm still working on it yeah I think the key is you know I'm kind of obsessed with finding a players yeah and you know you surround yourself with a players and then give all your work away and uh she did it well and then I learned that that pattern from her I love that that's great well I think it's super interesting right you talk about and I think we've had this conversation off air when when I've originally met Scott of you you have a 30-year 25 year career in insurance but you knew you were destined to be an entrepreneur what were some of the reasons that you didn't venture out earlier I think you get you get kind of addicted uh Nim TBS got this quote that I love that says two greatest addictions are heroin and a monthly Sal and so I got into this pattern at United Healthcare where I was doing well and kept getting raises and promotions and you get kind of addicted to it and so I just stay Stayed in that lane way too long about Golden Rule Insurance had the golden handcuffs give us the story of how you guys started remodel health yeah like leaving leaving United and then you went to another company for a couple years there and then you left to start REM model health I talked earlier about Justin Kemet co-founder good friend of mine uh at the time we're at United Healthcare having a really good run and he was my number one sales guy he's got a million ideas he's like your typical founder with billion ideas a day and he and I started dreaming up uh what it would look like but before we actually made that that big leap into entrepreneurship we went to a small startup uh that I got recruited to down in Tampa Florida called health insurance Innovations and they were uh insure Tech kind of like a rem model health and we joined there and I brought him and a number of other like studs on my sales team along and we killed it and grew that thing from like 20 million to 100 million and took it public and did an IPO and I actually got to be on the road show and we went to like 30 cities in 10 days started in London it was incredible crazy learning experience what is a a software sales tip or tactic that doesn't get talked about enough that you feel like was instrumental in the success of at that company and now at remodel health I don't know if it's a software tip but what I've learned in these smaller type companies is when you have and unbiased when you have sales-minded Founders I feel like you get to product Market fit quicker than when you have tech-minded Founders and probably because you know we're just wired to like go sell stuff and then you learn by going out and meeting with customers where the holes are and you come back and you tell The Tech Guys versus like build it and they will come like unless you're Google or Facebook I don't know that that happens a lot so we were totally like the sales-minded founders that were out there selling every day and that's how we found the problems love that so how did you have the idea for remodel Health from that experience of taking a company public so at the time keep in mind this is like 2015 Obamacare passed like in 2011 and ObamaCare is the Affordable Care Act it created this whole massive new you know opportunity in the marketplace um and what me and my co-founder Justin Clemens recognized is that there was this huge Arbitrage with the individual market and mainly it was you know lower inome and middle- inome Americans could get tax credits literally like up to half the cost to fund these products but only if you weren't eligible for a group health plan at work and so that was our lane like that's where we had all our knowledge all our contacts all our skills it's we said you know what if we could create a solution that would like pivot from like group health plans to the individual Market go in cancel the group plan make them eligible for these tax credits and what would that look like and we had no idea on Tech like we knew how to sell uh we had a buddy of ours that we we called him up we said hey you think you can build this he's like yeah for about 10 grand I'll build you your first version and that was our MVP that's awesome and then Justin to his credit as the main sales guy he went to town and started selling his butt off and it it worked and uh it crushed until about 2017 when the bottom fell out and at that point in time uh literally Obamacare was failing uh and our product was tied to that like if we were only as good as like the Affordable Care Act market and what happened is like all the big Brands pulled out United pulled out Etna siga human and total you know death blow like I thought okay game over and uh we went from about six employees down to one employee we lost a ton of clients we weren't getting much sleep Justin and I big Faith guys we were saying a lot of prayers at the time not getting a lot of sleep and praying a lot and really the pivot was um really just getting more focused on instead of we didn't have a niche and you guys have heard this saying there are riches in the niches and so at that point in time we said okay let's double down on what is our real core market and it was churches uh nonprofits and schools and we kind of got really clear and F focused on that lane and it really started taking off in spite of you know all the big Brands pulling out and that was really the big you know aha moment where we turned the corner how how did you choose that particular Market out of all the things you could have done what what gave you the faith to go all in on those as as a as a faith guy one feel like I was inspired from from God me and Justin both would say that so that's number one number two really just looking at the data and seeing like okay who are we helping the most and talking to our clients and who who's you know you know really wowed and thrilled with this product and we give us five out of five and that's how we kind of got to the the final answer that's really smart yep and Austin