Episode Transcript
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Brandon Reynolds (00:09):
So when I talk
to a coach, a competent,
connected, well rounded flywheelcoach, I'm not just getting
information, I'm gettinginformed experience. I'm getting
a totally different story thanan than a random Instagram Reel
that I see on my phone. I wouldsay the coaching is the is the
secret sauce of Flywheel.
Joan Kaup (00:30):
Welcome to On the
Fly! podcast, where we talk with
people that make magic happen inthe social impact landscape.
Great entrepreneurs don't buildalone. They have a community
surrounding them. They haveexceptional coaches guiding
them. Over the past three years,thirty four dedicated Flywheel
(00:51):
coaches have contributed fivetwelve hours to our flagship
accelerators, sharing experienceand expertise to help founders
scale and succeed.
At Flywheel Social EnterpriseHub, the coaching and mentorship
is the secret ingredient thathelps founders refine their
(01:14):
ideas, overcome challenges, andbuild companies that make a
difference. Companies that havea double bottom line both
financial success and positivesocial impact. My name is Joan
Kaupp, host of On the Fly.Today, we are joined by Paul
Sidlowski, who is a serialentrepreneur and a coach with
(01:38):
Flywheel Social Enterprise Hub.With him is Brandon Reynolds,
another serial entrepreneur, andJohnny Avant, who joined Brandon
in his most recent venture.
Brandon and Johnny came toFlywheel as emerging social
impact founders. Let's listen inas Paul, Brandon, and Johnny
(02:00):
discuss B the Keeper, Sprout,and their Flywheel experience.
Paul Szydlowski (02:08):
Brandon, you
started B The Keeper, and then
you and Johnny together startedSprout. And B The Keeper was the
first enterprise that youbrought to Flywheel. That's kind
of your been your identity. If Imentioned the name Brandon
Reynolds, people say, oh, B TheKeeper. That's who you are.
I know you've moved beyond that,but what initially was the the
idea and the inspiration behindB The Keeper?
Brandon Reynolds (02:31):
Wow. And be
the keeper that it it's funny
when you say it is my identity.It it is. It it feels like me.
It's it's interchangeable. It'sme when think of myself.
If I were to be a superhero, Ithink of be the keeper and and
environmentalist that's actuallymoving around the city, making
connections, doing magicalthings. And turning that into a
(02:53):
business was my first challengebecause you can't just be I
mean, it taught me how to buildeverything that I learned in
college, everything that I'veseen on TV. You know, when
you're on Instagram listeningto, you know, Gary Vee and, you
know, it was the E, the Hip HopPreacher. You know, you're
watching all these people whenyou actually have to put it to
practice. That was the thechallenge of be the keeper.
And so when Flywheel came outand said, hey, we we're doing an
(03:15):
open call for sustainablesustainability Cincy here,
sustainable Cincy. I hoppedright on it because I had to
figure out, you know, because Iused to be an advertising guy
for a year and a half, but itwas enough to see what it takes
to take a piece of creativethrough an agency and back to
the client and learning how torelate to people. My challenge
(03:39):
was how can I advertisesustainability in a way to get
people to think it's sticky andaccessible enough to actually
make, you know, green decisions,to actually learn about regional
conservation efforts to reversepollinator decline? But B The
Keeper initially was how do Ikeep bees at people's houses?
(04:00):
And that is very different thanwhat it is now.
And even what it turned it Imean, it morphed into what it is
now. It started to get its babylegs through flywheel. But
before that, I said, oh, I've ifI get 30 beehives in Cincinnati
and five in Hyde Park, five inLincoln Heights, five in in
Avondale and just keep goingand, you know, I'll make about
(04:20):
$35 a year. Woah. And that neverhappened.
That never happened. And I'mvery thankful that it didn't
because keeping Brandon or B TheKeeper, keeping beehives all
over the city isn't the key toconservation. I think it's cool.
I think it's fun. I lovehoneybees.
(04:42):
But in reality, there are thereare hundreds of native bees,
butterflies, moths, birds.There's so many other native
species that we need people tothink about that if I just focus
on one, I'm missing the point.And so in Flywheel, I said, hey.
