Episode 7: A Twist to Being an Entrepreneur feat. David Ponraj

David offers such vulnerable insight into his journey and what he has learned along the way including the good he took from his corporate environment experiences and how he’s approached fulfilling all of his entrepreneurial talents. His suggestions and viewpoints on how others can make the shift is spot on.

Angela McCourt 0:00
Let's get ready for some serious shift. This is a podcast shifting Inside Out hosted by your quantum shifter Angela McCourt, we are diving into ways to empower and enable a quantum shift. Inspiring topics hacks and guest speakers take us on a journey around authenticity, challenging status quo, personal power and living a purpose filled life

Welcome to episode seven on shifting Inside Out podcast. This is a twist to being an entrepreneur featuring David Pon Raj. I had such a great conversation with David who is the CEO of startup space, a social networking and resource platform for entrepreneurship ecosystem building. David is a serial entrepreneur and also has extensive experience leading tech platforms in corporate America, where he served as an evangelist for intrapreneurship and innovation. Recently, he was awarded the business observer 40 under 40 in the Tampa Bay area, and with stints at two of Tampa Bay's top tech companies Tech Data Nelson on his resume, David felt like he had what it took to launch his own company startup space in 2018. This was a quote from the article in business observer. David launched startup space in June 2018, with the vision to help connect entrepreneurship, ecosystem builders and the resources to small businesses in their communities, and measure the impact of programmatic support to unlock investments back into the community. Today, cities using startup space for connecting entrepreneurs two resources include Detroit, Denver, Boulder, and Minneapolis. They also work with state governments like Maine and universities like University of Nevada to support entrepreneurship and economic development across statewide initiatives. You can learn more about the communities they work in, at WWW dot startup space.us forward slash community forward slash. In this episode, we talk about what it means to be an entrepreneur and how to create an accountable approach to starting your own business. And by the way, it might be quite a bit different than you've heard before, but it's actually simpler. One of my favorite things that David talks about is what to set your premise for when you decide to start your own company. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. As you listen. You can find me on LinkedIn at Angie belts McCourt on Instagram at Angie underscore McCourt, or on Twitter at McCourt, Angie. So without further ado, let's hear from David.

David, welcome to shifting inside out. I am so grateful to have you on this episode. We've known each other for a long time, and it's been so amazing to watch your journey. To get started, why don't you introduce yourself? Thank you, Angie, and I'm really looking forward to the podcast today. My name is David pond Raj, I'm the CEO and founder of startup space, we're a platform for economic developers to help connect them and their small businesses with resources. Fantastic. So we're gonna get to know you a little bit more with just a couple of quick round questions. So the first question is, what is your morning ritual or routine.

David Ponraj 3:48
So as a founder, you work around the clock. And so I don't have one specific routine only because every day brings a different challenge. The one thing I try to consistently do when I'm home, is I try to take my daughter to school every workday morning, and I love that aspect of it. Because it's that bonding time and gets me a chance to just spend one on one time with her. So that's the one thing I consistently do every single day. Other than that, it's like what that day throws at you as a CEO. You just end up going with it.

How do you renew your energy considering you're obviously putting out a lot of energy with what you do with personal and professional life? Yeah, so I want to dive into it later in the podcast, something that you know, I think starting a business is so much also a journey of self discovery. And I found something that I want to share later. But for me, listening to people tell their stories is the number one way in which my energy gets renewed to know what people go through and their challenges kind of minimizes anything that

would bother me and say, and I say, I'm incredibly lucky. And I've got so much more to give back. If If only, you know, I wasn't issue. So the number one way in which I get energy back is by just listening to other people's stories. Ah, that's amazing. I love that. It's like gratitude practice on steroids.

Angela McCourt 5:21
But you're right. I mean, a lot of times, we're so focused on ourselves and renewing our energy, that we don't leverage the energy around us in a way that's so inspiring to us as well. So and that we can learn from right. Very good. Now, what is your guilty pleasure?

