February 4, 2025 • 38 mins
Phil Shellhammer is back with Andy Wilson, and he's bringing some amazing insights from the University of Arkansas's Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
Get ready to hear about groundbreaking initiatives like the Greenhouse Outdoor Recreation Program that's nurturing early-stage outdoor recreation companies across Arkansas. Plus, discover how the Entrepreneurial Law Project is creatively combining the talents of law students with pro bono services to provide essential legal support to budding entrepreneurs.
In Bentonville, excitement is building as a new state-funded cycling accelerator is set to revolutionize the cycling industry.
Andy and Phil explore how this initiative plans to immerse ten high-growth companies within the local community, culminating at the highly-anticipated Bike Fest.
They'll also take a look at how the Arkansas Business Resource Hub is becoming a critical digital lifeline for entrepreneurs and check out the robust programming at the University of Arkansas, like the transformative New Venture Development course and the Startup Village, all of which are equipping students with the skills to thrive in their careers.
The next generation of leaders is being shaped right now in Arkansas, and you won't want to miss how students are tackling real-world issues at the McMillon Innovation Studio.
From the exciting potential of a lithium boom in South Arkansas to the importance of mentorship and community involvement, this episode is a celebration of innovation and growth. Join DBB in supporting Phil's mission to cultivate the future leaders who will make a lasting impact in Arkansas and beyond.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Well, hello everyone and welcome to Doing Business in
Bentonville.
Because of that, we're nowviewed in over 34 countries,
(00:30):
thank you, thank you very muchfor that.
It means so much to us thatyou're sharing and watching us.
Now let's get to the realreason that you are here today
with us, and that is our guesttoday Phil Schellhammer.
Welcome, thank you, thanks forhaving me.
Great to see you again.
Yes, this is number two for you.
Yeah, man, Good, I appreciateit.
I'm glad you're back.
I am so glad you're back.
(00:51):
Let me tell you about Phil,because he's lost a bit, and
he'll tell you a bit abouthimself too, but he has expanded
his space since he was herelast time.
He's the executive director ofthe Office of Entrepreneurship
and Innovation at the Universityof Arkansas.
That's great, wonderful.
We have such a great schoolhere.
It's awesome.
(01:11):
It is such a great school.
He's got the hog on his shirttoday and check that out.
It's wonderful.
And you know something elseabout Phil.
Phil, you spent over 10 yearsat Sam's Club.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I did.
Yeah, I always talk about mytwo careers.
I had this big corporate career.
I was at P's Club.
I did yeah, I always talk aboutmy two careers Like I had this
big corporate career.
I was at P&G, I was at Best Buyand I spent 10 years here at
Sam's Club in town.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, well, good, well, you are having such an
impact on our state, you and allyour areas that you lead, and
thank you for that, and let'stalk about that.
There's three really criticalareas that we're going to get
into today that Phil leads andhe'll talk about that, because
(01:53):
what we want to do today is youto understand what is happening
in our great state, in Arkansas,and if you're not in Arkansas,
this could be done in otherstates if it's not being done in
other states.
So I think you're going to loveto hear what Phil and his team
are involved in, but we're goingto talk about the business
(02:14):
incubation.
All right, look at that.
I can't wait for you to hearthat.
It's going to be really good.
The other thing that Phil doeshas a huge impact on the future
of our state and country, and heworks with students and then
getting those young minds thereand as they get into this whole
space of entrepreneurship,innovation.
(02:36):
He's going to talk about that.
And then we have a greatprogram or department.
I guess a better department isMacmillan Innovation.
That's correct.
So we're going to get into that.
So there's so much happening.
We're doing a lot, no doubt,okay.
So Phil, again welcome.
(02:57):
We're so glad, so why don't youbegin and talk about these
really key topics today?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
for our audience.
Yeah, so I've been in this roleabout six months, right, and
what's interesting from the lasttime that I talked to you is I
was focused on the businessincubation side, which is one
third of kind of what my job isnow, and so my mind is kind of
blown by how much more we'redoing as a total office and much
(03:25):
more the university is gettinginvolved in entrepreneurship
across those three areas youtalked about.
Maybe we take businessincubation first.
Okay, so my old world.
We've had this great programhere called the greenhouse
outdoor recreation program.
It's called the warp.
Last time we talked we talkedabout that incubator, this for
early stage outdoor recreationcompanies.
That program continues to gowell.
We're in our sixth cohortamazing companies in there.
(03:45):
We can talk at length aboutsome of the companies that are
going through that program rightnow.
There's some really interestingnew business models that are
coming in outdoor recreation forour area.
But then right at right, itwould have been a year ago.
This week actually we receivedthis grant from the federal
government to take that sameprogramming and stretch it
around the state and what wehave seen is we are starting to
(04:08):
find people throughout our statethat are interested in working
outdoor recreation as well, thatare interested in building new
business models and support andgetting support to try and
figure out how they buildsomething in their community.
That land grant, universitymodel, that how do we help
support our whole state reallycomes through in this particular
program and then through thatsame grant we started something
(04:29):
called the Entrepreneurial LawProject and that's one that
we've been super excited to seekind of moving forward this past
year.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I don't want you to skip over this.
Okay, because in GORP you're inthe sixth cohort, soon to be
seventh?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
right, yeah, we'll have a set.
We're taking applications.
By the time this comes out, theapplication will be closed.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So the seventh, the seventh.
So if you're from Arkansas,right, and so you need to pay
attention to that, because theseventh is coming, yeah, yeah.
And so the second thing is thelaw project.
Yeah, okay, that's interestingto me.
Tell us how that works.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
This is like entrepreneurship is all about
finding problems and trying tosolve them right.
So when you're anentrepreneurship support
organization like we are.
We look for the biggestproblems entrepreneurs are
dealing with, and one of thebiggest ones we've seen for a
long time in our community andI'm sure this happens around the
US is early-stage entrepreneursneed legal support.
They just need help.
But unfortunately, at the earlystage, when you have very
(05:31):
little money and you're tryingto figure out because they don't
have any money to do this, butlawyers are expensive.
Right, they add an amazingservice and a needed service,
but lawyers can be veryexpensive for these early-stage
entrepreneurs.
And so a woman named RachelSullivan, who's on our team,
created this program, whichtakes the later state the three
all students out of theuniversity's law school combines
(05:56):
them with pro bono legalsupport from our community and
puts them together into aneducation experience for
entrepreneurs.
We just did this in Fayettevillelast month.
30 founders come into theBrewer Hub in Fayetteville and
we've got lawyers therepresenting them all morning,
teaching them about businessformation and operating
agreements and IP right andgetting them to get these core
(06:19):
lessons they have to have.
But then those sameentrepreneurs get 30-minute free
sessions of legal support andwe're giving tens of thousands
of dollars of legal support awayto these entrepreneurs who just
need the help, who just needsomebody to help them say how do
I do this one piece?
And we've got stories that havecome out of that.
Some of these founders who arereally in dire straits are
(06:41):
really struggling with differentpieces.
We've had some of our communitylawyers step up and say, look, I
want to help here, like, whydon't I help you kind of get
this operating agreementtogether?
We'll help you get you knowyour initial forms together for
your customers so you can getyour business back on track
right.
Other entrepreneurs who don'tknow anything about filing for
IP or how do I get a patent canstart the process of
understanding whether theyshould or not, all that coming
(07:04):
from this free support.
Now, that happened infayetteville, but this happened
in five different locationsaround our state this year alone
.
Okay, and we continue to kindof stretch it out.
So we're providing it,hopefully as best we can, to as
many communities within ourstate that's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Now I want to.
You talked about gore.
Let's talk about.
Give us some examples.
I'm a cyclist and I know someexamples that you have worked on
and doing, so that's why, whenI started reading, oh yeah, we
got to talk about that.
So give us some examples aboutGore.
Sure.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So let's take our current cohort, our current
cohort.
There's a woman in the cohortwho's building a new business
model around consignment right.
One of the things that happensin larger outdoor recreation
communities like a Denver orBoulder or Asheville right where
you get a lot of tourism comingto, is you tend to get one of
(07:58):
these shops formed, which is aconsignment shop around used
outdoor rec.
Here what you're finding acrossAmerica is resale, and
secondhand products have becomemuch, much more popular, but we
don't have a store like thishere specifically designed for
outdoor rec, and so she'sdesigning this program right now
.
It's going to be called SturdyUsed Gear and she's just at the
(08:19):
very early stage of starting tobuild out what that business
model will be a new retail shopin our community just for St
years gear.
That's one side, but in the samecohort we've got another
founder who is taking computervision and trying to help train
people who are interested inshooting sports how better to
accurately shoot their weapons.
(08:42):
Right, this could be good formilitary.
This could be good for police.
It could be good for the casualuser as well.
Right, this could be good formilitary.
