Exploring the Startup and Venture Studio Model with Josh Stanley and Fahad Siddiqui

Josh Stanley: 00:00:00

When you're a startup and you need capital,

Josh Stanley: 00:00:01

right capital is just an ingredient to your success

Josh Stanley: 00:00:03

story. It's the fuel to your ship that you've built. Like

Josh Stanley: 00:00:06

your as a startup, you're always kind of seeking you're hopeful

Josh Stanley: 00:00:09

for smart money.

Brent Williams: 00:00:10

Welcome to the Be Epic Podcast, brought to you

Brent Williams: 00:00:13

by the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of

Brent Williams: 00:00:16

Arkansas. I'm your host, Brent Williams. Together, we'll

Brent Williams: 00:00:20

explore the dynamic landscape of business and uncover the

Brent Williams: 00:00:24

strategies, insights and stories that drive business today. Well,

Brent Williams: 00:00:29

today, I'm fortunate to have with me two guests. I have Josh

Brent Williams: 00:00:34

Stanley, who is CEO of Cartwheel Studios. And also have Fahad

Brent Williams: 00:00:40

Siddiqui, who is Principal and Senior Vice President at SSI.

Brent Williams: 00:00:46

We'll tell you a little bit more about both of them about SSI and

Brent Williams: 00:00:52

Cartwheel what they do. And the unique partnership they're

Brent Williams: 00:00:56

forming in Northwest Arkansas. But maybe before I do that, let

Brent Williams: 00:01:02

me ask each of you to tell us just a little bit about you and

Brent Williams: 00:01:06

your background. Josh, I'll start with you. Fahad come to

Brent Williams: 00:01:10

you next. And then Josh will kind of come back and talk about

Brent Williams: 00:01:13

Cartwheel.

Josh Stanley: 00:01:13

Okay, sure. Yeah. Yeah, my background. And I would

Josh Stanley: 00:01:16

say professionally, I came up in product management and project

Josh Stanley: 00:01:19

management, have kind of run teams on both sides of that kind

Josh Stanley: 00:01:23

of technology facilitation role and got into entrepreneurship

Josh Stanley: 00:01:27

after spending years at 1-800 Contacts, which is the contact

Josh Stanley: 00:01:30

lens business. And then Backcountry.com, and then

Josh Stanley: 00:01:33

ultimately, Zappos. So I spent a long, basically 12 years in E

Josh Stanley: 00:01:37

commerce doing those roles, and then took the leap of faith that

Josh Stanley: 00:01:41

a lot, or I shouldn't say a lot, but some, some corporate people

Josh Stanley: 00:01:45

take into entrepreneurship. Did that after kind of fighting

Josh Stanley: 00:01:48

through this, like, how am I going to become an entrepreneur,

Josh Stanley: 00:01:52

I went through a period of feeling like I needed the

Josh Stanley: 00:01:55

perfect idea. And then I ultimately ultimately landed on

Josh Stanley: 00:01:59

this concept of like, no, I should just do what I'm good at.