I came to them with the idea ofI'm gonna keep bees at
(05:02):
corporations and residences, andthen we're gonna do a little bit
of pollinator habitat there tojust show people these are
plants. And then it turned into,hey, you don't have to do any
beekeeping at all.
If you just focus on scaling upthe ecological landscaping and
putting these quote unquote, ifyou want to think about
advertising, b b b billboards,"bee-ll boards", places.
Paul Szydlowski (05:26):
Did you just
come up with that?
Brandon Reynolds (05:27):
I think I just
thought of that. And I had to
look at Johnny and say, is thissafe? Is this gonna come out
okay? What is it? It's "on thefly" right?
If I keep these bee-llbillboards, I'm gonna try that
every every second here. Places,you know, in front of like, you
can go there right now. You goto WCPO, there is a really big
pollinator habitat with multipledifferent colors, so many
colors, so many species hit it.If I do that and as many
(05:48):
residences, as many businessesas possible, the bees will keep
themselves.
Mhmm. And that's when you whenyou think about scalability,
when you think about creating aninfinite game, when you think
about a renewable business thatjust keeps producing and
creating, that's when itclicked.
Paul Szydlowski (06:06):
Okay. So so to
do that, how do you do you
market this and go how do youmarket this to clients to say,
hey, we wanna do you wannacreate? Or are you look you
start with somebody who'slooking for a new landscape, or
do you go to somebody and say,hey, there they may be
(06:26):
interested in a sustainableenvironment that would be
pollinator friendly?
Brandon Reynolds (06:33):
Yeah. So one
way I think I will say WCPO was
one of the best. I wanna say thebest because somebody's gonna
listen to this and be like, Ithought you said that about us.
EW Scripps, WCPO, they'rethey're together. And they're
one of the best partnershipsI've ever had because when we
talked and I actually met BeckyRegalsberger at a flywheel
(06:55):
event, she said, hey, we are amedia company and which means we
see we get a lot of eyeballshourly every single day of the
year.
Multiple years in real life.When you I I was watching WCPO
as a kid. And she said, we wantto you know, while people see us
and all the time, we want peopleto know that we care about
community, but we also careabout environment. Those things
(07:18):
are interchangeable for us. AndI think with media, you know,
sometimes you go to the news andsee doom and gloom all the time.
But we don't want that to be ouridentity. We want we want people
to know, like, hey, we we careabout being in the community,
the positive parts aboutcommunity, but we also the
community is not just humanbeings. The human being is,
okay, how much carbon can wereduce? How much less mowing can
(07:41):
we do on our landscape? How dowe have not just pretty plants,
but plants that, you know,require less effort and absorb
carbon, you know, stuff like shewas talking to me. She was
selling me.
Paul Szydlowski (07:51):
It's like she
knew what what she wanted is
what you're offering.
Brandon Reynolds (07:55):
Yes. I think
she's still on the Flywheel
board. Great individual. And soshe's selling me, and that's
when I knew she she is pickingup what what I'm putting down.
She was putting it down to me.
Paul Szydlowski (08:06):
Mhmm.
Brandon Reynolds (08:06):
But she it was
it was that's the best
relationship is when you have aconversation about the bigger
things. When I talk to somebodyand they say price, price, cost,
cost, my brain immediatelythinks, okay, why are we talking
it's obviously gonna be moreexpensive than what you're doing
because we're creating a newhabitat. And then the price
savings will go later becausethey're perennial plants, they
come back bigger and betterevery year and they eat carbon.
(08:28):
You don't have to water them,stuff like that.
But for me, it's the it's themission, it's the goal. And that
that is that is how I sell theto the best clients, to the the
relationships that I still haveis when we start thinking about
those bigger issues of, hey, ifthey're a homeowner and they
say, hey, I have a lot ofparties at my house for my
(08:48):
family. I'm a family guy. I'm aone of six. My wife's one of
five.
We have so many nieces andnephews, and we want them when
they come out to this niceexpensive swing set I bought in
the backyard, I want them towalk past a bunch of flowers and
see what a hummingbird lookslike instead of looking at a
magazine. Right. Sold already.
