Mac Lackey is one of Startup Southerner’s newest contributors. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, he’s founded and sold five startups, including his latest venture, KYCK, which was sold to NBC Sports. We’re excited to share his startup wisdom and been-there-done-that tips with our readers. But before we do, we sat down with Lackey to find out more about his entrepreneurial journey. Here’s what he had to say.

Q: These days there are plenty of college programs that teach entrepreneurship and then, of course, there’s the MBA. But you’re sort of proof that you don’t have to go that route to be successful. How did your major in psychology and experience as a soccer player influence you in your early days as an entrepreneur? And is it a good thing to have a background that’s not grounded in how businesses are supposed to work?

A: Some of the most valuable lessons I learned, the things that really shaped me, I learned on the soccer field. Soccer, or sports in general, are rooted in competition. They teach you to how to compete, how to have the drive to get better, the will to win, and to some degree the feeling of accomplishment. After you’ve worked really hard to master a new skill or work through a challenge you are having in your sport, then you get to go out and test it in a real game. If it works well you feel the rush of pride and accomplishment. If it didn’t work, you analyze your mistakes and go back to practice with the resolve to improve. That is startups. You have to have a will to win. It doesn’t matter if it’s raising money, building a new product, trying to land a key client or just surviving another 6 weeks on limited cash… the WILL TO WIN differentiates those who make it from those who don’t. The sports field is a great educator for entrepreneurs.

In terms of degrees, I don’t believe you need a degree in entrepreneurship or certainly an MBA. Actually I was meeting with a current MBA student recently who was asking how I valued an MBA and I warned him that I was opinionated and I may convince him to leave the program. Obviously there are certainly careers that require specific degrees and majors. You absolutely want your doctor or lawyer to have the appropriate classes, hours and degrees for example. However, for an entrepreneur, the value of school is much different in my opinion. Entrepreneurs learn best through experience. I often tell people the best way to learn is just to start. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, just focus on learning quickly, iterating on things that didn’t work well and repeat things that do. To me college is about learning independence, learning to love learning (which means you need to choose and study things you are interested in), learning to be flexible, learning discipline (getting the paper done when your soccer team has an out-of-town match and you have a party you want to go to) and getting exposed to new things outside of your comfort zone. But to be an entrepreneur you have to just jump in.

Q: Having started five companies (and sold all of them) you’ve undoubtedly had your fair share of experiences, good and bad. Can you talk about one or two of the highlights of your career as an entrepreneur?

A: I’ve had some amazing experiences personally and professionally as an entrepreneur. It ranges from bucket list things (I’ve had the freedom to travel to over 15 countries in the past two years for example) to meeting my childhood heroes to never missing my daughter’s dance recitals or school events. So being an entrepreneur for me has meant “freedom” and control of time as much as anything.

In terms of specific highlights, my favorite was in 2000. My company at the time The iSoccer Network (or “internetsoccer.com” as most people knew us) was growing very quickly. We were the largest producer of non-TV soccer content in the world. We had a term sheet for a BIG investment from a NY-based VC group… Then the bubble burst in March of 2000. Nasdaq crashed, our company had virtually no cash in the bank and the prospect of raising capital was now bleak. With less than two weeks of payroll left in the bank I boarded a plane to Europe where three of our larger competitors were based. I had no scheduled meetings but knew if I didn’t get a deal done with one of them we would be finished. I landed in London and called the CEO of one of the companies, noted I was there and would be meeting with a few of his competitors but would be happy to stop by while in town. He confirmed a meeting. I called the others saying I had a confirmed meeting with X company but would be happy to talk to him before we sold the company. Long story short, I created a bidding war and sold the company for $15 million… and we had $8,000 left in the bank.

Q: Undoubtedly many of our readers will look at you and say, “Wow, he’s really successful,” but we’re suspecting that it wasn’t all roses and sunshine all of the time. If you’re going to build five companies, there are going to be mistakes made and lessons learned more than a few times, right? Can you talk about one or two of the biggest, dumbest, and/or most costly mistakes you have made as an entrepreneur? And what is your advice to budding entrepreneurs as they make their own mistakes? 

A: It’s interesting… I often think of myself as having only one or two talents and many weaknesses. Similarly, I have had 20+ years of mistakes and challenges, but a few good decisions. So to me being an entrepreneur is about taking smart risks, where you know there will be stumbles and mistakes but they will really be chances to learn more and faster, not disasters. So calculated risks… controlled experiments.

In terms of specific stumbles, one (of many) is worth noting. We had started an apparel company called Mountain Khakis and were working on our first product samples. They looked great. Our marketing looked great. Our brand was dialed in. And we sent our first pairs out to potential retailers and some early customers. The next day we got a call that after washing the pants were very wrinkled. We all rushed home and threw our pants in the washer and dryer and wrinkled was an understatement. They turned into a ball of fabric. We obviously had a panic attack (or more accurately, completely freaked out). In the end we made some changes to the fabric and everything was great… Mountain Khakis went on to be a fantastic company and the fabric was one of the real highlights, but we learned the value and importance of “thorough testing” from that experience. Now I try to imagine every possible use of a product or technology and stress test it before I show it to the world.

Q: From what we can tell on your website, you’ve sort of mastered the art of making journalists’ jobs very easy. What benefit has that provided to you? And what is your advice to other entrepreneurs who are trying to position themselves as thought-leaders, perhaps not in as broad a stroke as entrepreneurship, but at least in their industry or community?