David Ponraj 5:38
So one of the things that I'm trying to cut down this year, so I've given up alcohol for the whole year, for no reason, then I wanted to do something different. By one thing that I have not given up is coffee. So it's like six cups a day. It like keeps at I'm this highly intense person, it keeps my intensity, like, you know, sky high, but yeah, the coffee is the one thing that I'm gonna have to give up sometime at least cut it down. But yeah, but six cups of coffee a day. Wow. But I guess if you're working as much as you are, and and, you know, churning ideas and trying to keep that intensity going, that is one way to do it.

Angela McCourt 6:16
Yeah, it's awesome. I love it. Thank you so much, David, for that input. So for today, I thought it would be interesting. I mean, we could probably do a few podcasts with you on different topics. But one of the things that I wanted to kind of focus on today was the entrepreneurship side of you, and your journey, and I think what you bring to others, and what you can share with our audience today about that. And, you know, one of the questions that, like popped into my head is, well, we've known each other a long time. And I think I've always seen that entrepreneurial spirit and you, when can you like, think back to like, the earliest time in life, where you wanted to start your own business, or where you found that entrepreneurial spirit? Yeah, so

David Ponraj 7:07
the best memory I have of, of my childhood is when I would go to school, and my parents would give me all these comics at the start of the year. And I would actually, like create a system where people could like, rent my comic books for me, and I was probably seven or eight years old. And even then, that really fascinated me putting that structure together, making sure that there was accountability that those books came back to me, I don't think I made any money off of that. But I do remember that I love that element of, you know, independence of doing something on your own, and then creating value and, and then as I grew up, I saw my parents do this work. My parents were pioneers in many aspects of their lives, including supporting and helping underprivileged kids. And seeing that I feel like I didn't have a choice, but to go and start out on my own venture, just the culture of entrepreneurship and problem solving was through and through my childhood.

That's amazing. So now, if you were to kind of take us on your journey around that, like, where would you start? So I would start with watching my parents start their own ventures, my parents are in India, and they work in a part of the country where it's really hard to earn a living, so they work with them on really poor people, and they help them with the kids and watching them do that. And, in fact, the one person that has inspired me my whole life, and I draw inspiration from every single day, when it comes to how do you deal with people? How do you lead without power has been my mother, who, in a very rural town, where there are only men, she would walk into the room and command the entire room, or be able to focus on a problem, or be able to drive outcomes? And that really resonated with me to say, how do you be How can you be an accountable leader? How can you lead with empathy? How can you go and lead without any power? And so we I started there, but along the way, I needed a lot of tools, because starting a business is the hardest thing you can do in your life. And so I needed all these tools to be able to actually get to where I am today. And you needed a few failures, you needed to get knocked down a few times because there are more lessons learned there than in your successes because sometimes successes can be easily disguised when there is serendipity or some luck involved. And you think it's your own, but then you get knocked down and then you realize, okay, I don't have everything. And so that cycle a few times has kind of given me a lot of tools to be on this journey that I am today with entrepreneurship and and the evolution has taken a lot of turns one of those

Dunn's were working at Tech Data and getting to meet you and actually learn from your leadership skill. Angie, and you know, when I look back at how do you put a team together? And how do you lead with empathy? And how do you get them to follow a vision? You know, I've learned a lot from great leaders like you that when I started this current venture I'm on, I was able to scale really fast, because of all the lessons learned from my past. That's fantastic. And, you know, I think it's really important for folks to hear that failure is expected. And it's a good thing. And it's something that it actually can launch you into maybe even the right direction, or the right product or service, or whatever a company might be, you know, kind of churning idea wise in your mind. But I think so many of us have, you know, kind of lost the entrepreneurial spirit as we've grown up. And a lot of it comes down to either expectations or fears or limitations. Or it could be one person making a comments like, Oh, that's not a good idea, or how are you going to make that happen? And it could honestly just be a timing thing, right. But in the reality of it is that person ends up holding that as I'm not entrepreneurial, I don't have the commitment, the dedication, I don't have the creativity. I don't have the leadership. I mean, what would you say to those people about, you know, you can overcome this fear, or this limiting belief you have? What would you say to them, just to get them sparked up again, in their ideas? Yeah, so there are several things to consider. One is you can control failure by understanding the risks involved, so you can fail, but you don't have to lose your house. So I tell people, you know, you if you take it personally, and say that, you know, no matter what happens, I am going to,

