EXPERIENCE 14 | Happy Birthday LoCo! A look back at the LoCo Journey with Founder, Curt Bear

Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with LOCO Think Tank Founder Kurt Bear. Listen in as Kurt digs deep into the business and life stories of business owners and thought leaders at different stages of growth from all walks of life. Launching and growing anything can be a crazy experience, so expand your thinking and level up your understanding of what it takes to find success in the world of free enterprise. Fish? I guess so, yeah. Yeah. Cheers. Absolutely. Happy birthday, LOCO. Yeah. All right, welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with Surprise, your guest host today, Rory Shah, that's me. So I am the business developer with team LOCO, and the reason I am interviewing someone special today is because, drum roll, it is LOCO Think Tank's seventh birthday. So to honor this special moment in time, I am flipping the script and interviewing founder and owner of LOCO Think Tank Kurt Bear. So we will warmly welcome Kurt. Happy birthday, LOCO. And thank you for the flowers and cake. Yes, yeah. I mean owning a business is challenging and to get it to seven years is definitely something we're celebrating. So I think we'll make it eight. Cheers. Yeah. All right, so Kurt, do you want to tell us just to celebrate the LOCO birthday? Well, sure, well, LOCO Think Tank is, yeah, seven years old, the first chapter meeting was, as a matter of fact, just upstairs in this building in the office of what was then Duke Buck's quilts. And it was a chapter meeting that was led by Andrea Grant and she's still with us. And it was basically a give back kind of a thing for her because she wanted to have a group of small businesses that she could connect with. And it was a connection thing in an affordable way for me to find a connection with small business owners and learn how to run my business, which I had left a life of banking to try to start a restaurant at that time. So it was pretty informal at first. We just had a meeting that was laid out a lot like groups I was familiar with, Vistage and President's organization and different things. And I knew the format of how they did it. And we had a great facilitator. And we just started there with like seven people three or four of them are still with us today. And it just started kind of gathering together these groups of small business owners over the years. So I'm curious because I want to know the whole story. So going back seven years, I guess like what would you tell yourself now looking back at day two or month two, like Holy Shae, here's the roller coaster that you're about to get into? Well, I wasn't starting a business with local think tank. It was a hobby at best. And so for me, it was a way for me as a would-be restaurant owner to have this peer advisory experience and to connect people to it that I knew would be good for them too, because that's who I worked with as a banker. And as a banker, I had seen that things like this, things like local think tank really helped business owners get the perspective and learning because it's just it's a long-term learning project and you never have to start, never can stop learning as a business owner. And so to have a group around you that is also navigating challenges like that. So that that was the founding desire. It wasn't ever to start a business that was going to make a bunch of money or anything like that. So talk to me about that first phase of business. So it sounded like it started as a hobby and then it kind of grew or it faced out of a hobby and then grew up. So what did that first part look like? Well, I guess it's probably more appropriate to say what was I doing with the rest of my life because local was very much a part-time thing. And so I was, this was February of 2014 and so I was at that time planning to try to still start a restaurant. I was trying to buy a building and partner with a brewery and a movie theater and do a big downtown redevelopment thing and then parking and costs and regulations and complexity and I was like I can't do it. And so I was just at that time basically starting my pivot to start a mobile food business. Bear's backyard grill because I couldn't get a location that would fit for my bear's backyard bistro concept restaurant. I have been out of a job since the previous fall doing a little bit of consulting in my banking field and ultimately that's where local think tank came from was as a doing business as kind of side thing of my banking consulting business bear capital advisors. So at that time I was just drawing up plans trying to get my food truck operation going and I would go on to launch in June of 2014 with bears backyard grill. And so what was the size of that operation when you were doing that? Was it all in on bears backyard grill and then you stopped your other thing? 100% yeah yeah well yeah exactly bear apple advisors never really was something I wanted to do it was I had four clients I think and it really wasn't I don't know it wasn't new it was still just banking stuff and helping people with banking stuff which is great which was a great career I love all the people and the skills that I learned in banking and things like that but it was just too much the same and so I was going to be a food trucker and tell I you know made a reputation and stuff and got a restaurant and so that was my mindset at that time was to continue pushing this food business and creating what we'd eventually call a backyard party in a box bears backyard grill so we built a trailer a open top trailer with umbrellas for shade and protection and COVID friendly and and our staff it was very friendly for our staff too because we have such great weather here in Colorado that compared to the food trucks those guys are sweating it up in there and it's just not a very fun job meanwhile we've got this big grill with an open top and umbrellas and we're hanging out having conversations with people get some breezes yeah yeah so yeah Chris I'm spacing his last name but this fellow that had just moved to town had a lot of handyman skills and didn't have a job that was connected to me by a friend helped me build a kitchen on a trailer and in the meantime he did a lot of the building and in meantime I was drawing up recipes building the website the menus we were really focused as a catering business that would do backyard parties company picnics in the park you know marriages in people's backyard are at the park yeah because that's that's when food trucks were kind of up and coming they weren't just like the new trend but they were growing here in Fort Collins specifically I know that the food truck rally I don't know if it came a little bit later from after when you started your business I had been going for a year or two and so there was probably about eight or ten food businesses in business before I got into operation but then within a year and a half or two there was another 20 or something and so it became a really crowded market really quickly as you observe probably as a consumer of truck food or whatever so we would go to city park and go to the food truck rallies and we had these cool catering menus that we would hand out there hoping to catch a a catering job which was what we really wanted to do was go you know do Saturday night events for 70 people at 20 bucks ahead pocket 1400 my staff gets nice tips and in the pursuit of that vision we did just about anything and everything like a lot of small businesses do yeah and so we would be at this event or that event and you know we'd sell $87 for the stuff and you know I had employed like I had to have employees it was complex enough operation and you just couldn't like take the money cook the food and and really make it work unless you had at least one helper well how much time that would be to do the shopping cooking prep clean yeah yeah I say now it was like solving a really hard problem poorly every week for no money so so okay there's there's a few questions that are coming up because of that but first take me back to bridging me from your financial experience to why why food hmm you know I had a restaurant job in college and I've been cooking for my siblings since I was 11 years old or something like that eggs with a velvita cheese mixed in you know all the good stuff I see you're you're just actually I I'm going to admit this do you like velvita on the record yeah it's like a guilty pleasure like what is it I don't know but it's good you put it in your salary oh yeah I've done that before like cheese with style yeah cheese with style yeah so anyway I'd always cooked well and like through college whenever I had roommates and stuff I was like the guy that would cook and I never clean that as you notice around the office here cleaning was if I'd angel would say yep he's right but I do cook and I've always loved the creative cooking process never really been a recipe guy but just you know what's in the fridge what can we create out of that and let's make it happen and I have been really passionate I guess that's part of it too about the local food movement if you will like localizing economy so that we didn't have this big dependency on food ship from far far away you know at least when we can and in season let's support our local farms here first instead of shipping their stuff away and shipping and more stuff from far away so I was really passionate about that and that was a big driving force to the the overall food business too so it was creativity and it was community connections and it was a place to kind of make this statement that's community is stronger when we source locally and support locally and things like that yeah that makes sense it sounds very fulfilling yeah supposedly one one one I think well that might bring me to my next question and you ended up this earlier so we talked about what got you into food you talked about some of the perils being in food how did you get out of food oh out of food um well that was year two of bears backyard and that I use that story to help unfold the what we do in local think tank chapters even sometimes because I was just I was just beating my head against the wall you know working so hard and I had a great team um staff and Luke had gotten to the point where they they were taking the trailer out the two of them and doing events and stuff so I didn't have to be always on the trailer for it to be making money and uh but it was brutal and you know it was still barely eating out any money and so I took a question to my chapter and said hey should I I had acquired this little trailer uh like more of a sidewalk stand instead of a big trailer like we had and my question was should I spend a couple grand and get this thing licensed and like add another piece to my business so that I can grow my revenue so that I can actually make money and I have help uh because this just you know 70 hours a week for 1500 dollars a month or whatever and as much food as I could eat so you're you're thought with that is you know more horse power drives more revenue so like let's scale up so that was kind of your question. Yeah I think my second year I ended up doing like 110 or 120,000 you know and uh of gross revenues and that means the food was 50,000 probably after waste and spoilage and stuff like that and how many team members did you have then? Well like seven or eight but all like 12 hours a week or you know nobody really I was a I was a side hustle for everybody a college student job and and some people maybe worked 20 hours a week consistently in the summer but nobody really depended fully. Well they all did they depended on their local income just like if you work 15 hours a week in a restaurant but so yeah that that hustle of figuring out who could work when always and what shifts and things like that it became a really challenging thing. Yeah that's the part I I don't miss or envy about people managing restaurants and there's so much movement with staff yeah coordination and the schedules come out each week people can't really plan and we were like I had a great staff and they had pretty consistent events and stuff but local just kind of kept suffering and so so that was the theory was okay this winner should I add this thing or maybe even get this year so I can do some sidewalk stuff over winner instead of trying to have this big clunky trailer out doing things because nobody's out in the winter anyway but maybe I can sell a little bit you know to the bar crowd or whatever and so that was the question on the table was should I should I grow my business by adding this other capital asset to it and scaling so then maybe I could do 200,000 in a year because I was already pretty busy I Oliver I was already pretty busy with the one trailer but I just couldn't make that much more in revenues and so it was like well I better have another piece of equipment in gear and so maybe then I could make 200 or 250,000 in sales sell you know food costs etc and then and make 50 grand at least. So this is the question that you asked to your chapter but before you go into more detail all about that question and about that outcome how were those things overlapping with how long had loco been around and how long had bears been around what's the timeline over? Yeah so loco started February of 14 and then bears grill started in June of 14 so a few months later and then in the winter I didn't have a job or any work to do and so I banged around and found another chapter of loco think tank members and started a second loco think tank that was kind of my winner job was building another loco think tank chapter and we had started at a hundred and fifty dollars a month and I think I might have raised my price to like 175 which was a total mistake I should have raised it sooner or more because it just really wasn't sustainable to the cost of acquiring customers and stuff it was just so though that by the time we paid the facilitators it wasn't really a feasible business until you know our pricing got closer to where it is today but yeah that's what I did that first winner and found another group of great actually our mutual acquaintance Patrick is one of the original members of that chapter back in the day and so that was that was the setting so loco had expanded to two chapters of ten members of peace or whatever by that June and I was like hey I'm getting ready to scale up bears backyard and what do you guys think should I drop the dough even though I'm pretty broke already and as you know you know the clarifying questions came later after I'd set this whole thing up and I did a whole presentation that was the focus member and so we did my financials and talked about my best customers and all the bad events I'd done and lost money at and and all that kind of stuff along the way and so the questions start coming out and it's you know Kurt you're pretty social guy but it doesn't it seem like you're always working when people have time off your friends and always having time off when your friends you know are working and you know what's your social life like since you've been doing this and does that fit you know and and you're creative you know we know you're love to cook and you're creative but don't you just make the same stuff over and over and over again pretty much now and you know you're a community guy I was the president of the board of a local nonprofit called the Matthews house and I had when I was a banker of course they don't recruit food truckers to that kind of kind of a role we need this guy he could pass out fire something at the city of city park he's got a great hat right I had a super mustache I was in the hand of our mustache at that time and and but I just didn't have enough juice for that because I was just working my tail off trying to make this food business make a little money and so they're like you know you don't have any time or money to to give back really right now and how do you feel about that and so they're their questions they're really tough questions and my answers to them really led to that kind of fateful decision to take local think tank seriously which was you know bear you need to park that food trailer in your backyard and go get a job how was it to hear that oh brittle really it was because I was I had been pretty much successful from you know high school through college through my start of my bank career they started to give me you know seven percent raises per year on the average and new titles and stuff like that and I hadn't really failed before and in a lot of ways that was that was my question that I didn't really realize was my question should have been you know should I turn this dumb thing off and but what what it was is I just didn't want to fail I wanted to succeed at the project of building the food enterprise business that I had been imagining for years I think I want to pause a little bit and talk about probably the importance of that part of our process so for people who aren't familiar with then these chapter meetings there's a four step we call it the local collaborative process or the low collaborative process and so these four steps basically help people from a really sticky confusing confused point with by asking a specific question to the chapter and then ultimately it points them to walking away with a handful of ideas and actionable steps to solve that original question so when I first learned about loco and even participated in a chapter on my own I had to learn first hand what happened in that clarifying questions part of the the four step process so break it down so then we can move on so it's at the stage so that's when you ask your question and talk about your background information clarify the detail so that's when the people in the room ask questions about or what you know what you're talking about and then let's see serve up solutions so that's when everyone around the table shares their experience wisdom and basically gives you ideas and solutions suggestions suggestions and then lastly committing to action so that's really where everything hits the road and you you know people hold you accountable to making it come to life so that second step the clarifying details is like oh people ask really hard questions yeah and well probably the hardest part is you have to answer the really hard questions totally and so that part and point for you where you're like oh shit I was being soaked up humble pie yeah and I just articulate back an answer to this like very like deep emotional maybe even like childhood or you know right I've been dreaming about for seven years or something like that yeah 100% and it was it was brutal it was I remember it pretty well it was you know painful to hear but necessary and I think that's that speaks to why a local think tank type chapter instead of like a mastermind that you could do because these people had gotten to know me for almost a year and a half by that point you know they'd see me struggle trying new things succeed at some stuff fail at lots of stuff and they knew me they knew who I was and so they could tell that I wasn't being fed by what I have been doing and and that I and I know there were some questions in there also about local think tank because that was that was part of it you know very you need to park this thing in the backyard go get a job and get a job that's flexible enough that you can keep working on local think tank because that's really a more scalable business it's better like we find it useful other people will too and it's not like food and this is at least the first part of that was Scott Jennings the Chiba Hut co-founder and my current landlord and so he's a food guy you know that that made his business in food but he's like do if you can do something that makes a good income and takes advantage of your skills and network and isn't food do that go do that now totally so that makes me think now kind of like the next phase of growth for loco and transition for you was I mean I guess being accountable to that that session so what happened after that where you're like that I got to I got to put this thing down right and I got to focus on loco was there resistance was it like an immediate like okay we're doing this and here's how we're doing it well I ended up getting a job right and but it was I actually hired a coach Kim Meyer is I think she's a like city planner for John's town or Greeley or something like that right now really smart woman and in that time she had kind of a coaching business of sorts and so we kind of sketched out and did some planning around could could we start two more loco think tank chapters and create a livable income for Kurt like in the next six months should you get an uber job you know should I go find a job at a bank if I could have found like a 60% time you know a 30 hour a week banker job which is the early micro that's pretty much what I had but all the other jobs they wanted somebody focused on banking right and I could have got business and done my craft and but I just didn't find that opportunity I called John Carroll at one point and said can I sell cars you know I sell it porches looks like his outies and he's like you know man I don't think you're a long tour and so it was a poke right just try to figure it out and ultimately and I decided I should get into financial services and met with at least a half dozen or seven or ten different firms of like entry ways you know that can be an Edward Jones person you could do this you can do that one of my friends thought I should be a Merrill Lynch guy and Dale was the boss at Merrill Lynch and he kind of wanted me on the team and he sent my like personality profile stuff and my résumé off to the headquarters are like that we don't we don't hire people like you at all but he wait wait what does that mean it's too free-flowing too entrepreneurial to like do it like you want to do it not like the regulation book says that kind of stuff which he loved and he actually he took me to Odell's to encourage me to to yes do get into the financial world and here's some other there's some ways that you should consider at that point where you sparked with joy when you thought about financials and having a job in that area that's a good question you know I had a I didn't have health insurance otherwise I my wife had walked alongside me through this whole journey already of a couple years of jumping out of a eighty plus thousand dollar your job into making no money for two years and so I needed to make some money I needed to get a job and I I guess I did I know I never was like yay I'm going to sign up but I did end up becoming pretty yay about the company that I that I did sign up which was was thriving financial and Jeff Solomonson was the the area I guess principal a recruiter and and connect what was him my uncle was a thriving representative up in South Dakota at that time and it just was a company that I resonated with they're very give back focused company themselves and they help people set up foundations and savings plans and and their member owned organization and a nonprofit because that's what I didn't like about the financial world especially was just this you know sell anybody something we can make money out of them on whether or not it's the right product forum you know asking every customer that walks into Wells Fargo if they want a home equity line of credit that kind of philosophy of the financial realm but this company really had a heart for people and doing the right thing and recruiting people that had a heart for that so and and they were the one of the few that would tape me because of that aforementioned entrepreneurial bigger that crazy guy so in November I think of 14 and I'm food trucking along the way too can't just quit business in the summer when you got a food truck business so that June was when I made the decision but then I operated the business through October of that year and and then parked in the backyard like Scott said for a whole year that's another whole story oh okay so how how did things shift into the next level of growth for loco then did you taper out of one thing and then was it in direct correlation that you put more investment into loco or let me think I think yes actually I started my third chapter that again that next winner when I was still food trucking so that next winner after I parked the food truck I started another chapter so I got the so we had original thinkers launched in 2014 and then thinkers two in January of 15 and then think again in a year later um 2016 I think so so loco did another growth split there in the meantime I'm I'm learning how to be a financial advisor I partnered with a gal Linda Kinnack and we rented an office together right in downtown at Mulberry and and whatever college and you know try to try to make that work and had a pretty good first season and financial services I I was up kind of in the top few in terms of like rookie production kind of thing because I knew you know most people are like 23 and they're just out of college I knew like hundreds of people thousands of people really and most of them including my members I was part of the theory right was I've got this now three groups by that time of business owners they'll can they can buy life insurance from me and roll their IRAs over into a simple plan or you know do do business with me because I've got this captive audience of over 30 business owners right now and they all see saw through right that through that they're like you don't want to be my long term guy you know even though there was a few people that told me that straight up most people just didn't call me back you know if the topic was that that we're not interested and so I struggled a bit you know I did some good business and and found some good clients and I was really fired up but for a while and then kind of in the same way it became like actually it was a motorcycle ride with one of our next level members now John Shaw of Da Vinci Sign Company and we ended up at the Wellington Brewery old Colorado Brewery up there in the old elevator and we were sitting there and he's like well uh Kurt which uh which one thing are you gonna be the best in the world at and I said you know I guess uh being a thriving representative with a thriving side business of local think tank is like I don't I don't know if that's really that likely uh for me it's always the people that are most successful are doing one thing at least one thing at a time and uh and is either one of them thriving right now and the truth was I'd lost steam on my thriving business I'd hired an assistant that was now sucking up most of my revenue just to pay her it wasn't working and uh local think tank what local think tank was what at least paid me a little bit you know I maybe made five hundred dollars per chapter so I had three chapters at that time so I made fifteen hundred dollars a month right I was a member of one and it wasn't easy there was some navigations along that way and uh you know had a facilitator leave on me and on short notice uh and you know at that point first started putting like a list of characteristics of our members and a list of characteristics of our facilitators and we developed a mission statement like we were we were that business that we were we were two we were three years in business before we had a mission statement vision uh any structural it's just a a word document application with like these are the terms do you agree yes sign here and I most importantly pay me here right well and I got checks from everybody every month except for when they didn't pay me when things were tight and stuff and I'm a terrible collection agent anyway and so I literally would have members two three four five months back do and I didn't want to throw them out because times are hard and that we're helping them figure out how to make their business work better but you can't let them go too far because I'm gonna do you know so I'm curious I'm thinking about our business members and our business audience and it's likely that there are some people out there who are like holding two huge decisions or careers in their hands and they're like uh they have to do both right now well what would you tell them based on what you went through when you're like okay this is the the decision process I went through to to feel confident and comfortable I need to put this one down you know I think it starts with your heart and those gut questions that's what I tell people when those uh in that serve-up solution segment when you're receiving that feedback from your group members or whatever and there's things that that hit you between the eyes you know or in the gut square in the gut or in the heart you know those are the things that are the right thing and and for me look what think tank was it was mine you know I it wasn't I remember meeting with Mike Verde one of our members uh he had been a Vistage member with Andrea years past and uh given the whole spiel told him who was in the group how much the dues were and stuff like that and and we were wrapping up he's like so so is this like a franchise or whatever I was like no this is I made this shit up Mike and he's like oh well I'm totally at that you know and uh you know little moments like that like make something yours really whereas with thriving all I could do would be the best financial services guy I knew and I probably wouldn't be that because like they even if if you're a good hard guy and stuff like there's details and the like limitations on what you can say uh and how like on Facebook like uh that was part of my uh journey there was you know you can't always like if you're a public persona as a financial services person there's I don't even remember where oh I was uh if you're two of loco after I had two groups already was heading for my third I was a thriving agent and my my business card for loco think tank was literally my thriving card and then on the back I would write current loco think tank and my phone number and my my my compliance guy who's a barbecue guy uh and it does is in that kind of food world a little bit he's like you need to spend the 1899 and visit that and get yourself some business cards full I don't want to let this go so many things inappropriate in it and that you should not be put anything on the back of that card so so that was how I couldn't at least be that and then what else were my options right uh when it came time to put to put thriving down it was it was a joy to put thriving down just like it was a joy to put the food trailer business down you know a business that relief yeah for sure because you had clarity with something else yeah well and you don't have to keep banging your head against the wall you know and sometimes like there's probably people that will listen to this podcast that are like I've been banging my head against the wall with this business for three years now and should I keep banging my head against this wall and and push through the wall or get over the wall you know or do I set it aside and I don't know the answer to that you should get some perspective from somebody and that doesn't need me to be a local think tank but you should go talk to somebody at the small business development center you should go have somebody get under the hood with you on your business and see what you're banging your head against and if they can help you figure that out and so for me and in financial services the the wall I was banging my head against would have been like uh risk you know all the details of taking super notes with every meeting and documenting those in the electronic files and doing this and that and that and this and doing this step and then that step um because I'm gonna jump from A to Z kind of guy I'm like oh ABC oh Z we're gonna finish that Z you're like oh look something's over there right exactly another A exactly and uh you know it's I'm kind of to the point in my connection to the community of Fort Collins where if I could spend time with everybody that I'd like to spend time with that's all I would do is spend time with people and so like trying to manage through a book of business of clients and touching them on this quarterly routine and and doing the things that set up you know setting up good systems I didn't really the person I hired was in a system setter upper but the best financial people so like I just because I can't do it doesn't mean I don't know how to do it you like in my business journey the the best financial services people are the ones that set up good systems hire great support staff to do a lot of the the client relationship management requirements and stuff and just build relationships and you know it it seems super authentic when you get a birthday card from your financial advisor every year that's got a lunch you know take out a lunch kind of noted or whatever and but it only comes with intention and uh it is authentic because I authentically built a system that lets me send cards to people for the birthday I don't know does that seem silly I don't think so but that that is making me wonder about kind of like what was the question again I don't remember we can move on no I think it was making that decision you know and what should you put down and what should you hold or whatever so you know if you're gonna just keep banging ahead against the wall put it down yeah so that's making me think of my next question which is like I mean a lot of people go into business because they're like I just want to do it the way I want to do it or I want to never do it like that again or I want to be my own boss um so a lot of different reasons or they're they're really good and they want to create something new so was there anything that you were excited to like to create on your own but were there any things that you missed with like that structure of something oh yeah that was the first the first blog that I ever wrote it has a bare capital advisors uh so this was on my banking consulting it was uh there's no one to tell me what to do exclamation point and it sucks having no one to tell you what to do sometimes it's great but it also so yeah that structure you know there's there's a lot of us that you know in a lot of respects you know tell me what to do and I'll do it you know and and as long as you feel good about what that's going to accomplish and things like that there's a lot of fulfillment in that right and there and there is but this notion of I don't know what to do with each day you know how as a banking consultant looking for people that are trying to get money but they've been turned down by a few banks like how do you find those people I guess you're all like are you calling on accountants and stuff like that let them know that if they but they you know how do you find people that actually need help and you can help and so there's just all these different like where does the value proposition um match up with the marketplace can you sell enough of the thing and enough of a margin to to have it really be a business and to kind of answer the question that you didn't quite answer maybe is where did that come from for me and and did you ask ask that question not really did I miss a structure and stuff but maybe that was the next question I don't know um yeah I mean feel free to answer or ask yourself well because that was what I was like I don't want this necessarily yeah and and I'd always wanted to have a business um and that was like when I signed up with banking 50 20 years before that point in time it was like well I'll be a banker and save up some money and learn some skills and tell I have a good business idea and then I'll do a business mm-hmm I don't know what that was it wasn't any more defined than that and then 15 years later I'm like still banker um don't have very much money and don't have any good ideas except for maybe this restaurant slash food trailer business would be good mm-hmm I'm wondering maybe the question actually follows excuse me it falls more into like your personality traits like oh I like structure with this I like autonomy in this but then when you come and open your own business you're like oh my god yeah I need people or like can I need a marketing person or like what what what's operations and you're like I just want to do this thing something else through the rest of it so did you have that give and take or like that kind of like I guess that moment of like oh oh gosh when you started your own business you're like I need these other parts yeah well and that was that was the next thing tank meeting after John called me out um was the issue processing about hey I think I need to put thriving down how do I go about making local think tank my for real business and uh they didn't want to say and and Kerry was my thriving helper but she was me not a lot of detail oriented not a lot of computer skills things like that but she was super friendly and people loved her and so they put on my list because I knew she might see it hire a detailed oriented helper and so that became for me for for my chapter as we processed around this and now there's a whole other local average process I could share but I'm not gonna go through all that but among the things I said was well to to get real about this you basically need to start two more chapters this spring to go from three to five and you need to raise your price from 200 up to $250 and not lose too many members thinking do that yeah I mean that seems like a very like strategic tactical advice like you do what are you doing and that was math yeah like it's like if I'm gonna make two thousand dollars a month for my family as take home and do all these things or whatever that was it was like this is how much volume I need to do is how many members and so I hustled and I hustled and I started a chapter four with a pretty good number in January of 18 and a chapter five like in April and that wasn't a loved one chapter and so originally I was actually trying to do three I was trying to do Windsor Loveland and Fort Collins I then I'd like consolidated Windsor Loveland and then I limped out of the gate with Windsor with Loveland rather it was just too much you know these relationships built slow and there's just it was impossible really only occasionally do people like yes I would like to have coffee with you and then at the coffee they're like yes please sign me up for a chapter right away which chapter do you like me to fight it isn't that quick of a process usually even now after developing a lot more market awareness of who we are and what we do and things like that it's still a relationship building conversation and so that was that fall that was that that was the crux of the climb in actually turning the part-time local think tank into a full-time job and I posted a job for 12 bucks an hour 10 hours a week on CSU's handshake system to their business department and Ellie Nas God bless you Ellie responded to the ad and Ellie I think I emailed her back something like you appear to be far too qualified for the position I posted but I've never let that stop me from you know meeting somebody and yeah she had just she had been the technology fellow during her undergrad helping all the professors with their computer stuff which you would understand was an important thing for me who's largely somebody handicapped in that realm and but she'd also had finance background and some marketing background and built website with or helped us build a revised website and documents our first systems and things and a lot of the structures that was here when you got here was put in place by Ellie and so yeah if we I hired her and maybe that February at that 10 hours a week 12 bucks an hour by the end of that first week I was like can you go up to 20 hours a week at 14 or maybe it might have been by second weekend you're like I didn't know I need to do well you don't know what you're hiring necessarily but she was just so efficient with her time and effective at building the things that we needed to do to have a for real business that it was just you know natural fit and so and Ellie and I were both in an office that was about 12 feet by 16 feet two little desks kind of in there one of the side and a windowless office no less um the money tree in the corner was was in there it was it was good I mean it's a great building and and those landlords were nice people and stuff it was 400 bucks a month or something like that and uh but Ellie was also tall and you know we're bigger people we just can't have two big people in a little office I'm also picturing that that furniture it was like big old school yeah big stuff big desks yes there was there was no extra space I actually this table I wheeled this table because it wouldn't fit in Ellie's car I wheeled this table down on a hand truck like the two blocks when we got this office and uh part of you know part of being connected and knowing people I and doing nice things for people I brought Kelly some eggs or tomatoes Kelly Gallagher Abbott that owned the building before Scott from Chiba um and brought her something nice and just she was a member too of course so that's part of it but she's like hey do you know anybody wants to move into the glass shop space they're moving out and it's this space we're in now you know two soup you know three big windows facing college and willow parking which I didn't have over there just you know space and sunshine and all the things but it was $150 a month more than I was paying at the American building and it was it was like we were still losing money like I had because I'd hired Ellie and moved her up be it before I had really the revenues to support it and but I had actually I brought up my advisory board formally at that time sold them a little over price stock and that required us to grow for it to be worth it at 3% each and had some cash so we're bleeding but anyway long story short as we're full the trigger it I'm so happy because this space is literally one of my favorite office spaces in town and we're poor kids relatively yeah and so has it been two years in the space three be three in June okay all right yeah so we're almost to uh present day with the local journey yeah so I think we're three years out so what brings us to present day with with the local journey um gosh Ellie you know like I said put a lot of structure in place and such and then she eventually got a big girl job and subsequently has moved to South Dakota to be closer to her family with a economic development agency out there and she's a real she's a real leader with their organization I'm proud of her and Elise Brown became my intern about oh probably only about four weeks later Ellie gave me good notice and things like that and so I put a posting out for another intern and Elise was was great with her very last interview question I remember was uh so is there any kind of a training program or anything like that I'm like no I don't really know how to do most of the things but Ellie made really good notes that I'm pretty sure that you really figured out here's some files I found yes I knew where those things were and stuff but you know at less at that time unless I hired somebody the newsletter probably wasn't gonna go out no yeah yeah all those little things for the male champs and the this and that I don't know you know um because people have to own certain things and whatever and and uh you know that's so Elise was was with me for until that May and then she graduated and got a job in in Denver initially I think she's back in Fort Collins I see her occasionally she swings by and says hi or something like that and uh and then yeah I've posted for a half time less qualified than you position um that you responded to shortly thereafter that was that I guess that May is also when we connected but you were going traveling shortly mm-hmm yeah so that was 2019 yeah that's 2021 now yeah and then uh when did Deb come on October yes uh right around think her fest oh and that was uh that was a story I wanted to tell about like the development of the business from the first think her fest so um think her fest one was in April of 2018 while Ellie was with me and uh we had a speaker and I I can see her face but I can't think of her name but she drew a triangle and she was talking about how all these businesses you know it's all about uh the results and the process but what they leave out is this bottom thing that binds is the relationships and uh and a lot of companies leave that that relationships thing out and I was doing this exercise with others and I was like well I've got relationships and we've never really measured our results for local think day because we really don't have much process Ellie was just on board but it wasn't baked in much yet and uh it just occurred that it was such a backward formed business in a lot of ways but uh you know it's coming along and uh so yeah Deb came on uh I was like well I was sharing with you I'm like well when we get to this to this size then we can hire an admin person or or whatever because I got to get you to this salary first and you're like well what if we just hire an admin person and I'm a little more patient it will figure it out because you were great well way better than me at all the admin stuff but yes definitely when there was uh failings it was in that realm and your happy place was definitely much more in the marketing and understanding the whole picture. So talk a little bit about that when you're trying to find the right person how do you do it? Hmm well it's easy for local in some respects because this is a different kind of business and so many you know it's not being a cashier and a thing or whatever and so the enthusiasm um both you and Deb were probably the most enthusiastic candidates that I saw about and and understood kind of or were excited about it just for the it and uh and Elise was the same Ellie was the same um and Ellie and I think uh I wrote a really good person description that was when I started using the person description thing and when Ellie came in she was like I felt like you were right of that just to me because it's just so matched up the the skills that I have and that was the job description that's right yeah yeah yeah for that first internship role and it was a junky little $12 an hour ten hour a week job but she's like I could do that job really good for this really cool company that I want to learn more about hmm so so there's no like what it's it's almost like you know do you want to play baseball in Minnesota or do you want to be in San Diego or whatever you know like if there's those inherent advantages and so I think Locos always been able to get some of the best candidates in that realm uh to want to be interested in being a part of our team because it is different and impactful and you know you've seen some of the letters from our members and the stories from these chapter meetings and just seeing our members grow and develop and just have a real fondness for their chapters and their facilitators and the whole experience you know and that's meaningful and so how do what was the question how do I tell how do you find the right people it's skills and enthusiasm um and where and how you know we've had success on handshake with CSU on the intern level indeed I think you responded to a LinkedIn ad actually which was not nearly as uh like I got 50 indeed applications and only nine from LinkedIn and so I guess hard to say did indeed do better or did LinkedIn do better you know I spent a lot more money on LinkedIn I know which I think is the common thing about marketing with LinkedIn. Yep. Anyway so uh so yeah so that's been thankfully you know I haven't had any like misfitted people real well I haven't had people always in the the right spot on the team but I've always been able to it feels like to me um have good people on the team you know and then figuring out what they do you know you can train and learn and do the things especially because we're just kind of making this thing up as we go along here yeah oh yeah it's funny to think you know like loco is seven but I feel like a lot of the stuff that we're doing is you know year I don't know early right well we're only three years as a full-time business uh this month roughly last January February it was when I hired Ellie three years ago this month and so that was you know that was the first initial departure from a a word application a word document application that I printed on Jill's computer you know at home and things like that so it didn't really start even thinking about trying to get pro until that point it was almost just like a super secret club yeah you know I remember hearing about it like what is that so I knew about it from the murmurs and the business community yeah yeah well and and you know we're acquainted you and I from food trucking years even we would see each other from time to time at events and uh I don't know if you ever learned about loco in that context probably not because I was selling sliders and tacos yeah I don't know I just knew about it through Patrick yeah sure sure so yeah it's been it's been a pretty good journey in that regard and I think uh you know if I it's funny like my dad and where I was going to share earlier is you know that whole passion for business really goes back to my family roots and my dad being you know a motorcycle mechanic that that started a farm evenings and weekends because you know he'd had a dream of being a farmer of having his own farm and things and you know even though from I've kind of for him he had to refine dream and I guess in North Dakota like if you want to achieve financial success and have a business and stuff like that it's like well farm's a pretty good choice you know there's there's some other stuff going on but but you're not like nobody's like oh I'm gonna start a digital marketing agency because that's what I should do here anyway Jamestown's awesome and it's a lot like it was you know when I went to high school and you know ping-pong began in high school just north and there and whatever but but like here seeing loco kind of grow out of no real specific intention but a lot of passion to to provide this thing you know and that's and even that it's the you know all that experienced banking you know and all the business owners that would let me under the hood with their business over the years that would consider changing their banking relationship to my bank and me because they liked me more basically because it's all the same shit you know and and and then sharing ideas between businesses and helping them to understand that cherry limate is pretty interesting huh pretty sweet tried something new I just had a sip of the string and it was very would you like something different perhaps okay sorry to interrupt you no that's all good so so I like I said I always wanted to have a business and it really it's it's kind of joyous to me that it's and let me pause there yeah why who I think it goes to like liberty and freedom stuff like being the master of the boss of your own situation and not you know finding yourself laid off from a job or whatever but that the thing that you create is worthy to the world of of paying your way you know paying your taxes paying your light bill building something and not having that reliance and and I guess probably cemented by some of the outstanding business owners that I worked with at the bank you know they look column job creators and stuff like that you know but it's true kind of like if there's if if nobody took any risks to build these all these small businesses and entrepreneurial ventures if it was just like these big heavily capitalized venture backed things that you know made the sausage and sold it to us and whatever they're really it's a great equalizer I think in some ways of of opportunity because these corporate settings and things you know they're corporate grinders a lot of them you know yeah you can make a six-figure salary but they're gonna work just not out of you and you're not gonna really like your job at all for most people unfortunately and so just that that independence spirit that kind of North Dakota mentality and that's what I was wondering is there even another layer to that why of like how you grew up was it honorable to pull yourself up by the bootstraps or like create something out of nothing like it oh this was just a plot of land now it's a farm or like oh yeah well and that's yeah and so that's that's my dad you know my dad grew up and I to really tell the whole business journey of of Kurt it has to have a little time given to the journey that I grew up witnessing because my my dad was 20 when I was born him and my mom had been married not quite nine months and a couple years in and right when he went when I was born he had he had built a shop and a pit where he would fix people's cars so he worked as a motorcycle mechanic at the Honda shop in town since he was 14 and his parents had been divorced a couple years prior and he effectively became kind of the man of the house added an income to the to the solution he had three four-year younger siblings something like that and moved to town away from our small town and stuff anyway long story short he you know kind of came out of a broken family graduate at high school but you know with not really much likelihood of ever thinking about going to college for which was normal you know I was a first-generation college student and a lot of people don't from where I'm from a lot a lot and or at least been and so and he failed at his first farm he bought a farm on contract for deed in the in the late 70s that that give back basically you know the whatever money paid he lost that and give the farm back and and then got another opportunity to rent a quarter section of land which is like almost the smallest piece that you can buyably farm it isn't a farm in its own it's a side hustle at that point big time and so evenings and weekends and and just you know every year he tries to raise the best crop that he can as a farmer and what made him want to have just a little piece because I'm obviously he was doing something else in addition to just farming yeah couldn't have a big piece you don't have any capital we he didn't come from a farm his dad was a failed farmer was a failed hardware operator was a failed husband you know no no he costs it takes a yeah nobody starts farms like people don't really start farms as part of the as part of things a lot of people take dad's farm and shrink it and then you know sell it out to the other guy eventually but dad took no farm started a farm and then grew it to really one of the larger farms in the county where we're from now over I don't know what 25 30 year period now and by the time I was the time I was about a sophomore in high school um he was down to a pretty part time on the mechanic job so it was about 10 years later I suppose or seven eight years later something like that and he was probably up to a thousand acres now because he did a good job you know in landlords the people that own the land would be like not donny bear seems to raise a pretty good crop you know and the better crop you raise the more likely going to pay the rent next year again right and so that's basically how he's grown his farm is you know you you can't hide it when you're farming like either the crop looks really good out there and it doesn't have no weeds that you can see or it's it's full of weeds and it doesn't look like it's Tuesday promise right well it's one swing a year yeah you know you got to it's like a garden you got to see you know prepare the seed bed and try to have the right amount of fertilizers and this and that keep the weeds down you know work it enough to keep the weeds down every time you work it is an extra tank of gas in the tractor and so there's there's a cost to doing farming right but there's a cost to not doing farming right too and that's less good crops and think and that's the same as business there's a cost to doing business right to having good financial reports with the you know adequately compensated financial person in your business that's making sure they're reconciling every month and making sure nobody's stealing from you and blah blah blah or whatever right there's a cost to these things that make businesses stronger but hopefully it's less than the cost of of doing it the short way and that was probably a lesson I would learn from him early on and and so he's the the core of that inspiration of wanting to be in business you know because he that was his vision and something he made happen and we my family had free school lunch until at least 10th 11th year you know because we were you know on paper basically all the profits of the farm went back into the farm and dad was feeding a family of four on a part-time motorcycle with kind of salary right and mom worked at the post office a little bit like weekends here and there and stuff like that but she had four little printers to take care of and whatnot and and so yeah and and you know I'm off to college shortly thereafter and and looking for adventure and and like I said it'd been pretty good student and very voracious reader I was really what started to in North Dakota it's a pretty like you're pretty sure everybody in all these big cities and stuff is way smarter than you are kind of and they've seen so much more in the world is and and there's like this mentality that you just don't really stack up to other people in the world like that's why you're in North Dakota is because that's where the dumb people move or whatever or the less educated it sounds dumb but it but it's kind of true there's others and it's and it's there's pockets like that in inner cities I'm sure and on Indian reservations and across certain states and cultures and and whatever but that's where I'm from that was definitely part of it so even though I was a really good student in high school I was pretty sure if I could keep a 2.0 in college that would probably be pretty good for somebody from a bowhunk town like me and that's just in Fargo North Dakota which isn't exactly a metropolitan area I don't know what that tells me about tells you about my perspective or character but it is so then you make it to college and do you do well there do you do you care well I went to college as an engineering student and because I was good at math and people were like oh you're good at math you should be an engineer and like okay I don't know just like everybody right yeah tell me what to do I don't know what you're like you were nutrition student what what was that leading for you I remember you were a vegetarian as a youth activist or whatever yeah I was always interested in health grew up pretty active kind of involved in sports and I'm not competitive at all so anything like to to grow and be stronger and my dad he was very health conscious and took a lot of supplements and vitamins and I'm like what what are you kidding so I basically was just curious to like learn more about that whole world and if there could be these other avenues to help yeah and so that that was true but then I flipped out of that after college I still am healthy but yeah no well in it formed it informs how you look life in some ways you know just that to me anyway that kind of holistic approach to you know like in I think of nutrition I think let that food be thymedis and kind of a principle right and kind of like for for a business too like let the things that you put effort into the consumer resources also be the things that make you stronger and so maybe that's a principle or whatever but but it's kind of like it's kind of a similar thing like make sure you're not doing a bunch of things that don't have any return but the but you have to invest in the business to make it stronger you have to build a tribe of people of set of systems you know more market outreach have a marketing plan oh yeah so so anyway I'm a squirrel chaser oh no no I'll bring us back on track by starting a new track so you are a business owner how let's talk about your personal life like how do you balance owning a business um I know a lot of our members talk about like it's it takes up you know you can't just leave it there you take it home um so how do you manage that like with your professional life and your personal life um your family well Jill deserves a mention I think I've mentioned her already uh slightly but you know Jill marched out of upper upper middle class uh bankers existence um and uh sometimes share probably shouldn't hear but I will that uh one of the members of the the second thing tank was the marriage council that she and I went to after first getting into entrepreneurial ventures and uh Josh was kind of working to build his practice into more than just kind of a him and his dad practice and add more counselors to it and stuff and you know he helped us a lot and uh then he he signed up as a think tank member so it helped us go to marriage counseling for longer and a little tree there it's basically trades he's we've always been kind of pay retail for each other but it's cool if you you know a little quid pro quo is fine um but uh so so he taught us a lot of good tools and just setting boundaries um having intentional time together um is super important for for me like okay after eight o'clock at night I don't care how many emails are unanswered I don't care how much more needs to be done but we're just we're not gonna do that anymore and and it's just unplugged and uh it's it's a lot easier now Jill was right there with me through most of the bears backyard and she was our bookkeeper up until about two years ago now by choice no never she was a emergency window service on the on the food trailer and she's she's four foot eleven of course so she could barely see over the counters it's like here's your phone um but uh no well not like willingly because and she would say yeah it's all been worth it you know even though my salary right now it's it's still only probably 65% of what it was when I was a banker or something like that she would still say it's all been worth it and that's and even that part of the journey has been cool because she was I was teasing her just the other day I was like so uh if you could go back to being that like part-time trophy wife bankers wife kind of uh god because she she worked for her current company but in a 15 to 20-hour week part-time status uh for some years going back to when she went back for her masters in social work and uh and now she's kind of the right hand gal the dean of faculty um for an online school yeah and and that was really her promotion to that job is really what allowed me to go full-time loco um because it gave us a health insurance benefit and double her salary so Jill you know Jill was making 14,000 a year or something for years before I left my banker job at 80 whatever and and I want to share what her salary is now but it's you know appropriate for an underpaid underpaid uh dean of faculty for an online school you know and it's it's it's so she's like triple or more than that of her income in in that short time and and meanwhile I'm climbing back up there and she's so much more fulfilled because now she's like super important to this organization that's making a difference in students lives and she's doing like important stuff every week every month and and responsible and and she's a great manager and people ever awesome yeah I can see that it was amazing cheers cheers she's uh and and that marched through um the poverty you know and we like we always ate like when we had the food trailer we might not have even we always had food we always we also had cash we always had cash never had no money because the food truck was like cash they all done everything whatever but uh you know marching through that together and and learning how to uh not be the couple that would go to a restaurant out to eat every week uh because why not we we have no children so Jill and I have been married for 17 years um it'll be 18 this this may and uh like marching through that it's like galvanizing toward a relationship you're like okay we're in it we're in it and and we're not obviously neither of us is going to do anything stupid enough to further you know to jeopardize this relationship like this last season you know not like the food truck died like exactly whatever you do is not going to be as dumb as the food truck days and uh and you know she's let me get away without judging me on that decision tree right there's a lot of I don't want to pick on women because there's a lot of jerk guys out there too but there's a lot of wise that are really self focused a lot of people but like if I was married to one of those ladies that would like blame me for the decline in their standard of living because I chose to be such a dumbass as to leave a bank career that I wasn't fulfilling me to try to pursue my business dreams like that's a huge sorts of pride for her but there are people for whom that would be like now check you later you know or just and even if not that even if it which the first step to that would be would be that thing where they're like my life sucks now and I blame you sir you know and and and she's definitely not been like that even though you know when you're like trying to make sure the mortgage is paid on time thankfully we made just enough income to again we sold a rental property you know to fund our negative cash flow to make some of those years where we haven't really invested on our retirement accounts in years because um you know just try to get back to financial solvency oh yeah what were some of the things that you learned uh in that partnership where I guess when the times were the hardest like how did you make it through um trying um I guess you know in the in the risk of for us at least when when Jill doesn't feel sufficiently loved by me then she kind of will pull away I think that's a more pretty normal response for couples and when she pulls away I'm like whatever I don't need you and that like it just be creates this death spiral that like it's you know the more neglectful I become the more bitchy she gets and the more neglectful I become and and so interrupting that cycle has been like the and and usually well I don't know who of us does it more whatever but if I just intentional and realize that you know this is time for me to be intentional to connect with you and communicate with you and to to make sure you know how important you are to me and and all those things like that is the greater enrupter and it and it takes away a lot of neglectful times you know and and uh because I do I chase squirrels I chase new ideas you know I invite people to come over and have dinner parties and you know pre pre-COVID and things like that I'm introducing and she's social but relatively introverted you know and so every time that that she entertains with me or whatever there's a little bit of effort that's involved but she knows what joy it brings me and so that's I guess that's probably to to really put a point in that on that uh it goes actually back to a quote from our wedding vows or at least from the pastor during or after and it was you know a lot of people think of a of a marriage as a partnership you know and it's and it's 50-50 and you kind of keep that balance and and he's like I'm here to tell you that it's it's not it's a hundred hundred thing if you want it to be right you know in both people you don't have to 100% all the time all the time but but don't be keeping score on like who's done more hurts who's done more wrongs who's been more neglectful who's been too bitchy or whatever but to do a hundred percent you know if if things aren't broken then I don't care if she started it but go fix it or go at least try to fix it and put an effort toward it and whether you're doing and that's a business principle too whether you're selling memberships at local thing tank or life insurance policies at thriving or whatever you know it only happens when you try I mean so try or get off the pot excuse me sure so I I'm wondering with that too because I'm sure you know there'll be more hard challenges or maybe I hope not hope it's just clear sailing from here well and it sounds like you have the experience knowledge and tools to like you know do what you need to do but I'm thinking with with other people who are trying to balance their business knowledge maybe they're talking to their their spouse at night and they're like hey like what do you think about this like how how did you navigate that with Jill or do you have any tips for people who are in the maybe the beginning stages or key growth stages of their business and they're really like leaning on their partner well mine was interesting in that so I was a banker of course and and had had been open with my boss about my dreams of opening a restaurant someday and then that boss who was a great guy Doug Woods you deserve a mention here best boss I ever had if I could be half as good of us the rest of my career as you were Rory would appreciate that but Doug moved on to another job and Kevin from Cheyenne became my boss and in hindsight great guy too but but Kevin took a look at my calendar and saw that I was like meeting with property owners that I might rent their restaurant space from or this and that and I was transparent about it and it was always a someday kind of thing but maybe next year who knows you know and Kevin's like how about you got like 90 days to prove that you're not gonna like look at restaurant spaces during company time and stuff like that oh what do you think about that asshole like whatever like I'm meeting with property owners and business people and I'm a banker I've been a banker for 15 years and I'm consistently one of the higher producers and yeah no and at that time especially like now I look back and go thank Kevin for forcing the issue because I could might still be a banker today and be as miserable as you are your banker job haha no I didn't really mean that you're a great banker but I do like I've shifted my perspective on that from like at that time it was like scary as hell because he was pushing me out effectively I had I made the decision okay well I'm leaving then in 90 days and uh because I'm not gonna stop pursuing this and I you know get real you know anyway so uh so that so what was the question I'm trying to I'm circling around it now it was it was about like how to balance your so for Jill it was like hey babe yeah this is this is where we're going I think and of course when you're a would be entrepreneur would be restaurant I had some commitment of some financial forces support from my dad as well to help get this restaurant kind of venture off the ground and stuff and he supported it to a point and then what it was like a food truck and and he was like 40 grand in or something like that or he's like I don't know if we're gonna throw too much more at the food trailer business you're gonna have to figure it out I love you but not the french fries right exactly you know if you're creating something for real he had come out and looked at some properties with us and stuff so he was he was also there kind of in my corner from a capital supports perspective at that time but so we had been kind of noodling around on this but there wasn't anything for sure so but yeah at one point it you know what's Kevin and I had that meeting it was like okay this is real now but but just like most would be started business like well I'll just do this and this and this and this and this and then business and I'm should we make him you know five thousand a month pretty quick that works right is it how your business work what does this noise is mean I don't know yeah it just you know it doesn't go like that it takes longer to create that value and unless you're you know maybe if you're an attorney and you've got a great reputation and you leave a firm and put your own flag up or or whatever but most businesses it takes years to really cultivate the kind of customer base and reputation and value proposition that takes to be consistently profitable mm-hmm so let's talk about your past and present self yeah I started to ask this question when we started speaking but I think now that we've got a good framing of your story what advice would you give yourself when you first started to live a thing Tink? probably to if I would have given myself credit for how much value people would get out of it and demand in the community and and you know if I would have taken it more seriously earlier it would probably be more developed still you know I might have not even had to do the thriving chapter in life or whatever right I could have could have really recognized it for what it hopefully was was was a more useful thing than me trying to sell more catering events or financial securities or things like that and and and in doing so in taking it more seriously you can focus on it because what you focus on you know what you what you what you give attention to changes right whether you're working on your health your diet your financial performance your sales you know and so it being you know four years of really just a kind of a flippant or one of my former facilitators Larry called accused me of whimsical and it was just this little thing you know even when it was three for chapters of groups and I was in one of them as a member and whatever and and I knew that it was a valuable thing to these people and that they liked it and that the facilitators were enjoying themselves and stuff but I did not I guess recognize that what it would take to get it from here to there in some ways mm-hmm so in summary you would tell yourself oh what would I tell myself thank you focus focus probably and give yourself credit um you know I'm kind of bebopping around a lot of times you know whether I was like when I was thriving and local think tank you know which had I was wearing could pivot on a dime depending on who I was meeting with I was just meeting with as many people as yeah exactly oh I thought you needed life insurance but turns out you're a business owner that needs to be in the leveling chapter of my think tank and I don't know if that was right or wrong or or whatever so what I would tell myself I don't know it's kind of no I think that's I hear what you're saying with focus and I mean acknowledging what you've been through when appreciating your steps the steps to get you there I think because a lot of business owners are just in the thick of it for so long and then to look back hopefully it's something to be proud of um but also like to allow themselves to feel pride yeah um it might might feel like oh like no it has to be like I'm on the grind and I've got to do this and I've got to like be you know without sleep for so many months to be productive or like to to qualify as a business owner it's like it's not the case yeah you still can do a good job with the like the tools that you have yeah yeah well I think that's that you know we say local think tank provides perspective accountability and encouragement and you kind of touched on the encouragement there to look back occasionally and think what you have and that the perspective thing and when we left off honestly in the college journey was me kind of flunking out of engineering school like they sent me to engineering school and I got the perspective of what does that mean you know if I went to be an engineer what would my job be like and thankfully I like did a little research in that end and realized that I wouldn't want to be an engineer like I mean can you know my character pretty well by now can you imagine me like drafting engineering things for or like sitting in front of a computer for five hours no yeah five hours a week maybe and I do I do my emails and I do this and that but but when I learned about that and so that applies to this same business journey stuff too like you can be whoever you want to be who do you want to be and what should you try to be and when you're starting out of business as well there's there's a certain element of that you're gonna be what you try to be mm-hmm also makes me think of two I mean when you when you're in the thick of business ownership or seven years down the road what do you do to stay motivated you know I think having the the vision well-defined organizationally is important whether it's organizationally or just in your own head you know I share this sometimes that you know when we can look or think tank and find a a business veteran that would like to be a facilitator with and for us in their community and 90 days later we can have them set up with a with a chapter of 10 members that is well suited to each other and and has been you know connected and we can just be like here here's your trained up facilitator that that is going to curate this chapter with and for us and add value to your business community for years into the future you know Cleveland, Ohio or Bellingham, Washington or or whatever and so to me like a vision like that of okay I don't know if that's possible but it it's something to strive for that's that's a that's a bigger thing than what we can currently do and so I don't know if that wraps the question up a little bit I mean what what keeps you motivated to to get through the hard stuff now well that like to achieving that success and maybe that's the man thing in me right maybe maybe if I did another process in question I wondered that recently like okay we're trying to grow in Denver in Longmont and Littleton and things like that um is that smart or should I try to get you know should we just have a dozen chapters in in Northern Colorado and lay off most of the team because I don't really need to grow that much anymore don't need marketing no need development I can have much bigger salary right but it doesn't that doesn't accomplish the vision of wherever we have awesome people that want to be a part of local think tank we can help them build a chapter in their community and add value almost perpetually to their small business fabric so it won't make fix that you know and so you have to have that kind of uh that kind of a drawing principle yeah absolutely I imagine like a lot of things get tested along the way like oh just what I still want to do and when you're so invested with years and money and team there's got to be that guiding light yeah otherwise what are you pulling for you know what he's driving toward and that's even I don't know how like I always had these little slogans and things I would share with banker clients and stuff like that along the way but that you know that building of a tribe of a team that wants to be your people to pull the ores on your vessel and and that kind of thing but then also to be pointing at something you know if you can if you can have that the guy who steers the boat but the rudder man or something like that right and and then everybody stroking on cue right so their paddles are hitting the water at roughly the same time and they're you know stroke stroke stroke and they're keeping that canoe aimed you despite a little crosswind aimed at the destination you know that's when businesses can get to that destination if if if you're if you were looking at me and saying yeah your whole thing about you know some facilitator can sign up and Cleveland Ohio and we can have it chapter for them in 90 days and it sounds like a bunch of poppycock to me well if you thought that then well then I don't know what but you know we need to find people that want to strive toward that toward the thing because otherwise we're just doing the the things punch in the clock maybe but all businesses add value in in their communities right you know whether you're a house painter or a restaurant or a cover-practor or a dog masseuse either you have to feel good about the value that you're providing and and want to do more of it right so I don't know if that answers that question or not yeah I think so what I'm curious now is kind of looking towards the future and then maybe I can ask a few more questions so what's next with loco and kind of on the heels of that last question maybe what would you like what's missing that's a good question and that's the second half of the year that Ellie started with me I worked my tail off to try to open a chapter in Cheyenne Wyoming and I joined the chamber up there Mary Jane was the chamber lead that I met at an event and she recruited me right up and was a great rep and really tried to plug people into me and I had anywhere from four to six interested member prospects a minute like four five six would be facilitators none of them were quite the right fit you know two or three that I really wanted it decided they didn't need that extra work to do for so little money and then there are others that really wanted it but you know maybe they weren't quite qualified or whatever and so we haven't solved that puzzle yet like basically since near the beginning of me having employees said how do we open chapters in other communities and ultimately the advisory board and myself in 2019 came to the conclusion that we should you know work on an event space thing have events down in Denver and things like that and the our first big event was going to be in April last year that trade shows we had a bunch of swag later out all the trade shows we were going to do last year so yeah right and so that kind of deterred our our growth plan for yet last year but yeah solving that puzzle is just like it's an itch that I haven't been able to really scratch good and and you know it's not just doing one it's doing two and three and five and getting better and better at that and understanding you know how to take what has been a largely a shoe leather marketing sales obviously sales mostly approach but you know thanks to in part to your contributions here in the marketing realm it's instead of one out of ten people that I talk to that that I've heard of local think tank it's six or seven out of ten it feels like these days and so we're making progress but yet we're still in that place where where we haven't figured that puzzle out so hopefully this year yet we'll do two remote chapters as you know that's our our goal and our budget is to do it a chapter in Longmont one little ten this year and I think we can I think that we have that bandwidth in our team and the skill set and you know it takes a while to as you know oh yeah like just understanding what the heck logo is at this point fully enough to to sell it to new people and stuff it takes takes a bit one thing that I'll comment on since I've been here is just getting a little bit more I guess just dialed so I mean to your point about focus you know like identifying all these different parts of the business and then focusing in on like how can each of those little things be improved one or two points or whatever right so I think we've done a good job of honing in on our brand differentiating ourselves from competitors I'm creating key processes and I think like that what my characteristics are I'm very impatient so I'm like I want to see all these cool things I'm so excited about come to life and so one thing that just looking back since the time I've been with you it's like we've had to pause fix or create improve and then play and it's just like all those little steps and that's probably why it feels like you know the first few years of a business because we're creating those processes or making sure they work we're teaching our team about that them that and I think we've done a good job of like really setting a solid foundation now because when I started I did inherit these Google documents and spreadsheets of things to click on and fill and invoices to send these were like barely out of college people you know so it was a blind leading the blind in that regard to some extent totally so I think like and that's kind of one of the lessons I've learned is like you have to have a solid foundation to stand on and like kind of uncovering what are even parts of that foundation is pretty key and now that we've created those things like that question that you've been asking yourself for the last years I think we can finally like legitimately tackle because we are standing on you know solid ground for sure oh yeah like if I if I had all the same systems we had you know two three years ago or you know like early early years or something like that and I could have 150 members and you know 14 chapters or something like that I wouldn't even be able to like manage all the things like people would be if we even had an automated payment thing it would be billing them it'd be like Yahoo! Billing them still six months after they left the organization and be going ah just you know so yes I feel the same I feel like there's there's opportunity and and so I guess that's worthy of mention you know if people are listening to this podcast and they're qualified candidate in Longmont in you know the Denver Metro region down to little ten area and you want to learn more you know you got to look us up because we're working on something right now but but like how do we you know it's podcast part of the strategy is digital marketing with geocoding stuff is that what's gonna let us do the thing do we need to do more zip code mailers with phone call follow-ups you know we're still working on the what it gets us there it's the who behind all of that stuff and like because I mean I raised my hand to that is vocalize that I don't know just about weekly like oh there's so many good things like I'm overwhelmed so like how how do you and other business owners like incrementally grow or like grow in the right way because sometimes you jump yeah or and then you figure it out or sometimes like it is very like and I think that's people's characteristics like step by step by step yeah being like very cautious until you get to the next thing you can push your foot on or you just jump so I mean where where excuse me are you at now with like our growth well you know the beautiful thing about loco is our memberships are pretty durable and so we just don't understand our revenues right like ultimately we got to make sure we don't spend more than we have even if we might want to unless we're gonna take on some capital or you know get some venture capitalists or something but that doesn't seem right for our organization and so so for us it's it's the incremental things you know we just keep growing one one brick in front of the other for for some businesses it does require those those leaps where you're like if I'm ever going to be a two store location restaurant I got to open my second store you know and but my vision is to have seven stores up and down the front range and so I can't get from here to there unless I open that second store even though it's scary as I'll get out so I don't know if that answered the question of of when you're ready and whatever but it's when you have the resources as part of it you know and and the feedback from customers you know your customers are always your best source of feedback and how you're doing if you will and so you know for us we consistently really good good feedback from our members are like hey I think everybody should be in Loco I'm like well yes and no I mean some people would join for the wrong reasons and some people would have a hard time being vulnerable in a setting like that and who knows but but yes we think way more people should you know we don't want to get more market share in the peer advisory realm you know we're not out there to steal customers from Vistage or Tab or these other organizations we're here to create more peer advisory memberships in the world in some ways because I think it's one of the best things that any person and especially a business person especially business people because they have that unique there's nobody to tell me what to do environment that most people don't necessarily have yeah feeling lonely yeah that loneliness and that responsibility that burden of responsibility when 40 people are when 40 people are getting paychecks from you and you've you've lost more than ten thousand dollars a month for three months in a row and you've got twenty thousand dollars left like the hard decisions that come with that burden is is we're having a support group kind of an element in your world is it's super important now to become the business owner you want to be that's we're having that board meeting element is right there's like there's a support that helps you not fall but there's also you got to get stronger better at things or higher stronger better right the best leaders are able to get people that are smarter and harder working than themselves onto their team and want to be there yeah you know and and buy in and things like that and so that what's that what's the trick to that we really cover that how to find good people right well there's a little bit of that but but it's also and what do you have them do yeah and and how do you tell the difference and adapt and grow with them and all that stuff right give people continuous opportunities to to have expanding responsibilities and things you know you've been doing a great job on the podcast the the local shorts episodes and I I actually truly like to listen to them yeah and you know and that that idea you know last January actually about a year ago or just over was when we first talked about it was like yes I think a podcast would be a great thing because it fits so well into that sharing of experiences learning from the experiences of others hearing perspectives that help you understand how you launched or how you grew or how you fired that first terrible employee or whatever that looks like for your business journey mm-hmm absolutely so my my last question last question would be where do you want to be in seven years from now seven years from now that's a curveball I was thinking like three or seven well seven year birthday seven yeah oh that's right wait for halfway there I think if you know the vivid description of seven years from now if local could be gosh I would say over a hundred chapters we're at nine now going on 10 and so but we have got seven years so that means by the end of seven years we're have to be opening like one a month or something so we'd be humping it right we'd have a team of seven people or ten people or something like that or maybe some kind of a regional structure that really empowers or partnerships or things maybe it maybe that's more aggressive than we need to be but but that would be probably like if it was just where I wanted to be it would be something like that with 20 30 40 of those are on Colorado and and and having some inroads into other regions and stuff like that I'd love to spend more time podcasting so if I could get to a place where I can me and Jill can travel and I can interview really interesting business veterans that would like to be a local facilitator on the local experience podcast as like one of our first steps and the people that are really like their heart and like their business story and and things like that we invite them to go through the rest of the training to be a facilitator and we plant seeds with them and you know help digital traffic drive to that podcast if we can do that if the podcast could be popular and valuable to people because it won't be popular unless it's valuable to people right and so that would be part of it I think is and then a other big part of it would be like some kind of an investment fund or something where but that point local thing tanks should be really profitable and I would love to see us be able to intentionally with capital lift up some of our business members that could use an opportunity at the right time or things like that banks are you know they're really good at loading money to companies that don't really need it anymore and not that good at helping businesses really get at the right time to really empower growth but also you have to be good at not giving it too much too soon and things like that as well but if we could have a capital fund that would let our members apply for capital and our facilitators across the country for part of their paycheck at that fund if they wanted to and I don't know what that looks like exactly but I would love to see local be increasingly a community of you know kind of small business for small business and have that reputation of this is a place where you can come for the the core service of local think tank chapter membership but you can also learn so many things just from being on our website you can plug into the podcast and learn all kinds of things like local think tank as a place where business owners get stronger and it's known I love that right oh yeah let's do it all right let's do it cheers to us seven more years seven more years thanks for taking this time right is there anything else you'd like to add about your story or people or experiences that we didn't cover gosh that's too big a question I guess um you know I think look back on those pivot points those places you know I were you changed from engineering to economics which got you into a banking job which got you to Fort Collins when you decide to put the food trailer business down and you know do something else so that you can try to make local think tank grow we you know all those those pivot points and give them appreciation you know and once you once you make decisions now it's just time to keep the legs pumping and and work toward that vision work toward that that thing that you're trying to create because no one you never one foot in front of the other that's probably the the thing there's so many times in these last seven years where it would have been so much easier for me to go get a 75,000 dollar year banker job at some that my reputation isn't that bad I could have got one of those you know and and given up the dream of of creating this thing or even maybe I should have it and just had a look was a side business or whatever and spend less time on it but it's still not going to get it to where the vision is in that context right and so just keep putting one foot in front of the other until you can at least see the vision yeah I think it's important you said earlier and you mentioned it now just holding excuse me holding true to that vision like what you know why did I start seeing that the outcome is possible I hope so yeah yeah we'll get there all right well cheers to you to local think tank and kick now all right we'll start start the party thank you for listening to today's episode of the local experience podcast this is Kurt bear founder of the local think tank and host of the local experience and I'm here with Murray Sharer local business developer and host of the local shorts episodes we hope you heard some new ideas and business perspectives in this episode our mission and all that we do including this podcast is to share collaborative business ideas and solutions that uplift the business community subscribing follow us for you listening to podcasts to get new episodes as they are released curious about logo you can learn more about us at localthinktakes.com where you'll find more information about our chapters business resources and events for business owners and if you're looking for perspective accountability and encouragement along your business journey why not apply for a chapter near you today why not why not why not we'll catch you next time on the in-depth local experience podcast with me Kurt and with me Murray provide size business lessons in the local shorts bye