Muhammad Yassin: If you like someone and you like what they’re doing, you should say that. Um, I think that too many of us go through life wondering if people approve of what we’re doing or like what we’re doing or value what we’re doing. Um, and there’s a lot of value in just saying that to a person. You never know what kind of impact you are going to make on them.

Matt Hunckler: From the crossroads of America in the Hoosier state of Indiana. This is get in the podcast focused on the unfolding stories and extraordinary innovations happening right now in the Heartland. I’m Matt Hunckler, CEO of Powderkeg, and I will be one of your hosts for today’s conversation. I’m joined in studio by co host Nate Spangle over here in the Sun King hat.

What up? And on the show today, I am joined by Toph Day and Muhammad Yassin, CEO and VP of marketing respectively at Elevate Ventures, the number one early stage venture capital firm in the Great Lakes region. And top 20 in the world. guys for being here. It was

Toph Day: 1. 1 every 2. 33 days. I don’t know what you just said,

Matt Hunckler: but that I’m excited.

So we’ve already got some teasers in here. Today is a very special conversation because we are just a few days away from the biggest cross sector innovation conference in the world. That’s rally. I see you both sporting your gear. Mohammed’s all and all three amazing. I wear mine so much. Mine was in the dirty laundry.

So I figured I’d spare you guys, uh, spare you guys from that this morning. Um, just a few days away rally, of course, as in Indianapolis, this is year two. Yesterday was just a yesterday. Last year was a huge year. Um, and this year it’s coming back, August 27th and 28th, two full days of programming, all kinds of parties, speakers from around the world, startups from everywhere, the best startups.

I mean, you’re going to see thousands of startups every year. It’s insane. They say insane in the membrane. I’m so excited. And we’ve, we’ve already interviewed some of the ones that won last year here on the show. Amazing to see what they’re doing now. You heard it here first.

Nate Spangle: You heard it here. I interviewed, I think, eight or, wait, eight or nine of the CEOs that pitched last year, and I think three ended up winning.

Like, and I picked them blind from before. That’s awesome. That’s some good taste. I love that. I’m just saying, I think I know a thing or two, so let’s see who

Matt Hunckler: I get on camera this year. Well, and we got two of the main guys behind the conference here today, so we can give you all the details behind that. Uh, but this episode is also going to be a bit of a season finale as well, so this is going to be a bit of an end of an era for the show.

Um, we have some really big things in store for the show, and Nate and I are going to share a little bit more about that at the end of this episode. Um, but thought it would be fun to, to kind of like almost do a little bit of a best of, uh, for the show in a celebration, of course.

Nate Spangle: Awesome. The Indies. The, you know, like the Despis or the, the Dundies.

Matt Hunckler: The Indies. Yeah. I like it. I like it. The Dundies. Um, well, I thought it’d be fun to start a little bit, um, just with how you both got into tech in Indiana. Cause you both have such interesting stories. And Toph, you’ve had some air time on this show before, so I figured we’d start with Mohamed today just to learn a little bit more about his journey getting into Indiana and Indiana Tech specifically.

Muhammad Yassin: Yeah, you make me feel really special. Yeah, man. You are. You are special. So, I moved to Indiana about 15 years ago. Um, background before tech was kind of big co. Yeah, right. Kind of tech enabled, e commerce, uh, Victoria’s Secret, insurance companies, etc. Yeah. And I moved to Indiana with no friends, no family, and got into tech primarily because I’m just a giant nerd, um, but also because the tech community was the community that really put their arms around me and welcomed me to Indiana, right?

That’s just through The early Powderkeg events and many other events that were happening during that particular time. This is kind of the, the heyday of Indianapolis at the peak of Exact Target being about to be acquired, et cetera. And there’s a lot happening, right? So going into those rooms and meeting people is actually how I built not only my, my network, but even my Friends that I consider family was all through those events here in Indiana.

Matt Hunckler: Going into a new room and into a new community, that can be a little intimidating. I know I’ve felt that way. Anytime I go out of town for a conference and it’s a new, new environment. Uh, tell me a little bit about how, what were you feeling at the time and what helped you kind of get over that maybe initial hesitation to like,

Muhammad Yassin: Yeah, I mean, I was terrified, right?

This is, this is, um, meetup or event, right? And just typing in, you know, meetups and things like that. And, and finding things that look interesting and just showing up. Um, what made me feel comfortable though, was the people in the rooms who were so kind, right? So welcoming, um, and really. Gave me a lot of early opportunities to get exposure, right?

My first, um, guest blog post happened just because someone happened to meet me in an event. I was like, Hey, you want to, you want to write about what we were just talking about? I’m like, sure. Um, and then that was, those things snowballed and snowballed and went into speaking events and then went into. You know, eventually building a personal brand, uh, that took me into the early stages of of a startup.

Um, and being able to kind of lead that from a marketing perspective through its first 10 years.

Matt Hunckler: Well, and you had an incredible run helping Perk grow and scale. And then of course at High Alpha helping so many companies get started and do their marketing. And now, you know, mentoring so many other people who are breaking into tech, going into tech for the first time.

What are some of the advice that you give people most often when you’re saying like, here, this is what you need to do. If you want to succeed in tech, start here, you know, one, two, three ABCs, give us a little bit of like a.

Muhammad Yassin: I think the biggest thing is community, right? Um, so many people try to do the job on their own, by themselves, in their, you know, in their basement, in their home office and figure everything out when they have a whole community around them.

And, you know, the best ideas actually come when you are sitting with others and when you’re conversing with others and be able to bounce things back and forth. That exists, right? And I think ignoring that is one of the biggest mistakes I see a lot of people, um, a lot of people have. The second thing I tell people is to look at professionals that are outside of their particular discipline in their industry, right?

So if you’re in hard tech, hard tech, I don’t know, look to, look to software. If you’re in software, B2B, especially, um, I always tell them, look at the people that are in retail, in B2C retail, how are they doing their marketing? How are they engaging and retaining their clients? Um, because they’re the ones doing it really the best, right?

Yeah. Look around to see who’s doing the function the best, regardless of what industry or that, that they may be in.

Nate Spangle: I love that. It’s like a little teaser to cross sector, innovation, cross sector. Yeah,

Matt Hunckler: I love that. Toph, what about you? What are your earliest memories of, of breaking into tech? I mean, you have a long and storied career, so many successful companies that you’ve started and grown and scaled, invested in, you know,

Toph Day: Yeah.

You know what I just realized listening to Muhammed, uh, that’s why I was kinda looking off into space. ’cause I, I think I had just a realization. I really thought about, um, I didn’t really know that there was a tech community here when I, I started my first tech company.

Matt Hunckler: Mm-Hmm. .

Toph Day: And, and I think maybe it was because I really started that first tech company.

It was a broadband company. It was a means to an end to, to really go start a commercial development company. And, uh, so, so we started that broadband company. And I was just very hyper focused on just go get contract, go get contracts, which we did. Um, and then the dom bomb, the, the dot bomb hit, we ended up selling that company.

The big crash of 2000. Yeah. And, and, and so we focused on actually getting contracts. Everybody else was focused on eyeballs. We were focused on subscribers. And that’s, that’s what ended up saving our rear end is we had real customers, real contracts, right, that we could sell. Um, and so I don’t think, and I can’t remember when TechPoint first was started.

And it was something else I think originally. Anita. What was it called? I think it was called Anita. Anita. John Qualls and it was probably started back in the name of

Nate Spangle: an org. Yeah,

Toph Day: yeah, it was called something different. Um, all right. And I think that was in the

Matt Hunckler: acronym for something. I can’t remember.

Toph Day: And I think it was the mid to late nineties, right?

I think it was mid to late nineties timeframe. So that’s about the time I started. There’s a 97 starting our first company, first tech company. And

Nate Spangle: 97, I did two. Is that the year you were

Toph Day: born? Yeah. Yes.

Nate Spangle: That’s awesome. That’s a good year. Nice.

Toph Day: That’s a good year. But I think I did four companies before I knew, in ten years, before I knew TechPoint really existed. Yeah. And then before I got ingrained into that community, so I was over here doing tech stuff, kind of on an island, feeling like I was, I did, I felt alone, I felt kind of by myself trying to figure stuff out, um, and wasn’t even really aware of the community that was burgeoning at the same time.