without any reasoning, just fight through this, you could end up hurting yourself a lot. And then failure has a better taste. What you want to do is to have people in your life that can hold you accountable, and create guardrails and milestones and say, I'm going to take a risk. But it's a calculated risk. I know the upsides and the downsides, it might fail, because like you said, and it could be timing, it could be product market fit, it is not a personal reflection on you. And and it's not just about entrepreneurship, it could be a speaking engagement in your workplace, it could be joining a new team at your workplace, it could be even in your social life, going out and meeting new friends, right, you can create boundaries, you can say, these are the things that I like, these are the things I don't like, these are the these are my strengths, and my weaknesses, and then create a scenario where failure and success are not so much outcomes, but the experience is the outcome. And failure and ramp success are simply byproducts of it, that there is a much bigger reason why you're doing this, it's that incredible experience as a human being is that incredible set of opportunities you're going to open yourself out to. So there are other reasons and parameters on how you going to measure what you're doing and create guardrails around that I think success and failure are just so arbitrary and random. I have failures every single day. And I don't measure my ability to perform or my or my value based on those outcomes. Even the business I'm in currently, it could fail, but it won't be a reflection on me. I have grown incredibly, as a person, I've met incredible people along the way. Those are what life is about, right, because ultimately, there is a lifespan to everything we do and ultimately some things will fail and some things will succeed. They don't reflect who we are. So I would say the first step is to just sit down and write down what you're trying to get as an outcome that's not failure, success, you know, new relationships, new experiences, the ability to grow in your career, push your limits, and then use those as parameters because those you can control, you can't control the outcome. I love that. And, you know, I think we're always in such this polarity kind of mindset around it's good or it's bad, it's success or its failure. But you're right. The lessons learned are in that journey or in that initiation or in that experience. And that's what basically kind of helps build the staircase for us to continue climbing or leaping, to be able to get to those particular you know, types of goals that we set for ourselves. When I look back at your

Angela McCourt 14:47
ability to build relationships, and I've seen you in action building relationships, you're such a genuine, authentic person, you bring trust immediately into that content.

And into that relationship into that engagement. And your current business, I would I imagine that's a big part of what is making the company reach the targets and the goals and, and, you know, kind of that dream that you envisioned for it? How do you go about doing that? And especially in this time where there's so much remote, not necessarily face to face? How has that worked for you? And how have you? Have you been able to do that?

David Ponraj 15:27
First off, thank you for saying all those kind words. In terms of, yeah, in terms of what motivates me, and how we've been able to grow and connect with our audience and our clients. It's about being authentic to your mission. And it might sound like jargon, or it might sound very touchy and feely, but it's actually not. It's just asking yourself, What do you care about, because if you can articulate what you care about, and share that with people, you don't have to worry about what they care about, they will find a way to rally around you. And so I've been in a lot of sales, pitches, sales, meetings, etc. I don't even talk about what we do. I just tell people why I care. Because if they know why I care, they will find a way to rally around it. And they'll call me after the meeting to say by the way, you never told me what you do, which there is some way for us to partner together. And and that mission led and purpose LED is so critical in this day and age, when we are bombarded with so much information that could be true or not true from all sides, with social media, etc. People need authenticity, people need purpose, people need a mission in every aspect of their lives, including at the workplace. So for our company, we spend a lot of time asking ourselves, why does what we do matter? First, personally, for me, I share with my team, why what matters to me, as them to tell us back what they care about. It does not have to be what I care about. But they come with their own passions and their own interests. And then we ask our clients to tell us why they care about this. And then we're able to rally around a common cause saying that, okay, we all have different aspirations, different motivations, different experiences. But when we come together, we're going to build something beautiful, because we all come with a passion for something we care about. And there is a common ground where we can unite and move really big issues forward. And so that is what I care about. I've I we don't have you know, we have employees in eight to nine states, we've never asked them what they do not we don't have any time clocks, no punch in punch outs, what I really am genuinely interested in is what motivates each of them. What do they care about? Why do they wake up every morning, it might have nothing to do with work. But if I know what they care about, I can find common ground for us to rally together.