A: One thing to realize early in your career is that journalists NEED YOU. They have a job to do, which is to consistently get out good news and information—interesting things, timely things, etc. This is not easy so they rely on others to inform them, educate them and make their lives easier. So it’s a perception shift… Instead of “I need your help, please… would like you write about my company” you should be saying “I have some really interesting information on new trends your readers would be interested in. I can send you some charts/info or answer any questions you have.”  Once they realize you can help them, you become a great resource.

Learn more about Lackey and find his resources for entrepreneurs at MacLackey.com.

The post #MyStartupStory: Mac Lackey’s Journey From Soccer to Startup appeared first on Startup Southerner.

Mark Powell’s startup story (and photo) courtesy of Tallahassee, Florida-based Cuttlesoft.

Mark Powell is the founder of Hwind, one of Tallahassee, Florida’s most successful tech startups, but his entrepreneurial journey is a unique one. Instead of as a sleep-deprived 20-something wearing flannels and flip-flops, Powell started Hwind after a long career in research and academia.

With help from the local startup community and several different support organizations, Powell was able to turn his research at NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) into a profitable startup that was eventually acquired by RMS (Risk Management Solutions).

How did he do it? Well, it took passion, patience and perspiration. Keep reading to get a sense of how Powell took his passion for meteorology and turned it into a sustainable business.

Be patient

Powell developed Hwind’s core technology himself. But since he was a NOAA employee, his brainchild was the property of Uncle Sam. When he saw support at NOAA dwindling, he decided to take the project private. The process of gaining control over the Hwind patent took almost a year.

He could have easily given up during that time, but he stuck it out. For entrepreneurs looking to put research into action and make their dreams a reality, persistence and patience are key, he says.

“It took about a year to get the clearance from NOAA,” he says. “They basically had to ask ‘Is there any need for the government to hold on to this?’”

Don’t get discouraged

At one point, Powell was pitching his company to mentors at the Tallahassee Entrepreneurial Excellence Program (EEP). Being new to the entrepreneurship world, Mark was practicing his pitch. After the presentation, one of the judges reportedly told him ‘“you shouldn’t be doing this.”

But Powell didn’t let the negative feedback turn him away. As they say in sports, he “fed off the boos” and pushed forward. If everyone you talk to thinks your idea isn’t a hit, it may be time to reconsider. But the lesson here is that you should never let a single critic kill your drive.

“If you’re passionate about something, there’s no one else who can substitute for you,” he says.

Focus on products

As Powell and Hwind transitioned from government research project to enterprise startup, the most challenging thing for him to do was to figure out how to take his research and present it as a marketable product. Mark could see the value of his data and predictive models, and so could numerous other organizations that used his research.

According to Powell, pricing the value of the data he collected and the service he provided was one of the most difficult parts of creating his business. In the end, he got creative and used previous research funding from private companies as a point of reference.

“I thought, if it’s that important to this entity, that’s probably a reasonable price for someone else to expect to pay,” he says.

Practice makes pitching perfect

As a research scientist at NOAA, Powell undoubtedly had to “pitch” his idea to various organizations to elicit grants and funding. But pitching to a group of scientists is much different than selling your idea to investors. Through EEP and Florida A&M University’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC), Powell was able to develop his skills and build a better pitch.

It didn’t happen right away, however. Powell talked about how he needed to practice pitching—sometimes on stage, sometimes to mentors, and sometimes to nosy coworkers—before he was able to to effectively sell his idea. Even if your pitch doesn’t result in a win, every bit of practice helps. You’ll get ‘em next time.

“That was a great experience,” he says. “I didn’t get funding but I wasn’t looking for funding. I was looking for practice.”

Build a network and leverage your connections

Powell’s path to success was paved with help from a variety of support organizations within the community in Tallahassee. Powell participated in EEP and SBDC to make sure that he was prepared for the challenges of building a business from the ground up.

In addition, Powell made sure he was plugged into the burgeoning Tally startup scene, and was a frequent face at Domi Station, Tallahassee’s first ever coworking space and startup incubator. It was there that he learned to develop his pitching skills and create a network of connections that he could use to help grow his business.

“Even if you didn’t have a relationship with a particular business, you still had a relationship in common. No matter what the business, you could talk to people and share ideas.”

Want more startup advice? Read the full interview and other startup profiles at Cuttlesoft.com.

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Jeremy Lekich, Founder of Nashville Foodscapes

Jeremy Lekich, founder of Nashville Foodscapes, has been working with residents of Nashville, Tennessee, to create edible landscapes since 2011. What started as a college requirement quickly turned into a passion—and ultimately a business—for this Nashville native.

Lekich’s belief in educating others about food and his talent for designing beautiful, functional landscapes has resulted in features from NPR and The Daily Meal, to name a few. He sat down with us to answer a few questions about how he fell into foodscaping, his experience as a small business owner and about the importance of finding the right people when growing.

Q: Has growing and gardening always been a passion of yours?

A: Not really. I grew up in suburban Nashville. My parents would take me to Radnor Lake—and maybe they had a small garden—but it was never an active part of my life growing up. It was in college that I discovered a love and passion for gardening and growing food. It just totally consumed me, and I haven’t turned back.

Q: What exactly sparked your interest in gardening, and how did that lead to the foundation of Nashville Foodscapes?

