it's the same week I started I wrote on a note card that said nobody's going to give it to you and it's still in my desk we're able to look at anybody in the world raw carrier data and be able to tell them how much you can reduce their cost we want you to not do it for me not do it for us do it for you how do you feel like Indiana is doing when it comes to supporting Founders and entrepreneur from South bin to Evansville and everywhere in between this is get in the show focused on the hooer state and the incredible stories happening here today I'm Nate spangle founder of G Indiana and I will be your host for today's conversation quick pause in the action to intr you to vep vodka the cleanest tasting vodka ever Straight From the Heart of Indiana now this isn't just any vodka it uses an Innovative pressure filtering process that reduces bite burn and aftertaste now I'm not usually a vodka guy but when I first tried barkeep I asked them if they meant to make a vodka that didn't actually taste like vodka surprisingly they said yes barkeep subtle flavors means you'll taste the ingredients in your cocktail and not theirs with its roots right here in Indianapolis it's made with premium local corn and bottled in small batches to be gluten and Purity free I also love the look of the bottle with the bar spoon on the back as a subtle reminder that this stuff was made for anyone who loves making cocktails so grab a bottle of barke vodka from your local grocery or liquor store and impress your friends with the cleanest vodka ever made for more info visit barkeep vodka.
com today I'm joined by Chase Flashman the co-founder and CEO of ship Sigma a Cutting Edge Logistics technology company headquartered in downtown Indianapolis as an Indiana native Chase built ship Sigma to transform the shipping industry with datadriven Solutions earning accolades like ij's Fast 25 and top Logistics analytics Solution by Logistics Tech Outlook with a passion for Innovation Chase is dedicated to optimizing Supply chains and showcasing Indiana as a hub for entrepreneurial success today we're going to be talking about starting chip Sigma and the journey that's been the past six years uh Chase's leadership philosophy and how you grow a team especially when you're moving really fast and we're just going to round it out with talking just general business in IND and what's going on Chase welcome to get in man this is amazing so glad to be here dude I'm pumped about this one the energy in the room is poppable right like we're ready to rock today it's a Friday morning and the the boys are buzzing yeah this may be the best podcast ever oh I'm I'm pumped for it uh let's start out so first thing is this started in 2018 so take us back like what got you to want to be an entrepreneur and and where did the idea for ship Sigma come from and how did you start man that's a loaded question so um it started June 1st 2018 but it didn't really start there um that's when we started building the technology but it really kind of The Thirst or the want for this happened uh years prior you know kind of started when at Indian University I am uh studying finance and uh international studies and I'm wanting an internship um and I'm thinking okay what's like a large international company that's going to have a lot of financial uh implications or transactions or needs and UPS came to mind so I end up cold calling the CFO of UPS to say hey uh you know I want an internship and this was like December 20th or something of that year and he goes hey Chase we're kind of busy you know because they're pretty busy in December but call me you know January 9th or something uh so I called him he created an internship for me in corporate finance no way where wait where were they where was this guy based at they headquarter in Atlanta and you just you dial them up and say hey buddy I got a hold of them yeah that's how did you did you get like his receptionist or something and then be like hey well you know all good sales people are able to navigate and get to this you know the SE Suite right that's sick your that what year at IU were Junior that was your junior year okay so you nailed the internship with UPS uh yeah so I ended up staying at UPS um and did all the finance rotations and then you know the CFO said hey Chase with your skill set you know I need you to go to Business Development that's where we need you and UPS is the kind of company where you get a call on a a Sunday and they say hey tomorrow you're moving to Iowa right like you know it's just this Global reach firm and if they need you somewhere you go you're just a upser you know if you think about it kind of the time sensitive nature of what you're doing it's just a you know it's just kind of how it is is uh so I end up staying there for about 10 years you know in 16 I got a cold call so anyway I did all the finance stuff did all the business development stuff it was amazing um because after undergrad I was wanting to get an MBA um but you know that internship happened and I got just right into it right right into the work life but I end up I always say I got my MBA PhD and doctorate at UPS um because I got to work with so many different companies um building out Supply chains and just doing so much more but really got to understand the emotional and economical drivers of these businesses and and just being a student of business um and being so interested it was it was amazing in that time you know looking and seeing all these businesses it made you think I can do this and of course that's something I was always interested in and you know I had already tried 10 different things uh that didn't work right you know firesale golf.
com you know I was trying to buy a regional I was trying to go I was going to country clubs regionally and buying PES and merchandise and and try to distribute through other channels you know that didn't you know do well 10 other things that didn't do well towards the end there PS I started an Amazon business because I was in these million square foot warehouses talking to a guy named Shane or a nice lady named Sally and you know they're selling you know they're making a $100 million dollar a year selling on Amazon and I'm thinking I think I could do this too because Shane doesn't seem smarter than me and or Sally doesn't seem smarter than me you just got to do it so while at UPS I started an Amazon business where I I was look using data to identify products uh where there was a hole in the market so then I would just Source Products in China um create a quick brand and and just sell them uh you know using like emotional response type advertisements or or things like that like Teeth Whiting kits survival bracelets tactical flashlights just things that um you know had a low cost but uh High perceived value and we're getting on subscription models things like that the the purpose of telling you that is you know I was starting to have a little bit of a reserve in cash which gave me a little bit of you know a nest egg to be able to say hey let me go do something else and this is a side hustle this a side hustle so like give us a scope of like like what you're you're working full-time like you're I mean you're grinding with UPS uh but then you're also selling like stuff on Amazon and a little bit of like how what size of business are are you running on the side2 $3 million a year holy sh yeah but but but it was a low margin and I still do that uh you know maybe spend an hour a month on it um but you know it's a 10% margin something like that I've seen this a lot right where you you use something like a jungle Scout or whatever and you find out what but there's more people that make money on selling information on how to do it then people are actually doing it but it was interesting because you know when I started UPS in 200 um8 2008 uh supply chain wasn't sexy right like whenever I tell people I worked at UPS they'd be what are you a driver and I'm thinking this is one of the 50 largest companies in the world 500,000 employees uh no there's a lot going on but you know supply chain quickly got sexy um and and like if you watch Shark Tank a lot of the times those entrepreneurs need help in sourcing or distribution um the logistics of it knew that right so it was easy for me to Source Products from China get it to a third party warehouse and ship things I I mean I I didn't have to it wasn't hard at all yeah it's like the Gold Rush right it's like you could be the one like going out there and like looking for gold or you could be the the jungle Scout or whoever it is like selling the pickaxes and selling oh yeah my number one selling product was actually award ribbons award ribbons award ribbons I would sell them in bulk like you know packs of 100 first 100 second 100 Third like for run I think the name of that was 123 ribbons.
