EXPERIENCE 202 | Rick Gardner - Bull Rider, Roofer, Rocket Scientist, Professional Walleye Fisherman, Serial Entrepreneur, Venture Hub Founder, and EOS Implementer

Rick Gardner is an EOS Implementer in our Northern Colorado region.  He grew up in Leadville, Colorado, and had his dreams of a long professional bull-riding career ended by injury.  He’s gone on to a series of interesting professional and entrepreneurial ventures, and his previous chapter was founding and growing an Venture Accelerator and Investment Hub aligned with University of Buffalo in New York, which served over 150 companies and raised over $100M in capital.  

Disclaimer - We forgot to talk about the professional walleye fisherman chapter!

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Rick Gardner is an EOS implementer in our Northern Colorado region. He grew up in Leadville, Colorado, and had his dreams of a long professional bull riding career ended by injury. He's gone on to a series of interesting professional and entrepreneurial ventures, and his previous chapter was Founding and Growing a Venture Accelerator and Investment Hub, aligned with the University of Buffalo in New York, which served over 150 companies and raised over 100 million in capital. Disclaimer, we forgot to talk about the Professional Walleye Fisherman chapter. Enjoy. Let's have some fun. Welcome to the LoCo Experience Podcast. On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around Northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories, business stories, life stories, stories of triumph and of tragedy, and through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw and no topics are off limits. So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guest today is Rick Gardner and Rick is an EOS implementer. He's an inventor, a serial entrepreneur, and the creator of the iHub accelerator and investment fund in upstate New York. And then he moved here. Why'd you move here, Rick? Well, I'm from here. You're from here? Yeah, I went out there. I remember that. Yeah, that's right. I went out there just for that opportunity. And then for family reasons, I came back to Colorado. Yeah. Yep. Um, where should we start? Like, uh, let's, tell me about your first invention. Let's go there. Um, let's. Even if it didn't pan out. Like, even if you were a teenager and never went anywhere. Yeah. Um, I had a lot of inventions when I was a kid. Um, I guess my first real invention was after I graduated from college. Um, I went to work at, um, Lockheed Martin. Okay. And, um, there was a, a rocket called the, the Titan rocket. And it had, um, this problem called Pogo, where it would explode after it left the launch pad. Okay. And so I worked on an invention to, uh, mitigate that. That was like the Titan right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, so that was kind of my first post college invention. Um, and then I went to Hewlett Packard. Well, what, like, you put an anti explosion device on it? Well, it's, it's kind of technical, but, um, basically I changed the natural frequency of the, of the propellant feed line. Oh. Which prevented the, the, uh, It was creating like a harmonic imbalance virtually. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Tuning fork done wrong. Right, right, exactly. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Very intuitive of you. I'm, uh, I like to say I'm an inch deep and a mile wide. Like, I don't know much about much. Yeah. But I can understand things faster than a lot of people. Yeah, yeah. A little bit. Yeah, so. But only that deep. It's over my head if we keep going. Yeah, I'm, I'm similar. So, so lucky to say this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's have him do some more stuff or? Yeah. And so, you know, I, um, I worked on a lot of really cool things. Um, the Cassini spacecraft that went to Saturn had a similar problem. Okay. They found it just before, um, they were going to launch the vehicle. Okay. So 30, 30 days before, um, they found this instability in the test pad. Okay. So they asked me to figure out how to fix it. Because if we missed the launch window, uh, for the trip to Saturn, we would have had to wait. Yeah. 17 years later, you're like ready to go again. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. It was a similar, similar problem. So I kind of became the de facto combustion stability guy. Hmm. Interesting. So, um, yeah. It could have worked in, uh, like racing at formula one or something like that. Right. Instead too. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I've, I've, that's a lot of the, like how, how fuels and, you know, And mechanics react at the extreme. Exactly. Is really the secret in racing and rockets, probably. Right, yep. Yeah, and with rockets and even, you know, race cars, everything's, everything's right at the limit, right? So, anything that, there's not a lot of margin for error. Yeah, yeah. Let's, uh, let's shift to what you're doing now. We'll talk more about unfolding your journey, but, uh, EOS for those that are uninitiated, uh, on the entrepreneur's operating system. I know that much. Yeah. Um, do you want to set the stage? I've had a, I think you're probably our fourth. Okay. EOS implementer on right at the end of our fourth or start of our fifth season here. So, uh, it's something I'm endlessly curious in and I think people need to know more about it. Yeah. So. You know, I, I mean, the bottom line for what EOS is, is it helps get a group of people from point A to point B in the most efficient and effective way possible. Okay. And it sounds simple, but the first question is, where is point B? Yeah. Right? It's kind of hard to get everybody to go in the same direction if you're not sure where point B is. Yeah, yeah. Right. And so. You know, that's, that's really what it's about is getting all the human energy in an organization to go in the right direction. And in order to do that, everybody in the organization has to share the vision for where point B is and the plan for getting to point B. Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, it's really, that's kind of the simplified view of it. But, um, you know, what EOS is based on is six key components of any business. And it turns out that, you know, about 5 percent of businesses are really good at those six key components. Okay. And they're, those are the great companies. And, you know, about 95 percent of the companies are only good in a few of those key components, and they're kind of successful in spite of themselves. Yeah, yeah. So it's really well in 40 percent of the companies are kind of bad at some of them. They'll be gone in five years. Yeah Yeah, yeah, and and and it's really just you know the other thing that happens to with entrepreneurial organizations is we start them and You know, we kind of get things going based on our our intuition, right? Yeah, yeah, and we don't find until we get to a certain number of employees that our intuition is no longer gonna carry the day Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, and you met my small team here, you know, I've got just enough, you know Communication and vision to keep them on track ish But if we got much bigger much more complicated, it would be that much harder Yeah, and and a lot of times what happens is is that That kind of tends to creep up on us that we've grown to a point where, um, you know, it's, it's beyond our previous methodology. But also driving ownership, discipline and accountability. Yeah. You have to know where you're going. Everybody has to be aligned with that. You have to have the right team. You know, and you have to do it with discipline and accountability. It's funny, I, I told this story for years before I ever heard of EOS, uh, but it was kind of the same theme in that, um, have you ever been to Colorado Springs area, 11 mile reservoir? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, Jill and I got caught up by a Sleet and a huge wind and to make any progress, we had to be pointed exactly into the wind and row at the same exact time, because if we were off kilter on the road, we just sat there. If we turned sideways, we went back 50 yards, and I use that as a example of how teams can really be more powerful together, right? If you had eight rowers on each side of an old Viking boat, and one guy was goofing off, right? You would know it. Right. And that's what, right. And that's what maybe helps you find that guy goofing off That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That one guy can make the, the boat go in circles. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's really about all of those things coming together. And, you know, the other part that's pretty powerful about it is, you know, when we talk about the six key components mm-hmm Um, it's tough to get to the root cause of issues in a business. if you're not strong or strengthening those six key components. So a lot of things could be misdiagnosed. For example, if you think you have a people issue, but your, your plan isn't clear or accountability isn't clear, it's really tough to say whether or not you have a people issue. Yeah. Right. Interesting thing. Yeah. If you don't have ownership and accountability. Yeah. So Reflecting on a conversation I had with Alma here recently, um, she's been in the operations manager role for, I don't know, 16 months or something like that. And, you know, really, um, came into the role with a vision of making it easier for LOCO to grow and have that good experience for the members and stuff. And, and we've improved that. And, um, We're not growing as fast as we maybe have in the past. So she was like, Oh, maybe I'm doing, maybe I'm the problem, you know? And I was like, I don't think so. You know, I'm pretty confident if I had a 40 year old instead of a 22 year old. Like we'd still be stumbling over the same challenges. Yeah. Um, you know, let's call it intuition, but that's the way it is. Well, and that's a good sign if she's, if she's reflecting like that. Yeah, for sure. No, I mean on the GWC, she's easy. You know, whether we have it in the right seat, for sure. We don't know necessarily. So I guess maybe can we start with the, what are those six, uh, areas? Yeah. Yeah. Turn the lens on. Yeah. And it's, it's none of it's rocket science. It's all, it's pretty common sense, right? But, uh, the first one is the vision component and that's kind of as it sounds, you know, um, making sure that you have clarity on your vision and everybody in the organization is 100 percent on the same page with that vision. We have a special way or a unique way to define vision because vision is kind of an overused term everywhere. Everybody has a different definition. We have a pretty specific definition of what a vision is, but that's the first component. The second component is the people component. And like you were talking about earlier, Um, it's not only having the right people in there, you know, the right people to fit your culture, but also the right seats for those people. And, um, You know, that's a very important thing and getting the vision component strong and the people components strong leads you to the next component. And that's really the data component. And that's understanding what are the fundamental things that are driving your business. What are the things we should be looking for? It's kind of like the dashboard almost. Right. Right. Like what, if you were going to have a bill of dashboard, what needs to be on there? Right. And you know, I see two