A: I went to a small work college near Asheville, NC called Warren Wilson College. It’s a work college, meaning every student has to work 15 hours a week as part of their education… You can do everything from washing dishes to working on the farm there, to building instruments and renovating buildings.

I was on the landscaping crew, and we took care of the entire landscape grounds, as well as an edible foodscape in front of the eco-dorm. The landscaping supervisor there was very different from most of your conventional landscapers; he really loved using native plants and creating landscapes that looked pretty wild. Between that and working on the landscape, I really grew to love learning about these plants. And being down in the foodscape, I was learning to grow all these foods. I would give tours to visitors of the college—parents of new students and existing students and all kinds of people. And after hearing 20 times, “Oh my god, it’s so beautiful! I want this in my front yard or my backyard!” I was like, maybe I should consider starting a business doing this!

Originally my major was biochemistry, and I spent a lot of time in the laboratory, and I pretty quickly realized I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing that. I really wanted to spend the rest of my life outside and working with plants. That kind of laid the foundation for Nashville Foodscapes. My last year of college I took some business classes and started formulating a business plan and coming up with names and doing market research.

Q: So is your overarching mission, then, to promote urban farming?

A: I’m hesitant to use that phrase because when people think of farming, they think of rows of vegetables, and this is somewhat different. I would say we’re spreading a culture of food can be grown in our everyday landscapes. It doesn’t have to be regulated to a little garden or to a farm somewhere; it can be integrated into our everyday landscapes. So that’s my main goal and mission is to show that growing food can be very beautiful.

Q: Let’s talk about funding. Did you have to raise a lot of capital to get Nashville Foodscapes off the ground?

A: I had to purchase a truck and a trailer and tools, but I would say the overhead was low compared to other businesses… But there was definitely an investment of time and money and energy in starting it. For about a year and a half—or maybe two years, even—I was waiting tables part-time, and I was using that money not only to pay my bills, but also to build up our tools and using some of that money for marketing. And so I was definitely investing money into getting the company going.

“This has very much been a bootstrapped, slow-going process. I’ve actually started another business since then with two other partners called Compost Nashville, and we offer a composting service for people who don’t want to do it at home. And it’s been the same way. We talked about going the investor route, and we were like, ‘You know what, let’s do the bootstrap way,’ because then you’re only accountable to yourself and your clients… I really am proud and happy with the way that we started.

Q: What are some of the challenges you’ve faced—or continue to face—as a small business owner?

A: The challenges of starting a new business are many. For being in what we consider an entrepreneurial country … they sure do make it difficult for people to start businesses. Part of it was being able to pay for all that insurance and worker’s comp—all the protections you need as a new business. That’s expensive.

The other is that balance of knowing when your business becomes your livelihood, and when do you still need to maintain that second job. For me it was waiting tables; there was definitely that transition of, “OK, I’m almost making enough money to quit this job, but not quite yet.” And it was definitely a leap of faith when I did quit that job and make this my main livelihood.

Another challenge is growing a business. They say that one of the biggest failures of new business is growing too big too fast. We’ve run into that a couple times—we got all this demand, and I tried to meet it, and then our quality would go down because we were trying to do too many projects. It was learning that and finally saying, ‘Hey, sorry, we’re maxed for this Spring. We can put you on the list for this fall.’ And also, hiring someone full-time. I was at a point where I needed someone full time, but I couldn’t necessarily afford them. What I ended up doing was hiring someone full-time, and it really hurt. There were times when I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to pay myself anything that next month, but I had to go through that to get to the point where we were a bigger company. So there’s the challenge of not growing too big too fast but also growing and having to make some sacrifices to make that happen.

Q: Speaking of growth, where do you see Nashville Foodscapes in the next five years?

A: I’m not trying to be a millionaire, but it’s a funny balance—until I find the right people, I don’t really want to grow, though I do want to help more and more people grow food. But at the same time, I’m almost at capacity. I can’t do any more work without just not getting enough sleep or not feeling like I’m not spending time with my partner… It’s really a hard balance to strike, and it really took a lot of deep thought for me and coming to terms with what my priorities are.

Q: Any words of wisdom for new or growing startups?

A: Learn a bookkeeping software and get your bookkeeping together in the beginning. That was something I learned later and I’m still trying to get on top of, and I wish it was something that I had just integrated into my life from the beginning because it would make things a lot easier if I had all my bookkeeping stuff together… And get a good accountant, someone you trust who can help you learn that stuff because there’s so much that you can determine for your business if you have a good understanding of your finances.

I would say also don’t hesitate to reach out to people who are in your field to collaborate with them. I have a number of landscapers that I work with, and we especially in the United States have such a competitive mentality. And I don’t think that’s all bad, I think there’s some good things to that, but I think it goes to too much of an extreme. And I have found that everyone wins in the end when you can collaborate with people. There have been a number of jobs I have collaborated with other landscapers on… We brought them on, it was awesome, we had fun, and then they brought us up on a project, and we ended up being able to make more money in the end and have more fun and produce a better product. Reach out and make a community and create collaborative relationships with other people in whatever field you’re in. And I am confident that it will be better off than trying to be an isolated, competitive, bullheaded business person.

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Innov865 Week is a week-long series of events, taking place September 19-23, 2016, to celebrate and showcase Knoxville as a great place for entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses. We have partnered with the Innov865 Alliance to bring you stories of innovation born in East Tennessee. Today, Ed Pershing, co-founder and CEO of PYA, talks about his journey as an entrepreneur.