This could be good for police.
It could be good for the casualuser as well, right, but he's
using computer vision to helpyou actually better aim or
better target as you're learningshooting support.
So you get this high-end AIkind of technology thought
process and you have this kindof retail experience and all
(09:02):
business models in between.
Those are some of the models wehave going through right now, a
lot of them To the cohort Now.
We've had other ones that havecome through in the past that
we're starting to see some realsuccess coming through.
We had one company maybe threecohorts ago called Nargo Bike.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
All right, that's the one I'm familiar with.
I love Nargo yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
That's why I wanted to bring it up, because I've
been tracking, watching that,watch this company, watch this
couple go um.
So, uh, zach, at least arebuilding this um, this great
experience, really experiencearound buying an electric cargo
bike, um, and they make customframes.
They they use like recycled olduh bike frames, they turn them
into these custom uh cargo bikesand they really like.
Their whole goal is not to makea whole bunch of money selling
bikes.
(09:45):
Their goal is to convince everyperson in this community to
stop driving their cars, yeah,and they just want everybody to
get on a bike and start ridingaround the community on the bike
and they just have this likeit's just this altruistic view
of what they want to see out ofthings, and it's so exciting to
kind of watch them go from theywere doing it garage and trying
to figure out a business modelthrough gorp and through some
other programming within ourcommunity.
(10:06):
So now they've got their ownshop in northern bentonville,
right on the bella vista borderum, and they're really getting
traction.
Of course.
Now, now that you can buy a um,you know you've got the.
The bentonville has the um.
Um, there's a, there's a,there's a dollar.
Oh man, I'm missing theterminology.
Uh, there's a grant availablenow so that people can buy an
electric bike.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
They get some funding from the government yeah, you
get funding for it.
It's a grant that you getfunding for by e-bike, that's
right.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So now, they've built this kind of e-bike model up
and now they're sitting right inthe right spot when this grant
comes through, and now peopleare looking at e-bike you know
these ideas are and we're goingto talk about so many more ideas
.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You just got to hang on with this.
I'm telling you it's going toget so much better.
But think about these ideasthat you talked about can happen
anywhere, any state, any cityacross the US.
That's right and that's what'sso exciting about this.
And the reason you know, thecycling called my attention and
(11:02):
all of us have our passionsaround things is that, first of
all, we've got one of the bestgreenway cycling greenways in
the country and we're all theway from South Fayetteville to
almost the Missouri border.
So it's phenomenal, so great,and it spares off in every
community.
So think about deliveringproduct, and all that on a bike,
(11:24):
you know, in screen, in a greatspace, one in four fans.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
So what's awesome about GORP is it ties so well
into the rest of what theuniversity does.
So there's another company thatcame out of GORP called
Lockstop.
It actually used to be calledUncle, but their name is
Lockstop now.
And what Lockstop's model is isthey want to be a parking meter
for your bike, right.
So now it's a lock that'sattached to any kind of
permanent fixture, any kind ofbike rack.
That's app enabled.
(11:51):
So you walk up there, you scanthe app with your phone.
It unlocks.
You lock your bike up.
You don't have to carry a lockanymore.
Wherever you go with your bike,you know it's going to be safe
and secure and you can lock thisup so you think about the
infrastructure we built aroundcycling.
Now, all of a sudden, if you addtheir locks onto it, now
there's a whole serviceavailable for people, so that
there's one less thing to thinkabout when you're hopping on
your bike and going to thegrocery store, or when you're
going to downtown, when you'regoing to go ride.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, and that's the number one thing, because these
bikes are well, you just don'twant to lose your property and I
know I carry a, I'm stockingwherever, because I want to lock
my bike, because that way youdon't have to watch it the
entire time, because you can't.
So, perfect, okay, we've got tomove on.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But this is so exciting.
You want to talk about cycling.
I've got to say this one thingbecause I haven't told anybody
this yet.
All right, so by the time thiscomes out, this will be news,
but it's super exciting.
So we are starting a newaccelerator within cycling.
The state of Arkansas has comethrough and is helping fund
basically an accelerator modelAccelerators, incubators,
(12:52):
scorpus incubators early stage.
How do you create new autocompanies, right?
Accelerator and cycling says.
We know there's companies outthere that are making new
technologies in cycling rightnow and they're at this really
high growth stage.
They're at the early stage oftrying to figure out growth.
We and they're at this reallyhigh growth stage.
They're at the early stage oftrying to figure out growth we
are going to bring 10 of theminto Batonville in the spring of
the next year and train them upon and help them connect within
the industry and hopefullyattract them to our community to
(13:14):
move here and start to createthat hub of cycling businesses
that are here.
This is all helping by fundingfrom the state, and so we'll
have 10 new companies spend aspring right here in Batonville
with us ending at Bike Fest.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Okay, you know, I don't have to sing very hard to
have you back.
See, that's when we got to haveyou back then.
For that for sure, you know,because maybe it's my personal
interest too.
All right, so, no, this isreally good.
Okay, so you've talked aboutthe work, you've talked about
the law, the law project, andthat's wonderful.
What else do you want to giveus here?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, so if you think about the rest of business
incubation, for a second, one ofthe other big programs that
we're helping work on with theNorthwest Arkansas Council
actually is creating a businesshub for entrepreneurs, right?
So how do you create a digitallocation that any entrepreneur
(14:13):
can go to to find all theresources that are available to
them?
Right?
It's called the ArkansasBusiness Resource Hub.
I can give you the web addresslater it's AR Business Resource
Hub, but it is designed to helpour founders find all those
resources available.
What happens inentrepreneurship uptime is they
get stuck trying to find whatdollars are available, what
(14:35):
grants are available, how can Ifund this piece, or how do I
find legal resources, whateverthe case is, and so we have
collected all those resources ina one single location to help
our founders find those placesand find those resources.
So that's kind of a big toolthat we've, as you just recently
, been building, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Well, we're going to make sure, when we post this,
you'll go to our website,dbbnwacom.
There will be articles thereand we'll make sure that we'll
run this by Philil.
He'll have a nice article thereand all the uh, the information
you need here, absolutely inorder and and then where to find
phil to all that.
(15:12):
So we'll, we'll make sure we dothat.
Well, that'd be great.
Okay, good, I love.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
What are you gonna talk about?
Well, if you go to the secondstage.
So I told you, businessincubation is my first bucket,
right, the bucket which isreally our core to everything we
do at OEI.
But the office here is aboutstudents.
It's about student programming,right, and so we have a ton of
great initiatives that we'vebeen running for quite a while.
But if you go back to thebeginning of our offices, it
started with one class calledNew Venture Development.
(15:39):
New Venture Development wasdesigned by and implemented by a
woman, carol Reeves, who was along-term faculty member at the
University of Arkansas, and shejust saw this vision of how do
we teach students how to buildbusinesses from I have no
problem all the way through toI'm pitching to investors, and
it was a year-long coursedesigned to help those students
(15:59):
do that.
And what we were finding earlyon, and what we continue to do
today, is you take really greatintellectual property from the
university or really great ideascoming out of different
programs.
It doesn't have to be business.
Students could be engineering,could be arts, could be wherever
within our colleges.
Bring them in, surround themwith a team of students that all
have different skill sets infinance or marketing or whatever
the case is, and those formteams that are building business
(16:23):
models and, honestly, some ofthe best businesses the
University of Arkansas has kindof kicked out have come out of
this class.
The new venture-friendly courseis what's built up everything
else the lock stop company Italked about before.
While they were going throughGORP, they also went through
that class as well, and so thosetwo resources allowed them to
go in the spring, pitch toinvestors and raise money to
(16:43):
earn for their business andallowed them to kind of kick off
and get going.
That course continues to bestrong.
We've got I've got eightdifferent business models right
now.
So I'm teaching this coursethis year along with a guy named
David Hinton who runs our techtransfer at the university.
The two of us teach this course.
We've got 35, 36 students in it, eight different business
(17:06):
models, all of them being builtright now and getting ready for
what eventually is going tobecome pitches to investors this
spring, in hopes that a few ofthose businesses not everyone
will go.
Some will graduate and be likeI want to go on to my corporate
job, but they're learning thekey tools of entrepreneurship
that are going to be helpful andvaluable to them, even if they
don't take these business modelsto move them forward.
(17:27):
That's exciting.
And then, wrapped all around,that is all the different
support structures we have fornew businesses.
So, as students want to formnew businesses, we provide them,
you know, free co-working spacecalled the Startup Village.
We provide them venturementoring service.
We have mentors that are thereto work on their business models
.
We even at times, take ourinterns, who are undergrad
students who are looking to workin entrepreneurship.
(17:48):
We want to understand what it'slike to be a founder, and we
give them experiences throughsomething called the venture
intern program.
