Welcome Back to season three of Rooted Reaching. I'm your host, Marty McKenberg. We had a great conversation today with Sunjay Agtey, the VP of Revenue and alliances for Nimbello. Good conversation, great content. Love to share it with you. Hope you enjoy the episode. Well, it is my great pleasure to be here today with Sanjay Agte, Vice President of Strategy for Nimbello. Sanjay, thank you for joining us today.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to get to Nimbello, obviously, which is the company you're currently working for and had a strong hand in making move forward. But before that, you've had a long history of other things. Actually, let me back up. Tell us what Nimbello is first to set the stage, and then we'll go back in your history a little bit and talk about some of the other amazing entrepreneurial experiences you've had.

For sure. So Nimbello, it's a fintech startup based in South Bend, Indiana. We specialize in accounts payable automation, mainly for the manufacturing and higher education industries. The company was started by my father. He was a CPA and kind of his thesis was starting. Nobela was where payroll was about 20 years ago. A lot of companies had it in house. You had people, large departments, and then a of companies said it could be, you know, probably better done by others and using software and technology. And so that same kind of mindset from payroll could be parallel to the accounts payable process.

Got it, Got it. So, yeah, so. So that was your. Your father's vision when he started the company back in 20.

Yeah, it's about 15 years ago. So about 29. 2011.

2009. Yeah, 2011. Okay. 2011.

Yeah, got it.

Okay, so that's great. And you now work as VP of Strategy for Nimbello, but you started on a different entrepreneurial journey earlier on in your career. Can you tell us how that happened or tell us how you started?

Yeah.

You graduated.

Yeah. So I was born and raised in South Bend, Indiana. And then I went down to the Kelly School of Business down at iu.

Got it. Yeah.

And I graduated. I actually came back to South Bend and had a couple internships with the accounting from Crow.

Oh, yeah.

So after I graduated, I had a job with Crow on the audit side of things in South Bend. And then a few years later, I moved from the audit group to the transaction services group in Chicago. So I was helping out on companies that were buying and selling companies and being part of that team. And then in 2009, kind of two things happened. One was one of the financial crisis, so a lot of companies were no longer buying and selling companies, which meant they didn't need consulting firms for help. And then the second thing was crow. To get to a certain level, you had to have your cpa. And I wasn't good at taking tests, and still not good at taking tests. So they came up to me and a few other people and said, hey, you haven't been staffed on any projects. There's probably opportunity elsewhere.

And so that's a very gentle way to say that.

Yes, exactly. So that did open the door for me to explore other opportunities. And while my background was in finance and accounting, I had a good buddy who was actually from South Bend who had gone to Notre Dame. He was an early employee at Groupon. So we met up for a drink in Chicago, and he said, hey, I'm at this company, Groupon. I think you'd love it. You should come interview and. And do it. And. And it. It worked out. I. They.

We.

I think we met on a Thursday. I had an interview on a Monday, and I was hired by Friday.

Fantastic. And for. For. For those in the audience who maybe don't remember what Groupon is, what was Groupon again?

Yes.

What is it? I know it's still in it. It's still a thing.

Good question. So when it started, Groupon was kind of a. A group buying platform where they would have a deal a day per different cities. So you could, you know, get a very good discount on skydiving or laser hair removal, teeth whitening, or to a restaurant. But to get the discount, you had to have a certain number of people to buy it, and then the deal would be tipped or on to happen. So the goal would be, if I wanted to skydive, I would go tell Marty or I'd tell Mike or Gary, hey, go buy this deal so we don't get this discount.

Right, right, right, right. So was that your first real, like, exposure to startup culture?

Yeah, I mean, that was. That was complete 180 from, you know, accounting, I bet, you know, auditing to sales and a startup. You know, I was one of the first 70 employees at Groupon, and when we started, we didn't really have too much of a sales playbook as they look for now, or much of a training was me and, you know, five other colleagues in there. We met with the HR and the head of sales, and they kind of said, here's the phone. You two own Indianapolis. You two own Kansas city.

Okay?

You two own St. Louis. And owning it meant calling businesses in Indianapolis to say, hey, you may not have a website, you need a website, but we can get you a ton of people in your business.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So that was. Yeah, I can imagine it was a big culture change from working at a cp, you know, a CPA office to this freewheeling startup culture kind of vibe. Were you in Chicago at the time? Was it? I was.

I was in Chicago. They were in kind of the old Montgomery ward building on 600 West Chicago. So it was great for someone who was young and all the employees were, you know, relatively young, just out of college and. Yeah, it was great. And it was funny. I think that was a Groupon and taught me two things. One, I loved of the startup pace and trying to figure things out, but prior to that, I, you know, was just a big fan of Groupon. Even before working there, I would tell everyone, hey, have you heard of this new company? It's really cool. And I think from that day, I. I joke that I'm. I'm everyone's second favorite hype person, either behind, like, themselves or their mom. Like, one of them's probably better. But besides that, if I like something, I'm. I'm telling everyone about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I. I mean, I remember a Groupon myself using it a number of times for, yeah, great Wolf Lodge or something like that. I. There were different things. There's a lot of experiential things in my memory. Yeah. Like skydiving or whatever it might be.