Josh Stanley: 00:02:02

Like, I could do that as a consultant, as a contractor. And

Josh Stanley: 00:02:06

that's how I started and then kind of eventually ended up

Josh Stanley: 00:02:09

working with some friends to build an agency out of Las Vegas

Josh Stanley: 00:02:13

that served product development. So we were a product development

Josh Stanley: 00:02:17

agency that did software development, but kind of

Josh Stanley: 00:02:20

holistically covered the spectrum of product management,

Josh Stanley: 00:02:23

design, and software development so that we could, you know, in

Josh Stanley: 00:02:27

isolation, kind of go off and build build a product for a

Josh Stanley: 00:02:31

client, for the Fortune 500 clients that we worked with. And

Josh Stanley: 00:02:34

then I mean I'll include how I got to Northwest Arkansas,

Josh Stanley: 00:02:38

because that's it's at the heart of I think a lot of what we want

Josh Stanley: 00:02:42

to talk about today. And that's, yeah, in that, running that

Josh Stanley: 00:02:45

agency for about two years and growing that to a couple million

Josh Stanley: 00:02:49

bucks in revenue. We got acquired by a larger agency out

Josh Stanley: 00:02:52

of Northwest Arkansas called RevUnit, which I think many in

Josh Stanley: 00:02:56

the region know. But yeah, just a larger software development

Josh Stanley: 00:03:00

firm or product development firm. And ended up running that

Josh Stanley: 00:03:03

for about two years and then exited, exited that or helped to

Josh Stanley: 00:03:07

help RevUnit go through a private equity transaction in

Josh Stanley: 00:03:10

2019. But yeah, so I've co founded I think six companies.

Josh Stanley: 00:03:14

Now I'm kind of skipping over some of the details of how those

Josh Stanley: 00:03:17

happened. But it had been through a few exits as well. So

Josh Stanley: 00:03:21

it's been a it's been a fun journey and now based in

Josh Stanley: 00:03:24

basically Bentonville, I live in Little Flock just outside of

Josh Stanley: 00:03:28

Bentonville, but our office is in Bentonville.

Brent Williams: 00:03:31

All right, wonderful. Well, Fahad, how

Brent Williams: 00:03:34

about a little bit about your background?

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:03:35

It's hard to follow Josh on this one,

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:03:38

Certainly less exciting career. But I spent I

Brent Williams: 00:03:38

It is.

Brent Williams: 00:03:42

started in the telecom sector in New York, basically big

Brent Williams: 00:03:46

corporate, spent 10 years in telecom in different positions,

Brent Williams: 00:03:51

very corporate positions, corporate development, strategy

Brent Williams: 00:03:54

planning, little bit finance and strategy oriented and then

Brent Williams: 00:03:59

wanted to get closer to sales and marketing. Became head of

Brent Williams: 00:04:02

marketing for a b2b division, business services division. So

Brent Williams: 00:04:07

that was sort of the 10 years were planned out and then

Brent Williams: 00:04:11

decided, okay, let's do something more entrepreneurial

Brent Williams: 00:04:15

than try to set up own my E commerce startup. Now, I'm in

Brent Williams: 00:04:19

Chicago at this point, spent exactly a year and three months

Brent Williams: 00:04:24

doing that and burning all my cash, great experience, you

Brent Williams: 00:04:28

know, loved it, but didn't work out for me. And that's when I

Brent Williams: 00:04:32

ran into the founder of SSI in Chicago and decided to join

Brent Williams: 00:04:37

these guys to help grow this business. And I've been here now

Brent Williams: 00:04:41

nine years. It's been a fantastic journey. We've grown

Brent Williams: 00:04:46

this company from 50 to 550 in this period of time, so great

Brent Williams: 00:04:52

experience.

Brent Williams: 00:04:54

Well, incredible experience for both of you.

Brent Williams: 00:04:57

Josh, you're now you're in Northwest Arkansas and have

Brent Williams: 00:05:02

created and leading Cartwheel, cartwheel studios. And I would

Brent Williams: 00:05:07

tell us a little bit about Cartwheel I think maybe many

Brent Williams: 00:05:10

people aren't all that familiar with the venture studio model.

Josh Stanley: 00:05:15

Yeah, I definitely find that that's the case. I

Josh Stanley: 00:05:18

mean, it is kind of an emerging asset class of sorts. And so

Josh Stanley: 00:05:23

yeah, I can speak to Cartwheel, and this, this startup studio

Josh Stanley: 00:05:27

slash venture studio model. So we yeah Cartwheel started as a

Josh Stanley: 00:05:30

startup studio. And I'll talk about that transit, the

Josh Stanley: 00:05:34

transition, we're in the middle of right now kind of expanding

Josh Stanley: 00:05:36

that scope. But yeah, essentially, anybody who's

Josh Stanley: 00:05:40

founded a company before, knows how hard it is to get a company

Josh Stanley: 00:05:46

off the ground, to start from scratch, to build from zero to

Josh Stanley: 00:05:49

get even to a million dollars in revenue was a big accomplishment

Josh Stanley: 00:05:52

and requires blood, sweat, and tears. And I think another

Josh Stanley: 00:05:57

another thing that I think most people know about startups is

Josh Stanley: 00:06:00

90% of them fail, like that's a fairly well known stat that gets

Josh Stanley: 00:06:05

thrown around. So I think the startup studio model and the

Josh Stanley: 00:06:09

venture studio model, and I'll talk about the differences in a

Josh Stanley: 00:06:11

minute, or they're very nuanced differences between the two,

Josh Stanley: 00:06:13

they're relatively the same. But the model itself is like how do

Josh Stanley: 00:06:17

we improve that 90% failure rate? How do we pull forward the

Josh Stanley: 00:06:20

failure rate? How do we do it early on before significant

Josh Stanley: 00:06:24

investments of people's time, talent and resources. And so

Josh Stanley: 00:06:27

that's really what the startup studio model is striving to do.

