Christopher Lenard, CEO & Co-Founder, Horse Spot

Christopher Lenard, CEO & Co-Founder, Horse Spot

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
iHeartMedia presents CEOs You Should Know. CEOs you Should Know
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Speaker 2 (00:11):
It's Michael Blaze. Welcome to CEOs you should Know. Today,
Christopher Lenard, he's co founder and CEO of horse Spot,
joins us. Welcome Christopher, thank you for having me. And
you have a few partners in horse Spot. Your wife
Lindsay is with you today, and then you have another
co founder too, don't you. I do, and that's actually
my older brother Michael. So it's a family affair. It is.

(00:32):
It is so explain to our listeners what horse Spot is.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
Horse Spot is a platform that you can consider the
operating system for managing an entire equestrian competition. So you're
handling your entries, you're scheduling your results and your payments.
And while I'm saying that we're focused on the equestrian world,
that is the same basic building blocks that any competition

(00:57):
has out there, whether it's you know, magic, the gathering,
tennis or something. So it's very relatable and most people
can or are active in some kind of sport and
so they can kind of figure out that they need
to be able to enter to see the schedule of
how they're going to compete, get their results, and pay
for everything.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Now, these competitions are very inefficient to my understanding, And
can you explain why there's so inefficient?

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yeah, well, it's decades of just like poor investment into
the technology of the sport. Most of the players out
there before we came onto the scene. We're kind of
one person running the show. And as you can imagine,
building a whole company for your entire life and continuing
to reinvest in it is a very difficult thing to do.

(01:45):
So you need to be able to build something that's
going to scale beyond your pair of shoes. Right, So,
just what was it about a month ago?

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Now?

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Was the largest horse show in the entire world. And
the tech that they were using there is actually just
pieces of paper taped to a concrete wall, like about
fifty of them, and they have to run this for
an entire month. And that's the daily schedule that you
have to look at each day, take pictures with your phone,
text it around to your barn, mace your friends to

(02:15):
try and keep everybody in sync. So imagine how that goes,
and what your camera roll might look like after a
month of that.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, I would not want to be the organizer responsible
for keeping track of that. You come in the next
day after the janitors come through or the cleaners and
all your little sheets of paper are gone, or whatever
the case might be.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Exactly, you know, the stereotype of somebody booking you in
high school. I can imagine that that happened with your
stack of papers and you're like, oh my gosh, right,
go stort all this back through.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Yeah, somebody just decides to mess with you, put everything
out of order or whatever. So I can totally understand
that inefficiency. So what is it that motivated you and
your family to come up with a solution to this.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
Well, we've been in this world our lives, and that
is pretty common the horseback riding world, if you're competing
in it or just involved with riding or somehow. It's
a lifelong thing generally, like the people are doing this
for sixty plus years. And so we grew up riding
and in college, we joined our equesting teams at school

(03:21):
and then we actually that led to some you know,
some hops and networking. But we start working at horse
shows for our summer college jobs. And that's really when
we start started to see like how the sausage was
made per se, with the technology behind the scenes, and
it was just really really tedious. And this is around
the time like iPhones and are starting to come onto

(03:43):
the scene, so really stellar smartphones, and there's just no
continuity with a horse show, right. So I actually got
into software development because of this. That's the reason I
even went and got the degree, because I wanted to
make this back in the early twenty tens. But I

(04:03):
got lost in my career and went and did a
bunch of really great things in Chicago for non equestrian
tech companies. But just happened to be timing wise in
my career and Lindsay and Michael that we are all
in the kind of transition state at the same time,
and I was already thinking, well, I would like to
go and revisit this that I started my whole career

(04:24):
to solve this anyway, and brought them along, and so
here we are. It's been about three years since that time.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Now, are you and Lindsay and Michael from the Low
Country here? No, we have.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Lindsay and I have been living here for about four years,
and we had no intention of starting Horse Spot. That
wasn't even in our ideas when we moved here. But
we all originally hail from the Chicago Land area.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
People don't realize that these big cities, that there's a
lot of horses still in big industrialized cities right.

Speaker 3 (04:55):
There is You can consider pretty much every major city
in the United States its own little isolated equestrian market.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
Yeah, it's fascinating. You had mentioned earlier about you know
that pretty much every competition works the same. You've seen
interest shown in your product from everything from dog shows
to other competitions lately, haven't you.