It was.

Yeah.

Because you wouldn't really go do that kind of on your own, but if it's 50% off, you buy it. And then oftentimes you'd think, okay, well, do I really want to jump on a plane if it's 50% off? Right.

Yeah.

How. What security measures are there? But it was great.

Yeah. So you're there for a few years and then you moved to HubSpot. HubSpot.

So, yeah. So at the time, my wife and I were dating when I was at Groupon and she'd gotten into a doctoral program at Boston College. And she said, you know, we're probably not going to date long distance for five years. So at the time, I was fortunate enough to work with Groupon. They were looking to start an outside sales team out in Boston. And, oh, I was able to move out there, kind of be one of their first outside reps outside of New York. In. In Boston. My wife got her. Her PhD in education in Boston College. But so I was still at Groupon. We were doing it Groupon and gotten public and after that. And this is kind of, I think, you know, startup culture. One you learn so many different things, but once you go from not public to public, different, different metrics change, different mindsets change, different people are probably better suited for different roles. And at that time I was, you know, kind of, I was remote. I was looking for a different change. And at the time, HubSpot seemed like the Groupon of Boston. It was everyone. You couldn't go anywhere without people talking about it.

Okay, okay. It was a hot thing in Boston.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I was fortunate. I actually got introduced to them. They were having a charity call a thon to help. I think it was to raise awareness for like the, like pet pet shelters or fund. And they just kind of gave you a call list, a call script or to see who could raise the most amount of money. And I was able to raise the most amount of funds by, by hitting up friends and, and that was kind of during the interview process. And.

Yeah, so that got some attention, I'm sure.

Yeah. And so I was one of the first external hires they had made to the group that they call their, their channel partners or who'd value added resellers who sold to. We would sell to the marketing agencies there who then buy it and then sell to their clients.

Got it, got it, got it. So we'll circle back to this in a few minutes. But at the same time this was all happening, your father was on. There's a parallel story happening here, right?

Correct. Yeah.

And because you said Nimbelo started in 2011.

Yeah, around. Yeah, around 2009. 2011.

2009. Okay.

And he. Correct. So he, he used to be, he was the head of tax for Crow for many years and then left. Had a couple different business ventures. One had sold with some partners and one who sold the cna. But as I mentioned, right. He had this vision. They had this vision. He, he started it and so he was, he was doing his own thing. But you know, at HubSpot is as we were going through the training they had, you know, inbound marketing is what they were known for. And they, they classified Personas. Right. Anytime you're trying to sell, you have different Personas. And they're the smallest group that would buy HubSpot. They'd kind of classify them as these owner ollies or you know, pure kind of one person shops growing their business kind of lifestyle business. And that's really what, you know, Nimbello had been. It was, you know, bootstrap. My father started it. He had a good career before we had. I had one older sister, but we were both, you know, working professional. So, you know, in my dad's eyes, he was chasing a problem and solving it. But, you know, as long as you could employ people, pay them.

Yeah.

And, you know, go on vacation and. And get to play golf, he was doing a pretty good job.

Right. We started talking earlier. I was. I was curious whether or not like, your experiences with Groupon or. And HubSpot, like, you were obviously telling your dad these stories, hey, I'm doing this. We're doing this. Like, do you think part of that inspired him to say, like, oh, I'm gonna. I can do this too? Or was there no relation? Was it just two parallel things happening?

I think there were probably two parallel things. I'm not sure how much inspiration, but he would definitely ask for feedback. So I think whenever my sister who lived in Chicago, or I'd come back or our spouses would come back, they were kind of two common questions that would. Would usually come up. One would be, hey, do you want to come work with us?

Okay.

And we'd say, no, we have a good thing. And you, you know, may not be able to afford our. Our market rates. And then the second would be, hey, I'm working on this project, or I'm pitching this. This opportunity. What would you all do in your job? Right. And. And. And we'd give him tips, or he'd say, hey, show me how your CRM currently works, or, what could you do? And then, you know, we tell them, well, there's only one salesperson. It's you. You probably know what deals you're working on. You don't need to build this up to follow it up. But.

Right. But early on, he was trying to recruit you and your sister.

Correct.

Pretty early on in the process. And your mom, too.

And I think it was partly for the business and probably partly to move back to South Bend.

Yeah. No, that's fair, right? You killed two birds with one stone there. Right?

Exactly.

But you were living your life in Boston, working for HubSpot. Correct. Where did the Second City piece come into this? Was that before or after?