Josh Stanley: 00:06:30

It is not an incubator, which a lot of people start translating,

Josh Stanley: 00:06:36

you know, startup studio into incubator or it's not an

Josh Stanley: 00:06:38

accelerator, either. Both of those models go out and seek

Josh Stanley: 00:06:43

either a founder or co founding team, or an established startup

Josh Stanley: 00:06:49

to help accelerate their growth, right? Like those models are

Josh Stanley: 00:06:51

great models, and nothing wrong with them. But they are built to

Josh Stanley: 00:06:54

kind of take an established person or team and startup, pull

Josh Stanley: 00:06:58

it in, and help accelerate it in some capacity, where the startup

Josh Stanley: 00:07:01

studio venture studio model is more about, let's go identify

Josh Stanley: 00:07:05

the white space that exists the blue ocean opportunities in

Josh Stanley: 00:07:10

different markets. So you tend to focus on a certain thesis. If

Josh Stanley: 00:07:14

you're running a studio, like for us, it's the retail value

Josh Stanley: 00:07:17

chain, which I know is near and dear to you, Brent. And that

Josh Stanley: 00:07:21

that idea of focusing on retail value chain for us, it's like,

Josh Stanley: 00:07:25

okay, let's go identify where where are there opportunities in

Josh Stanley: 00:07:29

the retail value chain for us, where we can come up with new

Josh Stanley: 00:07:33

business concepts. And we tend to try to have affinity mapping

Josh Stanley: 00:07:36

around those business concepts. And by that, I mean, hey, this

Josh Stanley: 00:07:40

next cohort of concepts is all gonna be focused on supply

Josh Stanley: 00:07:43

chain. So we're gonna go identify 20 concepts,

Josh Stanley: 00:07:46

potentially viable business concepts in the in the supply

Josh Stanley: 00:07:49

chain space, and we'll vet that will validate, we'll do

Josh Stanley: 00:07:53

business, subject matter expert, or operator or corporate

Josh Stanley: 00:07:58

interviews, where we're helping to identify assumptions that

Josh Stanley: 00:08:02

we've made about those concepts, like what are the most critical

Josh Stanley: 00:08:05

assumptions we have about that concept that we have the least

Josh Stanley: 00:08:08

amount of confidence in. And so we'll go out into the market,

Josh Stanley: 00:08:10

we'll do market analysis, competitive analysis, and

Josh Stanley: 00:08:13

interviews, that allow us to kind of validate and vet what

Josh Stanley: 00:08:17

assumptions might be true and what assumptions are, are

Josh Stanley: 00:08:20

clearly false. So with that in mind, we actually start with a

Josh Stanley: 00:08:25

large number of concepts, and then whittle down to say, two to

Josh Stanley: 00:08:28

three concepts by the end, that we can feel the viable

Josh Stanley: 00:08:33

businesses that have been vetted and validated, that allow us to

Josh Stanley: 00:08:36

then hopefully, find a co-founder. So we go out into

Josh Stanley: 00:08:39

the market, and seek to identify an individual has a unique

Josh Stanley: 00:08:43

advantage in that business concept. And we attach them to

Josh Stanley: 00:08:46

that concept to go over the last kind of stage gate to forming

Josh Stanley: 00:08:50

and funding a company. So that's the startup studio. That's how

Josh Stanley: 00:08:53

it's different from an incubator and accelerator. And it's,

Josh Stanley: 00:09:01

hopefully, a higher probability of success than just starting

Josh Stanley: 00:09:06

from scratch what we see when we look at and help and try to help

Josh Stanley: 00:09:11

startup founders that might exist out in the community,

Josh Stanley: 00:09:13

because we see a lot of confirmation bias, we see people

Josh Stanley: 00:09:18

that seek out data that that validates the assumptions

Josh Stanley: 00:09:21

they've made up front, we see emotional attachment. Maybe like

Josh Stanley: 00:09:26

you're you're really attached to this thing, and it just doesn't

Josh Stanley: 00:09:29

have the legs. And so what we believe is that the startup

Josh Stanley: 00:09:32

concept really allows for the separation or startup studio

Josh Stanley: 00:09:35

concept really around allows for that separation, because if we

Josh Stanley: 00:09:38

don't, if an idea isn't working, like we're not emotionally

Josh Stanley: 00:09:41

attached, like we will take it out behind the barn and shoot it

Josh Stanley: 00:09:43

like we will, we will put that idea down if it doesn't have

Josh Stanley: 00:09:46

legs, and in a way that allows us to really get to the heart of

Josh Stanley: 00:09:51

what has the highest probability of success. So that's, in a

Josh Stanley: 00:09:55

nutshell, that's the model of venture and just to say at

Josh Stanley: 00:09:58

startup studio, venture studio, venture studio looks exactly the

Josh Stanley: 00:10:01

same as what I just described. The only addition I would add is

Josh Stanley: 00:10:05

it typically has a sidecar fund. So it has what looks like a

Josh Stanley: 00:10:08

traditional venture fund attached to it, where it can do

Josh Stanley: 00:10:11

follow on investments into those startups as they kind of

Josh Stanley: 00:10:15

continue up the lifecycle into later stages. And later

Josh Stanley: 00:10:18

fundraising. Fundraising rounds.

Brent Williams: 00:10:21

Totally makes sense. And Fahad, you have you

Brent Williams: 00:10:26

and SSI have gotten engaged, I think maybe was the initial

Brent Williams: 00:10:32

partnership around the Pocket Factory product?

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:10:38

Yeah, so I can give you some backdrop of that.

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:10:40

So over a period of time, we've actually built some products

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:10:46

with some entrepreneurs and launched them as separate

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:10:48

entities. And Pocket Factory is one of those products, which is

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:10:54

a Industrial Internet of Things, industrial IoT platform, focused

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:11:00

on the bottling sector. So take, you know, bottling like Coca

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:11:05

Cola, Pepsi, Heineken, whoever it may be. So, to the platform

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:11:11

is, you know, it's applied to the manufacturing facilities,

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:11:16

cleanse data and give them predictive maintenance and give

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:11:19

them a health check on their manufacturing facilities. So we

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:11:25

decided we needed a platform to scale this startup. And that's

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:11:33

when we ran into Josh and team and found that Cartwheel to be

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:11:37

an impressive platform. And we thought this startup could, you

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:11:41

know, learn in and scale, basically. So that's how we

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:11:45

started this partnership. And now that partnership is much

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:11:49

broader than larger than maybe started off.

Brent Williams: 00:11:52

Well, these are, these are sort of Josh's words,

Brent Williams: 00:11:55

not yours. Exactly. But you know, when he described SSI to

Brent Williams: 00:11:59

me, you know, he said, you guys are a little little unique in

Brent Williams: 00:12:03

that, you know, you're high quality, you're fast, you work

Brent Williams: 00:12:06

well with startups. And then you also have a fund where you do

Brent Williams: 00:12:12

invest in maybe some of those startups. Tell us a little bit

Brent Williams: 00:12:15

about just SSI and kind of was Josh right? Is that? Is that the

Brent Williams: 00:12:20

right description?