Speaker 3 (05:16):
Yes, And especially with all the excitement of the last
six or seven weeks or so, we're continuing to get
more here in Charleston. Sailing is a is another ripe
industry that has the same basic problems that the equestrian
world has.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
And so now sailing is looking into to using your
software to help modernize their competitions.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
Well, we're focused one hundred percent on the equestrian world.
And you know, you got to start, as they say
with every startup, right, you know, you start with your
niche don't go too broad too fast. You're trying to
you know, cause issues in your core. So that is
an idea in the future, but it's certainly not something
that we're building out and putting any resources towards at

(05:59):
the moment.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Now, tell us about be Mock. You had great I
won't call it luck. It was plenty of hard work,
but you had great results at be Mock, didn't you.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yes, yeah, that's a good way to put it. It
was fantastic. We actually took Calm the top prize in
terms of cash value, and it was surreal, really jump
started us from the transition of trying to fundraise into
quickly like that was we were trying to raise a

(06:29):
million dollars and that was eight hundred thousand. That got
us significantly there, right, and then four days later we
actually wrapped up the rest of our fundraising for over
subscribing around. So it just went like that.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, that's fantastic, congratulations, and you know, and we'll shift
gears a little bit and talk about you guys personally
here because we call it CEOs. You should know, you know,
tell us about your your personal life. What kind of
family did you grow up in? Were they a quests?
You know, what you know, what were their jobs. How

(07:04):
many siblings do you have and all that good stuff.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, well, I just had my one older brother, Michael,
and so he's four years older than me, and I
grew up in a family just the four of us.
My mom is your stereotypical horse girl that has been
doing it her entire life. She'd bring home the frog
on the side of the road that seemed injured, like

(07:28):
she's that type of person. She asked for a bridle
for Christmas before she even had a horse, and like
took the whole thing apart in the damion, not how
to put it back together. Like that's the type of
approach she has to horses. And so she brought Michael
and I along into that naturally. And my dad has
also ridden too. Now they're both My parents are both CPAs,

(07:48):
and Michael is a CPA. I am the black sheep
of the family because I am not a CPA. But
I know a lot about business and stuff. Because you
can imagine and ron or what was coming up a
common theme at dinners now. Growing up, Michael was very
involved with pony club in the Wayne to Page Pony Club,

(08:11):
and I was dragged to all these things and I
wanted to be different than my brother, so I didn't
want to ride, didn't want anything to do with horses.
And at some point I was just bored, like sick
of just jumping on tractors or whatever I was doing,
and told my mom pulled her aside. I'm like, fine,
I'm if I'm going to come to all this, I
might as well just start taking lessons. And so that's

(08:32):
how it began for me.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
Now, what about Lindsay. Did she come from an equestrian background.

Speaker 3 (08:38):
No, her parents grew up in uh or they I
don't know if they grew up. She grew up in
Chicago and she started riding at a barn called Freedom
Woods that's about twenty minutes from downtown Chicago if there's
no traffic. And she had a very similar background to us,

(08:58):
where she was working a lot to cover her rides
and basically pay for the whole thing. And that's really
her inspiration. I think it actually originally stemmed from her
asking her mom for lessons based off of her watching
the TV show The Saddle Club.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
What is the biggest challenge that you faced while you
were developing horse Spot. Every startup faces multiple challenges. I
mean when you think about it, everything's a challenge at
the very beginning. But what do you think is the
hardest challenge that you faced.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Well, I'm probably the one everybody would say if they're
bootstrapping their company is cash flow in the beginning. So
we are working our full time careers for a little
bit and one by one peeling off as we were
starting to generate enough revenue to let us sustain that.
And then most co founders of some company, right they
might have their spouse or something that's still helping them

(09:54):
support the income for the household. That wasn't the situation
for Lindsay and I, So we had to be very
careful with how we were handling that whole thing. And
the fortunate thing that we didn't struggle with this product
market fit because we've worked at these horse shows. We've
been riders, Like I know what every single person out

(10:14):
there at a horse show needs, from the groom to
the photographer, to the show secretary, to the judge, you
name it, because I've done those, all of us have,
and so we were able to build very effectively because
our requirements were already very well known, and we got

(10:35):
from starting to code to our very first horse show
in six months, and within that first twelve months we
did close to one hundred horse shows.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
Now we're at over eight hundred and fifty.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
So it was the difficult part was really just continuing
to build and struggle in that like that valley of
despair they'll call it, or something where you just like,
don't you're working so hard but you're not really seeing
the money come in the door that's helping you support
what you're trying to build.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Sure, and so how did you stay motivated through those
periods or that period leaning on the team? For sure?
Are all of us together.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
There's a week point where every single one of us
was questioning ourselves, right, and you have to lean on
each other. I think it's so important to have co
founders in a company. And then the other thing is
our customers. They were so supportive because they loved our product.
I mean, we send it like a product update email
each month with what's new, and the responses back we

(11:32):
get are just people who are thrilled and they just
love that email. And that's the stuff that gets you
up at four am when you need to get over
the deadline, right. And I think that's another unique thing
for us too, is the brand is so well loved
and it helps drive us.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
You mentioned that the original motivation for going to school
was to start this company. Where did you go to school?

Speaker 3 (11:59):
My undergrad is at the University of Illinois or Bana Champagne,
and my degree actually is a Bachelors of Science and
molecular and cellular biology, and the track was for me
to become a lawyer and going to intellectual property law,
kind of biotech pharmaceuticals. I was actually asking people on

(12:23):
horse shows while I'm working at these shows during the summer,
and I know lawyers that work at Kohl's and this
and that, and you know, this is post the Great
Recession a little bit, and these people are saying, well,
I'm working eighty hours a week and I can barely
afford to horseback ride. And that's a big motivator for me,
is a need to be able to afford horseback riding.