So it was actually after. So my wife graduated her.

So she gets her PhD.

We were pregnant, expecting our first son, and we both had sisters with cousins in Chicago and kind of wanted to move back to the Midwest. So at the time, I was working for an ad tech startup, and they said you could work remote in Chicago. Kavita didn't have a job at the time, but we moved to Chicago and was working with them, then worked for a healthcare tech startup. And after that, actually, the same guy who helped recruit and hire me at Groupon, he does hr, but he also is an improviser and actor on the side. That's kind of his primary thing. HR's on the side, but at the time, he had posted a position at Second City. So I called Dan up and said, hey, my favorite job up to date is Groupon, and you helped me get this. Can you tell me more about this job at Second City? And he told me about it, and I said, this is awesome. And for those who don't know, it's the improv comedy club based in Chicago with, you know, the famous alum like Tina Fey, Steve Carell.

Right. A lot of great people started out there. Yeah, yeah.

And so it was great. And, you know, that job was pretty unique in the sense of Second City's really known for three aspects that keep the business going. One is their theater productions on the stages, where you go see the improv shows, and then the two others is their training center. So a lot of times, right in. In Chicago after college, you may go have a job and you may find people by playing kickball or doing other things. Other people may just take improv lessons or comedy lessons, and that's at Second City. And what they saw was a lot of the people who were taking these classes individually had different jobs, Right. They were working at consulting firms like PwC or Deloitte or ad agencies, but.

Their passion was with the comedy work.

But. But then the, you know, Second City saw, you know, there's probably a method to bringing improv strategy and training to the corporate world. So that Third World or Second City works was what I did, where we'd call on companies and say, hey, you could have a traditional training or, you know, this. But getting an email from Marty telling you what to do, or your CFO can fall on deaf ears. But, you know, if you have it acted out by improvisers.

Yeah.

With a funny message, they'll remember that, oh, yeah, yeah, we're supposed to do this. This is the priority for 2025. Right. Or again.

Right.

Oftentimes we'd work with, you know, engineers or consulting firms, and people would be so passionate about the deck they built. But they're in the room and, you know, you can't read the room that everyone's falling asleep. But an improviser could just pause and say, okay, you don't seem interested in the smarty, but like, what do you want to do? So helping that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's. So that's great. So you were helping set up those relationships between corporations who could benefit from.

Correct.

The different services and these trainings. Yeah, yeah. Wow. What a varied career that you had. And that. So that was what, like a seven year period?

Yeah. That was probably 2009 to like probably 2017 or something.

2017. Yeah. So I know eventually you're obviously here. You're back embedded in South Bend and building a community here. What were your biggest takeaways at that point? Like you're in Chicago.

Yeah.

You Learned Groupon, HubSpot, Second City. Like, what were you. Where was your head at that point?

Yeah. So. And even in between, I had a fair amount of jobs and my friends and. And my kids joke that I've been fired a lot of times. My older son would say, hey, dad, how many times have you been let go? But I think it's the entrepreneur or in me or at least the desire to keep doing more or finding something. And once it's kind of figured out or I feel I figured it out wanting to try something new. And during that time, I also. I was fortunate to get my executive MBA through Notre Dame. Notre Dame had a program in Chicago. But each time I would leave a different role. Kavita, my wife, she'd, you know, say, you know, would you want to work with your dad? It is a startup, you know, they're. They're trying to figure out this payable space.

Right.

Small.

Right.

They need a salesperson. You're, you know, pretty good at sales and growth.

Yeah.

But each time, you know, the circumstances change. It didn't seem right or it. But that final time, moving from Second City to Nimbello, the timing made sense. It was during the pandemic was one. During it. So we've been looking to move outside of Chicago. Looking for something different. Also stability. I felt the different jobs or certain companies within the sales role, especially startups that would have. They joke. The hockey stick growth.

Right.

A lot of times salespeople are just numbers. Or you could be president's club, you know, one month or one year and then have a family issue or not selling them. They're like you're on a performance plan or letting go. Right.

Yeah.

So you could chase money and be good or, you know, you know, we joke that it would take something probably pretty terrible to be fired by your father.

So. Right.

Stability could be good and growth or helping him grow.

Yeah. Yeah, no, it makes sense. I mean it's a kind of interesting situation too because yes, it's startup. Right. Your dad started this thing from scratch. It's a tech company. It's also in some ways the oldest business in the world. A family business.

Right, right.

That he was recruiting you back to. Correct. So tell us what that conversation was like there. When you call, did you call your dad and say, dad, I'm, I, I'm finally ready to talk about this or did he ask you one day and you surprised him by saying, sure, yeah.