com one two3 ribbons is it still I don't no 123 ribbons. com I love You' be able do but it's like there's just so much if you're willing to go hustle and you know just a little bit like you can make some internet money pretty quickly like whether you're a college senior or any anybody can do it anybody can do it you just have to you just have to do it yeah so you're doing that you're it's it's you know $2 million a year low margin business but you're like but you to see volume and like and I think that's a big perception like mind switch when you run an Amazon store and you're seeing the Millions on there like a million people are transacting with you like that's pretty crazy right it it it is crazy um and so you go from there you're like stacking some cash on the side and then what gets you into ship Sigma so I got a cold call man this is getting better so I get a cold call um it's from a company out in Emerald ale North Carolina uh it's out there on the ocean one of those outer Bank uh you know spots it it's from an X UPS guy and I looked up the company it's you know all these ups X UPS folks that you know a couple years prior and they were a company that was helping high volume shippers reduce costs so I signed in IND da and went out there to go see him and I get in the parking lot and there's you know Bentley's Ferraris um all of you know these you know beautiful vehicles and I'm thinking these these folks were at UPS two years ago I mean you know I had a higher position um at that point than than most of these people like what's going on here you know something something's going on here so I go and meet with these folks and it looked you know they were it looked like they were basically going to you know these X you know to the UPS and FedEx shippers of the world and knowing kind of the internal workings of UPS going to these the shippers themselves going right to them and lowering their cost through um contract negotiations and contract auditing contract compliance auditing just these different ways that you know they knew and I knew we knew that there were uh like leaking margin or had margin enhancement or just could get a better deal or just do things differently and you know they said there was a lot of tech involved in it and so the way that it was positioned to me um it seemed like just a great value prop right they reduce cost and they get paid a percentage of savings and I'm thinking okay well that's an amazing value propos you're telling me you can go to somebody reduce their cost and just get paid on your performance okay well I mean I can go do that that's great and at some point during that conversation he slid a piece of paper to me that uh was a commission statement and it had I think $300,000 on on it so some somebody there was making $300,000 a year and he goes Chase that's what the worst guy makes and that was my Southern accent and then he says you ain't going to be the worst guy is you in his beautiful southern accent and I said you know no sir I don't believe I will and so I walked out the front door and I called ups and and I quit so then I the same day like in the parking lot the same day heck yeah so I went from you know making 100 plus thousand at UPS to zero here so I went a 1099 consultant fast forward a year later you know you kind of uh where I'm sitting in back in Emerald aisle sitting in the you know state of the company you know future of the company type meeting and uh they're talking about the tech road map and I'm looking at it going by this point I was the number one sales resource there I'm sitting next to the guy that was the number two and you know just kind of the it's what I found out is you know the tech wasn't as great as they said it wasn't automated as as it was they just it wasn't uh as amazing as you know and I think that that can be true a lot of tech companies so I said you know what I can do this like they're not what they're talking about like they haven't done it I don't think I don't believe that they're going to do it I'm going to go do it so so you spent a year there yeah and then you're like hey I'm leaving yeah so I came back to Indianapolis and I I found some so were you living down there no no I was in Indianapolis I'm uh Broad Ripple a couple miles from here heck yeah found you know FR you know just being a supply CH you like quit on the spot like how does that work when you're leaving to go like kind of start a competitor well I found out the hard way that it's not a good idea to compete you know coming back you know find within my network finding some that could help build um you know the vision of what I was wanting to build that was June 1st 2018 then the next day I started selling a product I didn't have um you know messed around started getting Enterprise level clients and uh found out you know I shouldn't be competing even though I was a 1099 U right um at that you know 1099 contractor you know which generally means you know you're Consulting your contractor you can do kind of whatever you want but I'd essentially you know signed my life away and I I shouldn't have been competing apparently so um I I was sued and I end up having to write a a large check to be able to um you know walk away no way yes so you're you're starting you're a startup right you're you know take your savings that you've like accumulated over the past couple years yeah I still had a Max up my credit cards to empty my 401k even with the the money that I was making with Amazon no way empty your 401k to zero like to like a bunch of that gone credit it's all gone no way oh yeah Building Technology isn't cheap I found out okay they'll tell you it's going to be 3 months and you know $55,000 it's actually going to be 3 years and and 5.
5 million yeah so you not only are you know having to build the tech and the road map and all this you're also going through a lawsuit and oh where were you at personally where were you at personally like in your life did you have like wife kids at that point uh so I was my beautiful girlfriend um uh you know we were living together at that point Cory who's now my wife kind of married to this grind right so you know you don't sleep um you know I'm sitting at the in the sun room over here on Kessler and carll you know with my big monitor my and my computer it's cold you know cuz it's you know beautiful old broad R of bungalow um and I'm sitting up every single night you know again not sleeping you know working with my team in Brazil uh to share vision and you know do QA um in the product that we're building um so essentially staying up every night testing product giving feedback uiux you know giving Vision when did it feel like you had something here I still don't feel like I have something oh yeah really like was there like an early win where you're like okay like our solution does because that is a common thing right in Tech to go sell the road map like Hey we're building this company we're building this product that's going to do this thing when did you have a product that did a thing it's a tech enabled services company so I mean I was going out and negotiating contracts the thing um was going to help very much in that process but I had to have it for the second part of the negotiation where we measure savings so the tech allows us to be able to digitize somebody anybody's you know old agreement current agreement and then every week when UPS and FedEx invoices come in we're able to to rate those shipments to measure the savings down to the penny on every line item and that helps you then send the invoice of like and our system also generates the invoice and it so it's 100% transparent um you know it's fully auditable right because we can all hold old contract new contract and invoice on a weekly basis and we measure the savings down to the penny so that was the initial you know kind of core that we needed to do so personally you bet on yourself all in all the money everything on the table and you're grinding yeah I mean that's the same week I started I wrote on a note card it said nobody's going to give it to you and it's still in my desk drawer hell yeah and mechanical pencil which I love right yeah because you could go out and afford the Sharpie pens on the startup budget okay so talk to me about when did you land that first customer like how long did you have to grind before you got someone to believe in you and take a chance with you all about 45 days later uh did a project for a Fortune 500 company that you know I I probably should have been paid we should have been paid you know maybe $1.