Nearly 33 years ago, two young accountants decided they could take on the world from Knoxville, Tennessee, so they left secure positions with a “Big 8” accounting firm in December 1983 and founded a local company, then known as Pershing & Yoakley, CPAs.

Today, that startup, which had three employees, has grown to be consistently ranked as one of the 20 largest healthcare consulting firms in the country and a top 100 public accounting practice. It serves clients in all 50 states and has developed a national brand, as PYA. Along the way, it has spawned a number of startups—most of them successful—with six operating today under the PYA Enterprise brand.

At the time we started PYA, Doug Yoakley, my cofounder, and I did not consider ourselves entrepreneurs. In fact, I’m not sure the word was widely used in the 1980s to describe the journey we were pursuing. Our goal was to be able to guide our own destiny rather than be part of a large, bureaucratic enterprise.

Now, as I look back over the 33-year journey, it is clear that it is a good example of entrepreneurship. We have been successful with numerous initiatives, many of which exist today as integral components of PYA, but some were not what we visualized when we launched them. Yet, like entrepreneurs are taught today, we learned from mistakes, but never stepped back from pursuing opportunities to make a difference for our clients and in our communities.

As we have founded new companies, we have frequently challenged bigger players in the marketplace. We have done so by finding exceptionally talented individuals and building the business around them. That is evident in PYA Analytics, a company we launched a little over three years ago that drew heavily on talent from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy’s largest science and energy lab.

Throughout this 33-year journey, PYA has not lost sight of the important base that we have in Knoxville even as we have established offices in many other cities. We were fortunate to have gained the confidence and support of some key Knoxville business leaders in those early years who put their faith behind us by engaging PYA to serve their businesses and the region’s hospitals. They recognized the exceptional talent and capabilities we offered and helped us establish the foundation that we enjoy today.

The word HELP is a concept that drives our firm today. We have not lost sight of the support and assistance we received as young entrepreneurs, and it is that spirit we embrace as we serve the Southern cities where we have a major presence–Atlanta, Nashville and Knoxville. From our teknovation.biz newsletter to our involvement with entrepreneurial efforts like “Innov865 Week,” and Jumpstart Foundry, we want to help aspiring entrepreneurs succeed, just as those established business leaders helped us grow and succeed in the 1980s and 1990s.

Giving back is something that everyone should embrace.

Photo credit: Patrick Beeson

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Innov865 Week is a week-long series of events, taking place September 19-23, 2016, to celebrate and showcase Knoxville as a great place for entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses. We have partnered with the Innov865 Alliance to bring you stories of innovation born in East Tennessee. Today, we’re talking to Bryan Crosby, the founder of Maryville, Tennessee-based FunLPro Technologies, which walked away a winner at last year’s Startup Day competition.

Bryan Crosby, founder, FunLPro Technology

FunLPro is, in short, a no-hassle funnel. When you entered last year’s Startup Day, were you selling the product yet? What can you tell us about the company and where it is today?
I was in the process of finishing up my MBA and finalizing our sales channel development and funding strategy; we were not selling at that time. We are currently in 61 retail stores and growing every day. We have both our integrated caps (where our closure is pre-packaged onto containers and available at point of sale) and our retail caps (sold in packs as an add-on item to use in tandem with consumer packed fluid products) on the market and selling. They are selling very well and we are continuing to improve the engineering behind our integrated caps. We have been nominated by Plastics News, the biggest trade journal for packaging, for the inaugural Closures Innovation Award as one of four finalists. This will be very big exposure for us and will ensure all our major targets have seen and are aware of our cap and our IP.

What impact has your MBA and focus in entrepreneurship and innovation at the University of Tennessee made on your ability to successfully launch the company?
The curriculum within the MBA certainly helped prepare me for the task at hand. More importantly, the infrastructure and network in the city of Knoxville and between UT, UTRF, the Anderson Center and the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center allowed us to make the types of connections and relationships we needed to identify the best paths to take and how best to execute. It saved us a lot of time and money.

How important is an education like that? There’s almost something romanticized about starting a company with no higher education (or dropping out of college to do it), but where do you stand on the importance of education in entrepreneurship?

I was actually fortunate enough to receive the entrepreneurship fellowship, which meant I was able to work on my business full time outside of the curriculum requirements and have my tuition covered. There is certainly something to be said for having the vision and belief to bet on yourself as an entrepreneur and this is the case regardless of education. This is what sets entrepreneurs apart from 9-5 employees. However, I was lucky enough to be able to have unbelievable mentorship provided within the E&I program at UT—both academic and real world—and leverage my network in many ways that not many people get the opportunity to do. I can absolutely say in my case we would not be where we were today without my MBA and the experiences I had at UT. But that’s certainly not the case for everyone.

Let’s talk about winning Startup Day, which gave your company a $5,000 boost. Are there also some intangibles that come from winning something like that? Credibility with funders, motivation, something else?

Absolutely. Startup day was a tremendous experience. The timing of the competition coincided with the end of my MBA and acted for me at least as a capstone on all of the work I had done over the prior two years. It was wonderful validation. The competition required me to think through our entire model, our projections, staffing, exit strategy, and most importantly, how much cash we really needed to be able to hit our projections. We were also fortunate to have been a two-time winner of the Boyd Venture Fund at UT, winning $22,500 and honing our pitch and business plan skills. We used the $5,000 to front inventory from startup day.

