EP1: Why

Episode 1: Why

Zach Oshinbanjo: All right. So we’re going to be here for episode one of founder problems. And today we’re going to talk about why we do this, why we’re entrepreneurs and why we’ve decided that we should have a podcast. So for this topic, I’m really going to focus on the common thread that is, existed in my entire professional career.

And that’s identifying problems, getting sick of them and being naive, ambitious or stubborn enough to think that. I am the person, in fact, that even before my existence and all time, it was me that I was supposed to address this problem. So that’s where I’m going from my viewpoint. What do you think?

Lee Zuvanich: Okay. Why are we here? Why am I an entrepreneur? I’ve always maintained that. Yeah I’m a natural problem solver. I think that I thrive in chaotic environments and entrepreneurship. True. I was born to be an [00:01:00] entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is a mental illness. And I say that very lightly because I’ve, been diagnosed with all manner of things from the DSM.

Yeah, not to poke fun at mental illness, but to, to very earnestly suggest that it’s maybe not always coming from the healthiest place, but we show up every day ready to solve problems. And for some of us like me, we will. Just steamroll people that get in our way. That’s how intense it is.

If I had a boss that wouldn’t let me solve a problem, all hell would break loose. So here I am solving other people’s problems for money now, but like it was a long journey to get here through. Public school being hell and stuff like that. 

Sarah Schumacher: Yeah, I would say it’s intolerance for inefficiency.

It’s like an inability to deal with things being done badly, and then a tenacity to figure it out and do it, and then this bias to action. It’s all those things combined, I think, because that’s definitely like the through line for what I’ve yeah, it’s just no, like, why are we doing things this way?

Is [00:02:00] this the most efficient way to do them? It’s not. Okay, then let’s figure out a better way. And constantly improve it. Just constantly optimizing things. But in every possible facet of everything. 

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah. And growing up, my family would always say, We don’t know where you came from. I don’t know if you guys have ever heard anything like that.

Zach Oshinbanjo: I haven’t heard that one. I’ve heard a lot of things.

Sarah Schumacher: It was a compliment I guess.

Lee Zuvanich: I think because it would mainly be said because they’re all so introverted and I would be the one that was like excited to go to the school dance and excited to organize people, excited to do public speaking.

That’s weird. That’s a little bit rare. Yeah, that’s true. So just that idea that like my approach and the way I view the world, I don’t see the world as a hostile place. It’s, for me, it’s full of friends. And they all need my help. Which is a little codependent. That’s often been said about me too.

That’s my why I think.

Zach Oshinbanjo: I’ll go ahead and jump in. As I’m thinking about sparing everyone the preamble here my entire journey professionally has been I think [00:03:00] largely driven by some sort of self envisioned achievement. Trying to go through school. And do all the right things and getting into school and eventually deciding that being being in school, wasn’t the path that made a lot of sense for me.

So I ended up joining the military on impulse. And I would say that was probably a very strong shift in my line. I probably could have been, I don’t know, an electrical engineer, some type of physicist or, Fortunately, unfortunately, a lawyer or something like that. But I ended up in the military and that is a, an organization that is full of its own types of problems that need to be solved.

And they’re not necessarily put in a position where you can address those. Unless you go all the way to the top. Going through the military, getting out of the military and eventually landing in social work, I was then, Facing other people’s problems on a daily basis. I think at the [00:04:00] highest I had 24 clients in rotation that were from Lee’s Summit down to Sal, Lee’s Summit down to downtown Kansas City.

So they’re all over the city serving 12 hospitals. So just trying to help these people in their situations. But eventually it moved more into how do I address the issues that I’m facing? In my own life. And how do I try to challenge the status quo? And then I started doing some work in government became a mailman.

That was probably one of my first attempts at solving problems. Those routes are timed and clocked, a mail person is supposed to be at a certain house at a certain time, they have scanners along the route, maybe six or seven that they’re supposed to scan. And I found that there was a reason that every route took eight hours automatically every time.

That’s because, people are slowing down. And so when I hop on a route, I did it in half the time. Because it was like, oh, I’m not taking the courtesy stop and look arounds, the [00:05:00] let me talk to Ms. Johnson for an hour, all this extra stuff that goes on. So I. I guess solved but also created a problem for the people in the mail station because now they had to hustle to meet their new route times.

But Yeah going through that First failed idea. I tried to make gummy bears for diabetics to address low blood sugar didn’t work then I moved into I thought I was gonna make a medication kiosk. That didn’t work either. And then I started doing some more government work and then I landed where I am now.