5 million uh did it for $100,000 a year so it was a $300,000 contract so did we generally get threeyear contracts yeah so you I mean 100K in like hey we got we got something going here we got our first customer about 45 days of kind of like yeah but then and that was to get it signed but you don't get paid until the you know the negotiation is actually complete those crazy like net 90 terms or whatever and all a sudden you're like yeah like on paper was a great it was a great they're great Fortune 500 great right I love that right it's like all of a sudden well technically we're making money we just have to wait for the check to come in the mail and you're like they good about sending checks yeah that's good so it was nice to know that was out there right like so so that you know having a couple anchors and I think that's why you would maybe sometimes do things at a lower rate just to to have the some Foundation or out there right um oh yeah right especially when you're going out and getting the startup it's like find out what you need to live right like when I left I was like okay can I can survive I make this much so sell at that price and then just keep start increasing from there and one of the reasons I told them I was going to concede on on pricing was that hey so I know this is going to be amazing I know we're going to do a great job so I you know ask for you to be a third- party reference you know after we do an amazing job you know I'd like for you to be able to speak to your experience yeah I love that and it's like and are they I mean did the whole contract go well there's customer hell yeah so the first one's still there that's that's special so you get the first one down and then the tech is still coming along but so I'm assuming a lot of that it's it's progressing rapidly it's so long ago now um but I think within a 3month period we had an you know something that could do something you know it's still iterating now yeah um you know in some ways because we still have our Legacy product out there of course million things have changed to it you know on a bi-weekly basis but and then we also are building a new stack when when did you get to the point where you're like okay this is too much for one person to handle I gotta go I got to grow my team pretty quickly I mean I think you know maybe six months down the road so that's when you know when I was told you I was in Emerald Island the number two resource was there um he happened to live in Indianapolis which was weird because there's only six you know maybe 16 sales resources or Consultants at that company in North Carolina and that gentleman that's number two he happened to be in a CER Grove where I grew up no way yeah so that's a funny story because he uh was a financial adviser for this firm uh out there in Carolina and he had saw how much money they were making and how much money was going into um you know the program and so he ended up being recruited by them they're great recruiters over there they're awesome sales people heck yeah okay so you bring him on as like your I mean he was kind of he was sitting there next to me you know I didn't want to really totally say exactly what was going on or what I was doing but he wanted to be a part of it and um he's amazing he fills a lot of the gaps that I have so it just a natural fit uh so he was sitting there grinding with me too at you know no you know no pay and so it end up working out really well heck yeah so you two get together you're making it happen and just keep grow like give me a scale for Revenue year one 600,000 year one and then then it got over a million and then you know it's 3 million then 5 million and then you just keep growing yeah that's pretty sweet I mean then 600,000 is when you when you take that bet on entrepreneurship you're like hey man we're we're we're rocking enrolling well yeah and what's nice about our business you know like an Amazon business that you're doing 600,000 you know maybe you have 10% profit but with our business you know we have a 40% ebit margin you know not necessarily at the beginning with tech Spin and all that but you know it's that more normalized we have a high margin so so you get Rolland when did you get like an office space a friend of a friend of mine uh who's a financial adviser had a space on the downtown the corner of Michigan in Pennsylvania and you know nice nice big office but you know didn't really use it so I subas one office in in his you know suite and then you know a couple months later end up you know getting another one of the offices and then another one of the offices in his suite and then he just said hey man you want me to move out you want me to move so you end up just like slowly growing inside and taking over his lease but it worked out I mean it was cuz he wasn't really using the space he wasn't really using the space um so it it worked out six months in there's two of you working on it plus an outsourced Dev team and then give me like how quick did you start to add head I don't know maybe six months later you know I'm thinking about all these amazing people at UPS and uh and a lot of them that are just amazing you know but they're working 80 hours they're not getting paid what they should they're not getting the opportunities to to utilize some of the skills they have so I called you know one of my favorite peers over there and we met over here at HUB and Cravens she was wearing a beautiful white dress and I spilled a coffee on her you know in a couple [ __ ] seconds and it's one of the things you remember right from the early days we still talk about it uh talked about it last week and so she was at UPS for 15 years and you know when you're at UPS you don't leave people didn't leave right you look to the left this person been there for for 20 this 30 what makes their culture so good at UPS or what makes that so Des that golden parachute golden handcuff and sometimes you just don't know what else is out there right you're just so you know kind that's like the top of logistics right it's like you're in the logistics like that's what you people aspire to be right like from the big company side I don't know I mean I wouldn't say I mean maybe I mean there are there large you know forun 50 companies so it's there's stability there um right like it's hard to get fired from UPS uh which I don't think's a good thing you know what I mean I I think that you know that kind of kills Innovation or that kills uh some stuff but but it the culture was interesting you know like you had to be a driver to be CEO I mean so like you know there was you know this old company wait what I I mean what what I'm and that that was true what I was saying is like you had to come up through the ranks yeah no you had to like start out driving trucks to then like keep working and growing up all the way through the yeah I mean it's just part of the culture I mean that you know you have to you had to spend time in the hub you had to done the rotations and yeah most people have spent time driving so I never spent I never spent time driving I'd spent um a little time supervising in The Hub but like people would look at you differently when you if you were like oh these a white collar guy like he's not he's not one of us that's right wow that's crazy I had no idea about that JC har company is your answer to navigating the apartment rental Journey with almost 50 years of creating enjoyable living experiences in Indiana you'll be sure to find your new home sweet home you're going to find 30 communities in the best areas Indiana has to offer Hamilton County downtown Indie Bloomington just to name a few along with five brand new luxury communities visit home ISJ cart.