what what are your memories of starting your own Entre first entrepreneurial venture beyond the candy sales you know when you had kind of like your your first like professional post school all right I'm I'm out here doing it yeah so started a CPA firm doing that Outsource CFO for technology companies and that's actually where you and I got to had the best name of a business ever like it is very well branded like like literally Nate was like yes he's going to be on the podcast Austin L you mean layman's terms layman's terms yeah everyone other than my parents my parents didn't like it cuz I thought I was putting them in my terms when they hear that they hear the last name but everybody else uh uh I liked it but yeah so that and then that business as that grew that's how I got to come across Scott and Justin and I was you know understanding the problem and beginning to try to solve that problem for some of my clients so I actually was trying to solve this for some Churches and nonprofits and beginning to and I had done Excel spreadsheets to try to solve this problem of the high cost they're getting these big rate increases didn't know what to do about it and so we started do spreadsheets and said hey these individual plant might be less expensive and so I'm doing it on Excel spreadsheets meet with Scott and Justin it was Justin you know talking me into a meeting in the middle of a busy season when I should not have been talking about health insurance but he's a sales guy and you know rope me in and so then we had a long conversation I'm like man if I was Building Technology I'd build something like this and two guys United Healthcare if there's two guys that could solve this it's guys like this so I actually started out doing outsourc CFO for their business and no no pay just an equity tradein because I believed in the business uh and then I started my brokerage started using them and we were really focused on that church nonprofit market and I think pretty quickly became the number one performing broker and so we saw real synergies to come together there in the so fall of 2017 we really wanted to do a series a raise and we needed to get to million Revenue uh they had focused all sales sales sales i' focused on the customer experience side of that getting happy nonprofit clients so then we said may it makes sense to bring our two companies together they were maybe 500 you know K 3K Revenue it's got us real close to million then we joined forces that fall of 17 and had a good sales year and crossed over a million there and the and so that then we got you know conversations yeah on the series a side of that yeah that's really cool well I I'm really fascinated by your background just as a CEO operator um obviously I think sales is a Common Thread with Founders and CEOs a lot of times but you don't always get the like Finance background and I imagine it kind of gives you some superpowers in some some ways that a lot of other CEOs don't look at or think about the business what are some ways that you look at businesses differently when you talk to other CEOs and I know you've you know had them as clients in the past with your previous business yeah what are some of the ways that you think about business that you think have been really helpful in operating remodel Health as the CEO yeah I mean I think one thing that we talk a lot about uh and I've had this good conversations with Scott and Justin because they both saw them you know they had the sales ideas and tons of ideas and really I brought in the operating focus is they brought me on to lead the joint company spring of 18 one of the biggest things that we've done is so Justin uh his fingerprints are all over the business he got us to our first million but there was 100 different ideas and so a you have to prioritize ideas out of that but B the thing that we probably weren't doing real well in the early days is saying when we do a new idea it means we're not doing an old idea so sometimes we would you know like this thing but would actually opportunity cost to go hey by doing this one it means that the one that was a priority four months ago is moving off the list and are we okay with that and do we actually think that this thing is the so is that's something that we really brought into to focus and and I some of our leadership team you know Richard's been there Richard par our Tech leaders really forced that prioritization and it's been so good then to go we when we pick up this new thing we are saying it's not you know it's not just the thing that we're thinking about for these two weeks it's the thing that we are more excit it's bigger opportunity than the that we were talking about three months ago and we so we there's a conscious versus an unconscious of just the thing of the moments of the thing we're always working on so there's I don't know you're talking about I never do that oh wait on to the next next topic love that that's that's a great perspective and I I love that so much Meg on our leadership team is it holds that that uh seat really really well sort of like the integrator of our team kind of Justin and I definitely were The Visionaries and came along we didn't have an integrator and he was the perfect integrator do you do you all use EOS as as a model kind of informally maybe yeah we like the framework I will just say myself with it it can get too constraining yeah constrain too formulaic and I I remember reading the book and saying man if you did all these things when would you actually go out and run a business and do new things and go and and I remember reading the book and there was a certain chapter where a company talked about all the things they done and all the steps they done and I'm like this is too much and I went out and researched them and they they were an Amazon Seller and they got taken out by by amazoning compy well I think because if you sell through Amazon there's just so much risk