With Vetelligence trying to address the problems of military transition and ultimately this has been a hellified road. Some would liken it to what is Dante Alighieri when he gets to outside like the gates of hell all over the world. Abandon all hope or whatever. Yeah, cause that’s what I feel like this journey has been is just abandon all hope.

Cause this is a fool’s errand, like trying to address this [00:06:00] problem. But I’ll say, like I said at the beginning I’m naive or stubborn or crazy enough to believe everybody else has probably looked at this wrong and, or they haven’t given it the time that it needs to actually be addressed and that’s the path that I set out on is to try to solve this problem. I do some other stuff with nonprofit nonprofits trying to address the problem of how shortages there’s always a problem to be solved. And I think that’s one of those common threads is I’ve observed a problem that affects a lot of different people and people aren’t necessarily drawn to trying to address it because it’s not cool.

It’s not a drone. It’s not. Virtual. GPU, it’s, not ai. Yeah, it’s not ai, although that might be a piece of it, but I don’t, can’t you ai. I don’t need ai.

Lee Zuvanich: Oh, I was gonna say, can’t you AI help soldiers? You’ve done that too. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: But it, I feel like people don’t have the same muster or feel good about it as all this other glamor stuff that people do.

Sarah Schumacher: It’s utilitarian. You have a specific set of problems [00:07:00] then that you’re drawn to. The personnel piece and like the that whole thing. Yeah, so it feels like maybe there’s like you’ve done different things, but there’s also a thread there that tenacity piece that I mean where it’s like There’s one thing that really bothers you that no one else cares about and so it’s there’s an angle that you’re like This needs solved and I can’t let go of this particular problem. There’s a reason that you’ve landed on the one that you’re on now. That’s always the thing that I’m curious about, how do you end up with cause everybody wants to solve a we’re all solving problems, but why do we land on the problem that we’re hung up on?

Zach Oshinbanjo: I think it was as Lee mentioned, it was my own problem at one point, like getting out of the military, it was like, you get checked out and you leave. There’s no kind of exchange. There’s no transference. There’s. You just leave. And I think I was like, that’s nuts.

There’s no way in an organization of this size, this many people, and as long as it’s existed, hasn’t found a way to systemize the mass migration of over 200, 000 people every year. Like how has [00:08:00] that not been done in some capacity? And this is also just as a future set. If you’re thinking about problems before they arrive, Would you not want everybody to be honky dory before they’re on the outside and having to resubmit paperwork and go through this process?

But maybe that’s just, maybe that’s crazy.

Sarah Schumacher: Can you give a quick one line Vetegelligence mission for people that don’t know?

Zach Oshinbanjo: What it is today or what was it originally?

Sarah Schumacher: The concept of like you’re trying to connect. people exiting the military with civilian jobs that they’re qualified for because of their experience in the military, right? Because I would say for people that don’t know that, I think that’s an important angle, that’s what you’re trying to do with Vetelligence and how that happens may look different, but that’s the problem that you’re solving and I’m hearing that it’s a problem that you’re solving because you’ve experienced it personally.

That, I think that’s an important thing to land on because that is really important when you have personal experience of something. You’re like, this is not okay, I now understand how this works because I’ve been through this myself, and I want to make sure no one else has to go through the same issue again.

And I think that’s why so many of us start things. It’s that.

Lee Zuvanich: You’ve [00:09:00] experienced the, almost the full arc now of the entrepreneur’s journey because you started with your personal problem. And then the market responded.

Zach Oshinbanjo: Yes.

Lee Zuvanich: So you pivoted?

Zach Oshinbanjo: Yes, the market is very loud, and it will tell you things that it does not care for and it will not pay for.

Sometimes it does it very quick in a hurry, and you can dissolve your company without accepting any outside capital. Or, sometimes it takes, I don’t know, three and a half years, just shy of four, and then you figure it out and you pivot. You have to have those hard conversations with initial investors and people who, We’re following the previous dream.

Yeah. Yeah. So now you’re in a different space and you’re trying to get it all figured out. But it’s all centered around trying to address this problem that may take shape. Because one of those things like my wife would often say is, Don’t just think you’re the guy looking out the building with his hand on his chin thinking, They got it all wrong.

There’s a reason that something [00:10:00] hasn’t been done. And so now I have more context, more understanding. I know what makes more sense. 

Sarah Schumacher: that’s very valuable, too. 

Lee Zuvanich: So for me my why I am who I am where I am what I’m doing I think has changed over the years. I was a teenager when I started my first businesses and I Just loved to work was like my happy place. There’s a lot of chaos in my home environment You And I would, when I was really young, walk to the library pretty much every day and just read. And then they would give us those little handouts at school where you could sell stuff, and I would go door to door selling things.