Matt Hunckler: Yeah, how, why was TechPoint, uh, so important to you in those early days once you found it?

Toph Day: Because I felt connected, I felt like I had found my people, right? The community around, you know, the tech community, um, which is all kinds of folks, right? Not just the entrepreneurs, but the investors or the people who are service, you know, providing services or whatever it was.

Uh,

Matt Hunckler: what are some of the benefits of being in a community of, of like minded people working in the same industry?

Toph Day: It’s a lot easier to get stuff done. It’s a lot easier to build relationships.

Nate Spangle: See, that’s interesting. I feel like I want to, I want to double click into this a little bit. When you talk about.

Like getting stuff done at an early stage startup. Everyone’s like, I need to be heads down and you see the go in like monk mode, lock myself in a room and like get stuff done. Why is especially early stage? Why is maybe that a wrong lens to think through? And why is the community lens so important to think about, uh, with startups?

Toph Day: Because all those people in that community have made, um, thousands of mistakes. And so in a few conversations, they can say, Oh, yeah, I’m trying to find a solution to do X. Oh, yeah, I’ve used blah, blah, blah, blah, boom, and, and, and probably you want to go with boomer boom. And it just takes a lot of noise out of the process, especially nowadays, in the last several years, as fast as technology is moving.

We do this all the time. Even today, I’m always asking people like, Hey, we want to do X and like, what do you know? And it’s so amazing. You can do literally hours or weeks and months of research in about 10 minutes with a couple of phone calls.

Matt Hunckler: That’s powerful. That’s very powerful. Do you, do any of you have a favorite memory from the early days of Powderkeg when you first got involved?

I mean, Toph, you were involved from, The very earliest days that I can remember. I mean, back when we were in like the back rooms of bars and like borrowed space.

Toph Day: So one of my favorite memories of the early days of what was it before Powderkeg, uh, Verge and Hackers and Founders, Hackers and Founders. So I didn’t know the, the, the really, really smart people.

I didn’t know the engineering community. And that’s what I loved about it. Initially, I walked in a room and there’s like all these engineers standing around. I’m like, wow. Well, this is pretty cool,

Nate Spangle: Matt. How did you get, how did you get into the engineer space? Like I was like, how did you show up and be like, Oh yeah, I’m going to get the smartest engineers from around the city to come and show up at this bar.

Matt Hunckler: So it’s actually the story of Powderkeg. Uh, the origin story is very self serving. So it started as I was struggling with an e commerce business. I had sold the business that I started in college to join the or fellowship program. Started an e commerce business, was struggling with it. Got a bunch of people together in a room to be like, Hey, what am I doing wrong here?

Cause I don’t know, I don’t know why this is so much harder than building software, but it is, it was for me. And I got great advice. And just because we brought those people together, there were, uh, you know, a couple other guys that were like, Hey, can I present what I’m doing and get some feedback on what I’m doing?

Um, one of those guys, and I, of course, I said, Yes, let’s do it. And after that meeting, everyone was like, When’s the next one of these? This was awesome. And I was like, uh, next one, what, what are you talking about? I don’t, I don’t have time for this. And uh, one of the other guys that kind of helped make it happen and he’s like, well, I really need to find a co founder to help me build the software.

And one of the other guys that had presented in that room, again, self serving, he’s like, I need a, an engineer. So I want to host another one of these events. I’ll help make the next one happen. And I’m just going to call it Hackers and Founders, borrowed a name from a Silicon Valley based organization, nonprofit out there.

Um, because I’m a founder and I need a hacker. Yep. Yep. That’s literally how it, how it got more engineering focused. And since then we made sure every pitch that we gave was not just a business pitch, but at least, you know, at least 20 percent of the pitch had to be about the technology and like what made it different, what made it interesting.

So that it was welcoming, you know, of all different, uh, personalities, perspectives, roles in an organization. Um, and you know, I, you can definitely see some people’s eyes just like glaze over during the minute or two of the pitch when people are going deep on the tech side of things, but you know, it’s, that’s how you learn, you know, you got to be in a room where you don’t understand what’s going on.

Toph Day: We talk about today. One of the first things we talked about in this concept called Melfo and the first, the M stands for market, and it’s like, you have to be able to sell it. and make it. Mmmhmm. Period. What are the

Nate Spangle: other

Toph Day: What are the other words in that acronym? It sounded like something from

Nate Spangle: Harry Potter.

Breakdown Malfoy. Malfoy?

Toph Day: Meltho? Meltho. So, market, entrepreneur, legal, financial, operational, we can go into that later, but there’s, we’ve assigned these specific things, like if Entrepreneurship’s all complex. There’s so much noise. Boil it down to what really matters and how to get funding. And not only how to get funding, but how to execute the business.

Yeah. Right? Narrow, deep, simpler, better, more traction. So market, entrepreneur, legal, financial, operational. And then what that means in each one. It gets more complex as you go along that journey of pre seed, seed, series A, series B. But like, that’s just our effort to.

Matt Hunckler: So that’s kind of like the funding scale as, as, as companies grow in scale and need to raise capital.

Yep. Yeah, that’s.

Muhammad Yassin: I want to pull together two things that, that both, that both of you said. Um, so one, for me for Powderkeg in the early days, you mentioned there’s lots of different disciplines that were in those rooms, right, which is amazing. And for me, it was valuable because much like Toph was saying earlier, when you have network, you can call and do quick research, hey, what should I be doing here or there?

But it was even more important, all the people I met in those rooms, when I was trying to scale, right? When I needed more writers, when I needed maybe someone to do some website development, etc. Because the people in that room, I was able to make really quick phone calls and be like, hey, I know you’re writing at your kitchen table, taking on freelance stuff.

Would you mind doing like 20 blogs for me? Yeah. Absolutely. Um, and that’s another thing, not only for powder cake, but just for like events in general. One of the reasons you do that is so you can build that bench of people that you can reach out to when you need like expert work done and you can get it done at an expert level without having to keep expert staff.

Matt Hunckler: Well, I think that’s what’s so interesting is you’re kind of like in a little bit of a way showing the arc of evolution of community here in Indiana Tech, because at the time there wasn’t anything else like that, like that was the only place you could get it. There was no rally conference that you could go to for two days and like, just immerse yourself in all those connections, all those relationships.

Um, and now, you know, It’s to the point where there’s so many great things like that in Indiana and across the country that we’ve really focused on how do we serve the entrepreneurs and the executive leaders specifically, and we’ve brought the community to a more private way so that you can have more intimate kind of experiences largely inspired by you Toph, you know, you’ve talked to me for decades.

You’ve been a mentor to me now at this point, almost decades, maybe a decade and a half, maybe a decade and a half. Um, but you always said how important it was. It was in 1997, baby. Turn around. How important it was. You always told me how important it was that you had this sort of almost like personal board of advisors of other entrepreneurs that you were in the trenches with, meeting with on a regular basis.

Yep. Can you talk to me about the importance of having a peer group of like minded individuals?

Toph Day: Yes, so I think it’s just probably human nature, uh, you go to a party and ask an entrepreneur how their business is, right, and it’s like oh my god, it’s amazing, I can barely hang on, right, and literally that night, they go home and they’re in a fetal position worried about payroll, right, and so it’s just, but it’s just human, you’ve gotta, you know, they’ll fake it till you make it, you know, etc.

And I don’t really think about faking it to make it like everybody, HP, when it started in the garage, like everybody’s just trying to figure stuff out. So I, I think the importance of, it’s like a safe place. It’s people, it may not be a safe place, but it’s people who have actually experienced what you’re experiencing.

It’s like, until you walk in another person’s shoes, you never really know what it’s like, right? And the difference between empathy and sympathy, right? Empathy is. I think I can, I can, I can relate, I can understand, but sympathy is, I’ve, I’ve lived it, right, as well. So, I think that’s the, the key difference is people who, um, who have walked in the shoes and, and have, have experienced what you’re feeling, and when you say one thing that is happening to you that’s not good, they will automatically connect literally a thousand dots, that you don’t have to explain all the backstory and the intricacies of whatever issue, because they’ve, they’ve dealt with it before too.