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:12:22

I hope he is. Well, all I can say is that

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:12:25

we've got a good track record. You know, we we're currently

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:12:29

engaged with, like 40 plus tech companies, out of which most of

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:12:33

them are startups, happen to be startup or are co-funded

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:12:36

startups, few are idea stage companies. The rest of our

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:12:42

clients are more enterprise or let's say publicly traded

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:12:45

companies where we're doing multi year sort of projects. But

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:12:49

in terms of the number of customers, most of our work is

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:12:52

in the tech space. And out of that portfolio, it's mostly tech

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:12:56

startups. And I think where we have been successful is our

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:01

average client relationship goes about five years. And for the

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:05

top 10 clients, it's about eight years, which is not typical in

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:09

the sector. And really, I think the reason for this is because

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:14

we have such a great model of engagement, where we can

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:18

understand the needs of an early stage firm, which are very

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:22

different from when they scale to a growth stage, and then to

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:25

maturity. And we work with all size and stage firms and build a

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:31

very flexible model that can take them from that idea all the

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:35

way to market to scale. And then beyond and in our team of you

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:40

know, technical architects to developers, etc. That team kind

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:46

of evolves as their majority evolves. And so I think that

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:51

model has really worked for us. And it's been successful. We've

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:55

been lucky. Also, we work with some really amazing startup

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:13:59

founders and startups that started with you know really two

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:03

guys and two dogs that came to us with an idea and exited for

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:08

$400,000,000 2 years later and built, and all those platforms

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:13

have been built by us. And, you know, since that happened, you

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:17

know, we set up our own fund because we were like, okay, we

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:20

didn't have any skin in that game. You know, they had a great

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:23

exit and we've been their partners, and even today with

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:28

the startups. They're not a startup anymore. They've been

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:30

acquired by a publicly listed company. So so we set up our own

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:35

fund. Take, you know, basically, we invested in this fund. And

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:41

the idea is, again, on a case by case basis, where there's a good

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:46

match in terms of domain or industry knowledge and

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:48

expertise, and we can bring something to the table, other

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:51

than just pure development capabilities. And we see a good

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:55

match with the founders will typically participate in their

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:14:59

capital raise and invest and you know, and it's a win win for

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:15:03

everyone because you know, our personal money our company's

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:15:06

money is tied into their success. And so everybody wins

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:15:10

and we make sure that they're successful. So try to make sure

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:15:13

as much as possible.

Josh Stanley: 00:15:14

Yes. Just to jump in here, like, it's not possible

Josh Stanley: 00:15:17

that every vendor on the planet can do what what SSI can do. But

Josh Stanley: 00:15:21

like when you're when you're a startup, and you need capital,

Josh Stanley: 00:15:24

right capital is just an ingredient to your success

Josh Stanley: 00:15:27

story. It's the fuel to your ship that you've built, that

Josh Stanley: 00:15:31

you're hoping to take, you know, Exit, Exit, Exit, the

Josh Stanley: 00:15:34

gravitational force of kind of just creating a company with and

Josh Stanley: 00:15:38

like to have a partner that also has the ability to invest in

Josh Stanley: 00:15:41

your startup, like your, as a startup, you're always kind of

Josh Stanley: 00:15:45

seeking, you're hopeful for smart money, right? You're

Josh Stanley: 00:15:48

hopeful that along with that capital, that ingredient that

Josh Stanley: 00:15:52

fuel to your ship, you can also get someone in partnership with

Josh Stanley: 00:15:55

you, that has aligned incentives that can bring more value to the

Josh Stanley: 00:15:59

table and man to have your technology team have that

Josh Stanley: 00:16:02

capability to also be kind of a contributor to that fuel. I

Josh Stanley: 00:16:06

don't know there's a lot of power, I'd love to see more. I

Josh Stanley: 00:16:09

would love to see more companies that provide services to

Josh Stanley: 00:16:13

startups that are always asking for payments, right? Like

Josh Stanley: 00:16:16

they're selling, selling into startups or selling into series

Josh Stanley: 00:16:20

A Series B companies wanting they're wanting their cash that

Josh Stanley: 00:16:23

they've raised in exchange for services, but also to be able to

Josh Stanley: 00:16:27

contribute back, not in all instances, but when it when you

Josh Stanley: 00:16:31

know, interests are aligned. Like when you can create a line

Josh Stanley: 00:16:34

incentive relationships with vendor partner vendors. I think

Josh Stanley: 00:16:38

that's where some of the best outcomes come from when

Josh Stanley: 00:16:41

everybody's invested. He's like, no, we need this to work. Let's

Josh Stanley: 00:16:45

make sure we're coming up with the best concepts, delivering

Josh Stanley: 00:16:49

the best possible solution. I think that's interesting for me.

Brent Williams: 00:16:52

Absolutely. You know, and and Fahad, well, you

Brent Williams: 00:16:58

know, I'm, I'm a big believer in the state of Arkansas and

Brent Williams: 00:17:01

Northwest Arkansas. Clearly, I've spent much of my life and

Brent Williams: 00:17:07

career here and get a chance to lead the Sam M. Walton College

Brent Williams: 00:17:11

of Business, which is quite an honor, as you can imagine. But

Brent Williams: 00:17:15

my understanding is that you are working on opening an office

Brent Williams: 00:17:19

here in Bentonville. And so you must see, at least some degree

Brent Williams: 00:17:23

what we're seeing, I think.