Angela McCourt 17:56
I love that you are like the future state of what all leaders need to be trained is to trust your employees, but then all in your call your team members, but then also ensure that there's always a bridge to them, and what they contribute also to the big picture, because I think that's where so many people get disengaged and disconnected, is they just think of it as it's just a job. It's just tasks I do all day long. I don't even understand what my value contributes to the end, you know, result for our customers. But I think the fact that you spend time really engaging with each person and understanding what drives them, it helps you to be able to create that bridge and be the bridge to that, for that value for them, which that they're going to stay engaged. They're going to be working longer hours than, you know, you would probably expect. And they're going to be putting that much more impactful effective effort in not just time based effort, you know, which is where a lot of the workforce is today, mentally, emotionally, and connection wise and engagement wise. So I love what you're doing. I love your philosophies. You haven't always worked for yourself, though you you've been a tech data you've been at Nielsen, from being in those corporate environments, like what do you find? Number one was very helpful on your journey to being an entrepreneur on your own because I I view entrepreneurs inside of these big corporations as well. They're not always received. They don't always fit in the box for the corporations. But you know, they do bring a sense of spirit and curiosity and drive and mission in those companies. So talk to us a bit about what your journey was like through that. What you you know, learned from that, what you brought into those environments, that really ended up bringing you now to this path.

David Ponraj 19:53
So what I love about corporate America is the amount of energy it can bring to any particular problem. that you can't as a small business, so you look at like, you know, big issues around measurement or connectivity or technology or innovation. And these companies are at the forefront of it, because they can mobilize a lot of people to look in the same direction. And so I think that there's a value there in that large corporations can do things that small businesses cannot do in creating this high amount of energy. But I feel there is more wrong with corporate America today than there is right. And I don't say it in a in a spiteful way, or I don't say it to, to demean the work that people do in corporate America, I feel that we've gotten ourselves to a point where we've kind of lost what it means to be human. And we've gotten to a point where a lot of our leaders are so focused on numbers, that they forget that if you are human, those numbers are actually really easy, because that's the energy that that corporation has. But because they have not sought sat back and thought for a second, they figured we use it, we use spreadsheets, and we use PowerPoints. And we use our leadership titles to get work done, which creates a lot of bad taste, distrust, a lot of negative energy. And I personally left corporate America because I felt that I could no longer be useful and use all my talents. And I actually lead entrepreneurship for my organization in my title was head of innovations. So I looked at emerging technology, and a lot of them are small business and startups who brought this new innovation. And, and in spite of our in spite of my title, I spent most of my time actually trying to save the company money when innovation is about investments. And that was because we had leaders that did not have did not have the courage to say we're going to actually invest in people, not just say that, but actually invest in the long run, we might have some short term losses, but in the long run, we will be much further and I look back, it's been four or five years since I left, and the company I worked at a Nielsen actually went through a huge downturn, then they still ended up losing all those short term gains. So I look at it and say, you know, in corporate America, I feel like we sometimes lose the discipline that you might have to step out to be able to actually look within. But I feel like there's a lot of room for authenticity, I feel like this. And I think leaders are starting to get it, a lot of the big companies are starting to realize that if you put people first. And if you really let people if you know there are two or three things, you need to be successful, you need to have autonomy over your work, you need to have mastery over your work. And then you need to have like the right incentive structure. And the right incentive structure doesn't mean throwing a lot of money at it. Right, but really caring about what employees care about. And can I just say, none of what I am sharing today is unique or new to me, I have learned from great leaders along the way. And a lot of it is just me personalizing what I've learned. It is not any new wisdom that I came up with. It's just me, I read about one part one audio book a month at least. And so everything that I see in practice I've learned from others like you.

