Football is not just a contact sport. It’s a game of discipline, respect, and character. When Teddi Domann and her husband would drop her two boys off at youth football camps, she thought they could do something to make the camps be better. They gathered some people and put together their vision for impacting young people by using the sport of football and run a youth football camp for ages seven to fourteen, which is what is now known as Pro Football Camp. Teddi shares that they’re not only teaching kids proper football but life skills and character qualities that are some of the keys to success for many of the top and most successful people in the world.

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Pro Football Camp: Teaching Football And Character Skills with Teddi Domann

We are with Teddi Domann. She is the Founder and Board Chairperson of Pro Football Camp. Teddi, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me on.

What we’re going to be talking about with Teddi is about Pro Football Camp. If you would, tell us a little bit about Pro Football Camp and who it serves.

The Pro Football Camp is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We serve the youth of the Greater Colorado Springs area. What we do every year is we put on a three-day camp. The camp starts at [8:00] in the morning and it goes to [11:30]. We have current and former NFL athletes who teach not only football skills, which you would expect from a football camp. They also teach character skills. When I talk about character skills, what I mean by that is what does it take to be able to be an athlete who’s able to play in the NFL? That’s a pretty small number of people and it takes some character qualities that candidly are some of the keys to success for many of the top and most successful people in the world. The bottom line is, if you can learn this at a young age, it’s going to impact your life whether you’re playing football or not.

What was the genesis of the idea to do this? How did it start?

It started because our boys, we have two boys, wanted to go to a youth football camp. My husband and I signed them up for several different camps. We would drop them off or pick them up, we’re checking out the camp and I was like, “We could really do this to help this camp be better.” At the end of it, I actually reached out to all three of those camps that my kids attended in and offered our assistance. No one took us up on it.

Because the backstory is people don’t know what else you do.

The back story is that my husband is an attorney and a CPA and what he does is represent NFL athletes. He’s a certified NFL PA agent.

You’re at this crux and you’ve reached out and they’re not interested in your help. What was going through your mind when you said, I think I’m going to do this?

Actually, I reached out to them a second time and no answer. Then my husband and I were talking, I said, “Let’s pray about it,” and so we did. At the end of that time period of praying, I said, “What do you hear what the Lord is saying?” My husband looked right at me and he goes, “You’re supposed to do this?” I said to him, “If we’re going to do this, then we’re going to do it right. It’s going to really make an impact in our community. We got together with some other people who shared our vision, including a former NFL player in Colorado Springs. His name is Rich Griffith. He played with the Jacksonville Jaguars, just short of ten years. He’s actually a pastor at a local church and just retired from that. Now he’s doing full-time missionary work. The bottom line is we all had a vision for impacting young people by using the sport of football and running a youth football camp for ages seven to fourteen.

We had this...

 

Small businesses are important to the nation’s economy. Over 80% of our gross national product is produced by employers with less than 100 employees and the failure rate is 76% to 90% in the first one to two years. Harry Lay, trusted advisor to CEOs and owner and president of Lay Professional Services, provides services primarily to small businesses to help them accomplish things they can’t seem to accomplish without somebody’s help. Harry says there are lots of companies that are underperforming, and he looks for the willingness and the ability of people to change what and how they do things. In order for them to move from where they are to where they want to be, he offers them the skillsets that they need but don’t have. Harry shares how he leveraged his skill as a CPA into starting his own consulting firm and becoming the trusted advisor to CEOs and business leaders worldwide.

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The Trusted Advisor: Learning From The Voice Of Experience Harry Lay

We’re incredibly fortunate to have Harry Lay, he’s the owner and president of Lay Professional Services, and he’s a good fishing buddy of mine. Harry, thanks for taking the time.

It’s a pleasure to be with you, as always.

Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

Lay Professional Services Inc. is headquartered in Tulsa. We provide services primarily to small businesses. The Chamber of Commerce, define small businesses, employers with 100 employees or less. I work with early stage mature small businesses and I help them accomplish things they can’t seem to accomplish without somebody’s help,

Folks go, “I’m that small business and I probably need some help.” Why should Harry be qualified? They don’t know your history and I do. Let’s dig in a little bit and talk about your journey prior to professional services.