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:17:27

So again, I'll give a lot of credit to Josh and

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:17:31

team. They basically, they invited us to Northwest Arkansas

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:17:36

to take a look at the ecosystem that all of you are building

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:17:39

actually together. We were very impressed, we're pretty active

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:17:44

in the Chicago sort of surrounding between Chicago,

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:17:47

Milwaukee, Detroit, sort of the broader technical system,

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:17:51

incubators, accelerators, venture capital funds, we've

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:17:55

invested in a bunch of funds ourselves as well. So we stay

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:17:57

engaged in that ecosystem. And when we came, visited your

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:02

region, we found the region which is developing fairly

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:06

quickly, great concentration of you know, Fortune 100, great

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:12

activity overall, we felt that this could be a place would be

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:14

to be should invest and get engaged in the tech ecosystem,

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:21

and try to be an active contributor. So we decided to

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:23

partner so we signed a partnership with Cartwheel as

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:27

well, broader partnership. And then as part of that, we will

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:32

set up an office and we're in the process of setting up an

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:34

office there and hiring a couple of key people to be engaged in

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:40

activity, that ecosystem. Also, I noticed you guys were ranked

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:44

on the Wall Street Journal's List of cities, that was just

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:49

what two days ago, I saw that you guys were ranked number two,

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:53

and that's sort of the mid size or small size regions that have

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:18:57

gotten highest concentration of tech skilled tech workers. So

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:19:01

congratulations. That's amazing.

Brent Williams: 00:19:03

Well, this, this region is rapidly developing in

Brent Williams: 00:19:07

that respect, and certainly is exciting. And I'm excited you

Brent Williams: 00:19:12

and your team will be here and be engaged in the ecosystem. You

Brent Williams: 00:19:18

know, Josh, I want to go back to a point when you were describing

Brent Williams: 00:19:21

Cartwheel you that I think is probably really important. I

Brent Williams: 00:19:26

know it's one of the things that really excited me is that you've

Brent Williams: 00:19:30

got to you've got a strong focus on the retail value chain. Why

Brent Williams: 00:19:35

is that important? I mean, I'm sure there's some probably some

Brent Williams: 00:19:38

obvious reasons, but there's probably some nuances to why

Brent Williams: 00:19:40

that's important as well.