com Nate to find their list of locations and reach out to one of their many dedicated leasing agents for a personalized tour tell them Nate sent you and they're they're going to take good care of you looking for a career in Property Management you'll also find a list of open positions on their website along with all the reasons why JC har is named one of Indiana's best places to work want to sneak peek into Life as a JC har resident or associate be sure to check them out on Instagram at home is jart or visit home ISJ cart. com Nate one more time home is JC Hart so as you're growing right like what was taking up a lot of your time in your bandwidth like are you selling are you grow like what you're working on Tech like what what's taking your time you know I always describe it you know staying up all night and just building stuff um you know you're just building whatever it is you know with what we do our average uh Revenue per client is about $148,000 a year and then so you know it's got a nice threeyear you know the contract value it's uh you know three times that and you know like they usually stay longer of course 90 plus retention rate yeah yeah um but you're just you're thinking about you're thinking ahead I mean so you're thinking about that next you're thinking about the every word I mean Damon and I we we would sit around for hours looking at the email that we're getting ready to send that you know you know we're in the middle of trying to win a customer I every word mattered you know just you had to be very intentional about just how you were positioning everything because it was so important yeah and I think there's a special spot in the market where you're at where it's like you're you're not selling them the software it's like it's a nice to have it's like you're paying us based on the amount of savings that we bring to you right yeah I mean so our our value props strong we're able to look at anybody in the world's carrier raw carrier data and be able to tell them how much we can reduce their cost and guarantee it before we even ask them to become a client and that's just with the negotiation then we're able to save the money and like we could tell somebody where to put a distribution we can give them a latitude and longitude where to put a distribution center in five minutes if we wanted to so that's valuable there's a lot of there's a lot of value yeah holy cow so you're building things is growing quickly and then this crazy thing like already e-commerce shopping online was pretty popular you know 2018 2019 actually growing growing growing Global pandemic hits and I I don't know what do you know the data behind like how much more online shopping happened due to the covid-19 pandemic yeah it was a [ __ ] ton yeah right a metric a metric [ __ ] ton right so that happens what does that Doe to your business you know most people think that was that would be like we're here because of covid but I mean I would almost say we're here despite covid um I mean it's helped in some ways but if you think about it because of Co it put the carriers so yes there was more shipping but it also gave the carriers a lot of power um from a leverage standpoint I mean you know all these companies were trying to get capacity you know the carriers can kind of pick and choose who they wanted to work with so they weren't ready to just uh cannibalize their revenue and say let me give you a better deal no I mean everybody was just trying to get on their packages on a truck so it was actually a very difficult time to to negotiate and improve contracts wow I I would have thought the other way because volume would have been so high but it's like yeah they're like well we could put yours and you're and like you're yelling at me about price and they're kind of hey we just wanted to get it out there we'll go with them no I mean they were they were saying no to Enterprise companies they were saying no to you know just to the volume so I mean people are lucky to get um their shipments to to customers Dy but the Las thing effects uh have been great for our business right I mean everything's getting shipped to your house oh yeah like I I wonder what the the average Amazon Prime customer like how many packages they have delivered a month or a year like it has to be an insane amount you could just sit in front of my house for a week and it's crazy I was at um a JC har property not too long ago and they were talking about like the new they're building a new one like the mail room and how many packages in the Amazon lockers and like they say that that is one of the toughest pieces of owning and managing uh apartment complexes is how many packages in and out and now they're putting refrigerated lockers for the meal prep kits and all these new industry right like the refrigerated lockers and things like that I mean do you use Amazon uh yeah it's weird I order maybe one thing a year from Amazon you I as my wife if when I need Stu wait you personally or like oh my wife orders oh she orders all I'm like you guys like you but you only get on there once the buying experence is crazy like uh especially like you see like Amazon businesses like a lot of times build on Shopify like I'll see people like you see a Spotify like Facebook ad or or Shopify Facebook ad and then go buy it on Amazon right it's like oh I'm on their website I'm on about 60% of uh traffic when somebody goes on the internet the first place they go is the Amazon U you know search you know that's they don't go to Google right they go to Amazon look isn't that crazy um okay so I mean as you guys have Amazon okay how big is how big is uh ship Sigma today uh so we're going to do you know about 14 million Top Line this year about a 40% EIT margin um but we're at an inflection point now where we're really hitting our stride um we'll probably do 18 million next year Dam yeah so it's it's we have a lot we have a lot of baked Revenue like I I can tell you right now what I mean if we went to sleep on a beach right now we would still generate you know significant amount of Revenue on eida next year because you know we already have we have hundreds of you know threeyear contracts you know it's this reoccurring Revenue so and then talk about uh size of employee like how many what's the head count at I love that question because I think you get it and so many people get it but people that aren't maybe in the business Community they'll generally I think when they ask that they're and you let's say you told them I have five people in my mind when I I started ship Sigma I always said I want to be five a five person company in the back of a Starbucks making $100 million like that to me is a great company and you can do that now with um you know technology and being able to Offshore uh today we have about 24 W2 uh folks that see that that's crazy cuz there's like Tech startups you know that are you know have 50 employees and doing 2 million Revenue I I don't I don't know how they do it uh because I always look at the numbers I me I'm trying to do the math I'm like where you know we're just know in traditional like VC back tech like you know profit doesn't matter it's not about profit it's about growth and you know Topline Revenue AR all that fun stuff yeah so we're so we're lucky so we we were very intentional about building automations I mean if you think about the core of our product it's it's accounting and finance I mean really we're we're more accounting and finance and data analytics company we don't ship anything we use data to help high volume shippers in many ways but a lot of the ways we help them is an accounting and finance so has AI made any impacts in what we've always been using AI right like I mean we've been using Bots and machine learning for that's what's kind of the core of the the stack that we you we have to use we use a lot of selum and scripts and Bots and python that's that's pretty cool and are you seeing that like the evolution of that happen even quicker every year with like product scares me to death uh you know there's to me there's major headwinds because we spend you know we've invested a significant amount of money in R&D over the years and you know proprietary technology and you know now I'm you know I'm just worried about somebody going on chat gbt and uh you know do you know building code to something similar and everyone says it's like oh yeah we're an AI powered this or that and it's like when you kind of get into the space you can see like people who are actually building AI or just like put a fancy template over chat GPT and that's what your thing is well again even though we're not a logistics company because we don't ship anything you hear every six months there's this new Freight Tech but it's it's all the same you know Freight Transportation man systems all the generally the same stuff man okay so you're growing you know things are going crazy but still pretty lean from like a head count size and we can continue to grow at this rate um you know without really adding too many folks it's we you know we're very good at having a sales engine and digital automation you know digital marketing Engine things like that you max out the credit cards you empty the 401K when personally did you feel like you had a little bit of breathing room like when did you start to build some of that like personal take some of that off the table wasn't looking for money didn't need M didn't need money in fact you know you mentioned a little bit earlier I've always been anti you know the people that are going around with the PowerPoint presentation that haven't tried to do anything don't have traction haven't put something of their themselves into it so but we were doing okay and then I got a call from a local investment banker that said hey I've been doing some transactions with this uh with this group out in New York immigrant Bank immigrant Capital so immigrant bank is the largest privately held Bank in North America it was bought by a billionaire in late ' 80s his name