Launch Youniversity

Summary:

This week, Launch Youniversity returns to the archive to replay a must-listen episode with Jeff Shinabarger. Back in 2017, David Farmer and Kevin Jennings sat down with Jeff to talk about the common thread and hurdles all entrepreneurs face. 

Jeff is a social entrepreneur, leader, and author at Plywood People. Plywood is a non-profit in Atlanta that leads a community of over 200 startups doing good. In this episode, Jeff shares his wisdom on how to launch startups. We hope this conversation inspires you, challenges, you, and brings you closer to building your ideas.

Welcome to episode 137 of the Launch Youniversity Podcast.

Links + Resources:

• Plywood People
• Plywood’s Annual Conference, July 31-August 2, 2019, in Atlanta, GA: ATL Ideas (formerly Plywood Presents)
• Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality by Scott Belsky
• More or Less: Choosing a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity by Jeff Shinabarger
• Plywood People on Instagram
• Plywood People on Twitter
• Plywood People on Facebook

Three Takeaways:

1. Take time to celebrate your wins. The Launch phase is tricky. On one hand, your so happy to have launched. And on the other, you feel like your workload in maintaining your launch just increased. It’s not healthy for your season of launch to move into a season of never ending busyness. After you have a big launch, take a vacation or take a few days off. Allow yourself to celebrate and take a mental breather. You’ll come back with a fresh perspective.
2. Having passion doesn’t mean you have a business. You need a plan. It’s important to understand the difference between a hobby, a project and a business. Hobbies bring you happiness, but may not always be something you can quit your day job for. A project is something that makes you happy and may make you money, but it has an end date. A business or organization is when you can afford to pay yourself with your product revenue.
3. Being an entrepreneur can be an interesting and lonely place. Jeff talks about the idea of the conference room table. Next time you’re by yourself near a conference table, take a seat at the head of the table. Now, imagine you’re the President of the United States and you’re in the situation room during a high-tense moment. Who are the people you want filling those chairs at your table? These are people who believe in you enough to tell you “no,” but also want the most success for you. Start inviting those people to speak into your life.

Thank you for listening to the Launch Youniversity Podcast! If you have a question that you want to be answered on the podcast… ask us here!

Summary:

The agile method is in fashion for software development and project management, but you probably have never heard it explained or implemented as well as you will hear from our latest guest Kramer Johnson. As one of the leaders responsible for Chick-fil-A’s mobile ordering app, Kramer pulls from his experiences in both the startup and consulting worlds to highlight the power of agile thinking and trust-based leadership.

Listen in as Kramer explains to Launch Youniversity mentor Shane Benson exactly how everyone has a superpower, how agile thinking can help you solve your biggest problems, and how leading your team boils down to checking your title at the door. Kramer Johnson brings incredible insights to an episode you will want to listen to twice.

Welcome to episode 136 of the Launch Youniversity Podcast.

Links + Resources:

Kramer Johnson: LinkedIn | Instagram

Chick-fil-A One [Chick-fil-A’s mobile app]

“A Beginners Guide To The Agile Method & Scrums” [Article by Linchpin SEO]

“How to apply Agile practices with your non-tech team or business” [Article by TechRepublic]

Three Takeaways:

1. Find your team’s mantra or rallying cry. 

In leading various teams inside and outside Chick-fil-A, Kramer Johnson found one thing to be consistent: great teams need a mantra. As stated by Kramer, a team is formed as people rally around solving big problems, but the secret to success is helping those teams define their “how.” How will those teams approach finding their solutions? For Kramer’s Chick-fil-A One team that motto was “stay scrappy and have fun.” This mantra was not written as a mission statement or stated as a value, but rather the saying came off the cuff and was adopted by the team naturally. Mantras, as Kramer explains it, will be the things that you hear your team is saying back to you, and it is those things that should be written in big, bold letters on the wall.