Josh Stanley: 00:19:43

Yeah, I mean, I think you know, this as well as

Josh Stanley: 00:19:46

anybody else in the region that we've got tremendous activity in

Josh Stanley: 00:19:50

the ecosystem. We got tremendous contributors in the kind of

Josh Stanley: 00:19:54

entrepreneurial support organization network here, a lot

Josh Stanley: 00:19:57

of it. And we and we have amazing philanthropic families

Josh Stanley: 00:20:01

here that contribute to a lot of activity and kind of the growth

Josh Stanley: 00:20:05

that we're all experiencing and loving, I think. But you have

Josh Stanley: 00:20:08

the investments that have been made in in health tech and

Josh Stanley: 00:20:12

health care, which I think need to continue to be made. We have

Josh Stanley: 00:20:16

investments in, I would call Air Mobility or mobility in like the

Josh Stanley: 00:20:20

up summit that's taking that has taken place here. We've had

Josh Stanley: 00:20:24

investments in outdoor rec, obviously, GORP that runs, you

Josh Stanley: 00:20:27

know, out of your programming at the university that really is

Josh Stanley: 00:20:31

meant to be an incubator, to outdoor rec companies and

Josh Stanley: 00:20:34

startups. So we have these kinds of interesting capabilities

Josh Stanley: 00:20:38

being established and built here. But when you take a step

Josh Stanley: 00:20:42

back, and you say, well, that's a lot of there's a lot of

Josh Stanley: 00:20:45

activity and a lot of different places. Not all of those

Josh Stanley: 00:20:49

activities are built around established capabilities, like

Josh Stanley: 00:20:52

true mature capabilities. And by that I mean, think advanced

Josh Stanley: 00:20:56

subject matter experts, people that have a depth of knowledge

Josh Stanley: 00:21:00

in a particular area. We don't have the concentration of that

Josh Stanley: 00:21:04

in healthcare yet, or health tech or biotech, we don't have

Josh Stanley: 00:21:07

the concentration of that yet in Air Mobility. There's a lot of

Josh Stanley: 00:21:11

great work happening with drones and all these different areas,

Josh Stanley: 00:21:15

but it's just not mature and established. But when you look

Josh Stanley: 00:21:19

at the retail value chain, when you ask yourself, where what do

Josh Stanley: 00:21:23

we have a unique advantage in, an unfair advantage in which I

Josh Stanley: 00:21:27

think from a startup perspective, it is critical to

Josh Stanley: 00:21:30

assess, and then where do we have a depth of subject matter

Josh Stanley: 00:21:33

expertise? Where do we have established anchored kind of

Josh Stanley: 00:21:37

incumbents that are industry leaders, and its retail value

Josh Stanley: 00:21:40

chain all day, we have Walmart, we have Sam's Club, yes, that's

Josh Stanley: 00:21:44

what this region I think is most known for, is being the

Josh Stanley: 00:21:48

headquarters to those those major, you know, Fortune One

Josh Stanley: 00:21:51

companies, or fortune one company, and but we have Tyson

Josh Stanley: 00:21:55

Foods, we have Simmons, we have George's, we have JB Hunt, we

Josh Stanley: 00:21:59

have Arcbest. And the list goes on. Like, we never include the

Josh Stanley: 00:22:02

other billion dollar companies that are here in this region

Josh Stanley: 00:22:06

that are all really ultimately connected through the retail

Josh Stanley: 00:22:10

value chain from getting a product created, to getting it

Josh Stanley: 00:22:13

into the hands of the consumer. So that to us. And actually,

Josh Stanley: 00:22:17

before I do, I'm gonna give credit where credit's due. And

Josh Stanley: 00:22:21

