What is riskier – starting your own company or being a stuntman? This week, we sit with Nathan Baumeister, serial entrepreneur, aspiring stuntman, and CEO and Co-Founder of ZSuite Technologies to discuss his experience starting businesses. Listen now for insights on entrepreneurship, leading collaboratively, and creating a corporate culture that is full of like-minded individuals.  

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Episode Transcript

Greg Farber: 
Welcome to the Building Interest Podcast presented by Leader Bank. In season two of our podcast we've been exploring what it means to be a leader through conversations with leaders from within the communities we serve from across the world of banking and technology. Each conversation focuses on our guest's personal leadership journey and provides insights on what it means to be a good leader. In our last episode, we were joined by Brian Taylor, Chief Financial Officer at Leader Bank. And we talked about his journey of becoming a CFO and how recent bank failures impacted financial portfolios, risk management and other aspects of the industry. If you haven't listened yet, I do suggest you give episode 23 a listen. Today, I'm excited to announce that we are joined by Nathan Baumeister CEO and co-founder of ZSuite Technologies to discuss his leadership journey, entrepreneurial successes, and the importance of living your brand. Welcome, Nathan.

Nathan Baumeister :
Hey thanks, Greg. Excited to be here.

Greg Farber: 
I'm excited to have you. So it's great to talk to you once again. And you know, over the years, our paths crossed a few times in our day-to-day roles between my duties at the Bank and your duties over at ZSuite. But we never really got to talk about what makes these things tick. And so I definitely want to talk a little bit about banking and fintechs today and what all that means. But first, let's just step back a bit. You were actually in some totally different industries before is that right?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yeah. So I always knew that I wanted to run companies, build companies, do startups, all that fun stuff, but I really didn't have a vision of what industries are where I wanted to get started. And so my first opportunity, it fell in my lap to help someone start a company in the fitness industry, It's actually inventing a new fitness product, I didn't invent it, he invented it, and I helped him with it. And so spent a couple of years in that industry working on a couple different projects there. Before I decided that though, I love health and fitness, it was not what I wanted to spend my professional time doing. And, you know, fell into fintech, specifically working with banking software. Right after that, and it's been a great ride since then. It's a wonderful industry.

Greg Farber:   
So you kind of just woke up one day and decided that your lot in life was going to be to help companies get off the ground. How do you kind of get interested or involved in that in the first place?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Well, let's go back to high school. Okay. I actually made that decision all the way back in high school. There was kind of two paths I saw my my life going down. One was I really wanted to be a stuntman and an actor. I thought that that would be awesome. But mainly stuntman stuff, I grew up...

Greg Farber: 
Sounds awesome.

Nathan Baumeister:  
I know it sounds like you get to jump off buildings, and they set you on fire. And you get to crash cars like this sounds amazing, right? So I was a diver, and I was also a gymnast. So I was always very comfortable with heights and flipping and all that stuff. And anyways, it sounded like a lot of fun. So that was one thing that interested me. And then for some reason, the other thing that interested me was starting up and running companies. It felt like it was a good mixture of kind of risk and fun, but you kind of still have a lot of control over your own destiny, and kind of doing those types of things. And at some point, I decided that maybe startup companies was a little bit riskier than being a stuntman. I actually don't know if that's true now that I've been working with startups for as long as I have now. ​​​​​

Greg Farber: 
But I mean, I suppose there's risk in anything, right? But at least in this case, the risk is not that you're going to be set on fire or that you're going to fall to your death down a canyon or something.

Nathan Baumeister:  
Well, getting set on fire is actually part of the purpose, right?

Greg Farber:   
Getting hurt while set on fire.

Nathan Baumeister:    
There you go. Yep. But don't worry, my retirement plans after doing you know, entrepreneurship for a while is I'm sure that someone will want a 50 or 60-year-old stuntman at some point, right?

