Sam Davidson on Increasing Entrepreneur Success
Sam Davidson, CEO of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center (EC), joins Spencer and Carli to discuss how the EC empowers entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. Sam shares insights into the EC’s mission to increase the success rate for startups through education, mentorship, and capital resources. He also reflects on his own entrepreneurial journey, the challenges of risk-taking, and how the EC fosters community and connection for Tennesseans pursuing their dreams. Tune in to hear how the EC is shaping the future of entrepreneurship in Tennessee.
About Sam Davidson
Sam Davidson is the CEO of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to making Nashville the premier destination for startups and entrepreneurs. Since 2006, he has launched four innovative companies, including Cool People Care. This media and merchandise venture used emerging technology to connect thousands to local causes, raising over $125,000 for disaster relief and hunger awareness.
Twice recognized as “Most Admired CEO” by the Nashville Business Journal, Davidson continues to amplify the critical role of small businesses by sharing his insights through outlets such as The New York Times, NPR, and USA Today and by leading tailored programs and events that empower emerging entrepreneurs.
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Spencer 00:35
Sam Davidson, CEO of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. Welcome to signature required.
Sam Davidson 00:50
Hey, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Spencer 00:52
This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. Carli and I have been entrepreneurs since the get go. I have a lot of questions for you. You're doing amazing things for not only Tennessee, but for a lot of people that go far and wide to take the skills that you're teaching them. So you also have been an entrepreneur yourself. So we're going to be able to get into that learn your story. But let's just kick it off and tell us. What is the Nashville Entrepreneur Center?
Sam Davidson 01:19
Yeah, the Nashville Entrepreneur Center exists to help make Nashville the best place to start and grow a business by increasing the likelihood of success for entrepreneurs. We've been doing that for almost 14 years now, and so originally started in the heart of downtown Nashville in order to provide a place for entrepreneurs to go to get the help they need to grow and scale their idea in their business. At the time, Nashville didn't really have a spot like that. Some city leaders came together after having looked at other communities around the US and realized that for Nashville to keep growing, to stay competitive, it needed a place, a resource, to help the entrepreneurial journey become a little easier, to help remove obstacles and to do that. And so the EC was born. So we help entrepreneurs in lots of different ways, through education, through connection, of course, through capital and our work is all centered around, again, increasing that likelihood of success for any entrepreneur.
Spencer 02:07
Feels like everybody has heard that stat. I've experienced it that entrepreneurship is ripe with opportunities to fail. Sure, I like that. That's right. It's kind of a disproportionate outcome is that entrepreneurs create the majority of the jobs in the United States. More than half of all jobs are created from small businesses. But you kind of hear those stats that if you make it one year, then the road doesn't get any easier to make it to five or to 10. So what is a little bit of your entrepreneurial background, just to give context for it, and then we'll talk more about EC.
Sam Davidson 02:47
Yeah, and you're right about those stats. So at the five year mark, half of all businesses are out of business. And so that's tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics looks at that. So, you know, somebody starting a company today, it's like, great. It's a coin flip with if, if, in five years, you're still going. So if you want to bet your retirement, your kids, college and a coin flip, then okay, go for it. And so we look at that again. That's why we look at these odds of success, and say, I don't like those odds. And so entrepreneurs who have come through EC programming, right now, we're tracking about 84% success rate at that at that five year mark. So that's amazing. And a couple different ways that we do that, but, but yeah. I mean, my background is one of entrepreneurship. Never thought it would be. I grew up in Nashville, went away to college, wasn't sure what I was going do. The one skill I got while in college was audio visual technician. So connecting, not quite this complex, but projectors, microphones for corporate events. Moved back to town, needed a job. Where'd you go to college? To Stanford, university in Birmingham, Alabama. So needed a job. Worked for Marriott hotels for a couple years doing that, but still is like, what is it that am I going to do? And worked for Oasis Center, which is a nonprofit organization in Nashville, helping youth grow, thrive and succeed. And it was there I met a guy named Stephen Mosley, and we had the idea for our first company, and we started a business in 2006 it was an online platform, a content platform, really designed to help young people who we were serving connect with causes near them. And we saw that a lot of that generation. So these are the oldest Millennials were graduating college, kind of en masse, and they had had volunteerism program for them. My high school baseball team, we had to volunteer once a year before the season started, and colleges had offices of community service, but you get into the quote, the real world, and nobody's doing that, and so they didn't know where to look nonprofits like the one we worked for, didn't know how to leverage new media. So new media at the time did include MySpace, but yeah, because back then and oh six, Facebook was just for college students. YouTube had just launched, Twitter, Instagram, none of that existed.
Carli 04:38
So your career started on MySpace.
Sam Davidson 04:41
Started on MySpace leveragd it had my top eight, and I said top 16, Tom was in there, right, exactly. And so we ended up starting this business where we would help young people find a cause and sort of a meet in the middle there. And we ended up having a lot of success, in terms of 1000s of subscribers and visitors. Nonprofits were asking help us understand. In this and so it was. It was a moment I remember being like, Okay, if, if this is entrepreneurship, then I'm in. I took one class, business class in college. I was a history major, and never thought I would, I would do it. My dad was a healthcare entrepreneur, and mom was a school teacher, and so just didn't think that I would end up on the path where, over time, started four different businesses.
Spencer 05:21
What subject your mom teach?
Sam Davidson 05:22
She taught middle school, and so all the subjects right in middle school.
Carli 05:29
There’s a special place in heaven for middle school as the parent of a middle schooler
Sam Davidson 05:32
My oldest just finished middle school. So we got through that one. We got two more coming up. But yeah, she did it. She my mom taught for 15 years. One teacher of the year was very invested and involved in her career and her career and her students. So that was awesome for her, and to see her do that, and then, and then, yeah, for me, then to go into a place again of entrepreneurship, not knowing what now that looked like, but also realizing that's how most entrepreneurs do it. They don't have to do it that way.
Carli 05:56
It's funny. I feel like maybe you are a reluctant entrepreneur. It came to you in a different way. I definitely was. Spence. Was kind of born and raised on the Wheaties of entrepreneurship, if you will. And when we got together, and he was like, Babe, this is what we're going do. This is what I'm going do. I sobbed buckets. I had a corporate background. My first job out of college, I worked for the dairy industry. I helped market milk to youth, and I was very proud to be working for the fabric of society farmers. So becoming an entrepreneur felt really scary, because you kind of hear about it as the Big Bad Wolf, right? You know? And there are a lot of great organizations out there that take great care of their employees, but I had always heard, oh no, if you go on your own, there's no one there to protect you, right, which, in some ways is true. So what do you think are the common misconceptions that you're often fighting or pushing back against.
