July 7, 2026 • 47 mins
Waiting for the perfect time to leap usually means never leaving your comfort zone at all. In this episode, host Paul Gatling sits down with Brady Sharp, Vice President of Private Credit at Discerning Capital and founder of BroThrow, to map out exactly how to transition from a corporate director role into the fast paced worlds of startup growth and venture capital.
We sit down to unpack the highly tactical realities of scaling a peer-to-peer sports wagering marketplace and underwriting high growth companies. Brady breaks down the mechanics of moving from web platforms to native iOS applications, leveraging organic referral networks, and navigating unexpected regulatory crackdowns from state gaming divisions. He also shares his current analytical framework for evaluating startups, including why Discerning Capital looks for a minimum of $100,000 in monthly ad spend coupled with a sub-twelve-month payback period.
The path of an operator is rarely linear or smooth, frequently demanding that you survive extreme emotional swings and steep learning curves before finding true product market fit. Brady candidly shares the friction points of his early lone wolf mentality and the psychological weight of walking away from a steady corporate paycheck to self-fund a business. Ultimately, viewers will gain a masterclass in capital allocation, discovering why raising equity for marketing is often a massive mistake and how private credit can preserve founder ownership during aggressive scaling phases.
If you care about startup growth mechanics, private credit underwriting, and the realities of leaving a corporate career to build an empire, you’ll get a lot from this episode. Please make sure to subscribe and share the video with a fellow operator.
When you look at your current business or project, what is the biggest hidden assumption you need to challenge with negative feedback this week? Let us know in the comments below.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:01):
This is Central to NWA, a UCA podcast.
I'm your host, Paul Gatling, andwe are bringing the University
of Central Arkansas to NorthwestArkansas.
Each episode, we will talk withleaders, alumni, and innovators
driving this region forward.
People who are shapingindustries and defining what is
next for our state.
(00:22):
Let's get started.
All right, welcome back toanother episode of Central to
NWA conversations with UCAalumni business leaders and the
people helping shape NorthwestArkansas through their
leadership, through theirentrepreneurship, and through
innovation.
And so my guest today is someoneI've known for a few years,
dating back to uh my businessjournal days.
(00:44):
Um he had a really great storyto tell.
We told it.
Uh we reconnected later, notlong after I started working in
Northwest Arkansas for UCAbecause that is his alma mater.
And so I'm glad that we get achance to sit down and tell your
story uh again, of course, witha few important updates.
Brady Sharp, uh, welcome to thepodcast.
(01:04):
Thanks for having me, Paul.
Excited to be here.
Yeah.
So uh all right, Brady is atwo-time UCA graduate in
mathematics 2010 and 2011.
Spent more than a decade incorporate finance-related roles
for an up-and-coming retailer inBentonville known as uh Walmart.
And then he walked away fromthat to become a founder, built
a successful startup fromscratch called Brothrow.
(01:28):
And that's a sports wageringtechnology platform, uh, but
recently has gone from founderto helping invest and mentor and
kind of pour into and adviseother founders.
Um, so to me, that's a prettyinteresting journey.
Would you agree?
SPEAKER_01 (01:42):
Yeah, it's uh it's it's neat to be sitting on the
other side of the desk.
Yeah.
As a founder, you're usually outpitching for money and you know,
asking investors for money.
And so to be sitting on the sideof the desk and being asked for
money now, it's certainly aninteresting flip.
Uh, but it's yeah, it's been afun arc so far and happy to be
where I'm at right now.
SPEAKER_00 (02:00):
Yeah.
So the company is called uhDiscerning Capital.
It's a Las Vegas uh company.
Uh we will get into that uh morespecifically a bit later.
But you're still living innorthwest Arkansas.
How has the transition been?
Yeah, uh still living Fayville.
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
I've been here for I guess almost 15 years now.
Um, went to graduate school uphere too.
Um, just couldn't figure outwhat I wanted to do with my life
after leaving UCA.
Uh but no, love it here.
I've got a family here, wife,two kids, my daughter's seven,
my son's five.
Uh, we love everything aboutNorthwest Arkansas.
I finally got my family up here,my younger brother's here.
So the whole Sharp clan is anNWA.
(02:38):
Okay, yeah.
You put the recruiting pitch on.
Yeah, yeah.
It took uh two kids of mine andthen two kids of my brothers to
to sell them.
SPEAKER_00 (02:44):
But yeah, finally got them here.
Yeah, when you put grandgrandkids into the equation,
that uh usually is the is thecloser.
All right.
So well, it's exciting to haveyou here.
We're gonna talk about all thatand and a lot of things and what
your work looks like.
Um, but let's first go back uhuh several years um from Cabot
to Conway.
You're from Cabot originally.
Grew up in Cabot.
Right.
(03:04):
Well paint that picture.
What was life like growing up inCabot?
SPEAKER_01 (03:08):
Gosh, uh grew up in and way out in the sticks is
what I would say.
I was we were country kids.
We my dad was a firefighter inLittle Rock and he was a siding
contractor on his days off fromthe fire station.
Um, just grew up riding bikes,throwing rocks, you know, doing
a lot of outdoor stuff, fishing,playing golf, playing baseball,
basketball, all kinds of sports.
(03:30):
Um, just had nothing bad to sayabout life in Cabot, I guess, as
a kid.
I will say now that I'm inFayetteville, I've moved to the
center of town because I wantedto be uh a little bit closer to
everything that I was growingup.
But um, but yeah, Conway afterCabot was was outstanding.
Like I got involved at thehonors college there at UCA
(03:52):
after high school and uh justhad a great experience.
Nothing, nothing but good thingsto say about Cabot, Conway
Central, and so on in general.
SPEAKER_00 (03:58):
Well, yeah, you're from Cabot.
I'm from Bryant, and thoseplaces, you know, both you know,
and Sheridan and other, youknow, has a huge school
district, expansive schooldistrict.
Like you say, you grew out inthe sticks and so, but that's
still part of the Scab Cabotschool district.
And graduated with like 600, Ithink, close to.
Yeah.
And then and now it's probablyclose to a thousand in Cabot.
And just like all those otherplaces and around Central
(04:21):
Arkansas, they keep growing.
Um your career path, we kind ofdiscussed, you know, the work
you've done, your experience,you know, to me, it paints the
picture of uh analyticalnumbers, data.
Was that were you always youknow inclined toward that type
of thinking as a as a student?
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
I I you know it's funny, I I did two stints in
grad school, and that's justbecause I didn't know what I
wanted to do.
Yeah, it was just I was kind ofgood at math, I guess you could
say, growing up.
Um, and so that was what Ipursued when I got to UCA.
Um, but no, as far as the careerprogression goes, I my first
real job I mowed yards for thelongest time.
(04:58):
Okay.
I had a business partner and wewere running like I think 45
yards at our peak.
SPEAKER_00 (05:02):
And so entrepreneurship was on.
SPEAKER_01 (05:05):
Entrepreneurship was was early on, yeah.
I I I had one summer in Cabotwhere I worked on the golf
course, making like five dollarsand twenty-five cents an hour.
And it was mostly weed eatingaround ponds and stepping on
snakes.
And I decided there's probably abetter way to spend my time than
that.
Right.
Uh so yeah, we started a lawnmowing business and and grew
that pretty considerably and didthat all through high school and
(05:26):
undergrad and college.
And that was actually one of thefactors I was like, uh chose to
go to UCA because I wanted tokeep the business going and be
close enough to Cabot to go backand forth on the weekends, okay,
make some money.
Um, but no, I I my first realjob was at Axiome and Little
Rock.
Um, and it was actually a friendof mine from UCA that kind of
connected me into the peoplethere at Axiome.
(05:47):
Um and it wasn't a veryanalytical role, it was actually
sort of a marketing PR typerole, which was very atypical, I
guess, for my education at thetime.
Uh, but it was my first like sitin an office at a desk, you
know, have an eight to five typeschedule.
Um, did that.
And uh it was it was good.
It was a great experience.
I was I was glad to be uh kindof graduating from mowing yards
(06:10):
into doing something a littlemore official, I guess you could
say.
Um, but from there, uh I wentinto the furniture world.
There was a company in Arkansasthat headquartered, well, it was
actually headquartered inOklahoma at the time, a company
called FFO Home or FurnitureFactory Outlet.
I met, this was actually at aUCA football tailgate where this
where this all transpired.
One of my good buddies, uh, alsoa UCA student, his grandfather
(06:33):
was the founder of the company.
And we were at a UCA, a footballtailgate um on Bruce Street.
And I, his his dad was there,who was the CEO at the time, and
then his CFO, who was a goodfriend, was also there and met
them at the tailgate and youknow, told them a little bit
about my background.
They're like, Oh, you shouldcome intern for us one summer.
And so that kind of like kickedoff my career right there was at
(06:53):
a UCA football tailgate.
There you go, many, many yearsago.
Right.
Uh, but that led to my first uhnon-internship, I guess,
corporate job in the furnitureindustry.
Yeah, and that was moreanalytical, working in finance
and doing a lot of strategies.
Yeah, the numbers, the math,right?
SPEAKER_00 (07:08):
Go back to more of my up my alley.
Yeah, go back to you.
You said you were always, yeah,you you liked math or you were
good at math, or you why isthat?
You know, most kids would notsay that.
Most teens would not say thatwhat made you like mathematics?
I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (07:21):
It was just uh I think there's just a certain
beauty in numbers, I guess.
It's it's there's a very blackand white nature to things and
and math.
And when you get into the upperlevels of uh of mathematics, you
start to lose, you start to getinto a little bit of ex abstract
stuff and you get away fromblack and white.
But uh, I guess I just alwaysenjoyed uh seeing things tick
(07:42):
and tie.
And I've I've been told that Imight have been a good
accountant too, would have beenanother good career path for me
because I enjoy the the natureof I always give my buddies that
are accountants a hard timesaying, well, it's just adding,
subtracting, and a little bit ofmultiplication.
Same thing every day.
Yeah, it's really not that hard.
Um, but no, I guess I just likethe the the the black and white
nature of you, it's it's eitherright or wrong, and there's
(08:04):
always gonna be an answer youcan get to at the end of the
day, and there should be a wayto get there that you can figure
out.
So that was, I guess,compelling.
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
Sure.
All right.
So, like we said, you got yourbachelor's and master's degree
uh at UCA, both in mathematics,mathematics.
Jokingly, of course, didn't knowwhat you wanted to do, so you
stay there.
But what else kept you there?
I mean, you you you had thehonors college, you were in
Greek life, you were in some,you know, student social club.
How much of those experiences umdo you recall and how much do
you still lean on those thingstoday?
(08:32):
Greek life was huge.
SPEAKER_01 (08:33):
I I pledged as a SIGEP at UCA my, I guess that
would have been spring of myfreshman year, and that just
really opened up my network.
Um, that was the uh it was justthe biggest opportunity to make
new friends, build newrelationships, a lot of which I
still have today, several ofwhich are are now here in
Northwest Arkansas too.
Um the football tailgate that Ialluded to, the the first job
(08:56):
that I got was a result of that.
Um, I think what kept me thereand you know why I stuck around
for grad school was was theteaching opportunity.
I'd always loved to teach.
Um, and being a teachingassistant in graduate school was
a really cool thing.
I uh it's funny, when I moved toFayetteville, I actually left
Arkansas, I left UCA, went toColorado, worked in Breckenridge
(09:18):
as a mountain safety patrollerfor a season of my life um and
kind of took a gap year beforecoming back to Fayetteville for
graduate school.
But um I there was there was atime in my life that I thought I
was gonna be a teacher.
And still today, I think thatcould be something that I might
enjoy, you know, later in life,you know, post I guess
professional portion of mycareer, if you will.
But um, yeah, I hated theresearch.
(09:39):
I was never any good atresearch, but the teaching part
of it, you know, writing tests,grading papers, and just
lecturing, I always enjoyedthat.
Yeah.
And that was uh that was a comthat was a big reason I guess I
stuck around UCA because therewas an opportunity to be a
teaching assistant and a studentat the same time.