Paul Szydlowski (09:07):
So let me ask,
how did Flywheel help? You
mentioned that you came in, youhad this idea, but how did
Flywheel help you, you know,grow that idea or, you know,
turn it into something real?
Brandon Reynolds (09:21):
Oh, coaching.
We we had great programming. We
had amazing programming. Bill,Josie, we had an amazing
program, but it was thecoaching. I still see one of my
coaches, Sandy R Hughes.
Yeah. We talk every almost everyweek. It's the coaching. It's
the relationship aspect ofFlywheel when you're talking to
(09:41):
a person. You know, you thinkabout Google and things, but
you're a database of knowledge.You've been in business longer
than I've been alive.
Paul Szydlowski (09:50):
Thanks
reminding me of that.
Brandon Reynolds (09:51):
Oh, yeah.
Sorry. But in the best way.
In the best way. When you thinkabout what that really means, I
can get on Google for hours, butyou have connected so many
different parts of your yourhuman experience, and then
you've you've expressed yourcreative design. Like, you've
you've been in the trenches. Sowhen I talk to a coach, a a a a
(10:12):
competent, you know, connected,well rounded flywheel coach, I'm
not just getting information.I'm getting informed experience.
Mhmm. And then when I talked toSandy and she's like, oh, well,
I was at P&G for a longtime. This is what we did to
market products to people. Bythe way, we're one of the
biggest recognizable brands onthe planet. I'm getting a
(10:36):
totally different story than anthan a random Instagram reel
that I see on my phone. And so Ithink that the coaching, it just
I'm getting years of collegejust by talking to people. And I
would say the coaching is the isthe secret sauce of Flywheel.
Paul Szydlowski (10:53):
You're a serial
entrepreneur, but you're also a
serial Flywheel founder. Andyour second, experience was with
Johnny, with Sprout. So, I I I'mgonna ask Johnny this. How did
how did the idea or inspirationfor Sprout come about? And then
(11:13):
we'll get into what Sprout isand what it's become.
Johnny Avant (11:17):
Yeah, that's
always a fun question to answer.
I think it probably dates backto actually a couple years of
just conversations with Brandon.I saw come from a very, you
know, technical background, solike, I always loved, like,
data, information, science. AndBrandon's very much on the human
on the human sciences side, oneslike nature, biology. And to
(11:40):
some of the points he wasmentioning earlier just about,
you know, he can't be the one toput bees in homes all across the
neighborhoods, states, The US.So that there has to be some way
to get Brandon in homes withoutBrandon being in every home. And
I was like, technology, questionmark, are you okay with that? I
(12:05):
know sometimes like notsuperhuman
Brandon Reynolds (12:08):
Oh, wow.
Johnny Avant (12:08):
But like we can
make it work And it was, I think
it was like year after year, Iwas like, hey, have you thought
about it? Does it sound cool?Comfortable? He was like, no.
No. No.
Brandon Reynolds (12:20):
Aggressive
no's, I think. Yeah.
Johnny Avant (12:22):
I was like, okay.
So we're he's helping me out in
front of my house and we'relike, you know, putting a
landscape in, he's helping melike dig beds, like teaching me
a ton of stuff. And to thatinformed experience point that
he mentioned earlier, I thinkthat was the part that like kind
of flicked that light bulb towhere it was like an infusion of
(12:44):
like, okay, Brandon, listen. Youhave this mission to put
billboards all across as far asyou can reach them, but you
can't your arms are only solong.
How about, hear me out, if weuse data with people to help
(13:05):
spread that message? And we juststarted talking and talking and
talking and eventually he waslike, wait a minute. He was
like, oh, if I automate or helpsupplement things that are
taking me away from people withtechnology, I think we can do
something with that.
And so that's how we kind ofcame up with the concept of
Sprout because it was like, youknow, when it comes to
(13:27):
ecological landscaping, when itcomes to preservation, you know,
how do you bring nature backinto people's homes? We were
like, how do you do that in away that's, you know, digestible
because the content is dense?You know, I didn't come from a
very, you know, rich backgroundin this space, but, you know,
trying to learn my way throughit, there's a ton of content.