Greg Farber: 
I mean, movies crash people of all ages right now. And that actually sounds like it would have been a lot of fun. But we're glad you chose the path you took. And so so let's talk for a moment then about the relationship between our companies kind of big picture and you mentioned the word fintech. Now, ZSuite is a fintech, which is a portmanteau or a mash-up of financial and technology. So really, that's one of the biggest spaces in banking right now as we see sort of traditional banking give way to technology for efficiency and data analytics. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. But really high level then let's talk for a second what is it that ZSuite is and does, and what financial technology does it provide that didn't exist in traditional banking before all this fancy tech came along?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yeah, absolutely. I love sharing that story. And of course, I love sharing it when I'm talking to someone at Leader Bank as well, because in the end, the origins of ZSuite technologies started at Leader Bank. So super high level, like you said, financial technology, it's kind of all over the place. It's any technology that has to do with moving money or keeping track of money or anything like that, the banking sector is one of the places where it is. The other big one is on the investment side, obviously, I focus on the banking side as well as Leader Bank, because you are literally a bank. But what was interesting is that Leader Bank, many, many years ago, you all acted like entrepreneurs in that you were looking to solve some business issues, you found a way to solve it, that helped you but also helped your clients and helped you grow. It was specifically to grow deposits with landlords and property managers by providing some purpose-built software for them. And after having some success with that other banks kind of raise their hand and say, hey, that's kind of cool. Can I use that software that you built? because I want to use it for my clients. And, you know, as all leaders need to do, and I think this is a great leadership lesson, is you need to decide what business you're in, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses, and what is necessary to find success in whatever endeavor you choose to go down. And so, Leader Bank determined, you know, had great success. But if there's going to be a software that's going to be licensed by a lot of different banks and those types of things, that's not what the Bank does. And so to give it its own life, and to let it flourish, and innovate and stuff like that, so decided to spin that out. And that's actually when I met the Leader Bank team. And we discussed founding ZSuite technologies as the starting point of the software that was developed within Leader Bank. And so we did that all the way back in 2019. And it's been fabulous. So far, across the journey of, you know, the four years that we've been in business. And we started with the software to help landlords and property managers, to help banks build relationships with them. We've now since expanded our portfolio to help with escrow and subaccounting, it's really nerdy. It's super niche. But there's very complicated accounts that a lot of businesses have to use to run their business on a day-to-day basis. And our software just makes it simpler for them to do that. And then the benefit the banks get are those deposits and relationships with those commercial customers. So from a high level, that's what we do. That's what we focus on.

Greg Farber: 
So obviously, you mentioned Leader Bank. And we'll talk a little bit more about the genesis of ZSuite, though, right from the bank side. So the bank is looking to leverage a new product or facilitate a particular process or something right, and you go out and you're looking for a solution. Now, in our case, we started by building that solution. But it doesn't always work that way. But what does that relationship look like from your side? Right? Because you're the one who has the answer? How do you find the bank that's asking the question, how do you look to add more banks as your clients? Do they come to you? Do you find them? Is it always one of those two directions and not the other?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yeah, well, it's all of the above. As any entrepreneur will tell you, everything relies on sales, when you're starting a company, everything relies on finding people, customers, companies, banks, that have a problem that you can solve with whatever it is that you are offering. And luckily, one of the things that was helpful is since the genesis of our software started at the Bank, we knew that at least one bank had a problem. And it was big enough that they determined that they should build it themselves. And so the first thing that we focused on was, okay, what are the other banks in the United States that have a similar issue or that look like Leader Bank? And what can we do to get in front of them?

Greg Farber: 
And you knew it was a problem that needed solving because we needed to solve it wasn't like you were coming in blind and trying to sell some product that no bank wanted? You already knew, as a matter of fact that there was at least one bank there was at least that needed this product, and therefore you had sort of an inroad.

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yes, so we started with that. And in the end, any person that is trying to build a company or launch a new product, I would just say if you can find a pain point that multiple people have and you can solve it, then whether or not your first contact with them is because you reached out to them or they reached out to you or whatever it might be if you're solving something that really is a big enough pain for them, that the sales will take care of themselves. I mean, you still have to follow your appropriate processes and do all your marketing you can have, you know, good relationships and all that stuff. But it's a heck of a whole lot harder if you're not solving the actual problem that they have.