Uh, and then, uh, then the final key I think is, A group that shares experiences and not advice. Yeah. Huge. And, and, because advice, I can get offended by your advice. But if you share your experiences, it might not tell me the exact answer. But if I have ten people tell me experiences, and some might pass and say, Eh, I don’t think I have experience.

It gets close to that. But when other people share experiences, I am automatically putting puzzle pieces together in my head of, Oh, this is how I could more efficiently or better solve this issue.

Matt Hunckler: Can you think of a one time where you had a big problem that you were facing and your group helped you think through it?

Toph Day: Um, well, early on, I mean, one company we were facing bankruptcy, right? We’d made the decision we made that almost put us into bankruptcy was also the decision that that was the catalyst for us selling.

Matt Hunckler: Um,

Toph Day: You know, but, but dialing back, how do you, how do you, Thanks. I mean, going through your first riff is terrifying, right?

And how do you think through that? And, and it’s, it’s just, it’s not fun.

Nate Spangle: I think that’s, that’s like a great point of share. They share their experiences versus sharing advice. Like I go to a mentor and it’s like, I want a little bit of advice. Like, Hey, you’ve been in this before, like, what would you do? But then when you go to this, almost like the peer group or like the therapy group, right, for CEOs, and it’s like, they’re not telling you what to do.

Cause it’s different for your business. But they’re saying like, Hey, these are the experience that I have. And this is what we did. And you can kind of like take a little bit of that and take a little bit of that and create your own TOEFL soup.

Muhammad Yassin: I mean, it’s a little bit different with a mentor though, right?

Like with a mentor, you expect that they are pretty deep in your business and in your background and what you’ve been through versus when you go into a peer group, it’s kind of like a general, right? They like, like TOEFL mentioned, they may connect a couple of dots. They don’t know the whole backstory.

Yeah. So really they don’t have a, uh, a place to even be giving you advice. Right? Whereas a mentor really can. A mentor is in the trenches with you.

Matt Hunckler: And you’ve had some awesome mentors, Muhammad. Can you tell me a little bit about how you went about building that kind of tribe of mentors?

Muhammad Yassin: Yeah, it’s been really, I think every stage of my career has been somewhat different, right?

And one of the big things is really understanding where am I struggling to see around the corners, right? Um, cause you can, you can see directly in front of you, but what’s that next right or left turn, right? And understanding who is the right person at this time for me to be talking to in order to move my career ahead.

Or move my relationships ahead inside of this organization. Right. And for me, that has been everyone from, um, the CTO. Right. When I was at CareSource, who was a great mentor for me and helped me really navigate a lot of, a lot of that organization, uh, to different CMOs, all at different stages. Right. Cause also the other thing is you want to, you want a mentor who is ahead of you, but not so far ahead of you that they forgot where they came from.

Right. You need them, you need them one or two levels in front of you. And then once you catch up, you need to move on to the next mentor, right? That mentor turns into a friend. It turns into a support network. Um, but isn’t necessarily the person that is helping you really, you know, see around those corners.

That is a huge insight. You have something to add?

Nate Spangle: I guess it seems from peer group to mentor, finding a peer group seems hard to me. Like finding people that you can just like be vulnerable with seems hard. How do you find a good peer group for entrepreneurs?

Toph Day: Um, I think it’s spot on Nate, for me it was maybe a little different because I had the benefit of being in this group called EO and um, and so the people in my group still today have, were all in EO and so they understood the meaning of confidentiality.

Like we’re not all signing NDAs here, but we’re going to look each other in the eye and agree that we’re going to, this is a place where we’re going to talk about some really deep stuff, 5 percent greatest and 5 percent worst that’s going on in your life. Personal family business, that’s the core of it.

And then everything is guest alt, right? Experience sharing, not, not, uh, advice giving and, um, so you have to be able to trust that, that group. And I think, um, I think when you meet and talk with people, you kind of bond, you know, and you just start, start asking. And I, I think there’s, there’s, um, there’s power in having different types of people in that group.

And so like in the group I’m with, all the people own very different businesses, very different. Some are tech and some are not tech, but like. We’ll get into this later with Marcus Lemonis, right? But like, but these issues don’t know sector, right? Um, so, yeah, you just gotta start asking and people gotta agree that it’s truly gonna be fight care.

How long did it take you to trust your group? Um, so, in, uh, in the EO situation they have a specific onboarding process. And when you go through that together with kind of a group of people, even though you’re going to get put into some random forum, um, since you all kind of go through a day exercise where you’re doing the same thing, you’re doing these, this thing called a lifeline or whatever, like your ups and downs, you come out of that day, like I’m looking you in the eye and I’m looking you in the eye and I’m feeling pretty confident that, that we’re on the same page here, that we’re going to talk about some deep stuff.

And we’re going to keep that confident, confidential, um, I would say late pushing on as some other people came into the group, things would come out literally a year and two years later that, um, you realize that a hundred percent trust was not there yet.

Nate Spangle: Like you’re talking years. I feel like people, especially in the, in the 2024 age, it’s like, if I don’t get value or whatever from something in two weeks, I’m like, I’m out, not worth it.

And you’re talking about years down the road, like. New layers of trust are being revealed from your peer group. I think that’s insane. Yeah.

Matt Hunckler: One of the things that I’ve, I’ve noticed in the Powderkeg peer groups that we run, it’s a little different because they’re all people who share a background in tech.

And so there is a little bit of like a shared language. I think we’d probably go deeper, faster on problems because it’s like CAC to LTV ratio. We all know what that means. Rule of 40. We know all of those terms and like industry jargon. Um, but I think one of the X factors. In our groups is having someone who has done the role before as the facilitator.

So Brian Powers, who sold Pacsafe, an incredible exit here in Indiana, um, sold to a, you know, unicorn darling ironclad out of the Bay Area. Um, His ability to just be vulnerable and share first, like I think that is what accelerates that closeness and intimacy so fast is like if someone’s willing to go first and be like, I got one for you, you know, and, and I don’t want to just use an example because I’ve heard just about everything now at this point.

So, you know, confidentiality to your point is the most important thing in those groups. If you were to put one of these groups together yourself, I would say that that’s the number one thing to like hammer home every single session and make sure everybody knows confidential, confidential, confidential, like don’t even like anonymize stories and share them.

A hundred percent. It, it, it, it, what it, what’s said in these groups stays in these groups.

Toph Day: No pillow talk. Absolutely. It’s just, it’s a special moment

Matt Hunckler: that you, that we shared and that should be sacred. A hundred percent. And there’s a model for this, right? Like videos. None of this for years. Uh, my mom’s a group mental health counselor.

She, she works with groups and there’s like, there’s just a, like the Bible on how to run these things. And it’s like, you read that and you realize, okay, there’s a, there is a method to getting groups to develop that level of intimacy and a process.

Toph Day: I want to just, real quick, something you said, Matt, it’s so true, um, you have to be vulnerable and go first.

Like, I, I, I love going first. There’s something actually that’s like liberating and magical about going first. Absolutely. I like to give a rat’s ass, like childhood stories or whatever, I, like we’ve talked about this, Muhammad, early on when we really started talking. I’m like, It’s actually therapy for me.

I’m actually doing it for me, not you.

Muhammad Yassin: And, When you find out that so many people, you, you share that really vulnerable moment, or that really vulnerable thing about you, and the person’s like, Oh, yeah, me too. Me too. Yeah, right. And this happened to me. You think you’re alone in it.

Toph Day: And they’re like, holy shit, right?

Oh, it’s gravy.

Matt Hunckler: Talk about a way to, like, accelerate relationships. Yes. Accelerate relationships, right? Cut out years of small talk BS,

Toph Day: and

Matt Hunckler: cut right to, like,

Toph Day: a human element. To get value, you have to give value, go first, right? To get respect, you have to give respect, go first.

Nate Spangle: I think, uh, the term vulnerable, I listened to Max talk on one of the bereave events.

If you guys know bereave, like local startup, it’s like crushing it right now. And he talked about being vulnerable. Doesn’t mean necessarily, I have to say. Like, oh, I’m sad, or like these negative emotions. Right. He just said, and Max Yoder, obviously a friend of Matt’s, and I mean, amazing tech leader here.

Matt Hunckler: Founder of Lessonly.