Sam Davidson 06:55
You're right, that at the heart of entrepreneurship is some form of risk? Because again, the world I live in I look in depth at these things and sort of nerd out on them, but, but the word entrepreneur itself is a French word, and really didn't exist until about the 1700s so it's a newer word, and at its at its core in French, it just means this idea of to undertake something, to do something, to again, take on and try something, is what it is. At its core, it's an interesting word because there is no verb for that noun. Whereas bakers bake, managers, manage, writers write, entrepreneurs, there's no entrepreneur.
Carli 07:28
Probably the best sound.
Sam Davidson 07:30
Yeah, every day, yeah. But to me, that's that's the unique part of it is you can be a baker or a writer or a manager or a leader or speaker and all that can be entrepreneurial. And so to me, that's some of the magic in it, but still, at the heart of it is risk. And people ask me, they're like, Okay, if I buy a Chick fil A franchise, am I an entrepreneur? And to me, I was like, well, what's the risk you're taking? Because I think if you, if you step into a management role, you might have a little bit of equity. But I'm going say, Well, you know, entrepreneur gets acquainted with founder a lot. So what's that risk that you stepped out and took now, risk tolerance is very real for different people. My wife is in the same boat where she has no desire to ever jump out, and not necessarily because her paycheck is a given at any moment in time. We do like to believe, like I have a corporate job, I'm good forever. Most headlines would disagree in terms of mass layoffs, industry changes for management, you name it. So for me, I've always felt more secure trying to forge my own path, rather than just going up and saying, Okay, I'll get this job and it'll be nice and I'll have a career forever. So to me, that seems riskier. They may always say, No, I want to wake up every day in control of my own destiny. So that's part of it is helping an entrepreneur understand what is at risk tolerance, not because we can remove it all, but if you have a very high or very low risk tolerance, we can manage to that and still take a leap. I think a lot of stories we admire of entrepreneurs are people who never fancied themselves an entrepreneur, didn't think they could do it, didn't seem like taking the leap, and they ended up being wildly successful.
Carli 08:58
Gosh, that resonates this idea. We talk about it all the time. I don't think we're so different from other people. I just think that we have figured out how to calculate our risk as a couple of what amount of uncertainty we're able to withstand and still function, if you will. But I think that's a really good call out.
Sam Davidson 09:18
Well, you probably do it with your retirement portfolio. You just don't think about it every day, and because it's invested in some mutual fund, and the risk tolerance is whatever, and there's a percentage that is high risk, and maybe that makes you a bunch of money and goes to zero, so again, but to do that with your Daily Paycheck, to do that with what you need to buy groceries with this weekend, is absolutely scary, and I think for me, again, over 17 years, Four different businesses, parts of it got easier, but nothing got less risky, is what I would say. And so some of my tolerance might have changed. But then, when I started my first company, I did not have children, and when I started my my third one, I still or my fourth one, I still only had one kid, but had two kids while still running that and. So again, that that trajectory just changes, and that's okay. And I think that's one of the can be. One of the beautiful things about entrepreneurship is you get to decide a lot, not just business model and sales prices, but what do you want your life to look like? And so to me, American entrepreneurship is the vehicle that is full of more choice than anything else. There's there's sort of a similar joke where it's like, yeah, entrepreneurs are the only people who give up a 40 hour week for a little pay to for an 80 hour week with no pay. And so there's some of that too. But again, the goal should be to stay there. It might be there. It might be we have to go at first.
Spencer 10:34
Sam, I think your leadership role at the Entrepreneur Center is interesting, because that would be intimidating. I feel like, for anybody to say, all right, no matter how successful of an entrepreneur I've been, now I'm heading up the Entrepreneur Center, which implies, like, I'm a good entrepreneur, and I know how to help. And the stats coming out of the center are amazing. Like, I've just reading off a couple it's supported. Over 14,000 entrepreneurs who have collectively raised $300 million in capital, generated over $400 million in revenue, and has facilitated over $100 million in exits already. That's a big deal. Of the center is not just like a afterthought. I mean, this is making a measurable impact. So what do you feel like from your background? Said, All right, I have learned these things tell us a little bit more about your entrepreneurial story, to be in that place of leadership and and we'll kind of walk through that some.
Sam Davidson 11:40
I think the EC, as we call it, the Entrepreneur Center, holds and sits in a special place in Nashville in terms of what it's supposed to do, how it's seen, how it can help so many entrepreneurs. So from our founding we've said we're the front door, the first stop for any entrepreneur. So you might find the EC with an idea, or maybe you already have a business, but you relocated to Nashville for some reason, and you need help. You just want to grow. You want to hit some milestone. You you will probably hear about the EC first, but you, we may not be the best group to serve you in this moment. So an example is we meet lots of people who have a product idea. They make a barbecue sauce or candles or something. We don't have any facilities to help you manufacture that. We can help you with your business plans. We can help you with go to help you with go to market strategy. We can help you find a mentor, but you need a place to cook, and so we can then resource you to hey, here's a list. Give them a call. I'm happy to do an intro. So that's some of where we sit. And so to get to that number of who we're helping on a daily basis, we're helping by pointing them in the place so they spend less time searching and more time finding but then I think also at the capital piece. I mean, having been an entrepreneur, I raised capital not near what a software company might need to or a healthcare company, but I had been down that path in my unique way. I had had two different exits, once selling my stake to a co founder, and again, selling majority stake to a private equity group. So I had had that journey too. Doesn't mean that I am now equipped to give every single person every piece of advice on on exits ever. But a lot of what I ended up doing, especially at my most recent company, which I'm happy to tell more about, was really just just helping entrepreneurs find what they needed. So to be able to sit in a seat every day, I say a couple things. Number one, I try to talk to talk to at least one founder a day. Doesn't matter where they are on their journey. This is an example of that, just to hear what the journey is like being in it still. I haven't been in it in a year and a half now, since I've been in this seat, and then hearing what it is that they might need, I think a lot of entrepreneurs will show up be like, Okay, I need to raise a bunch of money. Hey, I'm ready to go sell my business, or I need to hire seven people, and a lot of what our team does is really listen below that. And so it's like, Oh, sounds like revenue is stalled. So let's go find you a sales coach, or let's really think about your go to market strategy. So we try to listen a little bit below that. But to your point about why am I qualified the grand scheme of things? I don't know that I necessarily would be, but I think the journey that I've been on has given me a perspective to be able to say I remember what that was like. And let's help you find what you need to overcome a problem or really take advantage of an opportunity.