Greg Farber: 
And it sounds to me like, that's really where you came in, right? So for sort of for the history lesson for the background here, the idea of, of these Z products, like you mentioned, they did start organically within Leader Bank, they were a part of Leader Bank, initially, when we kind of, there was a team here at the Bank that developed this and came up with this. But then, as you mentioned, when we wanted to start being able to leverage that technology to other banks and fill that need, and other places, it would look a little funny, if a bank-owned company, were pitching this to other banks. And so ZSuite was born as an independent entity. Now, enter Nathan Baumeister, now the product is already built. Your job now is to build the company around the product, right?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yeah, absolutely.

Greg Farber:   
So what does that look like? What like, you show up day one, and here's a product, banks want this? Go to work? What are you doing?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Well remember, one bank wants it? That's what we do. Right? One bank wanted it. And you know, first and foremost, we did have a great set of team members that came from Leader Bank that helped to seed the company we started as well. So groups came. But really in the end, the process that we went through, there's some folks that call it market validation. Another one, another group calls it product market fit. But looking for product market fit in the end, is market validation and product market fit quite honestly, it's exactly what it sounds like. Is there a market for the product that you have? Right? If there isn't, then stop, like close down the business and move on.

Greg Farber: 
It sounds ultra basic and obvious but it's probably not that easy, is it?

Nathan Baumeister:  
You know, it's funny, because it does, it does seem ultra basic and that everyone should be doing it. But what you typically see happen as people are starting up companies, is they have an idea. And there's multiple reasons why they might have that idea. But then they take that idea. And they say I need to make this reality, and then I'm going to take it to the marketplace. And that is why most startups fail, is because they have an idea. They get married to that idea. And then they take it to market and most of the time they don't find enough customers who will pay enough money to sustain the business that they have. What we are always focused on is flipping that around. What pain points do you have, that we can help you with? And that's what we did for the first year, after we spun out from the bank. Like I said, I knew that at least one bank had a need and we could fulfill it.

Greg Farber:   
But our pain points might be different from another bank.

Nathan Baumeister:  
Exactly. So we got in front of as many banks as we possibly could. We also talked to credit unions, for those of you that are steeped in the banking world, there's banks and credit unions, differences in financial structures, but in the end offer somewhat similar products. We talked to everybody that we could, and we say hey, we have these things, they do this, Is there anything that you struggle with that is related to this? Like would this help you with something? Or if not, are there other things that are related to it that could help you? And after doing that time and time again, first, we did uncover that there were banks that had a similar pain point. But what was interesting, is there's a lot of banks that said, Ah, this thing from this product is really interesting, but I can't license it. We're like, Well, why not? Well, because we have a bigger issue, that the thing that you're solving is only a subset of, and so I'm not going to license it until you can solve the bigger issue. And I don't want to get too technical. But basically, as I mentioned, we work with escrow accounts. The original product that we had was to help with tenant security deposit accounts, which is a type of escrow account. And we found out there's a bunch of other their government entities, nonprofits, law firms, funeral homes, nursing homes, there's all these different companies that need to use escrow, and there wasn't a good solution out there.

Greg Farber:   
So viability came in the form of adaptability.

Nathan Baumeister:  
That's right. And it always does right? And this is this is why I say that if you start a company married to an idea you will fail. If you start a company with a market that you're going after, and big open ears to ask a whole bunch of questions of what problem you're trying to solve, you will find a problem that you can help with that they're willing to spend money on.

Greg Farber:   
So I had a particular sort of question in mind that I wanted to go down this road, and now I have to adapt my question much like business kind of have to with what we've been talking about here, right? Jumping from a totally different industry and a totally different background and now immersing yourself in fintech. I mean, that's a bit of a leap of faith on your part. But maybe it's not. Maybe it's just a culmination of really carefully calculated risks, right? I mean, it seems to have worked out but did you did you know, somehow that it would work out? Like, was this a leap of faith? Or was this? Oh, no, I know exactly how we're going to take this company forward.

Nathan Baumeister:  
Well, I already told you that I was a gymnast. I was a diver. I love rock climbing.

Greg Farber:   
So some level of leap of faith is just innate in you.

Nathan Baumeister:  
I wanted to be a stuntman, right? Like, they're...