And I got a huge rush from that. I’d wear I’d get a button down shirt, and it would be way too big for me. It’d be one of my parents shirts, and I’d tuck it in. And I was so tiny and I just, Oklahoma in the nineties, just for blocks, just all by myself at I don’t know, eight years old selling candles and chocolates and whatever.

And I loved it. I loved it for its own sake. [00:11:00] And then I started going on mission trips and I loved helping people and I loved it so much. I would come home and I would actually organize my own trips. I would stay in touch with the organizations our churches had taken us to and get a bunch of teenagers together.

And organize another trip because I wanted to go back so badly and go do more work. So I ended up in my teens fundraising and taking people to other states to do mission relief type things. And I loved that. I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know there was a name for any of it. Everyone just thought I was weird and then dropped out of high school.

Didn’t want to go into debt for college, which was my only option. So I started my first non profit, but at the time I didn’t know that’s what it was. I was just taking my friends on another trip, but we ended up going all over the country to all these different organizations I had networked with over the years.

I did all the fundraising, and it was enough to support us. We ended up in New Orleans doing hurricane disaster relief, and partnered with a huge organization that gave us [00:12:00] a building. We opened a women’s shelter. And I was probably on a really cool trajectory between that and teaching myself to code and making websites for money.

I could have had, probably a few different career options, but instead I became. a stay at home parent and Was really into it for a while and then became unexpectedly a single parent with no degree no money No way to tell anyone what my experience was. I didn’t know how to tell the story at the time I was like, I don’t know I started a club.

I Was a missionary no one wanted to hire me So I started a home daycare to survive and I needed a rent in three weeks And even the rental office, like they did not care what I had been through. There was no police report to prove anything had been going on with my ex. It had been terrible. And then left suddenly. They were just like pay or get out.

And I got the money together and I ended up making enough money to move us into a bigger house. And after that I was hooked. I can solve my own problems. I can help my [00:13:00] community. And I don’t need anyone standing in my way taking a cut of my money away from me and my kids. So then I was on that train and I just continued to start and scale businesses over the years.

I had a yoga studio, I’ve had two non profits, and two tech companies. It’s just been a journey of responding to my family’s needs, to what the market will support, and what my own lifestyle can maintain at any given moment. But then I had a moment like Zach’s one day where I was running my tech company cause I had gotten into enterprise level software development and gotten a team together.

And it was the same as what I was doing as a teenager. I just get some people I like and we agree to do a thing and we find money for that thing. So I was just running a little like app building business that way. But I had worked for other agencies because I have a much longer story. I’m condensing for time here and I have worked for other people plenty, but I always ended up coming back to [00:14:00] entrepreneurship.

So I was thinking about all of the different experiences I’d had working for agencies. And I started whiteboarding this marketplace and it was like Amazon, but for service based businesses. Cause we’ve all been taken advantage of when we’ve gotten ripped off by the person fixing our car or writing code for our website or whatever.

And I just heard this story so many times as a developer, someone managing developers. Entrepreneurs would come to me and say they’d lost their life savings, they’d lost all the money that they’d been given by investors who trusted them because they trusted the wrong vendor . So I had this big, beautiful vision.

For how to standardize the pricing and hold vendors accountable and make everyone’s lives easier and bring us into the future. Cause this is obviously the next kind of wave of how to sell things on the internet is standardized services and sell services and make all that easier for everyone.

Like getting your bathroom remodeled right now is a nightmare and it doesn’t have to be. So that was my vision and I was [00:15:00] terrified by it. I also had this moment of like, why me? It’s not me. It couldn’t be me. It’s too big. That’s a Jeff Bezos size vision. And then I just slept on it for a few weeks and I had this big whiteboard in my office.

I kept looking at with the whole thing mapped out. And one day I realized it has to be me because I’m the only person who’s gone through, I’ve been a social worker. I’ve started businesses of all sizes. I’ve worked at enterprise level tech. I’ve helped small business owners and watch them get taken advantage of by vendors over and over again.

And I’m the only one in the room that ever cared. Everyone else was either the engineer just getting paid to do the work or the C suite level executive that was like, tell them to pay or get out. Like we’re a business. We’re not building their app for free. This isn’t a charity. And I’m the one that had to go to them and be like, I know you emptied your life savings into this vision.

But we can’t fix all the bugs and help you go to market until you come up with another 50, [00:16:00] 000. So I was the only one motivated and really that to me was the catalyst. It wasn’t just seeing the problem, knowing the problem. Like you said, the military, they know these problems exist. There’s no one incented to fix it.