extremes. Um, some companies don't gather any data. Yeah. Right. Others gather too much data, and they choke on it, and they're not sure what's important, so everything's important, right? And so, but it turns out if you're good with the vision, the people, and the data component, then you're pretty, you're starting to get pretty good at identifying issues, and that's the next component. Okay. Is, is the issues component, and it's creating a transparent organization that's comfortable bringing up issues. But it's also really good at prioritizing and diagnosing, getting to root cause and making those issues go away. The next component is the process component and it's really putting that structure in place in the organization so that, um, you do things the right way every time. Yeah. And you know, it's, again, kind of that entrepreneurial approach. I haven't really thought of it this way before, but I'm almost thinking about like a race car. Yeah. Uh, right. Like the people. It might be the driver, it's the head mechanic and stuff. The issues is, why does this keep breaking when we do this? You know, the process is kind of like, okay, in turn three, if we set up the drift early Right. And, you know, you know, hit the, hit the throttle right at halfway point. Right. We'll come out of it perfect. Right. And, and, and, you know, what happens too is, is as your organization grows, You know, um, process isn't that is, isn't as important when you have one or two or three or four people in your organization. But then you start hiring people, you've got, maybe you've got a dozen or a couple dozen. And now that becomes an issue, right? Because you no longer intuitively know your processes. They kind of have to be documented and simplified, right? Yeah, and then you lose three out of those first four fully trained people. And some of the new people don't really have the right tools. Process in mind anymore. And so unless it's documented, you can lose a lot. Yeah. And, and, you know, I, I really preach this simplified approach, which is, you know, what are the seven or eight core processes for your business? What are the few steps that are required to do it? Right. So kind of a 20, 80 approach, 20 percent of the steps will get you 80 percent of the value. Trying to get a hundred percent of everything documented to get you a. 700 page SOP that nobody reads. Yeah. I like it. And so, you know, once you start strengthening all of those, then, um, the, the, uh, traction component is the sixth component and that's really driving that ownership and accountability throughout the organization. And so. So, really working on all six in parallel is, is the key to, to really making progress. Um, what got you excited about EOS? Is this part of your own journey? Did you use it in some of your companies? I did. And, um, when I first read Traction, I think what, what really appealed to me is it reflected my leadership and management style. Mm. And. And, and it was so simple, simply described and, and intuitively easy to understand it's excuse me. It's very similar to everything I've done throughout my career in a much more elegantly defined way. Yeah. Yeah. And so I thought it was very powerful. I wonder if it's from that. I remember from an early loco think tank chapter meeting, um, Todd Gilson, I think he was the quote master. But, uh, Complicated is interesting. Simple gets done. Yeah. I don't know if that was, uh, from the traction book or something similar to that, but that's kind of the theme you're talking about here is it is. And, you know, being a, an engineer and a designer too, um, you know, the simplest designs are the most difficult to achieve, right? A lazy engineer makes very complicated designs, right? And so there's a lot of, there's beauty in that simplification and elegance. And. Because it's, it's, it's so simple to understand, people, um, get the illusion that it's also simple, simple to implement. Yeah, yeah. Right, and that's where the challenge lies. But conceptually, it's very easy to comprehend and understand. It all makes sense. Yeah. It's not the management du jour that, that we all read about, right? So, in your role as a, as a EOS implementer, like, what's that look like, I guess, from, from your shoes? You You connect with businesses, mostly 1, 2, 4 million dollar businesses that want to be 2, 4, 10, 20 million dollar businesses? Yeah. And you know, it's, you know, the revenue is part of it, but really when things start to break, it's by number of employees. Okay. So when businesses get to around 10 employees, that's when things start to break. So that's kind of the entry point. Okay. Yep. That was actually my, my original question. Entree to the market with loco think tank was what we called thinkers and it was mostly five to twenty employees Yep, partly because when when you get up around eight was what I was used to tell people. Yeah, you know the More than eight can't really be managed by one person, right? You know and and unless they're a superb manager and then are they still doing the other things they need to do, right? Yeah, and so that's where things start to break is, you know when they get into that range and But a lot of times, you know, maybe they'll get to 20 or 30 employees and then they hit some sort of a ceiling and they're not sure why. And, you know, that's where I can come in and help figure out what, where we might, where we might have some problems and how we might be able to help. And what kind of training do the implementers have? Because EOS has become a big Yeah. Oh, a big I don't know how many, is there a thousand implementers around the country yet? No, there's not that many. I think there's probably, um, worldwide, probably 700. Okay. Okay. So it's not saturated by any means. No, no. In that market. But no, but they have developed a big platform training program at this point. Yeah. And it's, it's really the, you know, the prerequisite is, you know, a lot of experience as an entrepreneur. Have you done something? Yeah, right. Yeah. Okay. No, you can't just become an EOS implementer because you think it would be fun. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And so they have a pretty severe or pretty rigorous vetting process to make sure that you've got the chops to do it. Makes sense. And you've got the experience to do it, but also the kind of the psychographic profile to do it, which is, you know, you're open, you're honest, you're humbly confident, you know, a lot of those kinds of things. And do they have like their own kind of vetting system in that regard? Yeah, they do. Oh, I think, is it Colby? No. Um, Colby's part of it, but it's not a really big part of it. Um, What they do is they, you know, they have members of the community will, will interview, um, Oh, interesting. interview people who want to become an EOS implementer. Typically what you need is a, is a referral from somebody who's already an implementer that vouches for you. Okay. And then there's a whole, uh, vetting and interview process that they go through. Interesting. And then, like, you get, kind of, certified or whatever. You start, and then you hunt your own fish, kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Is that right? Yeah. You go to a week long training. Yep. And then, um, yeah. And then, uh, you know, clients, and then EOS takes some portion of your, of your fees. No, they just have a flat, a flat. Oh, really? You pay a flat fee to be one and then do as much work or as little within that as you want to? Yep, yep. Oh, interesting. Yep, yep. Probably makes sense. You know, the, the cynical person in me is like, you know, Be nice if they could just get 40 percent of whatever you make for them, you know, but yeah No, it's that's one of the things that's appealing about the community to me Yeah, this kind of abundance mindset Which is you know, if you if you do the right thing if you help first everything else takes care of itself Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Um Let's talk about kind of your principles for business, like outside of the traction model or whatever, like what's, what's, what, what does Rick really stand on when it comes to, to maybe even defining what clients you'd want to work with and, and, you know, your set of parts, let's say. Yeah. So, you know, for me, um, the type of clients I like to work with are, are people who are open and honest and, and vulnerable. Yeah. willing to admit they need help. It fills my cup to help people. And I'm not interested in helping people who don't want my help. Yeah. Right. Well, it's impossible usually anyway. And, and, and part of that too, is, is people who want to continue to grow and to continue to improve and, um, you know, in terms of, you know, in terms of my management style, it's always been to really try to manage by objective. And, and that's one of the things I hit on quite a bit in, in EOS is there's this concept of delegating. Sure. It's not very powerful to delegate a handful of tasks to someone, although sometimes you have to do that. What's really powerful is to delegate a significant objective to someone and let them figure out how to achieve that objective. Yeah, yeah. That's where you have a lot of power and that's where really hiring the best people you can find, getting clarity on their objective and leaving them alone is where you get a lot of power. Yeah, that's an intriguing, obviously I transmit a lot of these thoughts to my own situation and like, one of the things I know we'd like to do at Loco Think Tank is, what's that uh, FPS system or FMS system, how much your, your members would refer you. Uh, I forget what the name of it is, but like, I think that would be really useful for us to really be curious, more curious about how interested our members would be to refer to us. Right. Right. And which chapters are the strongest in that? Cause that's like a, to me, almost like a indicator of health in general. Right. Um, But it's quite a project. Yeah. And it's not just a bunch of tasks. Right. Right. Um, and, and I'm not necessarily the organizational process development person. So, you know, rather than being like, Hey, let's dip our toe into this. No, the objective is by end of Q2 Alma, you want to have a real systemized way of sampling this without driving our members crazy. Yeah. And that's, that's the objective. Right. And that's powerful. And, you know, I'll tell you kind of a lesson I learned in my. In my career. Yeah. Um, when I was at Lockheed Martin, I got promoted. probably far too early. And, um, I didn't realize it at the time, but I, I wanted that promotion for all the wrong reasons, right? I was a mechanical engineer. Um, I wanted my ideas to be the ones that had the most weight, you know, I thought I knew best. And so I became, you know, I took that leadership position because I thought, I don't know, more about ambition kind of, yeah. If you will. Yeah. And. And it was a little dis, it was a little bit of a, I didn't realize it at the time, but I was leading a bunch of engineers that were in the same discipline as me. And I thought I knew best. And then fast forward a few years, I got promoted at, at Hewlett Packard. And I had people with PhDs in electrical engineering. I had software engineers. I had, you know, a lot of different engineering disciplines. reporting to me. And I, and I was like, what am I here for? If I'm, if, if I know less than anyone reporting to me and at a very wise manager, tell me you have to understand now the product that you, that you create