(13:51):
You know, having people withlearned experiences, people like
himself and others, being ableto disseminate that in a way
that people can really kind ofchampion for themselves was
really kind of like thechallenge that we wanted to go
after when we originallyconceptualized Sprout.
Paul Szydlowski (14:07):
Sprout began as
a way to use technology to help
Brandon achieve his vision of ofpollinator and bee billboards
spread as wide a geographicalexpanse as you could imagine. So
what would you say is the mostimportant thing for a founder
going into Flywheel? What shouldbe the mindset?
Brandon Reynolds (14:29):
We have a very
warrior mindset.
Paul Szydlowski (14:31):
Okay. Okay.
Johnny Avant (14:33):
I think it's it's
a it's a pivot, like just be
okay with change.
Brandon Reynolds (14:38):
Okay. We call
it we call them audibles.
Johnny Avant (14:40):
We pulled a ton of
audibles and it felt for a while
that we weren't making anyforward momentum, but I think
what it did is hardened ourvision and our mission and our
understanding of like whatproblem we're actually solving.
And I think that's what Flywheeldid like a tremendous job with,
you know, with our coaches andthe programming, it really
hammered on like, you testing?Are you asking the right
(15:03):
questions? Are you going afterthe right problem that people
resonate with? And are yousaying it in a way that people
understand?
Brandon Reynolds (15:10):
It got to a
point it's it's just such a it's
such a simple concept. It's areyou creating something in your
head that you want to throw onpeople? Or are you actually
having real conversations? Andand to Johnny's point, we do
think of things that are verynovel and cool and have worked.
(15:31):
But at the end of the day, areyou testing?
Is it actually what people need?Are you just being like, hey, I
I think you need this. Actually,I really want you to need this
so I can sell it to you and makea bunch of money and go to Cabo
three times a month. Like, youknow you need this. It's it's
are you being are you pushing?
Are you you sort of pulling thethe the needs?
Paul Szydlowski (15:50):
Right. And if
you look, you'll see the
landscape means the same plantsare planted everywhere, because
these are easy landscape centerscarrying them, but it's not
sustainable, necessarily. Sowhen you're asked, it's like, I
don't know. So how did thatconversation transpire? Johnny,
you wanna take that?
Johnny Avant (16:09):
I think there was
I think the opposite happened,
where when I was trying to, youknow, bring Brandon along with
technology, he was like, like,what plants do you want? Like,
what do you wanna put here? Whatdo wanna do there? Like, what do
you wanna what do you thinkabout this? Like, you know,
what's your goal for your yard?And I was I had no answer for
any question. And we, like, wereasking other people, they had no
(16:31):
answer for any question. And wewere like, wait a minute. Why
does no one have any answers?Some people have answers.
Why don't we have answers? Wewere like, I think this is the
this is the North Star. Like,how do you help people answer
that question? Because noteveryone has a Paul Sidlowski at
home or Brandon Reynolds athome. Like, we don't have these
(16:52):
experts that we can just, like,say, hey.
Thinking about putting somethingaround this tree. What do you
think? Because you're gonnaGoogle it, you're gonna find too
many answers and a lot of themwon't be helpful or be what you
need. So we were like, how do wekind of be that in between that
translation, that conduitbetween the curious and the
(17:13):
lived experience. Okay.
Paul Szydlowski (17:16):
How did Sprout
take and run with that idea?
Johnny Avant (17:19):
I think we
probably had maybe like million
different iterations of what wethought it would be. And in the
beginning, I think we startedwith the solution and that was
probably where we were running,like, in circles until we
started doing a lot morediscovery and asking people, you
know, are you even curious aboutnature? Like, do you know what
(17:42):
this thing looks like? Like,when was the last time that
you've, like, been this close toa bee? Did you know that not all
bees are trying to enter yourhome?
Like, all these things that wekinda just, like, you know,
found that, hey, have you triedgoogling what this plant is?