SPEAKER_00 (09:56):
Who were you a teaching assistant for?
SPEAKER_01 (09:59):
Oh gosh.
Um, I do not remember in themath department.
So I I've I've had like threedistinct teaching jobs in my
life, one at UCA.
When I was in Colorado that thatsummer after you know, went ski
season shut down.
I actually taught at ColoradoMountain College.
I did business Cal and a coupleof staff classes there.
And then I was a teacher or ateaching assistant at the U of A
(10:20):
in their economics departmenttoo.
And uh I couldn't tell you who ITA'd were back at UCA.
It's been so long.
SPEAKER_00 (10:27):
Yeah, but you you probably had some um, I would
think you would have some somepeople that you recall as a
mentor or an impactful teacheror instructor that kind of put
you on this trajectory careerpath that you're on.
SPEAKER_01 (10:40):
Yeah, Dr.
Lee um is is the first name thatcomes to mind in the maths
department back from uh linearout.
No, it wasn't linear algebra, itwas uh gosh, what was the name
of it?
It was an advanced math class, Ican't remember.
But uh I I distinctly rememberum really enjoyed all of his
classes.
He was a great teacher and uhyeah, put me on a path to
(11:01):
continue, I guess you could say.
SPEAKER_00 (11:03):
Well, hopefully we can continue that path.
Um, we were talking off offcamera.
Our College of Business Dean TimBisping was in Northwest
Arkansas recently for a fewmeetings.
You had the opportunity to visitwith him um at length, and uh,
and I hope that that's somebodythat we can keep you connected
with.
I think you talked about, youknow, uh maybe scratching that
(11:24):
teaching itch and coming back toConway uh this semester to to
speak to some of ourentrepreneurial students and uh
and kind of do some interactionwith that.
That excites me.
I hope it excites you.
SPEAKER_01 (11:33):
Yeah, definitely.
Um introduced Dr.
Bispink to a new uh cool newcoffee shop in Fayetteville that
I think he liked.
Uh but yeah, we talked a lotabout the entrepreneurship
program, the pitch competitionsthat happen there.
And um, yeah, I plan to getinvolved.
Um, if nothing else, is to comeas like a guest lecturer and
potentially judge a pitchcompetition at some point.
I think it'll be a lot of funand sort of a natural fit based
(11:55):
on where I'm at in my careerright now.
Uh, you know, in terms ofgetting involved on campus
again.
SPEAKER_00 (12:00):
Yeah.
Well, we would love it.
We would love it.
And we're gonna we're gonna movethat ball down the field to get
you down to Conway.
All right.
So while you were studying mathin Conway, another idea was
quietly starting to take shapein the fraternity house and with
fraternity brothers and um umBro Throw, which we'd mentioned.
That's the peer-to-peer sportswagering platform.
(12:23):
Obviously, did not start as acompany, but started as like a
text message, right?
Tell us tell us the story of Brothrow and that idea.
SPEAKER_01 (12:31):
Well, I told you I loved numbers.
And it was in college that Ifigured out you can bet on
sports.
Uh, and it just it seemedbeatable, I guess is the the
easy way of saying it.
Like it seemed like you couldfigure out a system to win more
than you lost.
And but the problem was therejust weren't many, you know,
(12:54):
safe feeling ways to bet backthen.
This was pre-2018 whenlegalization kind of swept uh
throughout the United States.
But back then it was, you know,find a bookie or uh bet offshore
and you know, deal in it wasjust a very kind of greasy
feeling way to find a way to thesports bet.
SPEAKER_02 (13:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (13:16):
Um, and so yeah, in the fraternity days, it was like
we there was a bunch of guysdoing this, and we were like,
well, why mess around with allof these like slimy ways to to
get down a bet?
Let's just bet with each otherand not have to pay the juice,
the premium that you pay whenyou go make a bet at a sports
book or a casino or you know, abookie, wherever.
(13:36):
And so yeah, it did start as a agroup chat that grew into, I'm
gonna say we had a hundredsomething people in there uh at
one point.
And it was bros throwing outbets for each other.
And if someone wanted to takethe other side, they could.
And you know, the traditionalway that you bet on sports
through a sports book is youtypically if you want to win a
(13:58):
hundred dollars on on you know,let's say a 50-50 outcome,
you've got to bet 110 to win ahundred.
So that$10 extra that you payreally adds up over time, right?
When you lose, you lose 110instead of you know on a 50-50
outcome.
In theory, you should lose 100when you've betting 100.
Uh, and so that was the, Iguess, magic of the group chat
is we we weren't betting 110 towin, and back then it was
(14:20):
probably betting 11 to win 10.
Uh, you know, we were all brokecollege students, but uh but it
was 10 to win 10 instead of 11to win 10.
And the whole idea was let'ssave some money, let's let's
express our sports opinions witheach other instead of you know
anywhere else.
And so yeah, that's how itstarted.
And um, it was just it waschaotic, yeah.
(14:40):
On the on a college footballSaturday, you can imagine what a
a group texts with a hundred andsomething guys, and it looks
like it's just hard to keeptrack of.
Everyone had to, you know, dotheir own math and come back and
figure out if they won or lost,who they owed.
And so we just the idea forBrothrow was just let's put some
organization around what we'redoing.
Yeah, we're probably not theonly ones doing this, or
(15:01):
probably plenty of you knowgroups of friends that are that
are doing this.
And so, yeah, that was kind of Iguess where it originated was
back in the fraternity housedays when we were betting.
SPEAKER_00 (15:10):
So, at what point after those many endless
Saturdays of chaos and you know,daylight to midnight and just
going back and forth, what pointdid you realize that there um
there might be a business ideahiding with with inside all this
chaos?
SPEAKER_01 (15:25):
So after moving, after moving back from Colorado,
going to grad school here, wentto work for the furniture
company, did that for fouryears.
And when I left the furniturebusiness, I went to work for uh,
again, a connection through myGreek life days, who had started
a company here called LaurenJames.
And uh it was very much startupculture there.
(15:45):
Like they were in their thirdyear or fourth year of
operation, still a very earlystage company.
And so it was, you know, thatthe environment, the culture
there was different than what Ihad experienced in the furniture
world.
It was uh long days, longnights, everyone kind of
grinding behind uh, you know, acentral purpose.
And I guess it was it was thenwhen I kind of got a little
(16:08):
taste of startup culture that Iwas like, oh, I can maybe take
this idea and flesh it out andsee where we could go.
And so that was, I guess thatwas 2017-ish when this came
about.
And so that was when I really, Iguess, started to like put pen
to paper and and give it someserious thought on is this
commercially feasible?
What would I need to do?
(16:28):
Um, I have a good friend here inNorthwest Arkansas who you know,
Kyle Reynolds.
Yep.
Um he's an attorney from the oiland gas space, and but he's he's
one of the smartest dudes Iknow.
So I took the idea to first.
Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
I said, hey, like what are thedo's and don'ts here?
What you know, what what are theconstraints you know that we
need.
This is a highly regulatedindustry, obviously.
(16:48):
You know, sports betting, anygambling, anything that touches
gambling is highly regulated.
And so uh yeah, he he was veryinstrumental in those early days
of kind of like fleshing out theidea, um, checking boxes or
giving me a list of boxes that Iwould need to go check to to
make it viable.
But yeah, it was those uh thosethose early days at Lauren
James, the the startup clothingcompany that I think kind of
(17:11):
inspired me or gave me theconfidence to like pursue my own
entrepreneurship.
SPEAKER_00 (17:16):
Yeah, the startup grind, uh as they call it.
And of course, like moststartups, this was not a uh an
overnight success, right?
I mean, you're you're jugglingit's still not a success.
It's still, you know, we'restill grinding.
Yeah, that's not over.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you you you spent like wealluded to, you spent years
working in finance uh withWalmart and just kind of
building bro throw on the nightsand the weekends.
(17:37):
And yep.
Uh just w what did thatbalancing act actually, you
know, look like, you know,personally and professionally,
trying to, you know, you've gota career, quote unquote, but
then you're also trying to tobuild this idea.
SPEAKER_01 (17:50):
Yeah.
So I left Lauren James afterabout a year, and I had actually
turned down a job at Walmart atthe time that I started at
Lauren James to go, you know,give it a shot there.
Um, went back to Walmart,interviewed again for a
different role, which I was gladthat I um, you know, took on a
different role than the the onethat I was initially offered
there.
But um after about a year, uhthere's there's people at
(18:14):
Walmart, this was my experience,they would tell you like it
takes like three years to kindof get up to speed, understand,
because this is humongousorganization, right?
Figuring out how to navigate,who to talk to, where to go get
information.
Um, and so after about a year,uh I I just felt like I could
the nice thing about Walmart wasyou you could kind of shut down
(18:34):
at the end of the day.
It was you you had to deliver onwhat you needed to deliver on,
but when you when you went home,that was it.
You know, you kind of had somefree time at the end of the day.
Um, and so I I reallyappreciated my time there,
really appreciated the culturethat Walmart's built.
I have nothing but good thingsto say about it.
Um, and it allowed me to kind ofhave the mental capacity to
(18:56):
shift gears when I got home andwork on something else, which I
at Lauren James, I couldn't dothat.
It was, you know, I was burningthe midnight oil, you know,
constantly thinking about whatwas going on there.
And so it was it was that it wasmoonlights, it was weekends, it
was putting ideas down on paper.
One of the first things that wedid, we me and Kyle um was he
started teeing up introductionsto attorneys to get legal
(19:18):
opinions on you know thebusiness model.
And so there was a lot of likeearly research that happened
there.
Um, had my first my daughter wasborn in 2019.
So that was maybe a year, yearand a half into my Walmart
career.
Walmart has a very generousparental leave policy.
So I had six weeks off of workfor uh, you know, to take care
of my family, obviously.
(19:39):
But there was also some, youknow, there's some things that
to start a business that youneed to get done during business
hours, Monday through Friday,eight to five, that it's
difficult to do when you're, youknow, working a full-time job.
So that allowed me to uh talk,meet with attorneys, go set up
bank accounts, get the you know,legal entity form, doing a lot
of things that it would havebeen hard to do without that
(19:59):
like six week span of kind ofsprinting on some initial
startup things.
But uh yeah, that was that wasthe early days was um making
making the most of the time, youknow, that I had.
SPEAKER_00 (20:10):
Yeah, growing family, new job.
You still have this idea thatyou're that you're trying to
advance.
So eventually, though, you know,and you mentioned 2018, the
Supreme Court decision thatreally um allowed gambling in
this country to change forever.
I mean, all the platforms, allthe all the uh advertising, all
that.
So eventually uh you reached apoint where uh you had to
(20:34):
choose, right?
What for what forced thatdecision?
What were the single mostimportant factors that led to
your decision to go all in, nopun intended, on Pro Throw?
SPEAKER_01 (20:44):
Yeah.
I uh so two years into Walmart,I was promoted to director and
moved into merchandise finance,and I was in a uh sort of a
strategic role on customerreturns before that.
Um and is it's just moredemanding of your time.
And what I I and we started tosee, we launched our our beta
(21:04):
for Bro Throw, I want to sayfall of 2019.
Um, and we started to see sometraction going into 2020.
Football season 2020 was when wereally started to to see some
significant growth.
And I guess I got to the pointwhere I was like, I'm I'm trying
to do a balancing act here, andI'm not doing good at either.
You know, I'm I'm I'm trying todo too much.
(21:27):
Um, and yeah, I continued onwith both.
And this may have been mytimeline, it's it feels like a
lifetime ago now, but um I endedup leaving Walmart in 2022.
And it it just got to that pointwhere, like I said, it it felt
like I was trying to do two jobsand I wasn't doing my best at
either one of them, and I had tomake a choice.
And um, I felt like we hadenough momentum with Bro throw.
(21:48):
We had raised a little bit ofcapital, we had some more
capital that had been promised.
Um, and and frankly, part ofwhen I was pitching for capital,
some of the feedback that I gotwas well.