Angela McCourt 23:25
Now, that's awesome. And I totally agree with you. And I think the reason it's so good to talk about it, though is that there can be change. And there can be a shift in this kind of focus internally, in the wrong ways in the wrong areas versus even externally, right customer as well should be included somewhere in the in the lines, but a lot of times that gets lost. And a lot of the corporations have, you know, the opportunity, I would say, from a leadership perspective to make some of those shifts, but it can't just be one person trying to drive it because guess what, they're going to get very frustrated with every roadblock they hit internally. And every time they try to share, you know, their thoughts, their approaches, and they're getting shot down, they will end up leaving that company and they'll hopefully go to a company who actually is going to do something that they're bringing to the table to make the shift. Meanwhile, that same company is going to struggle and they're going to they're not going to be able to evolve, and they possibly could end up you know, having a big downturn or going out of business because they're not live less listening to their people. And they're not allowing for that evolution that really needs to happen to get away from this wrong set of internal focus areas. Which is typically just numbers. Yeah, yeah. That's amazing. So and when you decided to leave, you had a young baby I think she was she was only what in her first year. Yeah, I think Yeah, what you know, this is this is a big deal. This is a big story. Now you and your wife both worked in corporate America. So you know, you had you know, her income while you were going to start your business. But what was that? Like? What was that conversation like with her? And you know how you talked about us, others around you to hold you accountable, set those boundaries, set those kinds of guideposts and milestones that you want to reach? What was that like for you? And what advice can you give others who might be thinking about going on this journey?

David Ponraj 25:34
Yeah, so the reason I left one was, I felt I was not using my talents to the fullest. The other is a, it's like, innate to me is to be useful, is everything I measure by the yardstick of whether I'm being useful in the work I'm doing, and both me and my wife, she worries, we both felt that I wasn't utilizing all my talents. And so that was our primary motivation, because she seen me, and she knows what I'm passionate about. And she felt that I was no longer passionate about the things I was working on. And so we realized it was time for me to go back and really focus on on bringing my best self to work. And that meant I'm going to have to go on my own. Now, one of the things that, that I've been trying to tell people about starting a business is the number one reason why you start a business, there are a lot of social reasons. But if you're trying to start a for profit business, the number one reason is starting a for profit business is to become rich, period. And, and so you know, there are we are a socially driven company, we're very socially minded, we put our money, where about this, we support a lot of courses across the country, etc. But we can afford all that because we're profitable, because we actually, you know, are making money. And so the number one reason is to be rich, therefore, you cannot do anything that will make you become poor, because that's going against what you want to do. And so I try to talk in these very simple terms, you're trying to become rich, don't become poor, which means don't do any activity that is going to be detrimental to becoming rich, including don't pursue a venture that will make you poor. So that was one of the first conversations, Sharif and I had, which was, we're not going to lose our house, we're not going to become any worse off than we are today. We might never become richer than we are today. But we're definitely not getting poorer than we are today. Because then it defeats the purpose of going into business. Right Microsoft pick up a hobby, and thereby you don't lose any money, right? So you've got to be accountable to the to that initial premise, or you can start a nonprofit, if you purely just want to give back, right. But if you're trying to start a for profit business, you got to have these rules you've set for yourself, and you need to have an accountability partner. And so you can it can be a spouse, it can be a mentor, it can be a local community leader, or a friend. And you got to break your journey into milestones. The reason why it has to be this kind of scientific approach is because starting a business is actually just a series of steps that can be taught. And we see it being taught really well in amazing institutions, including there is a group out of Hillsborough Community College called inlab, where they have like 80% success rate or higher for the students who go through the entrepreneurship program and start a business because those steps can be taught. So that's amazing. Yeah, so if you're trying to start a business, you can actually think of all these steps. And with that, we created milestones. And we said, we are as I basically took my 401k and said, That's the total amount of money we're willing to lose. So during my time at Nielsen had gotten a 401k. There are other ways in which you can get some grant money or seed money, etc. But you start with a pool of your own money, because there's nobody waiting to give you any money. No matter how great of an idea you have, like, you might have a rocket ship, you can build to the moon, nobody's going to give you money till that rocket ship shows up. Right? So you start with a pool of money, create milestones for the money knowing that when the money is out, if you haven't reached to your first customer, you kind of have lost the plot. That's the reality, like unless you're like high end innovation, and you're working on a commercialization program, tied to intellectual property, etc. There are some variations but for most small businesses, you've got your pool of money, you break that into milestones. Your one of your final milestones has to be to find your first customer who's willing to pay you and you work backwards from there and say, What is Milestone One look like? What is milestone two look like? And you basically remove emotion out of it. You will bring your passion to work every day, but not to your failed pass decision. There your accountability partner will simply say this fail or succeed is not a reflection of you. It's a reflection of the market conditions and Sometimes you'll have to just stop and go back to work for somebody else while you retool and get your capital back, your social capital, your network, etc. But the primary mission, which was to not become poor has been achieved. So, for me, I look at entrepreneurship. And you know, while we have Shark Tank, and all these other kind of glorified stories around entrepreneurship, it is personal, right? It's about putting food on the table, it's about breaking down poverty, it's about people having the means to do the things they want to do. And therefore it has to be very much sequential, and milestone based and accountability based. It can't just be a write a business plan, that no longer works.