Founder of

Nate Spangle: Lessonly, maybe you’ve heard of it. Uh, but he said, being vulnerable is sharing how you’re feeling internally, externally. Yep. So if I’m just pumped up about something, it’s like sharing that, like, why am I pumped up? Like, why does this get Nate Spangle so excited? Why does this get Nate Spangle so sad?

Sharing what, and I, it just like resonated with me like more than, I don’t know, anything I’ve probably read in the last like, nine months.

Muhammad Yassin: It’s emotional honesty. Right? And it’s like.

Nate Spangle: Like, not being afraid to say why I’m excited, not being afraid to say why I’m sad, and like, be vulnerable, just share how you’re feeling internally, externally.

It was crazy, I was like, because I’d always connected vulnerable to negative emotions, like, I have to be like, this weak yada about being vulnerable, and it’s like, no, you just have to be open. It’s

Matt Hunckler: like

Nate Spangle: being

Matt Hunckler: real.

Nate Spangle: Yeah.

Matt Hunckler: Yeah. So I’m going to ask you now, uh, your roles and put your investor hats on, you know, cause there, there is a time and place for vulnerability and I know from experience that, um, one, you can overshare, uh, or too early in a relationship, um, especially if you’re presenting to investors and trying to tell your story at the same time, The, I almost think this is worse is if you try to pretend like you got it all figured out and, uh, you don’t show any kind of, uh, vulnerability when you’re presenting your startup.

So I’m curious to know what your experience is on that side of the table when you’re evaluating opportunities to invest in, uh, how do you think about vulnerability and, um, how do you evaluate that when you’re looking at I’ll say straight up,

Toph Day: I’ll say straight up entrepreneurs don’t hide it. So I’m going to, I’m going to tell you how we think about it.

And my, maybe me personally. And I’m gonna, uh, I’m gonna get brought up with a personal story. So, so, I could, I’m gonna go back to a real life situation just so people know that I’ve been through the same thing. So, so I had a company and we were deep into one of our vendors, a contractor that installed a lot of these systems for us.

And things went wonky, I’ll spare the details, we don’t have time for it now, but the bottom line is I couldn’t pay this contractor. And I’m talking several hundred thousand dollars, this wasn’t, you know, ten thousand dollars. That’s scary. Several hundred thousand dollars and it’s ballooning up because we’re installing all these systems.

And I had a term sheet that disappeared, 7 million term sheet that got yanked, got bombs happening, it’s looming, all the VCs are, are, are holding on to their money. And so I’m in trouble. And um, so I went to the CEO of that company and I said, Hey, this is what’s going on. Transparent. I laid it out. And here’s, here’s where I am.

And this is what we plan to do. Here’s option A, option B, option C. This is the plan. And I, I need, I need a year and hopefully within that year, something’s going to happen. Long story short, all of his advisors said, yank the rug. You’re screwed, like shut it down now. And he said, no, nobody’s ever come to me, to my office and face me face to face, eye to eye.

And was that vulnerable? Was that transparent? Long story short, he got paid every dollar. So, um, so today, so we just went through what we went through with another market downturn, right? And, and, and valuations and people over skis and, and, and ramp, you know, not going the way you think it’s going to go, et cetera.

The entrepreneurs, the companies that come in and are just honest and forthright and transparent. Um, it’s, it’s really easy to try to come easy, but to try to come up with a solution, right? The ones that don’t come at the last second are still kind of hiding a monkey, et cetera. Um,

Nate Spangle: How do you, how do you diversify or whatever, like the difference between making excuses, like, Oh, it’s not working right.

Like yada, And being honest and transparent, because I feel like that’s a thin line. Where it’s like, if someone comes in and is just like. My dog ate my homework, yada, yada, yada, life’s not going my way, like blah, blah, blah, versus like someone who comes in and is transparent. Like, how would you say, like, what advice would you give to founders that are like trying to do that, but they don’t want to sound like they’re pitching about it?

Toph Day: This sounds generic probably, but there’s three words I was taught out of school called managed by fact. And like, just managed by fact, just break your business down. Like, and this goes back to that mouthful concept we talked about earlier. Just shed the noise and just focus on, just think of units, unit, like, Just basic building blocks, literally.

That’s, that’s what matters in that moment. Basic building blocks, unit costs, who do you really need to sell and make the thing. And, and who really is your best customer? And are there customers that are costing you more money than you’re actually making revenue? Like you really have to ask those honest questions.

Um, and you, you can tell pretty quickly if they’ve sat down and thought about that.

Matt Hunckler: What, what’s your initial reaction when you hear some, a pitch from a entrepreneur and it’s all upside, it’s all, uh, things are up into the right and there’s even after questioning, they are trying to present themselves as it’s all buttoned up.

Like what is. What is your initial reaction to that?

Toph Day: Well, you try to give them a chance to correct course. Mm hmm. Right? Um, I’ve always thought I would rather pull someone back than try to push them forward. Right? I gotta share a quick story about that whole piece. I walked into Mickey’s Camp last year, and Gary Brackett was standing there.

For those who don’t know, we give the 30 second on Mickey’s Camp. Yes, yeah. So Mickey’s Camp is, it was started by Mickey Maurer, great business person, philanthropist, et cetera, here in Indianapolis. And, uh, he started a camp for people to get together and bond and share and have experiences together and community build.

So set the scene. And so he does it at, uh, I don’t even remember where it’s at, Bradford Woods. Yep. Near IU. And there’s an all women’s McKee’s camp and an all men’s, uh, men’s camp in fill in the blanks. What am I missing? You know more about it than I do. And you literally can stay in bunks. When I was younger, I used to stay in bunks.

Now I get an Airbnb. Who’s Mickey? Mickey Maurer. Mickey Maurer. Oh,

Nate Spangle: yeah. Mickey Maurer glasses. He got, who’s Mickey Maurer? Bank of Indianapolis, I. B. J. I should know who Mickey Maurer is. Oh, for sure. You should absolutely know who Mickey Maurer is. All right. For sure. Mr. Indiana should know who Mickey Maurer is.

Twenty six to thirty year olds, we’re going to do a deep dive on who Mickey Maurer is. Yeah.

Toph Day: Oh, yeah. In fact, you need to go get Mickey Maurer on your next gig. Whatever we’re doing there, you should go get Mickey Maurer. Yeah. He’s, he’s amazing. So, um, so I walk up and it’s the transition of, of the men and women, et cetera.

And I’m walking up and Gary Brackett, uh, used to play for the Colts and they’re talking about, you know, motivational things. And one of the folks said, Hey, my son, uh, you know, thinks he’s going to play professional football and like, you know, he’s a good high school athlete, but he’s not going to play professional football and probably not even D one college and whatever.

And like, what should I do to like reset his expectations? And Gary said, you should never reset the expectations. Right. Right. And so like. If this is that, that kid’s goal, right, up here, and they land here, that’s awesome. And I thought that was so spot on, right, so. Even coming up short on a, on a big goal is better than having a short goal.

That’s right. And, and will they be grounded, I guess? If, if everything’s up and to the right and beautiful and hunky dory, um, you can, you can decipher pretty quickly, like, will they surround themselves with the right people to execute?

Nate Spangle: I think, yeah, in that big term, it’s just like. If you say, oh, well, well, you’re, you’re positive and you’re optimistic and yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s going to go great.

And if you don’t, some adversity comes, it’s like, I don’t know, but it’s figureoutable. Like that’s where the E I feel like of the Melfo, Melfo, I think is it entrepreneur? Yeah. It’s like banging on that person, right? Like, ah, you know, there’s going to be adversity that you’re, that’s not going to be in the pitch deck.

But it’s like, I bet on that person to be able to figure it out.

Toph Day: Grit and creativity.

Nate Spangle: Crea Grit tivity. Grit tivity. Grit tivity. Not to be confused with gratuity.

Matt Hunckler: So y’all, um, Elevate sees thousands of entrepreneurs every single year. What are some of the trends you’re seeing in technology right now that are exciting?

Because you mentioned, obviously, economic shifts over the last couple of years, but the technological shifts have been insane. Yep. What are some of the things that you’re most excited about when you look at all the thousands of entrepreneurs that you’ve talked to?

Muhammad Yassin: So, Milo, do you want to go first from the Yeah, let me talk about it from the marketing perspective.

Um, I’ve seen a lot of changes in early stage startups, honestly, since COVID.

Matt Hunckler: Yeah.