We are the people we’re coming to save ourselves. No one’s coming to save us. So for me, it’s always been that like, no one’s coming to save me or no one’s coming to save this group. It’s me or it’s nobody. So pick my favorite idea. So that’s what I did. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: It’s like a commonality within this need to help people. Almost feel like there’s a core belief with most people.

Rough percentage would probably be in the nineties of people when they do start a, an organization or a business, maybe at its core, it’s to help people. But somehow some people it just gets lost along the way because otherwise if you’re trying to solve a problem And it’s really just something you’re trying to do just do it for yourself, and then you keep it quiet.

It doesn’t be this Goldberg type contraption you got in your house like [00:17:00] this is sweet. It cooks eggs in 10 seconds, and it’s just for you. But the reality is it’s like you want to help you like this can help other people so you get it out There. Is money a secondary or even a primary objective sometimes, but not every time

Sarah Schumacher: I would say for a lot of small businesses, I think it’s definitely a secondary objective. That’s never been like a motivating factor for me.

The E-Myth by Michael Gerber, he talks about the different types of people start businesses And there’s the technician and the manager and something else I’m not remembering . I’m very much a technician So it’s like the person that like starts the business because you know how to do the work and you’re like I’m doing the thing So I’m starting the thing versus someone that’s like a manager that knows how to manage people.

 So I think there’s different challenges that happen depending on what type of person you are when you start something. I think is interesting to hear how that affects people’s journeys.

Zach Oshinbanjo: I’d be curious what the other ones are, or if there are more. 

Sarah Schumacher: I think that there’s three and I’m just spacing on one. The technician’s the doer and then it’s like a person that manages people and then the other one may just be like an entrepreneur, like someone that just does, starts stuff.

Lee Zuvanich: The visionary. 

Sarah Schumacher: Yeah, because there’s a visionary and the integrator from the Traction book and that’s [00:18:00] different.

This concept is more like, if you start a business as a person that does the work, it’s going to be harder for you to hire other people that do the work. Versus if you start as a manager, it’s gonna be harder for you to understand what the people do that you’re hiring. They’re just different challenges to consider.

 Trajectory wise for me why I’ve ended up where I am. It’s really organic, honestly, and it’s one of those things that kind of feels inevitable that I’m doing this now, but it wasn’t a planned thing.

I figured out that I wanted to do design. So I get a job doing design and then do classes at night. So the the real world experience is what I was getting. And I ended up in the print industry. So I’m working in the print industry. And because people know that I’m just doing, business card design and printing and stuff at my day job, people just ask me to do stuff, so it’s Oh, Hey, can you do this thing for my business? You could do whatever, and then it really kicked off when I got married. I had these crazy invitations, and these detailed programs, and people loved them.

 All of our friends were getting married. Everybody wanted me to do their wedding invitations. All of a sudden I’m doing freelance work, designing and printing wedding invitations, and then I’m still doing the business stuff. I’m working full [00:19:00] time, and that just grew.

It wasn’t , I’m gonna start a business, it was, oh, I guess I’ll make a logo, and I’ll register a name, it was very haphazard, I was just having fun, and so that’s how it ended up starting, and then it just kept growing, and I kept doing more and more stuff, and then when I got laid off from a different printing job, I was just done.

It was frustrating. I debated a career change for a minute. And I’m like, no, I’m just going to do this full time. And so I took Kauffman’s FastTrac NewVenture program, which I believe is now called Elevation Lab through the SBDC.

You can still take it as far as I know the curriculum is the same. It’s fantastic. Highly recommend it to everybody. The NewVenture one is if you’re starting a new business. So after I got laid off, I took this class. I remember realizing I have not been intentional about what I’m doing at all.

At the time, I was doing a lot of work for a school, I was working with a bunch of law firms, and I was doing a ton of weddings. These are completely different things happening, and what do I really want to do with this? And that is when I formed Cyclone Press officially. I spent the better part of a year completely rebranding.

Doing my own logo, which is just the absolute worst thing for a designer to do their [00:20:00] own logo, because you’re too close to it, and it’s too important to you.

 So I said, no more weddings. I’m not doing wedding stuff anymore. I didn’t even like doing them. Just nixed that entirely. It was 2009.

I’m doing branding for small businesses. And when you do branding stuff with people you do the logo and the stationery and everything else. They ask you to start doing the website. So it was one of those things was like, Oh, can you please do my website? That’d be amazing if you could also do this or, the company that was terrible, like we’d love for you to just handle it.