They're like, you know, I havethis plant finder app or I have
this and that that helps mekinda keep things alive, but
(18:04):
they were kinda limited mediumsand didn't really like satiate
the, you know, the end goal thatpeople wanted. So we just
started to kind of like ideateconceptually and like what it
would look like. And so we'relike, well, maybe maybe it could
be a a plant guide. And youknow, that's like the most
abstract abstract concept youcan think of because we were
(18:24):
like, how do you take thisknowledge and make it available?
And we got a lot of inspirationfrom from you, Paul, with your
database of of plants that youarchive, a zoo native plant
symposium that we went to. Wejust kind of started to pick up
on these nuggets that like,okay, there's the preservation
space, the knowledge is kind oflocked into brains and not
(18:47):
documented, not available. Wewere like, cool. Can we start by
like documenting that or storingit? And that was kinda like the
the way that Sprout looked atfirst, but we had, you know,
challenges trying to realize itas something that people can,
like, tangibly use because, likewe said, the information is
dense, but, you know, as we kindof iterate it and iterate it and
(19:09):
talk to more people, it startedto really boil down into wanting
a system that we're in this,like, you know, this AI's phase
and, you know, everyone wantsthis kind of copilot in their
pocket.
Like, how do we provide, youknow, your own plant copilot in
your pocket that you caninterface with, ask questions
from, see what other people aredoing to make your decisions
(19:32):
less, bring your confidence up.Alright, and then boost your
outcomes.
Paul Szydlowski (19:39):
So so how do
you collect that knowledge base?
Where is that coming from?Because, obviously, Brandon, you
have you're passionate aboutthis, you come you you were
involved in the native plants,but you don't know everything
about every plant that's nativeto every region. And so and and,
(20:02):
Johnny, as you said, you didn'tknow anything about plants, so
how do you build that thatknowledge base? Where does that
come from?
Johnny Avant (20:12):
To Brandon's
surprise and and thank, it's
humans.
Paul Szydlowski (20:15):
Okay.
Johnny Avant (20:16):
Like, there isn't
there isn't just a a PDF or zip
file that you can download offthe web and get it. So it would
Sprout kind of formalized in theform of really really community
discourse. You know, people onReddit forums and, you know,
other chats, websites who arejust asking questions, and
(20:37):
that's like a lot of richknowledge. If someone's like,
hey. You know, I live on theWest Side of the city and the
sun kind of hits my house thisway.
You know, these type of plantsdon't work for me here. But I've
got a bunch of hillside on my inmy house and, you know, these
plants kind of help stop a lotof the water from entering into
my basement. And, like, allthese scenarios that you can't
(20:58):
really get from Googling. Likeif you say, you know, that
nuance and that's where we foundlike that discourse and we were
like, you know, before we buildanything super sophisticated,
how do we just point people inthe direction of discourse that
they can just ingest and that wecan ingest because there's a lot
of richness in there.
Brandon Reynolds (21:17):
And that was
the thing is this was several
years ago. It was kind of aweird thought. Like, do you I
will go. We've gone to SteveSteve Slack's place at Keystone
Flora and sat for three hoursYep. Learning about three
plants.
And walking around watching himtalk about this prayer that he
built by smothering the weedswith the tarp, that's a three
hour conversation. And so youthink, like, how do you distill
(21:40):
that down? And Johnny's like, wecan do with technology. When we
go to Facebook and you click onNational Geographic makes a post
and you click comments, at thevery top, you see something that
says AI summary, commenters aresaying yada yada yada. And so
that's essentially like we werethinking about that.
I mean, obviously, it'sFacebook. They probably thought
about this a while ago. But it'scrazy that it seemed like a
(22:02):
novel concept except to us, butthat's what the standard is.
Because we're thinking if 1,500people comment on a single post
with different opinions, somesimilar, some different, you're
gonna have to find a way to tosummarize it. But even a summary
is not enough because you'restill missing the nuance.
Like Johnny said, there's somepeople that live on hills and
(22:24):
they have rainwater just runningdown the slope. You go to Google
and you'd have to really beserious about saying like, this
is what I'm going through, buteverybody can't speak to
everyone's experience. But wewanted to give people the
capability to do so because youwere only gonna be able to solve
nuance with lived experience andreal real things.