now is a high performance team. You still think you're trying to create new products. You're creating a high performance team that creates products. Your product is the team. And so that's what, when I had kind of a transformation that. Now I have to be very good at setting objectives because I'm not going to be able to tell them task by task what to do. I have to make sure the objective is clear. And then if they need help figuring out how to achieve that objective, That's a separate conversation. And so that's when I started to grow as a leader. Were you really good at people already? A lot of times people imagine the engineer type to be kind of, well, people averse. Yeah. I mean, I'm not your typical engineer. I, a lot of people, we could talk about my background before that at some point, but I became an engineer cause I was really good at designing and creating things. And I thought. If I become an engineer, I'll be even better at creating and designing things. A lot of people become engineers cause they were good in math and science in high school and somebody told them to be an engineer. And it's really a struggle for them to be creative at all. Right, right. And so I went into it in a little bit different. And so I've always been kind of atypical in terms of, you know, the social interaction. Managing by objectives is one of your big criterias, I think I hear. Is there other things you want to draw while we're, Well, I mean, just management by objective. Um, you know, I hired, I try to hire the best people I can find. and trust that they want to do a good job. I don't, you know, and, and I do trust from day one. A lot of people say, you have to prove to me that I can trust you. Which that's a little bit difficult to do if they decide. Well, they can choose not to still. Yeah. We had, uh, Oh, I forget his name. Trustology is this book. Um, he's a local guy, smart guy. And that's kind of the premise of the book is, is you can't, Earn trust, you can only grant it. Right, right. Ultimately. Right. So and so, I, it's always served me well to, to trust that people wanna do a good job. Yeah. And they're motivated. And if they're not successful, it's because of me. That's, that covers 99% of the cases. Okay. And, uh, anything else that are kind of your big commonalities? Um, Potentially, I can't think of any right now. Yeah. You know, I think this is going to be a better unfold as We go back to your, your roots anyway, and kind of explore that journey out of big corporate ultimately into kind of that serial entrepreneur space. Um, but we usually go back even further to like first grade. Yeah. So were you Colorado already then? Um, so I was born in Colorado. Okay. Um, my parents were in college. And where was, where was that? They, they were in Alamosa at Adams state. Okay. And, um, I was Still young, I don't remember when this happened, but my dad got his first job out of college. Okay. And we moved to New Jersey. Okay. For a year or two. Then he got transferred to California for a year or two. Then we moved back to Colorado. And tell me, what was the circumstance, maybe, of them being at college at Adams State University? Were they from Colorado families as well? Yeah. My mom grew up in Walsenburg. Okay. Yep. Um, my dad grew up in Steamboat. Yep. And, uh, he was an athlete, so he had a wrestling scholarship to Adams State. Gotcha. Gotcha. And that's where they met. And so they had, um, At least two, they, well they had two. And from Walsenburg, like, Alamosa is like a city. Right, exactly. Metropolis. Right, right, yeah. Yeah, so they had two of us when they were still in college. Cool. Yep. And, uh, so you kind of got to experience this, this city life, uh, as you, as a toddler kind of thing, and then back to Colorado. Yep, yep, yep. Move back to Leadville and what okay? It's interesting place to grow up there, too I imagine yeah, so that's probably what in some of your earliest actual memories are you're like a middle You know a middle elementary of at this point. Yep. Yeah, and what was what was young Rick like? What would your what would your third grade teacher describe you as in Leadville or fourth grade? Um, that's a good question I don't think people thought I was a very good student. Yeah I Just not paying attention enough. Yeah. Yeah, I think I wasn't paying attention. I don't think I was Real energized about school at that age, you know Were there more siblings to come by the way? Yeah, so I have an older sister and a younger sister. Okay, okay. Yeah, and So you're cruising along and how long in in Leadville or what was some of the major milestones there as you grew? You know I'm trying to remember the, the earliest things. Um, you know. Yeah, what was the culture of that town? It had, because it couldn't be, what, maybe a couple hundred kids? Yeah, I think. At least three, four hundred kids in the whole high school? Yeah, I think my graduating class was, was fifty kids. Okay, yeah. Um, you know, we, we lived in the country. We had horses and cattle. Okay. And, um. And your dad was like Engineer or something like that? He was, but he quit that early. He quit the corporate stuff early and he moved back to Leadville and became a silver miner. Oh, interesting. For his vocation. Yeah. On his own or working for a silver mine? For a silver mine. Okay. But we ran horses and cattle. Yeah, yeah. And we had hay and stuff like that. And then, um, you know, those mines shut down in the early 80s. Okay. So we found ourselves trying to scratch out a living up there by any means. With horses and cows and whatever else. Yeah. Harvesting logs. Yeah. Yeah. We had a, we had a business where we would clear cut National Forest. We'd get a contract to clear cut National Forest and then we would, you know, uh, firewood to the ski resorts up there and had a snow plowing business and, um, all kinds of different stuff. Yeah. Was your dad ever, or was your mom, if you reflected on that, like, were they happy to not have taken the Lockheed Martin path or the Jersey path or whatever? Yeah. I think so. They were there because they wanted to be. Yeah, I think so. I think, um, you know, especially my dad. He, He was happier, um, doing that kind of thing. He just never fit into that corporate, yeah, that corporate environment. Yeah. Um, so let's take you to the end of high school here. You're trying to decide where to go to college and stuff. What does that look like for you? Oh, that was not Never thought. Not even on the radar? No. Really? Okay. So I, I, I rodeoed all through school. Okay. I did six events all the way up through high school. Like starting as like a 11 year old or 12 year old or something? Actually, I started riding steers and stuff when I was five years old. Yeah, interesting. Um, and then. Okay. Rodeoed And was, was that what your dad was raising like bucking bulls and stuff like that too or? Um, we had, we had rope and cattle and rope and horses and stuff like that. Gotcha. But, um, and so I did six events through high school. Um, when I graduated from high school, my, my best event had clearly shown itself to be bull riding. Okay. And so I, as soon as I graduated from high school, I turned pro. Wow. Yeah. And rodeoed, and I had no plan B. Um, but, but the only thing I did have going for myself is I took auto shop and welding in high school, so I could work on cars and I could, and I could weld if I needed a job. Well, imagine rodeo is at least very seasonal, right? No, it's year round. Is it really? Okay. I would have said, I guess you just do indoor arenas in the wintertime. No. Not always. No, not always. Gotcha. Yeah. A lot of rodeos down south in the wintertime. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Can we, like, how long did you do rodeoing? Let's see. As a pro. Um, two, a little over two years, and then I had a career ending injury. Tell me about the lifestyle. Um. Like, what's that look like, really? Is Chris LeDoux telling us true? No. Chris LeDoux, he pretty much hits it on the head. Yeah. Um, back in those days, it was a hundred and some rodeos a year. Okay. You were on the road all the time. Wow. Yeah. You were. You were scratching, scratching to make a living. If you were making enough money to stay on the road, you were doing really well. And when is this? This is like in the mid nineties or something like that? Mid eighties. Mid eighties. Okay. Yeah, you must be a lot older than I think But yeah, and so, you know, it was you know, it was great You know, I was living the dream. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I always wanted to do. You were staying on the road Yeah, we were putting much in their savings account, but right right to pick up truck that didn't need new tires yet Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and so and you're a single guy, I guess. Yeah, I was single Yeah, it was great. The um Did you have, like, buddies that you toured around with and stuff, or whatever? Like, rent an apartment for a while or anything like that? Or were you just pretty much staying in hotels? Yeah, we were on the road all the time. How do you get your mail and bills and stuff like that? Well, we'd have a, you know, an apartment back home that we all shared. Gotcha. You know, but That you were there for like Right. 27 days a year. Yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yep. Hmm. So The injury. Yeah. that? Yeah. So, um, I tore the ulna from my wrist on my riding hand. From it? Yeah. The ulna disconnected from my wrist. So the radius and the ulna are these two, the big one's the ulna? The little one is the ulna. The little one is the ulna. And that popped up and disconnected from my wrist. And I had to have reconstructive surgery. Like a pond head in the ground? No, it was You were holding on too tight. I was holding on too tight. Oh, damn. My I had a big strong bull. My elbow didn't give, and my ulna popped up. And so that was the end. Really? Just like that? Yeah. There was no surgery rehab for a year or anything like that? No. The When I finally got the surgery, the doctor was like, You You can't do this anymore. Yeah. You know, did you have ideas to maybe I could do team roping or some other thing? No, you focused all your effort into yeah bulls and you know when that was gonna do it when that got taken away from me I was like, you know, I was one of those people who I couldn't have anything to do with it anymore Yeah, because I missed it so much I had to kind of put that in a box put it aside and try to move on because I missed it So much were you like depressed? Yeah. Yeah. Had you in those? You Months on the road and stuff. Were you like partying and stuff like that? Did that get worse? No, I mean, he didn't turn to alcohol as a soothe. No, I mean, you know, we did party. I don't want to, I don't want to say we didn't, but we were professional too. We were professional. Right. Right. Fair. Right. All right. You know, so for me, yeah, for me, the hardest thing about staying on the road was staying in shape, you know? And so that was always something we were trying to do. Um, but for me, it was my identity. Yeah. Yeah, and so when I got taken away, it was like what well, what is my you're like 20 years old? Yeah, or something like that, right? And you go through a process to figure that out or yeah, you know I had to go home and get a job right away And so, you know, I went to work for a farmer out in Eastern, Colorado Okay, then I got a job building elevator legs as a welder. Okay, I'm doing some stuff in the oil fields as a welder. I