And I’m like, Sure, because I had already built quite a few websites by that point. The first website I actually I ever built was actually in high school. I just did an HTML site from scratch to share my chord charts for kicks. I’ve always been tech savvy and so it was just a natural sure, why not?

Everything I do is self-taught. So I started adding the website piece of things and then I took FastTrac GrowthVenture. That’s the second level of their class, where it is established businesses, what do you do to get to the next level? It’s been nearly 10 years since I’ve taken that class.

 There was a specific workshop in that class where I suddenly realized [00:21:00] that design was no longer meaningful work for me. And that was a big deal because that was not at all on my radar.

 It was not a thing I was thinking about. I started out as a designer. I’ve always identified as a designer. I will never not be , I can’t not be. That’s just part of who I am, but it was not what I enjoyed doing anymore. And this changes everything. Cause, I had realized it was more about the business consulting piece of things. Cause when you’re working with the smaller businesses and the startups, it’s really about. Addressing their needs and helping them figure out the next step. And that was the strategic stuff was what I enjoyed doing.

And I think there was probably a piece of web development in there as well. Cause I really enjoyed the website stuff a lot. I was really enjoying that piece of it. So that’s, I made another shift there with what I was doing and started focusing more on building out my team and I quit doing the design myself.

I quit doing these big intensive brand packages that I’d been doing cause I did not want to do those anymore. So that was like my next pivot. Then I eventually had to make the decision to completely nix print. Because when I had started out, I was doing branding, design, and [00:22:00] printing.

So printing was a very big part of what I did. And I nixed that entirely and went websites only in 2020 maybe? I don’t remember. It’s been a while. I basically had to make another decision there. And that’s one of the things that like I feel like is really important for all these journeys.

Not only are you choosing where you’re going, but you have to say no to stuff. I had to make a point of okay, I’m cutting off and trimming this particular service. I am choosing to focus on this one, now I’m cutting off this one, and then even now I’m further refining packages and reducing what I’m doing, because I’m trying to systematize things, and you can’t have systems and processes built out if you’ve got 15, 000 different products.

It’s just not gonna work. I say websites are arbitrary. They’re the vehicle I use to help people build better businesses because through all of that, the thing I’ve landed on is just that incentive to help people make entrepreneurship sustainable, because you’ve got this person that has an idea and they’re like, Oh, I have this thing I want to do, or this, the problem, right?

I have a problem that I really want to solve that affects [00:23:00] me. Or, I’ve been working full time in this industry and I’m really good at it, but I’m ready to do this on my own as a consultant or a coach or something. It’s helping those people figure out how to make that sustainable and make them look good on the internet.

Like just, it’s way more than the website piece of things and it’s so interesting that I started out all about the design and that’s still very much what we do, but it’s now very much about this Foundational how do we support you in your founder journey?

 It’s just way bigger. 

One of the things I want to highlight too is I actually quit going to night school. Because I did the cost benefit analysis, didn’t make any sense. I’m like, I am paying, I’m working full time. I am paying you to go to classes where I learn absolutely nothing.

And then in the meantime, people are paying me to do work for them, that I then have to find time to do. Why not just quit and then do this as a business? So that’s what I did. And I think a lot of people start out that way. But I also think that’s important to realize, you don’t have to have in certain industries, you don’t have to have degrees

if you have this self-starter mindset and this ability to teach yourself things. You can go really far with that. A lot of it is [00:24:00] also about your incentives for why you Do it. So for me, it’s really about helping people That have this idea that they want to take to another level.

So that’s where I’m at now.

I think one thing that we have failed to do here is actually name all of our businesses what we’re doing For people that are have no idea who we are So my primary one is cyclone press and we do website design and development.

Zach Oshinbanjo: I have Vetelligence. I also run a non profit called SITE.

Lee Zuvanich: I’ve got a non profit named Transitional Justice. Two for profits. One is an app development business, Adva Digital Solutions. And then Appsta is the marketplace that I was too intimidated to start for a while, but is now built and about to be launched someday.

Sarah Schumacher: I think so much of this comes down to there’s a problem here that I’m seeing. We host, we do all these things, I’ve been refining the way we build websites for a decade at this point because I saw all these problems and this is not how things should be done.

But just getting there was this weird trajectory. it’s interesting to see where you end up and then it’s not necessarily what you [00:25:00] planned. there’s a pivot that happens but the pivot only happens if you take the step to go somewhere.

 I’m constantly telling people just launch just do it and see what happens because you’re gonna end up landing somewhere that you never would have expected but that’s not gonna happen if you’re just sitting around trying to make the perfect plan.

