Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Rob, welcome aboard to the show. Thank you for joining today.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Rob, I'm going to jump right in here. You help students learn how to be entrepreneurs.
Why?
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Yeah, because that's where the career paths for According to Forbes, 60 plus percent of students are going right now. And when I talk about students, I'm talking about high school and college age students.
So it's just trending. It's glamorous in their eyes. It's the gig economy.
A lot of them are seeing what's happening in the world right now with lack of, you know, just lack of, I guess, consistency with employers, with layoffs, with, you know, the whole Covid world that allowed these students to become remote and they got into this lifestyle now. So everything's been recalibrated and you know, so it's, it's a, it's a different world right now, especially with students taking a work a workforce development path. Entrepreneurship is a valid path for these, for these students to take now.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: And what's the, what's the skills like, what is the focus on throughout your program? Give us a little bit of context.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah, so it's a, it's a sports innovation startup studio really. So it's, it's those that are impacting the way we watch, play and consume sports at home and at the game. So it's everything from technology to new sports to player development to just a weekend warrior playing pickleball. You know, it's a little bit of everything. And the one thing about it is everybody at some point loves sports, participates in sports. Even if it's running, jogging, you know, watching gambling, there's a little bit of everything. It's part of the DNA. I don't care where you are in the world. It's food, it's sports, it's music, it's religion. Right. It's things that bring us all together. It's community. And you know, when you have kids that are really innovative and entrepreneurial, they're thinking of new ways to do things. So whether it's a new T shirt brand or whether it's flipping, you know, Jordan sneakers or whether it's giving one on one lessons with local kids in the community, if you're a college student athlete, you know, there's opportunities abound. And with your phone, you know, most of the software is either free or very, very, you know, inexpensive. And the entrance point into being an entrepreneur right now, especially as a student, there's no risk, you know, if it doesn't work out, then you go back to gym class, right? If it doesn't work out, you still got mom cooking you dinner and doing your laundry. So if there's ever a time for anybody to start a business is why you're a student, you know, and the blocking and tackling the fundamentals of just learning how to operate a business. Sales, marketing, customer service, right? Cash flow, taxes, that's going to, whether you become, whether you end up being an entrepreneur the rest of your life or it's a great building block and learning discovery process that you're going to go through. And just I say it all the time, entrepreneurship is the new internship, right? Start a business, you're going to learn more than going making copies and doing analytics or getting your boss coffee, whatever it may be, I don't know. So, you know, start a business, it's easy and we help kids along that pathway.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: This is such an important point which I think is not commonly known one, and keep me honest here because I'm going to put a little bit of words in your mouth. I would argue that even if you start a business and fail, you have learned 10 times more than you would have in any other location through becoming an entrepreneur. So it's accelerated learnings and those learnings that you got through that process, you're going to tell those stories in your next job interview. So even if you fail and you go work for the quote unquote man for a big company, those learnings, that experience that you've gained is going to be incredibly, incredibly valuable. That's the one thing that I would say which I think is incredibly important in what you're saying. I want to talk a little bit about the breakdown of what this includes, right? What is it in marketing, sales, customer success, maybe? What are the elements of what the students are learning?
[00:04:17] Speaker B: I think the first part about it is just figuring out the problem or the challenge that they're trying to solve. Right? So that's the biggest thing, you know, that I really focus in on, like if and then figure out who their demographic is and who they're selling to. I'll give an example. So I had a student who was a senior in high school at the time and he was doing fractional sneaker investment. So you know, a new pair of Jordans, $10,000, he can't afford it or maybe one of his 18 year old buddies can't, can't afford it either. So they got 10 kids to throw in 1,000 bucks. So you get 100 kids to throw in $10. So you figure it out it's fractional ownership. He figured out a solution, right? He figured out that the problem was all these kids, now they're trending towards being a sneaker head, that they wanted to own a little piece of this, you know, a very obscure Jordan Air Jordan sneaker. So he figured out a platform and built the software to be able to offer it up as a fractional ownership of the sneaker. So it's not nothing that's anything new, but he had a lane that was kind of narrow but really long. So for me, it's, it's, it's really focusing on the problem, you know, and understanding how to build out the solution and then talking to as many people as you can about it, right? To get the validation in the market. And pivot, and pivot, and pivot, pivot. So that's the fundamental part of it. If you're doing like a, hey, I want to do my own, you know, my own T shirt company or my own new fashion brand, there's a little more that goes into that part of it, right? And you could only go so far with your, with your local market, but you got to start somewhere and friends and family, selling to them is the best place to start. And then being able to tell your story and the reason why, you know, and is it a non profit, is it a for profit business? You know, so there's so many angles, especially when kids, they're, they're, they want to change the world, they want to make an impact, and a lot of them just don't know how to kind of take that step, that first step to get there. So that's what we help them.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: There's so many, I think, delightful things about what you said in the core skills that the students are learning. One is you're pushing them to go out there and actually ask questions and to talk to people. I mean, just in that, discovering actual problems, real pains that people have, they're working on their communication skills, right? They're understanding that it's actually not about them, it's about the client. Such a fundamental skill that I think a lot of salespeople nowadays don't always remember the, you know, the good old how to make friends and influence people philosophy, which I think even though it's what, now 60 years old, it's as valuable as it ever was. There's so much beauty in this. How did the students react? What are the stories? I'm sure that not all of them become entrepreneurs, probably not at a fraction. But I'm also pretty sure that all of them love the process and have great stories to come and tell you kind of from the end of it. What, what have you heard?