Angela McCourt 30:43
Amazing. That was such great advice. And I know that there are some people out there getting sparked right now, with inspiration. They're saying, I'm going to pull that idea back out, because he's right. It's, it's the practicality of it. And it's the process of, you know, just being able to do one thing at a time, being able to build on it. And also, I've found just in my own journey, there are so many people out there willing to mentor willing to give advice. There's so many programs out there that give you those step by step. You know, here's how to do it. And, you know, I think to your comment about like, why you go into it, too, is it is not? It has to have an ultimate goal, or, you know, like this is the this is the big end result. Because what I've heard from folks is, well, I don't expect to make a lot of money, well, then guess what, they don't make a lot of money at it, it's like almost like they set themselves up for that, or I wasn't expecting to, you know, be able to to scale this as big as, you know, it could probably be I just wanted to keep it contained, because I thought that's all I could manage by myself. And guess what, that's all they get? You know. So I think you're right, I think it's a matter of you know, you know, set your goals, but don't set them so tightly. And so, specifically, from a, it has to be this amount of money, or it has to be this particular approach to market or has to be this size of a team that I ended up hiring. I like your it's to get rich. I liked your approach. Just put it out there is that? Yeah. However it happens, you know, you haven't tied a specific attachment to the outcome necessarily. You said, Okay, let it happen the way it's gonna happen, but I'm gonna take these steps and and I may have to take a different path. And I may have to adjust along the way. But I but I'm not attaching to something real specific. It's just

David Ponraj 32:42
absolutely, absolutely. In fact, you will, I have made hundreds of pivots, Anji like hundreds of pivots along the way. And that's why I say don't write a business plan. You know, I have a framework and a roadmap on what I want to do. But instead, I let the customer write the business plan for me, I ask the customer, what do you care about? What problem am I solving for you? Let me convert that into a marketing slideshow of this the problem I solve for you, because then there are more people that will rally around that. And I feel like that essence of solving problems and moving the needle and making this world a better place to live is where the money is. And we don't know that when we're starting out. We don't know what problem we will ultimately solve for. Right? The customer knows. Yeah, so yeah, and evolved. And we've evolved pivoted so many times, the first version of my product I sold for $25. Today, that product with all of the enhancements that we got from customer feedback, we sell for over $125,000, that same product, which that customers told us in less than two years. Yeah. So yeah, it's so you're absolutely right, you know, don't create all these boundaries that are artificial, you know, have a very simple premise. And let the customer tell you where the problem is. And, and so and also, the CEO has to wear as a small business CEO, you have to wear multiple hats, you need to know how to motivate your employees, right? They want to have good incomes, they want to care for their families, and you're responsible for that. But you're also responsible for motivating them. So being able to take I want to be rich, down to what problem am I solving for? And what value am I adding to the community. And this is how my employees create that value. You need to be able to tell all those stories, which you don't need to know on day one, you will grow into it as your company grows. You know, as my child has grown, she's taken on amazing forms that I could never expect you will as an individual as well. That's awesome.

Angela McCourt 34:41
I love it. So I know you're involved in the community quite a bit in your podcast, as well as your company really highlights and focuses on you know, I would say the the voice that doesn't end up getting a lot of platform or a lot of time to hear and listen to Two, what's the motivation there? And what would you like to see come out of, you know, both both your highlighting in the company and then the podcast as well.