How have you funded the company? The $27,500 you just mentioned, of course, but where else has funding come from?

We have also sold shares in the LLC to an angel investor in the amount of $100,000 to fund early R&D, machinery, and pay for some initial patent-related filings. We have one issued and two pending regarding IP.

What’s next for FunLPro? 

Major distribution for our retail caps and continual process improvement regarding the manufacturing, supply chain management, engineering capabilities and IP management of our company.

What has been the biggest mistake you’ve made as a founder? And how did you fix it?

Not beginning to focus on our retail cap segment earlier on. Our margins on these products are very good and we are cash flow positive with even one major retail customer, whereas our integrated model is geared towards licensing agreements, which have a very long sales cycle and can be tedious from a legal standpoint to come to a mutual agreement. This model alone would require investment whereas retail model may provide us the opportunity to cash flow without additional equity sold in the company.

Will you be at this year’s Startup Day? And, what is your best piece of advice for founders who will be pitching?

Yes I will be. My advice would be to think big picture regarding what you want your company to look like. My biggest challenge has been to nail down what our organizational structure will look like one, two or five years down the road. How many employees are needed? What can you realistically outsource and be confident it will be done at a high level? Can you use brokers or distributors to act as your sales force or do you need a traditional sales model? All of these have a profound impact on cash flow (which is often overlooked of the three financial statements but without a doubt the most important of the three for a startup) and being able to tie all of that in to your funding strategy. This will give you a better idea of the nature of investment you could potentially take on so you can understand what investors are really looking for in terms of payback, timeframe and ROI, and if you’re more attractive to angels or institutional investors.

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Ian Cochrane, founder of Balsam Mountain Leather Company [photo credit: Steve Naylor]

Ian Cochrane, founder of Balsam Mountain Leather Company, fell into leatherwork almost by accident. “It’s not something I’ve done all my life…” he says. “I’ve always enjoyed using my hands and building things, taking things apart and putting them back together again,” he elaborates, “so I think that inherent desire probably attracted me to working with leather, but as for getting into leatherwork itself, it was kind of happenstance.”

Cochrane was nearing the end of his last year at NC State when he came across a leather wallet he loved but couldn’t afford. “It was really beautiful and really expensive,” he says, “and I was like, ‘There’s no way I’ll ever pay $400 for a wallet, I won’t be able to put anything in it afterward.’”

So while he was home in Asheville, North Carolina for Christmas break, he wandered into a store that sold leather. There, he bought a few materials—some leather scraps and a stitching awl—and decided to make a wallet of his own. “[I] just kind of experimented and taught myself using a how-to tutorial,” he says. “By the third one, I already started having requests from friends who wanted me to make them wallets.”

In late 2012, Cochrane applied for a tax ID and officially launched Balsam Mountain Leather Company.

Now that Cochrane has developed a few solid products, he has begun to focus more on conscious manufacturing—sourcing materials from sustainable businesses and creating products that will last a lifetime.

[photo credit: Steve Naylor]

Balsam Mountain Leather’s products are made with American leathers that have been treated with environmentally-friendly vegetable tannins. And all the leathers Cochrane uses are by-products of the food industry, which means his business doesn’t directly contribute to the number of cows that are slaughtered on a daily basis. “In a world where we waste a lot,” he says, “I feel better knowing that I can use this part of the animal that would otherwise would have gone to waste.”

Cochrane also has a lot of reverence for the materials with which he works. “When you’re cutting into nylon,” he explains, “if you make a wrong cut… you’re going to be out some dollars. But leather is an animal’s hide. Be respectful when you cut into it and when you punch holes. Make sure you’re doing everything right. Measure twice, measure three times, cut once. It’s just more respectful to the animal that died to give its meat and hide for use by us.”

Balsam Mountain Leather Company is still a small operation; Cochrane does all of the production himself. And as for the other parts of running the business? He trades his goods for services. “My girlfriend, Nettie… actually built my website for me in exchange for bags,” he says. “People who shoot photos for me, I’ll exchange leather goods to them.”

Cochrane recently quit his day-time job to pursue Balsam Mountain Leather Company full-time. He expects the company will continue to grow, making its way into more local retailers and creating space for local partnerships. In the meantime, he takes advantage of the therapeutic practice of stitching each wallet by hand and, as he puts it, “somehow getting paid for doing what I enjoy doing.”

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Robbie Hillis, founder and CEO of Ark Labs

Being in the South and hearing a name like Ark Labs, your mind might immediately gravitate to the great state of Arkansas. But you need to think about that other Ark to understand the crux of this Northwest Alabama startup, which is flooding, in particular, in one’s home.

“It was really just a thought one day and it stuck,” says Robbie Hillis, founder and CEO of Ark Labs, which incorporated in July 2015 in the GIGTank accelerator. “The Ark is synonymous with floods so it made sense to flip it around and let The Ark be the one to save you from that flooded basement or house due to a major pipe burst.”

Hillis and his startup have been on our radar for some time now, and the fact that it took us a few months to connect probably says a lot about the plight (and available time) of most startup founders. But, alas, we connected, and were able to find out a lot more about his startup, the challenges of being in a consumer-facing industry and the benefits of being in a tight-knit startup ecosystem like the one of North Alabama.