Amazon can copy you and so they were out of bus and so it was just so it's Nuance for me I'm not a full I like the framework but if you uh go all in there you may miss out on the creative side of just of the things you need to do to keep growing a business yeah but we like the overall framework yeah yeah we're very very similar uh and aligned in that way I I think that's great and experimented with going all in and then we're like whoa hang on a second the I mean I think when you're a small company agility has got to be your number one competitive advantage and so if you're like no this is what we're doing for the next 10 years yes that's it it can take out agility that's exactly the way to say that good example I think about that you know just kind of piggy back in on that yeah we saw an opportunity in the market so we you all my our views would be always start with a niche and find a niche you can win and make sure it's big enough and but but start there and then expand and then it's hard to know when you make the expansion pivot and so we saw that opportunity spring of 23 where the the you know new product could come in the market the industry term is I or rra was something that had been passed through Trump and Comes live in 2020 but starts to get market adoption really in 23 and so we see the opportunity from a you know in and it's like is this the right time we do need to continue to serve this profitable Niche that we have but is this an opportunity is this the right time to product expand and we really wrestled through that over like a six-month period but if you're just uh you know just doing EOS you might go no we just have to make the thing were doing better yeah and it was it didn't be the right call um I would say we had these good debates about hey the old things got to go the new things here and I was like oh the old thing's going to keep growing and it turns out the old thing grew a ton yeah and the new thing also so it ended up like we 23 was this exceptional year where both and now our team would say that it's challenging then to go what are we working on what's the focus I mean so we definitely like some of our employee engagement stuff dropped some because people were like it's hard to know all the things like we took on a lot in 23 but now we are seeing the momentum as we come into you know into 24 with taking on the new some of these new initiatives I think the other thing Austin brought to the table as the CEO is uh really thinking more deeply about core values and our why and I remember the first year he came along uh we decided to really say hey uh the main mission we're trying to solve here is save these organizations a ton of money and we threw this party for all of our customers saying hey we repurposed dollars that we're going off to health insurance companies back into these Ministries and businesses and the first year was like we celebrated a million dollar in savings and last year we just celebrated 100 million but he was really the key driver on that and like getting centered around core values which was a big deal for our culture yeah that's huge and I I I think it's interesting that you kind of zeroed in on that even just in talking through like chasing opportunities like it worked out for the business but like the fact that you're keeping in mind yeah our our employee satisfaction score went down you know that was a trade-off temporary trade-off sounds like y I think so they got to pop back up yeah yeah and I think um it's a just that's how you think about entrepreneurship right like here's the opportunity there's there is going to be a cost cost right yeah so now we're getting back to the CFO background it's like there's a balance sheet right there's there's a Yang to everything totally can we talk a little bit about some of the bigger challenges I mean kind of pulling on that thread a little bit are there other moments just over the last few years here that uh were particularly challenging for remodel health and how did you get through those particular challenges yeah I mean a lot of dark days I think it's it's never an overnight sensation it's always a 10 year yeah you know um and so there was a moment uh around the same time for both uh both Justin and I where when the carriers pulled out where we thought that you know so it's probably 2017 time frame where we're like this this business is over like we're we're done I mean I remember commiserating with one of uh my teammates Zach Parker saying like we we went to to a pizza buffet at two in the afternoon I think we we I don't know if we got drinks but we wanted to I mean because it was just like this is the end and I mean Justin it was like there was in the last couple weeks where it's like if we don't close a deal in the next two weeks we're done you know I mean that's the moments that happened that you know afterward everyone's like oh you know must be nice must be great yeah your pocketbooks must be just padded real big and you're part of the you know 1% it's like no no no it's like lots of dark days hard to survive and in that case I think something came out the 11th hour and and it was interesting in Zach and I's case so Justin I think there was broker he'd been working on and and a you know a business came through and and saved that and in Zach and I's case we go to bed that night very discouraged thinking the business is over and wake up the next day and I was like has your you know uh has your passion for this changed like do do you still feel as called to serve these Ministries we're talking about people like wheeler mission right giving wheeler Mission hundreds of thousands of dollars to go and help homeless people on the streets I mean that's the so has your passion changed Zach and he's like no I said mine has Nei I still feel just as C so we got to solve this you know and so and there was a massive pivot as I think Scott alluded to going to mostly Insurance