Most people, when there’s something they want to change in their business, they want more income, and they want more sales or more profits. When I talk about I help companies change whatever it is in their company they want to change. That’s a pretty broad statement. I’ve had a pretty broad range of experience by education and training. I’m a CPA, at this stage of my career I’m a reforming CPA. I spent nineteen years in the profession, first of all with Arthur Andersen’s company as an auditor. After a few years there, two of their tax partners and I left. We formed our own firm in Tulsa and after almost ten years we grew to be one of the larger local firms. We were merged with or acquired by BDO Seidman. I was a senior audit partner with them for two more years before I got an incredible opportunity.

In the CPA world, I worked in virtually every industry that specialized in construction type clients, both in commercial and residential real estate, real estate development. My favorite client was Weyerhaeuser, the forestry company. You’ve heard some stories about that. An architecture firm contacted me in Tulsa about 1988 and asked if I would become their president and chief financial officer. I was a single parent with a thirteen-year-old daughter at the time, so I’m not sure why I took that job. I don’t remember what motivated me to do that. It might’ve been my concern about the SEC and their crack down on publicly held companies, but I did take the job. I realized pretty quickly I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know that much about business. That may sound odd for a nineteen-year CPA veteran.

I knew how to audit companies. I knew how to work with companies that somebody else had generated. I knew how to account for...

 

Hiring somebody could either break or make the company. There has to be an assurance that the person you hire is someone who they say they are. You have to go through a number of credentials and background checks to ensure their honesty and to know whether they can deliver well for the job. It helps to hire the right person in the first place, though this can be tough to do. Lori Denham is the founder of Guardian Background Screening, a full-service background screening company. Lori has all the details when it comes to doing pre and post-employment background checks. She takes us down into the processes as well as provides some notes and advice on the necessity of undergoing through the screening.

Lori Denham on Hiring The Right Person With Background Screening

We have Laura Denham on the show. She’s the Founder of Guardian Background Screening. Laura, thanks so much for being here.

Thanks for having me, Bob.

Tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.

We are a full-service background screening company. We do pre and post-employment background checks. We do tenant checks, volunteer background screening, drug screening, aptitude and integrity testing.

Is there a requirement to do those types of testing now in the workplace?

No. However, the aptitude and integrity testing for the small business owner is a way to figure out if this person is going to be a good fit. Are they going to waste time on the computers? Do they have abusive tendencies? Do they have leadership potential? This is an affordable non-DISC way for small business owners to get that information.

Circling back to the background checks and other services that you provide for the business owner, you also work with nonprofits. Is it mandated that you do?

None of it is mandated for me.

I had a clearance way back in the military. To serve in my field, I had to have a clearance.

That depends on where you want to work. Obviously, in the military or government, there is a requirement. Any local government, there’s typically background screening required.

For the rest of the world, it’s a voluntary elective pursuit. When a business engages you to do a background or any of the services that you provide, what’s the general motivation of that business owner? What’s the typical benefit to them?

They are looking to trust the person they’re hiring and make sure there’s nothing lurking in the background that’s going to be a surprise down the road. Perhaps they work with vulnerable populations or sensitive information, and they want to make sure that the person they’re hiring is not going to take advantage of either of those situations. Whether it be abuse, neglect and maybe they don’t have the credentials that they said they had. It’s a high-fraud area of resumes, saying that they’ve graduated with degrees or have had jobs that they’ve never done. For the employer, I’m ensuring that who they’re hiring is who they say they are.

As an applicant, I said I went to Vanderbilt and I put that on my resume. There’s some database that you go to verify. Is that available to everybody? How does the data retrieval to verify work?

Yes and no. There are a lot of colleges or schools that have stored their information with a vendor who then charges us to retrieve it. If they don’t use that service, then anybody can call the registrar’s office. Sometimes they have to pay for that verification, sometimes they don’t. It depends on what level of education they have. It’s to make sure that you’ve graduated with either the diploma or the degree that you’ve said you’ve graduated with.

What set you on this track to start...

Trish Groom, business development leader and serial entrepreneur, takes us into her journey towards success as she lays down the attitudes and mindset that got her there. From opening a coffee shop called Sidney’s Café to evolving into other business ventures with Splick-it, Inc, she shows that determination to reach her goals. As a business owner making her own name in the game, she encourages women to become investors as well. She has built this community for women investors to tap into an industry that no one taps them into. Talking more about her businesses, she gives great advice on how to inspire other people to become successful in their areas as well.

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The Spirit Of A Serial Entrepreneur with Trish Groom

We have Trish Groom on the show. She was the Owner of a coffee shop called Sidney’s here in town. She’s the Cofounder of Splick.it. Trish, thanks so much for taking time out of your day.

Thanks for having me.