(12:47):
And so that was kind of alarm bells of like,
I don't know if this is the career I really
want to go into. And frankly, I think money was
the big motivator for me on that. So then it
became what I some good at computers, I don't know
anything about software engineering, but I could know my way
around a computer. So then the inspiration came while I'm

(13:10):
looking at this, this lousy tech, you know, and thinking
all right, well, I think I could get into this,
and I started to try to teach myself because at
that time, all these tools are popping up online that
are free, like code Academy, and those are all well
and good, you learn a programming language. We don't know
how to architect an entire platform. And so I realized

(13:32):
I didn't even know enough to know what to google.
And that's when I went and got us Software Engineering
Masters at DePaul University in Chicago, and I was doing
night school with that for three years and continuing to
work at horse shows full time during that.

Speaker 2 (13:49):
Wow. So you know, and that can be quite a motivator, right,
that moment that you realize well, hm, the old saying goes,
you don't know what you don't know, right yeah, And
you don't know I did n't til you go to
practice it, and you're like, well, maybe I maybe I
do need a little help here, right Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
Back then I think it was a necessity. It's weird
in this world of AI because now I can say
the whole opposite, and I want to learn about anything
like you might. I don't want to get into I
don't know electrical engineering or something like that. Within I
think forty eight hours, I could be adept, you know,
and it's all just delivered to me. And it's interesting

(14:30):
how the technology like Code Academy was so revolutionary at
that time. People were like, well, we don't need to
go to university anymore, we can learn everything on YouTube,
and I think part of that was true, but it
really dependent on your mindset, and now it's even more accessible.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
And you had mentioned that horse riding was one of
the reasons when you talk to these lawyers where you're like, well,
maybe that's not the field for me if they don't
have time to ride. So I was going to ask
you the next question was what what do you do
when you're not working? So obviously horse riding would be
a big part of that one.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
Yes, and that's something that we actually gave up, as
most people give up when they're bootstrapping a company. Is
we stepped away from horseback riding pretty quickly into starting
horse Spot as finances started to need to be you know,
reined in a little bit more so to speak, and
we're hoping to get back into that in this new year.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Now, do you own any horses or have you owned
ever any horses? I have not.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
I mean my family has, so you could say in
that capacity, yes, but I have not been fortunate enough.
So we when we moved here to Charleston, we actually
were leasing a horse for about a year and a
half and Lindsay and I were sharing her, so I
would ride half the week and she would ride half
the week.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Well, that shows my ignorance of the subject matter. I
don't even know you could lease a horse.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
It's very much like a car, even though it is
a pet. You can lease a car. You can lease
a horse.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Wow, So how does that work? So it stays? You know,
so obviously you would have to stay at the stable
and somebody else takes care of it for you pretty much, right,
and you just you lease it? Is that? How pay
a licensing fee essentially to use it? Is that how
it works? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah, pretty much. And I mean even the owner of
that horse, who lived outside of Columbia, she even offered
to transition our lease into a purchase. Right, So it's
kind of like that with cars. You know, you have
like the option to buy it at the end of
your lease right now. As far as caring for a horse,
this is where actually the on affordability of horses mostly

(16:39):
comes from. It's not like competitions as much. It's that
everything about a horse is effectively a duplicate of you
as a human being. So you're paying board instead of
paying a rent. That's basically the same thing you got
to pay for food, blankets this time of the year
it's cold, right you have horseshoes, you can have medical bills,
and that's where you can more or less if you're

(17:02):
going to be like putting out a budget, you can
just duplicate whatever your life is right now. And you
might think that that's what a horse is going to
cost you too. So if your budget a month is
I don't know, five thousand dollars, like your horse is
probably going to be comparable to that.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Well, there's certainly plenty of people that love horses, And
congratulations to you guys and your success so far with
horse Spot. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Yes, it is a very healthy growing community and it's
been around for hundreds of years, right, so it's while
you wouldn't say it's like the most hypergrowth community. It
doesn't need to be, because growth compounded over hundreds of
years is pretty significant.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Absolutely. And and your wife Lindsay so, she's co founder
and in charge of product design right.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
Yes, and she's a two time Webby Award winner. One
of those Webby Awards actually belongs to horse Spot, our
marketing site webby in this past year. And then a
previous client of her is before she started a horse
Spot with us based actually out of I think they're
headquartered in Mount Pleasant, but the founder is actually out
of Pauley's Island.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Won a Webby Award with that too. Well, it's fantastic.
Congratulations Lindsay and your brother Michael, he's CFO of the company. Yes,
and you are co founder and CEO of horse Spot,
Christopher Lenard. Thank you so much for your time today
and good luck in your future endeavors with horse Spot.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate this.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
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