In a nutshell, how does the anti-flooding system work? There’s a device and then there’s an app?

Ark Labs water monitoring system

Actually we are touching all three worlds, mobile, analytic software and hardware. There is a device that is installed in a home, apartment, condo or business that monitors the flow of water. Inside this device is also a shutoff valve. Then, the usage data is transmitted to our analytics server where the software begins to understand the consumption behavior of the installed location. Every time water is flowing, the software begins to make a determination as to whether it is normal or not. If it is deemed abnormal, then the server sends out an alert to the owner through the mobile app. The owner has the ability to tell the system everything is okay or shutoff the water flow from anywhere in this world.

Do you have competitors? Or, is this pretty cutting edge at this point?

Yes, of course we do. There are companies that are startups like us, some in their infancy stages and major corporations that are all trying to address this portion of the global water crisis.

What has been the reception of your product? Is it available now, and who’s interested in it?

The reception has been tremendous. Every single person we have met with has asked “When can I get my hands on this?” or “I wish I would have had this when this event happened at my house.” We are launching a private beta in August. We have so many potential customers waiting for us to get them some hardware so we have had to close the beta to our initial partners. Lots of people are interested in our solution. The hardest part becomes how to convert the interest in sales and at the cheapest conversion cost since we are a startup. So we have some great strategies in place to guide us over the 12 – 18 months.

What’s your industry? If we had to take a guess, we would call it something like environmental tech. Are we close? Although it’s probably not strictly environmental, either, because it also provides benefit from a “My house won’t flood if I’m not there” standpoint. 

This is an interesting question. As much as we want to gravitate to the Internet of Things market and be a cool technology startup, some view this simply as a plumbing product. Obviously the residential homeowners are going to be huge, and that segment is also going to be the most expensive group to reach. But there are certainly early adopters out there and we get inquiries almost every hour.

What would you say are the top two or three challenges facing your startup? And how do you go about on a daily basis, solving them?

I think access to talent is a challenge that we face on a daily basis. The only way to overcome this is to continue to network and keep making connections with people who have been around great talent. The other big challenge is getting people to understand the pace at with which I want to move. Our suppliers and vendors don’t understand how quickly we have been progressing and how fast I want to continue to move. They learn that quickly though.

Did you have startup experience before The Ark Labs? As you carry on, has anything about running your startup been harder than you thought it would be?

I started another business prior to Ark Labs. It was a company focused on digital marketing in North Alabama. Of course there have been many things that have in essence turned into much more major projects than we were anticipated. But we continue to navigate through them and pivot when needed. So far everything has led to a much better and smarter solution!

What would be your No. 1 piece of advice to a fledgling entrepreneur?

I have two sayings these days for our team and for others thinking about being an entrepreneur: 1. If it was so easy, everyone would be doing it… 2. Done is better than perfect.

You’re located in Florence, Alabama, not exactly what one thinks of as a hotbed of entrepreneurial activity, and yet there you are and we also know the Shoals Entrepreneurial Center is pretty active. Do you sort of roll your eyes at this point when people find out where you’re located? Or, is the struggle real? Is it harder to be a startup in Florence than it is in, say, Birmingham? If so, what’s the solution?

This also goes back to another saying that we have and that we are preaching in Northwest Alabama, “Start Where You Are, Use What You Have, and Do What You Can.” My thoughts are to just start and get going no matter where you are located.

What’s the startup scene like in Northwest Alabama? In what ways is being in a tight-knit community like Florence a benefit to your company?

Of course being from a small area, the startup scene is small. But with that being said we are starting to devote more and more resources to encouraging entrepreneurship. It is also fun starting in such a tight-knit community because everyone is rooting for you! Everyone has heard the story because obviously we have been in the local newspaper several times so it isn’t uncommon to be at the grocery store and have people walk up and ask me how things are going. The potential to make a significant impact on our local economy is also a huge motivating factor for our team. For so long this area has been focused on recruiting and retaining manufacturing jobs. We must change that mindset and having a successful startup, whether it is Ark Labs or one of the others in town, will go a long way in helping us do just that.

You pitched at 36/86—where we finally connected—and you also participated in Alabama Launchpad, as well as some other programs. Congratulations on all of the recognition! What do you get out of these experiences, besides the opportunity to secure funding as the big winner? 

The question to participate in events is constantly asked around here. What are we going to benefit if we do participate and what might we miss out on if we don’t attend. All of these events have been amazing for our company and we continue to get invited to startup and idea events all over the world. We continue to walk away from these events with more partners, more connections and more friends! That is the important thing. The latest thing we have learned is that we don’t know who we don’t know yet. Meaning there are companies around the globe that might help drive our business in ways that we haven’t even begun to think about yet. So when we do attend these types of events, we have to treat every conversation equally until we can confidently decide if the company will be able to benefit us or not.

The post #MyStartupStory: Ark Labs in Florence, Alabama appeared first on Startup Southerner.

One of the highlights of my 36/86 experience was hearing the two-minute pitches from the all of the startups vying for the big prize. One of the most compelling pitches—to me, at least—was SynapseMX, an Atlanta-based startup that is modernizing airplane maintenance by replacing a paper-intensive process with a software platform. It was compelling because I was sitting there thinking, how is this not the norm already? How is it that aircraft maintenance still relies on basically a ream of paper every time an aircraft gets serviced? The short answer: Regulation.