Johnny Avant (22:45):
We we have
expanded the team.
Paul Szydlowski (22:47):
Okay.
Johnny Avant (22:48):
So as you can
imagine, the coalescence of
human knowledge and nuance is abig task. When Brandon and I
were kind of thinking about howdo we kind of expand Sprout, and
so what it looks like today isthat, you know, as we thought
about, you know, how do youdisseminate plant knowledge, how
do you make people feelcomfortable about technology, we
(23:09):
still faced some setbacks androadblocks and challenges, you
know, articulating the vision ina way that people are willing to
adopt. Because we found that,you know, a lot of our, you
know, ICP or, you know, ourcustomer profile, they didn't
want to adopt a new technology.They didn't want to, you know,
(23:32):
have an app or a website thatthey had to then figure out how
to use. And we found that a lotof the the knowledge was in the
brains of people who were verybusy.
Like, you know, the landscapingpreservation industry is a very
time consuming process. Youdon't always have time to
document your work and do allthese things. With how we
(23:53):
motivated, you know, Brandon tobe interested in technology for
his own business, we were like,can we first start ground floor
and just give people more timethrough automation? That was
kind of like where Sprout kindof took that turn, that pivot
(24:13):
is, you know, is like, cool.Like, okay.
Let's still think about themission of of preservation,
knowledge dissemination, humannuance, getting people what they
need when they need it. But,like, let's first free up the
brains of people who have theknowledge to help us really pack
this database with thisinformation.
Brandon Reynolds (24:35):
We were so
focused. I mean, were even
thinking about like let's be theAirbnb of landscaping so that if
somebody because my my servicesare very expensive would be the
keeper. Not not very expensivein in comparison to getting can
you blow my the leaves off of mylawn? We're bringing in mulch,
we're bringing in plants, we'rebringing in trees, we're doing
so we're we're digging stuffwhere there's there is very
(24:56):
labor. Well, the beetle keeperhas evolved since then, but it's
very labor intensive.
More labor intensive than thesmall things. But the small
things are what a lot of peopleneed. Sometimes you need
somebody just needs their lawnwatered, you know. And and and
I'm not ever gonna do that. I'mnot like if they say, I got $50
for somebody to water my myplants when I'm away for
(25:17):
vacation.
Paul Szydlowski (25:18):
Right.
Brandon Reynolds (25:18):
It's not a big
enough deal for me to take. And
Johnny's like, well, that's abig enough deal for somebody,
$50 an hour? Like, that's athing. And so we just thought
like, how do we make theseconnections where people who
have things that they need toget done, and then people who
are hungry to get things done.
Just like when you think aboutAirbnb, they solved I think what
(25:42):
what and what Johnny's alludingto is there's there's pressure
that we were we were findingpressure points. One of the
pressure, like and that's onething we've learned to I I don't
wanna say humans, but sometimesyou veer away from the pressure
and the hard experiences. AndSprout fly will be the key. But
it taught Johnny and I, youknow, we're best friends. I know
he he knows what I'm thinking.
I know we just we just see eachother that way. But one thing
(26:04):
that we intuitively do now is wefind the pressure. And like
Airbnb, you remember when theystarted, it was we got a lot of
people that are going to thesecities and they don't want to
book hotels, and they don't wantto spend the money with that.
They want to have a moreresident based experience. They
want to hang with locals.
And there's a lot of pressurewith that because, you know, you
don't wanna wanna want to besafe, want to be affordable. So
(26:26):
Airbnb was like, cool. You canstay with book book rooms with
locals. And they alleviated thatpressure point for us. It's
people want stuff, but theycan't find the people without
putting a bunch of effort to getit. And how do we solve that
with automation? And that's whenSprout was like, well, I can do
that. Just connecting the dots.
Johnny Avant (26:45):
That was our
biggest takeaway from Flywheel
Yeah. Was just that the capacityto understand that the problem
that you're trying to solvetoday, there could be, you know,
secondary or tertiary problemsthat need to be solved first
before you get there.