I did call him. I said, you know, look, I was talking about this, I think, yeah. And every time I would switch jobs and would say, you know, would you want to do it? I'd have a cool opportunity like City or something else. That seemed like it could be another group on our HubSpot. But what I realized was the, what could be the next Group, Hunter and HubSpot was actually financial software, SaaS type software for the Office of the CFO. Right. And so looking at, you know, my dad had been, you know, talking about accounts payable automation for 15 years and now I've been at the company for five years and we're still talking to people and people are doing it without software. And so he was, you know, ahead of his time. And when you think of, you know, the two industries Nimbello serves, primarily higher education and manufacturing, they're not really early adopters. Right, right. They, they're big companies that are kind of anti startup establishments and the fact of being able to move nimble. So yeah, you know, if something is working or you're paying your, your vendors or you haven't had a big mistake or not too much turnover in the ap, there's no real need to change per se.

Yeah.

Except for now when a lot like family businesses you mentioned are the oldest businesses. A lot of the manufacturing companies we sell to or do they have new generation of ownership or new leadership or even some of the things that people in South Bend are doing are looking at instead of selling to private equity outside of the city, what local owners could take over or continue to run it. And those people, when they run it, they're looking to say, let's not do things that we've, we've been doing it. If technology can make a job easier for our team or cheaper and more efficient, let's do it. Right.

That's interesting. So that's, that has been a moment of opportunity for Nimbello, that leadership transition.

Correct.

Taking on some new technology to make, make the business more efficient or modernize.

Yeah, usually new change of ownership or luckily, you know, being in this northern Indiana area and having a lot to do manufacturing. Right. I joke that I want Nimbello or us to be the, the Abe Froman of the RV world. Right. The Sausage King or the AP King of RVs. Right. We're fortunate enough to have, you know, one of the largest rv, you know, and marine OEM suppliers as one of our clients. We have one of the largest RV OEMs as a client. We have, you know, the very large Catholic university in town. So we have large good clients on Nimbello's, you know, radar and doing it. And so it's, it's really just telling others to do it. So oftentimes when you're scaling, you can just throw more people at a problem or solve it or again, you can also scale. So it's either, you know, sometimes change of ownership or change of mindset of how to be more efficient or saying it's very difficult to pay or find someone who wants to do data entry. Now, a kid from Clay High School or from.

Yeah, sure.

College isn't wanting to do this as often if you don't have technology in the space.

Right. That's going alongside of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So okay, that's. That's great. So you, you came back.

Yeah.

And took over. Was it. Was it. How was it working for your dad all of a sudden after.

Yeah, it's funny. We would joke when we wouldn't come back or do. It was one, you may not be able to afford us. And two, Right, right. You know, the family vacations were. Were good.

You.

You only had to talk about work or mom would be a little bit frustrated when, when you talk about work, but we wouldn't want to mess the dynamics up. And, you know, the dynamics are fun. The funny quirks that may be coming out on the golf course or at home, sometimes you see them in meetings, but you also see that same passion that he had for 15 years. You know, we were just recently on, you know, a presentation with a local company and it was all gung ho to come. To come and present. And as we've grown, we've brought on additional leaders, people from outside companies and growing. And sometimes they say it may not look so formal if the president of the company is sitting down on this meeting. They may not think, how busy are you? But the other way is this is the service you get.

This is the kind of personal attention you're going to get.

Yeah. And we are busy and we have, like I said, very large clients. He just is really passionate about what he does.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Where does the, where does the name come from? Nimbelo, because it's a cool name. It's actually pretty memorable. But I think the company had a different name at first.

Yeah, correct. So the company's original name was Easy Access because it was meant to be like, you're able to easily access your ap, get it easily into your system. But as we were looking to grow and kind of scale and kind of move from a true kind of lifestyle business to something that would make the region proud and a good software company, we wanted a different name. And as a lot of startup companies would do, we went to the Internet, the powers of be, to different things, had different freelancers come up with names. We gave them a prompt of good domain names available, kind of certain syllables, one word. And, and they came up with, with Nimbello. And you know, we did like it. It does seem very nimble.

Yeah, it's got nimble built into it.

Yeah, so it, it has that but no meaning. And I normally wear a shirt. So my father, he was in the, the merchant navy and in his office he's got different flags that used to say Easy Access based on the. The flags that.

Oh, the flag code for. Yeah, okay, gotcha.

We have shirts for some of the, the employees that just say Nimbello and the flag. So at least there's some meaning to his ties back to his merchant name.

Oh, that's interesting. That's pretty cool. So when you came back, you had, you had, you're coming back with a lot of experience at this point. Sales and marketing. I don't know marketing, but sales and different roles at some pretty cutting edge companies. What did you bring to Nimbello?

Yeah, I brought, I would say that sales strategy and the mindset of, you know, on the podcast you talk to quite a bit of entrepreneurs. And I think some of the benefits I've seen from going to different meetings there's Startup Week is they've got great ideas, but they also are invincible. Right. They feel they can solve anything, but it can also hurt them because you can be distracted or chasing too much, too many things.