We have all these differentprograms that are designed to
get our students experience inentrepreneurship, and that's
what we want people to do.
Not all of them are going tobuild something tomorrow.
Not all of them are going tokick out new business models
Some of them should not, andthat's okay but they're learning
these really core tools ofcustomer discovery and what's a
(18:10):
lean canvas model and how do Ithink through how big a market
is or whether there's realpotential here, or is this a
real problem?
No-transcript.
And those tools will be supervaluable when they walk into
their jobs as well.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Right, yeah, that's so exciting when I think about
this opportunity that theUniversity of Arkansas is doing
through the student programmingis that we're teaching, coaching
, young potential leaders,business owners, future CEOs,
(18:54):
individuals to come in and dothis successfully and then to
learn how to fail forward.
That's right, because businessis difficult starting businesses
.
There's right Because you knowbusiness is difficult starting
businesses.
There's a lot of failure in allof that and but yet, with all
the help and mentorship thatyou're talking about, it's about
learning through those failuresto keep going to fail forward.
(19:18):
That is.
That is something that that'samazing that we have in our
state.
That's right.
I want to say something herejust a moment before you.
We move, if I can.
Yeah, um, takes a lot offunding for this Takes a lot of
investment.
Phil's talked about thementorship.
If you want to get involved inthis from mentoring to investing
(19:40):
, to supporting this financiallywe're going to make sure that
you can.
We have that information so youcan reach out to Phil and get
with him, visit with him, andhow do you get involved in this?
This could be a perfectopportunity for some people that
are watching and listeningtoday to really do something in
(20:01):
this next opportunity in theirlife.
Whatever that is, to give back,to get involved, to help our
future leaders in this state besuccessful.
This is awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah.
So I told you, big corporatecareer, right.
So I spent 20 years, got a bigcorporate career, but this role,
um, I'd always said, somedayI'm going to go back and teach,
someday I'm going to go.
Yeah, I want to be an adjunctprofessor somewhere and teach.
But when this role cameavailable and now where I am at
now, I finally see that I can doit now.
I don't have to wait tillsomeday.
I have don't have to wait untilretirement, I want to do it
(20:32):
right now.
And the impact that I get tosee every day from the
supportive entrepreneurs, fromthe students that are learning
something from the nextgeneration that's coming up, for
me has been changing.
If I could be so dramatic, likeit really is a feeling of,
maybe for the first time in mycareer, that I'm really adding a
ton of value to other people'slives and it just feels like a
mission now for me.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
You know I get that feeling, I understand that
feeling and you know I am soblessed to have such a great
career at Walmart for almost 30years and many other things I've
done.
But what you're talking aboutnow, no matter where you are in
the space of your career, thisis an opportunity to really do
something great for the nextgeneration.
That's right, that's absolutelyright.
(21:15):
And if you're not, in thisstate, arkansas, learn how to do
it and learn from Phil andothers how to move that to other
states.
We need this everywhere, noquestion.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I am certain your podcast has tremendous business
leaders, right.
They come at all stages.
Some of them are much largecompanies.
They've never gone through anentrepreneurship experience.
Those skill sets are so valuableto the next generation of
students, right, understandingentrepreneurship is so valuable
to sitting in front of somebodywho's trying to build something
for the first time.
But you know, the first time Itake a company, I take a founder
(21:48):
who wants to build a CPG-likeproduct, right, and I can
connect them with somebody who'sdone it here in Bentonville for
30 years selling Walmart orother cases Like that's valuable
for that student to learn fromand to kind of see.
You know, we don't have itready yet but we're building a
program right now that isdesigned to help entrepreneurs
in the CPG space in thiscommunity and we absolutely do
(22:10):
and there's.
It's shocking that there's nocore accelerator kind of built
around.
How do we help entrepreneurs inCPG?
And yet there's so muchthinking, there's so much great
thinking, great skill set aroundhere that would be interesting
in getting that space.
We're trying to figure out howto build that right now.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Well, just before our podcast today, phil met our
entrepreneur, podcastvideoscom,eric Howard, and he is an
entrepreneur.
He's a very successful business, soloist business and
entrepreneurs can't stay sealed.
They got to watch the next,watch the next.
Eric has built podcastvideoscomHuge vision for it.
(22:47):
It will happen and so I knowyou guys are going to connect
Wonderful.
I'm so glad because you're,because he's going to be very,
very passionate about this.
There's so many peoplelistening today and to get
involved.
So that's so get involved.
I I say come, get involved inthis no doubt, no doubt we will.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
We will always accept people who want to kind of give
back and support, and so we'llget involved and, like you said,
like I mean there's mentorshipis a great way to do that we are
always looking for.
You know, one thing we wehaven't talked to yet about is
like we're always looking forprojects too.
Like we have students who arehungry to learn the skill sets
of innovation, hungry to learnthe skill sets of how do I build
(23:26):
a new whatever, how do I solvea problem.
But oftentimes they don't haveenough life experiences to
really know problems, and so wespent a lot of time in classes
like New Venture, developmentand others, just talking about
how do you find a really goodproblem.
But the truth of the matter iswe'd love the community to come
source them.
We'd love the community to cometo us and say, hey, our
company's got a problem, we'vegot issues over here, or I've
(23:47):
got an idea that I'd love tohave a group of students working
on with me.
We want those and we'd love tohave a group of students working
on with me.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
We want those and we'd love those projects to come
.
You know, that's one reason Iso enjoy you coming, phil,
because it you know, most of usbusiness leaders are heads down
and working.
That's right.
Every day our heads are downand what you do you really open
up the doors to all thisopportunity for current business
leaders, future businessleaders and students.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yes, and then how to give back, if you're attorneys
or business leaders or whatever,and so wow, Look, if you want
to justify it right, if you wantto justify it like it's got to
be part of my job too, then callit recruiting, because the
truth of the matter is thestudents that are coming through
the Office of Entrepreneurshipand Innovation and we'll talk
(24:37):
about mcmillan, a secondinnovation studio the students
that are coming through thereare some of the most
well-rounded, most preparedstudents.
They are the.
Their resumes scream I've hadthese experiences.
I can do it for you too.
So oftentimes people bring usprojects and they want students
to work on them, but they reallywant to recruit good students
and they get to see really greattalent coming through these
programs.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
If I was a business leader today, in the space that
you're talking about, in fact,in this studio, when you walked
in, you've seen a lot of youngpeople.
That's exactly what we're doinghere.
We're bringing these youngpeople in to work with us.
They're phenomenal.
They're going to have greatcareers someday.
Someone's going to recruit themout of here.
That's what we want.
Yeah, okay, them out of here,that's what we want.
(25:14):
Yeah, okay, eric, I hope youdon't get mad at me for saying
that, but that's what we want.
We want them to move on withgreat careers that's good and
with us or others to have greatcareers, and that's exciting.
Okay, now we've talked aboutthe business incubation piece.
We talked about the studentprogramming a bit.
Now Macmillan Innovations.
That's named after the CEO ofWalmart, doug Macmillan, who I
(25:36):
had the opportunity to work withhim from years and years.
He's such a fine individual.
He's doing a great job atWalmart today.
I'm so proud of where Walmartis and where it's going in the
future, and Doug is soinstrumental in that.
He's just a great guy, numberone.
In fact.
He would be upset if Imentioned this.
I'll do it anyway, but he wasrecently voted as one of the
(26:04):
most well-liked and respectedCEOs in the country and he would
blow that off if I said it.
He would never say it, but I'msaying it for him.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So talk about Macmillan sure institute so the
the third arm of the office ofentrepreneurship innovation is
the macmillan innovation studio.
Um, the studio started oh boy,I should have my dates down, but
it's probably eight, nine yearsago.
Yeah, sounds um and uh.
In it early, early stage it wastrying to figure out what it
stood for, but eventually whatit turned into was we want to
(26:33):
figure out how to train studentsin, I would argue, the art of
product management, right?
So how do I really trainsomeone at the early stage of
understanding how to identify aproblem, how to truly understand
the impact of that problem tothe customer right and truly
understand?
We use a tool calledhuman-centered centered design.
We teach them all about, likeempathy and understanding the
(26:54):
customer, huge focus on customerdiscovery and interviews right
in hopes that you can take aproblem, understand the problem
and then come up with reallyunique solutions.
And then, if those solutionsbecome, those are what we call
design teams.
Those design teams then buildthese unique solutions and if
those solutions make sense, thenwe move on forward into product
teams and start to build outthe.
How do I make a proof ofconcept out of this solution?
(27:16):
How do I actually create thatproduct for the first time?
How do we test and try umiterate to ensure that the
solution we thought we put onpaper over here is actually
going to work for the end user?
yes or whoever that is, yeahwonderful Now.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I was reading an article about the Macmillan
Studio, innovation Studio,recently and it was so great.