“Aviation is incredibly regulated due to safety concerns, and along with that regulation comes an audit trail for everything,” explains Shane Ballman, founder of SynapseMX and the former lead for maintenance technology for AirTran. “Just about every part can be tracked from birth to death, meaning when it was manufactured to when it gets scrapped. That’s still done on a lot of paper today—and if something happens to those records, wave goodbye to 30 percent of the aircraft’s value. Fax machines are alive and well, and I talked with a prospective customer just this week who still uses microfiche!”

Enter SynapseMX, which provides a platform for commercial aircraft maintainers to track, plan and accomplish maintenance tasks, including writing compliance records, from any device that can get online. But that’s not all it does. “Then, we take that data and help them understand hidden insights,” Ballman says. “For instance, how much time does it take to perform a certain inspection task? Is there variance between their facilities?”

Startup Lessons Learned the Hard Way

After spending 18 months validating the idea and determining that it was a viable business, Ballman launched the company in April 2015 with a co-founder who is no longer with the company. Ballman wasn’t new to startups, per se, but he did make a rookie mistake: assigning equity to both founders right away. “Even before you take in outside capital, you need to have founders on a vesting schedule,” he says. “It keeps everybody hungry and aligned in the same direction. Don’t skip it.”

Funding has been a challenge for the company, whose leadership team is composed of aircraft maintenance veterans. The company bootstrapped in the beginning, then received seed funding from 500 Startups as a participant in its Batch 15 accelerator. Its most recent investment was from Dynamo, a Chattanooga, Tennessee-based fund and accelerator that is specifically targeting startups focused on improving the “lagging logistics industry.”

“It sounds like it’s been easy, but it’s been a long, hard climb,” Ballman warns. “When people say it’s damn near impossible to raise funds and run a business, they’re right. You won’t be a special snowflake, so be prepared to hustle on fundraising so you can get back to work. When you pitch (and you’ll pitch a lot), don’t bore people. Tell a story, and make it personal for your listener. People remember stories that have an impact on them.”

The Right Location

One gripe Ballman doesn’t have about the startup life? Feeling isolated from the startup community and the subject matter expertise that is necessary for success. The company started out in Newnan, Ga., an Atlanta commuter town and veritable hotbed of aviation experts. “We started the company there for one specific reason: There are a lot of FAA, Delta and Southwest (formerly AirTran) people who live around there,” Ballman says. “That means lots of subject matter experts to chat with, walk through mockups, talk about business processes, etc.”

After some growth, the headquarters moved to Atlanta. “There’s something contagious about being in a startup environment where people are hustling to make deals, and I like being around that energy,” Ballman says.

When he’s not busy running his own startup, he takes some time to help others who are starting theirs. “There’s an amazing—and free!—Pitch Practice meetup every Friday in Atlanta, hosted by my friend Kevin Sandlin, and I go there when I can to provide pitch feedback,” he says.

Ballman also help out as a mentor to younger companies in how to think about things, such as business models, marketing campaigns, investor outreach and the like. “I’m no expert but I’ve learned a few tricks along the way,” he says.

Clear Skies Ahead

So what’s next for SynapseMX? Ballman points out that Airbus recently forecasted that the maintenance and repair services market will be worth over $3 trillion over the next two decades. “Plenty there to keep us motivated,” he says. The company is also keeping its eye on drones and anticipating a market for drone maintenance.

“Drones are on the cusp of a massive tidal wave in commercial usage, and the FAA is going to ensure the same incredibly high level of safety as manned aircraft,” he says. “That means routine preventive maintenance and the logistics surrounding it. We plan to be helping drone operators in five years like we’re helping manned aircraft operators today.”

BONUS AUDIO:  Shane Ballman speaks with Relationary Marketing during 36|86 in June.

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Jason McIntosh and Mitch Nelson introduced themselves in a conference room with two bean bag chairs, a long table and five pairs of socks planted in the middle. After getting acquainted, Jason reached towards the middle of the table, grabbed a pair of blue-toed socks, and began to tell the story of DivvyUp Socks, a Tallahassee-based e-commerce startup.

In their sophomore year at Florida State University, Jason and Mitch brainstormed business ideas for their entrepreneurship class. From the start, they wanted to work on something that gave back to a community. They began with the idea of shipping tents to places around the world affected by natural disasters. After further planning and brainstorming, however, they realized that to make a change, they needed to start with their own backyard—Tallahassee. They took a trip to a local homeless shelter, where they learned of the widespread need for fresh, clean socks.

Soon after, the first version of DivvyUp Socks was born. DivvyUp is a one-for-one business that, for every sock purchased, donates a pair of socks to a homeless shelter. In the company’s first two years, Jason and Mitch resold socks sourced from other companies, but, with the recent launch of DivvyUp 2.0, on the 25th of every month a new 3-pack of themed socks personally designed by Jason and Mitch releases on their website.

Companies that directly aid the community of Tallahassee the way DivvyUp does are important to the growth of the city. They work to solve a problem by creating a sustainable business instead of another one-off fundraiser. Jay Revell, the vice president of the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce and FSU alumnus, says, “We need more of that. The good news is there are plenty of problems that need to be solved. So I would say there is ample opportunity for stories like this to benefit the economic health of the community.”