Muhammad Yassin: Um, something about quarantine and the way it’s made us all so introspective. Really open these companies up, right? I think before COVID you saw, to Nate’s point, the companies are trying to say everything’s great and act really big, right?

Even when they were really, really small and you see a lot more vulnerability and honesty from those early stage companies. Now they’re willing to say that they’re early, that they’re willing to say that they’re figuring things out. Um, and they’re willing to be honest and actually share about their journey as they build.

And I think. That that is creating some really exciting marketing that people can connect to. Um, because even in business, I mean, we’re connecting with people, right? And them, them being able to, they’re in a unique opportunity when it is. Two or three people to actually let you connect to the human beings versus a big company where there’s thousands of people.

And it’s really kind of, kind of difficult to do so. So I’m, I’m really excited about what the marketing looks like and coming out of COVID, the lean back to in person marketing, right? The lean back into, you know, Events, the brunches, the coffee and happy hours. And, and that sort of thing that we see marketing departments early stage, really putting their resources and time into that’s how they’re actually connecting and getting.

Nate Spangle: I ended up on the rabbit hole of like the five person startup, like Kenga coolers does this really well. Like their marketing doesn’t say anything about coolers. It’s like we outgrew our spot. And like, they’re like talking about the navigating, like the problems that the business has. Yeah. I think you guys talked to Habits, Jack Boudreau, it’s like finance, I think that um, they just announced a round and I think you guys might be involved in it, I believe, but he literally like will video his.

Sales call, his investor calls play his side of it. You can’t hear what the investor says, his pitches, his sales meetings. And it’s like, he posted on Tik TOK and people love it in the comments. Like they go crazy. Cause it’s like, Oh, that’s a really great way to close. Or it’s like, bro, you really fumbled the bag right there.

Muhammad Yassin: Like, I mean, you would have never seen that back in the day. Yeah. He’s never seen that.

Nate Spangle: And it’s like, people love it. And like, they’re like more, more sales content, more VC content. Like, that’s so cool. And he just like crushes it on Tik TOK and like. As an early stage startup praising their seed round, like has 20, 000 followers on TikTok or whatever that are like along for the journey, just by saying like, I pitched, I think it started with like, I pitched this VC and this is how it went.

So cool.

Toph Day: That’s great. I love that.

Nate Spangle: What are you, uh, what are you seeing? That’s amazing. I’m going to have to go check that out. I haven’t heard of that. I’m pretty sure he’s indie based. I think that you guys are involved in some, in some sense.

Toph Day: Um, so what are we seeing? So, um, um, so I would say we’re starting to see, and I don’t think it’s proliferated yet, but I feel like we’re starting to see people, um, embrace modern technologies, but also, uh, How do I say this?

Maybe I’ll say it this way. Everybody used to say AI, AI, AI. And there’s still some element of that, but a lot of the crap that people talk about is not AI. Right. It’s like BI. And that’s still awesome.

Matt Hunckler: BI as in business intelligence.

Toph Day: Business intelligence. Right. And that can still be totally awesome. I, I, I don’t know.

What is AI? Right? I mean, I don’t know. To me, AI is like the Terminator. We’re gonna need another hour. That’s the question that we’re posing.

Nate Spangle: We’re gonna need another hour.

Toph Day: It’s self learning on itself. And you’re not touching it. Like, that’s ultimate AI. So anyways, I get a little exhausted by the term AI.

So I find it refreshing that some companies don’t use it.

Nate Spangle: I’d love to, as we’re on the topic of what we’re seeing, just like really quickly dive into like one each of like What are the cool companies or entrepreneurs that you see coming out of Indiana today?

Muhammad Yassin: Wow, that’s a big question. There are a lot of companies coming out of Indiana, right, on a daily basis.

Nate Spangle: If there’s just one that’s in the top of your head, like, oh man, this company is doing something freaking insane and the entire state of Indiana needs to know about it.

Toph Day: I’m going to use it. So there’s a there’s one that’s scaling. It’s called scale computing. Um, and I find a reason I mentioned that one is with what happened with VMware and Broadcom, etc. Their, their opportunity is, has been, was always big, but now has become big and eminent and very real. So I’m super excited about Scale Computing.

Matt Hunckler: And they’re like in the, it’s unsexy tech, right? Like you’re not reading about this on the front page of TechCrunch usually unless they raise a big funding round. It’s edge computing. But none of this happens, none of these other cool things happen without the computing power that a company like Scale Computing provides.

Toph Day: And anybody listening to this podcast benefits from it annoyingly. Every time you go to a store and you check out, you’re benefiting from it and you just don’t know it. Yep. Right?

Nate Spangle: Um, I’ve known skill computing for five years, no idea what they do. It’s computing. It’s computing.

Toph Day: It’s self provisioning. It’s amazing technology.

It’s really cool. It’s awesome. Um, there’s also a lot of, um, like Unified Sierra, uh, it’s a drone company, right? Or there’s a quantum computing company up at Purdue that’s very, very early.

Nate Spangle: Unified Sierra is the DOD contract drones, right? Yes, drones. But like, and now that because of the legislature, whatever, that parts have to come from America.

Like they’re American made drones. Yes. And they’re like kids, right?

Toph Day: Yes. Well, they’re just, they’re just kids. That’s so sick. That’s why we like to say, uh, I’m just going to be our new, one of our new tag, not a tagline, but, but, but, um, but like what we are looking for every innovation driven entrepreneur from dorm room to boardroom.

And like literally, I mean, from dorm room to boardroom. That’s good. Right. From dorm room to boardroom. I love that. Cause they’re everywhere.

Nate Spangle: Right. It’s insane. I love it. I mean, that’s cool. Do you have a favorite company? Yeah.

Muhammad Yassin: Yeah. Um, you know, the one that I’m kind of, I think geeking out about right now, just from a pure marketing perspective is backstroke.

Mm. Um, and I think this is a good example also of, you know, TOF mentioned ai. I think a lot of companies kind of put it in the forefront. The reality is that AI is gonna be in the background of everything. The more silent cloud, the better for those who know what backstroke is.

Matt Hunckler: Uh, high Alpha company. Right. Do do you mind giving the

Muhammad Yassin: Yeah. So High Alpha Company started by, um, two really good marketers. Um, one of ’em that does have certainly an AI background. Yep. Right. Um, and they are helping people deliver better messaging. Right. So I personally use ’em, they have a free tool that allows you to. Punch in a couple things and get some really great subject lines for your email.

For email marketing for example. Which is one of the hardest things to do and one of the most important. Pieces of marketing, you can, the shortest, but most important copy you could ever write.

Nate Spangle: I can retweet that a thousand times. Everyone is just a subject line, but it’s like, I’ll spend sometimes more time on the subject line than the freaking content in the email.

Yeah, 100%. Because if it doesn’t

Matt Hunckler: get open, none of the other content matters. What was this all for? 100%.

Muhammad Yassin: But I think I love that because you know, from a marketing perspective, they are out there in the field meeting customers on a day to day basis across the country. I agree. Um, but also it’s a good example of having AI, but it being in the background, right?

It is the, the backbone of it is not the story that’s up front because honestly, at this point in our AI journey, it shouldn’t be the front story.

Matt Hunckler: Okay.

So, so what are some of the companies that are involved with rally this year? Because last year. There were some amazing companies. Talk about like Voltaire and what, maybe we talk about last year first.

What were some of the companies that came out of Rally last year that are, have gone on to do big things? Because, I mean, obviously I’m a huge fan of what Voltaire is doing, but like, there’s so many great companies that came out of the Rally conference.

Toph Day: Yeah, yeah, totally fired up. So four of the five winners of Rally last year, um, have all either already set up shop, um, Uh, or in the process of setting up shop in Indiana because it really helps their business.

There are so many things that can help move their business forward, whether it’s customers and the willingness here of customers to take that risk to, let’s do a pilot, right? Let’s do a beta test. Let’s do whatever. Or manufacturing, right? Having the facilities and the types of people here and the willingness to introduce people, right?

So for those five. Um, are already funded and in the process of setting up shop here. So you have my biometry in, in, um, in healthcare. You have Edge Sound research in sports tech. Uh, Paul Co, uh, was food and ag. Um, who am I missing? Uh, software, they, they did not move here, but wanted to, the CEO wanted to, um, but the chairman didn’t, didn’t let that happen.