Right.

And so as he was running the business, it was a lifestyle business, he was very agile. Whatever you want, he could do. Or the software team and our great team of developers and.

Okay, so they were.

Support could build it. Right.

They could customize things, build. Build specific versions of it. Okay. Yeah.

And it was Great. But if you're trying to scale, that's terrible. You can't.

Yeah.

You can't do that. It's difficult to manage and maintain.

Yeah.

So we. We came and we said, okay, what is working well for all of our customers? What are the best practices? And even that you. He had different industries.

Right.

We have many different industries, and each industry has a different accounting system or ERP that you work with. But we saw the more we could in the manufacturing space, in the RV world, a lot of them use Microsoft Dynamics 365. So it's just a very large one for enterprise customers. And you saw the more you could get familiar with how the data would flow between our system and that accounting system, the more familiar it was. So then the next time you got a customer on that, they felt comfortable. You knew how to integrate because you've done it before.

Yeah.

And so then you could just speak the language. And in fact, one of my mentors at HubSpot, he would always joke, The riches are in the niches. Right. And so the more specific you could be, the more people would realize you're an umbelo.

Right.

And even if you go back to Abe Froman. Right.

That.

This Sausage King. Right. It's a very small thing, but everyone knew who it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did your. So your dad was at Crow for a long time, and then he did some other things. How did he get his first manufacturing customer? Did he have relationships in manufacturing or like, how did that come about?

Yeah, we may have to cut this part out.

Okay.

But the. It was actually, I think, just kind of word of mouth and again, being, you know, local to it, and he had some relationships. And, you know, we were actually just talking to one of our larger manufacturing clients, and they remembered being approached by my father and one of our colleagues, you know, for a few years. And, you know, I think like any good entrepreneur, you try to. You don't give up and you keep coming back. And finally they said, our current software is not working. You're local. We want to give you a shot.

Okay.

And so that was it.

And persistence, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

And even our. Our large university client in town, and we've got, you know, Northwestern University of Chicago of it, but it. It was more local. And I think that is moving back to South Bend. One of the things that I really love about the city and is if you have. There are a lot of people who do AP automation, East Coast, West Coast, a lot of people who have more funding to it, but our software Is good. It's proven right.

Right.

It's no one really turns. A lot of people talk about churn metrics. People don't leave our software due to the fact that it works customer service. But the buyers, the people in Elkhart and Goshen and Bremen and northern or southern Michigan, they do want to work with someone local. I think if you can call and talk to the president or you can just drive down and your software does the same thing as others and it's priced well, more times than not, I think they'd give the nod to the local business.

So that's a value add for a customer to have you here in the region. Yeah, I could see that. I could see that. So South Bend Elkhart region is not well known for its burgeoning software company sector. How was it? I mean, do you feel like who else is out there with you, going alongside of you? And do you feel like pioneers in the software development space in this region?

Yeah, good question. I, I think there are some great names out here. And you know, one of the things that I would go back to was Heartland Ventures. What they did of, you know, being kind of the money back or trying to find technology and say, hey, there's great technology out in the east west, but our businesses here may not be familiar with that.

Right.

And we'll bring those technologies to these businesses. And we kind of were approaching it differently of we are that technology company.

Right.

These businesses still don't know we exist.

Right.

And why go east or west when you have something here? But you know, there are great technology companies and that are just doing it. Right. You know, we before we were Talking about Truck 10 or different names or any of the, you know, the portfolio companies that tracing and you know those people are doing it. It's great.

Theresa Graham and Graham Allen Partners.

Yep, it's great to see. There's even smaller, smaller ones that are coming out and about and I think being more collaborative and the co working spaces here at Stockroom or even at Momentum, the more you're out, you see them. Right. You go to these events to start up week and you think maybe you're the only one doing it. But then you go see and you see, oh, there's a lot more people here doing it. How do we elevate their voices?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. We just had the chance to co sponsor Notre Dame's race to Revenue demo day, which was last Friday. This was like 11 student groups and two, two Ukrainian groups presenting their pitches. There was not a non monetary pitch. It was a chance to share their ideas. But you see, like most of these student groups are working on like very cutting edge entrepreneurial ideas. Something very nichy. So to your point, riches in the niches. Right. It's actually a sales mantra that I wish a lot of our entrepreneurs would focus a little bit more on.

Yeah, I mean, when you think of it, it's great. Right? Everyone's afraid again of the entrepreneur and they want it big or they want a rocket ship or a great exit. But if you can own 90% market share in anything, you're doing pretty good. And then you can move on to something else and it's just a lot easier. Hotspot has, you know, this flywheel of kind of referrals or just references. So it's just, you know, good. And almost even the entrepreneurs of South Bend are right. I'm pretty passionate about trying to bring more talent to South Bend and retain talent. Right. And so the more Covid kind of helped of, you know, it's a good cost of living. If you have families, it's easy to get around. There's, you know, minimal traffic. So the more people hear of South Bend or the South Bend Elkhart area to live in and that you could create your own startup or get good talent, the more they'd come here.