If you're not full time behindthe business, like are you
convicted?
Right.
Like, do you how much convictiondo you have if you're still, you
know, trying to balance both?
And so when that started tobecome a blocker, you know, for
(22:12):
the raising money for growingthe business, that was like,
okay, this I've got to make adecision about it.
SPEAKER_00 (22:18):
Somebody tells you that, that's not ever going to
leave your head.
Correct.
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (22:21):
Yeah.
Um, and and you know, everyone,and I had kind of uh not kind
of, I was very intentional withmy managers at Walmart, my
coworkers, letting them know I'mbuilding this, like this is
something that's going onoutside of my work hours, and
kind of brought everyone alongthe journey with me.
So it wasn't a surprisenecessarily to anyone when I
left.
And I felt like I left on goodterms and had a lot of people
(22:44):
rooting for me.
Some of the people that I met,you know, built my network at
Walmart, became investors intothe company.
And so um, again, nothing butgood things to say about my time
there and really attribute a lotof being able to become an
entrepreneur to the time that Ispent there.
SPEAKER_00 (22:59):
So did did you just wake up one morning and and know
that, okay, this is what I, thisis the trajectory I need to go
off on here?
Uh what was the decision-makingprocess like?
SPEAKER_01 (23:09):
Yeah, it was some well, we had had, let's see, my
daughter was 2019, my son wasborn in 2021, and it was a lot
of conversations with my wife,Brittany, about, hey, I think
this is the right move.
I've I've got some capital thatI feel confident that we can
raise.
We're on this trajectory.
Here's the bit the business planis solid.
(23:30):
Um, it wasn't necessarilyovernight, but it was just, it
was probably a month of feelinglike I need to make this leap.
And, you know, if worse comes toworse, like I felt like I could
go, you know, get another job atWalmart if this went down, you
know, the drain.
And so it was just building upthe confidence to make that
jump.
And uh, because it's hard, youknow, when you're in a good
(23:52):
career path and you've beenpromoted, you're making good
money to take a significant paycut and go work for yourself.
And uh it was very rewarding.
The I always tell people likethe roller coaster of emotions
that you experience as anentrepreneur are a lot higher
and a lot lower.
The there's a lot of lows.
Yeah, there's a few highs.
Um, but the lows are really,really low and the highs are
(24:15):
really, really high.
And so you just experiencethings, I think, in a different
order of magnitude than you doin a corporate career.
Um, so a lot of it was justhaving to get confident enough
to walk away from you know whatwas a good career.
SPEAKER_00 (24:28):
Yeah, and a and a steady paycheck.
I mean, that's that's got to bea scary feeling.
For sure.
Yeah.
Well, what's scarier though?
What walking away from a steadypaycheck or just always
thinking, you know, what if?
What if I don't do this?
What if I don't see where thisgoes?
What if I don't the paycheck.
SPEAKER_01 (24:44):
Yeah.
We had bought a house.
We bought a new house.
We'd moved over to the east sideof Fayetteville in 2017.
I had two kids at this point,both in daycare.
Brittany was working full-time.
She's a registered dietitianworking in a clinic in
Fayetteville.
And so um, you know, the she'sit's it's she's been very
graceful, you know, through theyears in supporting the family.
But um, yeah, definitely leavingthe paycheck was sure the most
(25:08):
uh nerve-wracking.
SPEAKER_00 (25:10):
Yeah, I think um, and you kind of uh talked about
it there, the roller coaster,right?
I think kind of people kind ofromanticize the startup world
and just the the the highs andthe lows and and all of that.
And um, you know, what was whatwas the lowest moment as we as
we're getting into bro throw?
You're doing this now, you'reyou're you're focused on it 27
(25:30):
hours a day.
What were what were some of thehighs and what were some of the
the lows in those first coupleof years?
Um the first thing that came tomind when you asked that was a
low.
SPEAKER_01 (25:38):
The lows are pretty memorable.
SPEAKER_00 (25:40):
Um they outnumber the highs early on.
SPEAKER_01 (25:44):
The yes, the lows always outnumber the highs,
yeah, for sure.
Um now there's the highs arehigh enough to like offset, I
guess, the accumulation of thelows.
But it was actually after thiswas 2022 into 2023 when we had
done some, you were part ofthis, we had done some press uh
in in Arkansas.
Yep.
And part of my early, I guess,founding idea was this would be
(26:08):
Bro Throw would be a great useracquisition tool for traditional
sports books.
They needed something todifferentiate themselves from
the competition because when youlook at DraftKings, FanDuel,
Beth Saracen here in Arkansas,um, the options that we had
available to us at you know,post-2018 when it was legalized,
the experience was the same.
You logged in, you saw, youknow, a two by three grid of
(26:32):
here's the spread, the moneyline, and the total.
You picked what you wanted andthey named a price and you took
it.
And it was just it was prettyuniform across everything.
And so my early idea was well,let's sell this as a
differentiating tool.
And so we, I kind of went on aPR campaign.
You wrote some stuff about us inthe NWA Business Journal.
Um, we had a couple other likestate media pieces come out.
(26:55):
We had gone through the processof pitching two different state
agencies, the Arkansas EconomicDevelopment Commission, um, the
Arkansas Venture CapitalDevelopment Fund.
There's some tax credits outthere for startups and things of
that nature.
Well, I'm getting to the lowhere.
The low was that was a nicehigh, right?
(27:15):
Getting the press to come out,you know, having some feature
articles out there and stirringup some attention.
Well, when you stir upattention, you stir up
everyone's attention.
And we got we caught theattention.
We operate in a very, like Isaid, highly regulated industry.
We've carved out what I think isa strong legal position and on
our legal, you know, studiesthat we've commissioned would
(27:35):
support that too.
Uh, but not necessarily everyregulator in every state's gonna
agree with that.
So when we had this PR frenzy,we had we were contacted by the
Colorado Division of GamingEnforcement in Kansas.
Both contact us and said, Hey,uh, we don't necessarily like
what you're doing here.
We'd like you, we'd encourageyou to come apply for a license.
But if you don't want to dothat, we want you to shut down
(27:56):
operations in the state.
And that was literally likeright on the heels of you know,
all this press that we hadstarted up.
And so it was like this nicehigh to this really, really low,
feeling like, well, shoot this,you know, how many other
regulators are gonna see thisand hear this and you know,
think the same thing?
And so we did.
We had to implement umgeolocation technology and you
(28:18):
know, essentially carve outthose two states.
And we didn't have a bigpresence in either one.
And in both cases, theregulators were, you know, very
understanding and I would saypro-innovation.
It was just they wanted uh theywe we shared all of our legal
opinions with them and kind ofwent through the process and and
and the the conclusion at theend of it was we needed to shut
down there.
(28:38):
And so that was a that was apretty big low.
SPEAKER_00 (28:41):
Well, it's followed by a high.
Yeah.
Well, let's talk about the thesuccesses.
I mean, what did success startlooking like as you as you got
some momentum and startedgrowing the venture and and
started uh just stacking one dayafter the next?
SPEAKER_01 (28:54):
Um it was just growth.
We saw a lot of organic referralgrowth.
And when that is, I think, themost significant sign if you are
a B2C company, um, having peopletell other people about your
product, your idea, whatever itis, I think is a significant
(29:17):
sign of traction.
And we were seeing really stronguh referral mechanics in in the
business.
And that kind of I would saythat was the early indication
of, hey, we've got some goodproduct market fit here.
We've got some stickiness.
Our you know, 30-day retentionafter sign-up looks really good.
The lifetime value of acustomer, we're starting to
(29:38):
understand how long people willstick around.
And um, the whole business isbuilt on a subscription model.
It's very different from youknow a traditional sports book
where you're not when you'rebetting on Bro Throw, you're not
betting against Bro throw.
When you go to bet on DraftKingsor Fandle or anywhere else,
you're betting against, youknow, the house, so to speak.
Um, all we did was provide amarketplace, a peer-to-peer
(29:58):
marketplace for people to betdirectly against each other, and
we monetized it throughsubscription.
Um so seeing, you know, therates of people subscribing, the
number of active users, thestickiness, that was uh, I think
what gave us the sense of, hey,we've we've got something sticky
here and uh we need to keeppushing money into it and
finding marketing channels thatworked.
We did a lot of experimentalmarketing across YouTube, uh,
(30:21):
podcasters.
We did some sponsorships of uhsome media outlets in the sports
world.
And, you know, we hit some, Ithink we hit some home runs and
we also struck out with somestuff that we did.
Um, but it was all part of thelearning process in terms of
figuring out how what's the bestway to put marketing money to
work and uh get a return onthat.
SPEAKER_00 (30:42):
Okay.
Well, so in 2026 now, you'vejust you've taken a new job.
You haven't separated from BroThrow completely, but to me that
tells me that Bro Bro Throw isin a really, really good place.
We're in a good spot.
Yeah, 2026.
So just give our listeners anoverview of of of the uh the
platform right now, just interms of your just activity or
downloads or just how youmeasure your success right now.
SPEAKER_01 (31:04):
Yeah, we've got about 10,000 users on the app.
We're actually an app now.
We started as mobile web first,and that was a strategic
decision.
When you build on the web,there's just less uh, I guess,
regulatory tape that you have towork your way through.
But we made the decision lastfall to build an iOS app because
we felt like that was the nextiteration of Bro Throw.
(31:26):
So we've we've put that into theApp Store now.
You can search it in the AppleApp Store.
We're not live on Android yet.
We're working on this summeractually to launch our Android
app.
Um, but things are going well.
It's still growing.
We still see really strongreferral mechanics.
We've got some good umsponsorship deals in place with
some betting tools, researchtools in the sports betting
space where we drive a lot oftraffic from them.
(31:47):
Um, but in terms of you knowwhat's next for me, uh, I I want
to bring, and let me back up andsay I'm now in the venture
capital world, right?
And we invest into, and I cantell you more about discerning
here in a minute.
But I I the way that I met theseguys, I did a pitch competition
for Bro Throw in in Las Vegasback in 2020 at the Fantasy
(32:10):
Sports and Gaming UhAssociation's annual show.
And one of the judges there, um,who would go on to become one of
the managing partners ofdiscerning capital where I'm at
now, he was at Las Vegas Sandsat the time.
I followed up with him after thepitch competition.
I got second and I wanted toknow, you know, hey, what did
you think of the business?
Like, give me some feedbackbecause these pitch competitions
are you get three minutes.
(32:31):
Yeah.
And you know, you're in front ofa panel of judges, an audience,
and you get three minutes topitch your business and three
minutes of QA, and it's justextreme, it goes by, you know,
yeah, super fast.
Um, but kind of felt like he wassomeone that I I really
respected, that I could tell wasrespected within the industry.
And so made an effort, you know,stay close to him over the last
(32:52):
six years.
Um, so fast forward to now, andI'm in a spot where I've I've
wanted to bring someone else into handle marketing and growth.
I really enjoy the productdevelopment side of Bro Throw.
So working with Clayton, ourprimary full stack developer,
we've now hired an outside firmto kind of augment our
development resources.
We're working with a company outof Boston called Kirschbaum
(33:14):
Development that's helping buildnew features.
That's the part of Bro Throwthat I've always enjoyed, really
loved, and you know, buildingnew things.
The I'll be the first one totell you like I'm not a good
marketer.
I'm not a good uh hype man, Iguess you could say, for uh, you
know, strategically deployingmarketing capital.
And so uh I've had this offercome along a couple of months
(33:35):
ago with discerning, and it feltlike a really natural fit to
move into the next stage of mycareer and have someone else
come in and uh you know puttheir hands on on Broathro and
see where they can take it.
So we're in a good spot.
It's it's positively cashflowing business, it's growing
organically.
Um, we've got a few things tofix in terms of our customer
acquisition funnel and gettingmore people down to from sign up
(33:57):
into making their first bet.
And we've got a lot of workplotted to do that.
But um, yeah, I'd say it's it'sin a good spot.
I'm in a good spot, and we'regonna be hiring here probably
within the next month.