[00:07:18] Speaker B: There's so much of it because it's so glamorized right now. You know, I call it the Gary V. Effect, right? So it could be flipping trading cards and. But that's okay because they're being inspired. They're being inspired and said, listen, it's on you, right? And figure this thing out. There's so many people out there that look like them, that their age, you know, the kids that they know that are out there doing it right now. And a lot of the parents have already, you know, it's a big influence on the parents too are entrepreneurs, you know, so a lot of blue collar people out there. And so I think, I think just knowing that they have a pathway to get there, most of them, whether they're teachers or whether they're professors, none of them have ever, 99% of them, never. I mean most of them didn't have it left school since they've been in kindergarten. The majority of them have never started a business. You know, so you're better off getting, you're getting, you know, going to a, you know, a fireman and firemen always have part time jobs going, asking them how to start a business than a professor or a teacher. Honestly, it's just a reality of it, you know, so they're, they're teaching through theory. I always say this, you cannot teach entrepreneurship, but you can teach somebody how to start a business. Entrepreneurship is, as you know, is a badge that you earn. Like you have to earn that right to become an entrepreneur, you know, and it's not something you can't just say I'm going to be an entrepreneur tomorrow and start to start a business. Well, here's what I find already. I think kids take three different paths. Either a kid has an idea by themselves and they've already started it. So it's really that solopreneurship where they're going to do like photography or give lessons or social media management or there's ones that say, hey, I had three or four of my teammates and we have an idea that we want to start up or we've already started it. The best one I've ever heard it was, the coolest thing was a group and I don't even remember exactly when or whether where these kids were located, but they started bringing up garbage cans from right after the garbage was collected. So they're busy neighborhood and they're busy families. They pay $5 a week for the kids to bring their garbage cans, put it back in front of their garage or in their garage, and they just started recruiting other kids and doing other neighborhoods, and it just took off for them.
That's what's beautiful about it, right? That because they know all they do is now they have a website, and people go online and schedule them. They pay online or they Venmo. Now they have to learn about the bookkeeping, and they have to, you know, the cash flow and the records in Texas. But the fact of the matter is there's no more paper rents, right? There's no way. There's other ways that kids are going to be entrepreneurial. And the last one out of this group, the last part of it, in the last pathway, is making an impact. And it's typically. It's typically female student athletes that want to do this, but they want to set up nonprofit organizations and give back and make an impact somehow. So those are really the three career paths that I see with student athletes that are into entrepreneurship or. And they all want to do something that has a purpose, you know, so it's. It's. It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. There's a lot of energy around it.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: So I love that. Tell me something, Rob. You focus, keep me honest here on athletes. Why?
[00:10:34] Speaker B: Yeah, because I think athletes have the. Have the inherent skill set that entrepreneurs have, right? They're gritty, right? They figure out ways to win. They're used to a scoreboard. They're used to be coaching. They're used to the grind. They're used to making a commitment. You know, there's. There's so many skills that are just connected between the two. You know, there doesn't mean that other students don't have the skill sets or the ideas. There's no doubt about it. Those kids will rise to the top, too. The one, the area that I focus in on is student athletes only because they have this internal drive, they have this internal grit. They don't give up. All right? Not all of them are like that, but the good majority of them are, especially when they get to college, right? So when you get to college now, you're. You're. 5% of the kids from high school athlete athletics make it to a college athlete. So only 5% of those kids, they get more. So by the time you get to college, student athletes are pretty. Those. Those. Regardless of where you play at, whatever level you play at, whatever school you play at, chances are you're pretty gritty, right?