Trish is a serial entrepreneur. She’s on more than one business. She’s involved in many different things in the business community. In Splick.it, tell me about your role and who does Splick.it serves?

I was Cofounder and in business development. We built an online pre-order, pre-pay app and web for businesses, for restaurants specifically. We target more franchise companies. The sweet spot for us are franchises that have between 500 and 1,200 locations. We white label for them and provide the service. We manage the backend and the customer experience for them.

I’m not a restaurant person. Let’s say I’m the franchise owner, what improvement or what change should I expect to see by using Splick.it?

A lot of restaurants lose revenue because they lose people at the end of the line. They can’t wait. In the early stages, we were one of the first to come up with this idea where we were taking your pre-order and pre-payment and putting it on an app. That way, you can still as an owner, get that revenue in the door and the customer can still get served quickly like they need to do be.

That’s the sticky factor on the long line. For the app, is it an app that the customer has to have or does an employee come from the restaurant with the app?

We do the marketing. We help the franchise market the app to a customer. They download it and create an account. We have a credit card on file so it’s easy for them to order and pay.

The consumer won’t know that it’s Splick.it because it will be private labeled for the franchises. How long has that company been around?

We started in 2009.

That was an auspicious time.

It was rough, a lot of early-stage friends and family rounds.

Serial Entrepreneur: If you’re going to run a race, do everything you can to win.

 

What folks don’t realize is you didn’t come from a business background. Your first foray in Boulder was you bought a coffee shop.

I did buy a coffee shop. What I didn’t realize was that I had never drunk a cup of coffee in my life and I thought that was a good idea. I didn’t realize that was unusual at the time.

Do you drink coffee now?

I do. I learned a lot. I was traveling in South America for a year and had this idea that I wanted to own a coffee shop. Not because I loved coffee, but because I thought that there was some community aspect to it that was intriguing. I came home from South America and I had no money and no business owning a coffee shop. I had no experience whatsoever. I was teaching at the time, but I ended up in...

 

The culmination of diving into the curious question of, “Who am I?” resulted in Kerry Crandell’s establishment of WoMAN or the Women of Mergers and Acquisition Network. The mission at WoMAN is to enrich the lives of women who work in mergers and acquisitions through three pillars – information, connection, and service. Kerry explains that it’s basically a great group of women in a male-dominated industry that comes together every month. They’re building this great community so that they can share with each other and can also enrich their lives through personal growth, professional growth, and service. Learn more about this great group as Kerry shares how it all started, what it is all about, and how you can qualify to become a member.

What It Takes To Be A WoMAN with Kerry Crandell

We’re so fortunate to have Kerry Crandell on the show. She is the Founder of WoMAN: Women of Mergers and Acquisition Network.

Thank you for having me.

Tell us a little bit about WoMAN, who you serve and what you do.

WoMAN is an acronym for Women of Mergers and Acquisitions Network. Our mission at WoMAN is to enrich the lives of women who work in mergers and acquisitions through our three pillars and that’s information, connection and service. As the name implies, you do have to qualify to become a member of WoMAN. You have to be or you have to identify being a woman and you have to work in or be affiliated with mergers and acquisitions in some form or fashion within your work. We launched in January of 2017.

For the young ladies and women, maybe they’re going, “I don’t know if I’m in that industry or not.” Expand on the folks that are in your group.

All of this is found on the website. I try to do a great job of it. It is Womanglobalgroup.com. As we’re expanding and growing into other markets, we’re actually in the process of figuring out an international domain that we can plug into that but right now that’s where you can go. The categories that we have of WoMAN is very broad and very diverse which is definitely a great thing for us. The first category we have is corporate women. That’s anywhere from a woman business owner who is acquiring companies or the one that has started a business and knows that she wants to exit it and wants to stay informed and connected to the M&A community. The other middle corporate category that we have are a lot of the general counsel and corporate dev team and that sort.

What if it’s a woman that sold a business lately, would they be qualified to be in your group?

Potentially depending on what their role is.

If they were the CEO, Founder of the business and they sold it?

Absolutely, and then they would want to stay involved and connected to the community for sure.

If you’re a corporate officer in a company, let’s say you’re the COO or the CEO of a publicly traded firm, would that be someone that would be qualified to be in your group?

We have a few COO and CEO members as well. Those companies are in the acquisition phase right now. There’s relevancy there but even if they weren’t, it’s basically a great group of women in a male-dominated industry that comes together every month. We’re building this great community so that we can share with each other and we can also enrich our lives through some personal growth or professional growth and through service.