2. Finish before you start again.

As Shane explores the ideas around agile thinking and project management with Kramer, there is one point that stands out as the most practical takeaway — finishing three things is much better than half-finishing 15. Kramer introduces the idea of a “work in progress limit,” which is a person’s or team’s capacity for active projects. Both for individuals and teams, the key to success is defining what three things are going to be accomplished before anything else. Once those goals are achieved or completed, then the next three goals can be tackled, but not before then.

3. Trust-based leadership requires checking your title at the door.

Does your team know you care about them? Do they have a space they can call their own? Did they define their next big goal for themselves? As pointed out in this episode, these are the questions that great leaders are asking. Kramer notes that most leaders struggle with guiding and motivating their teams. However, he goes on to challenge traditional thinking by offering up the idea that leaders do not need to set the short-term goals, the team members do. Then, the leader is there to hold the team accountable, but only after gaining the right to have the hard conversation. That right is earned first through caring for them on a human level.

Thank you for listening to the Launch Youniversity Podcast! If you have a question that you want to be answered on the podcast… ask us here!

Summary:

To begin, Happy 4th of July and we would like to thank all those who have served and are serving in the US armed forces. We celebrate you today.

We’ve officially reached the halfway point of 2019, and, for many of us, it’s the perfect time to review the goals we set at the beginning of the year. Maybe you haven’t made as much progress as you would’ve liked this far into the year. Perhaps you’ve completed your goals, and you’re wondering what’s next. No matter what side you land on, don’t worry — there’s no time like right now to recommit or make adjustments to your plans.

With all that in mind, we thought it would be a great time to return to the Launch Youniversity vault and pull out an episode from one year ago that addresses this exact question: how do we finish the strong in 2019?

Teaser Warning: It all has to do with the three Rs.

In this episode, we hear from three of Launch Youniversity’s mentors: David Farmer, Shane Benson, and Jeff Henderson, who will discuss the best ways to take stock of your year so far and set a clear path for yourself for the remainder of the year.

Welcome to episode 135 of the Launch Youniversity Podcast.

Links + Resources:

Launch Youniversity Podcast Episode 085 — Mid-Year Reset: Using Rest, Reflection, Rituals & Recommitment to Improve Results

Launch Youniversity Podcast Episode 070 with Karen Houghton of Atlanta Tech Village

Rocket Fuel [Goal Setting Guide]

Success Is Not An Accident by Tommy Newberry

Elevator Pitch [Launch Youniversity’s Online Course on Pitching & Presenting]

Ask us a question!

Three Takeaways:

1. Take time to rest and reflect on your wins.

Negative feedback usually outweighs the positive feedback you receive no matter how much someone loves you or your idea. When you take time to rest, it helps you reprioritize the goals you set for yourself and focus on celebrating the positive outcomes. Take a half day or full day to reflect on the year so far. Ask yourself,
“What went well?”
“What needs improvement?”
“Where do I go from here?”

2. Establish morning and nighttime success rituals.

Rituals give structure to the areas of your life you’d like to see improvement. When you stick to a morning ritual, it will set you up for success for the entire day. Doing a nighttime ritual takes the friction out of the next day and sets you up for even greater success. Planning your day (and upcoming week and months, for that matter) ensures you make time for the things that truly matter to you, including not only your goals but for your family and self-care, too.

3. Start from where you are right now.

There’s nothing magical about January 1. Review the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year. Do those goals still matter to you? Is this still the right plan? If so, start (or restart) now. Jeff Henderson shared a great idea that could help you recommit to your goals: Jeff takes the first of every month and spends 10 days trying something new, whether it’s doing yoga for 10 days or eating a meat-free diet for 10 days. You can take this same concept and apply it to your idea — maybe it’ll motivate you to try a new and fresh approach.

Thank you for listening to the Launch Youniversity Podcast! If you have a question that you want to be answered on the podcast… ask us here!