Spencer 14:08
Tell us about the last business. Sure suggestion I'd love to learn.
Sam Davidson 14:11
So started the first company called cool people care. So again, that was the marketplace to connect young people and causes. Because of that popularity and growth, we just got sort of contacted, by default, by service based organizations, charities, churches, nonprofits, schools, to say, hey, we want to reach young people too. Maybe we serve them. Maybe we want them as our donor based ages to replenish them. So I set up, over time, two different branding and marketing consultancies to go in and do that kind of work that also kind of dovetailed with a chance to travel and speak nationally, both to college students, but also to corporate conference corporate conferences. And so got got the chance as as I grew that, and as I did that, whenever I would need to bring a president back home, whether I was in Buffalo or Oklahoma City or anywhere in between, I didn't want to bring just whatever tchotchke I found at the airport. It was like, where's the local bookstore? Where's the local chocolate that's made here? I. Yeah, and had an idea in 2013 that I told two friends about, like, what's the Nashville version of this? Because right now, you just go to different markets or coffee shops, and I'd wanted to send a Nashville gift to friends of mine in Denver. And took half a day and ran around town in the post office, and I said, There's got to be an easier way. Hot Chicken, cancer. Hot Chicken, although one of our biggest sellers over time at batch that we started was a hot chicken, not actual chicken, but everything, everything but the chicken, the seasoning, the that we had a towel in there, we had some other recipe stuff, but that's amazing. We just said, yeah, what if? What if we could ship Nashville? We love this city. And the original model was a subscription box. Back in the day when your dollar shave clubs and birch boxes were at the top of the heap, yeah, those were all the rage. They were all the rage. And we learned our lesson quick, that sample size major brands, margins are wonderful. Small local businesses, full size products, again, a great gift, but not so much a great subscription. So we thought if we got to 200 subscriptions by our first three months, we'd have a nice little side hustle. We were doing other stuff. We hit 200 month one through media and other other tools. We got to 1000 month three. So we had a real business on our hands. But the light bulb moment was our third month when we had corporates calling and saying, Hey, I see you do natural gifts. And I was like, No, these are subscriptions. They're like, Well, no, we need a gift. And the margins on subscriptions were terrible, zero and then on a gift. Because what we noticed is we offered from the start, when you purchase something, you could check a box and write a handwritten note. Will go out. I hated these things that you type up from online retailers, and it gets lost in the no handwritten note. That's a nice touch. And so 80% of our orders had a handwritten note. And so that told us, like, these aren't going to a guy like me who's like, what's new, what's cool. This is going somewhere else, sending some kind of feeling or sentiment. And so, hey, I miss you. Hey, can't wait to see you. Hey, congrats. Hey, thanks. And so that's when we pivoted from a subscription company to a gift company. And so didn't look back from there. Grew over time. We were one of the few stories that grew during COVID Even though we had our physical retail business that had to close, that was half our revenue at the time. Some panic set in for about 90 days.
Spencer 17:06
But as appropriate as is the case.
Carli 17:07
You're tolerance of risk a little bit.
Sam Davidson 17:10
But that's when we expanded outside of Nashville, and we started getting calls from other firms and other towns saying, Hey, I've seen what you do in Nashville. Everybody's working from home. Conference is virtual. We need to send something. We're in Charlotte, we're in Austin, we're in Atlanta. Can you do it? The answer was yes. So repositioned the company this by that time was 2021. Needed to raise some money. Ended up finding an acquirer instead, but we exclusively were sourcing from small businesses around the US. And so somebody with a cookie company or a seasoning company would say, Hey, I'm struggling with this, or you guys seem to be understanding or doing this. And so for me, it was through that process that at the heart of all this, we can say entrepreneurship, we can talk about leadership, but it's really community, and it's connecting to other people. That's what I each looking back, all these companies have had connection at the core, and that has been our secret sauce, or our leverage point. I could not start or run an organization that's not based on connection. And so we model that the EC too. It's you as an entrepreneur. Hey, you need an idea, you need a model, you need a framework, but likely you need another person, mentor, advisor, customer, co worker, co founder, investor, whoever that might be, to get to the next level.
Carli 18:17
That goes with another theme of something we talk about a lot when you're an entrepreneur, most people don't have any idea what you do day to day. My family still doesn't. They don't. It's like, what does daddy do? Well, when we started our business, we were growing our logistics business and acquiring different sets of routes across the middle of the US and all my kids could say, which Spence did run on treasurer was my dad drives a puppy track perfect, because they used to have the puppy on the side on their branding. And so we would go places, and they'd be like, where's your daddy? He's on a puppy truck today.
Spencer 18:47
I thought I was a vet.
Carli 18:50
And they were so proud that there was a puppy on the side of his truck. And so I find it funny. Those stories are funny, and then it makes you proud, because those moments of what you do that's unseen, it actually builds your grit, and it makes me really proud of what we've accomplished. But then there's that other layer right of it's really easy to feel lonely when you're an entrepreneur, because you don't have a metaphorical water cooler where you get to go talk to your coworkers. There aren't it doesn't feel like other people are going through those risk calculation late, sleepless nights that you are so are you finding that I'm amazing? I'm imagining that it's the same today as it was for us when we started.
Sam Davidson 19:32
It is. And I think there's like any area of our life, I think social media makes it wonderful and terrible at the same time, because wonderful, because you don't have to be the only or the loneliest person out there, but also terrible because you're like, man, well, Spencer's killing it. Why am I'm not killing it? It's like, Yeah, but this is the most, the best edited version of himself that he's putting out there. I think when it comes to the loneliness piece, we also have this myth that needs to be busted, that. But the solo, individual, enterprising pull themselves up by the bootstraps, like no everybody, Oprah Elon, Dolly, anybody in between, there's always other people. And even if they're the singular, named figurehead, there was always other people. And so I think the more that we can start to realize, like I don't have to do this by myself, we like to say around the center that what feels impossible alone ends up becoming inevitable together. And so the thing that you're like, I can never do this by myself. Of course, you can. You weren't meant to nobody can. But with other people around you, advisors, mentors, co workers, it's going be unstoppable now. And so the faster you can get to somebody else, the more likely you will be to succeed.
