Unknown Speaker 0:00
You know, if you’re an early stage company and you want to do business with a big company, it’s a pretty hard thing to do. So you’re kind of the metaphor I like to use is you’re sort of rolling around this in the kayak knocking on the side of this big boat trying to get somebody to pay attention to you. So that’s where we’ve learned to insert ourselves as the translator and the person on the side of the boat that opens door and says, Come on in.

Unknown Speaker 0:18
Hey, it’s Nate Disarro, and welcome to titans of industry, the podcast where I talk to industry leaders and innovators who are at the top of their game and leading the pack in their fields, uncovering some of the best stories in today’s business landscape. In this episode, I sit down with Wayne Miller, the executive director at the venture center in Little Rock. This Pittsburgh native is all about people and the power of teams. Wayne talks about his passion for helping to change the trajectory of FinTech organizations, why it’s more valuable to have access to a market than access to capital, and how his 30 years of motorcycle racing might be responsible for his risk tolerance in business. Needless to say, Wayne is a powerhouse that is fueling the next generation of entrepreneurs Who will inevitably change the world? And now let’s get to the episode. But before we do, our team at content Titan wants you to know that we understand the challenges business leaders and marketers are facing right now with moving to a more virtual world. We are experts in taking human connections and turning them digital. From virtual Events and Video presentations to promotional content and advertising. We are here to help guide you through the process of staying in front of your audience and making your life a little bit easier. People tell us all the time that they are lost and don’t know what to say or do and we exist to help your business continue to move forward,

Unknown Speaker 1:37
virtually.

Unknown Speaker 1:39
So if you’re ready to take your business and content strategy virtual, our Titans are ready to help. Let’s get your business back to business.

Unknown Speaker 1:49
Now, here’s my conversation with Wayne

Unknown Speaker 1:51
Miller.

Unknown Speaker 1:55
Wayne, thanks so much for hopping on the podcast really appreciate you taking the time and look forward to this conversation. I think it’s gonna be a lot of fun. Just based on what I know about you, you’ve kind of done a little bit of everything, like literally. So I’d love to just get some of your background and how you ended up as the Executive Director here at the venture center. Hey,

Unknown Speaker 2:13
well, thanks, Nate. Thanks for having me to be a part of this. This is an honor. Yeah, you know, I have I’ve been really lucky. I guess my dad would have probably said that I difficulty holding a job but you know, I come from a family of entrepreneurs, to some degree with my sisters are artists have their own businesses and so forth. You know, it sort of started delivering papers as a kid you know, and having my own money and that was the thing and being able to spend it and do with it what I wanted to but it’s been a great journey. I just always loved making money and being in business Don’t worry. Oh, yeah. And, and probably, to some extent, at the expense of education at some point in my life to my first real business was when I was in college, I spun records to put myself through school, believe it or not, I was a DJ and it was the disco era which was sort of crazy. It was actually a lot of fun, but and we used to we use Obviously tried to mix records effectively. And we did that orally. We did it using our ears when I met a guy by the name of George Lambeau, and I was working at a place called CJ Barney’s in the wooden keg, I was going to Pitt at the time. And he said, What if you could do that visually instead of hourly? And I said, well, that’d be great. So we started working on this concept and we created a company called disco tech Tch, believe it or not. And we developed a product called the beat meter. And it was a device that enabled us to mix records, using we used a heart rate monitor, to be able to assess the bass beat of the music, and then be able to align them for a segue effectively, and we used LEDs to do that. And then we created a second product called the beat counter ultimately sold that company and sold the technology made a little bit of money. And an after school, my mom got sick and turned back to the DCR where my mom was to attend to her a little bit and with a little bit of money that I had decided I was going to buy a restaurant. So I did that and got into the restaurant business and was pretty fortunate. Most people getting into that business. It’s very high risk and had the good fortune of not only only one restaurant but three restaurants, I sold my interest in my first one and then open to more fell in love with Cajun cooking, which was something that was not a big deal. At that point. People really didn’t know that much about it. But I’ve been in New Orleans and really just loved the food and love the people. So I wanted to bring that to Washington. So when actually to New Orleans, spent a couple of months had a chance to work with some extraordinary people in there. I worked with Paul Perdomo work with the Brennan’s, etc. And people who were quite remarkable and really taught me an interesting lesson, which is very much kind of I think part of my one of my fundamental philosophies is you know, giving people the recipe is different than getting it done right. And these people were very transparent. They were happy to show me what they did and share their recipes and share the way they did things and you still had to execute on your own right and friend of mine here always says, You know, I have a lot of WOLFGANG PUCK’S recipe, recipe books at home. It doesn’t make me a great cook. Right. So interesting thing, but anyway, we had some great success. We open the first Cajun restaurant in Washington and was recognized as one of the best in the country when we did that. And the restaurant business was tough, you know, it’s a lot of hours. It’s hard and family. And I made a step into corporate America at that point went to work for Kraft. And I knew food, I knew food service. So it was kind of a natural step for me, and went into a marketing and a sales role. And I did that for a couple of years, and again, pretty successfully and had a lot of fun doing it, and knew a lot of people in the business and so I was able to be credible and so forth. And I had a friend who was selling medical equipment and he was making just a pile of money and I said I gotta get into that racket and ultimately did and went to work for a company called Hill ROM for almost 11 years. largest manufacturer of patient furnishings and equipment in the world and had a great career with them and ultimately ended up in a national development role for them, help them with a lot of m&a stuff, did some international work, and and that was great and I had a little change in my life, marriage wise and I ended up coming back to DC left till ROM and was recruited back by nation’s bank to help them with a company called takeout taxi, which was really the first delivery service for restaurants. And I mean, this was pre internet, we were using fax machines. It was a franchised operation and anyhow ended up going bad, which was unfortunate because it was really onto something. Although I think today, the grub hubs etc, still struggle with, you know, trying to make a real profit of doing it, but it was interesting at the time and so forth.