You're actually an absolute poster child for what we want to see in this region in the sense that a talented person who came back to the region. So, you know, getting that talent back in the region and you're building a company. Right. That's employing people. So I mean, that's.

Yeah, I do get excitement out of that of joining and trying to tell other friends to come back or see it. But I would kind of go back to the second city and say yes. And to that comment of saying it was good and we were talking before that we started that it'd be even better if it's not a boomerang to South Bend, but it's just anyone to South Bend. And even that I think the next step or evolution would be in five years. And I was telling Susan for this that don't ask or be act surprised when someone says why are you in South Bend? Or like why are you here?

Right. 100%.

If someone's here, there's a reason and a valid reason and it's not because their spouse works for the university and they just stayed.

Right. Or they came back to take care of an elderly parent or something like that, which is sometimes what you hear.

Zero roots. I just thought this was the place to be.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, boy. I love that day, too. I'm looking forward to that day, too. So. So speaking of roots, like, so you're deep in Nabello. Did your sister come back too?

So she didn't. She. They bought a lake house by Eagle Lake, but her husband actually joined us also.

So. Okay. So it truly is a family business.

Yeah, it is. It may drive my sister, my mom and my wife crazy of how much conversation is talking, but it is kind of funny. The boy boys have now shifted from, you know, how many times have you had a different job, dad to who's the real boss of Nimbello? It always comes back to my mom, actually. Is the real.

Is the real boss. The real, real boss. Yeah, yeah. Got it, Got it. So one of the things I was really impressed with too is like, so you moved back. I mean, obviously you grew up here, so you knew the region really well and. But then you're gone for a while and you move back. You have. You have gotten very intentionally involved in the community. First of all, why, like, did you come back with that mindset? Like, if I'm going to come back, I'm not just going to come back and live here. I'm going to come back and be a player.

Yeah.

An influencer or somebody who's making this place better.

I don't know if I came back with the mindset of doing that. I think just living and seeing what was going on in Boston and Chicago and the other cities, just, it's difficult to try to make change in those cities or. Right. Anything. It's South Bend is almost the startup of they're delayed. But you can make an impact. Right. And growing up, I was fortunate to have, you know, see different great families who helped contribute, you know, to the zoo or to the civic theater, to the Morris. Right. They're great family names.

Sure.

To be a part of it. And as those families are aging out or different things, there's so many wonderful causes to be a part of. And with young children here or if we do want more talent here, you want a booming ecosystem or event. So one way to help make sure that happens is to be involved. Right. So being able to join boards that we're passionate about or trying to see where people are doing good things, the more you talk to, the more you're able to figure out where you can help out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an interesting point because, you know, 10 years ago you didn't hear people talk about quality of place as a tool for economic development. But nowadays it is sort of really seen as if this isn't a great place to live. We're going to struggle to attract and retain the kind of talent we need. Right. Has that been an issue for Nimbelo? Have you struggled to attract the right kind of talent?

We've been fortunate to have. I can't. It's almost like our employees and, and customers, we've had some pretty good 10 year employees so once we found them we haven't left. But as we've grown we've, we've, we've found talent here that's, that's been good and, and done it and then you know, just leaning into remote workforce of finding talent of needs. Been able to sure find people, you know, wherever may be. But um, it, it has been great to, to see and kind of just retain talent in the area.

Yeah. Yeah. So what are some of the, some of the causes you're involved in right now?

Yeah, so I'm on the board. Our kids go to Stanley Clark, so I'm on the board there. I, I was, I went there when I was younger. So anytime I, I meet someone, they joke that I try to pitch them on sending their kids to Stanley Clark. But that's probably true.

I mean as a board member, that's not a terrible role for you to play. Ah.

And then I'm fortunate enough to be also on the board and involved with InFocus. So again, kind of the concept of, you know, we have a lot of great organizations, there's a lot of talent available locally or not even local, but who could come here and better help serve the community. So on that. And then also one of the organizations is civic theater on that board and just.

Oh great.

Again the, we just saw, they just had a great performance of Waitress that was on and I also saw it. Yeah. What did you think?

It was surprisingly good. I mean really quite quality theater. I, I was amazed and I, you.

Know, I, I had to keep reminding myself that these people have day jobs. You know, they, they do other things and they're so good.

And the lead is one of my neighbors.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's phenomenal. And our, our kids just finished a two week camp and, and their camp sell out and it was a production of, of you know, Snow White and I, I don't even know how. And the kids range anywhere from ages 6 to you know, middle school, but how in two weeks they could learn lines, learn blocking and it was pretty good. Yeah, I mean it was great.