commissions to go mov into a SAS subscription model and that was our pivot that happened because of that hard time so it's often times and I would say too not only so the big aha shifting to the SAS model and getting Tech fees recurring fees which has been incredible for a business yeah but also at the time we were like 100% dependent upon Brokers and when the bottom fell out of like the Affordable Car Act Market Brokers wanted nothing to do with with touching that market you know no big Brands the reputation was at stake so we really made a pivot into direct sales and developed a whole new direct sales Channel which like helped us like crazy and now we've kind of gone back where it's more like a 50-50 model but it it was a good learning experience it sounds like those kind of trough moments looking back where like key inflection points end up be inflection points and very similar because that when you go back that's five six years ago but very similarly this year ago where we we're serving the Ministries you know serving the nonprofits having a big impact and it's going well it's not a failing business it's a growing business but now the Brokers are coming back you know ik comes into the market so we see this new opportunity and we're wrestling through you know and I we went to our team said we got to start focus on this new market because it probably is growing even a little more quickly you know diversify our business this is just a smart thing to do and they like well did we do something wrong and it's no no everything we did to this point a great book for that actually was dual transformation was a book that Jus found and I think from a friend of ours U Brad and so we read this this book it was very helpful to how do you have a good operating business but that you need to now you know you have something that maybe is an even bigger opportunity and so bringing the team along with that so that was a real challenge for at the board level yeah lots of tense moments how do we need to be profitable do we need to be growth focused all the tech companies probably deal with that and we really had some battles around no no no we need to have have some profit no no no we need to grow you you can tell you can guess who's on the grow side on the profit side of that and we threaded that needle pretty pretty well in 23 by the end and we both didn't no one won right I mean it was it was a compromise and that's the best decisions happen but but those were tense moments to debate that stuff can we talk about that uh the experience right so going from the Outsource CFO yeah to then taking over this new joint venture I mean that has to be challenging as something you like built from nothing right and to be like yeah I trust my Outsource CFO to take over this new company and lead us to the next phase of growth can you talk about what was going through you and Justin's mind there and how that whole went I think it it hinges on what we talked about earlier uh Justin and I are wired to be more Visionaries and we recognized in Austin a numbers guy that actually knew how to sell and how to communicate really effectively which is kind of rare very rare you're a unicorn and oh thank you and to be able to put him and we we noticed like you know this guy runs pretty pretty you know nice business in in layman's terms and so um we said you know I think this guy could run it better than we could now was what an easy call right um Justin you know at some point you know had thoughts of being the CEO and you know I think it was a lot of just really tough discussions and uh we're glad we made that call I mean that is that takes some serious internal reflection and and to know like hey I think this guy can can run our business better than we can right and kind of taking your hands off the wheel we've had a numerous amount of um of entrepreneurs and Executives on the show that have talked about that moment when they I'm just thinking back to Doug Booth talking about he's like a flying guy and he's like I just took my hands off the off the whatever it's called for the Yoke and the plane corrected itself and yep I think that's just uh that speaks a lot to you guys and your character well we talked about challenges I'd love to hear about I mean some of the successes I know that things have been going really well some maybe ink 5,000 accolades in there talk to us about what's working super well at REM modal health I think what's cool is uh we talked about all these challenges in the first probably half of our life the first four or five years nothing but massive you know headwinds every day like you know Brands pulling out of the market and what seems to have happened in the last like four or five years is government passed this new tax law ikra and all of a sudden we've got like massive Tailwinds so it's been a huge boost and once you start getting momentum and making things like ibj Fast 25 and the Inc 5000 it just becomes easier to do like recruiting like finding a players like when you're when you got this fast growing rocket ship like everything gets easier now you do have challenges but in terms of like I think the key in any business is you know finding a players and uh that just got way easier once we got momentum what got harder speaking of Yin and I mean prioritization becomes so this is the first year that we have all of our channels this you know this is the first year that all of our channels have good growth really good growth prospects um you know we've had to work hard to get those up and running so this is the first year now where there's people going I want resources and they have legitimate like it was last year it's like yeah you didn't do anything so you're not getting a lot you this year it's like so we we sit and we go so it's a good problem to have no question when we go there's good growth in front of us but prioritization of that prioritization of profitability profitability