It's the same trick you need for entrepreneurship.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: I think that one of the things that if I had to pick just one thing on what defines a good entrepreneur, I would say it's definitely the ability to be coachable.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: If you can't take feedback and you can't learn from your mistakes, and if you're not, I should say self conscious, self aware, I would say no way you're going to be successful. And I can definitely see the overlap there with what athletes need to do in order to become good. So what do you think the future should look like?
[00:12:11] Speaker B: Model from higher ed and public schools are so outdated and everybody's bringing it up, right. And how we're lacking and falling behind in so many areas.
There's no innovation without incentive. And the one thing about higher ed professors, their salaries, everything is the tenure is all tied. Whether they go out and get research grants. Right, Research grants without a tech transfer, without an incentive for the school to get a little bit of that IP out of that research that's missing on most schools. So without any incentive for a professor or faculty or student to get some of that IP and be able to commercialize that idea and really take it to that, you know, to the marketplace, there's never going to be innovation. Higher ed loves to put the word innovation and entrepreneurship on buildings and on programming, but it's not, it's a facade. There's no bridge between I have an idea, it's a capstone project, or we've done this great research and now we want to commercialize that idea and capture the ip. The partnership is between the faculty, the student, the professor. Right. And the founder and the investor. Right? And, you know, that's what's going to make, you know, some of these schools out there that are pumping out great ideas and great research, you know, they're all the Ivy League schools or all the big brand schools who figured it out. Tech transfer is the one thing that connects it all together. But so I think the future is overlay, to answer your question, is an overlay of entrepreneurship pathways onto any major or just you're going to go there and you have an idea out of high school, and mom and dad don't mind paying that type of money for you to kind of take your idea, figure out, you know, get the support and help you need while you're at college, you know, and then bring that idea to market. If not, you're going to leave there with a degree. Right? So that investment back into that student's experience, the network, the Collaboration and hopefully launch that business. And if not, that's okay because they'll still leave there. Like you said, with these so many intangibles, you know, of failing and picking yourself up and doing it over again and find another idea because you're going to change probably three or four times by the time you get there. So entrepreneurship, business development, all of those things are going to be woven into the fabric of higher education moving forward, guaranteed in the next two, three years.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: I love that. I think there's something really important that you're talking about and that's timing. And I think we should dive into this timing aspect. When you're, you know, you're out of high school, maybe you're after college or before college, your, you know, hopefully your health care is being still covered by your parents, right. In many situations, so you don't have to worry about healthcare costs. You know, you can still, you know, crash in your bedroom. So you don't have kids, you don't have a mortgage. So that first part of your age, actually, when you're 18 to whatever, 26, under 30, it's a great time to do this experiment. Conversely, here's the worst possible time to become an entrepreneur. When you've got, you know, a young baby, three kids, a mortgage, you've got a million things. If you don't make salary, then you basically lose your house. That's a terrible time. Here's the third time, that's a good time. And I think this one is overlooked a little bit. I'm reaching that period. It's once you've retired, you've retired, you've paid off your mortgage, your kids are doing their own thing, and you kind of have that safety net again. So it's really about what you have to lose. So if we think about, I've heard parents say that, oh, I want my kid to focus on a job and I want them. Well, I would say, no, that's the wrong approach because you want your kids to do something quote, unquote dangerous when there really is no risk, when the danger isn't there. So I think that's a really important point that you made that's kind of worth doubling down into what have you seen kids kind of go on and do with the skills that they've learned with you?