Do you meet up? You have a presentation or a meetup.

We have an event, WoMAN Connect.

If somebody is going, “I don’t know whether I should go or not,” if they’re not a member, what...

 

When you see frozen food at the supermarket, you may not think about it and many people don’t even know it but they’re actually a result of food science. Just like any other item that needs to be manufactured for consumables, a lot of food will always start with a concept, whether the concept comes from the consumer or from a marketing aspect. That’s what food science is all about. Brandon Shepherd, CEO and Founder of Mile High Food Science, talks about paints a picture of what the food science space involves and what goes on behind food product development and manufacturing.

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Food Science: From Concept To Shelf with Brandon Shepherd

 

We’re up in Denver and we’re visiting with Brandon Shepherd. He’s the CEO and founder of Mile High Food Science. Brandon, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

We are a food product development consulting company that works with a lot of major consumer package goods companies here in America as well as in Central America.

When folks would go food design, what does that mean? Paint us a picture, we’ve got this picture that you probably can’t see that well in the video in the background, but it’s the thing called Side Shots. Let’s talk a bit about that and maybe that will paint the picture for them.

A lot of food will always start with a concept, just like any other item that needs to be manufactured for consumables. Whether a concept comes from the consumer or from a marketing aspect, that’s where the idea starts. Once the data is gathered, it will be handed over to a product developer or a food scientist to say please make this product that can be manufactured in our facility at these certain costs.

We see that typically in the frozen food counters and the supermarket regularly. As you look at it, we were talking about Side Shots. For the listener they talk about food science and that’s certainly not how I grew up. There were family recipes that we’d worked with. What I see from what you were talking about, why I was excited about having you on the show is you did Hot Pockets where you did product development for Hot Pockets and then you’ve actually had a foray into the cannabis industry as well.

When I graduated college, there was no such degree as a food science degree. This industry and this position has grown immensely over the past decade, two decades. Food science has become a household name now almost. Everybody knows a food scientist somewhere. Those are the rings that I travel in. The need for this kind of product development and knowledge of the science and manufacturing of food is becoming a very important and necessary in this environment. Food is the number one manufacturing business in North America. There are more food manufacturers than anything else. The industry seems very innocuous and we all have to eat, but it is a behemoth of an industry.

You graduated college and you worked at a dairy place. You worked at a manufacturing facility of some kind. Then at some point you got hooked up with Hot Pockets?

Yes. I actually just fell into the food industry. I was working. I had just come back from a teaching job in Japan for a year and 911 had happened while I was there. When I came back there were zero jobs to be held. I was a camp counselor. I did work with my dad when he could afford it. Then I was a microscopist for a long time and I just happened to fall into a temp job at Nestle handheld food groups, which was located in the Denver Tech Center at the time. Worked there for a week, sling and Hot Pockets on the bench top. Making them by...

 

There are so many different models of leadership and there are so many different solutions out in the market. Martin Lanik, CEO of Pinsight and the author of the business bestseller, The Leader Habit, says what makes their process different is the realization that traditional classroom-based leadership development just doesn’t work. They focus on 5-minute daily leadership exercises that build positive habits. They work with organizations to help them hire better leaders, and then to promote better leaders to identify the right high-potentials that they should invest in and to develop them to prepare them for executive positions. Martin shares some effective leadership behaviors you can practice to the point that they are your second nature.

Hiring and Developing Better Leaders with Martin Lanik

We are in Downtown Denver with Martin Lanik. He’s the CEO of Pinsight and the author of the business bestseller, The Leader Habit. I had the good fortune of getting a copy before it was released and finished reading it. Martin, thank you so much for taking time to be on the podcast.

I’m happy to be here. Thank you, Bob.

Martin, if you would tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

I run a software company called Pinsight and we focus on leadership development and leadership assessment. We work with organizations to help them hire better leaders and then to promote better leaders to identify the right high potentials that they should invest in and to develop them and prepare them for executive positions and work with those high potential as we are developing them.

I’m paramilitary so the leadership model was pretty understood and taught and so on. What took you down the path of working on leadership and developing solutions and applications to help?

I have a background in Industrial Organizational Psychology. I have a PhD from Fort Collins from Colorado State University. I started very early on in my career focusing on leadership and leadership assessment and then development. Then I worked as a consultant out of Pittsburgh and London working with global organizations, helping them with their leadership strategy. When the recession hit, I identified an opportunity. I thought, “There’s an opportunity here in the market where you can take all the really good parts of general leadership programs and then streamline them so they become much more cost-effective and scalable globally. That’s how I founded Pinsight.