Good.
Uh, for someone to come in andbe primarily a growth-oriented
operator.
Sure.
SPEAKER_00 (34:12):
All right.
So discerning capital, vicepresident of private credit.
So explain what you do.
What are your days look like?
Yeah, what's the role look like?
SPEAKER_01 (34:20):
I guess to tell you the two-minute rundown of
discerning capital.
Um, Davis Catlin, who Imentioned, was the judge on the
pitch competition way back in2020.
He and his co-founder, DavidWilliams, founded the company
four years ago.
And they we we do, so we havekind of two sides of the firm.
There's the traditional equityinvestment where we make
(34:40):
minority ownership stakeinvestments into series A,
series B growth stage companies.
The core thesis of discerningcapital is regulated gambling is
a tough industry to crack into.
There's not a lot of generalistventure capital in that space
because of the strict licensingrequirements for investors.
(35:02):
And so there's not a lot ofinvestors that are kind of
willing to go through thatprocess to get licensed to
invest in.
So the result of that is sort ofa moat around regulated gambling
and everything gambling related.
These guys have gone and gottenlicensed uh in the US,
internationally.
We have, you know, investmentsall over the world at this
point.
That's that's kind of the equityside of the business.
Where I sit is on the privatecredit side of the business.
(35:24):
And so what we're doing there isfinding quality growth stage
companies that need capital tofinance their marketing that
realize that it's reallyexpensive to go raise equity to
spend it on marketing, right?
Selling a chunk of your businessto go, you know, if you're
running a B2C platform likeBrother, you should be spending
50 to 60% of your revenue onmarketing, new user acquisition.
(35:47):
So to go raise equity to do thatis really expensive.
Um, it's it's very difficult, ifnot impossible, to go to a
traditional bank and, you know,seek financing for marketing.
Uh, and so where the privatecredit side of discerning comes
in is filling that gap forfounders that need growth
capital, that don't want to selldown a big chunk, you know, give
up a big ownership stake intheir business, but have
(36:10):
compelling enough unit economicsthat they believe and have
exhibited, you know, throughsome history that that can
scale.
And so that's where we come inis essentially lending money to
operators to go finance toco-finance.
With they have some skin in thegame too, as part of this, but
to co-finance their marketingand help them grow.
SPEAKER_00 (36:28):
How do you evaluate businesses?
What do you look for?
What does your your experiencetell you to look for?
SPEAKER_01 (36:34):
Yeah, um, that's where you know this role has
kind of been a good fit for mebecause of my finance
background, and then because ofmy background with Bro Throw.
It's it was, and I think that'swhy Davis and David, you know,
both believed in me for thisrole.
And and to be clear, I'm veryearly on, like I'm two months
into this role.
But um what I look for first andforemost is you look at the the
(36:54):
team, the the founding team.
And you you can kind of tell arethese good founders?
Are they capable?
Um, I think you can tell a lotby just having a conversation by
using the product that theybuilt.
That's one of the things that Ireally enjoy about this is
actually you know downloadingnew apps and trying new things
and and you know, being involvedwith some of the uh experiencing
(37:16):
the product.
Um, but we look for financialtraction too.
We want to see that you've beenable to deploy, you know,
significant marketing budget anddo it successfully.
We look for companies that arespending at least$100,000 a
month on Meta, uh, Google,TikTok, affiliate channels to do
their marketing and that havepaybacks on that ad spend under
(37:38):
12 months.
So, you know, scalable uniteconomics, being able to spend
money, return it within a year,um, and and you know, that that
looking at your customeracquisition costs against the
lifetime value of a customer issort of key and you know, the
underwriting process forfiguring out our companies
investable or yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (37:56):
So I know you're early in a couple months in.
I'm assuming you've talked tosome founders.
You've you've talked to a lot.
Okay, great.
So what are those conversationslike in in terms of those people
know that they're talking tosomebody who's done it?
Yeah.
Who's lived it, who's gone thedown the same path that they're
going on?
Are the are those conversationsdifferent?
SPEAKER_01 (38:14):
A lot of the conversations, to be honest with
you, because of the gamblingindustry is very small.
Like once you get inside thewalled garden, quote unquote, of
gambling, you realize it's apretty small world.
Um, so I I was very friendlywith a lot of founders, you
know, from going to industryconferences and trade shows,
that type of thing, um, earlyon.
Um, so a lot of theserelationships aren't new
(38:35):
relationships that I've been,you know, building in the last
two months.
So a lot of it is going back topeople that I've already known
and I know their products andrekindling uh you know
conversations just from adifferent seat than I was in
before, um, which I think isanother reason that I was a good
fit for for this role is becauseof you know the network that
I've built in the industry.
(38:56):
But um I it it's been it's beenfun.
It's it's sitting in a differentseat now is the only difference,
but uh just going back to oldrelationships and you know
checking in on the business,seeing how they're doing, seeing
if they're ready to grow more.
SPEAKER_00 (39:09):
Yeah.
Give um give yourself some yourown advice.
Give yourself some advice.
If you were starting Bro Throwtoday, would you do anything
differently?
SPEAKER_01 (39:18):
Yeah.
Um, I I kind of went, I wouldsay lone wolf for the first
several months.
And that was intentional earlyon because I felt like I wanted
to make a lot of the designdecisions with speed and get
something to market really,really quickly.
Um it's been, you know, seven,eight years now since sports
(39:40):
betting was legalized in I thinkgoing on four, 30 something,
maybe 40 states now in in theU.S.
And so the market is um it'sgrown significantly.
It's taken longer than Iprobably thought it was gonna
take back, you know, in 2018,2019.
Um, but instead of going lonewolf, I would have brought in,
and I have two co-founders whoare here in northwest Arkansas
(40:01):
too.
They've they've not workedfull-time for the business, but
they were the earliest capitalalongside mine into the business
and were very instrumental in uhyou know using the product,
testing um design decisions too,once I brought them in.
And um, I guess what I would dodifferently is just stand up the
team earlier on, raise morecapital to be able to support,
you know, three or fourfull-time employees from the
(40:23):
jump.
Um, because I think, again,talking to the companies that
I'm talking to now, that's oneof the first sort of qualitative
things that I look at is how'sthe founding team?
Like, what's the cohesion level?
Like, are are these people thatyou know have good track records
uh in in their careers?
And um, so that's that's a bigpiece of it is you know, growth
(40:46):
stage, early stage companiesthat you're you're investing in
the founders as much as you are,you know, if not more, than the
business itself.
And so that's definitelysomething that I would have done
differently is is establish theteam earlier on and um you know,
not be a lone wolf, I guess youcould say, entrepreneur.
SPEAKER_00 (41:03):
Right.
I want to go back to somethingyou said earlier about just the
the general startup ecosystemhere in Northwest Arkansas and
which has developed, you know,when you mentioned Lauren James,
and that brings back a lot ofmemories.
That was back in the early days,I think, of you know, my
business journal days, thestartup ecosystem days.
It has just evolved as somethingso completely different now, 15,
(41:25):
18 years uh on.
So um, and you were part ofthat.
You were part of that withLauren James and Lance and those
guys, and you were part of it onyour own.
And why do you think it is thatthis region has gotten to the
point where it is right now?
There is a lot of capital cominginto this market.
There's a lot of ideation comingout of this market, uh, and just
(41:46):
a lot of overall interest inthis market.
Why do you think that is?
What does this region doespecially well that gives us
that uh that reputation?
SPEAKER_01 (41:56):
I think it's a mix of strong SP 500 companies that
are here, um, Walmart, JB Hunt,um Tyson, big companies and the
university.
You've got a tier one, you know,university here, and it's all
sort of in the same corridor.
These companies attract verydiverse talent from all over the
(42:20):
world.
And so you've got sort of thismelting pot of very talented
people in a small, concentratedarea.
And I think a natural byproductof having education alongside
you know very successful bigbusinesses is these sort of
offshoot startups.
People have ideas when they'reworking in these environments.
(42:41):
And uh as long as we have theuniversity, Walmart, these are
these other big companies uphere, I think you'll continue to
see entrepreneurship grow.
There's there's so manyresources here too.
There's startup junkie, theywere very helpful early on, like
uh just one example, like doingcompetitor research when you're
starting out.
Um, pitchbook is is a reallynice, it's a valuable service to
(43:05):
have, but it's like 75 grand ayear.
If you want to go get your ownlicense of pitchbook, you can go
to startup junkie and they canlook stuff up for you, you know,
using their subscription.
So there's and then there'sstate level resources that I
mentioned earlier on, too, thatare really, I think, starting to
foster, you know, the startupcommunity, not just here, but
across the state.
But um I do think it's the blendof having young people in
(43:27):
education going through collegehere and the big companies that
we have here that that producesa little bit of magic.
SPEAKER_00 (43:34):
Yeah, and you know, I'm glad you said from all over
the world and not country.
I think I think people knowthat, but I still think there's
certain people that don'trealize that there are people
coming from all over the worldto Northwest Arkansas for uh
varying reasons business or justa personal reason.
And I think that's only going tocontinue with you know the
innovation and the innovatorsthat are gonna be attracted by
(43:58):
um three things.
Um and Rex Nelson wrote aboutthis in the newspapers.
Not my idea, but he called themIslands of Innovation, and
that's the Walmart campus.
Yep.
The Crystal Bridges Campus ofArt and Wellness, which includes
the Alice L.
Walton School of Medicine, theHeartland Holin's Whole Health
Institute, and then the STEMUniversity that's being
developed on the old WalmartHome Office site.
(44:19):
It's it fascinates me that inthree years, uh Bentonville is
going to have two four-yeardegree granting universities in
that town.
Um and that just that blows mymind.
Yeah.
And so all of that is just goingto contribute to more people
coming in, more ideas and moreinnovation and more um startup
ecosystem activity.
(44:41):
Um so that's exciting.
Um, so listen, let's say there'sa UCA student um watching this
podcast today, maybe sitting inConway with an idea scribbled in
the notebook and and they'rethey're getting excited about
listening to you and hearingyour story.
What's your advice to them?
What would you tell them?
SPEAKER_01 (44:58):
Go tell people about it.
I think a lot of early foundersmake the mistake of thinking,
well, someone's gonna steal myidea if I go tell people about
it.
And the reality is, is there isa big gap between idea and
execution.
And the odds that someone elseis gonna take your idea and go
(45:20):
rip it off before you can, Ithink are just so incredibly low
that it shouldn't be a factor.
Sure.
And so I think going and gettingthat early feedback, telling
people about your idea,leveraging your relationships,
your network to help you fleshout that that idea is like the
best thing that you can do.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (45:40):
Kind of a final playoff question is that you
know, you spent time around alot of founders uh in your job,
and even the last, you know,several several years.
What is the deciding factor thatseparates the ones who make it
from the ones who don't make it?
SPEAKER_01 (45:54):
Conviction, believing in your idea.
Um, and I think conviction comesfrom conversations, you know,
validation from the peoplearound you.
Um, and and you need to findpeople that aren't just gonna
tell you, yeah, that's a greatidea.
You you want people that aregonna be candid and direct with
(46:14):
you.
And and that's not always easyto find.
But if if you know people andand and preface your
conversations with, I can handlemy I've got a thick skin, you
know, I can handle criticism andand you should seek out negative
feedback, critical feedbackalongside, you know, affirming
feedback.
And so, yeah, I think convictioncomes from you know hearing both
(46:37):
sides of of the argument.
And the more you can go getthat, the the better off you'll
be.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (46:42):
All right, very good.
Well, listen, great stuff,Brady.
Um, really had a funconversation.
I was looking forward to it.
Yeah, me too.
I appreciate you taking thetime.
I enjoyed um, you know, gettingto meet you a few years ago and
keeping up with Bro Throw andtelling that story, and and
it'll be fun to see where thisnext chapter, you know, leads
for you, not just for youpersonally with discerning, but
also, you know, to see where BroThrow goes from here.
(47:04):
And hopefully at some point, um,we'll get you back to Conway.
