Welcome back to Rooted and Reaching. I'm your host, Marty Mechtenberg. Today we sat down here at Momentum with Kris Priemer, entrepreneur extraordinaire, great local guy who's been building community for entrepreneurship for over a decade now. We had a great conversation about where he is and where he's going. Please join us. We're really excited today to have finally at the table and here in Momentum, Kris Priemer, entrepreneur extraordinaire. How about I call you that instead of serial entrepreneur? Entrepreneur extraordinaire. Local legend. No, really. Great. Great to have you here. You're one of the folks who, when you think about entrepreneurship in the region, and we're going through a list like, oh, you haven't talked to Kris yet. How have you not talked to Kris yet?

I know it's a little disappointed, but go ahead.

Rooted and Reaching was basically designed for your story.

Right, Right.

So really glad to have you here today. Excellent.

Thank you. Happy to be here.

Yeah. So let's dive into it. We talked a minute ago. We don't want this to be some kind of chronological list of checkpoints in Kris's life, but I do think, for context, help the listeners understand who are you? And we can get into the different projects. But give us a quick introduction.

I'd say the quick is, so originally from South Bend, Kris grew up here, did undergrad in St. Louis, Missouri, at St. Louis University, worked there in finance for a bit before coming back to do my master's at Notre Dame in the Esteem program back in, like, 2010. And since then, done various things of worked at some startups, did some of my own consulting work, had some side projects in software, did some more consulting work, and just over the last, like, 10 to 15 years, tried to take, like, different opportunities that I saw and tried to grow and to build new projects. And that's kind of gotten us to having, you know, a couple software companies, having the space that we're recording in today, Momentum, and just meeting a lot of people in the region and being kind of like that original champion for, like, entrepreneurship.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that comes through in the work that I've seen happen over the last few years, for sure. When you were in St. Louis, what was your major?

I was a math. Computer science major.

Math, computer science major. Did you think of yourself as an entrepreneur at that time?

So I did not even know what an entrepreneur was from that word definition. So my dad, I would say, is an entrepreneur, but we didn't use that word. And so we had a good entrepreneurship school at SLU and didn't even know. Took no classes in it. And it wasn't until I graduated in that first year out that I kind of started to understand that that was a thing. And we get into, like, reading a lot of books, reading Entrepreneur magazine a lot, applying to a contest that we can talk about if we want.

Interesting.

And that was actually what kind of converted me from like an 8 to 5 job person to thinking like, oh, I want to work for myself. And even though growing up we had, you know, different, I would say, jobs of, like, grass cutting and doing all those sort of things that are entrepreneurial.

A lot of kids do.

Yeah. I didn't know, though, that that was a thing that was like a possible career.

What. What language did your family use when you were growing up? You said, your dad's an entrepreneur.

Yeah, but we say he's a financial advisor. And so he ran. But so he ran his own business. He hired people. Like, he did all of that stuff, but because he was a financial advisor, like, that's what we called him, you know, versus anything else. And, you know, you kind of only get to understand the type of jobs that you see. And so you don't know if someone's an owner of a business, like, you call them the owner of that business. You don't necessarily always call them an entrepreneur, especially if you're like, no, it's definitely 15 years old.

No, it's definitely true. It's definitely true. So you saw your dad as someone who started his own business. Like, that was part of your. About your psyche, but not as and his own boss.

And made time to go to soccer games, made time to go to baseball games, but also was kind of managing an office at the same time.

Right, right. When you were in undergrad, were you thinking at the time you were probably thinking 8 to 5, like you were going to graduate and get a job at a company or a corporation or.

Yeah, it was. So when you tell people you're a math major, I distinctly always remember this. People are like, oh, so you're going to be a teacher? Like, that's everyone's default.

Interesting.

And so I knew that wasn't it. And so my answer at the time was I was going to be an actuary. And so working with insurance companies and doing that, because that at least was a different job than saying. Because I knew I wasn't going to be a math teacher. And I tried to take the first test, and it was way harder. I didn't want to study for it.

Yeah, yeah.

And so then I had the opportunity to work in Finance in St. Louis at Edward Jones. And that was because I had, since I had a math background. Um, was it, was it interesting for them to kind of integrate with other folks who pretty much had finance backgrounds?

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Geez. A math teacher.

Yeah, yeah, that was.

It's funny that that was the only mindset. Do you think that was a South Bend thing, when people hear math? Or was that.

Yeah, maybe because it was when I would come back in the summer to do, like my summer jobs, like, that's what. When I would interact with other adults, like that's what they assumed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I don't know that the general public, if they hear a math major, what other job do they see that someone who's majored in math does well?

Yeah, it's a tricky one. Right. Because most people's experience with math is studying it in high school and having a math teacher. Right.

Aren't all the memes, like, whenever I were going to use this, the Pythagorean theorem or something?

Sure. Right. You don't think about, oh, there's all these applications in science and finance and.

All these other places and just problem solving. I think that's what. If there's any aspiring math majors out there, it's learning how to solve problems. That is like the super valuable part of it.

Yeah. Were you always good at math?

Yeah, I was. And I don't remember this, but one of my high school friends called me out and even like in the last, like, decade that I was the champ and they were all like, jealous of me. I don't even remember this, but it was in the geometry champ or something, like sophomore or junior year of high school. And so, yeah, it was always fun. I was always, like, really enjoyed it and I was good at it.

Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. So, you know, I'm an architect by training, and so whenever I say I'm an architect, people always say, oh, I love architecture, but I was not good enough at math.

Oh, interesting.

And I say, well, actually I'm not that good at math either. If I need to design something that requires math, I'll hire somebody who's better than I am at it. But I would get that a lot. And I'm like, I don't know, I.