is just smart for businesses it's more sustainable it's also smart but you guys are a tech company you don't need profits what do you mean that's what we heard two or three years ago but I we're hearing different things now and so we're um yeah so and so it's I mean I think it's a prioritization it's been the biggest challenge that I'm experiencing is to go now there's 24 things we could do and they're all like it used to be it's like in 23 it was very clear the thing we needed to do in 24 it's like there's four or five things that are really interesting that we could allocate resources to more than we have so what strategies or or tips do you have for for other entrepreneurs that might be going through a similar stage what are you guys doing what kind of inspection yeah good question I mean we definitely are very much like smart people uh coming together as how I so it's we are not a top down like I'm going to show up or Scott's going to show up or just going to show up and tell everybody how like that's not like the smarts people are the people closest to the situation we just listened to a good podcast that Brad Jacobs on Founders who he was talking about that he's begun to ask his key team or all his team members these questions i' be to ask questions three questions you know what can we do better around here what's the stupidest thing we're doing and if you were CEO what would you do are the three questions start to ask team members and we're beginning to Bubble Up those to the top to go we need the best ideas to come to the Forefront and then we need great people I I just was meeting with our manager directors and they had all these great ideas I'm like these are great ideas but to be clear this is not the eight of us sitting around and me having a 25 item Todo list out of this this is you all formulating your thoughts and solving these problems for the business and though those of you who solve these problems well will rise yeah I love that reframe and it sounds like a pretty easy trap to get into too of like all right I'm going to S crowdsource these ideas and now okay what now I got to go do all things so good on you for kind of finding a way to enable the team to make it happen the other uh big pivot change we made in 23 and now in 24 is thinking about growth not only organically but m&a and we pulled the trigger on our first deal yeah congrats that just closed a month ago and and that I'll give credit there's a buddy of mine in town David trogden that had a nice exit in medical supplies and uh it was really his idea where uh they did this Playbook over and over again and he kind of taught it to us and we're like can we try this and it it was crazy we have probably 20 competitors in this era space yeah um and we literally came up with the idea and said hey let's start cold calling our competitors love and see if they're willing to take the call and then are they willing to have a conversation about some kind of m&a deal and I was shocked like I started making C gos uh on LinkedIn hitting them up on LinkedIn and like first 10 10 out of 10 responded which I I thought wow I didn't think that would happen and then like five out of 10 wanted to have the call so it ended up being a little easier than I thought now of course we were probably the number two player in the category out of 20 had nice growth coming along so it made it a little bit easier but uh that's been interesting big learning experience I love that talk to us a little bit about what you've learned through that m&a process doing your first successful uh acquisition I I think there's so much opportunity right now for entrepreneurs just given where the market is there are a couple of other members in our community that are doing a similar kind of like rollup strategy right now just because there are a lot of Founders who are just tired of dealing with the ups and downs and so if you're like hey we've got a Groove we see opportunity we've got Tailwinds what a what an awesome time to be able to run a Playbook like this what what I learned is I was thrilled to have Austin Layman as her CEO this is his wheelhouse I his superpower is putting those deals together so we were able to do that deal for almost like no money down which is crazy that's amazing and and I'll let him get into that but that's like we didn't have a ton of cash we were sitting on to go buy business so he got super creative also thanks to David trogon because he ran this Playbook before but I'll David tron's company uh medical device I think or medical supplies of some sort great SEO there yeah and we got advice from David and then another guy we're part of C12 that's a a Christian CEO Round Table group super helpful and these guys had already done playbooks and we we've literally like copied I mean we they let us use their letters they I the letter I sent out for when we bought this company was 95% you know from this cuz it was good you know and and and their integration had gone well so there's just not a reason to to recreate these things but you know so the mention Scott mentioned we did two things that did seem to serve us well as we went into that phase the first one is by pivoting toward profitability no one else in our space is profitable because they're all pure tech companies and all more early stage just raised investment so with being the only profitable company it created opportunities a we had some cash so way I think we put about a million dollars of cash into the deal and we had that cuz we we threw off a couple million of cash and so that was something that worked out well that was a balance you know I was going toward profit they were going toward growth but we the where we landed gave us money to actually complete two Acquisitions one smaller one but this was the larger one so in each one we came up with about a million um so we spent the 2 million in Acquisitions that we that we made but then the second piece of