is Howard milstein you know hey I want you to meet these folks he's talking about a billionaire and uh you know his right-hand guy is a guy named Bob nardelli who's the ex CEO of Home Depot and Chrysler who was the guy under um Jack Welch who's you know one of the best CEOs ever at GE yeah but Bob chose Jeffrey Emil to run ge when he left not Bob so Bob left the next day and went to Home Depot so I'm thinking okay those two and then you know at that point I was you know all these Harvard NBAs that were part of the team it was a small team which I liked and uh so hey you know they want to meet you and and by this time a big reason why we were successful was actually partnering with private Equity groups uh like hkw and uh here in town and others to go to Port Co their portfolio companies to lower cost because everything when we lower cost in shipping it that money Dr go Falls right to iida so you know it's a cost reduction right so who loves cost reduction you know private Equity does so we partner now 80 80 plus% of our clients are private Equity backed firms across the country oh you the direct referral where it's like hey you're you're the the guy who writes the checks for the company introduces their CEO their CEO their CFO and well of course they're going to let us do the analysis and right we identify savings it's weird it's hard for them to say no um so we saw major inroads there into private Equity so to to meet these folks that had a lot of other connections with private equity and just thought that would be interesting so we end up having a conversation talked for a couple hours they end up coming down to St Elmo uh I think and giving us covid um we signed an Loi a couple days later later we took um some money off the table they're minority partner wow yeah so we uh took about 7 million L $7 million and then you sold a piece at the company about 23% was that hard it drisk it a little bit you were able to take a little bit of chips off the table you know put some money back in your 401k pay off the credit cards and uh you know because you're still even though the company's profitable making money you're still putting it all back in the company you're double Downing you're double you know putting money back in Tech you know that uh beautiful young lady who I met the white dress I spilled coffee on you know paying her salary that we didn't really have you know I mean you're you have to I always call reaching you have to you're getting you're you're getting Wealthy on paper but yeah I guess you could say that but it's like you're not necessarily I think a lot of people see that it's like oh you started this company that's growing really fast and we've had a lot of people sitting there that's like we were doing 10 15 20 $50 million in topl line or whatever but it's like I wasn't taking home like a y huge portion of that cuz we needed that money to hire more people to build more stuff to grow even bigger like that's crazy okay so you meet with them you go through that you take a some chips off the table for you personally did did you still have like the hunger or were you like oh you know like we've kind of made it you that's that's such a great question because that was the worst part of it looking at you know your bank account and I look at it all the time and it just like it I hated it despised it because it it did take away some of the hunger and um it's it's all for me it's was all about the chase it was all about the go go get right it was like but don't worry I spent all that money so have to get more yeah there you go right yeah uh but no it does take away so it does take away some of that you lose some of your Edge a little bit um and you have to now I'll tell you this when the the the the funds were transferred I didn't feel anything like I didn't feel like we won or it was over it was just that was hard that was just kind of the step that was you know just just one step to get to where we're trying to go well and I think this goes to like what the motivation is obviously you're in business to make money and do that stuff but it's like if if the number one motivation is money then it's like just sell the whole thing and get rid of it that'd be really sad I mean at the begin you're M making a million bucks being a person like grows a company you're like I made a million bucks like that's really cool it it turns into bringing the people that you used to work with into a better environment having them make a lot more money spending more time with their kids um being able to you know develop as uh in business and and as a person and just growing and using the skill sets that have been kind of dormant cuz you know these Fortune 500 companies and aren't able to to you know put their finger on something that what is the best I mean what's been the key to getting people to leave the safe responsible job of UPS to come join you I think it was selling the the vision and the opportunity um but we don't really uh go grab folks from those those companies anymore we we got a couple of core we have a couple of core people from uh UPS and FedEx that we have in our team and so so we're fine so then what are you looking for when you're hiring people the hunger we look for people that are reaching we look for people that that are wanting more you know people that are resilient resourceful they have to be entrepreneurial um because you know they have to want to go get it right they have to be committed to winning has that college junor called you and asked you for an internship yet has who has a college junor has anyone found your phone number you yeah yeah yeah um and so I respect the hell out of that right so we met him and he wouldn't leave us alone and then now looking back on it yeah he was just kind of like me so we end up hiring him as an intern and then he graduated then he called wouldn't leave us alone and then so we hired him and then now he's a core of our business I mean you know it's and that's really what it's all about when I when I bring people when we bring people on it's like we want you to not do it for me not do it for us do it for you like I want you to learn all these new skills and like you know in some ways I want people in three years to leave us I want to be able to introduce him to a friend of mine that needs you know has a $400,000 you know VP of Ops role or CFO role or something it's like a coaching tree right like you think of through where it's like you are the Special Assistant you get the offensive coordinator job and all a sudden you're like you know the head coach over there like that's pretty cool when you think about growing a team in in culture like what were you prioritizing and thinking about as you grew this team I mean going from 2 to 3 to 25 I mean you're you become like a real company you know I'm always open honest transparent and very fast to uh you know give feedback and I'll still put my arms around and love you but I think a lot of that comes down to really uh wanting to bring more out of people than they even know they can they can do or that they have so I think it's it's just getting people out of their comfort zone I mean I think it's about making people uncomfortable in some ways uh to to get out of that comfort zone uh to be better to go to places where they don't know they can go I mean because that's kind of the philosophy in business like you know it's when you hire like early on when you're hiring somebody but it's like I don't know how going to pay for them we're going to get better because of them so it's kind of betting on yourselves having people go to go to place they didn't know they they could who are some of the leaders or mentors that have influenced your leadership philosophy well I'm going to go see one of them Michael Crafton uh next store here after this you know I I see some amazing I see like people like Michael Crafton um and other people that are just amazing leaders and amazing company is Michael crafting with um so he's at a healthc care life cycle a revenue life cycle firm right now but he had started you know out of a truck he' started a company that would was cleaning grease hoods in um you know restaurants that's how he started and then end up you know kind of running Indiana and then going National end up selling to an inter International uh firm that does grease hoods isn't that you can make some money doing some obscure jobs right uh so Michael crafton's one are there any other mentors I mean there's so many Dave trogden Dave trogden you know he started probo medical I mean he's somebody that goes around the country and helps other entrepreneurs because he did such an amazing job and still does such an amazing job on boards doing growing companies via m&a uh so he he's an amazing uh resource Uh Kevin Prefontaine from Family Leisure great friend of mine Bren Jones at Hughes culinary oh I love Bren uh he a great friend of mine uh you know so we're just we're talking business all the time you know a lot of the people that I'm in YPO with you know we're having these conversations or you know 4:00 a.
m. walks or 5 a. m. walks just talking about life talking about business 4: a. m walk like you're you're getting up and going on walks about 4: a. m yeah two three days a week no way yeah where do you guys walking well I got this from Crafton he he uh um he does it every every day we do it Broad Ripple Butler uh Brian Kessler zionville Carmel um no way you want we can walk I love you want to walk on Tuesday uh yeah I'd walk on Tuesday let's do it I love that that's so cool I and I see that from a lot of the most successful people it's like these habits of waking up early like I I think my life changed last year at some point I started waking up at 459 every day like most uh I would say like I probably throughout 2024 failed 28 times like total like but every Monday through Friday I probably failed a total 28 times sometimes you know the alarm clock just beats you but like setting that practice and when when you wake up at 5:00 a.