Didn'T even know that that was. I. I guess I. When I think of architecture, having worked with some now for this project, I'm like, oh, like, I think they're design oriented, you know, and very Much so. And very, like, visual. And how. I guess there's a lot of geometry to it, but I feel like it's rules of like. Like code rules and those sorts of things. And, like, design. Yeah. Versus the math.

No, I think you're right. The math is all happening in AutoCAD or something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

Right. Like, you don't actually have to. The tool does it for you, for the most part. So. So you came back, you did some work in finance, and then there was this shift where you joined the Esteem program. So getting a little chronological here, but I want to get to where that mindset shift came from for you. What drew you to the Esteem program? I think it was brand new at the time.

Yeah. So there were two things that I distinctly remember two or three things happening. So one, I was reading a lot during that time, and there are two books that I haven't read lately, but I would still recommend them. One was Escape from Cubicle Nation. And that to me was like, cubicle Nation? Yeah, Escape from Cubicle Nation. And I was like, oh, I resonated so much with what the author was talking about, and I was like. And so I was thinking, I need to do more of that. And it was essentially trying to get someone out of an 8 to 5 to be more entrepreneurial and own their own business. And then I was reading probably Entrepreneur magazine. It was popular at the time, like, weekly or monthly, however often it came out. And then another book was Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, and it was about being a scrappy entrepreneur in the early days. And that author has since come out with a ton of books that are always, I think, great and I recommend them. And then the third thing, or the fourth thing, I guess, if you're reading two books in. The magazine was on a lark. I applied to Entrepreneur magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year college version of it. And I kept moving on, and I didn't understand why, because I was just submitting an idea I had and I knew nothing about. I've never written a business plan, never done any of that, and I kept moving on to the different rounds, and I was like, oh, like, this is interesting.

Is this the contest you mentioned earlier?

It is, yeah. Yeah. And so all those things were happening, and then I think it was my parents sent me an article from the South Bend Tribune that they had to write up of the Esteem program as it being brand new. And they were more sending it as, like, hey, cool things are happening South Bend.

Like, as an ayi. Like, hey, this is for you.

No, no, Absolutely not. And so then I was like, oh, that's really interesting. And then it was more of. Talked with some folks. A couple of the leaders I worked with went to Notre Dame undergrad. And they're like, if you get in, you got to go, because you're not going to. If you're too comfortable in five years, you're not gonna go. And so after I got in, I was like, okay, like, here we're doing this.

Yeah. What happened with the contest?

So I got to the final. So I was a top five. We actually made. I think I took it down from YouTube. So the final round, you had to make a YouTube video. And this was back in like 2010, when it was just different on, like, how people make videos today.

Yeah, of course.

So my cousin and I. So the idea was. And the idea exists today, so it's not as groundbreaking, but it was an on demand water purification vending machine. And so think of like now how they. The water fountains that, you know, purify it on demand.

Yeah.

So it was like that, but it was that those didn't exist back then.

Okay. Like when you bring the big five gallon things and you put them in.

No, it's more like how you seem like at gyms and stuff, that they're filtering it and they put your bottle.

Okay, gotcha.

So that did not exist. So the thought was that you could have these vending machines that could purify water. You can also buy a bottle out of it. And so we built a cardboard mock. Like, we prototyped it. We filmed it at my Cousin's house in St. Louis. And I edited it on my Mac. And it was then I made these little business cards for people to vote for me. It was the first time that publicly was trying to get some attention to what I was doing. And the fact that we got that far was just like, oh, this is again, not knowing anything of really what I was doing. It was just trying to be like, oh, there's another step of this. There's like three or four rounds. There's another step. They're asking for this. Okay, let me try to figure out how to do that thing. So it was super fun. I think that just like, there's. There's something here.

Well, I imagine there's a certain beauty and like, you didn't know what you were doing right or wrong. You were just doing what you thought was the next best thing.

Yep, yep.

Which is a very entrepreneurial attitude. And you weren't being constrained by, oh, I think the world says I Should do this or that, or I'm not wearing the right shirt or I'm not using the right words or whatever it might be.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, what a loss to humanity if that video was not still online, Chris, because, boy, I would love to.

Sometimes you gotta take it down just cause like, we don't want. I don't know. It is a fun. Yeah, it's a fun video, though.

Yeah. Yeah. So you did the esteem program. I think you were the first graduating class or one of the second class. Okay. Really early on. And I get the impression that that was a transformative moment for you where you actually did start thinking of yourself as an entrepreneur and started actively seeking opportunities that would get you out of the cubicle.

Correct? Yes.

Right. And into your own. I don't know, what were you thinking? Like, I want to be my own boss or I want to start something new. Like, what was motivating you?

I think it was to be my own boss that I didn't want someone else to tell me how much money I could make or how quickly I could move. Like progress. I think that was two pieces of it. So I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, but I think it was being my own boss was a big part of it. And solving new problems that other people weren't solving, I think. And I can't recall when maybe I ran across this, and I can't recall who has said it, but it goes something about how entrepreneurs create their world that everybody else lives in. And so. Or it's something like that. And so I was like, oh, like I don't want to be just consuming everything that other people are making. Like what makes them any better than me to come up with things as well that other people can. Can live in and pay me to pay me for.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be attractive.

Yeah. So it's like. Oh, like, like it was a little bit of. Are. Are they. I think as some of these things progress, I was like, oh, I always thought everyone else was a lot smarter than me and I'll use that just loosely, you know, to be more successful. But then as there were different opportunities that came, I was like, oh, like, maybe I can do those things that they're doing or at least try to do them.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so it takes them out. Yeah. Some confidence to do that. Right. So you. You were thinking like, well, maybe I can.

I would say confidence or ability to stomach risk.

Sure.

Because. Because I would actually say there's a lot of questioning of am I doing the right thing. There's a lot of things that people don't see that would say I'm not confident in the thing. But you're projecting confidence. But in the back of your stomach or gut or your mind, it's like, is this gonna work?