We'll get you on campus at theCollege of Business uh get some
of your experiences and insightswith some of our students.
I know Dean Bisping would lovethat, and and uh I would love
that too.
Yeah, hopefully this fall.
I'm looking forward to it.
All right, great stuff.
All right, we appreciate youtuning in for this episode of
Central to NWA.
(47:24):
Until next time, go bears.
That's it for this episode ofCentral to NWA, a UCA podcast.
I'm Paul Gatling, SeniorDirector of Northwest Arkansas
Engagement for the University ofCentral Arkansas.
Be sure to subscribe to the showand follow UCA on all the
appropriate social media.
I'll see you next time onCentral to NWA.
This is Central to NWA, a UCA podcast.
I'm your host, Paul Gatling, andwe are bringing the University
of Central Arkansas to NorthwestArkansas.
Each episode, we will talk withleaders, alumni, and innovators
driving this region forward.
People who are shapingindustries and defining what is
next for our state.
(00:22):
Let's get started.
All right, welcome back toanother episode of Central to
NWA conversations with UCAalumni business leaders and the
people helping shape NorthwestArkansas through their
leadership, through theirentrepreneurship, and through
innovation.
And so my guest today is someoneI've known for a few years,
dating back to uh my businessjournal days.
(00:44):
Um he had a really great storyto tell.
We told it.
Uh we reconnected later, notlong after I started working in
Northwest Arkansas for UCAbecause that is his alma mater.
And so I'm glad that we get achance to sit down and tell your
story uh again, of course, witha few important updates.
Brady Sharp, uh, welcome to thepodcast.
(01:04):
Thanks for having me, Paul.
Excited to be here.
Yeah.
So uh all right, Brady is atwo-time UCA graduate in
mathematics 2010 and 2011.
Spent more than a decade incorporate finance-related roles
for an up-and-coming retailer inBentonville known as uh Walmart.
And then he walked away fromthat to become a founder, built
a successful startup fromscratch called Brothrow.
(01:28):
And that's a sports wageringtechnology platform, uh, but
recently has gone from founderto helping invest and mentor and
kind of pour into and adviseother founders.
Um, so to me, that's a prettyinteresting journey.
Would you agree?
SPEAKER_01 (01:42):
Yeah, it's uh it's it's neat to be sitting on the
other side of the desk.
Yeah.
As a founder, you're usually outpitching for money and you know,
asking investors for money.
And so to be sitting on the sideof the desk and being asked for
money now, it's certainly aninteresting flip.
Uh, but it's yeah, it's been afun arc so far and happy to be
where I'm at right now.
SPEAKER_00 (02:00):
Yeah.
So the company is called uhDiscerning Capital.
It's a Las Vegas uh company.
Uh we will get into that uh morespecifically a bit later.
But you're still living innorthwest Arkansas.
How has the transition been?
Yeah, uh still living Fayville.
SPEAKER_01 (02:15):
I've been here for I guess almost 15 years now.
Um, went to graduate school uphere too.
Um, just couldn't figure outwhat I wanted to do with my life
after leaving UCA.
Uh but no, love it here.
I've got a family here, wife,two kids, my daughter's seven,
my son's five.
Uh, we love everything aboutNorthwest Arkansas.
I finally got my family up here,my younger brother's here.
So the whole Sharp clan is anNWA.
(02:38):
Okay, yeah.
You put the recruiting pitch on.
Yeah, yeah.
It took uh two kids of mine andthen two kids of my brothers to
to sell them.
SPEAKER_00 (02:44):
But yeah, finally got them here.
Yeah, when you put grandgrandkids into the equation,
that uh usually is the is thecloser.
All right.
So well, it's exciting to haveyou here.
We're gonna talk about all thatand and a lot of things and what
your work looks like.
Um, but let's first go back uhuh several years um from Cabot
to Conway.
You're from Cabot originally.
Grew up in Cabot.
Right.
(03:04):
Well paint that picture.
What was life like growing up inCabot?
SPEAKER_01 (03:08):
Gosh, uh grew up in and way out in the sticks is
what I would say.
I was we were country kids.
We my dad was a firefighter inLittle Rock and he was a siding
contractor on his days off fromthe fire station.
Um, just grew up riding bikes,throwing rocks, you know, doing
a lot of outdoor stuff, fishing,playing golf, playing baseball,
basketball, all kinds of sports.
(03:30):
Um, just had nothing bad to sayabout life in Cabot, I guess, as
a kid.
I will say now that I'm inFayetteville, I've moved to the
center of town because I wantedto be uh a little bit closer to
everything that I was growingup.
But um, but yeah, Conway afterCabot was was outstanding.
Like I got involved at thehonors college there at UCA
(03:52):
after high school and uh justhad a great experience.
Nothing, nothing but good thingsto say about Cabot, Conway
Central, and so on in general.
SPEAKER_00 (03:58):
Well, yeah, you're from Cabot.
I'm from Bryant, and thoseplaces, you know, both you know,
and Sheridan and other, youknow, has a huge school
district, expansive schooldistrict.
Like you say, you grew out inthe sticks and so, but that's
still part of the Scab Cabotschool district.
And graduated with like 600, Ithink, close to.
Yeah.
And then and now it's probablyclose to a thousand in Cabot.
And just like all those otherplaces and around Central
(04:21):
Arkansas, they keep growing.
Um your career path, we kind ofdiscussed, you know, the work
you've done, your experience,you know, to me, it paints the
picture of uh analyticalnumbers, data.
Was that were you always youknow inclined toward that type
of thinking as a as a student?
SPEAKER_01 (04:38):
I I you know it's funny, I I did two stints in
grad school, and that's justbecause I didn't know what I
wanted to do.
Yeah, it was just I was kind ofgood at math, I guess you could
say, growing up.
Um, and so that was what Ipursued when I got to UCA.
Um, but no, as far as the careerprogression goes, I my first
real job I mowed yards for thelongest time.
(04:58):
Okay.
I had a business partner and wewere running like I think 45
yards at our peak.
SPEAKER_00 (05:02):
And so entrepreneurship was on.
SPEAKER_01 (05:05):
Entrepreneurship was was early on, yeah.
I I I had one summer in Cabotwhere I worked on the golf
course, making like five dollarsand twenty-five cents an hour.
And it was mostly weed eatingaround ponds and stepping on
snakes.
And I decided there's probably abetter way to spend my time than
that.
Right.
Uh so yeah, we started a lawnmowing business and and grew
that pretty considerably and didthat all through high school and
(05:26):
undergrad and college.
And that was actually one of thefactors I was like, uh chose to
go to UCA because I wanted tokeep the business going and be
close enough to Cabot to go backand forth on the weekends, okay,
make some money.
Um, but no, I I my first realjob was at Axiome and Little
Rock.
Um, and it was actually a friendof mine from UCA that kind of
connected me into the peoplethere at Axiome.
(05:47):
Um and it wasn't a veryanalytical role, it was actually
sort of a marketing PR typerole, which was very atypical, I
guess, for my education at thetime.
Uh, but it was my first like sitin an office at a desk, you
know, have an eight to five typeschedule.
Um, did that.
And uh it was it was good.
It was a great experience.
I was I was glad to be uh kindof graduating from mowing yards
(06:10):
into doing something a littlemore official, I guess you could
say.
Um, but from there, uh I wentinto the furniture world.
There was a company in Arkansasthat headquartered, well, it was
actually headquartered inOklahoma at the time, a company
called FFO Home or FurnitureFactory Outlet.
I met, this was actually at aUCA football tailgate where this
where this all transpired.
One of my good buddies, uh, alsoa UCA student, his grandfather
(06:33):
was the founder of the company.
And we were at a UCA, a footballtailgate um on Bruce Street.
And I, his his dad was there,who was the CEO at the time, and
then his CFO, who was a goodfriend, was also there and met
them at the tailgate and youknow, told them a little bit
about my background.
They're like, Oh, you shouldcome intern for us one summer.
And so that kind of like kickedoff my career right there was at
(06:53):
a UCA football tailgate.
There you go, many, many yearsago.
Right.
Uh, but that led to my first uhnon-internship, I guess,
corporate job in the furnitureindustry.
Yeah, and that was moreanalytical, working in finance
and doing a lot of strategies.
Yeah, the numbers, the math,right?
SPEAKER_00 (07:08):
Go back to more of my up my alley.
Yeah, go back to you.
You said you were always, yeah,you you liked math or you were
good at math, or you why isthat?
You know, most kids would notsay that.
Most teens would not say thatwhat made you like mathematics?
I don't know.
SPEAKER_01 (07:21):
It was just uh I think there's just a certain
beauty in numbers, I guess.
It's it's there's a very blackand white nature to things and
and math.
And when you get into the upperlevels of uh of mathematics, you
start to lose, you start to getinto a little bit of ex abstract
stuff and you get away fromblack and white.
But uh, I guess I just alwaysenjoyed uh seeing things tick
(07:42):
and tie.
And I've I've been told that Imight have been a good
accountant too, would have beenanother good career path for me
because I enjoy the the natureof I always give my buddies that
are accountants a hard timesaying, well, it's just adding,
subtracting, and a little bit ofmultiplication.
Same thing every day.
Yeah, it's really not that hard.
Um, but no, I guess I just likethe the the the black and white
nature of you, it's it's eitherright or wrong, and there's
(08:04):
always gonna be an answer youcan get to at the end of the
day, and there should be a wayto get there that you can figure
out.
So that was, I guess,compelling.
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
Sure.
All right.
So, like we said, you got yourbachelor's and master's degree
uh at UCA, both in mathematics,mathematics.
Jokingly, of course, didn't knowwhat you wanted to do, so you
stay there.
But what else kept you there?
I mean, you you you had thehonors college, you were in
Greek life, you were in some,you know, student social club.
How much of those experiences umdo you recall and how much do
you still lean on those thingstoday?
(08:32):
Greek life was huge.
SPEAKER_01 (08:33):
I I pledged as a SIGEP at UCA my, I guess that
would have been spring of myfreshman year, and that just
really opened up my network.
Um, that was the uh it was justthe biggest opportunity to make
new friends, build newrelationships, a lot of which I
still have today, several ofwhich are are now here in
Northwest Arkansas too.
Um the football tailgate that Ialluded to, the the first job
(08:56):
that I got was a result of that.
Um, I think what kept me thereand you know why I stuck around
for grad school was was theteaching opportunity.
I'd always loved to teach.
Um, and being a teachingassistant in graduate school was
a really cool thing.
I uh it's funny, when I moved toFayetteville, I actually left
Arkansas, I left UCA, went toColorado, worked in Breckenridge
(09:18):
as a mountain safety patrollerfor a season of my life um and
kind of took a gap year beforecoming back to Fayetteville for
graduate school.
But um I there was there was atime in my life that I thought I
was gonna be a teacher.
And still today, I think thatcould be something that I might
enjoy, you know, later in life,you know, post I guess
professional portion of mycareer, if you will.
But um, yeah, I hated theresearch.
(09:39):
I was never any good atresearch, but the teaching part
of it, you know, writing tests,grading papers, and just
lecturing, I always enjoyedthat.
Yeah.
And that was uh that was a comthat was a big reason I guess I
stuck around UCA because therewas an opportunity to be a
teaching assistant and a studentat the same time.
SPEAKER_00 (09:56):
Who were you a teaching assistant for?
SPEAKER_01 (09:59):
Oh gosh.
Um, I do not remember in themath department.
So I I've I've had like threedistinct teaching jobs in my
life, one at UCA.
When I was in Colorado that thatsummer after you know, went ski
season shut down.
I actually taught at ColoradoMountain College.
I did business Cal and a coupleof staff classes there.
And then I was a teacher or ateaching assistant at the U of A
(10:20):
in their economics departmenttoo.
And uh I couldn't tell you who ITA'd were back at UCA.
It's been so long.
SPEAKER_00 (10:27):
Yeah, but you you probably had some um, I would
think you would have some somepeople that you recall as a
mentor or an impactful teacheror instructor that kind of put
you on this trajectory careerpath that you're on.