Unknown Speaker 6:33
I knew that was a high risk situation going into it and ended up at Deloitte and Touche, interestingly enough, and Deloitte was trying to build a national sales organization and met a guy by the name of Tony buzzelli, who was the managing partner and interestingly enough, also from Pittsburgh but and he said, hey, look, we’d love to have you come in and see if you think you can stand this thing up. And I said, I’d love to have the opportunity. So about three years into that ended up growing it into 16 cities. I was generating close to hundred million dollars a year with revenue. And it was really, really successful. And it was a lot of fun and I loved it and, and the internet thing was starting to kind of get some energy at this point in and I was approached by a guy that Mr. Wolf Fernandez, who started a company called proxy calm. He said, Look, do you think you can come in and do for proxy con what you did for Deloitte and I said, I think I can and I ended up going to work with him, and had a chance to really be in an early stage company, who was going through an IPO process contributed to that learned a lot about it. And and did so we did so very successfully and sold to Dimension Data for about 300 million bucks and, and continues to exist today as part of Dimension Data. And during that time, I had a friend, David Abramson, who unfortunately is gone but was a great mentor of mine, who I met through my experiences with the Northern Virginia Technology Council and the Greater Washington Board of Trade. And David was an ad guy, and he had this idea of repurposing advertising using the internet as a platform. And along with two other guys who have been with Bill Rob Replogle and Muncey Ferguson, and they wanted to try to get a business plan built around this concept. And if you think about it sort of interesting, you know, creative is generated in large quantities, right, so an agency will generate four or five ideas for a client. And some of those are the best ideas, if you will, they never really see the light of day. But the other thing too is for for small to medium sized businesses, their access to great advertising and great content is really hard for them to get access to. And so the idea of add mine which was the name of the company was to build a platform where creative could share this content, but also small to medium sized business could have access to great advertising at a fraction of the cost and, and really a fraction of the time. And, and also to be able to put pedigree behind it, you know, so if I’m in Tucson, I as an agency, I can’t do business with any other bank, but I could take that work and repurpose it in other parts of the nation and actually kind of syndicated if you will, right. So that was the business of add mine. So We started off on a path, I build a business plan for them. I’m still working a proxy Comm. And, and I like the business. I like the idea of it. And then they said to me, do you think you can help us raise some money? And so I knew some folks and gave him a mark. I’m with a company called venture house, and went to mark with the idea. And Mark said, I love this idea. I’d like to put some money into it, but only do it if you’re involved. So I said, you know, I’m really pretty happy what I’m doing a proxy calm and so forth. But I went to audible and I said, Look, this is an interesting opportunity said you should seize it, go do it. So this is an extraordinary time, you know, the internet bubble was, you know, expanding at a ridiculous pace. So when started add mine ultimately raised about 80 million bucks. We existed for two and a half years. And unfortunately, like many businesses at that time with the internet bubble, we, we were we did not have a path to profit. So a lot of lessons learned there, built the company up to about 60 people and inside of about eight or nine months, we grew very rapidly. We had a world class advisor board it was it was a great experience was my MBA you know and but ultimately, we we needed we were able to raise half of the cash that we needed and then we were unable to get the second half so I had to shutter the company and that was that was a lousy day to have to send 60 people home and two and I took you know, some pretty large personal loss on that as well because I’d invested a lot and having to tell your investors that it’s just you know, it’s not going to happen. So

Unknown Speaker 10:27
I got done with that and I said you know, I’m out of the tech business for a while I’m gonna go into something simple brick and mortar and I think I shared with you I’m kind of a gearhead I raced motorcycles for a good portion of my life always been a car guy collected cars, etc and love restoring old vehicles and then my shirt British and German stuff over the years but i thought you know, I’m going to do something different so I looked at the the franchise world and ended up buying a an amkco transmission shop. That business ended up buying for more transmission shops, so I kind of did like a mini roll up. The transmission business became very cool. monetised, we were able to get a lot of scale out of this for example, having I didn’t need to have five rebuilders ended up centralizing my transmission rebuilding into a central area which later enabled us to purchase more effectively. I could quality control hired a couple of kids with a couple small pickup trucks who run transmissions back and forth to our monascus location but, but tough business and, you know, people are pretty fun to their cars and being in the transmission business is kind of like being an undertaker honestly, because it’s not a it’s not a repair that people prepare for. It’s an expensive repair a couple to 3000 bucks. And so one of the things we also did is we converted the businesses to doing total care for people. So we were doing brakes and tuneups and that kind of stuff. It’s funny that you know, when you have a reputation as amkco does for transmission work, that people’s perception of your ability to do things like brake work or tune ups is like are you sure you know how to do that? I mean, here you are working on what is essentially you know, the really the most complicated system in the vehicle and and yet they don’t have that confidence, but we got into that and the idea idea there was that, you know, we weren’t sitting around like The Undertaker waiting for people’s transmissions to die, but rather building relationships with them and so forth. So great experience, ended up selling those, those shops all at once and getting out of the business and was glad that I had that opportunity FSL the transmission shops I was kind of actively looking for another business to buy and interesting time in how people are aging in this country and the businesses that are beginning to present themselves. And so I met a guy who owned the second largest taxi company in the country, the guy who was his chief operating officer was retiring and they were looking for somebody to take over that role. What did I know about the taxi business? Well, this this was a completely integrated company, they had their own body shops, they their own repair facilities, etc. They had a booth 1500 vehicles, we had black cars, we had we had, you know, vans, etc. So I ended up taking the role but my intent was to buy the company. The company was doing about $42 million in business and was able to step in and really have an impact. Change the perspective The business because most people perceive the people sitting in the back of the taxi is the customer. One fact that really wasn’t the case. The customers, we really were in the business of renting cabs to drivers. That was our business, right? So my perspective was our drivers were our customers. And if we took good care of them that ultimately would take care of people in the backseat of the car, it was an attempt at changing a culture of a company like that, that was 50 years old and dealt with people literally from all over the world, because drivers came from every culture, somewhere a lot more interesting to deal with than others. Some are more pleasant to deal with, but others but but I didn’t really see the drivers as my customers. And I think they kind of liked that perspective. In the process of negotiating the transaction. What was interesting is as that was occurring, there was this little company called Uber that was starting to show its face. And we were kind of looking at strategies about how are we going to deal with Uber we were going to turn our drivers into private owners, that kind of stuff. We had some things and, and ultimately, I elected not to pursue it and I was very fortunate that I didn’t because the company went from about a $42 million level of volume to About an $8 million level of volume as a result of Ubers impact. So, in many of the drivers that work for us became Uber drivers, because they’re paying us 150 bucks a day for a car plus gas, you start adding that up, we only charge them six out of seven days a week, but when you start looking at, you know, buying a suburban, paying the fees on that eight or 900 bucks a month, whatever it might be, and being able to be kind of the champion of your own destiny, you know, value proposition was very, very good. And the way in which they really took the dispatch aspect out of the process was also quite interesting. Anyway, after that, I continued to work with startups, invested in a couple other companies and continue to do that. And with my background at Hill ROM, I ended up working for a company as the operating partner of a PE firm who was into building neuro stimulators. And so we looked at that market, they were, they were, they were sort of a race to the bottom in terms of how they were marketing and so forth. And we had this little company called innovative. We ended up Looking at other companies of like size and structure, did sort of roll up route for these companies together. And we were able to change the market structure of it, improve the product, again, consolidate or manufacturing in China and did a lot of things with that. And I kind of put myself out of a job ultimately, because you didn’t need for CEOs to be operating these companies. And it was at that point that I kind of stopped and that atapi and decided to take a little time off and kind of figure some things out. So I played a lot of tennis for a while. And I decided that wasn’t a great way to make a living. My wife wanted me out of the house. And and so I was approached by another accelerator organization to go to Florida and start a medical device accelerator. And what I noticed about it was, it was really great for investors but not so great for entrepreneurs. It really leaned into creating deal flow for investors more than it was really helping these companies accelerate really helping them get to market. If nobody buys what you have to sell then you don’t have a business right you know, getting Customers is such an important thing. And in the difference of the value of a company with one customer, no customers can be, you know, algorithmically different to say the least. So, you know, I turned the job down, but I started to look, because I like the fact that, you know, I had all this experience, I’ve done all these different things, I always felt that I had a little bit of an advantage because, you know, I can look at problems from a business perspective, it kind of 360 degrees, because there are things that I learned working for Hill ROM that I applied to the taxi business, there were things I learned in the taxi business that I applied to start up, you know, efforts and so forth. So, it’s just, it’s funny how it works. And you know, it really does get down to, you know, kind of people in market as you distill all that and being able to do that effectively. But in my search, I tripped across this organization called the venture Center here in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I had never stepped foot in Arkansas in my life. And so I applied to the position and I’ve been up in New Jersey because I remember the day very distinctly when I got a call from the leadership here. I was taking the case ferry back from New Jersey back to Delaware. And I was the only one on the boat right as me and my car and I’m having this interview going across on the ferry that night and talking about it what these guys were doing and, and their approach was different I liked it, which was really getting focused on solving very specific problems for this entity. So we went back and forth for about a month and I finally said, Look, I’m getting in an airplane. I’m coming a little rock, I get to see what this is all about. I’m really interested in this. You know, there’s a lot of things said about Little Rock and about Arkansas, but it is the people here that are extraordinary. And, you know, they kind of put the full Nelson on Yeah, and I had a chance to meet all these great people and dignitaries and so forth. And it was awesome. And so, two weeks before the second round of the accelerator started I came here and went to work so really kind of went from the frying pan into the fire as they say. So it’s been it’s been awesome. I came in initially to run the accelerators ultimately became the executive director of the venture center and I am like the luckiest guy on Earth. I love my work. I love our mission. I have a great team that we’ve built over, you know, over the Three and a half years that I’ve been here, and you know, we’re really in a growth phase we we’ve added a big second client, our community programming has gone from, you know, 20 or 30 to 50 or 60. We’ve got 4000 5000 people come through the venture center, you know, virtually Now, of course, as opposed to actually, and I think, you know, the community is we really have, I think, done a good job of understanding what our mission is, which is really about education, collaboration and acceleration. And that’s really been the three pillars that we built this on. And we’re trying to deliver content that’s relevant to people who want to start businesses and scale businesses. We’re trying to find great companies to help solve problems. And I guess that kind of brings us around to the whole issue of corporate innovation. So let me let me stop there and