Zach Oshinbanjo: I think that goes into what you mentioned earlier about the whole There’s not necessarily a specific channel of experience necessary. Your self taught, and I guess in my scope I’m self taught government contractee person. There’s tomes of contracting code and far and Otar and I far and all the different uniform codes and guidance for the government can spend this. They can’t spend this. They can do this in the end of the year. There’s so many rules and I think that all just helps to propel people. But sometimes there is a case where, somebody wants to make a better vet app. And they’re a veterinarian or better scheduling app for veterinarians or something like that.

It’s just a one on one, but sometimes it’s just what your actual contextual understanding is on an issue. Could you go forward and do that? Solve that with the new information that you’ve [00:26:00] acquired.

Sarah Schumacher: Creativity is the thing I’d highlight for entrepreneurs are creative people as well Because creativity is just linking ideas from different realms together in a new way.

 You’re seeing all of this stuff that you’ve been a part of or you that you’ve watched happen or you have a better understanding than most people and then you’re pulling from these private sector ideas and government only you can see because of your experience.

 I’ve ended up in website stuff because I was doing, Branding because I’m technical. I’m also a writer and so it’s like part of the marketing and writing piece too. All these random things come together that I think people are good at and if you follow intuition, there’s not a box you can pick on a sheet of what your major’s gonna be if you’re a whole human. Because you’re going to have these different experiences. You’re the perfect person to do this specific thing that no one could define as a job. You know what I mean?

Lee Zuvanich: it is a job. It’s my job. 

Sarah Schumacher: It’s my job because I made it my job because that’s why I’m an entrepreneur. Why I like, I am so pro entrepreneurship because that’s what you’re doing is you are creating your own job description [00:27:00] around your unique set of skills and abilities.

Lee Zuvanich: That’s exactly what I’ve been doing. It’s like my kids need me to stay home. I need to make money. Yeah. Shit, home daycare. And then after that, I was like, I need a mental health reset. Put the kids in school now, start a yoga studio, get paid to meditate like that was amazing.

Sarah Schumacher: That’s seeing that’s another angle too It’s not just about people’s unique experiences and what they’re best suited for But it’s also about the stage of life that you’re in because life does not remain static It is this ebb and flow of responsibilities or you know Dealing with having a four year old is wildly different than having a ten year old, right?

it’s just yeah, you can’t run things the same way and yet The general world and workforce expects you to do that and it does not match human experience. 

Lee Zuvanich: I think that the burden of a lot of that falls on domestic labor. So women typically.

Sarah Schumacher: Part of the reason that I wanted to run a business was because I had a kid in the middle of all of that and I was able to make that work on my Terms [00:28:00] because I wasn’t holding anybody else’s schedule or requirements or being anywhere or whatever. But that still changed right because, he’s a baby, he sleeps in the car seat while I work at a coffee shop.

Doesn’t change things a ton, right? They start crawling, okay, now I have to pay for childcare? Now I have to be better about the finance piece of the business, because I’m having to pay for time to work, so then that shifts, and then, maybe things are less available, and then now it’s okay, things are way different. I could do more stuff if I wanted at this point.

And I think that just doesn’t match most people’s jobs. Jobs are not set up that way. But if you run a business, you can set it up that way if you’re intentional about it.

Cause some of us still suck at this. I’m gonna run a business so I have the freedom to take vacations whenever I want. Then we never take vacations.

Zach Oshinbanjo: I set my own hours.

Sarah Schumacher: Yeah, exactly. And then you work all the time.

Lee Zuvanich: 80 hours a week.

Sarah Schumacher: 80 hours a week, yeah. For sure, yeah. That’s why I say intentional is important. But yeah that’s to me overall that’s secondary. Design a thing around what works for your unique skill sets.

And then also make it work for the stage of life that you’re at.

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah, what’s I think interesting about lack of structure for entrepreneurs, because a lot of [00:29:00] us are ADD and we have to have our own very unique brand of structure. Probably more people than they’ll even admit, often they hit their second wind at 9pm and that’s when they get shit done.

That’s a very ADHD trait. And I used to do that a lot. I actually only stopped because I had a health scare and I was like, I can’t keep pulling these all nighters, but that’s I get two weeks or a month’s worth of work done in a 24 hour just bender. But Zach, you’re more structured than most entrepreneurs I’ve met.

But what I think is really interesting is you and I both dropped out of engineering school. I was in school for civil engineering. I was half done. You were half done with electrical engineering, right? 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Yeah, I was getting all my prereqs and going through all the electrical engineering work. 

Lee Zuvanich: Yeah and we’re both suited to work long hours and do intellectual technical work. I don’t know about you, but I know I never would have made it as a civil engineer.