Right? You hear this all the time from entrepreneurs. Right? There's a lot of public facing confidence, but behind the scenes it can be pretty tough because you are, I mean, you're very high risk tolerance. You're putting yourself on the line, you're putting your brand on the line, you're putting your, you know, well, your money on the line. Sometimes your own money. Right, right, whatever.

I think that's. And I say this a lot when it comes up is the ability to like. And I think, and this is another. I'm terrible at remembering people who said things on the quotes or who to attribute them correctly. But it's. Entrepreneurs are often just keep pushing the goalposts of like, what they're willing, like what they can stomach and what their anxiety tolerance is. So when people don't. So what my resting tolerance is of all those things is way different than a lot of other people's. So. Yeah.

So did that build up over time, like your tolerance level?

Yes, yes. But I also pushed it on my own sometimes. My friend John, who I think is on one of these episodes, well attest to is this, was this probably 10, 12 years ago. Like, I, I would, I would do things that put me in a position to work harder. So the example that, that, that, that, that John knows is, you know, I, I wasn't making a lot of money. I forget if I, I forget the context of if I was starting, I had just started my own business or if I was still working like part time for the, for a bunch of different, like, startups. But I bought myself an expensive leather jacket that I couldn't afford and I went to his house and I forget how it came up, but it definitely came up. I think maybe I was wearing it and it was. I shouldn't have bought it. But it also then it pushes you to, I gotta make this work. I just have this thing now that has to work as a small example. There's bigger ones, but like, that's like a small.

No, no, no. That's a great example.

Putting yourself in a position to like, I gotta figure it out.

So I mean, what is that the story you were telling yourself in your head when that happened? Like, in general, like, I'm gonna overextend myself because I know this will force me to and I don't catch up to where I need to be.

Like there's. Even so there's. The other example I'm just thinking of is right before I quit one of my full time jobs, I bought a house like two months before. And that was also a thing of like the mortgages do like, what am I gonna do? Not, not obviously month, one, two or three after quitting. But like that would be a thing of like you just made this huge financial commitment and now you're quitting to do your own thing.

Right. Most people would consider that.

Yeah.

Crazy, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And so it's. I don't know if it was necessarily like conscious of this is why I'm doing it, but it was like I wanted the thing and so no one's gonna tell me that I can't have the thing. And I think like, ah, like it will work out. Like, I don't know, like it will. It was always like, not that it will work out on its own, but I will make sure that it works out.

Right.

Yeah.

And is that because you didn't want to lose the thing or was it more of a I need to prove to other people?

Yeah. I don't know. Now we're getting into like, I think there's a bit of you want to project success so that people. So you can get more of it. So conjuring your own success sort of thing.

Yeah.

And yeah, I don't know. I think, yeah, there's probably a lot of psychology around like what makes people do that. But I actually have heard on other podcasts of people talking about that too, of putting themselves in a position to work harder. And I know another example is like, now people won't do this maybe on purpose, but if people have a family and kids, then the hustle maybe is a little higher to get the thing done because you want to make sure you're providing. And so I would say this is similar, but these are tangible things versus a family.

Well, yeah, but I can see the dynamic being somewhat similar. It reminds me a little bit of this movie Gattaca. Do you ever watch a movie Gattaca?

I feel like I have older. Yeah.

But there's a scene where he has. He's like the unmodified person, like ungenetically modified person. So he's like just a regular human. And there's a scene where he swims out into the ocean to save his brother who is genetically modified, and then swims all the way back. And he said, well, how did you know he had enough energy? He said, I only had enough energy to swim out. Yeah. You know, he knew that he only had enough energy to swim out, but he did it anyway and then swam all the way back with his brother. Yeah. You know, kind of reminds when you were telling that story. It's making me think about that. Like you just extended yourself out there.

Yeah.

Maybe anybody else would have said, why on earth would you do that if you don't know for sure that you can handle it.

Yep, yep.

But you use it as a way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. I mean, yeah, I'm not trying to get all therapy on you, but it's interesting to see where the motivation comes from, I think, and because a lot of entrepreneurs probably will resonate with what you're saying. And it's a.

When I think I would say, like, words may be applicable a little bit more. So. So there were sometimes, like, silly things that I would spend money on to do that. But I also think there's real tangible things of, like when you're starting out your company or starting out a new business is if you're not willing to put a little bit of your own money into the thing before you see traction. I think that's like, I was never not willing to do that. So, like, I would pay for things like mockups or a logo design or thing before I even knew if the thing was going to exist. Because I wanted to. I wanted to demonstrate there was, like, progress and I was willing to put my own money behind it. And so I think be like showing a little bit, if it's 100 bucks here or 50 bucks there, I think is also part of it, because I've started a bunch of things that I've spent money on that I've never seen that money back. But not everyone's willing to even do that. Right. To spend a couple hundred bucks to say, okay, I really believe in this thing, but I'm not even willing to put, you know, $1,000 of my own money to get a simple website up and an email address and, you know, a logo and some business cards. They're waiting for someone to invest in it. I'm like, oh, like, that doesn't need investment.

So let's just jump ahead then and talk about when things don't work. Yeah, Right. So we haven't gone through the whole list, but since you graduated from Esteem, you have started or worked on multiple startups, multiple projects. I don't even know what the list is, but it's Quite a list. And many of those you're still doing today, along with a bunch of new stuff. So the question is, founders hit walls. You've certainly hit walls as you've gone on this journey. What is that like for you? What do you do? How do you approach an obstacle like that? Or do you want to tell us a story of when that happened?

Man, there's different ones, and maybe the older ones are easier to tell stories on because they're just not as relevant anymore.

Yeah, Distance.

Yeah, whatever the quote is.

Yes, yes.

Tragedy plus time equals comedy.

Comedy 100%.

So I think what. And I don't know if this is true for all founders and entrepreneurs, but I definitely have a habit of overanalyzing and also procrastination. Although those together, like, I would say, not great characteristics, because you could keep working on something way longer than you should versus, like, getting rid of it fast.