Unknown Speaker 18:42
yeah,

Unknown Speaker 18:44
let’s Yeah, sure. Sure. Yeah. So incredible, background, incredible experiences that have ultimately, like you said, given you this 360 degree view at how to step into an accelerator program, you know, the venture center and And be able to help these companies go to market and grow and scale and do the things that they have to do. And it’s a really interesting parallel I, I have the opportunity to work with businesses in all different sectors. And it is interesting to be able to pull from one industry and apply that to another, and people that have been in an industry their entire life think you’re brilliant, and it’s like, no, this is just how another industry did it. Sure. You know, I don’t feel like I’m any smarter than anybody else, I just have experience or the opportunity to be a part of something that that allows me to bring that perspective and I think perspectives a huge thing. So in a nutshell, give me just a 32nd pitch of what the venture center actually isn’t does. And you kind of just hit on that a little bit. But and then yeah, like how are you guys taking these companies and creating innovation out in the world?

Unknown Speaker 19:50
Yeah, great question. Um, you know, it’s, we are what’s referred to as an ESL or an entrepreneur service or support organization, right. And there are many of these around the country and some great ones in Arkansas. You know, we, we have really worked the last couple years to collaborate more effectively to really help support, you know, entrepreneurs in the state. But, you know, the first thing is, is to create, you know, an environment where people can become educated. I mean, that’s okay. So there’s gonna be three pillars about education, collaboration, and acceleration. And we’ll sort of talk about each of those, but providing workshops, providing opportunities, you know, people get very wrapped up from an entrepreneurs perspective around access to capital, right, because obviously, that’s important. But really, it’s really about access to market my opinion. And I believe very strongly that, you know, again, it gets back to what I said earlier, if people don’t buy what you’re selling, you don’t have a business and if you can demonstrate that people will love what you have to sell. You can you can get people to buy your product or service, do that effectively understand how to pivot accordingly, etc. and do that, you know, one of the things that we do is we leverage a number of great methodologies. One of them of course, is lean Canvas, right. You know, when I go back to add mine days, that was a 30 page business plan, right? We don’t write 30 page business plans anymore, right? We We start with the lean Canvas approach. We lean into failure now in a much different fashion than we did before. For many years I didn’t talk about add mine because it was a big failure and I didn’t think you know, something, but today, I talk about it and I talk about what I learned from it, I talked about the experiences that I’ve had and so forth and, and how it made me better different and more capable, and really able to kind of see around corners that you know, from those experiences and as you said, that perspective so, so we try to provide a platform where people can get well educated, we really try to leverage the the mentorship base that exists in Arkansas. You know, Arkansas has got a remarkable DNA when it comes to, you know, the founding of companies, I mean, everything from Stevens to euronet systems to Arkansas systems to, obviously the Walmarts the JB hunts and and, and so forth, and Tyson. You know, it’s interesting as I came to Arkansas, I think if you don’t live here, you don’t really know that much about Walmart. You have sort of a job. Just a few of them. And you know, the first time I went to the Walmart Museum, and I’m looking at what Sam Walton accomplished, and obviously, it’s fortune number one company and 600 and 50 billion, and you look at his principles, you go, Wow, this guy was an amazing entrepreneur. And it’s one of the things we try to do when we bring people through here is make sure they get that experience. So through through a variety of programs on the community side, we try to create this educational platform. So it’s about things like Lunch and Learn, where we bring people in to talk about, you know, specific concerns like last week, we had one that focused on how to sell a business, right? We have people like Charles Morgan and Millie Ward and Jim Womble, who are great, you know, entrepreneurs, Justin, George, etc, who come and spend time with us at our fireside chats. So we have, you know, our pitch contest twice a year, which is, you know, pitching point which gives people a chance to generate a little bit of money for for starting their business. And so that that’s that’s a lot of the community aspect of this and that’s great work and a lot of fun, but we really do try to get People a place to start. But also, you know, if they’re trying to scale a business to help them with those skills as well,