SPEAKER_01 (10:40):
Yeah, Dr.
Lee um is is the first name thatcomes to mind in the maths
department back from uh linearout.
No, it wasn't linear algebra, itwas uh gosh, what was the name
of it?
It was an advanced math class, Ican't remember.
But uh I I distinctly rememberum really enjoyed all of his
classes.
He was a great teacher and uhyeah, put me on a path to
(11:01):
continue, I guess you could say.
SPEAKER_00 (11:03):
Well, hopefully we can continue that path.
Um, we were talking off offcamera.
Our College of Business Dean TimBisping was in Northwest
Arkansas recently for a fewmeetings.
You had the opportunity to visitwith him um at length, and uh,
and I hope that that's somebodythat we can keep you connected
with.
I think you talked about, youknow, uh maybe scratching that
(11:24):
teaching itch and coming back toConway uh this semester to to
speak to some of ourentrepreneurial students and uh
and kind of do some interactionwith that.
That excites me.
I hope it excites you.
SPEAKER_01 (11:33):
Yeah, definitely.
Um introduced Dr.
Bispink to a new uh cool newcoffee shop in Fayetteville that
I think he liked.
Uh but yeah, we talked a lotabout the entrepreneurship
program, the pitch competitionsthat happen there.
And um, yeah, I plan to getinvolved.
Um, if nothing else, is to comeas like a guest lecturer and
potentially judge a pitchcompetition at some point.
I think it'll be a lot of funand sort of a natural fit based
(11:55):
on where I'm at in my careerright now.
Uh, you know, in terms ofgetting involved on campus
again.
SPEAKER_00 (12:00):
Yeah.
Well, we would love it.
We would love it.
And we're gonna we're gonna movethat ball down the field to get
you down to Conway.
All right.
So while you were studying mathin Conway, another idea was
quietly starting to take shapein the fraternity house and with
fraternity brothers and um umBro Throw, which we'd mentioned.
That's the peer-to-peer sportswagering platform.
(12:23):
Obviously, did not start as acompany, but started as like a
text message, right?
Tell us tell us the story of Brothrow and that idea.
SPEAKER_01 (12:31):
Well, I told you I loved numbers.
And it was in college that Ifigured out you can bet on
sports.
Uh, and it just it seemedbeatable, I guess is the the
easy way of saying it.
Like it seemed like you couldfigure out a system to win more
than you lost.
And but the problem was therejust weren't many, you know,
(12:54):
safe feeling ways to bet backthen.
This was pre-2018 whenlegalization kind of swept uh
throughout the United States.
But back then it was, you know,find a bookie or uh bet offshore
and you know, deal in it wasjust a very kind of greasy
feeling way to find a way to thesports bet.
SPEAKER_02 (13:16):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (13:16):
Um, and so yeah, in the fraternity days, it was like
we there was a bunch of guysdoing this, and we were like,
well, why mess around with allof these like slimy ways to to
get down a bet?
Let's just bet with each otherand not have to pay the juice,
the premium that you pay whenyou go make a bet at a sports
book or a casino or you know, abookie, wherever.
(13:36):
And so yeah, it did start as a agroup chat that grew into, I'm
gonna say we had a hundredsomething people in there uh at
one point.
And it was bros throwing outbets for each other.
And if someone wanted to takethe other side, they could.
And you know, the traditionalway that you bet on sports
through a sports book is youtypically if you want to win a
(13:58):
hundred dollars on on you know,let's say a 50-50 outcome,
you've got to bet 110 to win ahundred.
So that$10 extra that you payreally adds up over time, right?
When you lose, you lose 110instead of you know on a 50-50
outcome.
In theory, you should lose 100when you've betting 100.
Uh, and so that was the, Iguess, magic of the group chat
is we we weren't betting 110 towin, and back then it was
(14:20):
probably betting 11 to win 10.
Uh, you know, we were all brokecollege students, but uh but it
was 10 to win 10 instead of 11to win 10.
And the whole idea was let'ssave some money, let's let's
express our sports opinions witheach other instead of you know
anywhere else.
And so yeah, that's how itstarted.
And um, it was just it waschaotic, yeah.
(14:40):
On the on a college footballSaturday, you can imagine what a
a group texts with a hundred andsomething guys, and it looks
like it's just hard to keeptrack of.
Everyone had to, you know, dotheir own math and come back and
figure out if they won or lost,who they owed.
And so we just the idea forBrothrow was just let's put some
organization around what we'redoing.
Yeah, we're probably not theonly ones doing this, or
(15:01):
probably plenty of you knowgroups of friends that are that
are doing this.
And so, yeah, that was kind of Iguess where it originated was
back in the fraternity housedays when we were betting.
SPEAKER_00 (15:10):
So, at what point after those many endless
Saturdays of chaos and you know,daylight to midnight and just
going back and forth, what pointdid you realize that there um
there might be a business ideahiding with with inside all this
chaos?
SPEAKER_01 (15:25):
So after moving, after moving back from Colorado,
going to grad school here, wentto work for the furniture
company, did that for fouryears.
And when I left the furniturebusiness, I went to work for uh,
again, a connection through myGreek life days, who had started
a company here called LaurenJames.
And uh it was very much startupculture there.
(15:45):
Like they were in their thirdyear or fourth year of
operation, still a very earlystage company.
And so it was, you know, thatthe environment, the culture
there was different than what Ihad experienced in the furniture
world.
It was uh long days, longnights, everyone kind of
grinding behind uh, you know, acentral purpose.
And I guess it was it was thenwhen I kind of got a little
(16:08):
taste of startup culture that Iwas like, oh, I can maybe take
this idea and flesh it out andsee where we could go.
And so that was, I guess thatwas 2017-ish when this came
about.
And so that was when I really, Iguess, started to like put pen
to paper and and give it someserious thought on is this
commercially feasible?
What would I need to do?
(16:28):
Um, I have a good friend here inNorthwest Arkansas who you know,
Kyle Reynolds.
Yep.
Um he's an attorney from the oiland gas space, and but he's he's
one of the smartest dudes Iknow.
So I took the idea to first.
Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
I said, hey, like what are thedo's and don'ts here?
What you know, what what are theconstraints you know that we
need.
This is a highly regulatedindustry, obviously.
(16:48):
You know, sports betting, anygambling, anything that touches
gambling is highly regulated.
And so uh yeah, he he was veryinstrumental in those early days
of kind of like fleshing out theidea, um, checking boxes or
giving me a list of boxes that Iwould need to go check to to
make it viable.
But yeah, it was those uh thosethose early days at Lauren
James, the the startup clothingcompany that I think kind of
(17:11):
inspired me or gave me theconfidence to like pursue my own
entrepreneurship.
SPEAKER_00 (17:16):
Yeah, the startup grind, uh as they call it.
And of course, like moststartups, this was not a uh an
overnight success, right?
I mean, you're you're jugglingit's still not a success.
It's still, you know, we'restill grinding.
Yeah, that's not over.
Yeah, absolutely.
So you you you spent like wealluded to, you spent years
working in finance uh withWalmart and just kind of
building bro throw on the nightsand the weekends.
(17:37):
And yep.
Uh just w what did thatbalancing act actually, you
know, look like, you know,personally and professionally,
trying to, you know, you've gota career, quote unquote, but
then you're also trying to tobuild this idea.
SPEAKER_01 (17:50):
Yeah.
So I left Lauren James afterabout a year, and I had actually
turned down a job at Walmart atthe time that I started at
Lauren James to go, you know,give it a shot there.
Um, went back to Walmart,interviewed again for a
different role, which I was gladthat I um, you know, took on a
different role than the the onethat I was initially offered
there.
But um after about a year, uhthere's there's people at
(18:14):
Walmart, this was my experience,they would tell you like it
takes like three years to kindof get up to speed, understand,
because this is humongousorganization, right?
Figuring out how to navigate,who to talk to, where to go get
information.
Um, and so after about a year,uh I I just felt like I could
the nice thing about Walmart wasyou you could kind of shut down
(18:34):
at the end of the day.
It was you you had to deliver onwhat you needed to deliver on,
but when you when you went home,that was it.
You know, you kind of had somefree time at the end of the day.
Um, and so I I reallyappreciated my time there,
really appreciated the culturethat Walmart's built.
I have nothing but good thingsto say about it.
Um, and it allowed me to kind ofhave the mental capacity to
(18:56):
shift gears when I got home andwork on something else, which I
at Lauren James, I couldn't dothat.
It was, you know, I was burningthe midnight oil, you know,
constantly thinking about whatwas going on there.
And so it was it was that it wasmoonlights, it was weekends, it
was putting ideas down on paper.
One of the first things that wedid, we me and Kyle um was he
started teeing up introductionsto attorneys to get legal
(19:18):
opinions on you know thebusiness model.
And so there was a lot of likeearly research that happened
there.
Um, had my first my daughter wasborn in 2019.
So that was maybe a year, yearand a half into my Walmart
career.
Walmart has a very generousparental leave policy.
So I had six weeks off of workfor uh, you know, to take care
of my family, obviously.
(19:39):
But there was also some, youknow, there's some things that
to start a business that youneed to get done during business
hours, Monday through Friday,eight to five, that it's
difficult to do when you're, youknow, working a full-time job.
So that allowed me to uh talk,meet with attorneys, go set up
bank accounts, get the you know,legal entity form, doing a lot
of things that it would havebeen hard to do without that
(19:59):
like six week span of kind ofsprinting on some initial
startup things.
But uh yeah, that was that wasthe early days was um making
making the most of the time, youknow, that I had.
SPEAKER_00 (20:10):
Yeah, growing family, new job.
You still have this idea thatyou're that you're trying to
advance.
So eventually, though, you know,and you mentioned 2018, the
Supreme Court decision thatreally um allowed gambling in
this country to change forever.
I mean, all the platforms, allthe all the uh advertising, all
that.
So eventually uh you reached apoint where uh you had to
(20:34):
choose, right?
What for what forced thatdecision?
What were the single mostimportant factors that led to
your decision to go all in, nopun intended, on Pro Throw?
SPEAKER_01 (20:44):
Yeah.
I uh so two years into Walmart,I was promoted to director and
moved into merchandise finance,and I was in a uh sort of a
strategic role on customerreturns before that.
Um and is it's just moredemanding of your time.
And what I I and we started tosee, we launched our our beta
(21:04):
for Bro Throw, I want to sayfall of 2019.
Um, and we started to see sometraction going into 2020.
Football season 2020 was when wereally started to to see some
significant growth.
And I guess I got to the pointwhere I was like, I'm I'm trying
to do a balancing act here, andI'm not doing good at either.
You know, I'm I'm I'm trying todo too much.
(21:27):
Um, and yeah, I continued onwith both.
And this may have been mytimeline, it's it feels like a
lifetime ago now, but um I endedup leaving Walmart in 2022.
And it it just got to that pointwhere, like I said, it it felt
like I was trying to do two jobsand I wasn't doing my best at
either one of them, and I had tomake a choice.
And um, I felt like we hadenough momentum with Bro throw.
(21:48):
We had raised a little bit ofcapital, we had some more
capital that had been promised.
Um, and and frankly, part ofwhen I was pitching for capital,
some of the feedback that I gotwas well.
If you're not full time behindthe business, like are you
convicted?
Right.
Like, do you how much convictiondo you have if you're still, you
know, trying to balance both?
And so when that started tobecome a blocker, you know, for
(22:12):
the raising money for growingthe business, that was like,
okay, this I've got to make adecision about it.
SPEAKER_00 (22:18):
Somebody tells you that, that's not ever going to
leave your head.
Correct.
That's right.
SPEAKER_01 (22:21):
Yeah.
Um, and and you know, everyone,and I had kind of uh not kind
of, I was very intentional withmy managers at Walmart, my
coworkers, letting them know I'mbuilding this, like this is
something that's going onoutside of my work hours, and
kind of brought everyone alongthe journey with me.