Which one was software? Um, um. What was the one from Louisville? Let’s pause for a second. Yeah. We can take this down. Yeah. Yeah. And this section here, let’s just delete it.

Matt Hunckler: Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. Totally. Totally. Um, let’s dive into. Tell me a little bit about the companies that are involved with rally this year, because obviously with five winners last year, I know a bunch of them moved headquarters and bid big parts of their operation to Indiana.

Uh, edge sound research is one of my favorites. Just knowing that it’s a cool product. Yeah, it’s like you, it’s so for those who aren’t familiar with edge sound research, super cool entrepreneur, Volterrie, Val, uh, has developed technology that basically you can. Feel sound. So the sports, um, connections that Indiana has and being the amateur sports capital of the world, home of the Colts, home of the Pacers, home of the Indy 500, awesome strategic place for them to have a headquarters.

And that all happened because of Rally. And now they’re, they’re installing across the country in major venues, uh, sporting venues. They were at the Indy 500 this year. I saw that he’s at like one of the bigger conventions this week. So like so many cool stories from last year. What are some of the ones that you’re really excited about this year when you kind of look at, I think it was like what, hundreds of companies applied to pitch this year, right?

Yeah, we had about almost

Toph Day: 350 applications from I think roughly, um, 15 countries, 30 states. I don’t have those numbers memorized, but it’s roughly that. Does that sound right? Mm hmm. And, um, one thing we noticed from this year, year over year, is that the quality of companies, um, like last year, a lot of great quality companies too, this year seem more dense, like the applications seem more dense, like there were, there were a number of applications last year that I think people didn’t realize.

No, no, you’re, you’re competing for up to a million dollars, so you gotta be buttoned up. And, and, and they went through the gauntlet to make it to the main stage to pitch. That’s cool. And, and everybody who made it to the main stage, they’re all winners. Yeah. Right? Absolutely. Unfortunately, you gotta pick one, but.

Yeah. Um, but yeah, Mohamed, what else would you say?

Muhammad Yassin: Yeah, I, I think that, uh, kind of double clicking, the, the, the quality of people coming in, not the, last year was amazing. There’s some amazing people that, that, uh, that sent in, but I was super excited this year to see the types of entrepreneurs that were taking the time to actually submit for the end price.

Yeah. Right? It is, it is a, it’s a higher caliber. They’re taking this very seriously and they’re bringing some really cool products to, to, to, to the stage.

Matt Hunckler: I can’t wait to see some of those pitches, uh, on stage at Rally. And it’s not just entrepreneurs of startups, right? Like You have some big name people, A Rod, Marcus Lemonis.

Tell me a little bit about the speakers.

Toph Day: So, super fired up. So, um, so we have Tia White. She’s gonna come in and be more the futurist. Right? She’s an AI expert. So, super fired up about Tia White. Um, and then A Rod, uh, um, uh, Marcus Lemonis and, um, Jan Mardenborough. So, Muhammad will kind of, will kind of throw these around and tee them up.

There’s multiple reasons I’m, I’m so excited about several of them. Uh, the two big things I’ll hit on is one with Jan, uh, or I’ll go to Marcus Lemonis first. Marcus Lemonis, the prophet, if you haven’t heard of him, the TV show, The Prophet, have binged it. And what I love about Marcus Lemonis is he has an insane ability To look at any business, doesn’t matter what they do, any business, and I’ve always believed this, that business at the core is the same.

Matt Hunckler: Mm hmm.

Toph Day: And he has the ability to go into any business and break it down to the basics of, of why it’s not working, why it’s failing, here’s what you should tweak and change, go execute that, and then I’ll bet, right? So cross sector, cross sector conference, I think it’s totally applicable. Jan Martin, bro, um, watched the movie one night, jumped out of bed at one o’clock, I was so inspired, I popped him a note on LinkedIn, didn’t hear anything back, and about a month later, I think his Ludo, his manager, popped somebody a note back, and said, okay, we’ve been researching you, you guys look legit, so let’s talk.

What’s the story for those who haven’t seen the movie?

Nate Spangle: like, what’s he, give us the detail.

Toph Day: So Gran Turismo is about a, a kid that is a gamer, and, and games eight hours a day, basically, and the dad opened the door, like, you’re never about to do anything, right? Right. And then Nissan comes along and they’re tracking all these gamers across the globe so they know who the best gamers are, right?

Matt Hunckler: Gran Turismo is like a driving game, right? Driving, racing game. Because I remember that from the original PlayStation days. Gran Turismo on the original PlayStation, so I’m imagining this is not the original PlayStation. This is probably like a PS whatever they’re on now.

Toph Day: And I think the, the founder of Gran Turismo is from Japan.

So it’s a Japanese game, I believe. Okay. Very realistic, very realistic racing game. Yeah. And so, uh, so Nissan has this idea of let’s look at all the best racers, and let’s have a big racing competition, a big gaming race competition, and then whoever the best of the best are, let’s invite them over to, do you remember what country it was?

It was somewhere in Europe. They’re putting them

Muhammad Yassin: in actual race cars. They’re putting

Toph Day: them in actual race cars.

Muhammad Yassin: Which is amazing. I love that.

Toph Day: And Jan wins that whole thing and becomes an actual race car driver.

Nate Spangle: He’s, he’s like cruising around in a real race car now. Oh yeah, he wins races. That’s crazy.

Muhammad Yassin: I mean, one of the, the big kind of like culmination of this whole movie is him, um, winning one of the major races in Europe.

Yeah. Right? Against all the odds. And I, I love this story particularly. I’m, I’m super excited about Jan coming in because. It is a good example of what the future of work looks like, right? If we look at any of the really high risk, high reward jobs that we have today. So, you know, think surgeons or military or pilots, all these sorts of things.

They are learning their job in a simulator first before they go out and actually do the job in the real world. And we’re seeing that come down further and further into new types of jobs, even down to, you know, salespeople. That’s how we teach salespeople, right? It is a. A, we call it a role play. It’s really a simulation, right?

Whether it’s one on one or whether it is in, in with a, uh, it was substandard technology. We teach people through simulations. So that’s exactly what happened with Jan. He learned through PlayStation and took those skills that he learned and put them in a real life race car.

Matt Hunckler: So I asked my nephew. He was like 13 years old.

What his favorite VR game is, cause you know he plays on the, on the Oculus, plays all the games. And he said it’s, it’s this game, I think it’s called Shopkeeper. It’s literally like stocking shelves.

Muhammad Yassin: My daughter also loves the Oculus game. It’s like, uh, there’s a fast, the fast food restaurant that she works in.

And so what’s interesting is, yeah, she, she’s like flipping burgers and she’s like, Oh, my boss said I have to do X, Y, Z. And he’s just complaining about her boss and him trying to get her to increase her output and everything. And it’s just like, you’re working in the kitchen at a fast food restaurant in VR.

Um, what is intro? This was before she, you know, actually started working and she just got her first job recently. And it is actually at a theater as a server.

Matt Hunckler: Yeah. That’s amazing. I’m like, okay. This is what we play. This is what we’re preparing for. This is gonna be awesome. This is gonna be awesome. It’s

Nate Spangle: like, you go into a room like that, you need to go to bed like, Dad, I’m practicing for work tomorrow.

Exactly. Give me a break. We’re watching the film.

Toph Day: I love that. No way. So back to what Muhammed was saying. Um, Joe. All these tools are coming out. We are going to be able to see who’s using all these modern technology, the chat, GPTs, and all the hundreds and thousands of things that come out. Just like Jann was being tracked on how good of a racer he is.

We’re going to be able to track who is really good at doing, at utilizing these various tools. And it’s going to be like Nike in the seventies and employers are going to start going to high schools and all the way back into junior high. And I think we’re going to see people doing a hundred thousand dollar commits to come work for my company, or, okay, you really want to go to college?

I’m paying for your college, but you got to agree to come work for me for five years. And locking people in as a senior in high school, a junior, a sophomore, freshman, and working themselves back. It’s going to happen, mark my words right now, because we’re going to be able to track who’s the best of the best.

Yeah, I love it. You’re going to start getting scholarships for work.