Let’s make leadership as natural as brushing your teeth.

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I think about the folks that are listening and they’re going, “There’s a number of leadership programs with one description or another.” It’s really module-based inside the book where you could go through and try to do some work with big topics and work your way through, what led you basically to the thought process to start chunking it for lack of a better term?

You are absolutely correct. There are so many different models of leadership and there are so many different solutions out in the market. What makes our process different is the realization that your traditional classroom-based leadership development just doesn’t work. This was actually why I decided to write the book. Several years ago, I came across an article in the Journal of Consulting Psychology that shows

We often hear the saying, “Begin with the end in mind.” However, no one would think of applying this when it comes to business. Thinking about the end is often overlooked that it becomes a problem. Statistically, 80% of business owners either do not transact at all or did not transact with the value they think they should have gotten. Holly Flores, president of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Exit Planning Institute, talks about exit planning, succession, and why it’s important for businesses to take this in mind. She covers the EBITDA which stands for earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation, as well as the valuation, the processes, transactions, sales options, and more.

Why Businesses Should Think About Exit Planning with Holly Flores

We have Holly Flores. She’s the President of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Exit Planning Institute. She is also a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. We’re very fortunate. Thanks for taking the time to come in.

It’s my pleasure. I’m excited to be here.

Holly, tell us a little bit about what you do with the Exit Planning Institute as well as what you do as a Certified Exit Planning Advisor?

I got to the Exit Planning Institute via my day job as a Value Advisor with Quantive where we do business valuation. Those business valuations are often a triggering point for Exit Planning. What Exit Planning is, some people think of it as a negative because exit, they think I’m coming near the end of my life, but it means succession planning in business. Exit Planning does not mean planning for an exit for tomorrow. It means planning for transitioning out of your business sometime down the road, whether it’s six months from now or five years from now. We often say you always want to start with the end in mind. We transfer that over into other parts of our life but when we run a business, sometimes we fail to have that conversation.

With the Exit Planning Institute, who has done a great job over the past five or so years, bringing that vocabulary to the forefront of advisors all across the country, I wanted to be part of it and see how I could integrate that into my business. From day-to-day, I may work with the business on determining their current value and maybe looking at that for a handful of reasons. First of all, for transaction, for litigation, for tax planning but often that conversation, when they see the value, all of a sudden, the light goes on. They see what it’s worth and they’re excited or they see what it’s worth then they’re a little disappointed and they start thinking about, “What does the path forward look like?”

We hear triggering event and we hear exit and succession and go, “I died.” That’s usually what you get. In going backwards a little bit, the statistics around Exit Planning, succession planning are pretty grim, aren’t they?

They are. Statistically, 80% of business owners either do not transact at all or do not transact at the value that they think they should have gotten. If you think about that, the opportunity that is out there for us to improve upon this is huge. It’s limitless, especially when you think about how many small businesses there are in every city in America. If you are an advisor working with business owners and you’re not having this conversation, then maybe there’s an opportunity that you’re missing as well as there was a part of me that thinks we’re failing as advisors if we don’t have that difficult conversation and say, “Have you thought about what’s next?”

Most business owners think they’re immortal.

Being the fourth generation President and Chief Executive Officer of Babson Farms Inc., Taylor Kirkpatrick takes his responsibility very seriously running the family office. His job is running the family business and managing assets created over 100 years ago by his great grandfather. Right now, Babson Farms’ core asset is based on agricultural holdings, with supporting operating businesses like captive crop insurance company, tiling company, drainage, bin storage, trucking and transportation operations. Taylor shares that running the family business is a demonstration of patience and fortitude because you’re charged with seeing the future and trying to take advantage of an opportunity that might occur in the future. He always keeps the mindset that like everything in life, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. You have to keep a generational thinking, map out strategies and figure out how to do things on a daily basis as well as look at the bigger picture.

Successfully Managing a Family Office with Taylor Kirkpatrick

We have a treat now. We’re in Babson Farms and we’re with the CEO, Taylor Kirkpatrick. Taylor, welcome to the show.

Bob, thanks for having me.

Do us a favor, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

The easy answer is Babson Farms is a family office, which is a term that a lot of folks may or may not be familiar with and what it is, I serve one family managing their assets. These assets were created 100 years ago when my great grandfather, Henry Babson, went and visited the Thomas Edison at the Columbian World Exposition in 1893 in Chicago and said that he was willing to go and sell the phonograph for Thomas Edison outside of the United States. He took a prototype of the Edison talking machine and went to China and India and sold several thousand of those over the course of about two years.