Okay.

And that's what I think a lot of, like, investors want to do is, like, if this is not working, like, let's try something else or move on. So I think if there's not a lot of money being spent on something, it's easy to have it keep going. So a long time ago, started this thing for booking, like, college entertainers, you know, through a website. You've probably heard about this project. We've talked about it. I mean, that was from, I don't know, 2013, 2014. Kept trying to get that locked. I knew that it was a. Indeed a problem that marketplace had. Now, what kept being the issue is the market didn't want a solution for the problem.

Okay.

And I kept trying to force it. And you need the market to be on board because it's a marketplace of buyers and sellers.

Was it that the market didn't want a solution or just a solution that you were providing?

So why they don't really want a solution is because it creates efficiency, and people are making money on the inefficiency. So the people who are making that money on inefficiency don't want a software solution to make the job easier because it can bypass them. And that's often, I would say, some of the early projects I worked on had that kind of aesthetic to them. And often the market wasn't ready or didn't want it because there were too many people making money off of inefficiency. And as a math guy and computer science guy, I was like, oh, well, we can just build something that can fix this problem. Sure. Because everyone in the industries were not technical. So the Entertainment industry is not super technical. And the other one that I was working on before that, it wasn't super technical industry from a like, creative standpoint.

So you're trying to bring this very efficient problem solving solution, technical solution to an industry that just.

Yeah.

Doesn't have, doesn't have an appetite for it.

Right. And so some of them become like, you run out of money and so. And they're like, in order to keep it going, it costs way more than willing to put into it.

Yeah.

But sometimes you can string it along for. If you're just paying like hosting fees and you're paying like some, a couple software developers, once in a while you can turn that on for years and not really understand that it's wasting your time and distracting you from other things unless you just enjoy it. I enjoyed that thing, but I never put enough, like, I don't know if it was enough effort, but there was a lot of effort but enough behind it to like force it to work.

So you were just mentioning how sometimes projects can string along even though they probably should die. If you were talking to a young founder, like, what would you tell them about that?

Oh man.

When do you know when to pull the plug on something?

I think if you're not able to get any traction. So on all those that kind of fizzled, I did have some agreements signed from potential customers and those sorts of things. What I wasn't getting was anyone's money, so I wasn't getting any customers money. And I think if, like, it's hard to say because like, if you're, if you're not willing to put in like 12 hours a day for the thing and you know, like really hustle to make sure it works and it just kind of, you get distracted by other, a lot of other stuff.

Yeah.

Then, then maybe not the right thing for you to do, but also there's just like sometimes random projects that can be successful and you can kind of do as a side hustle and still work. But if you don't care about the product and you don't care about the customer, like personally, I don't know, like, if you don't have that genuine appreciation for it.

No, it makes sense. I mean, it sounds like what you're suggesting is that if you had been able to put 12, if you had wanted to put 12 hours a day into it, you might have been able to make successful.

Correct? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But for some reason you just never felt compelled to put the time into it.

Yep. And it could have been where I was in life and also where I was in making. Trying to make money for other things like doing. To pay the bills. There are a lot of aspects that could have gone into that, for sure.

That makes sense. That makes sense. So let's talk about protecting your energy, because anybody who knows you is worried about you, probably because you're a very busy guy. Even during the break from this podcast, you were checking your phone and there's an issue at another business that you run, which is access imprints. And you were mentioning all day Sunday you were in here, which is yesterday, working with a hackathon. So you seem like the wrong guy to ask about how to protect your time.

Right, right.

But tell me your thoughts on that.

Yeah, I don't know if I do. No, I'll say I don't do a great job because I would definitely consider myself an introvert and essentially meaning that I need my own time to get rejuvenated and be.

Be.

Get my energy back. I don't get the energy from events and doing all those things. Not to say those aren't fun. I'm not great or good at them. But you need your own time to recollect.

I get that completely. Although at first glance, I say, if someone just met you, they say, what is he talking about? However, I've known you long enough to see I see the introverted side of you.

And so right now, I would say that in the last six months, it is a struggle. And I would say sometimes there's times where I'm not as courteous as maybe I should be to the people I'm around that I want to be courteous to. And I've noticed in the last maybe even six weeks is, oh, I need a day for myself where I'm not. Where I can do the things I need to do, whether it be home or, you know, somewhere else. And. But where I'm just not getting constantly, like, either ask questions or ask for things or having to make decisions. It's almost like decision fatigue of even when there's things that don't matter.

Right.

So, like, if it's like, where do you want to go for dinner? Or like, what do you want for this other thing? You're just like, I want to stop having to think about questions. And so I think right now I'm trying to put in more people in place to kind of be those barriers so that I can have other people answering questions and doing those things way more than I did before. And I think I'm also trying to be. I've done a very good job. Also less accessible to people. And I'm very accessible. And I think that's also like, draining on my, like, mental health and like, you know, because it's going to burn out. And it's. It's not even saying, like, it doesn't get close to it quite frequently these days.

Yeah, Yeah, I can completely see that. I mean, at the beginning, there's a certain thrill in, like being the guy in the middle of everything. Right. But then you get to a point where you just can't keep doing it. It doesn't make sense. And so, like, putting some barriers between yourself and everything else going on just becomes a.

It's like a necessity. But it's hard because if you're introverted but also are like a people pleaser, you want everyone to like you, and so you're wanting to solve the people's problems, whatever it might be, whether it's they just want more coffee. Cause the coffee ran out or whether it's the actual, like, complicated problem.

Right.

Like your mind doesn't always treat those differently.

Right.

It's like. And I think that's. That's kind of the. Sometimes the problem is just. And also knowing when to say no and, you know, and being okay with disappointing people. Or sometimes you should make the assumption you're disappointing them. But honestly, like, saying no is maybe good.