Sarah Schumacher: On your terms though.

Lee Zuvanich: Yes. On my terms. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: Yeah, I would. I don’t know if that is even the end goal. I think I was very focused on some [00:30:00] life that was seemingly different than my upbringing. I think whatever that looked like I think was either through engineering or law school or something that was mad, magically different.

Lee Zuvanich: But then you jumped into military. Yeah. This is your bias for action.

Zach Oshinbanjo: In an environment that doesn’t necessarily reward that or individuality.

Lee Zuvanich: I can just imagine what that was like.

Zach Oshinbanjo: That’s another story. So I guess that brings us to why are we doing this? Why are we doing the podcast? What makes us want to have these kind of discussions?

Lee Zuvanich: Something that you both mentioned was I think very important to bring back up for this piece because for me, I wanted to do this podcast so that we could give this sense of community to other people that aren’t necessarily able to just plug in.

Maybe you don’t live in a big city, or for whatever reason, maybe you’re. Single, stay at home parent just grinding it out like I used to be and I didn’t have time or money to hire a babysitter to go network to hopefully make a connection with some random [00:31:00] tech bro or whatever it was that I needed in that moment 15 years ago, I didn’t have very much of it.

And I want to give this sense of community that I’ve found since then, now that I have more freedom and time and I’ve been able to be in programs and network and build a community. I want to be able to give that feeling to people who, anyone that could download this podcast and listen to it. But I had a question for you both because it sounded like along the course of your journey, you were impacted by your community in a similar way, like through a program, like all three of us have done at least one state funded program that helps entrepreneurs.

And I don’t know if that was a big piece for you or if it was more so the smaller moments of like accountability and support that we get from each other as we meet entrepreneurs. But for me, I don’t think that I would have gone down this road at all if it weren’t for all of my influences, starting with my family. My aunt owned a home daycare.

So I had seen that in action [00:32:00] and people in my family, like my grandma started a typing business born out of just I don’t know, computer home computers becoming a thing. And my family’s very tech savvy. My mom’s a self taught graphic designer. My dad went from laying tile and doing that as a business to working as one of the first Amazon employees. So I was just around this kind of innovative Group of people in small town, Oklahoma and then moving to Kansas City I went to meetups and group events when I could and I would get life lessons from people. One of the best ones I ever learned was from the Founder of Topsy’s who has no idea who I am, but I met him and he taught us in this 2030 CEO thing that Eze Redwood used to run: That we should wait for the right moment and always be prepared for a huge opportunity to come along. because apparently, he made his fortune in real estate not in popcorn And candy, like everyone thinks here in Kansas City.

He was talking about the housing [00:33:00] market shift in 2006 and how he was ready for it and telling us, save your money and wait for that moment. It will happen. You don’t know when it could be 20 years from now, but be prepared because that’s what creates great entrepreneurs. So when I had my idea for my marketplace, I was saving my money and I was quite literally waiting for my idea.

And it was because of that advice. So for you guys, what. Moments of community Influenced you or do you think that was a big influence or did it come from within some magical? Individualistic way.

Sarah Schumacher: I would have done this regardless because I wasn’t really connected to any of that my dad’s always done like side project Stuff I think he actually would make a great entrepreneur.

That’s just not what he ended up doing. My uncle did run a business It wasn’t necessarily something I thought about or had modeled or anything. It’s just the kind of how I’m wired You And so that, that part would have happened regardless, but one of the things, as far as goal for the podcast would be mentorship for people that didn’t have it because one of the things I would say to my past self after all the expensive credit hours, because I [00:34:00] originally went to William Jewell and I just transferred out when I started to design because they I don’t even have an art department anymore. I spent all that time and money and homework and it feels like a waste to have not done something with it. So looking back, if I had a mentor of some kind, I would have advised just switch to a business degree and finish. I was already freelancing. So I think the business end goal would have made sense. I did not yet know I was a business nerd. I had not Found that thing yet. But if I was talking to myself now, I would be like, yeah, just switch to a business degree.

’cause then you’re gonna at least get some stuff that’s useful and then at least finish, make it worth what you did at that time.

Lee Zuvanich: That’s like a whole another episode. Like advice I would give my former self. 

Sarah Schumacher: Oh, totally. And it’s just the way it shook out, it’s, it is what it is.

But if I had a mentor at that point in time. Maybe that would have been different. So being able to provide that now to people that are in this position. And then as far as the pivot points, yeah, FastTrac’s amazing.

As far as I know, they still have scholarships for them. I think it just really puts a solid foundation under people. I have seen people take the class and decide not to do the business or not to do the one that they thought they were going to do because they’ve suddenly realized how much goes into it, right?

