Weekly Impact by Lay of The Land

Jim Haviland (00:01.549)
Well, hello everyone. Welcome. This is weekly impact by layer the land and impact architects. Today is the 25th of September, nine 2024. I'm Jim Haviland.

Kris Snyder (00:12.44)
I'm Kris Snyder. We gotta get that in.

Jim Haviland (00:16.301)
All right, Kris, we got to work on that. right. So Kris, a lot of cover today, man. We have a great episode. got VCFest and we got best in tech. So let's get right into it. So we're at 184, John Vickers, Blue Abyss, building a giant pool, Kris.

Kris Snyder (00:35.308)
Yeah. And just, I'm jealous in so many ways, right? Like what, mean, just his ambition, right? And that gets used more than a few times inside the podcast. And I think it's used appropriately, right? It wasn't like, Hey, I want to go write some code that's going to change nothing. It's, mean, that in all due respect to all, all those, you know, early sacks on the road, right? I mean, but this guy is literally trying to go out and in effect, right? How we will live our lives on this planet.

Jim Haviland (00:41.772)
Yeah.

Jim Haviland (00:55.245)
all the coders out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kris Snyder (01:05.078)
right from an oceanic moment all the way into space.

Jim Haviland (01:08.461)
Yeah, and he sees it that way. that's, you know, that's, you know, when we talk about the important of having a vision and not just having a being able to articulate it clearly in that, you know, that's part of your Operating System, you have to get to the place where you can not only feel something, but you actually have a way of describing it in, you know, 10 words or less. I mean, think he nails all that and plus all of the emotion behind it. And it's really, it's what a cool thing. It's a cool thing for Cleveland could be done anywhere. But I know

as an elementary school student going to visit the NASA center. I don't remember what was always called Glenn at that point, because I'm not an agent. I remember hearing that they had the largest vacuum chamber, had a drop time to it. had ways of giving you that.

zero gravity space, you know, inside the center of like, it was really remarkable that that's like, you know, that was something that was really started in Cleveland. And I have no idea why necessarily it started in Cleveland, but I think it's cool. And I think, you know, there's a lot of pride to be had in, you know, doing that basic research here.

Kris Snyder (02:21.496)
Yeah. And I don't remember the episode number, but y 'all can look it up. mean, we, had the, you know, the head of the space center, NASA, right on episodes 30, 40 ago, something like that. So it is, it is an homage. I think, you know, what it maybe could be been done anywhere. I think that the point is it was done here because of, that NASA center, right? Like there's resources and kindred spirits and, you know, things you can anchor to if you're going to build something like, you know, blue abyss. And it.

Jim Haviland (02:41.291)
Yes, yes.

Kris Snyder (02:50.176)
Again, the long range view that he talks about time and persistence, Jim, right? And we're both big fans of Simon Sinek and the Infinite Game, Will and the resource to play the game and you get to play it forever if you can, if you don't run out of either one of those, the will or the resource. And a lot of what he, I think was trying to say in the time and persistence statement is you've got to be present to win. Like you figure out, even if you don't have all the answers yet, you got to figure out the ability to persist.

Jim Haviland (02:55.66)
Yes.

Jim Haviland (02:59.936)
Absolutely.

Jim Haviland (03:14.78)
Right? Yeah, yeah.

Kris Snyder (03:19.33)
Great to go win enough of the day to fight another day to be, you know, hopefully present when the technology start to get together, when the timing and the marketplace and the things that you can't control as an ambitious founder, right? You have to sometimes wait those things out and it's hard.

Jim Haviland (03:35.947)
Yeah, and it's a delicate balance of being patient, but what I like to call being diligent, diligent patients. Like I'm trying to solve the problems of today, making steps forward. may not be everything I've got, but I'm actually making progress. And it's an important word yet, you know, when, Hey, do we have that figured out? Not yet. It's like, no, we don't have figured out. That's not yet. We're going to figure it out. And just having that faith that we're going to, we're going to solve these, these challenging problems.

are out there. So I think, you know, it's a very interesting episode to hear his story. He doesn't have a background that would suggest he's going to do this. yeah, I'm really cool. It's really cool. I'm really curious to see what comes of it, what kind of progress they make.

Kris Snyder (04:21.344)
Yeah. I sent this episode to a couple of different folks. you know, one who's kind of solar business thinking about their next thing, right. And they're trying to figure out how ambitious to be, right. They're comfortable enough. Like, do I come back at this heart at this stage and phase of life? Do I feel my ambition? And it's almost like you got to listen to this, episode with John, cause I think he has so much energy and to the belief set. wasn't like, how do I figure out how to live comfortably the rest of my time on this earth? It was like, what do I go do that's meaningful?