Right. Could be the clarity they need.

Yeah. Or they can go and find someone who can do the thing for you or for the. For themselves. And I think those are things that I'm constantly trying to read and listen about to get and practice a little bit better. And then when I get feedback that it's worked well and now everyone's mad at me because I said no or cause I couldn't do this thing, I'm like, oh, that gives you a little bit of training to say, I can do some more of that or they don't need me. These people can get this thing done without me. I think right now, what's sometimes challenging looks like we're in a new, brand new space. There's a lot of things we're doing for the very first time. And so I feel a little bit of obligation to help it out and kind of morph it to make sure we're doing the brands and doing the. What I try to. I'm gonna start over a little bit on that one. What I try to do sometimes is make sure that I'm here to help make sure we're delivering on the brand and the promise that we wanted to. And then I think the next iteration, like, I don't need to be a part of it, but there's a lot of just first times happening these days. Like the hackathon we had, like, it's the first time we ever did. People were here for 12 hours and we never had like that sort of long event before. And so there's a lot of moving pieces that you're like, oh, like how you want them to experience the space so that they want to come back and host it here again.

Well, and I've known you long enough to know too, that you really want to get things right. And it's very important to you to get things right. And so I imagine that makes it a little hard to hand off something to somebody else for the first time. Yeah.

And that's a detriment. I said that's not, that's not a positive characteristic.

Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's. I can see how it would be a burden for you. Like, it's admirable that you want to get it right. Right. It's really important for you. Like the aesthetics of it, the functioning of the running of it. Like, you don't want people to be disappointed.

Right.

You want it to be a very high standard.

Correct. Yep. Yep.

But that, and the flip side of that, the dark side of that is it makes it really hard for you to trust somebody else.

Yeah.

To do the work.

But I think I'm getting better. I think I'm getting. Which is great. I think I'm getting better.

Yeah. So is, you know, a little bit related note, but I was talking to John before this podcast and he mentioned, no, this is a good. It's a good thing. No problem. I did, I did ask him for some dirt, but he didn't give me anything real good, so don't worry. But he was talking about celebration and how what he has noticed about you or what he knows about you is that you take small moments to celebrate seriously, which I think is a form of self care for sure. Right. And what is that about?

It's, you know, and I think it may come from back to the book I mentioned. And if it's not in there, then actually that should have been. That it should have been. But the toilet paper entrepreneur had this chapter about creating your immutable laws. And it was essentially the things, whether your company or for yourself, that you know that need to be true and you need to keep as your pillars, even if they're not like the company pillars. Of like how you service customers, it's more of these like other intangible sort of things. And one of the. And it wasn't how he phrased it, but when we had was working with the startups that I put in there was we said celebrate authentically. Cause I was like, people need that opportunity. And I thought it was always important. Now I don't know if I understood why I thought it was important back then, because that was probably 2013, 2014. But as I've seen then, other people, my friends and you know, things, milestones happen. And for myself, it's like you want people to celebrate versus you're just moving on to the next thing. If you're doing that, you're just draining yourself because there's never a time to be like, cool. That was really fun. I'm glad we got to get that milestone, whatever it might be. And so at least for the, the folks around me, I'm always trying to say, like, hey, let's get that cocktail or let's get that bottle of champagne or let's celebrate with like getting a custom T shirts or custom coasters or, you know, something to let people know.

Yeah, guess what I'm wearing right now.

Get an idea week embroidered.

Idea week embroidered up because Chris wanted to do this for us.

And I think like, that it creates now subconsciously, I didn't know this, but I probably know more now. That we have a physical space is like, it helps create that community and that ecosystem that people want to be a part of. And I think what's sometimes hard is like finding people who will do that same thing for me. And I know that in a negative way, but sometimes it's just like trying to, okay, like, I'm gonna, I want that, you know, thing, whatever it might be, and not say it's all about like champagne and cocktails, but just to take a time to have a break and just so you can start fresh the next day. And it creates a moment versus, like, sometimes it's happened even in the last couple years where that hasn't happened. And it just like, frustrating. I actually kind of hold onto it probably longer than I should of saying, oh, like this great milestone happened and like, we just moved on.

Yeah, we just like, okay, next thing, next thing, next thing. Yeah. No, I think that's fantastic that you do that. I can see, you know, just thinking about it, like, how important that can be and for team building too, to say, you know what, like, we did something, folks. Like, this was a big deal. We made it and let's recognize it rather than just blowing past it.

Yeah. Even. Even in the back, like, back in the day. I can think of an example that we did at one of the startups where as we were getting our initial sales, we came up with what we thought was a fun thing. Company celebration thing now. So I think it's always better because, again, that was back in, like, 2013, 2014, that we thought would be fun to both do team building and also celebration now. We may have picked the wrong, like, waiting for.

Curious what this was.

Well, so we thought what'd be really fun was to do, like, this roulette game. And so we got, like, a lazy Susan, had a bunch of little, like, Dixie cups.

Oh. And it was like a homemade.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we poured water into most of them. And then we poured probably, like, vodka or something into, like, three of them, depending on how many sales had happened in the last week.

I see.

And then you had to spit it. Everyone had to take a shot.

Yeah. And so you didn't know if you were gonna get water or vodka. Yeah.

Yeah. You didn't know if you're having water or vodka. I think we only were able to do that once before. People thought that wasn't a great idea, but the.

It was a creative idea.

The thought was, like, we should be celebrating now. That may not be the right celebration technique, but we were just trying to be fun and creative and, like, it was. It was. We were. Most of us were pretty young and thought, like, yeah, this would be fun to do.

I love it. It does sound like somebody in their 20s idea of how to celebrate. Yeah, for sure. That's fantastic. So I don't want to go too long without talking about momentum. Right. That's why we're here. A huge part of what is going on right now. It's where we are, and it is probably your. You know, I don't want to call it your biggest baby, but, like, this is the big thing right now. And I do want to kind of go back, because this did not happen overnight.