It talked about the impact it'shaving on those students and
those students' involvement and,all and again, another way of
teaching and giving back tothese young men and women to
(27:56):
really again get their careergoing.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
No question, no question.
We have every semester right.
What happens is organizationsaround our community come to us
with problems.
In fact, I told you before Iwent on, projects like this is a
great one for community membersto come with.
Right now we have problems atour company.
Let's take, I'll give you anexample of Sam's Club.
Sam's Club came to us a whileago and said we'd like to better
(28:19):
understand the potential of aGen Z customer in a club model.
Right, club models aretypically, you know, large
families, you know bigger.
You know it's like we want tounderstand that with the mites
of a gen z customer.
So we they hold a group ofstudents together.
They always have one projectmanager, so one student's
responsible for it, and thatteam of volunteer students that
all work together throughout thesemester.
And they did a ton of customerdiscovery, a ton of interviews,
(28:41):
a ton of empathy mapping, a tonof understanding who that
customer was, and then built outwhat they thought was a great
solution for sam's club.
It had to do with a membershipmodel that's tied to apartment
complexes.
There's a lot of detail behindthat.
But what's fascinating is thestudents really got to know the
problem.
They really got to understandthe needs of a club model, right
.
I worked at Sam's Club 10 years.
(29:02):
I get the club model well rightand then came back with a very
viable and reasonable solution.
And we do that every semesterwith companies all around the
world, not just large companieslike Sales Club.
We'll get to deal with smallercompanies as well, or even
nonprofits, right?
One of our organizations, one ofour health organizations, was
(29:24):
having this problem in thepostpartum space, right.
So you have women and they'repregnant, they give birth, and
what they were finding is like avery small percentage is women
were coming back for kind ofpostpartum treatment afterwards,
and because of that they werenot especially in poorer
communities.
They were attracting issues andchallenges afterwards that
(29:46):
weren't caught because they justweren't coming back for the
normal appointments.
And so they went to thestudents and said help us figure
out new ways to kind of createand solve for these patients to
come back after giving birth.
And the students gave somegreat solutions on how that
could work.
So they get to play in avariety of spaces healthcare and
retail, and supply chain andlogistics.
(30:07):
So you have to give usinteresting solutions to
problems.
And so we get all theseinteresting projects for
students to solve.
And what's great is they bringa different mindset to it.
Right, not always the problemis going to be accepted, not
every time is the company goingto say that's the most brilliant
thing ever, let's go andimplement this across the whole
world.
But they get to see a differentmindset because, honestly, our
Gen C students, our undergradstudents within the university,
(30:30):
think differently than you and Ido.
Wow, yes, and so bringing thatdifferent thinking to the table,
bringing the skill sets thatwe've trained them, suddenly
gives different solutions thatwe can think through.
And then you go back to.
You get to see some of our mosttalented students at the
university from a recruitingstandpoint, and so many times
these students get recruited aswell, right, what I like about
that is that you look at yourcore customer as retail.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
You look at your core customer and we're always
wanting to grow our business,and now there's a way to grow
our business in a different to adifferent generation space
where you're really not in, andI know, I think it's brilliant.
I think that, again, one of thethings that I love about
Walmart, sam's and other greatcompanies is that the most
(31:15):
consistent thing in mostcompanies is change.
And when you're asking theright questions how do we grow
our business?
And then you see thisopportunity where you can grow
your business in this differentgeneration, and then the
Macmillan Innovation Studioaddresses that question and
(31:36):
finds a solution.
And that's what you saidearlier.
I think is so important is thatwe love to work on problems and
you have you have individuals,really smart individuals, to
help you do that.
Yes, no question.
Yeah, I'll run it.
Okay, this has been exciting.
This is why I love having youhere.
It's like a fresh air talkingto you.
(31:59):
And okay, now there's one othertopic.
I know your area is notinfinitely involved in it, but I
know that you're veryknowledgeable about it, so talk
to us.
What's happening in SouthArkansas?
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Oh yeah it was a little him, uh um, I mean,
here's what's.
What's crazy is I don't knowhow this stuff works.
I I have no idea how they find,like this, pot of gold in
southern arkansas but I don'teven read, but in the, I think
it's barium, like yeah, they can, they can pull lithium out of.
If you've not read it, I think,go read about it.
(32:35):
This is fascinating, butArkansas now has the potential
to produce like the world supplyof lithium for the next I don't
know how many years 30 years orsomething, 35 or something.
We just have to pull it out.
Now.
What's interesting is, ascompanies are starting to invest
in South Arkansas and try andfigure it out.
The infrastructure is not thereyet, right, and I think the
(32:57):
fear, or the concern at least,is the state's got to figure out
how to make this in an industrythat stays in the state.
That gives the benefit of thestate of Arkansas, right?
The last thing you want is topull the lithium out and then
ship it off somewhere else, tomake the battery somewhere else
or ship it off to other places,and so you're starting to see
this entire state support of howdo we better help this industry
grow within our state.
(33:19):
The Dean Needy, kim Needy, isthe Dean of the College of
Engineering at the University ofArkansas and she has just taken
it upon herself to pulltogether resources from all
around the state, from differentwalks of life, different
experiences that bring differentskills to the table to help
that entire community thinkthrough if they're going to
(33:42):
build up like they're going to,what could they learn from
what's happening in NorthwestArkansas?
What could they learn from otherparts of the state or the
country so that they do housingright, they do healthcare right,
they get ready for the workersthat are going to be there, so
that they hire the right talentor that they train the right
talent up right, and all with avery altruistic view of we just
want to help right.
It is not by any means NorthDakota, arkansas, saying this is
(34:04):
how you need to do it right.
It's very much saying we lovethe fact that you guys are about
to build an amazing industrydown there.
We're about to put a wholebunch of engineers from our
college hopefully down there towork Right and we want to help,
yeah, and so you're starting tosee all this structure coming
around, just the support ofwhat's going on down there and
it's it's super exciting.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
You know, I think this is one of the most
innovative things that'shappened in our state all the
time.
I mean there know what thefuture is going with this, and
it would be so great if we don'thave to import this from other
countries and all we have ithere in our state.
It's going to give, like yousaid, opportunity for jobs and
(34:41):
so much more for our state, sowe'll have to keep watching that
.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
We'll definitely keep an eye on that one.
The reliance that I think ourentire country has on lithium
from other countries, a bigchunk of it being in China Right
.
If Arkansas can help solve thatfor the whole US, that's a huge
it would be.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Okay, we've covered a lot of territory.
It's been awesome.
Okay, as we wrap up, phil, whatare some closing thoughts that
you have?
I've got a couple, but you gofirst.
What are some closing thoughtsthat you have?
I've got a couple, but you gofirst.
What are some closing thoughts?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
What gets me most excited is the generation that's
coming and their passion forchange.
We see so many students comingthrough our program right now
that have an eye for I want tosolve a problem, I want to make
the world a better place.
They have very, a very socialview of wanting to make change
(35:39):
and make make good for the world.
And and so I'm sitting in thisunique spot right now where we
are providing a variety I mean Ilisted maybe half of the total
programs we do.
We do so much at the university, we do so much just in the
entrepreneurship innovationspace, and yet we're providing
each one of these students aunique experience to be able to
build those skills to be able tomaybe create change or learn
(36:02):
how to create change five, 10years down the future.
Right, my hope is that youraudience, those listening, those
who see what's going on in theUniversity of Arkansas, can see
that the talent we are buildingis going to help Northwest
Arkansas and the state ofArkansas as a whole thrive.
Yes, Right, and this is whereour next version of talent is
going to come from.
(36:23):
This is where our community isreally going to benefit, because
if we can get these studentsthat are coming out here to stay
, if we can keep them in ourcommunity, then we're going to
continue to build rich talent.
That's going to be the nextgeneration of leaders, the next
ones that are making thesepodcasts, the next ones that
you're going to be interviewing,right, because they're making
the change of the future.
And what's exciting for me is Isee them at the age of 22.
I see them now and wherethey're going to go, and we get
(36:46):
to influence them and impactthem in such a meaningful way
Wonderful.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
A couple of closing thoughts I have is number one
there's a space for you to beinvolved here, to get involved,
to be a mentor, to be aninvestor, to let them help you
with your business.
There's so much here for you toget involved in, and my
(37:11):
encouragement number one is andwe'll make sure you have all the
information you need to contactPhil in his office get involved
, okay, because you heard whatPhil had to say this is our
future, yes.
The second thing I want toclose with Phil is I want to
thank you.
I want to thank you for yourpassion.
I want to thank you for whatyou're doing.
I want to thank the Universityof Arkansas for making this
(37:34):
opportunity available to ourstate and to the people of this
state.
But, phil, thank you.
You're always such a greatguest.