Spencer 20:43
Sam, I wonder at the EC, when you have people come in the door, there are people that I think are born entrepreneurs, people that you know that given the right mixture, they will be successful. And I also feel like there are some that their calling is just not entrepreneurship, and to lead them down a pathway of what could be could actually hurt them absolutely more than help them. So I've wrestled with that as I have budding entrepreneurs that come and say, Hey, Spencer, can you give me advice on something? And sometimes I feel like the best service that I can give them is to say this is not the path for you. So how do you think about that at the EC? Or are you dealing with people that are well past the point of, hey, I'm looking for the 101, entrepreneurship for dummies.
Sam Davidson 21:36
Everybody. So anybody, anybody who I say the EC is for anybody who wants to grow their business. So whether you've been doing it for a day or a lifetime, okay, come on, really all you just have to want to grow. And so we do have those some of our the most valuable work that we do is telling somebody that idea is not viable or ready yet or ever. And so we have an online curriculum. We use a lot of aviation metaphors. It's called pre flight. So before you even take off. Like, again, how much fuel does a plane need? Where are you headed? Do you have the right talent on board? Like, because, again, a lot of people are just like, run and jump and be like, I'll learn to fly. And that rarely happens. And so we have a 10 module curriculum, self paced. You can do in a weekend, you can do one a week. Totally up to you. But at the end of it, you're going to have a complete plan, and then it's up to you to decide how to make that, bring that plan to life. Because you may, you may say, look, I make barbecue sauce. I sell it on Saturdays at the market. My family loves it at Christmas. This is my destiny. It's like, okay, well, let's, let's see, just so you can see what it's really going to take to break through in the American barbecue sauce that has 1000s, if not 10s of 1000s, of options out there. And again, that's up to you. If you want to cash out your 401, K if you want to go all in. Okay, cool. But now, you know, as opposed to just thinking, oh, people like it, this will be easy. And so a lot of people get to that stage. We've had close to 50 people go through that in this year, in 2024 and not all of them decided to proceed. Some people are like, cool, not yet. This looks like I need to go save this amount of money. So I'm going go back to my job. I'm going save extra and in six months, I'll be ready then to pick it up. Totally fine now they're now they're at least more knowledgeable and more likely to succeed. Again, our mission, it creates the likelihood of success. So that's a lot of it. And then when you're ready, let's go. And so we then that's pre flight the next accelerator. We have a 12 week program called take off. So great. You know what you need? Let's actually get that escape velocity and go. And so we look at the four biggest obstacles that new businesses face, stall out and crash. And we really look at those in depth, two, three weeks at a time, with a dedicated expert, so you get in deep there. So those real quick are just the product market fit. Like, who really wants this then going to market? So how am I going to sell the market this? Now I know who I want to go cash flow, so now that I'm making some money, like, am I managing that right for the long term? So I can keep growing and then systems and people and so as I'm doing that, how do I make sure I don't over hire, underhire, run myself ragged? But really can resource this thing to the next level. Once you're doing 50k a year, you can go to in flight. So now we're in flight, cruising altitude, scale direction, and that's how we would like to sort of walk people along that continuum.
Spencer 24:07
What type of structure at the EC is there, once you're working with entrepreneurs that are kind of beyond the beginning and saying, Okay, that sounds like a really good runway for how to get started. And you're saying it's 50,000.
Sam Davidson 24:24
50,000 is, yeah, 50,000 revenues for our in flight. We have some people who enter ready 50 some enter at several 100,000 a year in revenue, sometimes over a million. But to your point, once you get to a certain spot, and it's different for everybody based on the business, like, a million is not the magic number 5 million or 10 million, or something like that. Because it depends, as you guys know, just on your model, your staffing model, your profit margin, all that kind of stuff. So that's where the center itself, physically can be a resource. So we have a 20,000 square foot building very close to downtown and the South Bank area trolley barns where we've we've called home for 11 years, and part of that space, half of. Is dedicated to entrepreneurs to work out of so people can rent their own desk. They can drop in and CO work. They can take meetings there, because sometimes you don't need to sit in class. It's like I got it, and this is where I was for a while. But I do need to have the right kind of meeting, or I do need a place for my team to huddle, or we do at least one event a week. Hey, I'm going to go to this panel. I'm going to go to this Lunch and Learn I'm going to listen to this interview. So sometimes, when you get to a certain point, it is about management and managed growth that may or may not be handled by an accelerator program, what we call our 12 week programming.
Spencer 25:30
One thing that Carli and I have noticed is that Tennesseans uniquely appreciate entrepreneurship, like some stats that we've actually run some studies on this and 84% of Tennesseans believe we should teach entrepreneurship in high school. 65% of Tennesseans think entrepreneurship is the backbone of America from an economic perspective. So it seems as though the EC is located in the right state. So tell me what is special about Tennessee from an entrepreneurship perspective.
Sam Davidson 26:05
I think it goes back to a couple different factors. One is the community, the connection piece. So when I started that very first company, the first thing I did was found a non we were selling into nonprofit, selling ads based in nonprofits, which, again, I can't think of anything. There's probably a couple harder markets to go up against, but I found an online directory at about 700 different nonprofits. 100 different nonprofits in and around the Middle Tennessee area. I went to each website, I found development director, CEO, somebody that I would just cold email and be like, once a about this, here's what we're doing. Can I get 30 minutes? So emailed, I found like 500 addresses, got 200 replies, 100 meetings, but track like I just And so to me, that was a testament to what's unique. I think, just about the area, but about the state, there's people better than I thought those but, but people are willing to meet. They're willing to say, Yes, I they want to be helpful, the Volunteer State, southern hospitality. And so now if you abuse that, if you're seen as not being genuine or or reciprocal, then the doors will start to shut, and you'll get some kind of reputation. So I think the more that you can also to make sure to do that. That's why sometimes, even now, people are like, man, you'll have coffee with anybody. And I will. I can't have it immediately. But part of it is because so many people gave me a coffee so long ago, and you just never know where coffee is going to lead. And so I think that's some of it is people are just nice, friendly. There is this communal feel here. That's That's awesome. You can talk about favorable business environment, tax rates and things like that, sure, but I don't necessarily. I've not met many entrepreneurs, if any, who are like I'd love to start that, but the tax rate right now is now where you start. Might, you know, determine that I understand that, but usually you're just trying to get this thing out of the gate. And then there's strategies as you grow and so. But I do think it's fairly easy to at least set up the business. It's not easy to actually work one and grow one. But, you know, before the end, people are in dumb listening to this. They can have paperwork filed and ein generated and like, start. So again, you need a lot more than that. So there's some of those things that are really easy. I think you mentioned that stat. I mean, you talk about young people, 60% of Gen Z current college students, high school students, 60% want to be entrepreneurial at some point. So does it mean they will? Doesn't mean what those opportunities are. Again, there's more industries than when we were growing up or our parents were growing up, so a lot of that 60% may want to be some kind of an influencer or a YouTube star, but there's that's still a business that still can be a lucrative business if you do it right. So a lot of stats are going in our favor.