Decided you know, maybe I should go to college You And, um, so I moved to Greeley because there was a junior college in Greeley. And I got a job at the meatpacking house in Greeley, Momford. And they asked me what shift I wanted to work. And I said, straight graveyards. And they were like, really? Who? Nobody ever chooses that. Right. You just wanted to have your rest of your day open for school. Yeah. Yeah. So I got a job at Monfort. Dang. Probably paid better too, I reckon. It paid pretty good. It had full benefits. Yeah. And Turns out I couldn't have reconstructive surgery until I got a job with benefits. Oh, gotcha. So Dang, so you were, you were, you were Building grain bins and doing these different things with kind of a little bit jacked up, uh, Yeah, wrist there. Yeah, it was it was pretty bad. Mm hmm but so I went to the community college in Greeley and You know, they said the first thing to do is take a pre assessment test to see where you are Okay, and so I took a pre assessment test and they Got the results back and they called me in and they said, well, you're at a ninth grade math level on the ninth grade reading level. What is it you think you want to study? And I said, I want to be an engineer. And they actually laughed, they were like, I think you should be a little bit more realistic. Maybe a welder. Right. Right. And so, um, and so. Um, I was taking classes part time working in the meatpacking house and then, um, I started a roofing business, left the meatpacking plant. And. And so you, like, you really just didn't pay much attention to school at all, like during your high school years too. No. Cause it's obvious to me and I've, this was obvious to your parents and your teachers that you were smart, intelligent enough to get it. I think so. No, but I think, um. Maybe they knew, but I didn't. Right. Well, it's also easy for you to be annoying enough by your disinterest that they don't care whether you're smart or not. It could be. You know, like, whatever. If you don't want to learn nothing here, then we'll check you later. Right. That's really interesting. Right. Okay, so, so you start dabbling, getting some classes under your belt? Yep. Started my roofing business, kept taking classes. Um, In roofing businesses, like you and a couple of contract laborers here and there kind of thing, just doing residential roofs when, especially when there's hailstorms. When there's hailstorms, you're, you're making money hand over fist. Right. And, um, and so I, I was taking enough prerequisite classes at Ames that I was ready to start an engineering program. And then I got accepted into CSU engineering program on a, On a probationary basis, because, you know, if, if you don't have the ACT or SAT scores and you're not right out of high school, they don't know what to do with you. So they accepted me. Um, on a one year probation and so I had to take all the, all the math and science and engineering classes my freshman year and get a B or better in all of them and then they would accept me. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. And so, you showed them? You got B's and above on everything? Yeah. And you were allowed to stay at CSU? But it was, it was, um It was out of pure fear. I mean, I had a family that was depending on me. And, um You're talking about your parents and stuff? Or did you find a gal on this journey? Yeah. When you were bull riding? Yeah. No, after bull riding, before college, I got married. Okay. And, um, and so, you know, that self induced poverty of Well, and married and had a child too, otherwise she'd been making a little scratch for you and you could have coasted. Yeah. Okay. And so, um, you know, there was a lot of fear that I wasn't, I wasn't smart enough. Yeah. You know, I'm looking around in these freshman classes and everybody was the valedictorian from their high school. Hmm. Right. And, um, you know, it, it took me a little while to figure it out. Yeah, and they just laughed at you when you said, I want to be an engineer. Yeah, right. Yeah. Right. I'm just this, this kid out of nowhere. Huh. Who didn't even take math in high school. Right. Well, and you were probably humble, confident, at least as far as it went to bull riding, and some of the other rodeo arts are different things, but hadn't really developed that yet. Right. In your intellectual capacity. Right. And, you know, the one thing I learned from my dad is to work hard. Yeah. And, you know, I didn't realize it at the time, but, um, everybody there was smart. Right. What separates people is hard work. And so, you know, on my freshman, my freshman, uh, first freshman class, they said, look to your left, look to your right, those two people won't be here on graduation day. They take pride in flunking out 50 or 60 percent of the engineering students. That scared me to death. Right. And, you know, I didn't realize, um, I didn't know that first year that I was going to be okay. I just, I was scared to death that I wasn't going to make it. And that fear never left me until I got to my senior year. I realized I got a 4. 0. I've never even had a B yet. You're probably going to be okay. You never hardly had an A in your life before that. No, no, no. Yeah. And also I had to get done in four years, which, you know, most, I think the average engineering degree takes five or six years to get. I would say so. Yeah. I, I went to school for engineering, uh, and took five and a half years to come out with an economics degree. Yeah. Yeah. So. Yeah. So it was, you know, it was just, it was, like I said, it was all fear, fear of failure. Yeah. Yeah. You know. And then what? Like, um, were the jobs what was it? This is like what early 90s by this time? Yeah, by this time I graduated in 94. Okay. Okay, so mid 90s. Yeah, and you know I had you know, I had an opportunity to to work at the engines lab at CSU. Oh, really? With Dr. Wilson. Okay. And, you know, Dr. Wilson and I and a couple other students kind of opened up that, that building where the engines lab was. Oh, is that right? And I got to do a bunch of really cool stuff as an engineering student. Oh, wow. And, um, my junior year, um, I started realizing that the economy was looking a little worse than I had hoped. And so to kind of mitigate the risk that I couldn't get a job, I had put together some funding for a graduate program. In case I couldn't get a job. Fortunately, my senior year, I got an offer from Lockheed Martin. And they made me an offer before graduation. And so Were you an intern for them or something like that? Or how did they get to know you? Uh, just like a professor's vouch for you somehow? No, they did recruiting. Okay. On campus. Okay. And, um, they were hiring for something called the Leadership Development Program where they hired 10 new college grads nationwide with this idea that they were going to be, um, you know, set up for leadership in Lockheed Martin. I mean, my, I, I got started in a credit and management training program, you know, teaching the near future lenders and distant future bank presidents, uh, how to be in our, in Thing, you know? Right. That was my beginning of my career was the same kind of thing. Yeah. And you know, I think looking back on it, I was, um, I was probably a little more seasoned than most new college grads because I was, you know, I was damn near four years older. I was damn near 36 years older. You know, I was damn near 30 by the time I graduated from college. Yep. Yep. Um, you know, that, that was probably a benefit. And was that a good program to you? Like beneficial outside of just the being a part of Lockheed or was the program less important than the people around you? Well, what ended up happening is it was an ill conceived program. So the idea was you'd get a new job every six months for four years, and then you'd be a well trained, well rounded leader, but you show up at each manager's, um, office and say, I'm leaving in six months. Right. They're like, you're a pain in my ass. I don't even want to give you any time or resources. And so I pulled out of the program and went into the engines propulsion lab. Okay. And that's where I kind of found my home. Yeah. And found that first, uh, residence challenge and whatnot. I'll saw. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, after a few years, I realized that, um, although it's fun work, um, becoming labeled as an aerospace engineer can be suicide. Hmm. And so, because there's such a few number of companies that you can work for or it's, you know, you can kind of be pigeonholed if you've been an aerospace engineer for 20 years, Hewlett Packard is not going to hire you. Right. Right. And so I left when I was still a young engineer with good experience, but I wasn't pigeonholed yet. And so I went to Hewlett Packard. Okay. Yep. Which was very much in its infancy. strong part of life at that point in time. Yeah. I mean, everybody wanted to work at HP. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. It was the best place. Best and brightest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, and right back into product stuff or is this when you transitioned into managing people more? I went right into, right into product development and it was just great. It was great because you know, we had in the division I was in, we had everything in one place. So we had marketing. engineering, manufacturing, sales, everything was in, in one place. And so it really was a cool. So you got to kind of what Lockheed was trying to show you by having these different jobs, you got to just meet people that are doing these different functions. Right. Right. Interesting. Yeah. And so that's when I started realizing that, um, you know, the, the biggest failure in product development happens long before the product is developed. And that's really understand what the market needs are, making sure that you have a compelling product for those market needs. You don't over design it or under design it. And you have clarity about what the value proposition is and what people are willing to pay for that value. Yeah, yeah. And so Well, that was really, we'll get to there, but that was really the The linchpin of your accelerator, uh, investment hub. Right, exactly. And it turns out it doesn't matter whether you're a startup or a fortune 500 company, um, If you don't develop the right product for the market, in a Fortune 500 company, you just have a small decrease in revenue, right? I remember when CNN came out with their, what was it, CNN Online or something like that? And it's like, to fix the problem of nobody wanting to watch online, Our news network, we're going to create a huge online community where people pay to watch it online, right. To not watch it online or something. Right. I think they lost 300 million in like six months and then pulled the plug. Right. Yeah. And you know, more product market fit analysis first. Yeah. And talk to 10 people. Right. And you know, the, but what ends up happening is especially in, with entrepreneurs. Um, we see the solution to something and we pursue that solution, you know, with, with just reckless abandonment, a solution, it's a solution and also, and I'll get to my, I'll wrap this point up, but also, especially as an engineer, if you're an innovator and an inventor, you're all about, you're taught for four years, how to solve problems. Thank you very much. You're never really taught the importance of clearly defining the problem. Mm hmm. And whether or not it's worth solving. Yeah. And so we're trained to do solutions. We're not