Jim Haviland (04:36.791)
Yep.

Kris Snyder (04:51.456)
And what do I feel passionate towards and talks about the art of the start with his wife after he loses opportunity, right? Like how many times we hear those stories, right? Then someone goes enough, right? Enough of working on somebody else's plan.

Jim Haviland (04:55.991)
Yeah.

Jim Haviland (05:02.583)
That's a great call out Kris, because I I was going send it to somebody from one of my clients that, and they were in national security. the goal there is to, I can't even talk about what their goal was, but what they're doing had a dark side to it. They had to be thinking constantly in these very dark terms about where things were going. And we planned.

We did their annual and quarterly planning in those terms. We have to be solving these problems and thinking ahead of people. One of the guys laughed. He says, I want to work in space because I want to be doing stuff that's really about this more hopeful thing that together we can actually go accomplish this. I was going send that off to him. Good episode, Kris. Let's move on to VC Fest, shall we?

Kris Snyder (05:54.198)
Yeah, I mean.

Jim Haviland (05:55.201)
So VCFest was fun. You did a good job. You were on stage for that one. We prepped for that. I mean, a lot of ground to cover, but I think everyone enjoyed that panel.

Kris Snyder (06:05.292)
Yeah. And well, and quite honestly, I apologize if I offended anybody in the room. I was trying to have fun with it, right? Cause I felt weird at the end of the day, the first day. I was like, gosh, we're the stand between you guys and drinking. So let's just have a little bit of fun as we talk about seed to scale, right? And everything from fundraising to lessons learned. as you mentioned, it was really good, great panel, right? I've experienced that some people sharing the stories of.

Jim Haviland (06:12.237)
I don't think you fed anybody.

Jim Haviland (06:29.653)
Yeah, mean, great nuggets. mean, a lot of ground to cover, but everybody had some good nuggets. I felt back as it's Laura Maurer, right? And she she felt bad about talking about firing the person that has to go. But it's an important part of that journey, right? I I think you and I both have walked into many rooms where there's a leadership team and we know almost right away there's someone that has to go for this team to move on, for progress to be made. And we know this part of the

the growth of teams and the growth of organizations that the people that were perfect for the beginning stage of the second stage aren't going to be great for the third stage and the fourth stage. And that's fine. know, just being able to talk about it and not fire them because they're bad people because they just don't fit with where the company needs to go.

Kris Snyder (07:17.837)
It is one of those, it's not you, it's me moment, right? Because the person may have not changed, but the company grew and changed. And now it's like, it's me because I need something different to keep this momentum going. And if you didn't change with us, I don't have a choice, right? Because I've got to take care of the next obligation of opportunity to grow again. And how do I grow again? I the right people in the right seats.

Jim Haviland (07:21.793)
Yeah.

Jim Haviland (07:26.861)
100%.

Jim Haviland (07:31.222)
Right.

Jim Haviland (07:39.798)
Yes.

Kris Snyder (07:42.976)
And so the gift of being fired as our friend Meg Mahe likes to talk about it, right? Like it is a gift because it transitions for the best for you and for the organization, hopefully. It never feels that way at the time. It feels hard, but.

Jim Haviland (07:56.013)
Well, yeah, I mean, the way I've, I've, I've come to understand it for myself anyway, is that the, should, when I started hearing words like stay in your lane, I know that's my exit music because I'm not going to stay in my lane. have broad view. That's what makes me a co a great coach is I understand everybody's jobs pretty well. So I can, I can give feedback. and I, that's what I like to do. So, all right.

Well, good. So VC Fest, Gerald Hetrick was there. Jeremiah Landi of my favorite big weirdos. Hardick, of course, was there roaming around. It was a good show. I it was amazing because I think there were more people there than there'd been before. And I didn't know a lot of people there. I previous versions of the show, I knew a lot of people. you know, even Gerald said, know maybe a third of the people here because they had people from all over the state.

Kris Snyder (08:47.894)
Yeah. And, you know, just again, Jumpstart did a great job, right? I'm almost ashamed, Jim, that I knew it was coming. I didn't really probably think about how, what the broadness and the depth and the scope of the whole event. We'll definitely have it on the radar for next year to be more involved. Just because I think they did a great job of curating community. And obviously it's one of the things that we care about.