Greg Farber: 
But you always still want to land. They always want to jump through the air, but they always want to land on their feet.

Nathan Baumeister:  
Exactly. Well, like as an example, with rock climbing. I always climb with a rope and a harness, Right? Right. So it is about, I'm okay with taking risks. But I always want to make sure that it's as calculated as possible. And that's true in my personal life as it is in my professional life. That being said, I also, I'm a big believer in growth. I'm a big believer in always trying to improve ourselves. And if we don't put ourselves in risky situations that require some faith, some element of faith to move forward into the unknown. I don't think that we're going to get the type of growth that could be possible. But when you take those risks, it's again, how calculated could it be right? So I got as much education as I could. I got as many mentors as I could. I got as much experience as I could. I studied as many startup companies as I possibly could to look into what's going to happen. But I will say I mean, it does take a leap of faith. So when I first talked to Jay Tuli there at Leader Bank, about ZSuite Tech, I did not know that we would end up building an escrow and subaccounting platform. I can tell you that right now. But what I did know is that I had a solid foundation to build from, and I knew that I was curious enough that I'm sure I could find something that will help to build this business in a way that will be successful. Now, how big of a business? What's the specific solution? How long is it going to take how much capital is going to be required? All those things that I know everything? No, did I take an educated guess? Absolutely. Right? Yeah, I had my Excel spreadsheet, I had my financial model, I had all those different types of things. I ran different scenarios say, well, if it went like this, how would it look? If it went like this? How would it look, but in the end, I didn't really know.

Greg Farber: 
But now going back to your climbing example, I mean, obviously, you brought a rope and a harness to this exercise, and you're you're climbing up to the ZSuite rock face. And every now and then there's gonna be a place where maybe you need to back up a little bit or you slip a little bit. That's why you have the rope in the harness and you get back on the rock face and you keep climbing. But it's not just Nathan by himself. You got a whole team there. Right? So now how do you work sort of that, that harnessing and encourage people to get back on the rockface, if they fall off when there's ups and downs in a business that other folks depend on you?

Nathan Baumeister:    
Yeah. Well, that's a great question.

Greg Farber: 
No we get into the leadership, right? Because Nathan falls off the wall and gets back on. That's great for Nathan. But what if a team member falls off the wall? How do you get them back on the wall? And still believing in this startup, that you know, is going to succeed? Because you're the leader, and you've done that risk analysis, and you've got your rope and your harness, but how do you get other folks to buy into that and believe that the business is going to flourish?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yeah. So there's a couple of things that I tried to focus on. But really, the bottom line is, it's all about team selection. It's all about who you invite to climb with you just to take on this scenario.

Greg Farber:   
I love the analogy.

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yeah. If your team is to climb a rock face and you're the only one who knows how to climb and no one else knows how to climb, then you're gonna fail. It's not going to go well. So first and foremost, it's absolutely about team selection, who it is that you invite to join, as well as those that accept that invitation. So that's the first piece, the second piece, full disclosure and transparency, right? I don't hide anything about anything. We're all in this together. We're all trying to accomplish the same thing. We all share the information together so that we can make decisions together and so that we continue to move forward. And we keep that communication up. So if, hey, I'm slipping. All right, maybe you need to take a break, I'm too tired, I can't do this anymore. Okay, maybe you take a break. This particular route is beyond my skill set. Great. It's not beyond that other person's skill set. Right. And so having high levels of communication with the right people, as you're trying to accomplish big things, is what I think allows a team to be successful. And, you know, there's really not much from my perspective, there's not much more to it than that. It's not that I think that most leaders withhold information on purpose, I just think that they forget the importance of actively sharing often over and over again,

Greg Farber: 
I think that makes a lot of sense. And I think it also makes a lot of sense for the startup mentality, which I know we're really beating this climbing analogy, but it's like you said, the team that you bring on should have some experience climbing, but nobody yourself included, has ever climbed this particular incline before, because it's a startup, it's a new venture. And so that, that really does make a lot of sense in terms of, maybe you're partway up and you know it's not the right best way. And you track back a little bit, you have to communicate to your team that we're gonna go a different route.