Unknown Speaker 23:04
you mentioned an important word. And I think just due to the relevance of where we’re at right now, but you talked about how pivot is kind of an important piece of what you support these companies, and here’s your lean Canvas, here’s your approach to the market. But right now, I think is a very important time for business owners, especially entrepreneurs to understand the value of the word pivot. Because over the last five, six months, we’ve seen this global phenomenon happening in a way that I know in my lifetime, I’ve never seen anything like this and don’t know that I ever will again, let’s hope not. Yeah, let’s certainly hope not, but it’s caused so many businesses, young and old to pivot, essentially. So from your background, from your perspective, from the leadership you bring to the table, talk a little bit about the importance of pivoting and understanding the the nature of not just how to do it, but when and the importance of it.

Unknown Speaker 23:55
pivots become kind of a sexy word, right? It’s kind of it’s funny how it’s kind have been adopted, you know, and and, you know, if you really think about what it’s about it, it really, you know, at the root of it, it’s about listening to your customers, understanding what they need, and figuring out how to manifest the best results from that. Right. And I think the difference and I think, you know, the lean Canvas sort of leans into this a little bit two is that we are, we try to be more agile today and how we operate our businesses. And that’s one of the challenges that big businesses have. It’s why we’re successful at doing what we do when it comes to the acceleration piece, which is in the icba, because it’s really, really hard for big companies to be agile to pivot to change their course of direction. You know, I think one of things interesting about pivoting as a whole is most of the time, it is not a necessarily a major change that the company needs to take, right? It’s usually a gentle tap on the rudder, if you will, or a little bit of adjusting the sales. I always love the expression. You know, we can’t, we can’t control the wind, but we can adjust the sails and I think that’s what that’s about, you know, Sometimes that’s intuitive, right? Sometimes it’s a gut thing. Something’s like, I think we need to do this as an organization. I’m sure you’ve experienced that. I know I’ve heard Well, sure. But then we think about it differently. Today, we want to go out and validate that through the process we refer to as customer discovery and talking to our customers. You know, for us this year, it’s been interesting as we talk about COVID is we had to move from a non virtual program to a virtual program. So when it comes to the accelerators, so typically, we got, you know, 10 companies here 12 weeks, we’re bringing 60 banks through the whole thing. So as we started to look at moving this virtually, we certainly had ideas about how we wanted to approach that. We took a step back and said, Let’s talk to the bankers. Let’s talk to our customers. Let’s talk to our participants about how they think they should go. Because for example, we typically bring them in here, they spend a day with us, right? So they’re here for six or eight hours, you know, interviewing the companies talking with the companies mentoring the companies and helping them kind of shape and form their solutions. Well, you can’t put somebody on zoom for six or eight hours, right? So you have to think about that. And so we learned in this process. And we evaluated was we ended up doing it over three days, three hour sessions, we’re seeing a lot more participation. So it was it was it is an impactful business decision that’s changed a profit or profitability for us. No, it’s not intervention, there’s not profit. But But the point is, is that by listening to our customers, it’s a good example of how we were able to change what we’re doing to more effectively serve the entrepreneurs, our stakeholders, and also our clients. So that that that’s one approach.

Unknown Speaker 26:28
I think another thing that’s, that’s very valid right now, and you’ve mentioned you’ve experienced this in your past, one is the failure piece and the fact that we don’t want to talk about those things, at least for a while. But to every day, we’re faced with challenges to run an operate businesses. And I think right now, a lot of people are facing challenges that there’s no book they can go read. There’s not really people that can go talk to that have been through a situation like this. From your perspective, talk a little bit about the challenges that that you face and how you’re helping people overcome these challenges and just ways to think about what these challenges bring to the

Unknown Speaker 27:00
Yeah, you know, it’s a great question. I was on a, I was on a call a couple of weeks ago, and somebody said to me, you know, so how have you prepared? The companies coming in for the accelerator to deal with with COVID. And, you know, I had a laugh, because I’m not sure any of us were prepared for this, I get a chance to talk to a lot of great leaders in this in this country, but also, obviously, in this marketplace. And, you know, we’ve actually talked about having a session here at the venture center around this because, you know, there really isn’t in a leadership role today, a single decision that we make, I mean, whether literally, it’s getting up and going down stairs, or how we interact with people, where COVID doesn’t have some impact in some thing. And the only certainty, of course, in this current environment is uncertainty. And, you know, frankly, it’s exhausting in a leadership role. Because, you know, you got to care about your people, you got to care about your customers, you have to sustain your business. So it is a real challenge. I think we just have to look at this one day at a time. And as we’re doing that, try to learn from what is working successful. For us and then continue to try to deploy that we’re in the middle of an accelerate now we get ready to start our next one in January, we’re gonna make a hard decision about the first of October about whether or not we’re going to do that here we’re going to do it virtually. I can tell you if we do it virtually we’re going to be better at it doing it virtually the second time in the first time. And so it is it is taking those lessons and really learning from them as we go along here but man, you know, it’s it’s, it’s a crazy time. But it’s also remarkable to me though, how flexible people have been the ability to engage using a virtual approach is much different than I mean, I know you’ve probably had the experience being on five or six zoom calls in a day or morning you know, it does take it out of you but at the same time, if you feel like to some extent you’re being a little bit more productive to I think you feel like you’re getting more done. You’re certainly compressing time in the course of the day and and you don’t have the insulation of working with people like

Unknown Speaker 28:54
you mentioned how big business is obviously a little slower to move slower to turn more like a cruise ship or large bar As far as navigating the ocean, whereas, you know, small startups can make decisions quickly and adapt and change. You have the experience and the opportunity to experience a lot of these startups and what they’re doing and how they’re changing and innovating things. What’s something you’ve seen that’s been really interesting as far as how some of these startups have have made the change or the pivot or kind of adapted to the the current because most of these companies exist, because they’ve created a new opportunity within the marketplace? So what are they? What are they doing now that their whole business was built on this? And then all of a sudden, the world changes? Does it affect these businesses? Are they innovating in new ways? Because that’s what they’re built on is innovation in different ways of thinking?