David Ponraj 35:09
Yeah. Also, before I do that, I also want to give one shout out. So one of the organizations I'm passionate about, and I'll tell you why I'm passionate about it. So I am very passionate about tennis. Okay, so this is like this my outlet. So I play tennis twice a week or three times a week. And that is a great place for me to have a moment of mindfulness, where I can switch off everything else. And my only focus is being thankful for the ability to play being they're having a great time leaving without any injuries. That's the goal there. And of course, very competitive in nature, but win or lose, as long as you leave without injuries, you've had a great time you won, if you you know, able to play. But in the last year or so when I go to play tennis at Hillsborough Community College once a week, I started seeing these line of cars coming in every Saturday, and I started talking to some of the organizers asking, you know, what is this and researching it, there have been weeks where I've seen over 4000 cars lined up for getting just a $25 box of food. And, and so I've been trying to promote the work that feeding Tampa Bay is doing incredible, like we live in the Promised Land, we can't have kids that go hungry in our own country. So I am very passionate about that. We give back as much as we can. But also I love the mission that they're on, to support. So first call out there, if if you're a local listener feeding Tampa Bay, but every city has that chapter of feeding the hungry in that community. And I think that's a great cause we could all rally around in terms of our podcasts. So I have this podcast called breaking down barriers. Because if you think about somebody starting a business, as an average person, if you are an underrepresented founder, an immigrant veteran, returning citizen woman, person of color, etc, it's exponentially harder to start a business because if you remember earlier, I said you know, I took my 401k in a lot of cases, they don't have a 401k said, you know, talk to your friends and family, they don't have a friends and family round where people have money sitting around to help them on their venture. So they start about 100 yards behind the starting line on 100 meter dash. So you know, by the time the race is kicked off, they haven't even made it to the starting line. And so that's a for me, a really primary passion is that while we're doing great work, let's do it for the people that it actually makes a difference to that we actually do it for the people that it's exponentially harder to start a business for no fault of their own, they might have the same ideas, the same passion, the same creativity, the same talents, but yet cannot get to where others will. And so this podcast that I have specifically highlights leaders in the community that do this day in and day out of either leveling the playing field or helping with this, I'll give you a quick example, Angie, you know, in till the 70s the curbs, on our sidewalks didn't have a cut. So the curb didn't have a cut. So what people had to do if they were in a wheelchair, they had to like be lifted down from the curb onto the pavement etc. And the in the 70s Somebody said, You know what, we're going to put some cement to make this roll down the pavement easier from the curb to the pavement. And, and they advocated for it in Stanford in California. And then this became a national thing called a curb cut where you could actually have a slope from the curb to the pavement. They did a study in Sarasota. So right in our backyard, nine out of 10 people who walk on the sidewalk today actually use the cut in the curb, including mothers, including people walking their dogs. So when you take care of the lowest common denominator, somebody in a wheelchair, actually the entire society is using it. Nine out of 10 people go through the cut in the curb on their regular day to day life. So when we take care of the people at the bottom, we're actually taking care of everyone. We're not just taking care of one part of the society. We're truly taking care of the entire society and so for me, that is a passion of mine to say when we are going to solve a problem we're going to solve it for everyone by solving it for the least of us we're going to take care of all of us

Angela McCourt 39:45
I love that and you know what honestly it's probably actually reduced pedestrian deaths and and created more safety without telling people they had to do it. Right because it and and honestly we could all look around and find Better conveniences for folks who need something a little bit different, you know that it can also benefit so many others as well. So I love that that analogy. It's awesome. And then from a company perspective, do you want to give a plug for your company? And you know, just what your expectations are over the next year, especially as you've started traveling again, and doing speaking engagements and whatnot, I think that would be really fantastic.

David Ponraj 40:25
Yeah, so we are actually, I can't announce it yet on this podcast. But I can say they were very close to a major rebrand. We've been working with this company out of Denver, to better align. And that's the thing when you're a startup. So the this the first logo that I made as a startup, I went to Google found a logo generator, put the name, and it gave me a logo. And I think that's all the money I'm paying. So now that you know we have customers, we can better align our brand with our mission. And in the next year, our focus is going to be to have some presence everywhere in the country. So we're in 22 Different states today, in 70 different cities, we want this work to be across the country, because we feel we can support and help small businesses anywhere in the country to start. And that's my primary motivation for starting this business was can we make it easier for people to start businesses, through education through tools through technology by better providing access to resources? And so that has been my primary mission that I'm on, and I hope that in the next year, we're going to actually get there, at least have presence in every state supporting some local community. And and then, you know, hopefully, I can come back on this podcast and talk about the work we're doing.