Summary:

Many people dream of starting a business, solving a problem, or launching their dream, but most people wait for permission. On this episode of the Launch Youniversity podcast, Kevin Jennings sits down with two entrepreneurs that decided to not wait for the “right time.” When Channing Moreland and Makenzie Stokel met at Belmont University, both were already crazy about live music. It wasn’t long before the two Music Business majors were organizing everything from large house parties to small festivals. The music and people part was really fun. The messy details and paperwork, not so much. It was from this problem, the messy paperwork and finding good music, that EVAmore was born.

The two entrepreneurs were on to something, but, in this episode, the duo dives into what they did not count on: their business would change and so would they. Tune in to hear them talk about sifting through “good” advice, pivoting your business for a better product-market fit, and assessing your team’s motivators plus so much more.

Welcome to episode 134 of the Launch Youniversity Podcast.

Links + Resources:

Channing Moreland: LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Email

Makenzie Stokel: LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Email

EVAmore

Project Music — Nashville’s Music Tech Accelerator

Tony Robbins’s DISC Assessment

Article: “15 Body Language Secrets of Successful People”

Book: Like A Virgin by Richard Branson

Three Takeaways:

Don’t stay still, move forward, and find your pivot. Mackenzie and Channing launched a successful idea, but it needed to grow into a scalable business. It is a scary thing to move away from something that is “working” to find a greater level of success, but that is exactly what happened with EVAmore. Despite having funding that was given to solve a problem in the college space, the founders of EVAmore decided to focus on the corporate space instead. During this episode, Mackenzie and Channing discuss at length the idea that you have to keep moving, keep innovating, and keep refining who your target customer is. In that pursuit, you will find success for your business.

Understand your customer, and also understand what motivates your team. As Mackenzie and Channing grew EVAmore they went from a start-up business to fast-growing small business. In their success, they had to solve a new problem — motivating their employees. This is a common problem all growing businesses face, and the answer is not always a promotion or more money. Channing and Mackenzie discovered that time with family was a huge motivator for key team members and something they needed to build into their work environment to help their team stay engaged and motivated to grow EVAmore.

Don’t wait for permission. Start. There is never an easy time to start something new. This was the lesson that Mackenzie and Channing took to heart as they began EVAmore. The duo was still in college when they launched their company and were forced to choose only early and late classes so that they could attend the accelerator they had been accepted to. The two women were also considered “too young” and “too inexperienced,” but that did not stop them. They believed that they saw a problem that needed to be solved, and they were brave enough to set out to solve it. If we wait for permission to start, we will probably be watching someone else answer the very problem we identified.

Thank you for listening to the Launch Youniversity Podcast! If you have a question that you want to be answered on the podcast… ask us here!

Summary:

A launcher’s primary goal is to provide a solution to an existing problem, but you can’t solve a problem you don’t know exists. Today on the podcast, hosts Jeff Henderson and Kevin Jennings are joined by filmmaker and actress, Pamela Perrine, who shares how she uses her art to uncover and shed light on some of the biggest issues the world faces today. Tune in to hear her thoughts on how to deal with perfectionism, finding value in your team, and the important lessons she’s learned in filmmaking.

Welcome to episode 133 of the Launch Youniversity Podcast.

Links + Resources:

Pamela Perrine: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | IMDB

Angels in Rocket Field

The Journeyman

The 5 Elements of the Launch Loop

Three Takeaways:

Find value in everyone around you. You can learn something from absolutely everyone you come in contact with. Be open to being a student of the people you work with. It takes a great deal of humility to be on the receiving end of guidance when you’re the one in charge.

Hire intentionally. Be very careful about assembling the right team — they should all know what the vision is and have a common goal in mind. Remember, who you hire could make or break your strategy and execution plans.

Don’t assume you know what your customer is thinking. Always be curious about your customer. Ask questions and adjust when necessary.

Thank you for listening to the Launch Youniversity Podcast! If you have a question that you want to be answered on the podcast… ask us here!