Paul Szydlowski (26:59):
Okay.
Johnny Avant (26:59):
And that's a lot
of what our coaches were like
driving home and it like startedto click later into the program
and then afterwards we werelike, okay, cool. Like, we have
this mission. It's a long termmission. It's a grand mission.
It's an important mission, butthere are things that need to
happen first.
And by, you know, morphingSprout into more of a, you know,
(27:21):
technology automation focusedbusiness where the goal is to,
you know, help alleviate theminutiae and the pressure that
other people are facing in theirown lives, to give them capacity
to then want to be excited abouttalking to us about plants and
about preservation, we werelike, cool. Let's take that
route. So as we exist today, weare not only just a services
(27:47):
business where we interface withpeople and help solve those
types of problems for them,we're also a managed service
provider where we build toolingthat allows people to utilize
the automation in in whateverway they see fit and whatever
use case that they need.
Paul Szydlowski (28:03):
So are you
saying that this is that
Sprout's become is is evolvinginto a platform that can be used
in different in differentscenarios, in different
industry, different fordifferent purposes?
Johnny Avant (28:18):
Exactly. Exactly
right. And so some of the things
that we've done, you know, todate have been, you know, hey,
you're a business and you youhave challenges like filling out
your invoices because you'retrying to sell. So we've built
we've built technologies toautomate the invoice processing
process for you. We've builttechnology to, you know,
(28:39):
automatically record your notesso that you can have a more
organic interface with a humanand not have to continually
context switch to jot down whatyou remember.
Brandon Reynolds (28:48):
I think one
even we were talking with a
doula a couple weeks ago, shesaid, hey, there's a lot of
women that there's a lot ofdoulas, and there's a lot of
women who are going moving intopregnancy, who are pregnant, who
just have the child, that wannahave a more human you know, they
wanna talk to somebody who's hadthat experience of helping
guiding women through thatprocess, which is very personal
(29:10):
process. They we it's, you know,they're how do we get them to
find each other? That's crazybecause that's not landscaping.
No. It's not.
Think that it's it's it's goingback to Johnny saying, like,
there's so many there's so youdon't have infinite time. But
there are people that can takethe opportunities that you're
getting. How do we make iteasier to connect the dots?
Paul Szydlowski (29:31):
How do you
leverage that time that you do.
Brandon Reynolds (29:34):
I think it's
not and it's crazy because
Johnny said we took the switch.And if we were just doing the
let's let's be your the Uber forlandscaping Sprout, we might
have missed this opportunity.But this is a very real
opportunity in a growingcategory that's helping real
people that we know.
Johnny Avant (29:50):
It's relevant
because the same questions asked
in the space that Sprout startedin are the same questions that
are being asked across otherdomains.
Brandon Reynolds (29:59):
Right.
Johnny Avant (29:59):
And it just makes
us better at answering these
questions so that when we, youknow, hit that long term mission
and be able to solve that longterm problem, we're well
equipped.
Brandon Reynolds (30:10):
Yeah. So it's
just it's fun for us because and
Johnny, he's pursuing I mean,you're deep in your PhD
program at UC.
Paul Szydlowski (30:18):
That that's the
that kind of is amazing. You are
work Johnny, are working on yourPhD. What is your field of
study, but also, how do youbalance working on a PhD with
being an entrepreneur and andand starting a business?
Johnny Avant (30:34):
Yes, I did. I did
make the decision a few years
ago to start a PhD program andhonestly have been one of the
best decisions I've made. I wasjust, like Brandon, just
unsatisfied with only having acertain level of depth of an
answer to a question. And I justlove the way that, you know,
information excites me. And Ithink there's like a beauty in
(30:56):
math and science and technologythat I really wanted to, like,
really, really, really explore.
And, you know, I've always beena I've always been a fan of
Ironman for this technologyside. Mhmm. And I've always
wanted to, you know, be known inmy brand to be an inventor, like
solving problems for people justas his brand is, you know, about
(31:17):
conservation. And so startedstarted at UC, PhD program, my
focus of study is is actually alittle bit kind of full circle
because my undergrad was inbiomedical engineering. Then I
kind of pivoted away for awhile, was in transportation,
CPG, consumer product goodcompanies.