Correct. Yeah.

Like, the idea came from somewhere.

Yeah.

And tell us, how did it originate?

Yeah. But I would even say that what I typically try to describe it as, while the idea for the specifics of this started, let's say, mid-2020 or so of this building. This specific building and what could we do with it and what that was. But I think all the things that happened before it also helped make this thing happen.

Yeah, I'm sure. I believe it.

There was Bethany and I were giving a presentation a couple weeks ago and kind of talking about it, and we did from 2016 to 2018, these informal happy hours that we just did, like, pop up happy hours on the lawn, on a rooftop. And it was to get together entrepreneurs that wouldn't ordinarily meet each other. And the goal was just like, pay for food, paid for drinks, and there was no programming. And, you know, that was kind of community building. Before there was a thought of, like, why we were doing it or it was literally just to get people together. Actually, it was because there were a couple of us. Griffin, John Henry and Max Brickman.

Oh, yeah.

And we were all hanging out, and we're like, oh, we would want to hang out more on some frequency and have beer.

Sure.

And then by the first time we did that, we had a sponsor, and we also then had, like, 30 other people that attended. So it was.

You were onto something.

Yeah, it was just a need of.

And then.

So there was that aspect of it. I think there's also the aspect of, like, for some of the projects, getting opportunities to get funding in the early days that later on I felt like, oh, like, these were just because I happened to be in the right place, right time to meet a person who knew that this thing existed. And that's how we got funding for some of the early projects.

So you recognize that getting people together in the same space together, it was fruitful for me. Was fruitful.

Yeah. And then. And so I think then also the need of. I've never rented office space in South Bench. I never. There's nothing I was ever willing to pay for. And a lot of us were working at home before. You know, work from home was the rage. And there's loneliness. And there's also just like. Yeah, you don't see anybody when you're doing that. I would say it's loneliness of not being able to see it and not having other people around that are also working on things like yourself.

See, a lot of your entrepreneurship has been sort of online, if you would say. Right. It's been virtual, it's been coding, it's been websites development. But now all of a sudden, you own multiple buildings.

Right, Right.

Which is like the flip side of that. This is like the most tangible thing you can have. This is like bricks and concrete and pipes.

Yes.

And they're all your problem now.

Right.

But I mean, I can see the driving idea behind that, though, is like, I want a space where I. Where I want to be.

Correct. Yep.

And then I also want a space where other people are going to want to be too. Because there is something about getting people together.

Yeah. And I think what we try to do is once it was like, okay, look, this is a thing. And people started to. I don't know if they thought, if they actually believed it, but we kept telling a good enough story to get people on board to say like, yeah, that sounds interesting. Was. Now, what would make someone come out of their house who has all the luxuries of home to go somewhere else and maybe drive 20 minutes, go somewhere else. And that was kind of one of the many driving forces of how we decided of what should be in here, what amenities, what caliber of amenities. As we decided, you can have a coffee machine or you can have a pour brew machine and a batch brew machine and draft lattes. So those to me are not equal. If you have a Keurig machine or those things, you have coffee. The end result is you have coffee.

And that was important to you pretty early on?

It was, yeah.

And I get it too. I mean, I've been to co working spaces where it's a bunch of cubicles and a coffee machine in the corner.

And I don't even drink coffee.

That is the great irony of this whole thing. Yeah, yeah.

I forget the beating part of the question, but yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah. So I'm thinking about. So you started this project, you identified a need. It was both serving yourself, I think, to some degree. Cause you're seeing yourself as customer number one in some ways. Right. Like if it's gonna work for Chris, it's probably gonna work for other people too, because you had already tested that out with happy hours and other kind of gatherings. Is momentum the riskiest thing you've ever done?

Oh. Oh, interesting. So it's hard to answer that question because I think I take a lot of calculated risks. And so what certain people might think is super risky, my mentality might not have the same risk adjustment or thoughts towards it. So I'd say, is it the most financially invested project? Yes. And so from that standpoint, do I have the most to lose of any other projects? Yes. Now, you know, I think that that's otherwise hard to say because of what type of risk it is. So if it's financial risk, yeah, there's. And I would say, like, there's just a lot of money to buy a building, build it out and have it high quality amenities versus if you're building software. Once you build it and you've paid the developers your maintenance costs, you could cut those off tomorrow if you needed to if you ran out of money. That's true. You could just cut off the cost. And there's not an ongoing thing that you're required to pay unless you take out a loan, you know, to build, buy something again, different from a building. We need tenants, you know, you need people to pay the bills. You got rents. You got all these things that you have to pay for. You can't just cut off the power. Yeah. You can't get cut off, say, like, hey, this month, like, yeah, you know, money's tight, so we're just not gonna. Yeah, we're not gonna do the thing anymore. But I also think it's the most, like, impactful thing that we've been trying to do regionally. So, like, if I think about what, how can I impact the region? That's. This is definitely the thing that, like, all the other stuff is, like, not all my clients are here. Most of the customers for some of the things aren't in South Bend or South Bend. Elkhart, I should say. But here we're creating a community space to hopefully make the region better, keep more people here, and financially impact the future.

And I feel like that has been reflected in the support. Right. This project got some ready money, got some other philanthropic dollars. You got a lot of.

Got the city on board.

Big. Yeah, the city on board. And you had investors big and small who believed in what you were trying to do and put some money into the pot.

Yes.

So that certainly speaks to, like, the resonance this project had at a regional level, at a very local level. Right. These are. Everybody that we just mentioned is here, Correct. You know, the money didn't come from some magical source in California, correct?

Yes.

Yeah.

So I think that's a difference of previous to this, the only risk was my own funds, and so if it went south, I just move on and find another client or find another project to do versus this one. There's a lot of people that want to see this super successful in a positive way, and we want to make sure we deliver on that.

