Weekly Impact by Lay of The Land

Jim Haviland & Kris Snyder (00:00)
Hello everyone and welcome. This is the Lay of the Land Weekly Impact. My name is Jim Haviland. I'm Kris Snyder. And Kris, it is the 15th of July. We're moving along towards Q3 here today and we have a great episode to talk about. Oh my God, I cried. I was surprised. I gotta admit, man. I wasn't ready for that. This is Keith Gurchuk and Marissa Gooderman, number 174. And they're talking about their film that they made. And this is a great entrepreneurial journey, Kris. The film is coming

for Christmas? Yeah. Yeah. Lost and found in Cleveland. The great story wasn't, didn't have to be about Cleveland, but Cleveland ended up being the perfect place for it. Well, I think it's also got a little bit rejected out of Hollywood. No one's looking to make this Hollywood said no. Right. So where do you go after that? Well, you know, and I think it's, well, gosh, mean, the, things that we find important and the things the film was about were so much embedded in what we think of as important in Cleveland

I think what you and I find interesting and valuable here versus the Valley. I get this all the time when I go out to the Coast, I've got clients out there. And the level of hustle we have here, and like, I'm willing to do hard work to build something I really want. And it's not just because I think I can flip it and be a millionaire, it's because I believe. No, for sure. I think that's your purpose over paycheck kind of moment, right? Absolutely. The difference between somebody who really is working for a paycheck and...

Maybe they get a little wealthy. Not there's anything wrong with that. People can work for a paycheck. It's okay. be really clear about what you're doing and why. And this is a podcast for entrepreneurs. So if you're thinking that's different. Those seeking purpose, those seeking purpose in their work. And certainly the two of them did. Met in LA, started something called Double G Films to write together. But Kris, they went on the entrepreneurial journey of becoming the people they had to become to make this thing

Yeah, which I thought was such a great part of the story. You know, I've experienced this where they were looking for others to kind of step in and do these other roles, right? Beyond just being the writers and the originators, the creators. magically happen. I'll find this perfect person. That's in my forthcoming book. It's one of the mistakes we make. We're to find this perfect person. They're just going to run with it and make it happen. But not so much. Not so much. And I think some of, you know, we like to say when someone begins an organization, everyone does everything until they can specialize. I that's kind of the journey here, too.

And I think you find some skillsets that may be natural, but not had been tested. So it sounds like they moved into roles along the way in order to do those things. They had some natural tendencies to be able to do. And then they found the skills, made the skills right to take them the rest of the way. It's such a great thing. They really, they questioned their own abilities, but when it came to drop, they were just there. They just did what they had to do. And people stepped up, be bold and great forces will come to your aid, certainly. And they raised the money for this film in Cleveland,

Yeah, well, the whole comment about, again, maybe it's the Midwest kind of scenario, but people being open to the idea of something that's different, right? Like having raised money in Cleveland for software companies all the way back to kind of mid 2000, right? Like when they could, a lot of people just didn't understand what software and managed services, technology enabled, right? And what that meant. And we knew in manufacturing, I think these guys were pioneers in that moment too. A little bit of fundraising, I'm sure has been done in the film industry here,

to take it where they took it, was awesome. Well, know, and I think we don't have time to go over all day, but we certainly have a past, know, Superman is making a film right now, and Superman started here. So we go back a ways in some of that, but certainly it's people aren't making films on a regular basis. they were blazing new trail, I got to believe that their belief in what they were doing and how it resonated with what we value here made a difference. Yeah.

Well, I think that the whole Superman local thing again, right, is really just fun to see and take it to dream again. Like, films be produced here? Will we ever be a hub for it? Probably not unless something really changes. I know we've done films with Avengers and whatnot. Sure. But it's still good to see something that's even more localized than what they were building and doing even beyond Marvel and

Yeah, yeah. And the new film, of course, going on here and as they were leaving town, they had nothing but really great things to say about Cleveland as a location and as a people interested in helping them make a film. Of course, they're making it about us. it's a shift, Kris, I think I've seen really it's been a couple of decades in the making where Clevelanders are beginning to, we have our own way of having pride in Cleveland. Right. mean, where else do you see people wearing Cleveland gear?