I love and learn every timethat I see you and I just want
to say from all of us thank you,thank you very much, thank you
so much.
It's a joy to do this.
Well, it's been great to haveyou.
Phil will be back.
(37:55):
We'll go bathe in the springand get it back here To our
guests.
Thank you, it's been sowonderful getting to know so
many of you Don't hesitate toreach out to me, send me ideas,
suggestions.
I love that to hear from you.
Thank you for what you're doingbest to you and your businesses
and all the things you do.
(38:16):
Uh, keep keep tuning us in.
We really appreciate that.
And so, phil, again, thank youabsolutely everyone.
Have a wonderful day.
Thank you very much, everyone.
Goodbye.
Well, hello everyone and welcome to Doing Business in
Bentonville.
Because of that, we're nowviewed in over 34 countries,
(00:30):
thank you, thank you very muchfor that.
It means so much to us thatyou're sharing and watching us.
Now let's get to the realreason that you are here today
with us, and that is our guesttoday Phil Schellhammer.
Welcome, thank you, thanks forhaving me.
Great to see you again.
Yes, this is number two for you.
Yeah, man, Good, I appreciateit.
I'm glad you're back.
I am so glad you're back.
(00:51):
Let me tell you about Phil,because he's lost a bit, and
he'll tell you a bit abouthimself too, but he has expanded
his space since he was herelast time.
He's the executive director ofthe Office of Entrepreneurship
and Innovation at the Universityof Arkansas.
That's great, wonderful.
We have such a great schoolhere.
It's awesome.
(01:11):
It is such a great school.
He's got the hog on his shirttoday and check that out.
It's wonderful.
And you know something elseabout Phil.
Phil, you spent over 10 yearsat Sam's Club.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
I did.
Yeah, I always talk about mytwo careers.
I had this big corporate career.
I was at P's Club.
I did yeah, I always talk aboutmy two careers Like I had this
big corporate career.
I was at P&G, I was at Best Buyand I spent 10 years here at
Sam's Club in town.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah, well, good, well, you are having such an
impact on our state, you and allyour areas that you lead, and
thank you for that, and let'stalk about that.
There's three really criticalareas that we're going to get
into today that Phil leads andhe'll talk about that, because
(01:53):
what we want to do today is youto understand what is happening
in our great state, in Arkansas,and if you're not in Arkansas,
this could be done in otherstates if it's not being done in
other states.
So I think you're going to loveto hear what Phil and his team
are involved in, but we're goingto talk about the business
(02:14):
incubation.
All right, look at that.
I can't wait for you to hearthat.
It's going to be really good.
The other thing that Phil doeshas a huge impact on the future
of our state and country, and heworks with students and then
getting those young minds thereand as they get into this whole
space of entrepreneurship,innovation.
(02:36):
He's going to talk about that.
And then we have a greatprogram or department.
I guess a better department isMacmillan Innovation.
That's correct.
So we're going to get into that.
So there's so much happening.
We're doing a lot, no doubt,okay.
So Phil, again welcome.
(02:57):
We're so glad, so why don't youbegin and talk about these
really key topics today?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
for our audience.
Yeah, so I've been in this roleabout six months, right, and
what's interesting from the lasttime that I talked to you is I
was focused on the businessincubation side, which is one
third of kind of what my job isnow, and so my mind is kind of
blown by how much more we'redoing as a total office and much
(03:25):
more the university is gettinginvolved in entrepreneurship
across those three areas youtalked about.
Maybe we take businessincubation first.
Okay, so my old world.
We've had this great programhere called the greenhouse
outdoor recreation program.
It's called the warp.
Last time we talked we talkedabout that incubator, this for
early stage outdoor recreationcompanies.
That program continues to gowell.
We're in our sixth cohortamazing companies in there.
(03:45):
We can talk at length aboutsome of the companies that are
going through that program rightnow.
There's some really interestingnew business models that are
coming in outdoor recreation forour area.
But then right at right, itwould have been a year ago.
This week actually we receivedthis grant from the federal
government to take that sameprogramming and stretch it
around the state and what wehave seen is we are starting to
(04:08):
find people throughout our statethat are interested in working
outdoor recreation as well, thatare interested in building new
business models and support andgetting support to try and
figure out how they buildsomething in their community.
That land grant, universitymodel, that how do we help
support our whole state reallycomes through in this particular
program and then through thatsame grant we started something
(04:29):
called the Entrepreneurial LawProject and that's one that
we've been super excited to seekind of moving forward this past
year.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
I don't want you to skip over this.
Okay, because in GORP you're inthe sixth cohort, soon to be
seventh?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
right, yeah, we'll have a set.
We're taking applications.
By the time this comes out, theapplication will be closed.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
So the seventh, the seventh.
So if you're from Arkansas,right, and so you need to pay
attention to that, because theseventh is coming, yeah, yeah.
And so the second thing is thelaw project.
Yeah, okay, that's interestingto me.
Tell us how that works.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
This is like entrepreneurship is all about
finding problems and trying tosolve them right.
So when you're anentrepreneurship support
organization like we are.
We look for the biggestproblems entrepreneurs are
dealing with, and one of thebiggest ones we've seen for a
long time in our community andI'm sure this happens around the
US is early-stage entrepreneursneed legal support.
They just need help.
But unfortunately, at the earlystage, when you have very
(05:31):
little money and you're tryingto figure out because they don't
have any money to do this, butlawyers are expensive.
Right, they add an amazingservice and a needed service,
but lawyers can be veryexpensive for these early-stage
entrepreneurs.
And so a woman named RachelSullivan, who's on our team,
created this program, whichtakes the later state the three
all students out of theuniversity's law school combines
(05:56):
them with pro bono legalsupport from our community and
puts them together into aneducation experience for
entrepreneurs.
We just did this in Fayettevillelast month.
30 founders come into theBrewer Hub in Fayetteville and
we've got lawyers therepresenting them all morning,
teaching them about businessformation and operating
agreements and IP right andgetting them to get these core
(06:19):
lessons they have to have.
But then those sameentrepreneurs get 30-minute free
sessions of legal support andwe're giving tens of thousands
of dollars of legal support awayto these entrepreneurs who just
need the help, who just needsomebody to help them say how do
I do this one piece?
And we've got stories that havecome out of that.
Some of these founders who arereally in dire straits are
(06:41):
really struggling with differentpieces.
We've had some of our communitylawyers step up and say, look, I
want to help here, like, whydon't I help you kind of get
this operating agreementtogether?
We'll help you get you knowyour initial forms together for
your customers so you can getyour business back on track
right.
Other entrepreneurs who don'tknow anything about filing for
IP or how do I get a patent canstart the process of
understanding whether theyshould or not, all that coming
(07:04):
from this free support.
Now, that happened infayetteville, but this happened
in five different locationsaround our state this year alone
.
Okay, and we continue to kindof stretch it out.
So we're providing it,hopefully as best we can, to as
many communities within ourstate that's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Now I want to.
You talked about gore.
Let's talk about.
Give us some examples.
I'm a cyclist and I know someexamples that you have worked on
and doing, so that's why, whenI started reading, oh yeah, we
got to talk about that.
So give us some examples aboutGore.
Sure.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So let's take our current cohort, our current
cohort.
There's a woman in the cohortwho's building a new business
model around consignment right.
One of the things that happensin larger outdoor recreation
communities like a Denver orBoulder or Asheville right where
you get a lot of tourism comingto, is you tend to get one of
(07:58):
these shops formed, which is aconsignment shop around used
outdoor rec.
Here what you're finding acrossAmerica is resale, and
secondhand products have becomemuch, much more popular, but we
don't have a store like thishere specifically designed for
outdoor rec, and so she'sdesigning this program right now
.
It's going to be called SturdyUsed Gear and she's just at the
(08:19):
very early stage of starting tobuild out what that business
model will be a new retail shopin our community just for St
years gear.
That's one side, but in the samecohort we've got another
founder who is taking computervision and trying to help train
people who are interested inshooting sports how better to
accurately shoot their weapons.
(08:42):
Right, this could be good formilitary.
This could be good for police.
It could be good for the casualuser as well.
Right, this could be good formilitary.
This could be good for police.
It could be good for the casualuser as well, right, but he's
using computer vision to helpyou actually better aim or
better target as you're learningshooting support.
So you get this high-end AIkind of technology thought
process and you have this kindof retail experience and all
(09:02):
business models in between.
Those are some of the models wehave going through right now, a
lot of them To the cohort Now.
We've had other ones that havecome through in the past that
we're starting to see some realsuccess coming through.
We had one company maybe threecohorts ago called Nargo Bike.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
All right, that's the one I'm familiar with.
I love Nargo yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
That's why I wanted to bring it up, because I've
been tracking, watching that,watch this company, watch this
couple go um.