Unknown Speaker 29:43
The answer is yes. You know, and I think a great example is, you know, so we work with community banks. That’s a big part of what we do with the icba, which is the independent community banks of America and, and also with FiOS as well, who obviously serves, you know, a large portion of that community bank environment, you know, but you know, over the counter For the last, you know, five months, we’ve seen small businesses really struggle. And obviously there’s been solutions that are presented which are PPP any ideal etc. And so what we’ve seen is some of these companies that have built technology that’s used for lending for example, they have pivoted or change their platforms in order to help the community banks service to small businesses through the PPP PS right. So we have one company Tesla, another company lens smart lens smart was in the mortgage business, that’s primarily what they did, and then they ended up getting into the PPP business. tesslar really is really a back end solution that enables banks to become more efficient through consolidating data and information into single platforms and single dashboards, etc, making them more effective. They too, stepped into the PPP piece working with people like Mark Cuban etc to develop PPP. org. So, you know, these guys are sharp and you know, one of the nice things I mean, I love working with people because when they’re very inspirational, being An entrepreneur is a courageous path. Right? You know, I mean, I can tell from my own experiences, you know, I mortgaged the house and did all the things that you think you do. And some of those things work out. Well, some of them don’t. It’s challenge on family, it’s ridiculous hours, you’re, you’re always raising something either raising people, you’re raising capital, you’re raising customers, you know, the three things that you really do as a CEO. But yeah, I think the beauty of these, you know, early stage companies and these startups, is they have the ability to be very agile, right? And they can shift and change dramatically and really pivot on a dime, if you will. So we’ve absolutely seen that. And it’s been quite effective. And I think, you know, I think some of them will get back to their to their original knitting in the meantime. But as we go through COVID, some of them have really stepped up to address it and made a dramatic impact, I think, on these small businesses and their capacity to survive. So it’s been it’s been, it’s been somewhat altruistic as well, frankly.

Unknown Speaker 31:54
I love that. Let’s talk a little bit about you as an individual. So you mentioned to me You’ve raced motorcycles for 30 years, you know, there’s people out there that would think that’s crazy. But then there’s other people that would say, Well, what else have you done, you know, jump out of airplanes, or you’ve been an adrenaline junkie, what’s something that kind of keeps you going keeps you motivated? You know, because obviously, the business world can be draining, dealing with people and problems and raising capital all day, every day can can wear somebody out. But what are some of the things that just sort of keep you motivated?

Unknown Speaker 32:25
I tell you, I, it’s wonderful to be at a time of my life where it’s really about the work and not the money, you know, because there’s a stage in our lives where the money is really important. And it’s always important to me, I need to make a living and want to make a living, but I mean, my motivation and my inspiration absolutely comes from the founders of these companies and for the team and for the team that I work with. And you know, it is it’s and I’m Mike team will tell I’m pretty emotional about it. I’m so moved by what they’re able to do in their success and seeing that and, you know, the other thing is, there’s so much power in helping others be successful in the power of we, and, you know, if you don’t really worry about who gets the credit brother who gets the business, it’s really amazing what happens. And, and, you know, that has been that’s so much about my inspiration, you know, working with our clients, seeing people take an idea and bringing it to fruition, seeing them be successful in raising capital, being able to, you know, take the experience of this team of the people that we have involved. You know, it is a collaborative effort today, you know, nobody does this on their own anymore. This isn’t this isn’t as a team sport, right. It’s also a full contact sport, too. But But I mean, it is it really is where I get the motivation every day and it is so it is so great to see that stuff happen and, and, and and to see the stakeholders you know, the state of Arkansas plays a role to see FiOS the icba these entrepreneurs who come through our programming, to see them move the needle in some fashion That’s awesome. And to see them get to success, because look, frankly, this is what we do is we’re dealing with the probably the riskiest types of businesses that you can possibly find. But the other thing, too, is, you know, I’m also very motivated by the fact that over the last three and a half years, this team has created a deliberate approach, that if you follow the recipe, we will gain you great success and help you innovate effectively, right? This isn’t random, it’s deliberate. It’s demand driven innovation. And if we can identify the problems effective, we have this remarkable capacity to source great companies to help provide those solutions, and then help vet them to a point where, you know, again, success should be the outcome and it typically isn’t we’re very fortunate. So long answer to your question, as usual, but it’s great.

Unknown Speaker 34:46
So there’s usually not a secret ingredient in the recipe that just all of a sudden makes things work for a company. It’s often similar ingredients. There’s always flour involved. There’s always butter involved. There’s always you know, sure. There’s that The same base ingredients. But what’s what’s one of those things maybe the the added nutmeg that people don’t really know is part of it, what’s one of the sort of hidden gems that that people might not know about how to grow and accelerate a company because a lot of people don’t have options to be a part of any so or grow their company with the support of, you know, coaching and things like that. But is there anything that’s kind of tucked away in there that, you know,

Unknown Speaker 35:24
for me, you know, it always gets down to one thing for me, really, and it’s really about people. Steve Jobs said, I’m a big believer in you know, you hire smart people to tell you what to do as leader not for you to tell them what to do. And there’s, that has served me very, very well. I try to get my folks enough rope to hang themselves with Unfortunately, none of them do that. What’s important, though, is it relates to that is people need to have a clear direction, right? I think you have to understand what your objectives are. You have to understand your mission. You have to set goals. People need a North Star. And I think if if as a leader, you can help set that vision and give them The platform on which to do that, then, you know, my role on a day to day basis is to make sure that they have the resources to accomplish that. I also think, you know, I’m a great believer and I look to these guys to push back, right? I have a lot of wild ideas. Some of them are great, some of them not so great. And I encourage them to do the same thing. I don’t want to be a dictatorial leader, that’s not my my interest, I want to say, hey, look, here’s the direction I’d like to go. And what do you guys think, and rely upon them and their expertise and knowledge and their experience to help guide us in that direction? So I think the secret to it again, is, is you know, have a clear direction, right? You got to know where north is. Secondly, you know, just find the best people that you can find hire slow and fire fast, you know, you know, a bad individual in an organization. You know, the metaphor is always it’s cancerous. It is I mean, it can really have a very negative impact on folks. So the folks who don’t get a line, you know, get them in, get them out fast. And, and also get your team involved in the decision process of bringing people on board. You know, people in business like to talk an awful lot of times about being a family. And and I’m not that I’m anti family but families are frankly, you know, all due respect, they can be kind of weird, right? I’m all about teams, I think I think it is about I mean, I think a team can be a family ultimately. But if you think about athletics, you think about sports, you know, you’re the quarterback, this is your job, you’re the coach, and this is your job. This is the goal. And this is where we’re going. The metaphor really applies so much more. So build a great team, get people to fill those positions well. And listen, I love people also who come from a background of playing group sports, you know, team sports, people have worked in retail because, again, if you take good care of your people, they’ll take good care of your customers and your clients. So I don’t think those are secrets but those things have served me very very well.