[00:16:22] Speaker B: It's just a discovery time for them, right? So they, I tell them all the time, you're gonna figure out what you don't want to do long before you discover a career that you love. Right? So, you know, just, you Got nothing to lose with this. So kids have gone on and pivoted. There's been a bunch of them that have actually taken the business and taken it to the point of where they did an exit. So it just depends, you know, they bundle this into something else, they sold it or, you know, they, they closed the business. But they've learned so much, they. And now they're on to their second business or they're going to work for somebody else who started a business, you know, so I've seen a little bit of everything, you know, I've seen a little bit of everything from these kids.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: I think one of the most beautiful things and I kind of reframed their activity as look, you're going to go and talk through the program with a lot of potential people. All of these people are professionals. Right. They all have a job. Many of them are doing different things, sales, marketing, different industries. This is an opportunity for you to discover what they do, if they like it, what their day to day looks like. And then when you need to choose a job, right. In a year or two, you've got all this information. So you're so much educated about what kind of the professional environment looks a lot looks like. I think that's also highly undervalued points around these programs that the knowledge that the students gain is also, you know, really an amazing thing.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's the education that they're going to get from starting a business. Anybody will hire these kids. On top of it all, student athletes are the most desired employees that companies are looking for as well, based upon what we already talked about, the skill sets and the traits that they already have inherently. So it's a great, great demographic of kids to work with, you know, that are coming through.
[00:18:15] Speaker A: So what I thought was interesting, that one of your students basically said that the easiest way to get somebody to respond to you, if it's LinkedIn or email, is to say, hey, I'm a student athlete working on this project. Would you give me, you know, 15 minutes of your time? That's really hard, right. Once you become a professional. But to have that gift, I think it's a huge opportunity. So I appreciated that.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: Yeah, Kara, she's incredible what she's been able to do, but she's 100% right. There's no other time in your life that people are going to be rooting for you and trying to help you than right now when you're a student, once you graduate, you're on your own, kid. But when you get it right now everybody's going to respond to you. In trying to help, 99% of people will.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Rob, what's your advice for kids going through your or any kind of other entrepreneurial program to get the maximum value out of it?
[00:19:14] Speaker B: Show up. You know, show up. When we have our group sessions each week, you know, to have a Q and A, get to the point where you're not afraid to ask for help.
You know, if you're going to commit to it, commit to the entire program. You know, jump on the monthly roundtable calls when we have executives and entrepreneurs and folks on there to answer questions, network with them, follow up with them, connect with them on LinkedIn, and then tell your story over and over again because it's going to pivot, it's going to change. You're going to get.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: Wait, hold on, hold on. You said something important, right? These mentors, right, that come in basically to the program.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:55] Speaker A: I think what a lot of the students miss is that these aren't just people that are here to teach you something. They're not teachers. These are potential people that might hire you.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: And in fact, as, as the teacher of the, of one of these programs like you're doing, Rob, I've seen this happen multiple times. I've seen mentors kind of build this wonderful relationship with one of the team members, builds trust. You see how smart they are and like, oh, do you want to come work for me?
[00:20:19] Speaker B: 100%.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Not only this is. And if it's not that, then they might introduce you to somebody, they might remember you, you know, six months later. There is so much opportunity in the networking that happens that is so valuable. And if you're, if you're not going to commit, you're not going to put in the work, you're going to create a bad impression, basically, your, your reputation is not as good as it can be. You're not going to get any of that value. But if you, as you said, show up, you do the work shit, you know, things, windows open up that you would never imagine. And I've seen that happen time and time again. It's always incredibly inspiring.
Rob, what an absolute delight. I'm so happy to have you on the show today. I have one last question. Sure. Now, this is the only scripted question we have on the show, and it's a difficult one.
If you had to go back to 20 year old Rob, what advice would you give him?
[00:21:13] Speaker B: Pick your head up, enjoy the moment, you know, be where your feet are. Those are all cliche things to say. But it's so true. Network, network, network. All those people around you right now, if you're in your 18, 19, 20 year old, everybody around you is willing to help you out and can help you out.
I wish that I enjoyed the moments more than I did. And I think because I was, I had, I had such a craving to keep going into that next thing, that next thing, that next thing. And I don't think I enjoyed the thing that was in front of me enough when I was going through it. So that's what I would say is network. By wherever you are, those people around you, your professors, your teammates, your classmates, your roommates, find out what their parents do for a living. And I waited too long when I found out what my, what my roommate did for a living because I never asked him until years later I found out his mom was a big shot with Reebok, you know, and it was like, I wonder why you got all that free gear all the time. Never asked, never came, never crossed my mind to ask. So those are the things that I think I would give my 20 year old self. And don't drink as much as you do.
Yeah.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: Rob, thank you so much. What a delight. I appreciate you coming on today.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: It's my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