So, uh, zach, at least arebuilding this um, this great
experience, really experiencearound buying an electric cargo
bike, um, and they make customframes.
They they use like recycled olduh bike frames, they turn them
into these custom uh cargo bikesand they really like.
Their whole goal is not to makea whole bunch of money selling
bikes.
(09:45):
Their goal is to convince everyperson in this community to
stop driving their cars, yeah,and they just want everybody to
get on a bike and start ridingaround the community on the bike
and they just have this likeit's just this altruistic view
of what they want to see out ofthings, and it's so exciting to
kind of watch them go from theywere doing it garage and trying
to figure out a business modelthrough gorp and through some
other programming within ourcommunity.
(10:06):
So now they've got their ownshop in northern bentonville,
right on the bella vista borderum, and they're really getting
traction.
Of course.
Now, now that you can buy a um,you know you've got the.
The bentonville has the um.
Um, there's a, there's a,there's a dollar.
Oh man, I'm missing theterminology.
Uh, there's a grant availablenow so that people can buy an
electric bike.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
They get some funding from the government yeah, you
get funding for it.
It's a grant that you getfunding for by e-bike, that's
right.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
So now, they've built this kind of e-bike model up
and now they're sitting right inthe right spot when this grant
comes through, and now peopleare looking at e-bike you know
these ideas are and we're goingto talk about so many more ideas
.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
You just got to hang on with this.
I'm telling you it's going toget so much better.
But think about these ideasthat you talked about can happen
anywhere, any state, any cityacross the US.
That's right and that's what'sso exciting about this.
And the reason you know, thecycling called my attention and
(11:02):
all of us have our passionsaround things is that, first of
all, we've got one of the bestgreenway cycling greenways in
the country and we're all theway from South Fayetteville to
almost the Missouri border.
So it's phenomenal, so great,and it spares off in every
community.
So think about deliveringproduct, and all that on a bike,
(11:24):
you know, in screen, in a greatspace, one in four fans.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
So what's awesome about GORP is it ties so well
into the rest of what theuniversity does.
So there's another company thatcame out of GORP called
Lockstop.
It actually used to be calledUncle, but their name is
Lockstop now.
And what Lockstop's model is isthey want to be a parking meter
for your bike, right.
So now it's a lock that'sattached to any kind of
permanent fixture, any kind ofbike rack.
That's app enabled.
(11:51):
So you walk up there, you scanthe app with your phone.
It unlocks.
You lock your bike up.
You don't have to carry a lockanymore.
Wherever you go with your bike,you know it's going to be safe
and secure and you can lock thisup so you think about the
infrastructure we built aroundcycling.
Now, all of a sudden, if you addtheir locks onto it, now
there's a whole serviceavailable for people, so that
there's one less thing to thinkabout when you're hopping on
your bike and going to thegrocery store, or when you're
going to downtown, when you'regoing to go ride.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yeah, and that's the number one thing, because these
bikes are well, you just don'twant to lose your property and I
know I carry a, I'm stockingwherever, because I want to lock
my bike, because that way youdon't have to watch it the
entire time, because you can't.
So, perfect, okay, we've got tomove on.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
But this is so exciting.
You want to talk about cycling.
I've got to say this one thingbecause I haven't told anybody
this yet.
All right, so by the time thiscomes out, this will be news,
but it's super exciting.
So we are starting a newaccelerator within cycling.
The state of Arkansas has comethrough and is helping fund
basically an accelerator modelAccelerators, incubators,
(12:52):
scorpus incubators early stage.
How do you create new autocompanies, right?
Accelerator and cycling says.
We know there's companies outthere that are making new
technologies in cycling rightnow and they're at this really
high growth stage.
They're at the early stage oftrying to figure out growth.
We and they're at this reallyhigh growth stage.
They're at the early stage oftrying to figure out growth we
are going to bring 10 of theminto Batonville in the spring of
the next year and train them upon and help them connect within
the industry and hopefullyattract them to our community to
(13:14):
move here and start to createthat hub of cycling businesses
that are here.
This is all helping by fundingfrom the state, and so we'll
have 10 new companies spend aspring right here in Batonville
with us ending at Bike Fest.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
Okay, you know, I don't have to sing very hard to
have you back.
See, that's when we got to haveyou back then.
For that for sure, you know,because maybe it's my personal
interest too.
All right, so, no, this isreally good.
Okay, so you've talked aboutthe work, you've talked about
the law, the law project, andthat's wonderful.
What else do you want to giveus here?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Yeah, so if you think about the rest of business
incubation, for a second, one ofthe other big programs that
we're helping work on with theNorthwest Arkansas Council
actually is creating a businesshub for entrepreneurs, right?
So how do you create a digitallocation that any entrepreneur
(14:13):
can go to to find all theresources that are available to
them?
Right?
It's called the ArkansasBusiness Resource Hub.
I can give you the web addresslater it's AR Business Resource
Hub, but it is designed to helpour founders find all those
resources available.
What happens inentrepreneurship uptime is they
get stuck trying to find whatdollars are available, what
(14:35):
grants are available, how can Ifund this piece, or how do I
find legal resources, whateverthe case is, and so we have
collected all those resources ina one single location to help
our founders find those placesand find those resources.
So that's kind of a big toolthat we've, as you just recently
, been building, yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Well, we're going to make sure, when we post this,
you'll go to our website,dbbnwacom.
There will be articles thereand we'll make sure that we'll
run this by Philil.
He'll have a nice article thereand all the uh, the information
you need here, absolutely inorder and and then where to find
phil to all that.
(15:12):
So we'll, we'll make sure we dothat.
Well, that'd be great.
Okay, good, I love.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
What are you gonna talk about?
Well, if you go to the secondstage.
So I told you, businessincubation is my first bucket,
right, the bucket which isreally our core to everything we
do at OEI.
But the office here is aboutstudents.
It's about student programming,right, and so we have a ton of
great initiatives that we'vebeen running for quite a while.
But if you go back to thebeginning of our offices, it
started with one class calledNew Venture Development.
(15:39):
New Venture Development wasdesigned by and implemented by a
woman, carol Reeves, who was along-term faculty member at the
University of Arkansas, and shejust saw this vision of how do
we teach students how to buildbusinesses from I have no
problem all the way through toI'm pitching to investors, and
it was a year-long coursedesigned to help those students
(15:59):
do that.
And what we were finding earlyon, and what we continue to do
today, is you take really greatintellectual property from the
university or really great ideascoming out of different
programs.
It doesn't have to be business.
Students could be engineering,could be arts, could be wherever
within our colleges.
Bring them in, surround themwith a team of students that all
have different skill sets infinance or marketing or whatever
the case is, and those formteams that are building business
(16:23):
models and, honestly, some ofthe best businesses the
University of Arkansas has kindof kicked out have come out of
this class.
The new venture-friendly courseis what's built up everything
else the lock stop company Italked about before.
While they were going throughGORP, they also went through
that class as well, and so thosetwo resources allowed them to
go in the spring, pitch toinvestors and raise money to
(16:43):
earn for their business andallowed them to kind of kick off
and get going.
That course continues to bestrong.
We've got I've got eightdifferent business models right
now.
So I'm teaching this coursethis year along with a guy named
David Hinton who runs our techtransfer at the university.
The two of us teach this course.
We've got 35, 36 students in it, eight different business
(17:06):
models, all of them being builtright now and getting ready for
what eventually is going tobecome pitches to investors this
spring, in hopes that a few ofthose businesses not everyone
will go.
Some will graduate and be likeI want to go on to my corporate
job, but they're learning thekey tools of entrepreneurship
that are going to be helpful andvaluable to them, even if they
don't take these business modelsto move them forward.
(17:27):
That's exciting.
And then, wrapped all around,that is all the different
support structures we have fornew businesses.
So, as students want to formnew businesses, we provide them,
you know, free co-working spacecalled the Startup Village.
We provide them venturementoring service.
We have mentors that are thereto work on their business models
.
We even at times, take ourinterns, who are undergrad
students who are looking to workin entrepreneurship.
(17:48):
We want to understand what it'slike to be a founder, and we
give them experiences throughsomething called the venture
intern program.
We have all these differentprograms that are designed to
get our students experience inentrepreneurship, and that's
what we want people to do.
Not all of them are going tobuild something tomorrow.
Not all of them are going tokick out new business models
Some of them should not, andthat's okay but they're learning
these really core tools ofcustomer discovery and what's a
(18:10):
lean canvas model and how do Ithink through how big a market
is or whether there's realpotential here, or is this a
real problem?
No-transcript.
And those tools will be supervaluable when they walk into
their jobs as well.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Right, yeah, that's so exciting when I think about
this opportunity that theUniversity of Arkansas is doing
through the student programmingis that we're teaching, coaching
, young potential leaders,business owners, future CEOs,
(18:54):
individuals to come in and dothis successfully and then to
learn how to fail forward.