it is that profitability also positioned us well in the market with these other companies as we're able to tell the story to say I remember being on a board call and they they saw the revenue growth but they saw that we went from losing 2 million to break even to make two million over a two-year span and I remember one of the guys was like how did you do that you know that's you know so it did position that well and then we actually credit to the CEO Victoria who we were working with she said hey I think this is a compelling story I think the journey you're on is compelling and I think we want to be a part of that and she let us actually present to their board which is a real credit to her and a humble move on her part and so Scott and I got on a call with them and said here's what we see here's what we see the market going and there is something that's just true about companies that are larger and more profitable uh are are worth more in the market than smaller companies they're they're tend to be more stable they tend to you know attract it's a it's a ton of time to acquire a company whether they're big or small and so you you know so so we pitch that to them and that made sense to them and so they said hey we're willing we believe in you all is what that really came down to and we're willing to roll into your company with just that we did give a little bit of cash to get out some you know to not get out but to to pay some of the early investors some of the early employees that were waiting a long time for cash so some people did get paid out but the large investors said were willing to go along for the next run because we believe in the industry the direction you're on that's incredible more to come maybe uh I mean I think we're open to it I think uh the thing I found we've raised investment and we raised investment back in our our we did two seed investors in 2015 and 2016 and then we did a series a in 17 uh people keep who we acquired did investment even earlier than that so there's some folks out there that want to see some chips off the table or some you know drisk a bit I've learned that it's not that dissimilar to a bank you put money into a bank and you expect to get interest return investors think about that very similarly and sort in that seven you know to 10 year kind of run where we do need to provide a return for our investors who have you know given us this opportunity get put money in to allow us to grow but we're doing the things what I tell her to all the time we're doing things that good businesses should do and the things good businesses should do investors also want to be a part of so not it's not like let's go be a really dumb company to to to get investors to invest with us no no let's do like it's smart to diversify it's smart to be profit like these are smart moves we're making that as an employee of the company you should want to be a part of a company that makes decisions like those in turn that also will achieve investment returns for our our investors I love it and we're almost ready for Nate's favorite part of the the podcast here but before I do one of the things you mentioned was your CEO group U which is something we're obviously really passionate about could each of you share maybe like one thing that you feel like um CEO groups in particular have helped you along your entrepreneurial Journey yeah for sure so I I've had this rule that I've lived by pretty much all my life called the 3% rule the 3% rule is in a given year invest 3% of your income into your own personal development and that could be books could be courses could be coaches could be Mastermind groups and that like this year I I'll invest over over six figures in in personal development one of them is longevity Health Clinic I've got this Con tell us a little bit about that it's called Longevity health.

clinic and uh they kind of model after like Peter AA outlive if you've read that book and you go out there for three days and you get every test known to man every MRI CAT scan blood work you name it and they create this data set on your body it's kind of like we run our businesses on our B on on data but we don't run our bodies on data and this is a way to have kind of a datadriven approach to running your health and so every month I have a a call with u a trainer a dietician and a doctor on like you know are we moving the needle on all the things that we're doing so it's pretty cool but anyway back to your question yeah um so cool so um I'm a huge advocate of surround yourself with smart people and I'm in number of different masterminds where um it pays off in dividends and uh the one that I love here in town that I've been a part of for a couple years now is called tiger 21 oh yeah and David trogon who we talked about earlier we wouldn't have had that idea without David so that was all a result of tiger 21 that's so great yeah how about you a CEO group's been huge so got in one started the my first business in 2011 started one in 2012 and it is massive to join forces you I mean starting out you're the only employ I think I was the only employee so you you need people for that reason but then eventually when you leav the organization you have team members there's conversations you can't have with your team or shouldn't have with your team but you need sounding boards and it's very helpful for people that are in this trenches so I mean massive I recall going to that group and 2013 uh when I and I just was ready to end it all I was going to just I was done businesses wasn't making it it was failing and I was ready to quit and I remember that group saying well are you is this something that you're hearing from God that it's time to you know end it or or you know I said I know I think I haven't really heard anything like that I you know I'm just him you know and they're like well if God's not spoken to you that way are you supposed to stay in this a little longer and