trained to think long and hard about the problem. Yeah, yeah. And so, um, that's, that's what ends up happening even in Fortune 500 companies. For sure, for sure. And in economics training, uh, you know, that notion of unintended consequences is kind of right there from the beginning. Right. Much more so than, than on an engineering basis. Cause it's like, Um, and it's kind of like, there's the problem, make it go away. Right. You know, and yeah, sometimes you'll cause other problems from that, but it's not in the same way that the complex systems are exposing. That's the difference between, I guess, engineering is generally dealing with, um, one, I don't know what the complicated system, right. But it's all kind of within that thing. You know, if you get that harmonic vibration out of that rocket engine, it doesn't blow up anymore. Right, right. But it's a complicated or a complex system. You know, all these people making all these different buying decisions based on competing products and brand awareness. And, and, you know, the thing that I, that I really started to put a lot of thought into is, um, and I've kind of segmented it, you have problem space and you have solution space, the longer you can stay in problem space without thinking about a solution. the better you are at clearly defining the problem. Once you start entering solution space, your ability to detect that you missed the root cause of the problem goes away. You get enamored with your solution and you'll never revisit the problem again. Have we talked about Locos process? I'm sure. Well, you're familiar probably with Vistage at least. Yeah. Yeah. The Vistage meeting. It's kind of the same, but you know, it's clarifying questions before suggestions. Right, you define the problem, ask the question, and then your fellow 10, 12 members can only ask clarifying questions for 15, maybe even 20 minutes out of a 30 minute session. And then you get five minutes for suggestions. Okay. And the same kind of thing, the longer you can stay on the problem. And so when, when I'm facilitating free think sessions and stuff, when there's newbies there, like always, I have to be like, now, is that a suggestion? Is that a, is that a question? Made, or suggested, it made it sound like a question. And it's for that same reason of staying on the problem. Right, right. Long enough. And staying on it long enough to, to really distill it down to its essence. Yeah, yeah. Right. And so, um, so anyway, that's, that's where the problem usually starts in product development. So, you have a little time in HP and there, and then that's when you kind of started being in the people business, is that right? Yeah. That mentor that shared that with you? Yeah, yeah, so I And was this in Fort Collins here? This is in Northern Colorado at HP? It was at HP in Greeley, and then I went, uh, to HP in Loveland. Okay. During the, the, uh, Agilent spinoff time frame. Yep, yep, yep, okay. And that's where I was promoted. Yep, gotcha. And then, um, Like, did you go straight from there into your first entrepreneurial venture or tell me that circumstance maybe, and maybe set the stage. You've got a wife and more than one child by now, this time in your career. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so, um, yeah, so I got to do a lot of really cool stuff at HP. I got to figure out where, you know, like I mentioned, where the, the root cause of the problems were for, for products. Yeah. And so I started moving upstream from, uh, the engineering to more of the product management. Yep. Inbound marketing, um, that kind of thing. And so, um, you know, then I was promoted at Agilent and I ran a team of people designing the system on a chip tester. Okay. And so, um, really trying to understand what the market needs were, um, you know, how we could differentiate the product, that kind of thing. Yeah. And what did Agilent do that was different than HP? Like when that spun apart? The, the only difference was they separated it by product line. So, okay. HP was originally started by, um, Bill and Dave developing engineering test equipment. Yep. Then they moved into consumer products like the printers and that kind of thing. So when they spun off Agilent, it was all the original engineering and test equipment. Okay. HP became all the consumer products. Gotcha, gotcha, okay. Yep. That was, that was my perception, but I wasn't really clear about if Agilent had other products or things like that. Well, when I made the move, I thought, you know, Agilent would probably carry on the heart and soul of HP. Yeah. You know, they had already hired a celebrity CEO for HP, and I could see things were changing. And so I went with Agilent because I wanted to be part of that, that culture. And then what happened with that? Did Agilent continue on as it continued on? Did it re emerge? I don't, I don't really know, honestly. So Agilent continued on, uh, they went through, um, a period of about 10 years where they were, um, spinning off businesses. Taking the proceeds from those spinoffs and doing stock repurchase. Oh, interesting. And they got down to where, I think, HP in Loveland, for example, went from 13, 000 people down to about 900. Yeah. In that 10 year period. Yeah, yeah. And, um, I think after I left, Agilent decided to go into just, um, biotech stuff or maybe healthcare stuff. Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah. And then the rest of the electronics stuff was spun off into Keysight. Oh, okay. Yeah. So. Interesting. Alright. And so you leave to chase, chase what pasture from here? Um, so I left, um, I left Agilent and I went to, um, Pelco. They, Pelco designed, um, video surveillance and back end software systems. Oh, okay. So they developed the cameras and the back end software for Yeah, for banks and stuff especially. Convenience stores, whatever. Yeah, yeah. Okay. And so that was really fun because they had started a new, a new, uh, It was basically a startup within Pelco, which was in, in Fort Collins. And we were developing internet protocol technology and everything prior to that had been the old analog recording stuff on discs and right. Right. Get rid of them after a month or six months or a year. If nobody claims that he got robbed or whatever. Right. Right. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. So that was really fun. So super early cloud really in some ways. Yep. And. And from there, like you mentioned, you, you got taken out of state for an opportunity. What was that? Or maybe went what time timeline? Um, yeah, so that there was a few, a few businesses and startups in between there. But, um, you know, I went, you started, Um, two that I started. I want to, I want to hear the first story of the first start. Yeah. So the, um, so I went to, um, there was a startup in Boulder called MinuteKey. Okay. And they, um, they developed those kiosks that you see in grocery stores where you put your house key in. Yeah, yeah. And 60 seconds later, it kicks out a copy. A little bit similar to when you buy your dog tag at Vetco or whatever. Yeah, exactly. So they had, um, they had put out a couple of prototypes of those machines and gotten some traction in the market, gotten quite a bit of funding. Um, but they really needed some professional help in terms of how to develop a product. Okay. So they brought me in, you know, I analyzed the To be kind of the product manager? Yeah. Yeah. Effectively? Yeah. Yeah. So I And the problem solver for the few little glitches that were keeping so many people from buying it? Right. Or whatever. And so, but you know, how do you scale from a handful to three or four thousand of these machines? Right. And, um, what are the challenges associated with that? What does the machine need to do not only to meet the business goals, but also meet the goals of the consumer and that kind of thing. And so, you know, I ran that, um, scaled that up. Yeah. Yeah. Sounds pretty interesting. Yeah. Then, um, I started a, um, it was, it was an engineering. Did you get chips for that? Uh, did you get any extra compensation for helping them figure it out? Did you have an equity slice? Yeah, I had some, I had some little piece. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's not, I mean, it's nice if you're going to solve big problems. It's nice to have a piece of the upside. Yeah. Yeah. Um, then I went to a, um, engineering research, applied research, um, idea that, that, um, would take. Engineering technology for manufacturing and help small to medium sized manufacturers utilize that technology to become more competitive. Okay. Um, that failed miserably. Okay. What was the value proposition there? Is this machinery? Is it software? Um, all of the above. So one of the, one of the technologies was non destructive evaluation of, um, of weld joints and things like that. So you could determine non destructively whether or not a weld was good. You could also use artificial intelligence, um, looking at the stock coming into, uh, a, um, a forge machine and you could determine what parameters the forge machine needed in order to put out, you know, parts within spec and that kind of thing. Oh, right. Like the quality of the base stock coming in kind of matters, how long the forge has to cook it kind of thing. And it's real time evaluation. Okay. Interesting. You know, so the idea was that a lot of this, this technology, small to medium sized manufacturers can't afford to develop. Sure. And so we would develop it and then make it available. Yep, yep. So, and then, like, what was the failure? So it was a hybrid model. It was a a, um, non-profit. Mm mm. Not for loss, but not for profit. Right, right. So that you could get government grants to do the research. Yep. And then you would charge small to medium sized manufacturers for those solutions. Right. And that was the, that was the sustaining component. The sustaining component. Never really materialized. Yeah. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, we researched some stuff, we came up with some conclusions and the marketplace didn't really find us. Yeah. And you know, I think there was a, there there, um. You know, that could have worked out, I think, with more time. But, um, so then I, I had an opportunity. There was a guy in Louisville that had developed technology, um, for taking sunlight, capturing it, um, on a rooftop. Okay. Unit putting it into, uh, fiber optics and, and then you basically can provide daylight at a very high efficiency. So I partnered with him and like a skylight. I, I actually had a business that did solar tubes back in the day. And so like, even in this place, they would put a skylight 10 feet up and then run a little tube and then a little receiver, and so you got skylight and sunlight in here. Yeah. Yeah. But in a different way. Yeah. And so this was, um, you know, pretty powerful technology. It was four or five times more efficient than any other, uh, that's really cool. And, you know, there's, so you have this, this beautiful technology, but what do you do with it? Yeah. You're competing with a light bulb. Right. Uh, that run, and now we've got LEDs and stuff besides and whatever else, you know, they just don't take that much energy, right? And so, you know, you start looking at, well, could it, could it replace the lighting and business and. In, in office buildings. Well, it could, but who cares? Does the tenant care? Yeah, the tenant would see a decrease in their utility bill, but the owner of the building has to approve all this change to the infrastructure and they see no benefit to it. Yeah. So that really turned out not to be maybe you might have Happier employees by a little bit or something because they got natural sunlight instead of these right good light bulbs But then we thought hey, I got an idea all these marijuana growers. Mm hmm. They're using all this crazy amounts of electricity Yeah, maybe we can pipe in natural sunlight. Yeah full spectrum natural sunlight, right? And help and grow marijuana that way. Yeah, and so, you know, we came up with this You All the, all the analysis that showed that we could probably grow marijuana and we could do it full spectrum and it would probably be cheaper. And all this other stuff. And then, you know, I got to the point where I said, we have to prove that this is feasible. I don't want to do any more product development until we prove that this is feasible, viable. We got to talk to some growers and see if they want to buy this. We talked to a lot of growers. They were very interested. Everything looked good, but I said, we have to do a pilot. And so, um, we got a grower that agreed to do a 12 week flower cycle with our technology. And it turned out it did have an improvement to yield. Okay. But it was not enough of an improvement to justify kind of the re fitment of all these you. The complexity. The complexity, the cost, all of that. Yeah. And it turned out that LED technology was getting better and better and better. Mm-hmm. And cheaper. And cheaper and cheaper. Yep. And that was the solution. Yep. Was better. LED technology. That makes sense, honestly.'cause then, and plus you can do. Kind of whatever parts of the spectrum you want to supplement, you can do that with LED too. Right, right. Interesting. So I left that, um, you know, I gave it, I gave it the good college effort. Yeah. And, um, I'm sure that technology at some point will find a home. Maybe. It's still in hibernation right now. But it was the classic example of a solution looking for a problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, um, you know, that, that became kind of a recurring theme in my career is a lot of solutions looking for problems. Mm hmm. And so, it's about that time that I got the opportunity to build that investment fund. Okay. And the, the, the coaching program and the accelerator program in Buffalo. And, like, were there some, some wealthy and people in Buffalo that were like, Hey, we got enough money, we just need the right person to build this around? Or like, what, how, what's that? Yeah. You said I got this opportunity, that seems such a random thing. Yeah, it sounds random. Um, So the connection is, um, I had a very close friend in Buffalo who told me this, this thing was coming up. Okay. But what it is, is you, you know, Buffalo has this history of being, you know, the center of the universe in terms of manufacturing at the turn of the century in the 1900s. Sure, and Woodward Governor here locally. The center of wealth. Kodak, right? Yeah. Even and stuff. It was like the center of wealth in, in industrial America. Hmm. And, you know, in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, that all just tanked, right? And so, you know, Buffalo's been this great culture, this great city looking for a spark. And the people there are just incredibly hardworking and innovative, but they just kind of needed a spark. And so the state of New York and other foundations started realizing, You know, maybe the spark is to start putting some things in place for entrepreneurial endeavors in Buffalo. Yeah. And so Well, and Pittsburgh has had kind of a similar Exactly. Uh, whatever, rebirth of sorts. Right. And probably came with some intentionality. Yeah. And so, you know, what ended up happening is the state of New York and, and, and other philanthropic groups wanted to start funding, um, startups in Buffalo. Okay. Yeah. And so they started pulling together these resources looking for someone who could kind of, you know, put that together, pull it all together and put something together that was actually going to work. Right. Well, cause it's easy to give a bunch of grants away and have none of it ever do anything. Right. And so that's, that's, that's where I came in and, you know, I said, okay, um, let's take a step back and think about root cause. Yeah. Why do startups fail? Right. Well, 90 percent of them fail because they have a solution to a problem. That's not worth solving. So we do know that 90 percent of the startups fail for that reason. We would be remiss if we didn't mitigate that as our number one risk. Right. And so, um, and I said, the way we do that as we intervene very, very early before they've become enamored with their solution, spend all their life savings on a solution. Let's intervene before that happens. And so, um, you know, I put together this, this phased program where if you wanted to become part of this, I'll give you incubator space and I'll give you coaching for three months. Those first three months, you're not allowed to talk about your solution. Okay. And I went through this whole, um, kind of rigorous process where I would force them to answer questions about what's your target market. Okay. What problem do they have if you could solve that problem, and I don't know what I don't want to know how you're gonna solve it But if you could solve it, how much how much could you charge for it? You know and I want you to gather evidence about how big that market might be if you're right about your target and all of Those sorts of things then I would say if you get through those first three months And I believe that you may be on to something. I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars in six months You To prove you might be right. That still doesn't mean I want you to go spend a hundred thousand dollars on product development. I want you to work on proving. Or getting more, um, confidence that you might be right. How many customers actually are there, I want you to talk to people about what they actually would pay for this. Right. Those kind of things. Right. Putting some quantification to those guesses. And if they get through that, then there's 250, 000 to do a very early minimum viable product to prove even further that you might be on to something. You're still not doing product development yet. But now you're preparing to, to prove to other investors you might be right. And so that was the, and that's when the, and then at that point they might get either angel funding or, or a seed round or something like that. Yeah. So I would do pre seed a hundred K 250 K, um, kind of pre seed seed. And then, you know, later I would help broker a deal. Right. Um, maybe even put some of your own chips in too. Put another million in and get other investors. That was kind of the concept. Now, are these, um, like software as a service products or the physical products, uh, mostly with some technology involved, I'm assuming, but maybe not. It didn't have to be. Is there stories that you're particularly proud of, um, from that incubator? Yeah. So you can talk about, yeah, no, there's, there's a couple, you know, the one that, that I'm really, that I think about all the time is there was, um, a lot of this was through. The University of Buffalo. So for logistical reasons, it was easier to take this investment and put it into the infrastructure of university at Buffalo. And so we would take not only innovations from the community, but innovations from university at Buffalo. And, yeah, kind of that notion of a commercializing stuff that's been invented here. Yep. So there was this, um, um, medical student, I think he, he had graduated by this time, but he had an idea of saving. Healthy stem cells for use later when people got cancer and charging Storage fee for your stem cells, right? Because it's your actual stem cells. Yep. Okay. Yep. Yeah, and so Stem cell bank. Yeah, and so he was convinced that he needed a million dollars to build this lab for extracting and storing So he came into the program and I said Excuse me He came into the program and I said Let's, let's put that aside for a minute. Let's talk about who your target customer is. And he was like, um, people who are concerned about getting cancer someday. I don't know. So, so we kept, you know, I met with him every week to talk about the kinds of things he could look at to determine what the target customer was. So he, he was a very good student, he was very diligent and he, he came to the conclusion that it was, you know, women of a certain age, of a certain income level that were the most likely to want this. Okay. Excuse me. And so then we started talking about the value proposition and he was dumbfound, he was befuddled for a while. How do you quantify the value of that? Yeah. And I said, well, just think about it. Are there any other things out there? that are similar in terms of the value that they provide. And a couple of weeks later he came back and he goes, I think it's kind of like life insurance. It's really peace of mind. And so then he started really understanding the demographic and psychographic profile of his target, what they were really wanting and understanding, you know, what their needs were and how to provide that. And so he spent his first hundred thousand on really understanding that more deeply. And then he spent his next 250, 000 getting a third party lab spun up to do some of it. But it wasn't a long term solution. It was to get enough customers to sign up for it, pay for it, and store their cells so that he could get a Series A round. And so, you know, what was so rewarding about that is now he's growing. You know, he's now getting to the point where he's building the infrastructure himself. He's gotten the funding, seeing where he was when he came in and seeing where he is now. It's like night and day. Yeah, that's really cool. And you know, it was just really rewarding to see somebody that passionate and that open to. And what was his field? Like, he was obviously passionate about the stem cell technology for some reason? Yeah, he was a medical student. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He just probably saw somebody's life impacted by access to stem cells. Well, shouldn't everybody have this? Well, in medical students especially, like, my veterinarian or any veterinarian will spend all of your money if it will increase by 1 percent the chance that your dog lives. Right. From getting run over by a car. Right. Or whatever. Right. Like, it doesn't really matter. Your wallet is to their concern. Yeah. Yep. Um, and it's kind of the nature of medicine in some ways. One of the things that's the hardest to combat is except for the risk of being sued for not doing enough. So then we test it. Right. Every test under the sun, which again is spending all your money. Right. Uh, anyway, I digress. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, and, and it was. It was high tech stuff like that. Um, you know, we had some battery technology, we had that kind of thing, but we also had some, you know, just really good ideas that just needed to get, needed, needed some structure in order to get to market, you know? How long were you involved with this accelerator? Uh, it was about four years. Okay. Yep. Had to come back to Colorado for family reasons. Yeah. You're caring for a parent or something like that, is that true? Yeah. It has, uh, in the. Challenges of later life, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Did they move down from Leadville? He moved down right after I graduated from high school. Oh, really? Yeah. Turns out he thought he was staying there for me. Well, there was more rodeos up there and stuff. Right, that's right. Um, let's uh, I guess, other business lessons, um, that we should talk about from the incubator days, or? Well, I think, um, I mean, building a community like that, I, I met Allison Seebeck early in her, uh, time at the Warehouse Business Accelerator, and it's hard to spin something like that up, even if you've got, you know, Investors that are eager to support, you know, known demand. There's just a lot of, a lot of complexity. Yeah. And I think, um, you know, there's a couple of things that make it difficult. You know, one is, um, especially when you're doing it, like I was in Buffalo, where I had, it was basically a double bottom line investment fund, right? I had to create, the result had to be jobs and economic impact, but I had to get enough return on that investment to keep the fund evergreen, right? So it turns out it can be very difficult to. And so, you know, I said early on, yes, I'm here to create jobs, but I'm going to be brutal in terms of if the founder is not a fit, if they're not open, right, they're out. Right. If I can't, if they're not open to, to help, they're out. Yeah. If their idea sucks and they're not willing to pivot off of it, they're out. Right. And so that's what that first three months was for. And a lot of these places that are trying to do this. And are you like working there? You're coaching them once a week or something like that, too. Are you in some other people as well? Yeah, I had eventually, you know, started out with me and a few other people that worked for me. Eventually we built the whole infrastructure with what we call the entrepreneurs in residence, where I would hire serial entrepreneurs for 10 hours a week and I would assign them in areas where they had expertise and that kind of thing. So we built the whole. a pretty big infrastructure around. Well, and you were not attached to that community. So that was quite a push. You must have had somebody, like, connecting you to the right people with intention. You know, the funny thing was, they Or they just got drawn to you. They, they, they adopted me as one of their own from the beginning. It was really cool. That's neat. You know, and when I started showing results, it was just like a snowball effect. Yeah, yeah. You know. Well, and because Buffalo's, you know, What, maybe half a million people or something like that in the, in the city and maybe a million, but it's like, in some ways it's more of a, you know, people have asked me where would local think tank move to next, you know, and we're local community think tank. And I hate to say it, but I think Buffalo would be a better fitted community than would Denver. Yeah. Cause there's just more sense of community kind of, Denver is kind of this fragmented amalgamation from all these different kinds of communities and Colorado Springs is even kind of that way. It's not really a community. It's. Right and different communities, you know, chase them to each other and I grew up in Colorado and I love Colorado But the thing that I realized when I went to Buffalo is a lot of people who are in Colorado or from somewhere else Mm hmm, and they're here to live the lifestyle. Mm hmm And when I went to individualistic basis, right and when I went to Buffalo I realized everybody that was there was there because they loved that community and they wanted to be there Yeah, so it was a very different vibe. Yeah, and so everybody was more You almost altruistic if you, if you could say, because they really wanted to improve the other people to succeed as much as anything. Um, I'm going to propose that we take a short potty break and then we'll hit the closing segments. Sounds good. Go from there. All right. All right. Cheers... So the closing segments, uh, as indicated in my overview email, Faith, Family, and Politics. Uh, do you have a preference on where to start in that conversation? Wherever you want. Um, let's talk about family. I feel like we could have met your wife, uh, Along the journey. You're still married, I think. Yes. Okay. How many kiddos now? So I have two. She has three. Okay. Yep. So she brought three. We just got married about ten years ago. Oh, so you had a different wife? Different wife. Okay, gotcha. Well, let's uh, I guess let's just open the family topic up to you. How did that evolution come along? So you've got two with your first wife and she's got three with her first husband together. Right. Okay. Yep. And, and who's your wife now? Does she have a name? Tricia. Hi, Tricia. She's the greatest. She's the greatest. Okay. Um, what would she say about you and where did she find you? Um, so her dad and my dad were friends. Oh, really? So when we were little kids, we played together. Oh, wow. And Um, you know, we'd known each other off and on, um, you know, when we were growing up. Sure. We kind of lost touch. Yeah. And then, you know, 20 some years later, we reconnected. Okay. You know, and I had two kids and she had three kids and, yep. So you came back here to help care for your dad. You have, you've got two sisters as well. Are they also caretaking, you go on shifts and things? Um, what's that look like? You know, we're all kind of pitching in, but they live, you know, in Colorado Springs and in Florence area. And so I'm kind of, You're the primary. I'm the primary. Does your dad live with you? No, he still lives alone. Oh wow. And so, um, he's gotten to the point though where, um, you know, I take care of all of his finances. I take care of everything. Is it Alzheimer's? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so. I met somebody with Lou Gehrig's, uh, recently as well, so I couldn't remember. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's, he does well if he's in his routine. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, so everything that I do for him is to keep him in his routine. It's, it's my, my grandmother, my dad's mom, uh, passed in that fashion and really up until the last couple of years, she was fairly independent as well. Um, with, again, with, uh. dad doing a bunch of things to make sure they got done and whatever else. But it's, I think the hardest part of it is how long it can be sometimes. Yeah. And his, you know, I just found out recently he has, he has Alzheimer's combined with vascular dementia, which I don't know the difference really. I guess I didn't really know the difference either, but, um, Now, what's become more predominant is the vascular dementia. Oh, is that right? Yeah. And so, it's progressing differently than it would have if it was only Alzheimer's. Okay. And so, he's, I think he's gonna be able to stay independent longer. Oh, okay. But it's still When they say vascular dementia, that's more of a blood flow thing? Yeah. Yeah. As contrasted with Alzheimer's is more of a protein Yeah. Neuron. Deficiencies, right? Or whatever. Yeah, and he has both. It's just that the vascular is more predominant. I see. Gotcha. Yeah Any key things that he taught you that have applied to your business career? You know, I think it's You know hard work and don't blame others. Look internally if you're having problems. Yeah, right There's no victims, right? If you don't like the path you're on Then you should do something. Yeah, right. And that's always stuck with. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, and then, you know, just the work ethic Yeah, you know when I was a kid when we were doing Projects on fence or whatever if I was standing there with my hands in my pocket, you know, he's He'd be like There's a million things you could be doing right now. There's a broom over there. There's a shovel over there. There's something you could be doing right now. You know, be it, be it plugged in enough to the situation that you can figure out what to do. Right. And, and, well, that's kind of that project based, right? Yeah. Or objectives based. Yeah. To your point, looking ahead, knowing what he might need next. Right. You know, dad, I'm going to go get the wire cutter. Right. You know, or we're almost out of posts here. I'm going to run back to the truck and get four more posts. Exactly. So we can finish this stretch. Yep. Yep. Yep. But I think, you know, just. You know, those kinds of things really stuck with me all my life. Would you ever consider that lifestyle of cows and horses and chickens and pigs and stuff? No, not so much. No, I just, you know, it's, it was a gray. I, I loved it. Um, but I started, as I mentioned, I started getting away from it when I, And then I realized, wow, there's so much more you can do in life if you're not, if you don't have the, the anchor of, of horses and cattle at home. So, um, with you and gosh, I'm sorry, Tricia. Yeah. Um, are you guys have any grandkids or anything yet? Yeah, we do. Some coming along soon. Let's see all together. Maybe we could play the one word description of grandkids. Yeah. Yeah, so we've got, uh, seven. Oh, that's a pretty good chunk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she's, she's got two in Salt Lake. Her son is in medical school. Oh, cool. Actually, he's in his residency. His last year of residency. Yeah. And, um, one's just a baby, so I don't know about her personality, but the other one is just, she's just a firecracker. Super intelligent, great vocabulary, you know. Had like three. Yeah, right. Um, anything else when we talk about family that you'd really want to make sure we mention? Um. You know, I think, you know, for me, I, I haven't necessarily been driven by success, my life in my life. It's been about fulfillment, but really about providing security for my family. And, um, you know, it's, it's kind of come full circle with me that providing security for my family and helping others has kind of started to, to be the thing that fills my cup, you know, and so it's kind of related to the security thing. But it's really helping others overcome or avoid some of the mistakes that I've made, and seeing others be successful. Yeah. You know, that's really what's been important to me, and that's, to me it is in some way related to family. Well, and I think I see to some extent that family is. Like almost anybody I come across, uh, that could use my help, you know, like some of those founders in your incubator were, became almost like family to you, you cared that much about their experience, what they're, what they could do. Right, right. You know, and that's, that's part of what drew, drew me to EOS too is, you know, this whole idea that we help first with no expectations about getting anything out of it and everything else takes care of itself. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Um, faith or politics? We haven't talked about faith at all so far. Um, but I suspect that at least up in the mountains there, there's kind of a churchy community for most people or maybe not? Yeah, yeah, I mean I, I grew up, um My, my mom's family was Catholic. Okay. And, um, in order for my grandmother to approve the marriage with my dad, Yeah, yeah. all the kids had to be baptized Catholic. All the kids, all you kids. All of us kids. He didn't. He wasn't. He wasn't Catholic. He, you know, he went to non denominational churches, you know, but, um, yeah, so we went to Catholic church growing up and, um, you know, I remember when I got old enough to think independently, I remember asking my grandmother when we were at mass. Mainly being a smart aleck, but I would say, Hey, if we don't stand up and sit down, whenever they tell us to do, to do that, are we going to go to hell? She got so mad at me, but, um, So you're open to challenging the rules and the bends and whatever. I was open to challenging the, you know, yeah. The, the pomp and circumstance and all the rules. And, um, but I always believed in God and I always believed in a higher power. Yeah. And, you know, if I look at what's happened to me in my life, I know that that's true. Right. And, um, Once you start to see providence in your life, it's hard not to look at it again. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, I, I, um, I think I've, as I've gotten older too, the more I've come to realize that there is something greater than me. Yeah. There is a higher power. Yeah, yeah. You know. Um, politics? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I can tell you my view of politics is right along the line of everything I've said about business, which is, I wish that we could talk about the root cause of issues, rather than getting in separate camps and debating solutions. Right? You know, like, I wish we could agree on the facts, agree on the problem, and then go into solution space. Yeah, yeah. But we can't seem to do that, and that's Yeah, it's an interesting, like, even when you take it to any of those major, you know, like, nobody can argue that the, the inner cities of too many cities in America are a trap that's really hard to escape from or to create economic solvency from. Right. You know, they don't even have a, an affordable supermarket in a lot of these places. Walmart's pulling out, you know? Right, right. Um, I was in St. Lucia recently, and there's a little town called, uh, Ons, Onslauray. And it's kind of like where all the poor people live in St. Not all of them, but, but there's six or eight thousand people that live there and they don't even have a gas station or a proper grocery store. Um, because it's just not economically viable, you know, I guess, or whatever. The guy that we were talking to said it's kind of politics is why it's that way. And maybe it's politics is the way it's that way in Detroit and was that way in Pittsburgh and Buffalo. I don't know. Yeah. Um, what would you, so that would be your main solution is just listen to each other more and identify the real problem. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, have you ever sat down and, and talk with somebody and. Just decided you hate them because of, no, you've never done that. Right? No. I mean, only if they decide they hate me. Right. Well, that's really the only, that's really that my only criteria almost. No, but I mean, you know, we, we all have quite a bit in common and, um, you know, the other thing too, you know, I've traveled outside of the country and, you know, we went to Mexico about 10 years ago and there was this great kid. He was a local kid. He worked at the resort that we were at. Yeah. And that kid was super smart and, you know, just a great kid, but he, you know, he's living hand to mouth. He can barely scratch together a living. And I'm thinking the only difference between him and me is where I was born and who I was raised by. Right. That's the only difference. And so, you know, I'm pretty damn lucky to have been born and raised in America. And I'm proud of that. Yeah. I think all of us are. And if we come from that fundamental basis, we probably could, um, we could probably talk about our differences a little bit more, um, intelligently. Well, yes, and, like, I don't want you to discount the fact that you didn't, you came from very humble beginnings as well. You know. Yeah, but not, not like that kid. No. True. True. Understood. But your family certainly didn't have enough extra resources to scholarship him to come to college in America. No, you know, no So that's that's true. But you know, I but I still you know, it's like the other thing God God blessed me with some certain amount of capabilities to become an engineer. I was, I didn't do anything. I was given that. Sure. Yeah. And I'm lucky and thankful. Well, I think, you know, a lot of people think that even ideas don't necessarily come from your brain. They're like gifted upon you. Einstein started to wonder about how things come to him. Right, right. Um, what do you think about kind of the Like we've had a really interesting, almost shift in the political, you know, in this most recent election, I think roughly two thirds of the funding went to the, to the Democratic Party? Or, not two thirds of the funding, but the, the, the millionaires and billionaires are funding the Democratic Party much more so now and, and the Republican Party has become kind of the blue collar populist Yeah, I can't discuss party of the working class, and that's all happened in the last ten years. Right. That, that's the problem with labels too, right? Right. It's You know, I don't know, you know, it's not the Republican party that we knew in the eighties. For sure. No, you know, well, neither is the democratic party. Neither is the democratic party. Yeah. Right. They're, they're dramatically different. They just have the same name. Do you think there'll be. Like further evolution there or I think it's really hard to say what the Democratic Party's like who's it who's the next? Stars, you know who the next Barack Obama is. Yeah, it's it's really tough to tell me who the next Donald Trump is, too Right, and I think so much depends on if he does a shitty job or a good job, right? You know if he does a decently good job He's probably got the, the sway to keep those blue collar, populist kind of voters and, you know, all the Hispanics and a lot of blacks that have come on board with the Trump brain. Yeah. So that's really interesting. Yeah. And I think it, a lot of it comes down to, you know, you know, people, what people heard during, during the, the lead up to the, to the election and how they internalize that. Yeah. Some of it may, you know, maybe spin, some of it may be. According to both parties, like if their party didn't win, this might be the last election, you know, so that was the drama was over the top. It was over the top. And I, I tend to, you know, I tend to be more damp than that, right. I don't get too high or too low. Um, you know, I do think we're fundamentally structured to do the right thing. And, you know, I think, you know, I, I, I study a lot of history and I view, you know, there's been times in, in the past in America where, you know, The world's going to fall apart if things don't change in this election or that election. And I, you know, I fundamentally think, you know, America will eventually do the right thing. But I do think, I do hope that we can start talking about the facts and not opinions and spins on the facts. Mm. Yeah. Well, yeah, and that's been an interesting, you know, the What are the facts? You know, we literally had a ministry of truth or a misinformation bureau or something like that set up for briefly in 2022 or 2021 or something like that, right? You know, that's a dangerous place to me if, if, uh, somebody becomes the decider, right? Exactly. What's true. Right, right. So, yeah. Um, anything else in the political realm you'd like to make sure you get your chip in? You're not really that interested in that. No, I'm not affiliated. I just want to do the right thing. Yeah, fair. Um, did you think about what your loco experience was going to be? Before coming to this? Yeah, this is the, uh, the craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share with our listeners. The craziest experience? The namesake of our podcast. Well, I've done a lot of crazy stuff. Um, but one thing that might be acceptable to your podcast. Okay. Believe it or not, this is the strangest fact about me. All right. I was the foreman of the jury in the Taylor Swift trial for the DJ in Denver who grabbed her ass during a photo shoot. Oh, really? I like it. Tell me, tell me more. So it was a federal, it was a federal. Tell me about the case a little bit. Because some people, I remember it vaguely, but uh, yeah, give me the bones of the. Yeah. So, um. It was, she was in her early, mid twenties, I guess, at the time. Um, she was doing a photo shoot for a meet and greet in Denver for a concert. Okay. A DJ was there. Okay. And he, after she did the meet and greet and a bunch of photos, um, he, Wanted to take a picture with her. Okay, and Allegedly he grabbed her ass During the photo and they took a picture of it Yeah, okay, so he sued her for using her celebrity Influence. Oh to get him fired from the radio station. Oh damn, so he sued her for three million dollars. Okay She countersued him for a dollar, um, with sexual, for sexual assault. Okay. And so that was what the trial was. Yeah, yeah. And so, we had to, it was a week long trial. To prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he actually did grab ass. No, we just had to prove, it, it had nothing to do with that. That's what was so funny. Okay. We had to decide whether she used her celebrity Mmm. Influence to get him fired from the radio station. Right. And probably not. Right. It probably, because she, she just, all she had to do was say, Hey, DJ Josh Dumbhead grabbed my ass and the station owners were like, Bye DJ Josh Dumbhead. But it was even, it was even simpler than that. She told her manager. So her management machine, her management machine told the radio station, they had all the, everything documented what they told the radio station, the radio station fired him. Right. There was a simple case. Right. And so, was it simple in managing through it as a jury foreman though? It was difficult in that the, the jury instructions were pretty complex. We, we deliberated for four hours, but three and a half hours just trying to figure out exactly what we were supposed to be deciding. And what the elements of it were. And so once we figured that out, then we're like, okay, what do you get? You know, let's take a vote. And he's like, we were like, of course she didn't get him fired. And of course he grabbed her ass. So he has to pay her a dollar. That's cool. I appreciate that. She only countersued him for a dollar. You know, she probably could have tried to make it a lot rougher on him, but, but why? Yeah. But it was funny, I showed up, I showed up for jury duty, I had no idea. Was she there? Yeah. Yeah. She was there every day. Oh, crazy. Yeah. I bet she wouldn't be there every day if the same thing happened now. Maybe, I don't know. I mean, she was pretty famous then. Right. Huh. Fascinating. But, um, yeah. So, I show up there. Are you a Swifty? Actually, I'm not a Swifty, but, um, but I do appreciate what she's done. Yeah, yeah. You know What a creator. Yeah. But, you know, I show up for jury duty and there's 200 jurors. We had no idea what we're there for. And then I get this questionnaire all about Taylor Swift, and I'm like, what the? I know nothing. Yeah, so that's a trivia fact about me that not very many people know. I haven't been nowhere close to that close to Taylor Swift, I'm pretty sure. Have you been to her concert? I haven't. No, not yet. No. Well, Rick, I really enjoyed this conversation. I hope that, uh, you continue to be blessed by and be a blessing to the business community here in Northern Colorado. I'm really glad to have you here. Yep. Um, is this your longtime home? Oh, yeah. Uh, yeah. No, no reason to go back to Buffalo or whatever. No, no. Cool. Well, we're glad to have you and thanks for pouring into our community. All right. Thanks, man. Take care. Yep. We'll do.