I noticed right from the get go. And you mentioned the architecture earlier. You wanted this to be really, really special.

Yes. Yes.

And you were particular about that. Yes, I think for good reasons. But you really held the line in a lot of ways, like, no, we cannot make this something that's gonna feel not special. I'm not sure what their language you use in your head for it is.

But weren't, like, status quo or average. Yes.

You knew right away that if you were gonna do this, it had to be had to be above average, right?

Yeah.

Where does that come from for you? Like, I do feel like you're like this, like, well, and even, like, working with, like, you know, I want to ask about Idea Week and some other things, but, like, you. You've had your foot in the entertainment world, too. And I think you also bring, like, a very high standard to that work as well. Like.

Yeah, where's that? Is it the question where does that come from? Or, I mean, where does it come from?

But also tell us a little bit more about why it matters and what it means for, like, another entrepreneur doing work.

I'm sure there's been an evolution of it over time, of what has. Why I've thought that way or what I want to put say my name on and what I want people to think of when they think of me. And it's definitely evolved. It probably started with some of the entertainment stuff, you know, that we were doing back in the early days, and then wanting to be. If I want to be known for something, it's definitely, again, not just to be the average. And I think over time, the things we've built and the things we've done, trying to do it differently in a way that makes people feel special and makes people feel a part of something. And I think maybe it could be of what I felt like was missing for me, but knowing that you see some of those experiences that I've had not in South Bend, and I'm like, oh, like that. That can exist.

So.

So why don't we have that here? Or why do I not feel that here? And so if no one else is doing it, why don't we do it? And why don't I do it? And which is fantastic, because a lot.

Of people stop at why isn't this here? This place sucks. Right?

Right.

And you took that extra huge step to say, well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna build it.

And I think, you know, and it's probably just over time of getting that positive feedback that people like a thing. So whether it's before this project or even since the project of. And it's probably about a bunch of the books I read or podcasts I listened to, just all those things of, you want to be above, you want to be special in some way. And so not to say that we're not going to be special because we're in South Bend, but if we were in Austin or Los Angeles or other city, that's part of the thing that's Creating the specialness. And so to deliver on something that is not purely unique, but definitely very unique. Just trying to figure out what doesn't exist here. What do people want? What are people unhappy with that does exist here? What have other cities done that we can bring here that the people in our region don't even know are possibility? And I think that constant feedback of it was just like, that was energy. I think that it kind of went fueled. And I was like, oh, like, people like fancy things. We use the word fancy a lot when we were building it out.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you did. I mean, you hired a great. You hired a great architect.

Yeah. You great design team with the time.

And the money and then making sure things were going to be really above average. People notice it. Right. When they walk in the door. Yeah, right. The lighting, the furniture. Right. And they feel it. Right.

You walk in the door, and when people say, like, I don't understand. Where am I? You know, like, I don't feel like I'm in South Bend. And I think that it was trying to probably, again, subconsciously replicate that feeling I had when I would go. When I would go to other things. And, like, how do we. How do we create that experience here? Again, I don't think all of it was like, yes, it was intentional of the quality of everything we did, but I don't think we could imagine that what people. How people were going to experience it until they actually walked in the door.

I suppose that's true. Yeah. So, I mean, you're a few months into it now. What have you learned about this work? I mean, you've got tenants working in the space. You've had a lot of events, which has been fantastic to see. I've been amazed by how quickly momentum has become a place to do things, which is awesome. It is awesome.

Yeah. I think one of the things. So someone asked me maybe last week or the week before, of what would you do differently? And I think some things are hard to put your finger on because you just adapted. When the challenge came up, the problems came up. I think there's physical things that were built out. They're like, oh, if you'd have thought about the actual person interaction with those things, I would have adjusted it a bit, because when it's on paper and looking at it from the top down, you're like, okay, someone could walk here and go over here and do this thing, and then go over here to this thing. But then when you're actually there, why is the ice 20ft from the sink? You Know where you're gonna get water or why is the trash can, you know, this far away from this other thing?

Sure.

Or why don't we have a sink in here? Because it makes a lot of sense. Because you would like, I think they're those things is no one else would really know. But like as, as you know, as we're here, you're like, ah, like I wish we would have done this differently now. I don't know that there's anything that we did do that I'm like, oh, we shouldn't have done. Like, I think all those decisions were like, yes, we should have, you know, spent the time and money on these things and we could have cut costs. We did, you know, we kind of value engineered certain things, which was a great idea as well. But it's, yeah, it's, you know, if you look at the drawings from two years ago, it is what we built.

Yeah.

And I think that's, that's the awesome part is we didn't, we didn't stray from what we promised we were going to build. And even though that front entryway is like, oh, like that looks like the drawing.

It sure does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's beautiful too.

Yeah.

So you have built the space that 25 year old Chris. Yeah, always, always would have loved. Right. So what, what does that mean for, for the 25 year old today? The founders, they don't have to be 25, it could be any age. But what does that mean for the founders of this region today?

Yeah, I, I think one of the, like, there's lots of goals we have and for obviously filling the space, doing, doing events, doing all those sorts of things. But it's, can we keep a number of entrepreneurs and founders and business owners in our region instead of them leaving, you know, over the next couple years and give them a spot to feel like I belong here. Because when you think of like the complaints is I don't have an ecosystem, I don't have peers and I don't have a social life.

You know, like when you're working out of your home. Right. Or you're working out of wherever it is.

So we can't solve all of those. But to, to create an ecosystem and create a, a space for them to find peers like that is this. And so I mean that, that, that, that's jobs in, in our region, that's hopefully economic development in our regions. You don't know. Hopefully some of those are successful companies. But I think I, I'm hopeful this leaves like a lasting, like positive Legacy on our region of. And, you know, I don't know, it's hard to imagine like 10 years from now or 20 years from now. Like, what will people think of what we did? Yeah, I mean, hopefully it's just awesome and positive.