they really gave me that perseverance message and think things would have just ended there I mean it was you know at the end so that was a 13 and then it happens again so been in that consistently now for 13 years and canot not recommend it highly enough I think the most successful folks you know plans fail for lack of counsel with many advisers they succeed that's a proverb ancient wisdom and it's still true today absolutely crazy 3,000 years ago and it's still true today that's awesome the mic drop moment right there aw Nate it's it's time for your favorite part of the show guys it is time for my favorite part of the show this is the lightning round we've adapted it a little bit we're going to we're going to share a little bit of the lightning round uh Matt and I are going to go and we're going to ask you some some quick hitter questions so we'll go here here here here right sounds like a plan quick quick mind or quick answers top thing uh off the top of your mind got it no wrong answers unless they a wrong answer all right Scott what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana parlor Public House favorite coffee shop oh that's a good one what if that one's coffee toil cocktails right yeah they do both yeah that's that's a good did that make your list though um I can neither confirm or deny but I did it did make the comments someone in the comments I think his name was Will Will told me that I needed to put Republic shout out will and I go Turkey Run State Park closest thing to Great Smoky Mountains in my view and and it's in Indiana took my boys there to hike this last Thursday epic oh I like that go when it's raining right now would be a good time go when it's raining go when it's rain why would you go to Turkey run when it's raining walk through the Creeks get wet wear wear shoes that can get wet and take the Epic hikes great place the Epic hikes I'm here for that pretty incredible all right let's get in the car let's ride um okay Austin who is someone we need to keep on our radar someone who is doing big things I'll go Justin Clemens uh on our team I love how he has started this thing and he wants to use that so he's going to take uh the resources he gets from here and go down to Martinsville and really invest in that community so I'm excited about the way he's going to invest for the future already super plugged into a nonprofit down there Martinville I'll go Justin Clemens is there a reason why he chose Martinsville just curious uh he's he from down there and he blees Martinville yeah he can there's a tell some stories there's a Hidden Gem in Martinsville I think there's like a hundred-year-old goldfish Farm or something like that look into this it's like the the Midwest oldest goldfish Farm some I was someone was in my DMs telling me about this goldfish farm so fun maybe it was Justin maybe it was Justin who knows um Scott who's someone we need to keep on our radar someone who is doing big things yeah kid I just met that's 21 I want to say Justin grth yeah so Justin gr has got he started a lawnmowing business in in high school as a junior he had 70 clients wow and now he's got a crew he's one year out of high school said screw College I'm gonna go make a billion and literally wants to be a billionaire and he now has five Crews and he's leveled up and he's doing hardscaping and he's doing landscaping lights and this dude literally wants to build like a private Equity to own a bunch of these it I mean he's a machine it's like a mini Dan hry I thought of who I'd say now that he mentions that can I yeah you so you can say Justin too but will Schuler is the guy that I just met uh that's very similar to Justin so 22 years old excavating company starts doing it in high school and for his his class where you're supposed to go like you know work study program kind of thing and the teacher's like hey you know what you know how are you gonna prove that you're doing a work study Pro he goes can I do my own business like yeah it's probably fine how are you gonna prove it and then he uh he brings an an invoice the first week like you know $20,000 invoice he goes yeah you're you're good you can just yeah crazy J how do you spell that g r FF and these guys 21 and 22 are doing things that we weren't even thinking about till 10 years after that yeah unreal that's great Justin gr oh we're we're gonna get him on on Instagram we're gonna blow up his he's got Lawn Care Justin gra oh we're gonna tag this going be great final two questions Scott I'll start with you if you could have a superpower and solve any business challenge what would your superpower be and why any business challenge that's a good one um yeah I'll probably tie it to what I'm working on uh so so in all I'm now chairman of the board and I'm I'm no longer working so I got a lot of free time and I'm doing philanthropic work and what we're building here in town is called side hustle school and we're helping kids that aren't wired to go to college and maybe not wired to go to trades like go straight into entrepreneurship cool and we got a group of 12 kids and so I'm learning every day from guys like Justin grath that's why how I know him uh to figure out how to how to build these kids into entrepreneurs like straight out of the gate and uh so if I could learn anything I'd want to do better on that yeah superpow how to build a great entrepreneur yep cool how about you if you had one superpower yeah I would love to F figure out how to help people that grow up without dads or the fatherless uh how to engage them you know or how to help them I just think it's so hard Ian we both came out of with strong fathers and had such a big impact as did Justin and Will who we just described and so if there's something we could do as my superpower would be to somehow create fathers for this fatherless gener generation and help them raise up that's crazy you said my best friend and I have calls every morning at 5: a.