So it wasn't a surprisenecessarily to anyone when I
left.
And I felt like I left on goodterms and had a lot of people
(22:44):
rooting for me.
Some of the people that I met,you know, built my network at
Walmart, became investors intothe company.
And so um, again, nothing butgood things to say about my time
there and really attribute a lotof being able to become an
entrepreneur to the time that Ispent there.
SPEAKER_00 (22:59):
So did did you just wake up one morning and and know
that, okay, this is what I, thisis the trajectory I need to go
off on here?
Uh what was the decision-makingprocess like?
SPEAKER_01 (23:09):
Yeah, it was some well, we had had, let's see, my
daughter was 2019, my son wasborn in 2021, and it was a lot
of conversations with my wife,Brittany, about, hey, I think
this is the right move.
I've I've got some capital thatI feel confident that we can
raise.
We're on this trajectory.
Here's the bit the business planis solid.
(23:30):
Um, it wasn't necessarilyovernight, but it was just, it
was probably a month of feelinglike I need to make this leap.
And, you know, if worse comes toworse, like I felt like I could
go, you know, get another job atWalmart if this went down, you
know, the drain.
And so it was just building upthe confidence to make that
jump.
And uh, because it's hard, youknow, when you're in a good
(23:52):
career path and you've beenpromoted, you're making good
money to take a significant paycut and go work for yourself.
And uh it was very rewarding.
The I always tell people likethe roller coaster of emotions
that you experience as anentrepreneur are a lot higher
and a lot lower.
The there's a lot of lows.
Yeah, there's a few highs.
Um, but the lows are really,really low and the highs are
(24:15):
really, really high.
And so you just experiencethings, I think, in a different
order of magnitude than you doin a corporate career.
Um, so a lot of it was justhaving to get confident enough
to walk away from you know whatwas a good career.
SPEAKER_00 (24:28):
Yeah, and a and a steady paycheck.
I mean, that's that's got to bea scary feeling.
For sure.
Yeah.
Well, what's scarier though?
What walking away from a steadypaycheck or just always
thinking, you know, what if?
What if I don't do this?
What if I don't see where thisgoes?
What if I don't the paycheck.
SPEAKER_01 (24:44):
Yeah.
We had bought a house.
We bought a new house.
We'd moved over to the east sideof Fayetteville in 2017.
I had two kids at this point,both in daycare.
Brittany was working full-time.
She's a registered dietitianworking in a clinic in
Fayetteville.
And so um, you know, the she'sit's it's she's been very
graceful, you know, through theyears in supporting the family.
But um, yeah, definitely leavingthe paycheck was sure the most
(25:08):
uh nerve-wracking.
SPEAKER_00 (25:10):
Yeah, I think um, and you kind of uh talked about
it there, the roller coaster,right?
I think kind of people kind ofromanticize the startup world
and just the the the highs andthe lows and and all of that.
And um, you know, what was whatwas the lowest moment as we as
we're getting into bro throw?
You're doing this now, you'reyou're you're focused on it 27
(25:30):
hours a day.
What were what were some of thehighs and what were some of the
the lows in those first coupleof years?
Um the first thing that came tomind when you asked that was a
low.
SPEAKER_01 (25:38):
The lows are pretty memorable.
SPEAKER_00 (25:40):
Um they outnumber the highs early on.
SPEAKER_01 (25:44):
The yes, the lows always outnumber the highs,
yeah, for sure.
Um now there's the highs arehigh enough to like offset, I
guess, the accumulation of thelows.
But it was actually after thiswas 2022 into 2023 when we had
done some, you were part ofthis, we had done some press uh
in in Arkansas.
Yep.
And part of my early, I guess,founding idea was this would be
(26:08):
Bro Throw would be a great useracquisition tool for traditional
sports books.
They needed something todifferentiate themselves from
the competition because when youlook at DraftKings, FanDuel,
Beth Saracen here in Arkansas,um, the options that we had
available to us at you know,post-2018 when it was legalized,
the experience was the same.
You logged in, you saw, youknow, a two by three grid of
(26:32):
here's the spread, the moneyline, and the total.
You picked what you wanted andthey named a price and you took
it.
And it was just it was prettyuniform across everything.
And so my early idea was well,let's sell this as a
differentiating tool.
And so we, I kind of went on aPR campaign.
You wrote some stuff about us inthe NWA Business Journal.
Um, we had a couple other likestate media pieces come out.
(26:55):
We had gone through the processof pitching two different state
agencies, the Arkansas EconomicDevelopment Commission, um, the
Arkansas Venture CapitalDevelopment Fund.
There's some tax credits outthere for startups and things of
that nature.
Well, I'm getting to the lowhere.
The low was that was a nicehigh, right?
(27:15):
Getting the press to come out,you know, having some feature
articles out there and stirringup some attention.
Well, when you stir upattention, you stir up
everyone's attention.
And we got we caught theattention.
We operate in a very, like Isaid, highly regulated industry.
We've carved out what I think isa strong legal position and on
our legal, you know, studiesthat we've commissioned would
(27:35):
support that too.
Uh, but not necessarily everyregulator in every state's gonna
agree with that.
So when we had this PR frenzy,we had we were contacted by the
Colorado Division of GamingEnforcement in Kansas.
Both contact us and said, Hey,uh, we don't necessarily like
what you're doing here.
We'd like you, we'd encourageyou to come apply for a license.
But if you don't want to dothat, we want you to shut down
(27:56):
operations in the state.
And that was literally likeright on the heels of you know,
all this press that we hadstarted up.
And so it was like this nicehigh to this really, really low,
feeling like, well, shoot this,you know, how many other
regulators are gonna see thisand hear this and you know,
think the same thing?
And so we did.
We had to implement umgeolocation technology and you
(28:18):
know, essentially carve outthose two states.
And we didn't have a bigpresence in either one.
And in both cases, theregulators were, you know, very
understanding and I would saypro-innovation.
It was just they wanted uh theywe we shared all of our legal
opinions with them and kind ofwent through the process and and
and the the conclusion at theend of it was we needed to shut
down there.
(28:38):
And so that was a that was apretty big low.
SPEAKER_00 (28:41):
Well, it's followed by a high.
Yeah.
Well, let's talk about the thesuccesses.
I mean, what did success startlooking like as you as you got
some momentum and startedgrowing the venture and and
started uh just stacking one dayafter the next?
SPEAKER_01 (28:54):
Um it was just growth.
We saw a lot of organic referralgrowth.
And when that is, I think, themost significant sign if you are
a B2C company, um, having peopletell other people about your
product, your idea, whatever itis, I think is a significant
(29:17):
sign of traction.
And we were seeing really stronguh referral mechanics in in the
business.
And that kind of I would saythat was the early indication
of, hey, we've got some goodproduct market fit here.
We've got some stickiness.
Our you know, 30-day retentionafter sign-up looks really good.
The lifetime value of acustomer, we're starting to
(29:38):
understand how long people willstick around.
And um, the whole business isbuilt on a subscription model.
It's very different from youknow a traditional sports book
where you're not when you'rebetting on Bro Throw, you're not
betting against Bro throw.
When you go to bet on DraftKingsor Fandle or anywhere else,
you're betting against, youknow, the house, so to speak.
Um, all we did was provide amarketplace, a peer-to-peer
(29:58):
marketplace for people to betdirectly against each other, and
we monetized it throughsubscription.
Um so seeing, you know, therates of people subscribing, the
number of active users, thestickiness, that was uh, I think
what gave us the sense of, hey,we've we've got something sticky
here and uh we need to keeppushing money into it and
finding marketing channels thatworked.
We did a lot of experimentalmarketing across YouTube, uh,
(30:21):
podcasters.
We did some sponsorships of uhsome media outlets in the sports
world.
And, you know, we hit some, Ithink we hit some home runs and
we also struck out with somestuff that we did.
Um, but it was all part of thelearning process in terms of
figuring out how what's the bestway to put marketing money to
work and uh get a return onthat.
SPEAKER_00 (30:42):
Okay.
Well, so in 2026 now, you'vejust you've taken a new job.
You haven't separated from BroThrow completely, but to me that
tells me that Bro Bro Throw isin a really, really good place.
We're in a good spot.
Yeah, 2026.
So just give our listeners anoverview of of of the uh the
platform right now, just interms of your just activity or
downloads or just how youmeasure your success right now.
SPEAKER_01 (31:04):
Yeah, we've got about 10,000 users on the app.
We're actually an app now.
We started as mobile web first,and that was a strategic
decision.
When you build on the web,there's just less uh, I guess,
regulatory tape that you have towork your way through.
But we made the decision lastfall to build an iOS app because
we felt like that was the nextiteration of Bro Throw.
(31:26):
So we've we've put that into theApp Store now.
You can search it in the AppleApp Store.
We're not live on Android yet.
We're working on this summeractually to launch our Android
app.
Um, but things are going well.
It's still growing.
We still see really strongreferral mechanics.
We've got some good umsponsorship deals in place with
some betting tools, researchtools in the sports betting
space where we drive a lot oftraffic from them.
(31:47):
Um, but in terms of you knowwhat's next for me, uh, I I want
to bring, and let me back up andsay I'm now in the venture
capital world, right?
And we invest into, and I cantell you more about discerning
here in a minute.
But I I the way that I met theseguys, I did a pitch competition
for Bro Throw in in Las Vegasback in 2020 at the Fantasy
(32:10):
Sports and Gaming UhAssociation's annual show.
And one of the judges there, um,who would go on to become one of
the managing partners ofdiscerning capital where I'm at
now, he was at Las Vegas Sandsat the time.
I followed up with him after thepitch competition.
I got second and I wanted toknow, you know, hey, what did
you think of the business?
Like, give me some feedbackbecause these pitch competitions
are you get three minutes.
(32:31):
Yeah.
And you know, you're in front ofa panel of judges, an audience,
and you get three minutes topitch your business and three
minutes of QA, and it's justextreme, it goes by, you know,
yeah, super fast.
Um, but kind of felt like he wassomeone that I I really
respected, that I could tell wasrespected within the industry.
And so made an effort, you know,stay close to him over the last
(32:52):
six years.
Um, so fast forward to now, andI'm in a spot where I've I've
wanted to bring someone else into handle marketing and growth.
I really enjoy the productdevelopment side of Bro Throw.
So working with Clayton, ourprimary full stack developer,
we've now hired an outside firmto kind of augment our
development resources.
We're working with a company outof Boston called Kirschbaum
(33:14):
Development that's helping buildnew features.
That's the part of Bro Throwthat I've always enjoyed, really
loved, and you know, buildingnew things.
The I'll be the first one totell you like I'm not a good
marketer.
I'm not a good uh hype man, Iguess you could say, for uh, you
know, strategically deployingmarketing capital.
And so uh I've had this offercome along a couple of months
(33:35):
ago with discerning, and it feltlike a really natural fit to
move into the next stage of mycareer and have someone else
come in and uh you know puttheir hands on on Broathro and
see where they can take it.
So we're in a good spot.
It's it's positively cashflowing business, it's growing
organically.
Um, we've got a few things tofix in terms of our customer
acquisition funnel and gettingmore people down to from sign up
(33:57):
into making their first bet.
And we've got a lot of workplotted to do that.
But um, yeah, I'd say it's it'sin a good spot.
I'm in a good spot, and we'regonna be hiring here probably
within the next month.
Good.
Uh, for someone to come in andbe primarily a growth-oriented
operator.
Sure.
SPEAKER_00 (34:12):
All right.
So discerning capital, vicepresident of private credit.
So explain what you do.
What are your days look like?
Yeah, what's the role look like?
SPEAKER_01 (34:20):
I guess to tell you the two-minute rundown of
discerning capital.
Um, Davis Catlin, who Imentioned, was the judge on the
pitch competition way back in2020.
He and his co-founder, DavidWilliams, founded the company
four years ago.
And they we we do, so we havekind of two sides of the firm.
There's the traditional equityinvestment where we make
(34:40):
minority ownership stakeinvestments into series A,
series B growth stage companies.