we have a university that has a top ranked supply chain school,

Josh Stanley: 00:22:25

in in in the country, if not the world. So, you know, we have

Josh Stanley: 00:22:28

this great mix of emerging talent established capabilities,

Josh Stanley: 00:22:32

deep domain knowledge, talent, like how do we take this amazing

Josh Stanley: 00:22:36

combination of resources and global reach really, with the

Josh Stanley: 00:22:40

companies we have here and leverage it into emerging

Josh Stanley: 00:22:43

companies? Like how do we take emerging technology and combine

Josh Stanley: 00:22:47

it with subject matter expertise to disrupt the industries that

Josh Stanley: 00:22:51

are aligned with the retail value chain like we can out of

Josh Stanley: 00:22:54

this region, build startups that are the next Walmart, Sam's

Josh Stanley: 00:22:58

Club, build startups, the next JB Hunt and Tyson, like, we can

Josh Stanley: 00:23:02

build those kinds of technology companies here. And it's going

Josh Stanley: 00:23:06

to be because we have an amazing university program that produces

Josh Stanley: 00:23:10

young talent focused in that in those areas, it's going to be

Josh Stanley: 00:23:13

because we have amazing anchor corporates in this region that

Josh Stanley: 00:23:17

attract that kind of talent. And it's going to be because we have

Josh Stanley: 00:23:21

an amazing ecosystem, and the right kind of support from

Josh Stanley: 00:23:25

different angles that allow us to create new businesses and

Josh Stanley: 00:23:28

help them thrive here. So there's more work to be done.

Josh Stanley: 00:23:32

It's not perfect, there are gaps in our in our ecosystem. But

Josh Stanley: 00:23:36

yeah, when we when we took a step back and just ask

Josh Stanley: 00:23:39

ourselves, where do we have a right to win? It's like this

Josh Stanley: 00:23:42

retail value chain all day. Like, if we're not building

Josh Stanley: 00:23:46

companies in that space. It's, it's, it's shame on us is this

Josh Stanley: 00:23:50

kind of how we feel like if we're not willing to partner

Josh Stanley: 00:23:53

with with you and your team and the University programming, and

Josh Stanley: 00:23:57

corporates here, and kind of all work together to help build new

Josh Stanley: 00:24:01

tech companies in that space. We're missing out on being the

Josh Stanley: 00:24:05

kind of global leaders in the future, like the leadership we

Josh Stanley: 00:24:08

have today is as fleeting as anything like the s&p 500 is the

Josh Stanley: 00:24:12

stat we always point to have like the average lifespan of a

Josh Stanley: 00:24:16

company in the s&p 500. If you go back to the 1960s, it was

Josh Stanley: 00:24:20

some 60 some odd years that the average lifespan of a company

Josh Stanley: 00:24:23

existed in the s&p 500 had been around you go to today, and the

Josh Stanley: 00:24:27

average lifespan is 15 years. So what that tells you is that more

Josh Stanley: 00:24:31

early stage companies are taking over in the s&p 500 that

Josh Stanley: 00:24:35

incumbents have been disrupted by challengers. And that is a

Josh Stanley: 00:24:39

continued pattern that the lifespan is shrinking. We're

Josh Stanley: 00:24:42

going to see more of that. So we need to be building those

Josh Stanley: 00:24:46

companies. We need to have a shot at continuing to be the

Josh Stanley: 00:24:49

leader in that space for the next 10, 20 30, 40 50 years and

Josh Stanley: 00:24:53

beyond. Like that's the kind of vision we need to we need to

Josh Stanley: 00:24:57

start taking as we as we look at what's possible in Northwest

Josh Stanley: 00:25:00

Arkansas. That's my rant for the day.