And honestly, not unlike the improv like kind of a good life skill. Right. Getting up in front of a crowd, being able to articulate, being flexible. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. That's very cool. That's very cool. So, yeah, back to Nobel for a minute. Where, where are you going from here? Like, what do you see as. As next?

Yeah, so we've seen in, you know, we've been fortunate to see a lot of great growth. When we started, like I said, we were probably, you know, less than 2 million in annual recurring revenue. We're growing towards, you know, 10 million in recurring revenue. So it's constantly just getting better, you know, learning and doing more in the manufacturing space. We also, we recently were certified. There's a large ERP system that does a lot in higher ed and manufacturing called Workday. So we just became, you know, official partners with them.

Remind our audience what ERP stands for.

Yes. Enterprise Resource Planning are essentially the main accounting software that kind of the brains behind the operations of the technical stuff. So a lot of the data that is in there, if you're buying cables or microphones, you place that in there and say, buy, you know, I want to buy 10 microphones for $1,000. Then you get a bill and you'd have to put that in and say, hey, we've received 10 microphones for $1,000. Now we have to pay them.

And so what Nimbelo does, is it.

So Nimbelo would talks. It talks to that accounting system and it basically improves the process to say as soon as the, in this example, the microphone company will send you the bill. It normally comes in an email inbox. And then someone has to open the email. They have to see, did we buy them, did we receive them? Does it cost all that money if we only received eight? We have to email Marty, hey, where are the other two?

Right.

Our software pretty much takes it from the email and uses the integration and the connection to that accounting software or the erp, as we talked and has all that database. So if all the data is accurate, it then just goes in and says, hey, we pay our suppliers, our vendors on Thursday, please pay the microphone company $1,000.

Yeah, yeah, nice. So that takes, that streamlines that entire process, does a lot of the work for whoever's job. That is correct.

It makes it a lot easier. And you know, it's, it uses AI, but it's not like, it's like a Tesla. Right. You're still going to need someone to be in the car to, to drive it or see it drive.

Right, right, right. Makes sense. That's great. So just continued growth. Are you focusing on sectors like manufacturing, universities, health care or.

Yeah, so we're probably, we're continuing to double down on it. We had signed University of Virginia not too long ago and they're happy.

Congratulations.

Thank you. And so just doubling down. And again, it's within here. The one unique thing of this software is it's not like it could help an RV OEM sell an extra fifth wheel, which could maybe help us sell more. But it also means you may have gone to Grace College or Goshen College or worked at Crow together and now you're struggling, you're trying to see how do I make my business more efficient. And again, you can talk to Marty and he says, hey, we're using Nimbello and someone's okay to make that reference because it's not giving anyone a leg up, it's just helping a former coworker.

Sure, sure. Do their job better. Right, Exactly. That's great. So thinking about entrepreneurship in the region right now, obviously you've got a really great background, whole family background, your father's an entrepreneur, you're an entrepreneur, you've worked for some great firms. What, what advice would you have for a 25 year old entrepreneur right now or a 45 year old entrepreneur who is trying to start something new?

I mean, Right. Like I think the ones I've seen successful is really usually for starting the company. There's usually someone on the technical side. Most a lot of stuff needs software now, so is a technical side. And then someone kind of needs to be able to be on the sales side or explain it. Right. And sometimes the technical person can also sell, but you kind of want those two things. And then like a lot, a lot of, you know, when you. I love how I built this, the podcast. Right. It's great. I don't know if you've read it.

But it's a great podcast.

Yeah, but it's great. And a lot of times the similarities you hear in those stories are, can be so simple of. But it, there is a pain or a problem. Right. Like if it's a problem for you, try to quantify it. If it's just you, you may not. It may be a very niche audience and you've already, you know, hit the total addressable market. But if, if not, there are probably a lot of people like you. Right. So when I came back to South Bend, I was working remote and there weren't a lot of co working spaces in South Bend. Right. I was used to Chicago and you know, Gyms you could go to. You had coffee shops, but you had gyms and dedicated like WeWorks.

Yeah.

And here all you had was Regis and no knock on them. But it's, you know, it's sure not this. But now, you know, soccer is solving the problem.

Right.

You know, momentum solving the problem. So it's. I would give that advice to the entrepreneurs of. Do you have someone technical? Do you have someone who could help sell the vision? And is there a problem? Can you quantify it? And it doesn't have to be too.

Big, but no, I mean, that makes sense. I like that a lot. Is there a problem and can you quantify it? Because otherwise maybe just you have a pet peeve about something. But if you can quantify it, then you say, oh, okay, it's not just me. A bunch of other people have this problem and here's how we've just measured it right now I can look at it and say, maybe there's something we can do about this.

Right?

Yeah.