 [00:35:00] I connected someone that wanted to do a manufacturing business one time with someone at the SBDC who had experience with that particular industry and said, go talk to her. And the person decided not to do it because they realized just how difficult it would have been. And that’s really helpful.

To prevent people from going down paths that are just gonna be a disaster or just harder than they need to be. So I think that stuff’s really important I also got really plugged into the entrepreneur community here in Kansas City. The ecosystem for that is just amazing and Very open and very helpful and I’ve just connect with a lot of people through that over the last decade. But I originally wasn’t I didn’t do a lot of that until my kid was old enough to have a babysitter, maybe?

 There’s a lot of resources that are available that you don’t know are there. You have to find them, and then you have to go. I was a regular at One Million Cups for years And I had known about it for several years before I ever got around to going, right?

So it’s just part of it is encouraging people to go do that thing. And also there is this thing, do you know that we have KC SourceLink? We have the resource navigator, which is an amazing tool.

 Stuff [00:36:00] like that, I really want to make sure people understand that those resources are available. And that when you go to these things, people are really willing to have conversations and help with wherever you’re at. And if they don’t know someone, they’ll know someone else too.

Zach Oshinbanjo: I would say for me the programs are definitely good. I’ve had my fair share of accelerators, fellowships, and programs. And, I think maybe some of my initial feeling came from my own, I don’t want to say escape, because, I survived. I’m at my current age. I was able to get The things I needed and I was able to go about the life that I needed to but I think a part of me wanted to have more of a sense of control because I think in maybe in kind of that environment, I felt like a lot of things were happening to me and so I felt maybe that if I was able to create something or hold something as my own, I would be able to move in a direction that allowed me to have more of a sense of control because even if you are entrepreneurial minded and you’re very focused on control and doing things your own way.

Just being in that kind of chaotic environment where you [00:37:00] can’t dictate any of the terms is very trying. So I think that’s one of the things that’s been a primary propellant for me wanting to keep going. Obviously to address the problem, to address the challenge. But I think the other piece of that is, I need to be able to control some facet in your life.

 You can walk outside and a dump truck could flatten you, and you have just no idea. I just, it gives me a sense of control. As far as the podcast piece, I think I want to show the contrast that everyone’s entrepreneurial journey isn’t the televised, scripted version that I feel like media and people propagate.

It’s a hard road in those manufactured statements and things that you hear so how do you start the business? I pitched the business and voila. So much of what happened and the hardship and this I’ve been at this nearly four years and I still, it wanes, but I still have the same enthusiasm as I did [00:38:00] back in July of 2021. And I think that is a part of the story that needs to be told. And I think a lot of people miss out on that.

Lee Zuvanich: That’s a whole episode. How to maintain your enthusiasm. 

Zach Oshinbanjo: How do you keep it going? I talked to one person about my business and they called me stupid, so I stopped. 

Lee Zuvanich: It’s so much worse than that. People attack your whole vision, your market, your numbers. And you have to be ready .

Sarah Schumacher: There’s also a different way to do that too. I bootstrapped everything I’ve done. A way of showing things that are different, there’s a slow growth bootstrapping, I’ve been doing this for 15 years, I think, at this point. Could I have done a lot more, a lot faster with mentors and funding?

Sure. Do I want that? No. There’s different ways to go about it.

Zach Oshinbanjo: There’s programs, there’s, you can do the VC thing if you want to. Be stubborn like me and try to do government grant stuff and that’s a slog in itself. 

Sarah Schumacher: That’s a whole nother skill.

Zach Oshinbanjo: Those clocks are different, like you put in an application in January, you’ll know by September. You can’t make arrangements on that. So there’s so many different ways and I think, What people are seeing [00:39:00] flashing in commercials and out there is

Lee Zuvanich: 10 year overnight success because that’s the journey nobody sees. And that is what I want us to talk more about and just share What we get to hear, it’s privileged, to be part of a community where you can go get drinks with someone and they’ve made millions and they’ll tell you like, Oh, I wouldn’t do it again.

I’ve heard that more times than I can count. So just sharing that organic and very vulnerable raw side of entrepreneurship is my goal.

Zach Oshinbanjo: I think that sums up everybody’s viewpoint.

 The big why the proverbial

Sarah Schumacher: why are we taking on yet another project? We already have a million other projects because this is how our brains work. 

Lee Zuvanich: This is therapy for me. 

Sarah Schumacher: It’s for us just as much as for people listening in.

Zach Oshinbanjo: That’s good enough for today.