Carli 28:29
I would agree with you. I'm curious as you're meeting young potential entrepreneurs, and I mean the younger you know, our college students, maybe high school young adult, what are you seeing their this generation is doing a lot of things really well. I think their understanding of technology, of the culture, excuse me, their BS meters are just super fine tuned and on point. But what holes are you seeing as they're coming out green that maybe we're not doing a great job preparing them for entrepreneurship?
Sam Davidson 29:01
Yeah, and I think to your point about being able to teach it, I encourage, I agree with that. I would love to see entrepreneurship taught and I just encourage anybody to try something entrepreneurial. Doesn't it be a business start a neighborhood cleanup club or a mom's meetup or because, again, you got to name it. You got to go to market with it. You got to recruit for it. You got to sell it. You got to run it. So there's so much to learn about that that translates as important. I think, in terms of the younger generation, you're right about the technology piece. But I think there's two sides to that coin. We're seeing some of the earliest research on that, that over reliance on it, an inability to do this in person, face to face, look somebody in the eye, just because they didn't have as much practice with it. And there's a comfort of being able to stay, stay behind this phone, even if it's on video, that just isn't there. So great if you're we're in the regional VP as remote sales or something. But in terms of an actual like, let's have a couple. Conversation, and the person who's partly makes their decision on, do I like can I work with this person? Do I like this person? So I think there's some of that that on the social side, because, again, that this generation, for all those assets, they also track to be the loneliest. So about 80% say that they are chronically lonely. And then, of course, a couple longitudinal studies as well show that now 15% of men, 10% of women have no close friends. And so then that's across age ranges, but it skews younger as well that in the state of an emergency, the question was, in a state of emergency, could you call in somebody non blood related, and 15% of men say nope, and 10% of women say nope nowadays, and that's drastically down since 1990 and so what can we do just the way that we're raising children and getting them? I've heard of one parent who says, especially on the weekend, his kid can't come back inside until he's had one conversation with a stranger. And so, like, they'll go to the mall, they'll go to restaurant, like, even just like, going up and asking something, just to try to teach his son, like, this is part of society. Like, you don't be annoying, you don't ask him every personal question. But just like, have a real conversation and see what that's like.
Carli 31:03
We make our kids practice pitches. Hey, go. We do. We'll give them a product and be like, Hey, why do I need this apple that's great, or we have one of ours that's starting speech and debate, but she's young, so she's doing extemporaneous. And so we'll give them a topic, and literally in the car on the way home from church and be like, you have two minutes and all four of you. The best is when our five year old has to do it though he's like, I like apples because they are red, and everyone's like, you're right.
Sam Davidson 31:29
That's right. Testimonial proof of proof of concept. That's right, validity.
Carli 31:34
But it is that being able to be persuasive, that being able to speak and think about what other people need to hear from you in that moment, because we're still human.
Sam Davidson 31:42
Like technology, great. Love it, hate it, but they're still part of our brains. Have been for the longest of time that we are wired certain ways, and part of that wiring is for community and connection. And so that's why I hate the myth that entrepreneurship is meant to be this lonely road, because that goes against human nature. And so it doesn't, even though it's more risk averse, there's still parts of that that that are true to our core. And so these skills, again, people like, I don't want to be in sales. And I thought that for a long time, until I realized, like, what I'm selling I believe can really help people. And so no, I'm not giving people water and food and some of these things. But that's, that's the work I do now is evangelize what we're doing at the at the EC and entrepreneurship more largely because I think this, and it's proven this, can change generations, if done right.
Spencer 32:30
Is there a profit requirement as it relates to going through EC? Because I work with a lot of nonprofits where they desperately need business skills. Sure, and it's not about trying to make money, but it's also just trying to make it another month. And they really have never been taught. So do you all speak to nonprofits? Because it seems like you have a heart for that and that some of your first calls where it's a nonprofit organization?
Sam Davidson 32:55
Yeah, we do and we can. Obviously, the big difference is, is the the cap table or the equity arrangement. So all of the same skills, I believe, are in place, going to market, cash flow management. So yes, as someone, somebody a nonprofit entrepreneur, someone with a charitable or socially good idea, could absolutely come to our programming, they just wouldn't find as much application in our later stage programming. We have sessions about raising equity, venture capital. We have pitch events where we fill the room with investors who want to see backable ideas. So those parts wouldn't apply. I mean, they could come, they could watch, and they could be a part of it, but that's just where the point of departure is. Would be, but they could absolutely come and have
Spencer 33:34
Do you all do anything with high school, middle school, I guess, probably do college, but maybe let's focus on those on high school, middle school, because I think it's a uniquely impressionable time related to entrepreneurship. One of the schools that we're familiar with does a vending machine in their school, and so the kids are required to stock the vending machine, price the items in it. And it really does, on a very simplistic level, think about, how are we going to brand the machine? Are we making a profit, and the work that requires to be prepared for like, wow, I didn't appreciate that. We sold out of all of this thing. We didn't sell out of the others. And it really does, for a very low cost ignite an entrepreneurial curiosity. So is it something that you all have had the chance to reach out to yet? Or it's like, hey, we have our hands full.
Sam Davidson 34:28
Yeah, just stand on Not, not like that. I love that idea, because I love that better than like to sell wrapping paper to grandma or popcorn to your cousin.
Carli 34:36
I have so much wrapping paper, right?