Unknown Speaker 37:51
So create a great mission hire great people and get out of the way

Unknown Speaker 37:54
yeah and and and look for the next thing to your that’s the thing. I’m always you know, out on the bow of the boat trying to figure Where we going next? Right? That’s, that’s fun stuff to do, right?

Unknown Speaker 38:04
You’ve got to have your own vision as an individual, you’ve got to have your own objectives. You mentioned working with these founders is kind of what gives you the motivation. But what’s on your kind of big goals list? What do you hope to accomplish over the next year, two years, three years, that, that you’ve maybe haven’t done before in your career?

Unknown Speaker 38:19
You know, the, the journey that I’ve been on here at the venture Center has been extraordinary. For me, it’s been I feel, you know, as trite as it sounds, that I’ve sort of found my purpose, right, you know, it’s like, what do I do with all this stuff that I’ve done? You know, I always think about starting another business. I always think about another startup, I always think about buying businesses and stuff like that. And then I wake up and look around me, but but and I’ll probably do something again. I mean, I would like to own a little 60 seat restaurant again, someday. I’d love to, to build Shelby Cobras and sell them and have a little shop, you know, at the beach and dune buggies and maybe I’ll do that someday too. But those are things from before retirement if I ever do that, but, you know, I think we’ve built something great here. And for me, the next year or two is about growing the venture center, adding more clients continuing to build the entrepreneurial efforts that we have here and support what happens in Arkansas, just really want to help Arkansas, get to some big exits with some great companies and get us more on the map. And we have some extraordinary companies doing great things here that we are involved in some of them, some of them were not but you know, COVID has changed our perspective. You know, years ago, I was talking an awful lot about Arkansas being kind of the flyover state. And you know, as we see people exiting New York and San Francisco in droves as of the COVID situation and this idea of really working from anywhere, it creates a level of relevance for us where it’s really about where the people are and where the work gets done, and not so much about being in San Francisco or New York. It’s funny, we had a company come through here digital onboarding, who, during the evaluation period, investors were looking at them because they don’t have an office. They’re all virtual. And they’ve Ted built the company virtually. And it was it was causing a challenge for them in terms of their valuation as a company COVID hit, all of a sudden, it became more valuable. So it’s really sort of funny what’s happening there. So I love helping big companies solve problems and helping them innovate. And so that’s our focus, where we just bought a person on actually to help us support that role full time. And and to help us build that, that that next generation of what the venture center will be.

Unknown Speaker 40:30
I love it. Who are some of the people in your world you threw out a lot of names earlier people you worked with and people that have kind of been a part of your world. But who are some of the Titans or the heroes in your own life that you’ve kind of looked to or drawn inspiration from?

Unknown Speaker 40:44
You know, I’m probably most of them, frankly, are not that well known. You know, I mean, I grew up in a family of really smart people, and my dad was great. My mom was great. So I learned so much from them. I talked about David Abramson Who was a great mentor of mine, Tony buzzelli, these folks that I met at Deloitte and even BILL KELLY from Iran, I, you know, always said, the roles that I’ve gotten into most of the time are either new roles or roles or people that failed before. So those were interesting positions to be in many of those instances. But you know, I’m you know, Steve Jobs is an interesting guy, obviously, I there’s some things that he said and so forth. I’m, I love Einsteins thinking and so forth, I think highly about him, Bill Gates, I mean, these are people that we all know and so forth, Bill Gates, his perspective and how he looks at things are just remarkable, and how he looks around a problem from a whole different perspective. And I, I’m very inspired by people who just look at things differently, you know, and that’s, I think, part of what I enjoy working with these early stage companies is, you know, what inspire you got up to get up one day and go figure out how to make merchants ATMs. I mean, what what made you do that the Why is always so easy. To me, really the question that I love to ask the most is, you know, why are you doing this? And there’s so much that you can learn from them and how they’re motivated to be successful because you do have to have the grit, the tenacity, the persistence to be successful as an entrepreneur, because it’s brutal. It’s hard. It’s challenging, you know, and it’s and it’s not always easy. The other thing too, is, you know, I’m also very inspired by the person who starts a great business, you know, whether it’s a restaurant or a nail salon or a dry cleaner, I don’t really care. You know, we tend to focus so much on the unicorns today, you know, we, we forget about the small businesses that, you know, people call lifestyle businesses, well, you know, what’s wrong with a business that, you know, generates a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in cash, and allows a family to do great things and supports their community. You know, it’s one of things I’ve done with community banks and dealing with the icba. You know, these folks who run these community banks are third and fourth generation bankers. Right. These folks are my heroes, what they’ve been able to accomplish, you know, and they run these small businesses and they care about their communities. And they support the local drugstore and the local repair shop and the gas station and the convenience store. That’s that’s pretty cool stuff too, because that’s really the backbone of our country. And so I get a lot of inspiration from those folks, but also some of those Titans. As you said, I was always a kid also that I love. I love the space program. So I’ve always been inspired by astronauts, you know, people like john glenn and people racecars like Mario Andretti and stuff like that. So

Unknown Speaker 43:33
yeah, I think you’re exactly right. I think a lot of people look at these unicorns and they say, Well, I want to be the next Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs or whoever that you know, becomes a billionaire. And, and we think that’s what it has to be in order to say I’m a successful entrepreneur business person is I’ve got to attain this crazy amount of revenue, when in reality, most people if they hit a million dollar company, they’d be top 1%. You know, or whatever. It’s