m. to make sure we're out of bed and on our call like two days ago we said we should make Dad Camp cuz he's a dad and he's like what if there was a summer camp where you just like people that maybe didn't have dads went to Dad camp and learned how to do that's my passion dad camp that's I I I will invest in that and do that the rest of my life there you go Dad Camp dad Camp dad Camp coming soon to uh to a town small town near you into existence I like it I love it uh final question which entrepreneur do you secretly admire and why I would say I'm going way back uh John Rockefeller the book Titan so I'm a huge fan of the podcast called Founders and what Founders is he reads biographies and then he gives like an hour synopsis and uh he's got a ton on there about Rockefeller I mean what I've learned about him is you combine like musk and jobs and Bezos and it's not nearly the impact that that guy had on the US back in that day based on inflation changed the trajectory of the country and not that he did everything right but uh a lot of lessons you can learn in there great answer and um yeah what was I guess what was your biggest takeaway why like what did John rockerfeller to do what's one thing in particular you admired about him uh just his his focus and of of course can't get away with monopolies now but uh just the Playbook he had of how how to go around the country and just buy up other companies and just the all out focus it was insane absolutely I love that that's great they're rebranding monopolies now we just call them wide modes I'm reading zero to one right now and you know it's you know that's right that's the re I like it Monopoly is a wide Moe uh yeah my my on that I admire are actually and I I'll give two uh Scott you know Scott Justin my dad are and because it's people that have built companies but still have healthy families and I have just now as I enjoyed the founders podcast but I've gone man like so many of these Founders the family side is just train wreck almost all the largest most successful ones and so you know that's something that I really care deeply about is how do we build great companies while also building great families and communities as you've studied that are there are a couple traits or qualities that you see from those entrepreneurs that they do really well in balancing uh having a great family while also building a great business yeah I mean Scott's been a unique one because like it's it's hard to get to a certain level of most of the time you have to make trade-offs so I think my dad made trade-offs I think that certain a lot of people make trade-offs but it's got been you where I'm like a lot of success and yet got good good Sons you know good Mar me so it's you know it's it's a very hard thing so I I do think that there is at times a trade-off where you have to go I'll give one example I was at this Founders event and I met a company and they said I'm getting home tonight and I have a 6:30 p.

m. Thursday night meeting and that's our weekly company meeting 6:30 p. m. on Thursdays uh and I don't how long it goes till 8 you know and I'm like every Thursday he goes yeah he goes we we're in Silicone Valley we get stuff done and I'm like man I'm just not accepting that tradeoff yeah you know and so I've just seen people that prioritize family uh prioritize Fitness and they're saying hey I I'm GNA work hard during these times but I've also got to you know unplug and unwind so it's we our uh value we call this PR przed we're strong collab as hard workers will me to live a balanced life so we just codified that we're going to build great company enduring company but not at the cost of people their most important in our life were there any big lessons you learned Scott while building great family and great businesses I think just the quote uh that that I used to have on my wall um no amount of success at work can make up for failure at home and just understanding that like end of the day like I care way more about building being a good dad and being a good husband than I care about building a great company you know at my funeral I hope that's like if anything's going to be said I hope it's that not so much being an entrepreneur so just having those priorities I think is huge perspective is powerful and you only get that with priorities that's great Scott awesome this has been an amazing interview thank you both so much yeah it's been exciting this is so fun I will say Tyler uh Scott's son is like how kind of that initial introduction got and he does rave about you as well not strictly being an entrepreneur right being a good dad so that is a little bit of fuel on that fire if you're doing the right thing there does I will I will retweet Great sons I only know one's awesome his kids his kids are gentlemen this was so great thank you so much for bearing with us and and we will edit out the fire alarm but there was a fire alarm during it crazy episode first one of one uh this is a hot episode not that hot guys off the fire alarm keep up the great work uh we're going to be there's so many fun Clips so many great things that are going to come from this um and keep up the good work gentlemen appreciate it guys guys thank you this has 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 powder.

com newsletter and to apply for membership to the powdercake executive Community Check out powder cake. com premium we'll catch you next time and next week as we continue to help the world get in since you just listen to this podcast you might be thinking about starting one for your company lucky for you our partners over at casted have you covered casted 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 powderkeg 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% off retail price for qualifying startups connect with casted at cd. us/ powderkeg