Like their city gear. I mean, you can see some of New York t -shirts, right? But not too many cities, second, third tier, Des Moines, they don't have a lot of Des Moines gear. Well, into the point at the airport, actually, there's kiosks, right? You can grab on your way in or out of the city, you can grab a t -shirt or a hat, That's clearly branded for it. All right. all good stuff. And gosh, Kris, I can't wait. I guess one of things we should talk about is

Jeffrey's part in this. Yeah, well, the statements that got made and I think this is kudos to being episode 174, right? Right. And building some of that flywheel momentum that goes with it is they said that they reached out to Jeffrey because they thought of him as a person who has his finger on the pulse of what's going on. Indeed. And I think that that really says a lot about the momentum that the show is building because we're in that moment where what a great story comes to you versus kind of

outreach that has to occur. So I thought that was a really cool moment. Yeah, absolutely. Well, the other thing we want to talk about today, think is Encore Venture Lab. So this is someone that you and I both have met with and talked with. I did some work with the founders and with some of their companies. Venture Lab scripts is a relatively new concept in its current form where they're actually bringing together. And I did a little bit of this. We call them like hit squash, something like that when I was in Seattle.

where here's some experts, let's see if there's anything to this before we go raise real money. It's like a pre -money but funded, it's like an accelerator but not. I think that's probably the most interesting thing you could say, because there's been versions of accelerators. It's always just like, where's the found, my experience in this and super excited for Andrew and the team, what they're building at Encore Venture Labs. I think it's really where the founders

Right, because there's more ideas like you and I go off on like, gosh, we have great ideas all day long, we can we can get capital, but somebody's got to be the founder, right? Somebody's gonna be the founding team and take it to another place. I think that's the that's where the magic happens in most of these places. If you can find a founder to bet on or a team to bet on. It's the first or second question, you know, I've been I've done three or four, you know, fundraising conversations for things I'm working on or someone else is working on. That's like the

That's the second, third conversation is like, well, who's the founder? Who's in the chair? And never the other one matters. if we don't, until we have that solid thing, then it's not fundable. And so, but that's interesting about Andrew. Andrew is, he was in the Valley. He's worked with Google. He's placed people in Google. So had a talent job. So he was doing a lot to find right people for jobs. So. Yep.

great part of having a venture lab is having that as one of your strong suits. And then he's brought people together to go actually, and he's got some targets already, things he wants to get done. And I've been through some people that have like dead letter IP that needs to be developed into a business, because that's, sometimes people just have an idea and they don't really know how to run the business. know, running a business is not just about having the idea. No, no, there's no. I think he knows that all too well. He's done this many times. So I've got great faith that

You know, Clevelander grew up on the West side, but he's back to make some trouble here in Cleveland. Yeah. It sounds like, I think there are seven digits in their initial raise and they got more to go, but it's a strong start to go out into the marketplace. And you got to be in the venture side of things. got to have capital. So that's the first kind of component. excited to see that for them. Yeah, I'm excited too. Cause I mean, they really saw right away the value of what we've been doing in impact architects with business operating systems. So right away it's like, you have an operating system until you have

intentional one, you got an accidental one, put an accidental results, accidental is fine for you, but if you want intentional results, you got to have an intentional one. And they really embraced the new product, we'll talk about more later on, the first OS, that's something really baked in for those really small companies. What are the parts of the 90 OS tool set that you need to start with? And they've taken some companies through it already. So we formed a partnership to help them do that. So it's super exciting to me because I think it's, for me, it's part of mission to make sure that that

gets to find some place to live and places like that, like North Coast Ventures and there, and some of the other folks are picking it up. It's very exciting. Yeah, I agree. And it's all about intentionality. 100%. Yeah. And they love the fact that we're coaching so they don't miss stuff. Right. Those components together, an app system plus someone that's reading the jar that you're in, all good stuff. Awesome. All right.

So Kris we'll be back next week with the weekly impact Lay of the Land. Anything else I missed, Kris? I think we got it all, Have a great impactful week, everybody. Thanks, Kris. Bye now. Bye