m. for 5 days a week and you're like have that you have that extra and I'm just doing it a couple days a week I mean I'm I'm impressed by these people like Crafton and other so it's it's every day I mean that's the real stuff Ian I'm still trying to figure out uh what are other are there other habits that you see from these high performing leaders you know I don't think I'm a high performing leader um I I'm but I I see what good looks like and I'm just always so impressed and you know you're you know you're wanting to emulate and do those things and I think it's hard but you know you see those kind of routines you know something I I'm working on to be a lot better at is you know being more Mindful and present I you know that's really hard but the the good ones are able to do that when you're hungry and ambitious and you're always thinking about the next thing and you forget to just think about the thing right in front of you well you said think a couple times there right so it is about thinking so the brain just never shuts off so for me I I still really don't I definitely didn't sleep the first three years really at all and so now you know I'll still be up 24 or 48 hours just in the office um I'm still spending time with the the family um but you know when I come you know put my baby to bed I'm spend a little time with my wife you back in the home office you know just sitting there and sometimes it's I'm not buil you know like early on not sleeping You're Building uh now it's a lot of it's It's processing and like just thinking about the next thing and just putting some there's just more pieces to the puzzle yeah it's just kind of putting it together when you think about this six years later almost going into uh six and a half years what's taking the most like mental capacity what do you see yourself focused on cuz I'm sure it's not as like necess go out and like sell the next deal you can find those what takes the mental space you know it's about put I think it's about really been focusing on people um so like this year our theme or my messaging is about become a becoming a truly sales focused organization and it was about sales enablement so you know sales is here Tech is here you know marketing technology what did you do to enable sales today marketing what did you do to enable sales today so is we're sales focused organization and how are we enabling sales the layers the additional layers uh that to put in place um that that you know you become franchisable you know you become just kind of fully automated you know with with AI and all these things that are out there what are the pieces of the business that we can improve via technology who are but even with that you know what can we improve via technology it kind of starts with who are the people I mean so I've been thinking a lot about people um you know when you're a zero to a million you you look around the table you have some people there and then um you know maybe two and a half to five it's could be different people five to 10 different people and as you get bigger there's different qualities that you need around the the table with you what do you think your most valuable hire has been it's it's the folks that see everything at a high level across the organization there's so there's things I can see that just nobody else can see within the business or especially in the future um but it's the people that uh you know that that the leaders that can be more daytoday into some of the minutia I mean there's things that happen in the company or things that are going on that never even get to my desk um and I think that's by design cuz they know I'd probably you know jump in and dig in dig in and that probably takes what I you know where I should be spending time you know it's I'm probably not spending the my time where I should be it's it's the folks that are able to do was it hard to start taking your hands out of the business uh in some ways yes but in other ways you know I just I just took it off and just and just did it and and there's instances you look down and you go okay well you know I love giving you bringing people in just giving autonomy like you you got it that's why I brought you in um but then you know 3 months 6 months down the road you you look down and and you like okay let's look at this let's look at that and you go this this isn't good this is weird and then you go further and you may find some things that uh where there's some issues and there's other times you look and and there's like that balance right where it's like you want to give them the space but also give them the guidance and the mentorship uh and also give them the space to fail CU if they fail like a couple times they learn from it and they get better then you're good yeah even when it's like if you were just sitting in all the sales calls I'm sure you'd close them all but then your mind has to kind of shift to the next thing and you have to trust your sales people to go out there and close the deals yeah yeah yeah so you know we have a deal desk so you know larger opportunities that come across I like to get huddle you know I'd like us to kind of huddle up and and think you know have a strategy down to kind of each almost email and I think about every step and almost act as they're going to become a client let's go with this next so on larger opportunities I like to kind of put the deal desk or the deal team together where we're think we're going deep into every single step we're about to take to go execute and wi the the business and I think that's that's good uh you know I think the the folks on the team like to love that yeah why why do you think Indiana is a good place to start and grow a business the you know the iedc is amazing uh you know they're doing great things with tax credits I mean it was really easy for us to uh you know get some different training grants tax credits um when do you start thinking about that along your journey like year one you're not thinking about tax credits are you or were you I mean I was at UPS I was doing sarban Oxley compliance so I was always thinking about you know some of those things you it's both the finance side you're always kind of thinking about uh those things well I'm you saying is there startups out there that are in year one trying to get those first client they should be thinking talking IDC IDC and getting some tax credits they may be still trying to get money to hire people but but when you hire people you can get tax credits so they they go hand inand um so I think it's just part of um I always think the way I think or is build to build to sell you think of the Northstar and what are the things to get to that Northstar so if you when you're already at the Northstar like okay we're going to we're doing 100 in Revenue okay well of course they're going to have tax credits right so why why not Implement that now like I think we we do things at an Enterprise level that we're fighting a bunch above our weight that we maybe shouldn't do like we get a financial audit each year you know from a top five firm or you know we spend money on the front end because I think it saves money in the long end in the long term like investing in Automation in HubSpot or integrating accounting softwares into to things how do you feel like Indiana is doing when it comes to supporting Founders and entrepreneurs Elevate I think they the most deals uh out there uh you know to doing a great job you got guys like Josh Klein he's a good dude he's amazing I think that I would love an entrepreneur to hit me on LinkedIn hit me te you know text me call me email me I'm more interested in what a a Founder is doing or or a startup or an entrepreneur much more than what I'm doing I think the state has inherently some really great entrepreneurs and I think there's and with that being said great entrepreneurs that are willing to help they just need to be asked um or but I see a lot of ERS you know raising their hand saying Hey I want to help who did you Scott lingle Scott lingle's a freaking amazing you know this High School hustle uh initiative uh that I partnering with are you are you a part of it are are you going to be aair Grove oh yeah chairman chairman of that's what I'm called bu presid it's a sweet organization well it's helping high schoolers start like a side hustle and over $400 freaking amazing it's awesome I love it I'm I'm freaking amazing yeah there's some heavy I me Christian Anderson from high Alp has been part of it and around that I went to that one meet and there was a ton of just really really cool people and that's kind of what triggered me to to reach out to you on LinkedIn and ask you to come on the show yeah I saw you there yeah okay what do you think as a state so notless they like the government entity of State you were hustling there you did oh yeah I'm always come on every day I'm hustling buddy uh what do you think that we as a state could do to help continue to support entrepreneurs and grow more startups here in Indiana like what are you missing as a Founder what do you need more of we have a or fellows on our team that that are amazing I mean I think like the ORF fellow initiatives are are really are really good because I think there's a lot of college students you know that are that are thinking hey I want to go work at Google or you know work at Amazon or you know work at a Fortune 500 company and and I started that I started doing that but and I you know like I said I got my MBA PhD and doctorate doing that but I don't think that's the best I think students should be able to go to the entrepreneur community and go to uh a startup uh you know a scaleup because that's where they're going to learn the most and be able to make the most impact I mean I want to see somebody who 26 you know