Sam Davidson 34:38
The kids never do it, like, didn't teach them anything, because it was a parent who took it to work or whatever. But anyway, but I like this idea where it's like, we're managing this unit, because, like, vending machines can be a lucrative like, you can own 1000 of those, and, like, have a great life. So I love that that's an actual thing, that nobody's going door to door selling candy or wrapping paper. So I do like that. So no, we don't have anything formal, but I will say part of what. I've done in the last 18 months is see what relationships and can we establish with other organizations who are doing what we're doing. Because this region is growing too quickly, both in terms of people moving here and wanting to start businesses, or people moving here with businesses. Our organization cannot serve them all. We can't raise enough money, build enough buildings, hire enough people to help every single entrepreneur. So we need partners. So one of those has been the folks at Williamson County Schools, which is not far from here, and they have a really robust entrepreneurial program in a couple schools. And we were just tipping our dipping our toes, into kind of a pipeline where they have a really high, promising student. He just graduated this year, has an ed tech idea, has won some pitch contests, and he wants to take a year off to college to see if he can put his foot on the gas. So because they don't have a facility like ours in Williamson County, we said, great. So he's got a year free membership to our organization. He can work out there whenever he wants. He can meet with mentors. So we're trying to do some of those where, hey, we're maybe the next best step, or a really good step. We have very favorable relationships with with all of our colleges and universities locally. The other good thing, we're at a point in time where a lot of these places also have their own entrepreneurial initiatives. Now they're usually mostly for students while they're there. Some can service alum pretty well too. But that's that's sort of where their jurisdiction, if you will, start and stop. So we try to say, yeah, as they graduate and they want to stay in Nashville, like we have this great ongoing, ongoing resource that we can help them with on a regular basis. So we see it more as a pipeline than an initiative we might take in the school.
Spencer 36:27
How do you all keep the lights on in terms like, I could also imagine this is, you know, probably not how you want to do it, but it's like, here's a lesson of why you shouldn't give away equity, because now the EC owns 80% of your country, right?
Sam Davidson 36:40
So that's a unique thing where we don't take equity in companies. So as we're a nonprofit, 501, c3, organization, and that was a deliberate choice from the founding that we wouldn't require equity as a means to help or get involved. There have been instances in the past where a certain accelerator or a certain program did happen have it for about three years or so, a little bit of success, but it's not part of the current model. Those were all companies at the time that were seeking venture funding, looking to be Tech High Growth, high potential companies. So right now, we don't so we we raise all of our dollars, some of that's earned revenue. So there we do charge for memberships for entrepreneurs, because we don't take equity. So three membership levels, starting at $49 where you get all the benefits of a member network and events and all that, that's right. And then if you want to co work or you want your own desk, it tears up from there. So we have, we have an earned revenue amount, and then we rely definitely on our governmental partners, mostly city and state, to continue to fund us. From an economic development standpoint, those those groups who want to see new business starts. It adds to the tax base, it adds jobs. So we have metrics we report against that. We have individual donors. So we have a giving society of people who usually have had success as entrepreneurs, and want to be able to see folks come behind them, and then companies, corporations also want to give, to be able to help, from a corporate standpoint, to shepherd the next generation of entrepreneurs. So across those it's fairly evenly balanced, which is what I was seeking, to maintain that we're not over reliant. Should something macro economically affect any of those and then we do our annual fundraiser as well. We were talking about that before the show. So we do an annual event called our next awards. We just wrapped that's usually every October, where we induct people into the entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, the Nashville entrepreneurship Hall of Fame. And then we give out our next awards, which is for which companies are next, are up and coming, and so we bring 700 of our closest friends together at the scrimmer horn Symphony Center in Nashville to for a night of celebration.
Carli 38:28
That sounds fun? Yeah? Have a party. Yeah, we can be there. We'll get to invite we can take our boots together. I have a question around who's next. So as you're giving these awards, and you really seem like you have your hand on the pulse of who's up and coming. What is the next demo of Tennessee's great entrepreneurial companies and hearts, right? What are you seeing in those demographics? We've recently seen data that venture capital is giving almost disproportionately now to women startups, because they're seeing the ROI on female entrepreneurs be a little bit different even I always say because we juggle and are super scrappy and can do 17 things at that time. So maybe venture capital is waking up to just the female brain and the power of that. But what are you seeing in Tennessee as what's next?
Sam Davidson 39:17
Some of it mirrors that. So a couple of demographics, mostly nationally, again, getting seeing how some of this can be parsed out can be a little tricky, not disingenuous, but just it's not readily available. So yes, women are starting companies at faster rates. Non white women are the fastest single growing demographic. Now, some of those tend to be smaller, maybe household kind of businesses. But still, new business formations are happening. A lot of what I'm seeing even, or maybe especially, in the venture backable, scalable sort of ideas tech space is more women starting companies. And so I think that's where both of those that tide is, the ships are raising at the same time. I think because it's more female founders and. And more venture which gets more female founders which get more. So some of that finally is starting to turn I think historically, like 2% of all VC dollars flow to women. One one name I'll drop is Sherry Deutschman, who's a legend here, locally exited female entrepreneur. She has CO produced a film called show her the money that focuses on that capital gap, but then Sherry backs it up. And so she invests in, I don't want to misquote a number, but lots and lots of female founders, so hearing her.
Carli 40:30
We're big fans of Sherry.
Sam Davidson 40:33
But she doesn't just write checks either, I think again, back to that community piece, that connection piece, the best money that I tell entrepreneurs that you can raise is actually, yes, dollars that you put in the bank. But also that comes with wisdom, advice, connections, generosity, that wants, because now we're on the same team. We're cheerleaders for each other. They want to see that entrepreneur succeed. So, so yeah, it's more and more women, and some of that to your point is it, you're used to multitasking and doing 100 different things and fighting hard? Yeah, probably. So I think, if anything, you can draw on that, that natural propensity. I think the other piece is is not the society is waking up to, hopefully it's it's been awake enough, but there's also just women as a consumer block, and so as a decision making group, as more women are leading companies and making decisions on the corporate side, there's more power. There more equity too, than more opportunity. And so I think that's, that's what we're seeing too, which is, which is cool.
Carli 41:27
I also want to ask, you know, Spence and I are entrepreneurs. Have been forever, and we're raising little entrepreneurial babies, if you will. But maybe we're, we have blind spots, right? And we have a daughter with a huge passion for baking. And she wants, she's 12, she wants to open her business tomorrow, like, well, you have to also go to school. But we're trying to foster this passion in her, but recognizing also our company wasn't baking, our company was logistics. And so as somebody that sees everything from barbecue sauce to seasoning to venture tech companies, unicorns, etc. What should we be telling our kids with these entrepreneurial dreams? How can we foster them but also give them tools that aren't just like baby you can be anything you want to be. That's true, but we do them a disservice if we don't also ground them in sound principles as they're going.