Nathan Baumeister:  
And here's why. Here's what we found up there. Does everyone agree? Does anyone want to push back because it's not the right decision to make good like, speak up, because we need to know.

Greg Farber:   
Now, with all that, and changing over time, and seeing sort of where things work and where they don't? Before ZSuite was its own company, it was basically the child of a strong financial institution, then all of a sudden, you have to stand on your own. What's that challenge, like, from a leadership perspective, from culture from, you know, being independent and profitable within changing market conditions, but you no longer have the Bank as the master safety rope?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yep. Well, I think that, you know, first things first, if you want to build a software company, or let me back up, if you want to build any type of company, when I talk about the team that's with you. It is the whole team. So it's not just the actual employees or team members or members of your leadership team and executive team and your developers and stuff like that. It's also the investors that you have and the support that you have. So the first thing that we did, is we not only recruited the team to run the company and build the company, but we also recruited outside investors that could help us as well and support it. Those who know software that knew the industry and knew the space knew the team that we were putting together and what we were trying to build, to be able to have that support. And so that we didn't have the safety, if you will, from being part of the Bank, we still retained a lot of the support of the Bank, both as a customer, as well as a shareholder. But then we also brought in additional folks to be able to, you know, have a more well-rounded team around building a software startup company to be able to move forward. But in the end, yeah, it's a little scary. I mean, it's a little bit different than what you're looking for. But in the end, and that difference. We all understood the reason why we were doing it. And we knew that if we wanted to have the type of success that we wanted to have that it was the right thing to do. And so we pulled the trigger and moved forward.

Greg Farber: 
Now, absolutely. It goes back to that leap of faith you it was a leap of faith, but you also calculated very much what the risk was along the way and made sure that you stepped carefully. So no, I think that's really, really interesting. And, you know, thinking about how companies exist, you always just think about the employee team. And like you mentioned, there's so much more to it. There's the companies you work with, there's the investors behind you, and so forth. I think that's really, really key for folks listening to kind of understand how to make sure you have a viable company, rather than like you said, a startup where you're married to an idea, but you don't have that support and that drive and it just it doesn't end up working. So, let's dig a little bit more into you personally. We talked a lot about leadership this season on Building Interest. And we talked about a lot of bank products and things last year, and we really trying to get to that leadership, role type of thing this year. And leadership comes in a lot of different, different formats. And a leader isn't always a person that has CEO and co-founder in their title. You conveniently have those and that puts you in a position where people look up to you and they admire you and they want you to be their leader. Earlier this season. We spoke with a gentleman named Marty Sunde as another earlier episode this year that I would highly recommend.

Nathan Baumeister:  
He's a great friend of mine. I've known him for years.

Greg Farber:
He's a wonderful man, he really is. He shared this concept of having a personal theme or a personal brand or personal slogan, rather than just having a culture at a company sort of to adhere to. And so I'm curious, do you have a personal slogan or a personal brand or theme that you carry with you that regardless of what company you're at, or regardless of what the next stunt is that that you want to get into, that keeps you sort of anchored and moving forward in your personal brand?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yeah, this goes way back when I was an undergrad in the University of Texas at Austin, studying business. And so I knew I was going to do business. But I also had a lot of personal interests in helping people, helping society, right. Like I wanted to help make the world a better place. And I always, for the longest time, I thought, these are two separate things that, you know, maybe during the day, you can do this thing. And at night, you can do the other thing. And we did a case study on Southwest Airlines, which makes sense, because, you know, it's a, it's a tech startup, it was a huge success. The co-founder was such a character. And they went about things in a very, very different way. But I remember sitting there and going through this case study, and they're sharing this motto of they take care of their employees, to be this wonderful place to work where people can flourish, people can be themselves, they can have fun, they can do good work together, and everything else will take care of itself. So this is my first introduction to like positive work culture is also my first introduction to trying to make the world a little bit of a better place through business, right? They were trying to make air travel more accessible to more people, right? Just because it's more convenient, more flexible, more affordable, all these kinds of things. That's right. They didn't see their competitors as other airplanes. They saw it as cars, right? How can I get people to places faster, and that stuck with me. I was like, well, I mean, if that's the case, any company I start or any company I work with, I want to work at a place like that. That actually cares about people, cares about their team members, cares about their customers, is trying to help people improve their lives, and stuff like that. It wasn't just about profit, profit, profit. And so I made a commitment at that point in time as an undergrad that that's what I wanted to do. And that's really carried through the personal desires that I have to connect with people deeply, serve them, love them, care about them, is in my whole sphere of influence, whether it's building companies, or outside of building companies, and that's always been my mantra, you know, I don't have a specific motto or anything like that. But I care deeply about people, I have a very strong desire to serve others, to be able to help them be better, become better, whatever they need to be able to be more fulfilled and more full of joy. And I want to do that through the companies that I'm a part of, as well as in my personal life. And that'll continue to be the case, no matter what happens in the future.