be the co of a company right I mean we have to give the kids or students be the ability to make impacts at startups and scale ups and then that's just going to keep developing talent that they you know maybe they start a company they don't necess have to start companies you're going to have some more Talent out there just giving people the opportunity oh I say I guess you know the the or Fellowship I think they subsidize you know what we pay um folks so I think you know the scal UPS or startups in the state can give scal UPS startups you know more money to bring in top talent to keep them in Indiana and and to to put to pour back into them and develop them I think that that's that's a great ini I mean I I went through so I was an ORF fellow from 19 to 21 it was amazing and then from there I left enjoy start like whenever I hear ORF fellow and I think everybody else you're thinking okay this is a smart uh young lady or young man yeah I mean we we it's it's a prestigious or to be a part of and I'm it changed my life honestly and then from there I went and joined Patrick EG I spent three years like in a you know sub1 employee company and you truly do get like that NBA PhD doctor the whole experience I mean you're an entrepreneur there yes legitimately in not many places you get paid to be an entrepreneur and like learn how to grow a startup it was crazy at the Salesforce or the Lily or whatever it is you get uh you get good experiences you get different experiences but when it's like hey we got to figure out how to make money like our company like we're not going to have jobs unless we figure out how to grow this company it's just like a another changes your mentality AB I mean I learned more in the first year after leaving UPS than I ever learned there you know about kind of logistics and supply chain you know my my horizons were broadened well it's fun that you talk about our fellowship because this next question is brought to you by our friends or Fellowship so they're a great organization here in IND in Indiana helping develop young Business Leaders across the state so Jase what advice would you give to your 22-year-old self I I would say look UPS is great and you're going to learn some stuff there maybe you do go there for a couple years and and learn what Fortune 500 Fortune 50 are doing go take a risk and go work at a startup go work at a scaleup and somewhere where you can see and because you're entrepreneurial right and you're interested in those things but how entrepreneurial are you allowed to be at UPS or or you know these larger companies so go somewhere where you're going to matter you know you're going to have a fingerprint on the business you're going to see the impact that that you're making within the organization you'll kind of see how it all comes together you know hey chase at large at this large company you're going to you're going to be sitting in finance or sitting in BD but you don't see how it all the puzzle pieces come together and are they all work or intermingle so it's just interesting to see that orchestration uh you know it's fascinating I think that like anyone who's aspiring entrepreneur and like wants to be an entrepreneur it's like find yourself in a company where your presence matters makes an impact right like the stock the stock at UPS if 24-year-old Chas doesn't show up the Stock's not dropping I mean one of our interns who was a software developer of course you know he's he's uh everybody wants to stay right we love everybody we want to keep we want everybody to be there I mean he's they're they're integral to our business these same people that were entrepreneurs are integral to our business I mean if some of these people weren't there if they weren't there it would not be good for us yeah I mean they in we trust them to do it would it would severely H hamper like your growth your speed all that stuff 100% And then also they've grown they have in knowledge and domain expertise that others just don't have or couldn't have we're we're tied at at the hip and and it's great yeah and I think that that is a big it doesn't necessarily mean you have to quit your job right now and go start the company but put yourself in a place where you're getting those experiences and learning and like where you showing up because when you go and make the the jump you have to show up every day sometimes 24 hours a day and plus so many people at my company that if they said they wanted to leave and go start something I would say hey that's great clear out your [ __ ] out of this office maybe you know somebody who's in an office this is now going to be their startup room or something let's go incubate the business here and you I'll give you the money like I'll fund it what what are we doing yes let's do it and I I think that is so um underrated and I think that's another perk of Indiana I don't know if it's like that everywhere but a lot of Founders that have grown something special here in Indiana and like have those relationships with young entrepreneurs are willing to like I've had people since I quit and kind of like on my own they're like let me let me write you a check let me I'm not taking funding I'm like not doing it cuz I don't want the I don't want the the VC investor or anything like that cuz I don't need it at the moment but they're like don't take any of that's right yeah right and they're like they're like let me let me invest in you I believe in you I want to write you a check and I'm like I'm I'm cool I appreciate it come be a customer but like I I love it I think that that is something that Indiana does really really well um I do have another question what makes Indiana such a hub for Logistics well I mean you can get anywhere in the two day anywhere in the country in two days via you know a truck uh so being in Middle America is is what's the furthest distance like that someone like from Indiana like what's the longest drive I don't know [ __ ] California I'm not not good at Geography okay that's fair well not you're not good at geography but like you run we don't ship anything you don't ship anything I guess that's fair you're a data guy okay so if you weren't in logistics what would you be doing on the private Equity side investing into pling Capital into into entrepreneurs into business what's a so what's a startup idea that gets you excited like if you could go if you had do it all again you that's so funny because you know technology is so so hard especially not being a technologist I mean I want to like I want to do some businesses that I can more touch and feel uh next I mean don't get me wrong I still want to have a room full of developers and give them 20 ideas and go build some stuff um and I think it's always smart to stay within your lane things that you kind you understand um but I also want to do things that you know I can just touch and feel like a sprinter van company you know just things that you can just do better you've been hanging out with Josh Klein he loves we love Northern Indiana we're we're there's a lot of opportunity in northern northern Indiana you we love spner B so we love Josh Klein and everything he's doing oh yeah there we have a lot of great clients in that space too I love it and so you grew up on the South Side Center Grove oh center grve from Center Grove to IU and then broad rle well they always say Center Grove is the caramel of the South but then you grow up and you go to caramel and you realize no caramel's caramel caramel's carel and I'm never going back to Cent Grove love Center Grove no I'm joking yeah right yeah so keep going so where are you guys at now uh so our office was downtown now our office is Midtown caramel freaking love Midtown caramel um we're in the Allied Solutions building we're getting ready to move to a larger space above uh Anthony's right there on um oh like at the three up building yeah so right now we're in the Alli Solutions right there on the Monon we're just going to go around the corner W so I need to we need to update the intro because you're you you want we have extra space if you need some space over there this is my space buddy if you need you're going to be bigger by when we're move you know you'll be bigger if you need more space we got I'm just going to take I'm going to get has you know you know Ryan yeah yeah so he HS this building so I'm just going to say hey I need the upstairs he all these buildings yeah I mean broader hits his thing right and so you started your career like you lived in Brader Bol right oh yeah so the first commission check I got I at UPS um you know I think you could buy a house for like 1% down or something so it let me buy a house on Kessler and Carell heck yeah okay Kesler Carell kler and Carell baby right there from the monan apartments oh yeah you know the house that facing the Meridian I'm sorry it's facing Kesler you know there bushes that go right up to the door that was you oh yeah it's the start of canbury right there so you know the backside deala pizza and uh yeah wow I have a rental house look right over there at uh 5 I say 54th of the Monon it's like right behind the where the Dancing Donut was lived there from um maybe 2010 through June of 21 I moved to zville oh wow yeah why did you chose zville my wife was a cheerleading coach in zionville and just loves the area it's you know it's nice small community when when you were going through that process and like weighing out all the options between Like You Know Carl Westfield zville Fishers like what were you looking at and like what did yeah did he just come down to no becom it's where the talent is where do people want to be I mean so you know there's a lot of lot of talent and caramel a lot of Talent on the North side um you know within a short short order we had a new space and