Sam Davidson 42:19
I write, you can be anything you want to be. It doesn't mean you can be, get paid to be anything you want to be. And so I think drawing that line in between, like, what am I passionate about, and then what do I need to do to pay the bills is an important lesson and something to think about a lot of. What I sometimes tell budding entrepreneurs or just anybody is like, Man, I'm glad you're passionate about baking. That's awesome. Some passions should not be professions. And I don't even say that they can't be but they just shouldn't. I've known entrepreneurs who were into photography, or they like to make movies, or they, you know, like to coach people in the minute. Or soon after it became a business, they started to hate it, and just because it became all consuming again, if we talk about, usually, we're passionate about hobbies, skiing or hiking or sewing, and to think immediately, like, again, maybe it's just an innately capitalistic instinct is, like, how to make money on it? I don't know. There's always the next best question, because we also just need as balanced people like something just to enjoy. And so I love reading. And so the minute that I'm like, I should have, like, a paid book review site as much as I read, and people can trust me for recommendations. I'm a paid new and I'm like, stop it, because then I'd be like, I gotta read another book today. Do have products due to the boss? Um, actually, the boss? Yes. So I think there's that thing that I caution people, because the business principles, how to balance a budget, how to grow, how to scale, like we can, we'll get to those. We'll get to those. And so some people could be so happy being the the pastry chef at a four star restaurant, making great money, loving their life and their work without some of the stress that might come with entrepreneurship. So again, she's very young. She hasn't figured that out yet. So I think parents job is to say, Man, I see this in you. Let's, let's keep doing that piece, and maybe the business stuff is fun too. So that's, I've got three kids. They're all very different, and so I never know what you know, what passion might one might have for a minute disappears, and that's what they're supposed to do. That's what kids are supposed to do, is switch from stuff to figure out what's that thing. They're like, okay, that's going be the thing. That's it.
Spencer 44:18
Sam, I have an idea that I have wanted to launch in Tennessee for a long time, so because I just forcibly have you here, I'm going hit you on this, right, guys, we really need to make this happen, and this is going resonate with you. So I have always felt like Tennessee is top three entrepreneurially, and by some ways that you slice it, it's number one. And when you look at some of the businesses that have been created here in Tennessee, it's spectacular. I mean, you can look at Memphis, you can look at Middle Tennessee, East Tennessee, northeast Tennessee, everyone has meaningful success stories. So I would love to see Tennessee launch a Smithson. In quality museum. And I don't know where you put it in the state, but I think it would be a real tourism attractor, because I don't know of a entrepreneurial, focused Museum, and it would cater to little kids all the way to adults, say
Carli 45:19
to big kids like yourself, yeah,
Spencer 45:21
I mean the whole gamut, and I think they're so incredible in the stories like Carli and I are obviously closer to FedEx. And one story that people don't know is Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx, when he was launching the company, most people have heard that he got a C plus on the idea to begin with, and ultimately has grown it into a $70 billion company. But the story that I appreciate more than that is there was a season where he didn't have enough money to put the fuel in the airplanes, and literally, it was game over. There was no other way, and he had about $25,000 left, which wasn't at all enough to fuel the Jets. He booked a ticket to Vegas.
Carli 46:05
Wait. PSA, this is not a recommended entrepreneurial practice. Go ahead. Go ahead. Disclaimer, Spencer Patton is not recommending with your last dollar that you book a flight to Vegas.
Spencer 46:18
That's Sam's job to undo. So I you know the story, and the legend is true that he flew to Vegas and literally played blackjack, and by some miracle, got enough money to be able to put the fuel in the Jets. And those stories are just unreal. And I think you probably have those stories just from the pivots in your own company. So do you think that there's any type of history that you get to share as part of EC that could help pave the way for me to be able to say, look, this little corner of EC is doing a great job of telling some history. Does you don't have anything like that, like a wall of,
Carli 47:01
well, the museum served Jack Daniels and Google clusters because I'm confident you will get more people.
Sam Davidson 47:09
I thought you were going to go. Is like, my wife on top of this every weekend. We're like, we want, just like a barber with a playground, and there's a couple of those, just because we have two very little kids. And I'm like, That's it. Like anything, maybe some pizza, fine. But, like, I don't anything fancy. Just like, give me two hours on a Saturday, but no this museum. So, so to your point, the what does the EC do? Couple things. One, we have our entrepreneurs Hall of Fame. So that was started back in 2011 when the organization started. And so each year we induct folks. We do have a wall at our facility that commemorates each one of those. So Sherry is in that among a couple dozen other folks. Then number two, we I know people only listen to this podcast and know others, but if they're going to listen to another one, the EC has a series called circle back. And so that is where we tell the story of some of Nashville in the area's entrepreneurs and their whole journey. Because the idea is like, here's people who've not just made it, but then have circled back to help other entrepreneurs. So again, Sherry's been on that, along with a lot of other folks that have gone through Nashville, a couple folks historically as well, just to tell that story, of those times when somebody was down to the last penny, because you realize that's more common. Yeah, and what it was, what we don't know, though, to your point about the Smithsonian is, I see like the Hall of failures to like, because the story didn't hit with like Anne Fred lost all his money and the money, and the Jets didn't fly, and he was done, because there's nothing to tell there. And so, like, we just also don't know what sort of died or left on the cutting room floor companies that just didn't get that luck, or that next step, or that miracle check, or that Blackjack, that's right. I mean, story I've heard again, I'll name drop her, but Becca Stevens, over at thistle farm. I mean, she talks in the early days of their products, which now have changed so many women's lives, and is its own sort of retail, uh, Juggernaut, a little bit. But she talks about, you know, again, she's a woman of deep faith, and so praying that a check would come in that day so they could continue the business. And they are not there anymore, because as they've grown and scaled with with with a lot of leadership and vision, but they're all those moments of like, this thing could have stopped, or this thing could have never got out the gate. And should it have? Should it not have? Doesn't matter. But yeah, I think something like that that showcases that would be pretty cool to see. And for me, I we love the heroes in those stories, but like any epic saga that we love to watch or read about, there's all these other people that made that journey possible. And so I also love hearing about those people, of like, who was the attorney that did paperwork on more than 500 startups in his career, or here was the advisor who connected or opened the doors to the sales opportunity for these people. So to me, I love also hearing those stories of like, oh my goodness, because usually it's somebody like we give, you know, Warren Buffett all these accolades, but Charlie Munger was doing, you know, the good work alongside him to make that the Empire that it is. And usually there's some other person, co founder. Critical number two, that allowed whoever ended up. In the Spotlight, to be able to shine that brightly.