Unknown Speaker 43:58
that’s absolutely right. It’s incredible. Some people, I think, dismiss the idea of being an entrepreneur because they think why don’t have a billion dollar idea, right? And so they just walk away from I know, plenty of franchise owners that, you know, they’re doing great. And they’re, like you said, supporting community and having a great lifestyle for the family. And, but and the model is already there for him, you know. And so it’s really interesting to think through what it actually takes to become an entrepreneur in today’s day and age. And now you can do it virtually you don’t have to leave your house. You know, it’s interesting, and I haven’t spent time in the restaurant business, you know, it’s you think about, do you open a restaurant today? Or do you take some sort of a commercial center, where you can have a small industrial kitchen, you never really have to contend with customers on a face to face basis if you didn’t want to, although that’s the part of the business that I loved. But you know, you can deliver food, you know, you you can build businesses today. as we as we start to learn how to exist in this new this new normal and mental illness, but I like that term necessary. I’m not sure what normal is anymore. But it gives you the capacity to build businesses and do things in a way that’s just so much different than we’ve ever had it where physical presence is and is critical. And, and enables you to be able to start businesses at a lower cost of entry. I mean, you know, if you don’t need, you know, 10,000 square feet to build a restaurant, you can do an A 2000 square feet, and have a backdoor that enables you to work with grubhub. And you can serve the same number of people and you build a great product, people will come to you and, and take advantage of that. So it is it’s, it’s, it’s it’s a remarkable time. And, you know, if history repeats itself, which it does, it will drive levels of innovation, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. And I think we’re starting to really see that I think it’s really quite remarkable.

Unknown Speaker 45:41
So you know, we’ve talked a little bit about COVID, becoming this kind of global crisis and businesses having to adapt and change. But corporate innovation, obviously, is something that people should be considering all the time but talk a little bit about the importance of it right now and what people can kind of conceptualize as far as how they can Think through being innovative in their own business.

Unknown Speaker 46:03
You know, if you’re an early stage company and you want to do business with a big company, it’s a pretty hard thing to do. So you’re kind of the metaphor I like to use is you’re sort of rolling around this in the kayak knocking on the side of this big boat trying to get somebody to pay attention to you. So that’s where we’ve learned to insert ourselves as the translator and the person on the side of the boat that opens the door and says, Come on in. But before you can, you can ask them to kind of come into the boat. The question is, what are you trying to fix? What are you trying to solve? What is the issue? Clearly COVID has forced us into adoption of technologies and innovation, you know, beyond anybody’s comprehension. You know, it’s it’s, it’s an it’s to say the least it’s an unusual time. And clearly, people who have been laggards in terms of innovating, are paying the price right now and having to scurry to get to a certain point. I mean, you see, businesses large and small, have had poor web presences or didn’t have any commerce platform, those sorts of things. were stopped on their tracks and suddenly had to figure out a way to do it. It’s funny, look at this Sign business right now. So every restaurant has a sign. So you think in my, if I’m in the sign business, I mean, there, there have been people who have been highly rewarded as relates to COVID. But you know, when you look at big companies, and you look at companies who are more focused on innovation, there are some key characteristics that they have. One of them is when you look from an outcomes perspective, as they tend to perform better. So they usually have growth, that’s usually five to 8% higher than other companies, right. So that’s, that’s a big issue. So they’re returning more money to their investors, potentially their shareholders and to the public as a whole that matters. Secondly, and I think one of the most critical aspects of this is that the drive for that is coming from the very top of the organization. So it is an initiative that is embedded into the North Star approach for that organization. And then they also try to define what is innovation to them, right. And the other key ingredient that I see oftentimes is As they’re conscientious about internal and external concerns, so they look internally to their own people to help identify problems or areas of friction that require solution, you know, the person who’s answering the phone at the call center all day, who’s dealing with this specific issue is learning a lot about the customer’s perception, right? Also, of course, there’s customers on the outside that we deal with on a day to day fashion, that who have issues with what we’re doing with their see specific problems or would like us to do something differently. So being able to qualify and clearly identify where are these points of friction? Where are these problems, and also where areas for improvement? It’s not just about what’s bad, it’s also about what’s good, but what can we make better, right? And it’s investing in that, you know, I use the expression that innovation is everyone’s job. But the real answer to that is that it means it’s nobody’s job. The problem again, is in organizations is it has to be that initiative has to be owned by someone with a clear path to what they’re trying to accomplish. To identify the problems of the areas of concern, so that those things can be focused and there’s methods in which you are able to identify that through hackathons and think of thons. The other thing adapt to that as well is that innovation needs to be part of the culture of an organization. And that’s hard thing to do. But you do that in those processes. And using those methodologies, you get people thinking about it. And companies who are more innovative and who are following those methodologies and taking that approach, you’re also going to find are attracting higher quality people because they feel that they have an environment where they’re going to be recognized and free to contribute. Even if the ideas are nuts. It doesn’t really matter. Give people that ability to be able to have the freedom to do that, so that they can contribute. And ultimately to the other thing, too, is you know, I talked about it being everybody’s job and nobody’s job. Most people are not compensated and rewarded for innovative thinking and helping a company do something better. You know, can you go back, you know, 25 years, we had suggestion box in the car. The company whoever the best suggestion got a $50 gift certificate, you know, Olive Garden, right? But But people were compensated for that. So that’s the point. And so people need to be rewarded for that. Otherwise it becomes extracurricular. And if it’s extracurricular, then it doesn’t it doesn’t, we get so focused on our current goals and meeting our current obligations and those sort of things. Innovation needs to be part of that. Right.

Unknown Speaker 50:18
So, love it. All right, I want to jump into what I call just a little quick hit questions. But what’s the best or latest book you’ve read lately?

Unknown Speaker 50:26
a book called traction. Really, really good. I get gets back to my earlier comments. You know, people spend way too much time working in the business and not on the business, you know, and books very, very good as far as that’s concerned. So just just about done with it. Highly recommend it gives a lot of good perspective.

Unknown Speaker 50:44
Is there a daily routine that you kind of have to follow or go through? Are you sort of the everyday is different kind of person?

Unknown Speaker 50:51
I’m pretty habitual. Yeah, man, I got to get up in the morning and make the bed, take a shower, have my coffee and look at my emails. I mean, there’s a process to that. So yeah, absolutely. I I don’t know. No, I again, I think it started you know, when I was a kid delivering newspapers I’ve always been an early riser. I love morning. It’s quiet my brain works best at that time before the hustle and bustle the day begins. So, I cherish that early morning time with with my family and a walk in the dog all that kind of stuff too. It’s important.

Unknown Speaker 51:19
Do you consume more news or Netflix?