Matt Hunckler: As someone who has emceed hundreds of conferences and events around the world, I am really excited about the emcee that you picked for Rally. Can you tell me a little bit about Jennifer Magli? Jennifer Magli.

Muhammad Yassin: Man, she is one of the most dynamic people I’ve probably met.

And I, I meet a lot of people, I go to a lot of events. She’s that person where you go into the room and you’re in the entire room seems to be like circulating around this person’s gravity. Um, that’s Jennifer. Yeah. Right. And I, I, I’m, I’m so excited about her coming on. She has a sports background. Um, and just the, the, the level of when we asked her to do her first.

Her first, uh, little social media post on coming to join Rally. We always send her a little script, right? As usual, and a lot of people, most people will be like, Oh, here’s, let me take your script. I’m gonna tweak a couple little things just to show that I didn’t take it for, you know, all in. Um, she went deep on editing that script and then she was like, warning us, I think in a way.

How wild are you okay with me getting with this? Right? Which, excited about it, what I wasn’t expecting was money guns in her LinkedIn post. I love it. I saw that and I was like, who is

Nate Spangle: this? Like, let’s go. It was awesome. She’s got the ATM pistol up there just going crazy. It was amazing.

Muhammad Yassin: Dynamic speaker, uh, Great business person as well, right?

Athlete, business person. So she understands the space. Yes. Um, and I think she’s going to be, you know, amazing. Rally is really about. Bringing together, um, all these people across multiple sectors and the energy that happens with that. Yeah. And I think having an MC that really matches and possibly even exceeds that level of energy is going to be a great kind of, um, Uh, COG to keep this, this, this thing going.

Matt Hunckler: 100%. 100%. Such good energy. I’m, I’m so excited for Rally. Um, any, any final thoughts on Rally? Can you, can you tell people just like, give them like the, the trailer for Rally this year.

Toph Day: So, so I would say if you want to be at the world’s largest cross sector innovation festival, you should be at Rally. The theme this year is creative convergence.

Like, it’s a real thing. Cross sector, disparate stakeholders, one place, one time. That’s where magic happens. And things are going to happen that are going to transform you personally and professionally. Whether it’s finding your lead for Series A, or finding, uh, you know, a global expert in cold plunging.

You’re going to find it all at Rally. And it was going to be all, that happened last year with 100 percent happened. Oh, that’s and so over, uh, over 3000 people in two days and it’s just immersive experience like no other.

Matt Hunckler: Yeah. I’m excited. Anything you’d add to that, Muhammed?

Muhammad Yassin: If you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, you should do it now.

Um, there continue to raise the prices. It gets closer and closer. Um, but the value in it is so worth it, right? It is. It is a big weekend or a big week, not only just for innovation in Indianapolis, but just also for Indianapolis period. So whether you’re in Indiana and need to come to Indianapolis. To make sure you’re, you know, participating in these creative kind of convergences.

Um, or you’re from outside of the state, I’d say come in, make a week of it, right? There’s lots of other events actually happening even around Rally, where you can stay for a week and get a whole lot of value as a business, uh, person, but also just as a human being.

Toph Day: Yeah, the majority of the people that come to Rally are from across the country and across the globe.

Matt Hunckler: Yeah,

Toph Day: it’s incredible.

Matt Hunckler: Well, and I’m going to put you a little bit on the spot here, Mohamed. We didn’t talk about this ahead of time. Um, and we didn’t clear it with Toph, but, but for special Get IN listeners, like could we do something for them to just like the first five to use like a, a, some sort of a code so that they can get their ticket today?

Muhammad Yassin: I feel like we’re just so on the same page, you know, did not warn me, but that was the next thing I was going to say, actually. I was gonna surprise you with it. Oh, okay. I like it. All right. So yeah, if you use code, Get IN, we can do 40 percent off.

Nate Spangle: What? 40%?

Matt Hunckler: I was like, I was hoping for like five to 10. Dude, you guys are awesome.

All right. So you, you heard it here, 40 percent and that’s good for the first five people or first 10 people to use it?

Muhammad Yassin: Um, we can do the first 10. 10!

Matt Hunckler: All right. We can do that. Those will go fast. We’re good friends. Those will go fast. Is it get in or rally get in? Just straight out get in. All one word. getin.

All one word. All right. Get in. You heard it here. That’s awesome. Thank you guys. Beast. That’s incredible.

Toph Day: See, to give value, you have to give value.

Matt Hunckler: Yeah, that’s right. And sometimes you gotta ask. Yeah, you gotta ask. Full circle, baby. I love it. All right. Well, this is, uh, now it’s time for our favorite part of the show.

It is the lightning round. Toph, you’ve already done the lightning round, uh, Nate Spangle style. Yeah, but Muhammad has yet to get the Spangle lightning. Uh, do you want to, uh I hear you’re really good at this.

Nate Spangle: Uh, you know, that might be what I’m known for. Who knows, you know, this last, like, two minute section here.

Muhammad, outside of the entrepreneurial ecosystem, what is Indiana known for?

Muhammad Yassin: Oh, man. So, for me, coming in from, uh, out of state. Can we talk about where you, where are you from? So, I was from, I’m from Ohio, which I jokingly call Indiana East, right? But it’s also different, right? Indiana has a much different vibe than Ohio.

What I love about Indiana and Indianapolis, uh, in general, is live music.

Matt Hunckler: Yeah. It is,

Muhammad Yassin: We have some amazing music venues, like, honestly, throughout the state, and a lot of really good, not only, like, top tier. Artists that come in, but also a lot of those emerging artists. Right. I can not count the number of times where a Spotify has suggested someone to me in my discover weekly that I get obsessed with and they’re from somewhere in the world.

And then I suddenly see them on the marquee for. Uh, some local bar or something like that. Vogue, the Palladium. 100%. All these amazing venues. Black Circle, like there’s so many places in town. Yeah. Um, where I’ve been able to see some amazing music from like really early stage artists.

Nate Spangle: Alright, so Indiana’s slowly becoming known for music.

Okay, that kind of teases right into the next one about

Toph Day: We have Sweetwater.

Nate Spangle: Uh. Virginia Peck, yeah. Our voice, yes. Um. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?

Muhammad Yassin: Ooh, I’m gonna go back to the same thing. We’re gonna stay in the music category. I think that Black Circle is one of the hidden gems of Indiana and Indianapolis.

It is a very small, um, I call it kind of like punk bar of sorts. Um. On 46th Street, right? Yeah. At Refinery 46, basically. At Refinery 46, um, it is small, they are, they play old VHS movies, um, on a little TV behind the bar you can watch, got pinball machines. And they have a lot of music. And one of the things that I like about that particular venue is when they have musicians coming in.

A lot of them are for all ages, right? So for me, you know, someone that has a 16 year old who’s also obsessed with music, it’s somewhere where we can go together and actually enjoy that. And then they of course have, you know, have black circle market, which is a big, like, um, once a month, uh, kind of maker’s market as well.

And just a great contributor to the community as well.

Nate Spangle: That’s awesome. They have some like, some artists that go in there that are like, pretty hardcore rockers. 100%. I was down below in the spa at the Friday 46, like we were recording an Orr Fellowship podcast and all of a sudden we were like, test test, and then just someone starts going crazy on the guitar.

They don’t play. And I was just like, All right, we’re going to wrap the show this weekend because they were going crazy up there. It was awesome.

Matt Hunckler: Great indoor venue, but

Muhammad Yassin: amazing outdoor venue. Amazing outdoor space. And it’s a space that they expanded during quarantine, actually built out during quarantine.

Um, you know, there are a lot of communities that were used to convening that couldn’t because of quarantine restrictions. And they built that outside space so people could actually come and see performances, whether that be music or performance art, et cetera. Um, in a safe space and actually bring their families.

Matt Hunckler: Do they still have that awesome restaurant next door that has the Cubans, Cuban sandwiches?

Muhammad Yassin: The restaurant next door has gone through a couple of changes. Okay, okay. There is something new there now. Okay. Um, but I gotta go, I gotta go back then. I gotta go back and try the new restaurant.

Nate Spangle: Alright, my last question goes to each of you, cause I know that Tove also has a ton of people that he’s seen here.

It’s going to be about, who is a Hoosier that we need to keep on our radar? A Hoosier that’s doing big things? Ooh, toe first. After you, Muhammad. One, one person that the state needs to know. Who is one person that Indiana needs to know?