When he came back, he took those winnings and started a mail-order catalog that competed with the Sears catalog in the South side of Chicago called Babson Brothers. That sold everything from sundries and fabric and things like that to dairy equipment and other farming equipment. He was selling a piece of equipment that he realized was not that great. It was difficult to clean. There was some sanitation issues. It would taint the central plant of the milk if you didn’t have clean vulcanized rubber tubes and things. He ultimately invented and patented and then sold the majority of the world’s dairy equipment called Surge Dairy Products for a period of about 50 years. In the‘70s, we had a liquidity event when we sold that to Westphalia which is a German conglomerate. The proceeds from that sale lead to the core assets that we have now.

Our core asset is based on agricultural holdings that we have, which are mostly in North Central Illinois. We have a bunch of farms that grow corn and soybeans up in North Central Illinois. Then we have supporting operating businesses or products and services that we use ourselves. Then we said, “We can do this in-house and then we can also help our neighbors as well.” Those are everything from a captive crop insurance company to a tiling company, which is a drainage situation to bin storage and some trucking and transportation and then GIS mapping services. Those are the types of things that we do for our customers and that’s what we’re trying to do. When you say who do we serve? The question for me is the constituents are the family themselves. That’s everybody that is a lineal descendant of Henry Babson.

Then there are also the employees that we have that worked within these businesses and then the partners that we have. We have operating partners that manage and work on all these farms. We have to make sure that we’re being smart about doing what we can and helping the family members

 

A lot of people in science, engineering, and health professions have a good idea but they don’t know what to do with it. Maybe they had two or three good ideas that just went down the drain. How do you translate your idea into something that creates value for a patient? According to Arlen Meyers, the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs is a global biomedical and clinical innovation and entrepreneurship network whose mission is to help members get their ideas to patients. Arlen is the president and CEO of the said society. He’s also a radio co-host in Colorado Business Roundtable, and a professor emeritus of otolaryngology, dentistry, and engineering at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He discusses in detail what the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs is all about, and touches on data and machine learning, physician entrepreneurship, digital health technology, and the experiences that helped him progress down the road.

The Society of Physician Entrepreneurs with Arlen Meyers

We’re extremely fortunate to have Arlen Meyers. He’s the President and CEO of the Society of Physicians Entrepreneurs. He’s also a radio co-host in Colorado Business Roundtable. He’s a professor emeritus of Otolaryngology, Dentistry and Engineering at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Arlen, thank you for taking your time to be here.

Thanks for having me.

Tell me a little bit about what you’re doing with the Society of Physicians and who you serve.

The Society of Physicians Entrepreneurs is a global biomedical and clinical innovation and entrepreneurship network. Our mission is to help our members, which are fairly eclectic, to get their ideas to patients. Everyone I know in science, engineering, and health professions have a good idea but they don’t know what to do with it. Typically, it goes down the drain in the shower. Maybe you had two or three good ideas and they went down the drain. How do you translate the idea into something that creates value for a patient? That process, which we refer to in sick care have a $3.2 trillion healthcare spending, which is masquerading as a sick care system. 90% of the budget goes toward taking care of sick people. I’m a recovery Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon. I spent my career at the Anschutz Medical Campus in the University of Colorado School of Medicine teaching people how to do surgery on that stuff.

I’ve had a fairly complicated medical career. I didn’t like the idea of how this was playing out in terms of innovation. I felt that for a very long time and to a certain extent now, the two most important components of the innovation supply chain, the doctor and the patient, were ignored. It was the biomedical industrial complex that came up with bright shiny objects and said, “These are great. Why don’t you buy them for this ridiculous cost?” Now, we wind up with high-cost, low-value stuff. Why? Because of a number of reasons, but one of them is because we didn’t engage end users early enough in what is described as design thinking, lean startup methodology, consumer engagement and customer discovery. I didn’t like that, I thought that was stupid. I decided with some other folks to do something about it.

When did you decide?

This is something that I had been involved with for a long time. I graduated from business school in 1984. In those days, having someone with a white coat sitting next to pinstripes was rare. I’ve always had this bug about the business of science and medicine. Part of it comes from my background. My dad was a pharmacist, he was a son of an immigrant. It was a great generation, depression to immigration, the whole drill. He worked like a dog and...