That's right, because businessis difficult starting businesses
.
There's right Because you knowbusiness is difficult starting
businesses.
There's a lot of failure in allof that and but yet, with all
the help and mentorship thatyou're talking about, it's about
learning through those failuresto keep going to fail forward.
(19:18):
That is.
That is something that that'samazing that we have in our
state.
That's right.
I want to say something herejust a moment before you.
We move, if I can.
Yeah, um, takes a lot offunding for this Takes a lot of
investment.
Phil's talked about thementorship.
If you want to get involved inthis from mentoring to investing
(19:40):
, to supporting this financiallywe're going to make sure that
you can.
We have that information so youcan reach out to Phil and get
with him, visit with him, andhow do you get involved in this?
This could be a perfectopportunity for some people that
are watching and listeningtoday to really do something in
(20:01):
this next opportunity in theirlife.
Whatever that is, to give back,to get involved, to help our
future leaders in this state besuccessful.
This is awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
Yeah.
So I told you, big corporatecareer, right.
So I spent 20 years, got a bigcorporate career, but this role,
um, I'd always said, somedayI'm going to go back and teach,
someday I'm going to go.
Yeah, I want to be an adjunctprofessor somewhere and teach.
But when this role cameavailable and now where I am at
now, I finally see that I can doit now.
I don't have to wait tillsomeday.
I have don't have to wait untilretirement, I want to do it
(20:32):
right now.
And the impact that I get tosee every day from the
supportive entrepreneurs, fromthe students that are learning
something from the nextgeneration that's coming up, for
me has been changing.
If I could be so dramatic, likeit really is a feeling of,
maybe for the first time in mycareer, that I'm really adding a
ton of value to other people'slives and it just feels like a
mission now for me.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
You know I get that feeling, I understand that
feeling and you know I am soblessed to have such a great
career at Walmart for almost 30years and many other things I've
done.
But what you're talking aboutnow, no matter where you are in
the space of your career, thisis an opportunity to really do
something great for the nextgeneration.
That's right, that's absolutelyright.
(21:15):
And if you're not, in thisstate, arkansas, learn how to do
it and learn from Phil andothers how to move that to other
states.
We need this everywhere, noquestion.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I am certain your podcast has tremendous business
leaders, right.
They come at all stages.
Some of them are much largecompanies.
They've never gone through anentrepreneurship experience.
Those skill sets are so valuableto the next generation of
students, right, understandingentrepreneurship is so valuable
to sitting in front of somebodywho's trying to build something
for the first time.
But you know, the first time Itake a company, I take a founder
(21:48):
who wants to build a CPG-likeproduct, right, and I can
connect them with somebody who'sdone it here in Bentonville for
30 years selling Walmart orother cases Like that's valuable
for that student to learn fromand to kind of see.
You know, we don't have itready yet but we're building a
program right now that isdesigned to help entrepreneurs
in the CPG space in thiscommunity and we absolutely do
(22:10):
and there's.
It's shocking that there's nocore accelerator kind of built
around.
How do we help entrepreneurs inCPG?
And yet there's so muchthinking, there's so much great
thinking, great skill set aroundhere that would be interesting
in getting that space.
We're trying to figure out howto build that right now.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Well, just before our podcast today, phil met our
entrepreneur, podcastvideoscom,eric Howard, and he is an
entrepreneur.
He's a very successful business, soloist business and
entrepreneurs can't stay sealed.
They got to watch the next,watch the next.
Eric has built podcastvideoscomHuge vision for it.
(22:47):
It will happen and so I knowyou guys are going to connect
Wonderful.
I'm so glad because you're,because he's going to be very,
very passionate about this.
There's so many peoplelistening today and to get
involved.
So that's so get involved.
I I say come, get involved inthis no doubt, no doubt we will.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
We will always accept people who want to kind of give
back and support, and so we'llget involved and, like you said,
like I mean there's mentorshipis a great way to do that we are
always looking for.
You know, one thing we wehaven't talked to yet about is
like we're always looking forprojects too.
Like we have students who arehungry to learn the skill sets
of innovation, hungry to learnthe skill sets of how do I build
(23:26):
a new whatever, how do I solvea problem.
But oftentimes they don't haveenough life experiences to
really know problems, and so wespent a lot of time in classes
like New Venture, developmentand others, just talking about
how do you find a really goodproblem.
But the truth of the matter iswe'd love the community to come
source them.
We'd love the community to cometo us and say, hey, our
company's got a problem, we'vegot issues over here, or I've
(23:47):
got an idea that I'd love tohave a group of students working
on with me.
We want those and we'd love tohave a group of students working
on with me.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
We want those and we'd love those projects to come
.
You know, that's one reason Iso enjoy you coming, phil,
because it you know, most of usbusiness leaders are heads down
and working.
That's right.
Every day our heads are downand what you do you really open
up the doors to all thisopportunity for current business
leaders, future businessleaders and students.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Yes, and then how to give back, if you're attorneys
or business leaders or whatever,and so wow, Look, if you want
to justify it right, if you wantto justify it like it's got to
be part of my job too, then callit recruiting, because the
truth of the matter is thestudents that are coming through
the Office of Entrepreneurshipand Innovation and we'll talk
(24:37):
about mcmillan, a secondinnovation studio the students
that are coming through thereare some of the most
well-rounded, most preparedstudents.
They are the.
Their resumes scream I've hadthese experiences.
I can do it for you too.
So oftentimes people bring usprojects and they want students
to work on them, but they reallywant to recruit good students
and they get to see really greattalent coming through these
programs.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
If I was a business leader today, in the space that
you're talking about, in fact,in this studio, when you walked
in, you've seen a lot of youngpeople.
That's exactly what we're doinghere.
We're bringing these youngpeople in to work with us.
They're phenomenal.
They're going to have greatcareers someday.
Someone's going to recruit themout of here.
That's what we want.
Yeah, okay, them out of here,that's what we want.
(25:14):
Yeah, okay, eric, I hope youdon't get mad at me for saying
that, but that's what we want.
We want them to move on withgreat careers that's good and
with us or others to have greatcareers, and that's exciting.
Okay, now we've talked aboutthe business incubation piece.
We talked about the studentprogramming a bit.
Now Macmillan Innovations.
That's named after the CEO ofWalmart, doug Macmillan, who I
(25:36):
had the opportunity to work withhim from years and years.
He's such a fine individual.
He's doing a great job atWalmart today.
I'm so proud of where Walmartis and where it's going in the
future, and Doug is soinstrumental in that.
He's just a great guy, numberone.
In fact.
He would be upset if Imentioned this.
I'll do it anyway, but he wasrecently voted as one of the
(26:04):
most well-liked and respectedCEOs in the country and he would
blow that off if I said it.
He would never say it, but I'msaying it for him.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
So talk about Macmillan sure institute so the
the third arm of the office ofentrepreneurship innovation is
the macmillan innovation studio.
Um, the studio started oh boy,I should have my dates down, but
it's probably eight, nine yearsago.
Yeah, sounds um and uh.
In it early, early stage it wastrying to figure out what it
stood for, but eventually whatit turned into was we want to
(26:33):
figure out how to train studentsin, I would argue, the art of
product management, right?
So how do I really trainsomeone at the early stage of
understanding how to identify aproblem, how to truly understand
the impact of that problem tothe customer right and truly
understand?
We use a tool calledhuman-centered centered design.
We teach them all about, likeempathy and understanding the
(26:54):
customer, huge focus on customerdiscovery and interviews right
in hopes that you can take aproblem, understand the problem
and then come up with reallyunique solutions.
And then, if those solutionsbecome, those are what we call
design teams.
Those design teams then buildthese unique solutions and if
those solutions make sense, thenwe move on forward into product
teams and start to build outthe.
How do I make a proof ofconcept out of this solution?
(27:16):
How do I actually create thatproduct for the first time?
How do we test and try umiterate to ensure that the
solution we thought we put onpaper over here is actually
going to work for the end user?
yes or whoever that is, yeahwonderful Now.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I was reading an article about the Macmillan
Studio, innovation Studio,recently and it was so great.
It talked about the impact it'shaving on those students and
those students' involvement and,all and again, another way of
teaching and giving back tothese young men and women to
(27:56):
really again get their careergoing.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
No question, no question.
We have every semester right.
What happens is organizationsaround our community come to us
with problems.
In fact, I told you before Iwent on, projects like this is a
great one for community membersto come with.
Right now we have problems atour company.
Let's take, I'll give you anexample of Sam's Club.
Sam's Club came to us a whileago and said we'd like to better
(28:19):
understand the potential of aGen Z customer in a club model.
Right, club models aretypically, you know, large
families, you know bigger.
You know it's like we want tounderstand that with the mites
of a gen z customer.