Greg Farber: 
So the expression is laughter is contagious, right? And so contagious has kind of a negative connotation in our society. But do you feel like your brand of leadership is contagious? Does that allow folks who work with you or for you, or so to get that same vibe and to feel that same joy in it and energy in the workplace?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Well, that's a question you're gonna have to ask others. Because, you know, I don't know, because part of it is, is I don't, I don't know how much I can actually influence other people that I work with, to kind of take on that type of attitude and stuff like that. Or if it's just, we all kind of attract each other. To be or not to be able to do those types of things. But I can say, absolutely, the people that I've worked with throughout my career, I have found so many like-minded individuals that I've just absolutely loved building businesses with as well as building lives with and it has just been such an immense pleasure. It is 100% my favorite part of business.

Greg Farber:   
So, kind of last topic for you. You mentioned a bit ago about what you do during the day and what you do during the night. And you already kind of hinted that in some ways for you this blends together and you obviously bring some of your personal drive and your personal likes and experiences into the workplace. But most people aren't necessarily switched on 24/7. Right? Everybody needs a chance to recharge their batteries get ready for the next big thing change in their lives and their careers. What does Nathan Baumeister do to recharge, what's something that people may not know about you that you get to do in your off time, you come back to work, always with that fresh, ready smile to love your business and your people and move forward?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yeah, well, the way I usually think about it is there's different spheres in everybody's life. And I don't think that they should all be treated equally, all the time, but all of them should be balanced out. So you should do the appropriate investment across each sphere that helps you to feel the most energized and most fulfilled, to continue doing all the things that you love, and or that you need to do.

Greg Farber:   
There's a time and a place for everything, but don't do one at the expense of the other.

Nathan Baumeister:    
Well, so you're always going to have trade-offs. Right, you're always going to have trade-offs. But what I found is if you're making too much of a trade-off, you will know it. Because you will have less energy or a little bit more cranky or you can't you're not living up to your potential or whatever it might be. So professionally, what I do when we come to work and all that stuff. Family is a huge one for me. I'm lucky enough that I have four wonderful kids, a wonderful wife, a dog that I love spending time with, as well as kind of all my extended family. I personally believe everybody needs a creative outlet, everyone needs to dive into creativity. You know, if you're seeing the video here, you can see my guitars in the background, I have a drum set over here. I love music, I love acting, love performance, I love doing these types of things to do that creative itch for some people, build an Excel spreadsheet is their creativity, other people, it's coding things, other people, you know, it doesn't have to be like artistic, but some sort of creative outlet. physicality, or fitness, I think is absolutely important, looks different for everybody. And spirituality is another one. That, to me is important. And a lot of people might hear that and think organized religion, I am, you know, active in organized religion. But I think there's a lot of ways to connect with spirituality outside of organized religion, but it's about that community and trying to figure out, you know, deeper meanings in life and why I'm here, whatever it might be. And it's looking across the spheres that I think are important. And if I find that I'm not investing enough time, in any one of these...

Greg Farber:   
You'll notice.

Nathan Baumeister:  
I notice. And I need to ask the question, okay, what is it that I need to change, to be able to kind of get back into balance? And so anyways, in all of it, I pick things that are interesting to me, and that are fun to me, just so happens that all of them happen to be challenging, because like I said, I like to

Greg Farber: 
It's just you.