The core thesis of discerningcapital is regulated gambling is
a tough industry to crack into.
There's not a lot of generalistventure capital in that space
because of the strict licensingrequirements for investors.
(35:02):
And so there's not a lot ofinvestors that are kind of
willing to go through thatprocess to get licensed to
invest in.
So the result of that is sort ofa moat around regulated gambling
and everything gambling related.
These guys have gone and gottenlicensed uh in the US,
internationally.
We have, you know, investmentsall over the world at this
point.
That's that's kind of the equityside of the business.
Where I sit is on the privatecredit side of the business.
(35:24):
And so what we're doing there isfinding quality growth stage
companies that need capital tofinance their marketing that
realize that it's reallyexpensive to go raise equity to
spend it on marketing, right?
Selling a chunk of your businessto go, you know, if you're
running a B2C platform likeBrother, you should be spending
50 to 60% of your revenue onmarketing, new user acquisition.
(35:47):
So to go raise equity to do thatis really expensive.
Um, it's it's very difficult, ifnot impossible, to go to a
traditional bank and, you know,seek financing for marketing.
Uh, and so where the privatecredit side of discerning comes
in is filling that gap forfounders that need growth
capital, that don't want to selldown a big chunk, you know, give
up a big ownership stake intheir business, but have
(36:10):
compelling enough unit economicsthat they believe and have
exhibited, you know, throughsome history that that can
scale.
And so that's where we come inis essentially lending money to
operators to go finance toco-finance.
With they have some skin in thegame too, as part of this, but
to co-finance their marketingand help them grow.
SPEAKER_00 (36:28):
How do you evaluate businesses?
What do you look for?
What does your your experiencetell you to look for?
SPEAKER_01 (36:34):
Yeah, um, that's where you know this role has
kind of been a good fit for mebecause of my finance
background, and then because ofmy background with Bro Throw.
It's it was, and I think that'swhy Davis and David, you know,
both believed in me for thisrole.
And and to be clear, I'm veryearly on, like I'm two months
into this role.
But um what I look for first andforemost is you look at the the
(36:54):
team, the the founding team.
And you you can kind of tell arethese good founders?
Are they capable?
Um, I think you can tell a lotby just having a conversation by
using the product that theybuilt.
That's one of the things that Ireally enjoy about this is
actually you know downloadingnew apps and trying new things
and and you know, being involvedwith some of the uh experiencing
(37:16):
the product.
Um, but we look for financialtraction too.
We want to see that you've beenable to deploy, you know,
significant marketing budget anddo it successfully.
We look for companies that arespending at least$100,000 a
month on Meta, uh, Google,TikTok, affiliate channels to do
their marketing and that havepaybacks on that ad spend under
(37:38):
12 months.
So, you know, scalable uniteconomics, being able to spend
money, return it within a year,um, and and you know, that that
looking at your customeracquisition costs against the
lifetime value of a customer issort of key and you know, the
underwriting process forfiguring out our companies
investable or yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (37:56):
So I know you're early in a couple months in.
I'm assuming you've talked tosome founders.
You've you've talked to a lot.
Okay, great.
So what are those conversationslike in in terms of those people
know that they're talking tosomebody who's done it?
Yeah.
Who's lived it, who's gone thedown the same path that they're
going on?
Are the are those conversationsdifferent?
SPEAKER_01 (38:14):
A lot of the conversations, to be honest with
you, because of the gamblingindustry is very small.
Like once you get inside thewalled garden, quote unquote, of
gambling, you realize it's apretty small world.
Um, so I I was very friendlywith a lot of founders, you
know, from going to industryconferences and trade shows,
that type of thing, um, earlyon.
Um, so a lot of theserelationships aren't new
(38:35):
relationships that I've been,you know, building in the last
two months.
So a lot of it is going back topeople that I've already known
and I know their products andrekindling uh you know
conversations just from adifferent seat than I was in
before, um, which I think isanother reason that I was a good
fit for for this role is becauseof you know the network that
I've built in the industry.
(38:56):
But um I it it's been it's beenfun.
It's it's sitting in a differentseat now is the only difference,
but uh just going back to oldrelationships and you know
checking in on the business,seeing how they're doing, seeing
if they're ready to grow more.
SPEAKER_00 (39:09):
Yeah.
Give um give yourself some yourown advice.
Give yourself some advice.
If you were starting Bro Throwtoday, would you do anything
differently?
SPEAKER_01 (39:18):
Yeah.
Um, I I kind of went, I wouldsay lone wolf for the first
several months.
And that was intentional earlyon because I felt like I wanted
to make a lot of the designdecisions with speed and get
something to market really,really quickly.
Um it's been, you know, seven,eight years now since sports
(39:40):
betting was legalized in I thinkgoing on four, 30 something,
maybe 40 states now in in theU.S.
And so the market is um it'sgrown significantly.
It's taken longer than Iprobably thought it was gonna
take back, you know, in 2018,2019.
Um, but instead of going lonewolf, I would have brought in,
and I have two co-founders whoare here in northwest Arkansas
(40:01):
too.
They've they've not workedfull-time for the business, but
they were the earliest capitalalongside mine into the business
and were very instrumental in uhyou know using the product,
testing um design decisions too,once I brought them in.
And um, I guess what I would dodifferently is just stand up the
team earlier on, raise morecapital to be able to support,
you know, three or fourfull-time employees from the
(40:23):
jump.
Um, because I think, again,talking to the companies that
I'm talking to now, that's oneof the first sort of qualitative
things that I look at is how'sthe founding team?
Like, what's the cohesion level?
Like, are are these people thatyou know have good track records
uh in in their careers?
And um, so that's that's a bigpiece of it is you know, growth
(40:46):
stage, early stage companiesthat you're you're investing in
the founders as much as you are,you know, if not more, than the
business itself.
And so that's definitelysomething that I would have done
differently is is establish theteam earlier on and um you know,
not be a lone wolf, I guess youcould say, entrepreneur.
SPEAKER_00 (41:03):
Right.
I want to go back to somethingyou said earlier about just the
the general startup ecosystemhere in Northwest Arkansas and
which has developed, you know,when you mentioned Lauren James,
and that brings back a lot ofmemories.
That was back in the early days,I think, of you know, my
business journal days, thestartup ecosystem days.
It has just evolved as somethingso completely different now, 15,
(41:25):
18 years uh on.
So um, and you were part ofthat.
You were part of that withLauren James and Lance and those
guys, and you were part of it onyour own.
And why do you think it is thatthis region has gotten to the
point where it is right now?
There is a lot of capital cominginto this market.
There's a lot of ideation comingout of this market, uh, and just
(41:46):
a lot of overall interest inthis market.
Why do you think that is?
What does this region doespecially well that gives us
that uh that reputation?
SPEAKER_01 (41:56):
I think it's a mix of strong SP 500 companies that
are here, um, Walmart, JB Hunt,um Tyson, big companies and the
university.
You've got a tier one, you know,university here, and it's all
sort of in the same corridor.
These companies attract verydiverse talent from all over the
(42:20):
world.
And so you've got sort of thismelting pot of very talented
people in a small, concentratedarea.
And I think a natural byproductof having education alongside
you know very successful bigbusinesses is these sort of
offshoot startups.
People have ideas when they'reworking in these environments.
(42:41):
And uh as long as we have theuniversity, Walmart, these are
these other big companies uphere, I think you'll continue to
see entrepreneurship grow.
There's there's so manyresources here too.
There's startup junkie, theywere very helpful early on, like
uh just one example, like doingcompetitor research when you're
starting out.
Um, pitchbook is is a reallynice, it's a valuable service to
(43:05):
have, but it's like 75 grand ayear.
If you want to go get your ownlicense of pitchbook, you can go
to startup junkie and they canlook stuff up for you, you know,
using their subscription.
So there's and then there'sstate level resources that I
mentioned earlier on, too, thatare really, I think, starting to
foster, you know, the startupcommunity, not just here, but
across the state.
But um I do think it's the blendof having young people in
(43:27):
education going through collegehere and the big companies that
we have here that that producesa little bit of magic.
SPEAKER_00 (43:34):
Yeah, and you know, I'm glad you said from all over
the world and not country.
I think I think people knowthat, but I still think there's
certain people that don'trealize that there are people
coming from all over the worldto Northwest Arkansas for uh
varying reasons business or justa personal reason.
And I think that's only going tocontinue with you know the
innovation and the innovatorsthat are gonna be attracted by
(43:58):
um three things.
Um and Rex Nelson wrote aboutthis in the newspapers.
Not my idea, but he called themIslands of Innovation, and
that's the Walmart campus.
Yep.
The Crystal Bridges Campus ofArt and Wellness, which includes
the Alice L.
Walton School of Medicine, theHeartland Holin's Whole Health
Institute, and then the STEMUniversity that's being
developed on the old WalmartHome Office site.
(44:19):
It's it fascinates me that inthree years, uh Bentonville is
going to have two four-yeardegree granting universities in
that town.
Um and that just that blows mymind.
Yeah.
And so all of that is just goingto contribute to more people
coming in, more ideas and moreinnovation and more um startup
ecosystem activity.
(44:41):
Um so that's exciting.
Um, so listen, let's say there'sa UCA student um watching this
podcast today, maybe sitting inConway with an idea scribbled in
the notebook and and they'rethey're getting excited about
listening to you and hearingyour story.
What's your advice to them?
What would you tell them?
SPEAKER_01 (44:58):
Go tell people about it.
I think a lot of early foundersmake the mistake of thinking,
well, someone's gonna steal myidea if I go tell people about
it.
And the reality is, is there isa big gap between idea and
execution.
And the odds that someone elseis gonna take your idea and go
(45:20):
rip it off before you can, Ithink are just so incredibly low
that it shouldn't be a factor.
Sure.
And so I think going and gettingthat early feedback, telling
people about your idea,leveraging your relationships,
your network to help you fleshout that that idea is like the
best thing that you can do.
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (45:40):
Kind of a final playoff question is that you
know, you spent time around alot of founders uh in your job,
and even the last, you know,several several years.
What is the deciding factor thatseparates the ones who make it
from the ones who don't make it?
SPEAKER_01 (45:54):
Conviction, believing in your idea.
Um, and I think conviction comesfrom conversations, you know,
validation from the peoplearound you.
Um, and and you need to findpeople that aren't just gonna
tell you, yeah, that's a greatidea.
You you want people that aregonna be candid and direct with
(46:14):
you.
And and that's not always easyto find.
But if if you know people andand and preface your
conversations with, I can handlemy I've got a thick skin, you
know, I can handle criticism andand you should seek out negative
feedback, critical feedbackalongside, you know, affirming
feedback.
And so, yeah, I think convictioncomes from you know hearing both
(46:37):
sides of of the argument.
And the more you can go getthat, the the better off you'll
be.
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (46:42):
All right, very good.
Well, listen, great stuff,Brady.
Um, really had a funconversation.
I was looking forward to it.
Yeah, me too.
I appreciate you taking thetime.
I enjoyed um, you know, gettingto meet you a few years ago and
keeping up with Bro Throw andtelling that story, and and
it'll be fun to see where thisnext chapter, you know, leads
for you, not just for youpersonally with discerning, but
also, you know, to see where BroThrow goes from here.
(47:04):
And hopefully at some point, um,we'll get you back to Conway.
We'll get you on campus at theCollege of Business uh get some
of your experiences and insightswith some of our students.
I know Dean Bisping would lovethat, and and uh I would love
that too.
Yeah, hopefully this fall.
I'm looking forward to it.
All right, great stuff.
All right, we appreciate youtuning in for this episode of
Central to NWA.
(47:24):
Until next time, go bears.
That's it for this episode ofCentral to NWA, a UCA podcast.
I'm Paul Gatling, SeniorDirector of Northwest Arkansas
Engagement for the University ofCentral Arkansas.
Be sure to subscribe to the showand follow UCA on all the
appropriate social media.
I'll see you next time onCentral to NWA.
Popular Podcasts
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.