Jim Haviland (09:07.265)
Couple of people I want to shout out. So Darren, I ran into Darren Small there. I haven't had a chance to catch with him since we talked about his, Oko and being on the show, but, he now have to catch up. Shannon, Great house with, with pigyback, a future show member. and one of my favorites, Charu, Ramanathan I'm sure I messed it up and could Katel Patel they're both there with Vital Exchange. I love that company. I think it's a great company. I told him I'm going to do a free.

annual for them. just, I just think they're great. and, and, and I found a couple of very cool tech companies there as well. There's one out of, out of Cincinnati called, Vixiv and they do this really amazing thing where if you give them a set of criterion for a material, they can do some additive, they can come up with a, with a shape, but you couldn't make any other way except through additive manufacturing.

to create it. I mean, I some examples there of things that they, that they'd crafted. It's like, my God, there's no one human would ever going to come up with a shape, the using AI and, you know, instead of criteria and they can come up with it as a fit in this base. And it has to have this kind of thermal transfer properties. It has to be this, this kind of density, but this, but, that'd be this light. I mean, that's, that's amazing stuff. I think that's, that's super cool stuff to see. and then there's a new,

personal transport company called Trip, which just won the Cleveland contract. Kris, know you and I have, what city were we driving around on those scooters? don't remember. Tampa.

Kris Snyder (10:44.948)
was, was Tampa. think tech and bigger downtown Tampa. yeah.

Jim Haviland (10:50.227)
Right. And we drove out of the right area. So it slowed him down to a crawl. We weren't really paying attention what was going on. But A, very cool new personal transport, like third generation of this thing. so it'll be interesting to see what that means. I had a couple of examples there, Kris, and these are real pieces of machinery. They're going to last a lot longer. So all that was fun. And we got to see Jonathan of Van Oker. Haven't seen him in a little while since he took over the Chicago office for Thompson -Hine.

So all in all, great, great event, not to be missed.

Kris Snyder (11:21.782)
Yeah, well, we did mention our good friend Clay from North Coast Ventures. So we got to hang with him too. I hadn't seen Clay. I think you've had more of an opportunity to hang with him just from coaching them, but it was great to see Clay.

Jim Haviland (11:25.547)
Clay, of course.

Jim Haviland (11:32.991)
Absolutely. think I didn't wear my North Coast Ventures logo wear and I was told that was a good idea because if I wear that, I have to be to write checks while I'm there. So, well, let's get to the best part, Kris. Last night you missed it. Best in Tech, is Greater Cleveland Partnership tipping their hats to a bunch of local companies and

Kris Snyder (11:45.012)
You

Jim Haviland (11:58.345)
The big news, of course, is that our very own Jeffrey Stern won for community impact, personal community impact. And he got to a few words in front of the very, very large audience. Once again, a lot of people I didn't know there because there are a lot of companies that were on the finalists and they brought all their folks. And it was there at the the Brown Stadium, which I guess is a we'll see how long it lasts at that building. the very nice event. And

saw some really great people there. and got a chance to really talk about operating systems and first OS with a lot of great people. and, he got to people that have been on the show and won some awards. Steve, Potash from, Overdrive, Joshua Edmonds from digital C Bloom filter won, Medi view won agile blue saw Tony there as well. so, it was a good chance to pat everybody in the back and, and, it's a good, good work.

Kris Snyder (12:58.786)
Well, that's the community we live in, right? So it's awesome to see all those folks that have participated in the podcast, but also doing great work in the community.

Jim Haviland (13:07.487)
And Jeffrey's kind of a star man. A lot of people coming up and like, I just wanted to say hello. You really appreciate what you're doing. you know, yeah, he's, he's got all he's got, he's got a fan base, man.

Kris Snyder (13:22.142)
I will, that's the goal. Not the goal isn't to have a fan base. The goal is for the award to get out there. And how do you know the word's getting out there other than looking at download numbers and whatnot is to feel that groundswell of people. And what a great award community impact if I had to personally pick one for the show, I think that that's the award I would pick.

Jim Haviland (13:28.322)
Yes.

Jim Haviland (13:39.469)
100%.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was the point. And, you know, I think you may have saw, I did a post on LinkedIn while we're standing there because I'm feeling proud because I mean, you saw it when you brought it to me, it's like, Hey, we really need to support this podcast because it's, you know, it fits into our, our vision for what and mission, what we, what we try to do in the community so well. And yeah, it's done a great job of getting people together that you couldn't do any other way. So yeah, hats off to Jeffrey.

Kris Snyder (14:09.772)
Yeah, awesome stuff.

Jim Haviland (14:12.085)
All right, that's the weekly impact Kris, anything we're missing?

Kris Snyder (14:15.85)
No, Jim, I think it was highly impactful.

Jim Haviland (14:18.187)
All right, everybody, we'll see you next time.

Kris Snyder (14:21.496)
All right, be well.