Brent Williams: 00:25:03

I couldn't agree more and probably could not have

Brent Williams: 00:25:06

said it better. And it is exciting to be here at this

Brent Williams: 00:25:11

time. Because you know, I do believe that, that all the

Brent Williams: 00:25:16

ingredients are here for, you know, the next wave of

Brent Williams: 00:25:19

innovative companies to be built right here that will impact the

Brent Williams: 00:25:25

retail value chain for many, many decades to come. And, and I

Brent Williams: 00:25:29

think both of you are important pieces of those ingredients. So

Brent Williams: 00:25:33

Fahad looking forward to getting to see you more, as you're in

Brent Williams: 00:25:37

Northwest Arkansas more and excited that SSI is joining our

Brent Williams: 00:25:42

region. And Josh, really excited about what you are doing at

Brent Williams: 00:25:46

Cartwheel and excited about the startup studio model. I want to

Brent Williams: 00:25:52

say both of you, thank you for partnering with the Walton

Brent Williams: 00:25:55

College of Business. And thanks for being willing to join today.

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:25:59

My pleasure.

Josh Stanley: 00:26:00

Yeah, appreciate you. Thank you for having us on.

Josh Stanley: 00:26:02

Thank you for being so supportive of all the programs.

Josh Stanley: 00:26:06

And I mean, I'd be I would feel maybe missed if I didn't at

Josh Stanley: 00:26:09

least bring up hey, we've got bounds accelerator, and I don't

Josh Stanley: 00:26:13

know when this podcast is gonna go live, but I'm gonna do it

Josh Stanley: 00:26:16

anyway. So we're working with with, Cartwheel's working with

Josh Stanley: 00:26:20

the University of Arkansas, and really your your team on bounds

Josh Stanley: 00:26:24

accelerator, which is launching in January. So if this happens

Josh Stanley: 00:26:27

to get out before November 3, we are still accepting

Josh Stanley: 00:26:30

applications. And these are interest. This is for traction,

Josh Stanley: 00:26:34

or startups that have traction that have some revenue post

Josh Stanley: 00:26:37

revenue in the emerging tech space applied to retail value

Josh Stanley: 00:26:41

chain. So if anything you're doing in the startup space has

Josh Stanley: 00:26:44

any application to the retail value chain, please apply to the

Josh Stanley: 00:26:48

bounds accelerator, you can reach it

Josh Stanley: 00:26:50

bounds.cartwheel.studio, and again, that's in partnership

Josh Stanley: 00:26:53

with the University of Arkansas and many corporate sponsors

Josh Stanley: 00:26:57

along with Han Ventures, Coin Base, and AI Foundation. So

Josh Stanley: 00:27:00

we're bringing a great collection of established

Josh Stanley: 00:27:03

emerging tech companies in alongside the established retail

Josh Stanley: 00:27:07

value chain companies and in partnership with the University,

Josh Stanley: 00:27:10

I think it's gonna be a great program excited about it.

Brent Williams: 00:27:14

Yeah, as you know, super excited about that

Brent Williams: 00:27:17

partnership, all the different partners that have come together

Brent Williams: 00:27:21

to make that happen. Josh, you, your team, other partners. From

Brent Williams: 00:27:25

from our standpoint, you know, I have to mention Sarah Goforth,

Brent Williams: 00:27:29

who leads our Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Brent Williams: 00:27:32

That's really been the key driver from the University of

Brent Williams: 00:27:36

Arkansas side in in this effort and many more to build this

Brent Williams: 00:27:39

ecosystem. So excited about the partnership. Thank you both for

Brent Williams: 00:27:43

being here today.

Josh Stanley: 00:27:45

Thank you.

Fahad Siddiqui: 00:27:46

Thank you for having me. Thank you.

Brent Williams: 00:27:48

On behalf of the Walton College thank you for

Brent Williams: 00:27:50

joining us for this captivating conversation. To stay connected

Brent Williams: 00:27:54

and never miss an episode, simply search for Be Epic on

Brent Williams: 00:27:57

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