we found a new VP of Finance where's where's he live you know he lives in carel okay when you were hanging out in Broad and I think space is actually important real quick on that note sorry Nate um you know I always wanted to be five people in the back of a Starbucks but in in in our space downtown it was okay um but our space in Midtown caramel is much nicer and I never wanted to have a beautiful expensive space but the the space that you're in actually does matter I mean windows and energy and open and area environment a place to collaborate um you know I think the math on that is you know let's say you go from $5,000 a month to $15,000 a month you know am I going to make more than $115,000 from being in the space if that's if you the answer is yes go to the space um you know you can level up in those in spaces like that toally sales energy it's amazing I love that and it's like so for me I still live here in brero so it's like being a 4-minute drive from the office not having to drive down like there's probably cooler offices or whatever but it's like I get here in 4 minutes and I'm energized I'm not like getting out of the car after a long commute and like like I'm ready to rock when I get in in the morning I I love that so when you were living in Brad rle where were you hanging out at a lot of times we're at killroy a lot of times um I had a lot of parties in my house we had a lot of good fun I me had some buddy buddies that lived like two house down you know well everybody was in Brad R right it was such an amazing time it was man I miss BR I love being back here it's there just there's just an energy baby and I feel like it's gone through some ups and downs but it's like it's on the menend like things are things are happening and I mean people like hasberg are doing a great job of putting money into and helping make this place great okay as we round out we're just a little bit over an hour so uh I have three questions that I ask everyone who sits in the seat so the first one is what's something the world needs to know about Indiana we want to help I I mean you know we're just naturally friendly kind people but like the entrepreneurial Community wants to help I mean if somebody has a good idea and to go get it I mean you're going to have you're going to have a line of people that will invest in you not just money but time heck yeah that's so true and it's like and they put their money they put their money where their mouth is but they also put their time Talent treasure all things yeah money is a capital is a commodity it's the time and the Strategic nature is important uh what is a Hidden Gem in Indiana uh well there's in zanville there's a place called Sugar Pie uh what is sugar pie they have amazing pies we maybe I'm thinking about Thanksgiving we s some amazing pies so that's a wait where's it at in zville I'm not going with geograph like I have to like I'll have to press a like to get back to my office I'll have to use the GPS Fair what what do you get from Sugar Pie sugar pie literally the sugar pie that's right is that like all they do they have other pies or pies they have other pies but the sugar Pi pies amazing all the pies are amazing um Christmas Monteray did I only get one hidden J no you can give you can give another one U Monteray that's our second office um we we love we love Monteray if you want amazing Sushi they're getting amazing Sushi there every day I love how I'm immediately going to food yeah when I'm thinking about hidden gyms I French Lick Indiana there's hidden gyms in French Lick Indiana freaking love French lick my mom grew up there no way yeah Orange County used to be the most oppressed County my cousin is actually in the economic development down there so that's cool wait wait your mom grew up in Orange County she go to what is that uh no she she spent some time there she didn't go to the FR Lake Springs Valley Valley Valley Springs High School yeah okay um but it's was funny cuz my dad's from Boston and so you know Larry Bird played M my mom's French Li wow you're a bird family man okay so we had sugar pies I don't know if it's plural I'm going to go with pie my sugar pie my sugar pie my sugar pie in zville go to my sugar pie go to montere go to sa um great family uh great family EST family owns monter they're amazing great family owns sa saver is amazing and you can ship the my sugar pies like they we actually have a lot of companies in the food and beverage Celsius as a client we have a lot of food we have lot do you have like a partnership with them like do you have the office stacked up with Celsius well one of the main reasons we've grown is just through Partnerships so no we're not like a sponsor anything but they need to pay us more we need to pay them more money yeah you need to just like hey you know we well we're coming to negotiate contract terms you're going to pay us but we'd also like to take a portion of that in PR so I'm not on social media linkedin's my Facebook but I know celsia has been blowing up through strategic influencer crazy Celsius last year has been maybe last two years have been wild it's like the healthy cool energy drink it's like if energy drinks were cool not monster and like marble red and we've been drinking celsus before they were a client um can I keep going on hotpots if you want to Family Leisure is a gym what's Family Leisure if you want a hot tub you go to Family Leisure and and like if you go into Family Leisure it's like and you're around five you know 50 hot tubs you're not going to have a bad time you know what I mean hot tubs are great okay family Le that was Kevin shout out any uh anything else like when it comes to Indiana like you know you grow this company you sell a piece of it you got some money you could go anywhere you could vacation you could do all stuff like but you're still here you know you're doing a podcast in Broad Ripple building a company Indiana what keeps you here you know friends relationships I mean you know what is it your your uh network is your net worth or something like that and it's not about money it's just about you know being able to lean on other people that are going through the same things you are and people kind of maybe talking you off the ledge or you know going through some of the challenges you may be having and have similar uh challenges that you're able to uh you know have those therapy sessions with committed to you you know our our people and making sure that they're all uh continuing to be invested in and go to the next level I love I think that's common answer for people that that grown their I mean a lot of like people may have a house somewhere else but they they still spending a ton of ton of time here final question who's a hooer that we need to keep on our radar someone who's doing big things there's a a young entrepreneur uh that you know I've been um helping a little bit his name's Ben Brooks uh he's he's from Carmel he's doing some uh he's kind of a full stack guy uh technologist good sales guy but I think um he's he's doing some stuff in healthcare that's interesting well it's a couple different entities but Ben Brooks but speaking of Health Scott lingle I mean so Scott lingle SP he spends so much time actually the Ripple effects of the things he's doing in the entrepreneur Community are just freaking amazing so if you don't know Scott lingle you may know him just from be some of the things that he's doing with in the entrepreneur Community but you may not know his name but when you see you're about to see I think a ton of entrepreneurs coming up that you know Scott lingle it's from like the Scott lingle tree you know F they're they partnered very much so so that's high school hustle and he runs remodel Health they they've been doing some amazing stuff go back uh we had an episode with Austin and Scott oh maybe a year ago it's a it's a really good listen so you know I keep an eye on Dave trogon you know don't sleep on Dave trogon you know uh he's out there in the Wings doing his thing on boards and stuff like that but I I feel like he's got an itch at some point where he may just come out and just like I need get him on the pot I don't know I can just see him just doing something epic again I'd love to see him doing something Michael Crafton you you don't know Michael Crafton no 10:45 I'm going to go see him you can come over there 10:45 um it's okay if you'll you need to have him on here he's like my Guru well where's he at what's the company uh it's so you know in the corner chaos yeah well it's the chaos he put up that chaos sign but that's not not actually the name of the the company oh but he's that's I I was so I was actually met met him and I was walking down the street and I saw the sign it was the day it went up I was like what the hell is the sign and I guess he was like yeah just put it up I was like this is great they love this oh yeah we need to figure out any you got to meet with anybody who puts a chaos sign well hey Chase thank you for coming on appreciate you this was fun we'll we'll be sure to check back in as you guys keep growing and you hit that when you hit that 20 million Mark that's going to be fun man keep up the great work and uh we'll talk to you soon thanks thank you for listening to this episode of get in if you like what you heard make sure you leave us a review wherever you listen to podcast this show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level click the link in the description to see all of my gear recommendations at sweetwater.
com if you want to behind the scenes look at everything we're doing across the state make sure you follow me on Instagram and Tik Tac @nate spangle thank you so much for listening and being part of what makes the hooer state great we'll see you next time here on get in