Carli 50:03
And sometimes I think that number two, regardless of who the face of an organization is, is a partner or a spouse, no sure. And it could be a female led business, a male led business, a partnership. And something Spence and I are really passionate about is entrepreneurial marriage, because it's just a totally different breed. Sure you take that risk reward. You were building your companies while you were having kids, we did the same thing, and it just makes everything feel like it's in our pressure cooker when you're doing it together. And so I'm curious at the EC Do you guys see a lot of I'm sure that you're counseling people through their business, but how much of that counseling Are you also a marriage counselor?
Sam Davidson 50:42
Yeah, so obviously we don't. I can't staff that yet, yeah, but it is something I think people do need to consider. Because, again, even though, if you're willing and want to work 80 hours a week, great, I get it. There's a season and a reason for that, probably, but you can't forget, like, Oh, I'll have friends in five years when I'm successful, I'll continue or begin a relationship, like life happens. And so I think there's that reality, I will say, somewhat related to that is I've seen more in my year and a half conversations around, thankfully, about mental health and entrepreneurship. And so a lot of that can be relationally, based on if you're in a partnership or not, but even just your own burnout and everything that comes with it. And so there's been some newer groups or initiatives or organizations that are really trying to tackle that. Our role is just to lift up that conversation, because I think it's either not happened for so long or hasn't been given the energy it needs. And so I'm a big believer, like, yes, some of what we may do is just platform it, let the experts in the other organizations come in to talk about it, which definitely includes relationships. And I think it's also probably different when you're business partners with your life partner, or regardless if you're not business partners, that life partner is still in the business, and because they're seeing you ups and downs the needs, like, again, when I was running my gift company, like, this time of year, like, I wouldn't have done this, because basically, q4 was, like, inside of a warehouse, non stop. And then I always knew, and you guys know this from logistics too, but like, everything I learned about FedEx shipping lanes and cut off times and weights and dims and all this,
Carli 52:17
I was like, Christmas. We also didn't see him so well, and
Sam Davidson 52:21
I knew, like, again, I can't help but just notice it as I'm like, oh, Thanksgiving is the latest it can be this year. So there's like, fewer shipping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And that was always like a signal on our sales team, like, you've got to start earlier, because if people don't book until after Thanksgiving, we don't get we're out of time. So anyway, just one of those things where you're just like, Oh, I remember that. I remember that. I remember that. So there's just things you just pick up. And you can do that if you're you know, in food, you go to a restaurant, you notice different things, hotel, whatever your your line of work in, you can't help but know that.
Spencer 52:55
Well, Sam, I really appreciate you coming and talking to us today. What you're doing at the EC is really important. Obviously, we can give the stats of the hundreds of millions of dollars of impact that it is making in our state and all across the country. And the entrepreneurship impact is one that I speak often about, because entrepreneurs, they don't forget where they came from. They come back to the communities. I love the circle back concept that is the absolute, accurate heart posture of successful entrepreneurs to come back through. So in the event that you have a museum to be able to launch at some points, right? I will be the first investor in that. I love it. I think that's going to be great for Tennessee. But in the meantime, keep doing great work and helping people show the way towards entrepreneurship. Thank you all. Thank you.
Carli 53:41
Of course.
Spencer 53:48
Sam Davidson for the Nashville Entrepreneurial Center doing the types of things that if we didn't run this business, I could imagine we could do that type of role ourselves in coming alongside people to say, here are all the things that we have messed up and learned the hard way.
Carli 54:08
Gosh, don't you feel like we kind of already do, though, when you think about the events we throw and the consulting that we do, I know every big event we've been to, I brought it up on the podcast, but my heart for marriage and relationships, and how we kind of put ourselves out there every time we do a big event, we speak on that because we want people to know, hey, just because our names on the door on the event does not mean we have been successful at every single thing. It's just been willing to make mistakes and come back from it. Yeah,
Spencer 54:39
that's right, and probably this podcast too, is that we want to have people come away to see more authentically, like there are times where all of our guests tell of failures and struggles and hardship, and it's breaking that facade of social media that is presenting just the best possible scenario and the perfect. Light, because that's just not real life, in social and business, in any settings. That's just not authentic.
Carli 55:06
Well. I mean, I think even if you look at the evolution of what we have done on this podcast over the last several months, I mean, where we started was great, but I think we've built and built and built to hone our message and what we want this to be for our listeners, but we believe in the stories that we're putting out, and that people deserve to have the content Tennesseans deserve to know about the warriors of their state, and I feel like that's what the EC is doing, is they're being the Warriors and the champion and sharing the stories for these entrepreneurs so that they don't feel alone, that they can make calculated risk decisions and have faith and confidence that even if it doesn't work the way they want it to, that they took the path that they were supposed to take.
Spencer 55:49
I think entrepreneurship is also becoming a pathway of an alternative for people that are struggling with rising cost of living, the challenge of what they make versus what they need to make to provide for their family. And they kind of look around and say, I have to do something else. And out of that place, some decisions will forever change their life. For the positive, to say when you have to, when you must. A lot of times you do, but in some cases, those are where some of the worst decisions get made. And you rush, you suspend logic and ride on 100% emotion. And I think the EC is doing a good job to say, here is a format that our job isn't to tell you yes or no, but it is to say when you finish with our program, whether it's the one week program or the 12 week program, you should know more of what you're signing up for, and at least have The building blocks for how to be successful through four really clear failure points that capture a lot of entrepreneurs along the way.
Carli 57:09
But no matter, no matter how much data you have, you still have to jump and expect that that parachute of all of your preparation and your hard work is going to bring you to a soft landing, and it's unbelievably scary, no matter how much faith you have in your product, in yourselves. One thing that I think was a huge shift for me, being raised in a more corporate environment, internships and following the path. And I worked for some really cool companies, and I love doing that, and I believed in what they did. When you and I got started, I had this subtle mental shift that I realized, for me above all, I put my faith in the Lord and that he has a plan for our life, and that really, if you look at it, nothing is within our control, honestly, right? But if you take it back a layer for even from that working in the job I thought I was supposed to. I felt like I was putting my trust and my faith, almost as a God, in the company that I was serving. And I had this moment where I realized, whatever happens, whether we make it, we don't make it, whether we make payroll that week or our grocery we have tightened really tight, and we don't get to get the things we think we need. I trust you and I, by the grace of God, to work our tails off more than I trust someone else to pay us for what we're worth. And that was the shift. And if we woke up tomorrow, and everything we had worked on for the last decade and a half wasn't there. I would trust that we could do it again more than I would trust that somebody would take care of us or hand it to us. And that's the shift that happened in my heart and in my mind that made that risk calculation worth it.