Angela McCourt 41:47
Yeah, absolutely. You betcha. I love it. Oh, that's fantastic. So to wrap things up, I know you you did a call out for feeding Tampa Bay. And I will definitely include that in the show notes as well. I'm a big supporter of feeding Tampa Bay. I love the work they're doing a lot of times everyone's like, Oh, it's so overwhelming. How many organizations are out there. And I found that to be the most consistent, the most well utilized, the most engaged with the community, like truly entrenched in the community. So I'm a big, big fan and supporter of them as well. So I will make sure I include that in the in the call out notes. You mentioned that you did you do read a lot of books. Obviously, you know, there's there's probably some other recommendations that you would like to give as well. So I'm going to just hand it back over to you for anything else for the audience that you'd like to offer.

David Ponraj 42:32
Yep. So definitely love your gifts. So I have my hardcopy that's coming in the mail, and definitely going to get the audio book as well. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Looking forward to it. And my whole team is going to be reading it. So we're excited about it. And the one other book, I'll tell you, yeah, I've read almost one book a month. But the book that has transformed the way I lead my company, around motivation is a book by Daniel Pink called Drive. And he talks about mastery and autonomy and giving people a mission and giving them a sense of purpose, and then getting out of the way. And I've really been able to utilize it. I've had my team read it. And you know, as a founder, the thing that scares me the most is what I don't know. So I'm on this really fast paced mission to keep learning what I don't know. But that book has stuck with me. And I would highly recommend that is if you're on a journey of trying to motivate people that has great real life examples.

Angela McCourt 43:38
Fantastic. That's awesome. Anything else that you would like to recommend? No I donations or anything?

David Ponraj 43:46
No, this is this has been amazing. Thank you. I had a little time talking to you today. And I can't wait to share this podcast with our audience. Yes,

Angela McCourt 43:56
thank you so much, David, it was an absolute pleasure. And I'm so glad that we've stayed connected over Gosh, at least a dozen years, I want to say it's been that we've known each other and I'm so just impressed with what you've done and what you've you know, brought to the table to the community. And then also just the fantastic leader you are so I'm just so excited for you.

David Ponraj 44:19
Thank you And can I also say that I'm so proud of you for starting on this journey of your own. I feel like it's so much to give back and you stepped out at the right moment because now you can actually build this amazing collection of work that we can all learn from and even watching you. You know, as a leader, I only got a taste of it now I actually can learn all of your tricks. So I I am so thrilled and also kudos to you for you know what can be a scary decision to make Right?

Angela McCourt 44:55
Absolutely. Yeah. So what it was one that I knew it in my heart and and In my guts, you know, in my guts, my decision maker, and if it feels good there, then it's the right thing to do. It's the right purpose. And so, you know, it was funny, I think a couple years prior, I probably would not have done it. I was still in that very loyal stage. I was still in that, you know, stage of work hard, work hard, work hard, work hard. And, and I hadn't really found yet what was driving me I was on this mission for sure. And I think a lot of people, you know, there's a lot of that going on right now, you know, which is pretty amazing. And it doesn't mean that it would lead to maybe starting your own business, but maybe it's, you know, proposing something internally, it's, you know, bringing your entrepreneurial spirit into your company that you work for. And I think that's where I'm hoping to really inspire and I know this podcast will definitely inspire others to consider or reconsider something that they may have put on the back burner, because of a comment someone had made along the way or because of some kind of limiting belief that Well, I can't do that. Now. I'm on this other path or journey. So I'm really excited. Thank you so much, David, and appreciate your time and I know we will have you back on for sure in the future.

David Ponraj 46:14
Awesome. I look forward to it. Thank you so much for having me today.

Angela McCourt 46:17
Absolutely. Have a great day. Thank you.

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