Nathan Baumeister:  
That's kind of the thing that I like to do. But some people don't like maybe just certain spheres, they want to be challenged and others, they want to be very comfortable, which is perfectly fine. It's just, you know, experimenting and trying different things?

Greg Farber: 
No, I think that's a great answer. And I look at a little bit that myself, you know, I also have a family and, you know, a kid and two dogs and all that sort of thing. And usually by 10 o'clock at night, I'm completely gassed. But every now and then I'll go down some rabbit hole of a hobby of mine or something. And all of a sudden you look down and it's 12:30, It's one o'clock, and you don't know where the time went. And though that time is that moment where I feel the most recharged because everything else didn't matter. And I was just free in that in that time for a little bit. And I love that you call it creativity, whether it's the time with the family or the spirituality or the guitars. Yeah, just letting your brain be free. And creative is a great, great recharge. I love how you phrase that. Any last thoughts? Any any suggestions for the next great startup person that's listening? That goes, Oh, I have an idea. Now I know I shouldn't be married to it. What else should I know if I want to start a company?

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yeah, I gotta tell you. So though changes are all around us, the world fights against change. Right? And a startup company represents all the changes, right? Because there is some things that people are doing in one certain way, and you want to change it and you're hoping by changing it that people will pay you for it. You'll be able to make something that you know can grow and do all that fun stuff. So as you're thinking about starting a business the world is literally against you.

Greg Farber:   
So motivational, so uplifting.

Nathan Baumeister:  
Well, eyes wide open, right?

Greg Farber:   
You're not wrong.

Nathan Baumeister:  
So the game that you're playing is what is everything I can do to increase my probability of success. So if you start looking at it in that way, you'll look about how you start your company in a different way. So for example, should I start a company in an industry I know absolutely nothing about? Probably not. If in the end, that's the way I'm going to go, then how would I still increase my probability for success? I better hire some people that have some experience, or better put someone on my board or getting investors or whatever it is, that has that experience. So I can bring it to the table. I have a very specific product. And I'm not open to changing my mind on what the product should look like, that's going to decrease your probability of success, how can I increase my probability of success? I have an idea, I'm going to talk to 100 customers that I want to sell to. And I'm going to find out whether or not they would buy it, why or why not?

Greg Farber:   
Is there a magic number out of those 100 customers? If 40 tell you it's a great idea, or 30 or 70? That's that's the point where you should jump in? Or is it?

Nathan Baumeister:  
It depends. The data that you get from those interviews should inform your financial model to be able to help you to understand how many people.

Greg Farber: 
Need to buy in for it to work.

Nathan Baumeister:  
Exactly, exactly. And so, you know, what market are you going after? Am I going to go after a market where there's, you know, 100, well-established competitors. And there's extremely high switching costs for the buyer to move from one product to the other. Well, it's going to be really hard. So if you decide to go after that market, how can you increase your probability of success? Well, you better find a big pain point that those other 100 customers can't touch. Right? That you can exploit.

Greg Farber:
What we call a differentiator.

Nathan Baumeister:  
Yes. Because if you just stick with similar product types, and you're just like, I'm sure I'll be able to convince them to move, your probability of success goes down. So it's all about managing your probabilities and asking what are the biggest risks in my company and how can I decrease the risks to increase my probability of success?

Greg Farber:
Awesome advice, Nathan, thank you so much, honestly, for joining us today. I know it's been a long history already between you and the Bank. And it took us some time to get you on. And I really enjoyed having you with us here today.

Nathan Baumeister:  
Thank you so much for the opportunity. Greg, it was, it was a pleasure speaking to you today. And hope that it, you know, it's helpful for your audience.

Greg Farber: 
Well, it's helpful for me, I love these interviews. So I got something out of it. And yes, I hope everyone else does as well. These are great conversations, and we have so many inspiring and interesting folks around us. Thank you so much. All opinions expressed by Nathan Baumeister are his own and not the opinions Leader Bank, N.A. For more information on today's subject, visit leaderbank.com. In addition to past episodes, you can also find our corresponding blog entries for more insights. This podcast is a production of Leader Bank, N.A. equal housing lender, Member FDIC, NMLS number 449250.