Unknown Speaker 51:23
Um, let me answer that by saying yes. And the reason being is is that I’m, I’m not a guy that I don’t watch a lot of movies. I really like documentaries and stuff like that. So I consume a lot of Netflix that’s usually documentary oriented it it also will likely be around my hobbies which is motorcycling and car racing. But also science and space love that stuff. just can’t get enough of it. So

Unknown Speaker 51:46
love it. best piece of advice you’ve either given or received.

Unknown Speaker 51:51
Oh man, you know, you know it’s really gets down to one thing that that I that I say a lot I think about a lot which is you don’t have to do this on Your own, you know there, we get very hung up with that sometimes and worry an awful lot about getting the credit. Don’t Don’t worry so much about that people really willing to help you. And my dad always said it great. He said, You know, you can have anything in the world that you want. You got to be willing to step up and ask for it and pay the price and that there’s great truth to that. I think as you build a business as you innovate as you do these things, there’s some times that we need to work on or other sometimes we take risk on our own and so forth. But but by God take a step back, look around you look at the people that are there and willing to help if people really do like to help ask him to buy things is differently a different than asking them to help you with things right. So I know that’s that’s something I believe very strongly and it served me well.

Unknown Speaker 52:38
That’s powerful for sure.

Unknown Speaker 52:41
Do you have any newly formed habits, I know COVID has changed a lot of people’s daily habits and routines is anything cropped up for you that’s either good or bad?

Unknown Speaker 52:50
Well, my carbohydrate intake is probably increased during this but you know, I actually have tried to, I used to play the guitar and I got away from it for many, many, many years. My new form habit is I’m spending about 30 minutes a day, getting back on the guitar hoping to come out of COVID so I can write a couple songs with the Rolling Stones. That’s awesome.

Unknown Speaker 53:09
Yeah, and they’ll still be going by the way. I’m pretty sure yeah,

Unknown Speaker 53:11
it goes down. It’s pretty good actually. So yeah.

Unknown Speaker 53:13
If you could write a book or put a big billboard out on the highway, what would the title beer what would the message be?

Unknown Speaker 53:20
Wow. That’s, that’s a tough one. I would say it’s all about people. You know, it’s all about people and take the time to surround yourself with good folks who care be transparent. You know, be honest with your feelings and and and you know, run at things not away from them. You know, I mean, I know it’s a hard question to answer in one sentence, but I’ve done the best I can. So

Unknown Speaker 53:47
I love it. You kind of just answered this one. But I’ll see if your answer varies here. But favorite artist or musician,

Unknown Speaker 53:55
not necessarily Rolling Stones. I mean, you know, I these guys make fun of me because I’m not the is in tune with some of the collaborative I mean that the contemporary music and so forth. But, you know, I’m a huge Jimi Hendrix fan and an Eric Clapton fan and Stevie Ray Vaughan fan, those guys just could play. And so certainly my favorites right there.

Unknown Speaker 54:14
I need to get you and my dad together because his list is about the same. He worked for a company for years called Welch Allen, which was a few years ago acquired.

Unknown Speaker 54:25
Yeah, exactly.

Unknown Speaker 54:27
And then you’ve talked a lot about restaurants but favorite food or what’s your favorite kind of restaurant? Man, you know, I just I love Cajun Creole cooking. I really do. And then, you know, a lot of people know it’s really truly the only indigenous American cuisine. Interesting, you know, I mean, Indian food I mean, but you know, as an as an American Indian is the other one but, but it’s, it’s such amazing stuff because it’s such a, again, it’s a very collaborative between Spanish right and French and so forth and what comes together so big, big fan, big fan of, of that cuisine. Good bottle of Merlo and a great to fe is about as good as it gets for me.

Unknown Speaker 55:03
Well, Wayne, any last words, anything you want to get out there about the venture Center, which you guys are doing here that we haven’t talked about?

Unknown Speaker 55:08
No, I just would, you know, love people to pay attention to what we’re doing here. You know, come to the website, come to our events come see what we’re doing. Get involved, there’s, there’s really a place for people to participate. We were constantly seeking mentors to help and you may not be busy doing that, but by God, when you’re needed, there’s there’s a real chance to make a difference. You know, I think we’re doing great work in Arkansas, we’ve had the good fortune of being recognized globally for the programming that we’re doing and so forth. So hope that’ll continue but in reach out if we can be helpful, I mean, that’s what we’re here to do. We’re here to serve. We are truly servants of this community, and to entrepreneurs and to the extent that we can be helpful to you in any way, shape, or form. We want to do that and the other thing too is if you see great companies have great ideas who need a place to incubator, come be part of our spark program are part of our accelerator by God. You know, put your hand up and let us know. We were We’re only about 14 eyes with the seven of us all together. So we’re always looking,

Unknown Speaker 56:03
love it with the world going virtual almost overnight, and the digitization of all the things you guys are doing. Is this a Central Arkansas based thing? Can people from outside of Central Arkansas or anywhere in the country really kind of be a part of the lunch and learns you guys are doing virtually and things like that?

Unknown Speaker 56:20
Absolutely. And we hope to and we actually see that, you know, our participation, both through Facebook Live is through is through our zoom channels and the things that we’re doing is increased dramatically. So we hope that we’ll continue with people sharing what we’re doing and coming to be a part of it. One of things we work really hard on is trying to make sure that our content is relevant and that our programming is relevant to people you know, there’s there’s a lot of theater around entrepreneurial stuff and, you know, we don’t want to be the the circus that comes to town and sets up the tent and walks the elephant down the street and leaves. We want to be here for the long term for people and be a resource that can be supportive to them. So you know, I’m hopeful that the what we have done Community wise is now growing to become more statewide, that can become more national, that people who touch the venture center tend to get involved, which is great. Even the bankers who come through we see them on our community programs and stuff like that calling in from Virginia and California, New York and Chicago. So that’s kind of cool when there’s stuff that’s, you know, of interest that like we recently did this one group talked about selling a business. We had a couple of folks on there who had come from, you know, kind of the other side of our business. So, yeah, I mean, I hope you know that our recognition continues to expand globally and that people will come and participate. I think there’s something for everybody here. I love it. Well, Wayne, thanks so much for being on the show. And best of luck to all the things you guys are doing here, Nate, thank you. I appreciate that and appreciate you taking time to listen to my story and get hopefully can be helpful to somebody.

Unknown Speaker 57:49
If you like this episode of Titans of Industry, head to contenttitan.co/podcasts for more episodes, or subscribe on your favorite podcasting app. And if you know of an industry Street Titan that’s doing amazing things. Let us know on social media or through our website so we can tell their story. Thanks for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai