Join us on this journey of entrepreneurial discovery with our guest, Caleb Talley from Startup Junkie, as he recounts his leap from studying print journalism at the University of Arkansas to shaping the startup ecosystem in Northwest Arkansas. Caleb's story is a testament to the vibrant and often underestimated entrepreneurial spirit thriving in the region. His transition from journalism to marketing and events without prior experience unveils a landscape rich with opportunities and collaborative support systems that have enabled local startups to soar.
Discover how Northwest Arkansas, a region steeped in history and culture, has become a magnet for entrepreneurial talent. Thanks to the influence of major enterprises like Walmart, the area has cultivated a supportive environment that fosters innovation and attracts secondary industries. Caleb shares insights into impactful initiatives such as the Fuel accelerator program and LifeWorks, which are designed to help startups flourish and sustain long-term growth. We also draw interesting parallels with states like Kentucky, highlighting how both regions are becoming increasingly attractive for new businesses through community support and economic incentives.
As we navigate the current entrepreneurial landscape, Caleb sheds light on the challenges and emerging trends shaped by the economic climate. The episode delves into issues such as the struggle to raise capital amidst high-interest rates and lower-than-expected GDP numbers. Yet, there's a silver lining as the rise in entrepreneurial interest, partly fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, opens new avenues for innovation. Learn about the University of Arkansas' pioneering efforts to imbue students with entrepreneurial skills and the substantial career benefits of startup experience. From versatile hiring practices to exciting micro-lending initiatives like Kiva, this episode covers the dynamic opportunities that make Northwest Arkansas a beacon for aspiring entrepreneurs.
As you're inspired to embark on your side hustle journey after listening to this episode, you might wonder where to start or how to make your vision a reality. With a team of experienced marketing professionals and a track record of helping clients achieve their dreams, we are ready to assist you in reaching your goals. To
Join us on this journey of entrepreneurial discovery with our guest, Caleb Talley from Startup Junkie, as he recounts his leap from studying print journalism at the University of Arkansas to shaping the startup ecosystem in Northwest Arkansas. Caleb's story is a testament to the vibrant and often underestimated entrepreneurial spirit thriving in the region. His transition from journalism to marketing and events without prior experience unveils a landscape rich with opportunities and collaborative support systems that have enabled local startups to soar.
Discover how Northwest Arkansas, a region steeped in history and culture, has become a magnet for entrepreneurial talent. Thanks to the influence of major enterprises like Walmart, the area has cultivated a supportive environment that fosters innovation and attracts secondary industries. Caleb shares insights into impactful initiatives such as the Fuel accelerator program and LifeWorks, which are designed to help startups flourish and sustain long-term growth. We also draw interesting parallels with states like Kentucky, highlighting how both regions are becoming increasingly attractive for new businesses through community support and economic incentives.
As we navigate the current entrepreneurial landscape, Caleb sheds light on the challenges and emerging trends shaped by the economic climate. The episode delves into issues such as the struggle to raise capital amidst high-interest rates and lower-than-expected GDP numbers. Yet, there's a silver lining as the rise in entrepreneurial interest, partly fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, opens new avenues for innovation. Learn about the University of Arkansas' pioneering efforts to imbue students with entrepreneurial skills and the substantial career benefits of startup experience. From versatile hiring practices to exciting micro-lending initiatives like Kiva, this episode covers the dynamic opportunities that make Northwest Arkansas a beacon for aspiring entrepreneurs.
As you're inspired to embark on your side hustle journey after listening to this episode, you might wonder where to start or how to make your vision a reality. With a team of experienced marketing professionals and a track record of helping clients achieve their dreams, we are ready to assist you in reaching your goals. To
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Speaker 1:
Welcome to Side Hustle City and thanks for joining us. Our goal is to help you connect to real people who found success turning their side hustle into a main hustle, and we hope you can too. I'm Adam Kaler. I'm joined by Kyle Stevie, my co-host. Let's get started, all right. Welcome back everybody to the Side Hustle City podcast Today, special guest from startup junkie Caleb Talley. Caleb, thanks for being on the show, man.
Speaker 2:
Well, I appreciate the invite.
Speaker 1:
Glad to be here. Yeah, man, we're going to talk some startups today. We're going to get people pumped up about, you know, positivity and helping people get their company idea off the ground and what they need and all that good stuff. But first, Caleb, I want to start with your background. You started out in sounds like the publishing industry. You're down in Arkansas and maybe not the first place people think of when they think startups. Right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I wouldn't think so and, honestly, when I was going through the College of the University of Arkansas, even in school, I graduated in 2015 and studied print journalism and I might have been one of a handful of people that were even in a print journalism track at the time. You know the professor pulls the the full intro auditorium full of people and we, you know, meagerly raise our hand in the back as all the broadcast journalists you know, kind of make their way to the front.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, so what is it like? And at least you're in the SEC, I mean, you've got that going for you too. That's a fact, yeah.
Speaker 2:
Basketball is about to get a lot better here in Arkansas, ok.
Speaker 1:
Sorry for the fans in Kentucky. Well, we're UC fans over here. So we're moderate at football, I would say, and we're pretty good at basketball and it's going to get better as well. We got some guys coming in. This next year is going to be all right. We just missed the tournament, but it's going to be looking good. And anytime you guys can beat the rest of the SEC schools, I'm all for it. That's our plan at least beat the rest of the sec schools.
Speaker 1:
I'm all for it, like that's our plan at least. I'd like to see some more. I'd like to see some more, um, some more teams in the sec start winning stuff. I mean kentucky, arkansas, tennessee I mean you're always good. I mean you could beat 98 of every other college football program. But it's just you've got these, these guys at the top who seem to monopolize everything, and there's three or four programs in the SEC. Everybody knows who I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:
Some of you are listening right now that just they.
Speaker 1:
what, for whatever reason, they've got these recruits and they just, I don't know, they just they're falling in love with these programs and they just got machines, and it's how do you read success?
Speaker 2:
But we do a good job of beating up on each other in the SEC, that's right. No, we do do a good job of that, that's for sure. But we're excited about you know. Next, we just missed the tournament too, had a pretty down season, but you know, we got Coach Cal and we're excited for next season. Yeah, it's got a lot of optimism. Yeah, well, maybe not as much, but hey, we're we're always a little bright-eyed optimism when it comes to, you know, august and fall.
Speaker 1:
Well, you'll always be in the recruiting conversation with Coach Cal, that's a guarantee.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
He's got connections and that's what you need. I mean, that's really what you need. So good luck with that. And yeah, I respect your SEC and I respect all the schools in the SEC and just a factory and we're going to find out if we get any Arkansas guys in the draft today up here in Cincinnati I'd be. I don't know who's out there, but you never know, we might get some guys. Maybe not, maybe, not Maybe.
Speaker 2:
I have a better chance to get some UC guys on the team. We'll see.
Speaker 1:
But so so Arkansas guy, you were in publishing, you kind of you left that what made you want to get into startups and then tell us a little bit about the organization.
Speaker 2:
Sure, I'll give you kind of like the elevator pitch of my Wolverine origin story.
Speaker 2:
So, as I mentioned, I was in state journalism in college, actually was a news reporter right out of college.
Speaker 2:
So before getting into publishing publishing did some of the actual you know newspaper reporting kind of in that scene for a couple of years, some of the actual you know newspaper reporting kind of in that scene for a couple of years, got into publishing and Little Rock um was doing a lot of of business um coverage um from um from a magazine publishing perspective, and just really fell in love with all the activity that was going on in Arkansas in terms of entrepreneurship, innovation, uh, there just was a lot of heat and energy, specifically in Northwest Arkansas where the university is, and so I had the opportunity, knew some folks that were working for an organization called Startup Junkie, a nonprofit organization based there in Fayetteville, serves the broader Northwest Arkansas region.
Speaker 2:
We say Northwest Arkansas because that's kind of from the outside looking in. You know you've got uh, several cities that are kind of grown together so we kind of lump ourselves all together there um as an MSA um, our own little you know oasis there Um, but knew some folks that were working, uh, at startup junkie. Um, they had a need for a marketing and events director and I told people I'm a recovered journalist because I jumped ship and sought that role in marketing with no marketing experience whatsoever and I have been there ever since and will be five years next month actually, and loving every bit of it.
Speaker 1:
Nice, oh, I love it, man. So does it now in Arkansas, like just in cincinnati, we got tons of fortune 500 companies here actually a lot for the size of city that we have and or metro we got like three million people in the metro if you include dayton. So I guess it's not that small but a lot of fortune 500 companies, not just regular ones, big ones, right, I mean kroger, biggest grocery chain in the country. You know, procter Gamble, biggest packaged foods company in the country. Ge, just separated into three companies and now one of their companies, one of the newer ones, the biggest one is based here doing GE aviation stuff.
Speaker 1:
How does a company like Walmart interact in Arkansas with your startup ecosystem? How do they play, how do they factor in? I would say, surprisingly well.
Speaker 2:
I mean, they are obviously the big boys in the region. I mean we consider ourselves lucky to have somebody like them in our backyard because they do fund a lot of initiatives. The Walton Family Foundation, actually of initiatives, um, the Walton family foundation, actually that, um, you know, as a by-product of the Walton family, of course, from Walmart, uh, wealth, they fund a lot of our actual programmatic work that we do through startup junkie that allows us to, um, provide resources and programming for startups and founders, um, but I would say, the region itself, just the fact that you've got, you know, walmart, um, you've got Tyson, you've got JB Hunt, you've got a bunch of folks that have founded some very powerhouse enterprises in a corner of the world. That definitely wasn't what it is today, where you've got about 30 people a day moving into the region. There wasn't a lot going on up there at the time. You had the university, so I think that just that entrepreneurial spirit has been there for a long time.
Speaker 2:
For that reason You've got, I guess, kind of ingrained in the DNA of folks there in the hills of the Ozarks of just trying to, you know, scratch out a living and scratch out opportunity from not a whole lot and I think that has remained in the dna, even with folks you know from all over the country that have moved there for walmart or for any of the other enterprises, um, so I think that's something that's really stuck. But I would say they they are um, you know, as far as the initiatives that they support and a lot of that wealth they've created in the region definitely makes its way through to the entrepreneurial community community as a whole, and you just think about the type of talent that enterprises like that will attract into the region. That eventually, you know, they decide they want to do their own thing. They have a side hustle that they end up spinning out, you know, into northwest Arkansas and start new businesses themselves. That's good.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, because I think a lot of people that work in these organizations I mean, I worked in the ad agency and it's big here because P&G is the biggest advertiser in the world they have a lot of money to spend, so you always have these like ad agencies that have some kind of a footprint here in town. In the same thing with Walmart it's such a big company with so many things out there and you've got so many companies that feed off of Walmart that there's, you know, financial management companies and all kinds of stuff that will come around because Walmart's there.
Speaker 1:
You'll have these secondary type of industry companies in there and then the people that work in those things and they see how one of these big organizations run, they see how maybe their small organization runs and they come up with ideas, efficiencies, ideas, things that are going to make these companies run better. And a lot of times, like even with us with our startup, we people were faxing agreements, real estate agreements back and forth to each other forever and you know, 90% of the agents don't do any work. 10% of them do and most of them are older and they have systems in place. I mean, our technology replaced the fax machine in real estate and it was hard to convince that 10%. Right, but that's what you have in a lot of these big businesses crazy inefficiencies, but in a way they get. There's gatekeepers that like to keep things the way they are. They hate change. Do you deal with a lot of startup people that that face those barriers?
Speaker 2:
I would say so, and we kind of have started to try to bridge that gap through some programming of our own. We actually facilitate a run and accelerator program called Fuel. It was originally a supply chain logistics accelerator program. Now we've gone to several different verticals. We're running multiple cohorts a year.
Speaker 2:
But the idea with that program specifically is that we would bring in folks with background knowledge, folks that have been in the trenches, been on the other side of the table at places like Walmart and help startups that we recruit from all over the country to northwest Arkansas because they want to be here, obviously to sell to enterprises like that, and we help them get enterprise ready. So that's where we try to lower the barrier for them, to kind of make that process easier. For us it's kind of, in our funders, more of an economic development play. If we can get folks here, set them up to succeed in that way, then they're more likely to stay in Northwest Arkansas, open a local sales office, expand, maybe relocate their headquarters entirely. They're hiring locally and so that's kind of where we fit in that pipeline of resources.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that totally makes sense. Now, are you guys seeing a surge in population? Or, I know for a fact, people are leaving cold weather states, particularly New York. I mean, you've got a lot of problems up there with politics, among other things, taxes, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Just people don't want to be around all that, all those people. Right, sometimes going to a place like Arkansas feels better, it clears your head, you don't have all this nonsense.
Speaker 1:
But the fear, I think, for a lot of people is well, I'm no longer in this big market with all these opportunities. What they fail to realize is sure, but you're also in a place with a lot of competition. It's not just you selling to these companies. Wouldn't you rather be a big fish in a small pond and have the backing of the state of Arkansas? Because they're desperate. They're more desperate, just like Kentucky here, kentucky, I would say, if I was opening a startup, kentucky would be attractive place, because everyone in the state of Kentucky here supports each other. They're like, oh my God, somebody wants to come here and and and open a business here. Let's, let's throw everything at them, right, exactly.
Speaker 2:
And is that?
Speaker 1:
does that have the feeling in Arkansas?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely. I feel like Arkansas and Kentucky probably kindred spirits in that regard. Come one, come all. Like I said, northwest Arkansas is experiencing, you know, 30 plus folks a day. Last I saw the stats on that, their initiatives designed just to bring folks, you know, or to encourage folks to come to Northwest Arkansas, regardless of kind of what their backgrounds are Maybe they're chefs, maybe they're, you know, woodworkers or just various degrees of skill sets to come to the area, just because you know the powers that be, know that it takes all of those different types of individuals and skill sets in order to really create a quality of life in the region that folks might have in other larger cities. But there's an entity called the Northwest Arkansas Council and a couple of years ago they started a program called LifeWorks here where they were recruiting folks from all over the country to relocate to Northwest Arkansas. They were taking a handful of cohorts, a handful of folks per cohort, and they were giving individuals ten thousand dollars in a mountain bike to come to northwest arkansas.
Speaker 2:
Um, so not not a bad deal, uh, and of course they were advertising that in places like austin and seattle and you know folks where, where people are kind of experiencing some of that excessive growth and and, um, you know, uh, we started to get bandied about a couple of years ago that Fayetteville was the next Austin. Uh, and I took issue with that a little bit. I said I don't want to be the next Austin, I want to be the first Fayetteville. You know, I want to be the the first of its kind, the best of its kind, rather than kind of a copy and paste to somewhere else. Um, it was funny, they, they put up billboards in some of those larger cities that would say something along the lines of you know, it's like Austin used to be 20 years ago, but you can afford your mortgage. And just, you know, tongue in cheek, little comments like that. I like that, yeah.
Speaker 2:
But I think what folks experience when they do come into the region from places outside of that and we saw a ton of that during COVID, you know, when people realized that they could work, you know, potentially from wherever, um, folks were looking for places like that to where it was kind of a little slower paced. You know, higher quality of life, um, um, you know, less expensive than some of the other places around the country, um, and they were finding a place that was incredibly welcoming of them and their ideas and their startups and things of that nature. There's a very collaborative vibe. I guess you could say in Arkansas it's not zero sum. Folks are willing to see other people, even in their same verticals, succeed. It's kind of like a rising tide boats analogy. Yeah, it's healthy. It's a healthy attitude, absolutely, and we see that with the folks that we work with.
Speaker 2:
So through our primary services to the region, we do one-on-one consulting.
Speaker 2:
So we've got a team of consultants, third-party funded, so everything we offer is free.
Speaker 2:
So we meet with folks anywhere from idea stage on upwards, and so we see about 2000 people come through the door a year just wanting one on one consulting for entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2:
You know, an idea they have and given that we've been doing that for a few years now, we've kind of got a deep Rolodex of folks who have, you know, folks that have gone on and succeeded at whatever they've been pursuing. And so there are plenty of times where we'll connect somebody, somebody who's wanting to build this or start that. You know we'll help connect them to somebody that's already done it. And from the outside, looking in, you know that might be someone who's creating a competitor you know competitive business or you know their competitor, but it's really not more times than not that individual is going to be incredibly welcoming. Talk about some of the stuff they overcame. We bring people in to talk about their entrepreneurial journey and some of the battles they overcame on that journey, and it's a lot more collaborative than what we've heard the horror stories we've heard from folks that have come in from other regions.
Speaker 1:
Oh yeah, oh yeah. And speaking of the other regions, I mean you guys are not far from a lot of big, decent sized place. I mean you're kind of sitting in the middle of and if you guys aren't familiar with Northwest Arkansas, I mean you're talking Memphis, st Louis, kansas City, wichita, Oklahoma City, norman, fort Worth, shreveport. I mean there's a lot of places that are trying to do the same thing you guys are doing, but here you are right in the middle, probably with a lower cost of living than most of those places.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely, yeah, we are. I mean, we're five or six hours from anywhere it feels like. And also, I think that's part of what has allowed a lot of the you know, supply chain logistics, the retail and all the vendors associated with that how they found a lot of success because they are right in the middle of everything, so it's easier to. I mean, if you're shipping something to a major city, here's a spot where you have access to a bunch of them within a short time frame too. So just from that perspective alone, logistically it's kind of an ideal spot. So, yeah, totally, it looks like it, yeah no-transcript.
Speaker 1:
Cherokee Creek, choctaw, like I mean, they're all kind of right around you guys as well. Do you guys see some entrepreneurship coming out of those communities?
Speaker 2:
We don't necessarily work, so that's kind of more so on the Oklahoma side of the border, which is close to us. So we don't work too closely with them just because of the way our grant structures and funding is associated specifically to the counties in the region that we're in. However, we have done some work, some contract work, to just kind of do you know some some entrepreneurial assessments with Tahlequah in Oklahoma a few years ago, and that's the capital of Cherokee nation, uh, there, which is just, you know, maybe two hours away from us, um, and they've got a lot of activity going on too. There's a lot of interest, you know. They're a lot of kind of um idea sharing and, uh things of that nature to kind of figure out, taking that playbook and helping them kind of establish some activity there. So there's definitely a lot of interest and a lot of potential activity that. So I'm sure there's going to be some great things coming out of that area.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, because I've seen even, you know, crossing borders like, again, I'm in another state, but our states, you know, they work together in certain ways and they don't work together in certain ways, right, but it'd be interesting to do something there. I just saw there's a company that builds modular homes, which these tiny homes, or functional, I mean, they don't even look like trailers anymore. I mean, these things look like little houses, right, and they're more affordable built in factories. There was a gentleman he moved out to I think it was in New Mexico, one of the cities there, and there was a gentleman he moved out to I think it was in New Mexico, one of the cities there, and there was a reservation close to where they were and he said why don't we open a factory there? And some of those people needed houses. So these guys are, they're building their own houses now while they're working at this factory. And it was an interesting collaboration. I thought that was, you know, it was a beneficial thing and it was like using capitalism for something good for everybody, right, and I was like that's, that's kind of smart and the fact that you're that close to that community and, uh, you know, have the ability to interact with them. I thought that'd be kind of powerful, um, but now what?
Speaker 1:
What are you seeing as far as entrepreneurship in general, outside of just the Arkansas thing? I've noticed and I've actually saw a chart the other day the last 40 years entrepreneurship's actually been in a decline in America for some reason. Not sure exactly why. I cannot recall what the problem was, but we're kind of in a recession right now. I mean, people are a little scared to spend money there's. You know, the economy seems to kind of be in a decline. Some numbers just came out. Gdp numbers came out lower than expected. Who knows how long this is going to last. Interest rates are crazy high, which means money is expensive. You know, borrowing money is expensive, not just for startups, who may want to get a loan to kick off their idea, but money for investors. Sometimes people use cheap money to invest in startups. What are you seeing right now in the entrepreneurial world?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, raising money is difficult, I think for anybody. I know to an extent it should be difficult, but I think it's especially difficult right now and it's something that we've been trying to work on in Arkansas Northwest arkansas, you think about kind of an ecosystem and the pillars that kind of hold it up as it grows. Um, our venture capital pillar is probably a two by four um in northwest arkansas now. So we've been working on trying to kind of uh build that out a little bit. There's not a ton of uh venture capitalists in in our region, um, so we welcome those that are listening and would like to come see some of the deal flow that we've got going on.
Speaker 2:
Um, but I would say a lot of that is associated with just kind of a sense of a false sense of security, if I were to say. But a sense of security when it comes to, um, you know, a traditional nine to five um, you know, business job situation, uh, when at Startup Junkie we were going to career fairs at the university, we'd set up shop and we kind of, you know, just carrying the flag for entrepreneurship and collecting resumes for some of the startups that are clients of ours, and we didn't see a lot of activity. You know folks were lining up to talk to the folks from corporate offices you know the big corporate offices that we have in our region, because there was just this. You know they go through business school and business school tells them this is how the world works and you know they're lining up to get some of those comfortable, secure corporate jobs. I think COVID shifted some of that in our region specifically.
Speaker 2:
You know, I think people realize that no job is secure, so that, like I said, there's a false sense of security. So a lot of folks were sent home during that period or were at home and just thought, hey, there's something better than this. And so I don't know that. We've seen, actually we've seen an increase regionally in entrepreneurship, and I don't know if that's just because it seems a little more tangible, you know, just because of the activity of the last few years and just the various things and what society has kind of pushed it that direction. But we've seen kind of an increase which is exciting. We went from I mentioned we meet with about 2000 folks a year for one-on-one consulting. That's up from about five to 800 four years ago. And so just that pace of folks interested in doing something, whether or not they actually pursue it or run it down or quit their day jobs over it, it's another thing. But that level of interest in pursuing entrepreneurship I think is is kind of increasing, maybe on, you know, at a micro level, but still exciting to see.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I mean, how is the northwest Arkansas area when it comes to that mindset of entrepreneurship? Where are you guys at right now? Do you still have that? You know? Oh, I got to go work a job at nine to five and you know, do this whole thing? Or do you? Are you starting to see, even at the universities where you used to have that mentality? I'm at university right now prepping for a job. To you know what? Maybe maybe I don't want a job. This economy kind of seems a little crappy. To you know what? Maybe I don't want a job. This economy kind of seems a little crappy. Maybe I'm prepping to build a business and it sounds like you guys are there for that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we're absolutely there for that and we work pretty closely with the university and some of their programming too and kind of work in lockstep for the students that do think that way. I think where you know, I can't really speak for a lot of other universities because I only went to one, but I feel like the sense is that they're kind of creating a product in that student. You know it's a factory for producing a product and that product is an employee of a you know a corporate. But what the University of Arkansas has done a really good job of creating a track to encourage and prepare folks that are interested in entrepreneurship and building their own business, and so we work really closely with that division. Part of that program is an internship division where students can go and work in startups and it's subsidized. So you know they're getting to intern and help build, you know, a business with a founder while they're in school and you know getting graded for for helping other entrepreneurs who are actually building a business. So it's a super cool program that we've we've been a part of and support as much as we can because it is.
Speaker 2:
I mean it's exciting to see because those students come from all sorts of backgrounds.
Speaker 2:
I mean we'll get a list of the students that have applied and are going through the program and they'll have their major listed beside them.
Speaker 2:
You know, and at first it was all folks that were kind of you know, interested in small business, their business school students, um, and now you're seeing you know engineering students, students you know from journal, journalism students, you know students from you know arts and you know bachelor of arts backgrounds and things of that nature, all just interested in entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2:
Just because I feel like it's a little more palpable now that it's kind of you know, increasing in the region. But it's exciting to see those students with various backgrounds go through that program and either go and take a role, end up being maybe the first employee of one of those startups that they are interning for, or jumping in entrepreneurship entirely after that program, after graduating. So it's definitely kind of seeding interest. And then we work with, you know, the high schools, various schools in the region too, just to kind of demonstrate this as a very viable option for those who are willing to do the work, cause it's not easy, those who are willing to take the take, who are willing to do the work, um, cause it's not easy. Those who are willing to take the take the leap and then do the work.
Speaker 1:
Well, how many of those students and and you know somebody who's been in a startup it just completely changes your mindset and you build a set of skills working in one of those things Cause you wear so many hats right, you got to understand several different things. You got to understand I mean you may be doing marketing one day, design the next day, and you may be asked to get into the website and start doing some coding, uh, or go to a meeting. I mean there's so many different things that you can be involved in with a startup. Do you see this? Even even in the failed startups, do you see this benefiting their career, the people that were involved?
Speaker 2:
Well, it could go either way, I would. I would naturally say yes because I mean for the folks that we hire at Startup Junkie and we're a pretty lean team, we try to operate like a startup ourselves. We hire at Startup Junkie and we're a pretty lean team, we try to operate like a startup ourselves and I tell people that Startup Junkie is kind of like a career accelerator in and of itself. Folks that have worked here have gone on to work in awesome places just because of the skill sets they've acquired from being able to do a little bit of everything. But also the folks that really get involved in entrepreneurship our founder, jeff Emmerine. He's a serial entrepreneur and founded Startup Junkie about 15 years ago.
Speaker 2:
He jokes that he's unhirable. That's 100 percent. Yep, I would be unhirable, just because you know he's he. He calls himself a shiny object guy. You know it's always looking for opportunity and wanting to fix things and wants the ability in the autonomy to fix things. So I think there it could go one of both ways. You've got folks that are shiny object folks and you know they can't sit still and do what they're told. They're going to want to go fix problems. And you've got folks that you know, they become Swiss army knives because of their time at a startup in the trenches, and therefore they can go be a Swiss army knives because of their time at a startup, um, in the trenches, and therefore they can go be a Swiss army knife, effectively, for somebody else. So I think it really is there are two types of folks and um, so it could go both. Uh, go either way. I would say, though, if you find in our hiring and you find a Swiss army knife like that that has can wear all the hats, hire them.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, it's really really hard to find and I would say, yeah, probably the best place to look would be in like a startup community or somebody who's been at a startup and you know what I've noticed too there's a lot less say like unicorn companies popping up because you have a lot of aqua hires from these bigger companies.
Speaker 1:
So even if you're say you're looking for a job or whatever, and you decide I'm going to go to the startup route, you may end up in a big company because they are looking for innovation, they're looking for people who think outside the box and they realize that you do have a lot of Swiss army knife people in these startups and if it's, you know, remotely attached to their industry, somehow they may go in and scoop it up. I mean, I've seen, I've seen companies like Kroger buy FinTech companies. Right, you're like what the hell is that? What does that got to do with, uh, with what Kroger's doing? But they'll, they. They have a vision, you just never know and they'll find a use for it, but really they're buying the team.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely, and that's I mean. There's a lot of opportunity there. I think, from our perspective too and for some of the folks we've worked with from a consulting standpoint, of being able to go in and kind of coach corporate teams on how to think more like a startup. I think there's kind of a gap that can be bridged, whether you're outsourcing it by going and acquiring a company to bring in those folks, or even just kind of bringing in some assistance folks that kind of think like that every day and, um, you know, bring that to your, your um decision-making team and kind of trying to reshape how they're approaching problems and thinking about that stuff.
Speaker 1:
What gets you excited about? What you guys are doing Like what? What is it that gets you excited about? What you see every day when you go into work? What wakes you up in the morning?
Speaker 2:
I think right now. So it's different all the time, just because, by virtue of all the different things that we're working on, one of the things I get most excited about now is one of our programs that we facilitate. That's a micro lending program through Kiva, which is an international nonprofit, but we have a hub here and we just surpassed over a million dollars lent through that program Zero interest, zero fees in increments of twenty five dollars or more. You don't have to have a credit score. You could have a checkered credit passed. The idea is to get capital to folks who wouldn't otherwise be able to walk into a bank and get a loan for a griddle for their boot truck.
Speaker 1:
Which is most people. Let's be honest these banks don't want to lend any money to you unless you've got money.
Speaker 2:
And the folks that cover this program. They are a little more traditional brick and mortar small business rather than some of the tech enabled, um scalable ventures that we're also working with. So think about, you know, boot truck um owner operator that needs a new griddle, or barbershop needs a new chair, um, sandwich shop needs a new sign, that kind of thing. Um, and that funding, uh, or those loans, are coming through the community Um, you know they're supporting a member of the community and then that small business owner is then putting that into their business and it's so palpable you can see the impact it has on them immediately and then you can just see them pouring back into that community that supported them. So that gets me excited to see that Just kind of the success of that program. And the repayment rate on those loans, um, last I checked was about 83 percent um, and I know some banks would love to have a repayment rate on loans um over 80 percent um, and, like I said, these are folks that have, you know, no credit score or a really bad credit score, um, but I think it comes with wanting to give back to the folks that gave back to them. That's right, Kind of full circle.
Speaker 2:
I think also just a lot of the activity with our accelerator programming too. We're in the middle of a health tech cohort. We've got companies from all over the world here in Northwest Arkansas for this program and just the opportunity to see them succeed and hope that some of them stay. We've seen probably 20, 30 percent of the companies that come to that program stay. Um, just excited to see that and just see the growth of those companies and the potential of new hires, uh, locally, um, and just to see them light up when they get those meetings. You know they kind of toil away in some of the coastal cities that they've been working in for a long time and then to come here and then have the opportunity to get access to a decision maker within the first week. Or they're going on a bike ride with somebody in the C-suite from an enterprise they're pursuing and just to see that light bulb come on like wait, I can have that here.
Speaker 1:
Caleb, who are you guys looking for? So I've noticed that there's a lot of baby boomer businesses out here in industries that we need. So, for instance, hvac, plumbing, electrical I mean we're not going to build any affordable housing anytime soon if you have no electricians, right? So these businesses are trying to sell. I've seen them on like places like Biz Buy Sell. They're profitable businesses, cash flow and netting you know 100 200 000 a year. Are you guys looking for folks like that are looking to buy those businesses, or encouraging people to buy cash flowing businesses like that and working with them on helping them get loans and things like you just mentioned about kiva? Uh, or are you guys like, hey, look, here's our number one target. We want tech businesses. Scalable tech businesses are going to sell for a bill, maybe secondary. We want to find these people like what is yours, what are your personas that you're looking for?
Speaker 2:
Honestly, all comers. We don't necessarily have kind of an ideal customer profile. When it comes to our client base, we are very top of the funnel, um, just by nature of how we were founded. So I mentioned kind of having all those consulting meetings where, where folks are coming in at idea stage, I would say most of our clients are idea stage, um, and we don't turn anybody away. So, um, really, I mean the full spectrum we don't see a lot of activity from folks that are looking to buy businesses or folks that are trying to sell businesses Not sure why, but don't get a ton of those.
Speaker 2:
But we do like to work with very scalable tech businesses.
Speaker 2:
Just because the potential for, you know, growing in the region and kind of seeding that next big enterprise, we do work with those and that's part of our accelerated program is pursuing those specifically for that program.
Speaker 2:
But for, as a whole, you know, startup junkie as a whole, the ultimate goal is just to lower barriers to entrepreneurship, to get folks started in through the door and to be able to you know they might have a side hustle and and they might not even want to, you know, scale it and quit their day job and, you know, exit it, you know, get a big check one day. Maybe they just want to do that side hustle forever and and and yeah, that's perfectly fine, we'll help them, you know, with anything we can help them with. And then we get folks that you know they are. That is the goal, is to kind of build up a very sustainable business and and then exit it and then retire into the sunset. We've seen those folks too. So, like I said, we take all comers, because I think it takes all of those types of entrepreneurs to really build a solid tier sustainable ecosystem to your sustainable ecosystem.
Speaker 1:
I agree, I agree, and it sounds like you guys are very accommodating, more so than some of the incubators and places that I've seen.
Speaker 2:
We see some interesting stuff. Oh, I'm sure you guys get some crazy ideas.
Speaker 1:
But the fact that you're going to listen, I mean. God bless you guys for doing that. So how do people reach out to you? How do they find the organization? Can they email you directly, or is there somebody better? What should they do?
Speaker 2:
They're more than welcome to email me. My email is Caleb C-A-L-E-B at startupjunkieorg. Actually, on our website, there's a portal right there at the front, right as you log on. That will connect you with somebody if you're interested in meeting with us. Like I said, no cost for folks to to connect with us to take consulting meetings. We don't charge for anything. We're nonprofit, uh funded to do this work. Um, I would encourage folks to to check us out and give us a shout if there's anything we could help them with, whether they're an entrepreneur or you know, maybe they're a like-minded organization that wants to do similar work and, you know, just wants to share ideas. Uh, we welcome that too. And if they're in the region, we do about 250 events a year as well. Uh intended to bring folks together, um to say uh, motivate, inspirate and collaborate. So, um, you know we do do a lot of those, uh, so encourage folks to come. Come if they're nearby, close. Like I said, we're in the middle of everything, so come and see us sometime.
Speaker 1:
Well, and I love your headline on the website improving lives through innovation and entrepreneurship and that is very true. That's what I've experienced being an entrepreneur and seeing other entrepreneurs and it definitely improves people's lives and it has a multiplying effect. I will tell you that right now. So, caleb, I really appreciate it. Man, this has been great. I love talking to guys like you and God bless you for doing this kind of work, and it is going to have effects years beyond you, I would say.
Speaker 2:
Well, I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1:
Thanks. Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of side hustle city. Well, you've heard from our guests. Now let's hear from you. Join our community on Facebook, side hustle city. It's a group where people share ideas, share their inspirational stories and motivate each other to be successful and turn their side hustle into their main hustle. We'll see you there and we'll see you next week on the show. Thank you.