Early signs are very positive.

Yeah, I agree. It's just like never having done this sort of physical project, you know, before and hoping to drastically change the entrepreneurial view of our region. But also like, if people have left and want to come back, they're like, oh, like there's an advantage of me to be there. Not only because the cost of living is a little lower, but I also now have this thing I can plug in right away. And it gives me an advantage to be more successful than I was if I wasn't.

Yeah, I remember that space. I mean, in a lot of ways I see this as sort of like, I want to say the anti Sudebaker, but when I moved here 11 years ago, I was surprised by how often I would hear people say, oh, South Bend, blah, blah, blah, oh, Studebaker closed. I didn't know anything about Studio Baker. I was like, I don't know, why are you talking about this company that closed in 1963?

Right, right, right.

Like why are we still talking about that? But there was a kind of a malaise. Right. And I think that's been changing for lots of reasons over the last decade or so. But when I see momentum, I see, okay, this is another really clear example of a mindset change.

Yeah.

Like, South Bend is not a place you have to leave to find your success. Right, right. You can walk in the door of momentum and say, wow, I could build something right here and I don't have to go someplace else and look at this community.

Yeah.

Holy shit. You know, like, this is great because.

A lot of people wouldn't have interacted or found each other if it wasn't for this.

Right.

This physical space that people could go in.

Right, right. So wrapping up here a little bit, I mean, obviously you've had this long entrepreneurial journey and it's not over yet by any means, but you're at a real pivotal point here where you've achieved the opening of momentum. So you're working in the space, but you're also managing the space. Right now you're supporting a lot of other entrepreneurs. Pretty soon you're going to be like the old gray haired, wise entrepreneur bringing all the, all the young folks up, but you're not quite there yet because.

I imagine, I imagine.

Yeah, yeah. Projectly, this will Give you some great hair, for sure. But what's next for Kris?

Oh, man.

I mean, I know it's maybe hard to see right now because you're still so deep into the weeds here, but what are you thinking?

Oh, man, that's a great question. And it's honestly not the first person since launching this project who's asked me that question. I think the focus is getting this project to be as successful as we promised and we imagined, 100%. Like, that's priority number one. And I think part of that is getting the right people in place to help see that be successful. Chris can't do it on his own. Yeah. And I think having. Being able to even think about the next project, having the right people in place, having the right partners in place, getting the right organizations to be a part of this is gonna be super important. And I don't want anyone to think that my mind is already going on to new things. However, as an entrepreneur, you're always looking for opportunities, and I think you're. But I think a lot of them now are opportunities that can help make this space even more successful. So, like, what are some of those partnerships with other organizations doing entrepreneurial things in our region? I also then think of how can. How can we expand this, and maybe not the specific project, but this idea to more things across the nation in terms of entrepreneurship? So, like, how do we get on that scale of. Maybe not the scale, again, of how much capacity we have in South Bend is a certain capacity and how much density. But having those same conversations as Austin and LA and Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Bloomington, Indiana, how does South Bend make sure we're also always there? And so I think that's where telling the story more and telling it to a broader audience is super important so that people can. I think one of the goals is have people come from other cities. One of the goals would be having people come from other cities to South Bend. Like, how did they build this? How did they do it? Because of the state funding, the city funding, the private public partnerships is, like, a super interesting thing. And I think that's, like, how do we tell that more? I think it's like, I want to figure that out.

Yeah, well. And I mean, you're barely into this, but it's already happening. I had those two guys from Purdue Northwest come over here the other day, and they wrote me afterwards. They were like, wow, that is true. How did you do this? Like, this was amazing. Like, they want to do something in Hammond that has a similar kind of feel to it.

And I don't think we'll ever grow obviously to be Austin, but I think can we not mimic them and have that as always being like a North Star of like, what are we trying to achieve on our own scale? You know, we didn't do idea Week. Like, we're not trying to be south by Southwest. Are we inspired by south by Southwest?

Absolute.

Absolutely. But we're not going to have a month long of events or, you know, however long Southwest, you know.

Right. And we're not going to have 100,000 people show up.

But can we. Can we do it so well that we are impacting our community and our ecosystem and continually be able to do that year after year and have a brand behind and have like an expanded to other things? I think we absolutely can do that.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the good thing for your problem solving brain is that there's always another problem to solve, so you'll never run out.

Yeah. Did you answer your question another way? Because I. It's interesting when people ask. It is, you know, five years ago or six years ago, I would have no idea that like, this was a thing that I was going to do.

Yeah. You know, it's amazing, isn't it?

Yeah. Like, I wouldn't have said, do I. Do I own a building or do I. Do we have an entrepreneurship hub that we built out? And like, that wasn't even a thought. And so I think that's just always being open to the new. The new things that come around. I think that. I think that's the entrepreneurial.

It is. It's super exciting. Right. Because here you are now. It feels like momentum is so core to like, everything about you. But six years ago you didn't even. It wasn't even a thought in your head yet.

My own thing, I was. Yeah. Not worried about what.

So it does make you wonder, like, what's. What's six years from now going to look like? Right. Like what? What? That's great, Kris. That's great. Listen, thank you for talking to us. Thank you for telling a little bit of your story. You really are like the classic entrepreneur in so many ways. And sorry it took to season three to get you on the podcast.

I forgive you. No, I actually think it was great that it was season three and we're in this new space and I feel like that was a more momentous way to do it.

Yep. Yep.

You planned it three years ago.

Like, we were right along with you. We've been walking alongside you for a long time.

Yeah.

Honestly. And I'm excited to be doing two Idea Week events here. Not two, we're doing one Elkhart. But Thursday night, we're going to be here, sold out workshop.

So we're just, you know, people want to get in.

Yeah, they do. They do. So thank you, guys.

They grab me down.