And then I would say, probably another one is. And this is probably a lot of my roles and experience has been kind of in SaaS or in software as a service. But it's right if you're going to work so hard and depending on what your goal is for the company. But it's a lot easier to sell a company when it has, you know, recurring revenue or not all the revenues is project based or based on you because then, you know, when, when you retire, no one wants the business because they all came because of you, Marty.

Right, right, right, right.

You know, can you make it, you know, kind of monthly recurring, like the, the Netflix subscriptions or the car washes or the, you know, the, the self storage units. Those, those are the, the models that you maybe want to do or can do well at.

Okay, that's great. That's actually really great advice wrapping up here a little bit. But, you know, I love that you and your dad built this thing right here. I love that you're from here. That's a real inspirational story. Because if we had 10 more of you and 10 more of your dad and mom, like, how great would that be for the region? What are outside of the civic theater, you've got kids like, what are you doing in South Bend? What are you doing in Elkhart Goshen? Like, what are your favorite things here? Yeah. What's working for you?

Well, we love the zoo. The. In fact, you know, the people who run these different organizations are great. And Josh in the zoo, we, we were fortunate they had a An auction item where kids could have a sleepover at the zoo. And it was kind of like a night at the zoo. And I think our kids may have been a bit much because I'm not sure if they're doing it again, but. But they.

They.

They love the experience.

Yeah, it's a neat experience.

Yeah, that was great. You know, every year, St. Pat's park kind of has this nature run, walk, and scavenger hunt. So the kids love. Love doing. Love doing that. You know, there's some cool artisan markets kind of on the south side by the large library down there, kind of one in the fall, in the spring. So we like going by.

Where. Where is that?

Sorry, it's kind of off. I think it's near. Off of Kern Road. But it's like a.

Okay. By the. Yep, I know what you're talking about. That far. The far south library. Part of the system. Yeah.

Yeah.

Y.

So, you know, in doing that, the kids love the Southland Cubs. They're doing a great thing. Those renovations are.

Are.

Are awesome. And then, you know, I. I think what. What you all are doing and Bethany and what. You know, Regina has heard that just the collaboration and partnerships between South Bend and Alart, We. I. I think growing up before, you know, it seemed like, no, they wouldn't talk to each other. Like, it was very, like, kind of territorial. And even Notre Dame. Right. But now 100, everything seems collaborative.

Right.

Eddy Street Commons. Notre Dame kind of wants to claim us. We can claim them. Wants to claim South Bend. We want to claim them. But, you know, the restaurant that Kurt and Navarre are putting out and other people, it's great. Right? And the Jackson Rooftop.

Yep.

So we love being in Sepeh, and we like supporting, you know, local businesses, and we like taking the kids to the botany shop and, you know, River St. Joe, so.

Oh, that's fantastic. That's all great stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah, I do love that, too. I think. You know, it's obviously not just the south on Elkhart Regional Partnership, but we're all, like, approaching it with a lot of intentionality. But to me, it's no big deal to say, oh, I'm going to go out to dinner in Elkhart tonight.

Yeah.

And I don't think 10 years ago would have thought that.

Correct.

Or know, maybe going to Venturi's Pizza in Goshen as, like, a rare adventure. But now it's like, okay, yeah, let's head out to Goshen, do it. Do a night in Goshen. Do a night in Elkhart and Vice versa. Do a night in South Bend. It's such a fantastic feeling to have those options because it makes what's a real. A smaller city feel like a bigger.

Exactly.

Feel like a bigger place to be.

And we would joke when we were leaving Chicago that we were just moving the eastern suburb of Chicago and they're like the lake and. But, you know, it's. It's still works in Chicago and commutes and.

Oh, does she really.

Hour and a half to, like, she works on Michigan Avenue. But even the. The South Loop, you can get there from, you know, an hour 15 and, you know, from Naperville or Barrington on the west side, north sides of Chicago and stuff, it's just as long. So, you know, if we could maybe even pull some of those restaurant tours or, you know, I joke with friends, there's a large group called Let us entertain you. But if, you know, they're putting, you know, restaurants in Oakbrook or different things, we have the same amount of people right here and enough talent at, you know, Notre Dame and the health systems and with the Notre Dame games that they could be sustainable. And the rent is probably, you know.

Cheaper here, so I would imagine it's much cheaper. Yeah, that's great. Anything else you want to share before we sign off?

I really enjoy this experience. Been excited. Been looking forward to it. So I'm glad we were finally.

Yeah. I'm sorry it took so long to connect. I know that. I think Susan introduced us many months ago, and I think we were. We had just finished up season two, and we're kicking off season three. Anyway, great to have you. You were always on. On the list, like when season three starts. Well, I'm glad on here. Yeah. All right, well, thanks for being here and I can't wait to get this episode aired for the community to hear more about your story.

Thanks.