Mitch Nelson also believes in the value DivvyUp brings to Tallahassee. “You don’t have to only make money,” he explains. “Making real change by creating a business and not solely relying on donations creates more value than profit. Making $400 off of socks and then donating the money would end the service right there. By making more money we are able to donate more socks.” As a result, businesses like DivvyUp plant a cycle of growth.

However, simultaneously helping the community and economy is not DivvyUp’s only success. DivvyUp is also an example of the blank canvas Tallahassee offers. Jay Revell explains, “If you are looking for a 9-5 plug-in, plug-out job with a cubicle near the freeway, this is not the city for you. But it you believe you have an edge, a hunger and a desire to change the world, Tallahassee is one of the best cities in the country for you to be in.”

Through Jay’s entrepreneurial experience with the Downtown Improvement Authority, he says every major business player in Florida is in Tallahassee, so the resources and networking can be endless. Tallahassee’s small size creates an intimate environment not typically found in cities like Miami, San Francisco or Atlanta. This accelerates local networking. “More access, more opportunity, less traffic and less costly,” Revell says. “You can build your dream here for half the price and in half the time.”

Mitch describes Tallahassee’s startup culture as young, but trending upward. “It’s been underground for a long time, but with places like the Domi Station that push startups in the direction they need to succeed, it’s very helpful.” He and Jason discuss the recent growth of Gaines Street over the past four years. “It’s cool to see young people go out there and get involved,” they say. However, Jason notices that a lot of things need to change in Tallahassee to make it easier for businesses to thrive. “There needs to be more overall access in Tallahassee starting with cheaper air flights.”

Tallahassee is growing, slowly and surely thanks in no small part to the melting pot of ambitious students at Florida State University, Florida A&M University, and Tallahassee Community College. Jason says that studying at FSU and building his startup business was “tough, but manageable because of all the free time college offers.” Often young people see entrepreneurship as something to pursue in later years, but that does not have to be the case, with barriers to entry lower than ever. Jason and Mitch each invested $800 in their sophomore year to create DivvyUp.

“Not too long ago, Domi Station was an empty warehouse where we would share ideas and it’s cool to see how much its grown,” Jason says as he and Mitch wrap up the story of their signature blue-toed socks. Similarly, DivvyUp has grown over the past two years. It now reaches homeless shelters not only in Tallahassee but across Florida and in states like Texas, New York, and Kentucky. Tallahassee’s startup culture is still in its infancy, but, with fertile grounds and cultivation, the city has already begun to bloom—and the results are going to be grand.

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Chelsea Hylton, Founder of Project Peaceful Warriors [photo cred: Robert Warren]

In 2015, the Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies published a report which showed that nearly 20 percent of New Orleans’ children showed signs of PTSD. That’s four times the national average. And yet, these children are expected to attend school and succeed just like their peers, despite the fact that they possess no coping skills to help them with their trauma.

This is the problem that Chelsea Hylton, founder of Project Peaceful Warriors, is hoping to alleviate in the NOLA community.

Project Peaceful Warriors is a program that offers support to students, teachers, faculty and caregivers through trauma-aware yoga and mindfulness practices. In Hylton’s own words, “We empower students to build skills like self regulation, social awareness, self awareness and relationship skills so they can be successful students and impactful members of the community.”

Hylton first began practicing yoga with her dad when she was in middle school, and she continued to do yoga throughout her high school career. But it wasn’t until college that Hylton really began to see yoga as a mindfulness practice rather than just physical exercise. “It helped me work through a lot of different things, including personal traumas,” she says, “which is why I think I’m so drawn to this work.”

[photo cred: Patrick Niddrie Photography]

Hylton attended College of Charleston and was a student of the School of Education, Human Health and Performance when she was given the opportunity to teach yoga at a local elementary school. Hylton taught there for three years, and after graduating from College of Charleston, she became a registered yoga instructor.

Then, three years ago, Hylton moved to New Orleans to teach yoga full-time as an enrichment teacher in a charter school. Her classes consisted of about 35 students at once.

That’s when Hylton realized that students in New Orleans needed something a lot smaller and a lot more specialized.

[photo cred: Patrick Niddrie Photography]

Hylton has already worked with over 700 students in NOLA schools, including those within the New Orleans College Prep charter school network, and through Firstline Schools, Jefferson RISE and Young Audiences.

Teachers from these schools are seeing improvements in their students’ behavior, their ability to focus, their levels of self-confidence and in improved peer relationships. “Teachers have told me that their students start to ask for ‘yoga breaks,’ to stop and do some ‘belly breathing,’ or—my favorite—‘just a second to sit and meditate’ when they are feeling overwhelmed,” Hylton reports.

And she says the educators who go through Project Peaceful Warriors’ professional development programs are noticing the same changes within themselves. “Through teaching yoga to their students or just for themselves, it gives them an opportunity to practice self-awareness,” she explains. “Teachers then have the tools to get themselves and their class from where they are physically, emotionally and mentally to where they want to be.”

Project Peaceful Warriors recently participated in the PitchNOLA: Living Well pitch competition, where they placed second and earned $3,000 in prize money. When asked how the win has helped PPW, Hylton replies, “Placing at PitchNOLA has not only helped us monetarily, it has also opened doors to more connections within the NOLA community.” According to Hylton, educators are aware that their students need support, but they are often unaware of available resources. “PitchNOLA,” she says, “has helped us connect with more of these educational programs that want to implement our programming, as well as community members who want to help support us.”

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