Muhammad Yassin: We got a table of politicians here. Watch out. Oh, man. Um, so I gave you two people.

And they are, I’d say, mostly known in some circles. Um, but there’s certainly plenty that are not. Um, but Mali and Alan from Butter, or Gang Gang, so it’s a community organization called Gang Gang here in Indianapolis. They’re really dedicated to the arts in Indiana, um, and their first big event really was the Butter Art Fair, which is in year, I believe, four this year, um, curated.

Art from across the country presented in a gallery setting, right? And year one, they had literal museums shopping at this art fair. And that continues to be the case. People flying in from all over the country to buy, buy art. Um, many of those pieces from people who have never maybe even sold art before and are getting high dollar values.

So that was huge, but then they also expanded their reach as a kind of a, a cultural organization into, um, the country’s first, uh, black rock and roll festival, you know, this past year, or multiple other events. That was I Made Rock and Roll, right? Yeah, and it was Janelle Monae on stage in the middle of downtown Indianapolis.

That was a vibe.

Matt Hunckler: I love, uh, Butter’s, um, installation that they had at Circle Center Mall for the All Star Game. That was incredible. So cool.

Nate Spangle: Well, Mali and Alan, when you see this, you’re cordially invited on to get in and we’d love to have you on to talk about all the cool things you’re doing. Heck yeah.

Toph, who’s someone in Indiana that we need to know?

Toph Day: I’m gonna go with, uh, Emil Echior. That’s a good one. And I’m gonna go with Emil because, um, Emil is just selflessly Uh, the time he spends on trying to spread, I like to say, spread the gospel of entrepreneurship, right? Yeah. Um, and, and then he talks about he wants to make Indianapolis, make Indiana the black entrepreneurship capital of the world.

And I’m like, let’s go, let’s roll. And so like the things that he’s doing nationally and even internationally, um, trying to spread the word and, and show on ramps of how people who want to attack entrepreneurship, right, whatever type of business that, that here’s how you can go about that.

Matt Hunckler: And we gave doing it, we gave listeners of get in an early look at some of the work he was doing in episode two or three, maybe if getting one of the first five, one of the first five, but since then he’s done so many more things, the partnership with Elevate, Yeah, there’s, there’s a rally,

Muhammad Yassin: There’s a rally string there to bring this conference this year, minority, uh, business week into

Matt Hunckler: rally.

So cool. It’s huge. I freaking love that. So, uh, you might not know this Toph, but I have a lightning round. Now, I’ve got three questions for each of you. Same questions. This is innovation. All right. Hey, right? Hashtag innovation. Uh, all right. Uh, Toph, I’m going to go you first, and then I’ll go you next, Mohamed, and then we’ll reverse roll.

Alright, so, uh, Toph, if you had, if you could have a superpower to solve any business challenge, what would it be and why? A superpower to solve any business challenge.

Toph Day: Um, the, uh, uh, respect. For people to, uh, not screw each other over. Mmm. And why? That’s the way it should be.

Matt Hunckler: I like it. I like it. What about you, Muhammad?

If you could have one superpower in business, what would it be and why?

Muhammad Yassin: It would be time travel. Mmm. Uh, not the ability to go forward, but the ability to go backward. Mmm. Let’s say even three months, right? To be able to say, hey, I went around this corner. Oops, I took a, I swung for the fences, but I made the wrong decision and be able to back up three months, even if I could only do it a couple of times in the course of building a business would be enormous.

Take more shots. Take more big shots. Right? 100%.

Toph Day: Oh, I like that. That’s like a mulligan, two mulligans. Right? Really good.

Nate Spangle: You think in the final presentation, like they say, yeah, unfortunately we’re going through competitor. Click. Go ahead. What were the reasons you didn’t know

Matt Hunckler: this?

Nate Spangle: Then click.

Matt Hunckler: Alright, final question.

Which entrepreneur do you secretly admire and why? Muhammad, if you want to go first this time.

Muhammad Yassin: Secretly admire? I don’t know that I, like, secretly admire people. If I, back to the I think if you, if you like someone and you like what they’re doing, you should say that. Um, I think that too many of us go through life wondering if people approve of what we’re doing or like what we’re doing or value what we’re doing.

Um, and there’s a lot of value in just saying that to a person. You never know what kind of impact you are going to make on them. So I agree.

Nate Spangle: Who was the last person that you gave that, that feedback to and said, you know what? I freaking love what this person’s doing.

Muhammad Yassin: Not to double click, but it was probably honestly Emil.

Matt Hunckler: Yeah.

Muhammad Yassin: Right. I think we had a, we had a

Matt Hunckler: Innopower

Muhammad Yassin: We had the opportunity to, to travel together recently and, um, and have some really good conversations about. I know the work that he is doing in the community. And I think it’s incredibly important.

Matt Hunckler: Love it. Toph, who is one entrepreneur you secretly admire and why?

Toph Day: Um, so Matt, my rapid response is this is not going to be the answer that we’re looking for, but it’s, it’s not an individual entrepreneur. It’s going to be, uh, people, uh, in general that help turn down the volume of discourse.

Matt Hunckler: Mm.

Toph Day: I like that. We, we really are at a threshold here, I believe, in our country, um, where we can talk about all the innovation and the entrepreneurship in the world, but if, but if our population cannot live safely.

And confidently and, and we can’t look our children in the eyes and truly believe that it’s just without question that their future is going to be incredible. If we don’t dial down the discourse in this country and show more deference to each other, we’re going to have big problems where innovation entrepreneurship won’t even matter.

And so, um, that’s, that’s who I admire people who just. Remember the Saturday Night Live skit, Simidam?

Matt Hunckler: That’s a great answer.

Nate Spangle: That’s like a subtle plug to go back and listen to the episode that we just dropped with Elliot. Um, and just echoing that, Elliot is insanely smart. And he said that now is the only time in the history of the world, where if you poll people, the majority will say that the future, Is not going to be better than the present.

Like we’re being optimistic is like, you’re in the minority there. And I think that’s terrifying and sad as like somebody who’s pretty optimistic. And I’d love to ship the scales back over to where I believe the future present is great, but the future is going to be even better. And, and having that, like that rhetoric of optimism,

Matt Hunckler: That was a natural order of things.

Right.

Nate Spangle: That was

Matt Hunckler: Elliot Parker from high alpha innovation.

Nate Spangle: Yes. And he like brought in like these insane and I was literally sitting here and my jaw dropped. I was like, you’re joking. Like, cause he talks about being entrepreneurs, having to be contrarian. And he’s like, you want to be contrarian today in 2024, be optimistic.

Like the most contrarian guy, you know, right here. It’s your boy for rebel.

Matt Hunckler: Well, guys, this episode has been so special to me. Uh, really, as we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, a season finale, you know, get in. Would not have happened as a podcast without Elevate Ventures. Toph, without this being your brainchild, and saying, hey, you know what?

More people need to know about what makes Indiana awesome. Share stories. And share the stories. And we’ve shared so many stories here, thanks to you, and thanks to Elevate Ventures. And, um, thank you both for coming on and sharing kind of an update, capping off this season with us. Um, it’s been quite a journey, and I feel really grateful for all these moments.

Thanks for having us. It’s been an absolute blast.

This has been get in a Powderkeg production in partnership with Elevate Ventures, and we want to hear from you. If you have suggestions for our guest or segment, reach out to Matt or Nate on LinkedIn or on email. To discover top tier tech companies outside of Silicon Valley in hubs like Indiana, check out our newsletter at powderkeg. com slash newsletter, and to apply for membership to the Powderkeg executive community, check out powderkeg. com slash premium. We’ll catch you next time. And next week, as we continue to help the world get in, since you just listened to this podcast, you might be thinking about starting one for your company.

Lucky for you, our partners over at Casted have you covered. Casted is the first and only podcast and video marketing platform made specifically for B2B brands. I love this about them. The platform makes it possible to publish, syndicate, amplify and measure the value of your podcast and video content. In fact, we use it for our podcast here at Powderkeg.

And if you’re a startup, You should listen up because Casted for Startups is definitely for you. They are offering exclusive deep discounts of up to 82 percent off retail price for qualifying startups. Connect with Casted at casted. us slash Powderkeg.