(31:37):
But now I'm in a field of calledcognitive science where we're
using machine learning tounderstand and be able to
predict, you know, humanbehavior as it pertains to
mental health. And that's beensuper interesting, super
rewarding.
Brandon Reynolds (31:51):
I wanted to
clap when you said that.
Johnny Avant (31:55):
Thank you. And so
it uses a ton of psychology,
econ, and it just kind of getsback at our understanding of
like judgment and behavior. Andso a lot of what we face on a
daily basis, we haveinteractions with situations
that we then do something with.We have a reaction to. And so if
we can understand that a bitdeeper, we can help people
(32:17):
assess what's happening forthemselves.
But then how it then can tieinto what we're doing together
is how do you put plants infront of people's yards that
give them that sensation, thatresponse that they need, those,
you know, monomeric, you know,hits that kind of make them feel
good about being outside.
Paul Szydlowski (32:36):
People plant
the plant and they go, oh, that
looks so nice. And then the nextday, it's like, okay, when's it
gonna grow? It's like, how doyou learn, how do you create
something that people will enjoytoday, tomorrow, and forever?
Brandon Reynolds (32:50):
It's the long
game.
Paul Szydlowski (32:51):
It's the long
game.
Brandon Reynolds (32:52):
And that's
where I think we're at as a team
is that, you know, sure, it itwould be great to say, hey, we
we just IPO'd Sprout in twoyears. Oh my gosh. Sprout has
become Sprout and Be The Keeper.I mean, it's all it's all it's
it's getting kind of murky. Imean, they're two separate
businesses and they do twoseparate things that, you know,
but for Sprout, it's become ourcrucible and it's being
(33:12):
supercharged with Johnny.
I mean, it just but we justwanna find problems and then
solve them.
Paul Szydlowski (33:18):
Because you
can't solve every problem. So
you've got B The Keeper, you'vegot Sprout. How can people find
you guys?
Johnny Avant (33:26):
So for Sprout, you
can find us at go sprout, that's
gosprout.us
Brandon Reynolds (33:33):
Go Sprout us.
You can find me at b the keeper,
that's b, the letterbthekeeper.co Bethekeeper.co. I
have a lot of fun on Instagram,that's just be the keeper, b
underscore the keeper, And Italk a lot on there and
obviously, LinkedIn.
Johnny Avant (33:50):
And we're always
outside, so you'll also see it.
We are always outside.
Paul Szydlowski (33:52):
There's a lot
of entertaining stuff on
bthekeeper. So real quick, giveone for each company. Elevator
pitch in ten seconds.
Johnny Avant (34:01):
If I gave my ten
second elevator pitch for
Sprout, I would say Sprout is abusiness that works hand in hand
with you and with your problemsto automate them in a way that
helps alleviate pressure andgives you time back to do the
things that you find important.
Brandon Reynolds (34:16):
Okay. And I'd
say B The Keeper, simple
elevator pitch is that withlandscaping, a lot of times what
we find is people they want theaesthetics of a landscape, but
they struggle trying to maintainit for the long term because
beauty doesn't always translateinto function. It would be the
keeper, you get both. You getsomething that looks attractive
to the human eye, but it's alsofunctional for the environment
(34:37):
so that you can live in harmonywith the ecosystem, the habitat
that you call home.
Paul Szydlowski (34:42):
Okay.
Beautiful. So well, guys, I've
enjoyed it. Thank you. Yeah.
Yeah. Brandon's so happy withhis response.
Johnny Avant (34:51):
It was clean.
Brandon Reynolds (34:53):
So Wow.
Paul Szydlowski (34:54):
Excellent. It's
been great. I you know, I loved
working with you as a coach.Great to see you again. And I'm
glad to see that things are areprogressing so well for you.
So thank you.
Joan Kaup (35:11):
On the Fly is
produced by Joey Scarillo with
music composed by Ben Hammer.Recorded at 1819 Innovation Hub
in Cincinnati, Ohio, courtesy ofthe University of Cincinnati.