So we they hold a group ofstudents together.
They always have one projectmanager, so one student's
responsible for it, and thatteam of volunteer students that
all work together throughout thesemester.
And they did a ton of customerdiscovery, a ton of interviews,
(28:41):
a ton of empathy mapping, a tonof understanding who that
customer was, and then built outwhat they thought was a great
solution for sam's club.
It had to do with a membershipmodel that's tied to apartment
complexes.
There's a lot of detail behindthat.
But what's fascinating is thestudents really got to know the
problem.
They really got to understandthe needs of a club model, right
.
I worked at Sam's Club 10 years.
(29:02):
I get the club model well rightand then came back with a very
viable and reasonable solution.
And we do that every semesterwith companies all around the
world, not just large companieslike Sales Club.
We'll get to deal with smallercompanies as well, or even
nonprofits, right?
One of our organizations, one ofour health organizations, was
(29:24):
having this problem in thepostpartum space, right.
So you have women and they'repregnant, they give birth, and
what they were finding is like avery small percentage is women
were coming back for kind ofpostpartum treatment afterwards,
and because of that they werenot especially in poorer
communities.
They were attracting issues andchallenges afterwards that
(29:46):
weren't caught because they justweren't coming back for the
normal appointments.
And so they went to thestudents and said help us figure
out new ways to kind of createand solve for these patients to
come back after giving birth.
And the students gave somegreat solutions on how that
could work.
So they get to play in avariety of spaces healthcare and
retail, and supply chain andlogistics.
(30:07):
So you have to give usinteresting solutions to
problems.
And so we get all theseinteresting projects for
students to solve.
And what's great is they bringa different mindset to it.
Right, not always the problemis going to be accepted, not
every time is the company goingto say that's the most brilliant
thing ever, let's go andimplement this across the whole
world.
But they get to see a differentmindset because, honestly, our
Gen C students, our undergradstudents within the university,
(30:30):
think differently than you and Ido.
Wow, yes, and so bringing thatdifferent thinking to the table,
bringing the skill sets thatwe've trained them, suddenly
gives different solutions thatwe can think through.
And then you go back to.
You get to see some of our mosttalented students at the
university from a recruitingstandpoint, and so many times
these students get recruited aswell, right, what I like about
that is that you look at yourcore customer as retail.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
You look at your core customer and we're always
wanting to grow our business,and now there's a way to grow
our business in a different to adifferent generation space
where you're really not in, andI know, I think it's brilliant.
I think that, again, one of thethings that I love about
Walmart, sam's and other greatcompanies is that the most
(31:15):
consistent thing in mostcompanies is change.
And when you're asking theright questions how do we grow
our business?
And then you see thisopportunity where you can grow
your business in this differentgeneration, and then the
Macmillan Innovation Studioaddresses that question and
(31:36):
finds a solution.
And that's what you saidearlier.
I think is so important is thatwe love to work on problems and
you have you have individuals,really smart individuals, to
help you do that.
Yes, no question.
Yeah, I'll run it.
Okay, this has been exciting.
This is why I love having youhere.
It's like a fresh air talkingto you.
(31:59):
And okay, now there's one othertopic.
I know your area is notinfinitely involved in it, but I
know that you're veryknowledgeable about it, so talk
to us.
What's happening in SouthArkansas?
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Oh yeah it was a little him, uh um, I mean,
here's what's.
What's crazy is I don't knowhow this stuff works.
I I have no idea how they find,like this, pot of gold in
southern arkansas but I don'teven read, but in the, I think
it's barium, like yeah, they can, they can pull lithium out of.
If you've not read it, I think,go read about it.
(32:35):
This is fascinating, butArkansas now has the potential
to produce like the world supplyof lithium for the next I don't
know how many years 30 years orsomething, 35 or something.
We just have to pull it out.
Now.
What's interesting is, ascompanies are starting to invest
in South Arkansas and try andfigure it out.
The infrastructure is not thereyet, right, and I think the
(32:57):
fear, or the concern at least,is the state's got to figure out
how to make this in an industrythat stays in the state.
That gives the benefit of thestate of Arkansas, right?
The last thing you want is topull the lithium out and then
ship it off somewhere else, tomake the battery somewhere else
or ship it off to other places,and so you're starting to see
this entire state support of howdo we better help this industry
grow within our state.
(33:19):
The Dean Needy, kim Needy, isthe Dean of the College of
Engineering at the University ofArkansas and she has just taken
it upon herself to pulltogether resources from all
around the state, from differentwalks of life, different
experiences that bring differentskills to the table to help
that entire community thinkthrough if they're going to
(33:42):
build up like they're going to,what could they learn from
what's happening in NorthwestArkansas?
What could they learn from otherparts of the state or the
country so that they do housingright, they do healthcare right,
they get ready for the workersthat are going to be there, so
that they hire the right talentor that they train the right
talent up right, and all with avery altruistic view of we just
want to help right.
It is not by any means NorthDakota, arkansas, saying this is
(34:04):
how you need to do it right.
It's very much saying we lovethe fact that you guys are about
to build an amazing industrydown there.
We're about to put a wholebunch of engineers from our
college hopefully down there towork Right and we want to help,
yeah, and so you're starting tosee all this structure coming
around, just the support ofwhat's going on down there and
it's it's super exciting.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
You know, I think this is one of the most
innovative things that'shappened in our state all the
time.
I mean there know what thefuture is going with this, and
it would be so great if we don'thave to import this from other
countries and all we have ithere in our state.
It's going to give, like yousaid, opportunity for jobs and
(34:41):
so much more for our state, sowe'll have to keep watching that
.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
We'll definitely keep an eye on that one.
The reliance that I think ourentire country has on lithium
from other countries, a bigchunk of it being in China Right
.
If Arkansas can help solve thatfor the whole US, that's a huge
it would be.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Okay, we've covered a lot of territory.
It's been awesome.
Okay, as we wrap up, phil, whatare some closing thoughts that
you have?
I've got a couple, but you gofirst.
What are some closing thoughtsthat you have?
I've got a couple, but you gofirst.
What are some closing thoughts?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
What gets me most excited is the generation that's
coming and their passion forchange.
We see so many students comingthrough our program right now
that have an eye for I want tosolve a problem, I want to make
the world a better place.
They have very, a very socialview of wanting to make change
(35:39):
and make make good for the world.
And and so I'm sitting in thisunique spot right now where we
are providing a variety I mean Ilisted maybe half of the total
programs we do.
We do so much at the university, we do so much just in the
entrepreneurship innovationspace, and yet we're providing
each one of these students aunique experience to be able to
build those skills to be able tomaybe create change or learn
(36:02):
how to create change five, 10years down the future.
Right, my hope is that youraudience, those listening, those
who see what's going on in theUniversity of Arkansas, can see
that the talent we are buildingis going to help Northwest
Arkansas and the state ofArkansas as a whole thrive.
Yes, Right, and this is whereour next version of talent is
going to come from.
(36:23):
This is where our community isreally going to benefit, because
if we can get these studentsthat are coming out here to stay
, if we can keep them in ourcommunity, then we're going to
continue to build rich talent.
That's going to be the nextgeneration of leaders, the next
ones that are making thesepodcasts, the next ones that
you're going to be interviewing,right, because they're making
the change of the future.
And what's exciting for me is Isee them at the age of 22.
I see them now and wherethey're going to go, and we get
(36:46):
to influence them and impactthem in such a meaningful way
Wonderful.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
A couple of closing thoughts I have is number one
there's a space for you to beinvolved here, to get involved,
to be a mentor, to be aninvestor, to let them help you
with your business.
There's so much here for you toget involved in, and my
(37:11):
encouragement number one is andwe'll make sure you have all the
information you need to contactPhil in his office get involved
, okay, because you heard whatPhil had to say this is our
future, yes.
The second thing I want toclose with Phil is I want to
thank you.
I want to thank you for yourpassion.
I want to thank you for whatyou're doing.
I want to thank the Universityof Arkansas for making this
(37:34):
opportunity available to ourstate and to the people of this
state.
But, phil, thank you.
You're always such a greatguest.
I love and learn every timethat I see you and I just want
to say from all of us thank you,thank you very much, thank you
so much.
It's a joy to do this.
Well, it's been great to haveyou.
Phil will be back.
(37:55):
We'll go bathe in the springand get it back here To our
guests.
Thank you, it's been sowonderful getting to know so
many of you Don't hesitate toreach out to me, send me ideas,
suggestions.
I love that to hear from you.
Thank you for what you're doingbest to you and your businesses
and all the things you do.
(38:16):
Uh, keep keep tuning us in.
We really appreciate that.
And so, phil, again, thank youabsolutely everyone.
Have a wonderful day.
Thank you very much, everyone.
Goodbye.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
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.