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Insights on Mentorship with Curtis Anderson
5 Plays3 years ago
Entrepreneurship can be a lonely road. And while you may feel you're making decisions alone as a founder, it doesn't have to be that way. This week, we're talking with someone whose early and current mentors have guided him through his entrepreneurial journey. Join us in today's conversation with Curtis Anderson, Co-Founder and CEO of Nursa, and investor Curt Roberts of Kickstart (a VC firm for startups in Utah, Colorado, and the Mountain West) as we bring you both sides of a Perfect Pitch. In this episode, we'll talk about:
How Curtis' early mentors set him on a tech-focused path
Why entrepreneurs should have a mentor (or a bench of mentors!)
Advice for entrepreneurs trying to find a mentor and on being a good mentee
The responsibility that entrepreneurs have to be a mentor
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Curtis Anderson and Kurt Roberts
00:00:00
Speaker
Entrepreneurship can be a lonely road.
00:00:02
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And while you may feel you're making the decisions alone as a founder, it doesn't have to be that way.
00:00:07
Speaker
This week, we're talking with someone whose early and current mentors have guided him through his entrepreneurial journey.
00:00:12
Speaker
Join us in today's conversation with Curtis Anderson, co-founder and CEO of Nursa and investor Kurt Roberts, as we bring you both sides of A Perfect Pitch.
Curtis Anderson's Entrepreneurial Journey
00:00:31
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Perfect Pitch is a podcast from Kickstart that reveals the minds of both investors and entrepreneurs throughout a startup's journey.
00:00:40
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Curtis and Kurt, thank you so much for being here today.
00:00:43
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Always a pleasure, Karen.
00:00:44
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Likewise.
00:00:45
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Thanks to you guys for having me.
00:00:47
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Before we jump into this discussion, I want to talk a little bit more about each of you.
00:00:51
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Curtis, as the CEO and founder of Nursa, you help healthcare facilities fill short-term staffing needs.
00:00:57
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But before Nursa, you were the owner of Elite Specialty Staffing, a professional nursing agency, and the founder of Databot, an IT support company.
00:01:06
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And you graduated from Utah State University.
00:01:08
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Your focus was management and operations.
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And I've been told you enjoy skiing.
00:01:13
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Is there anything else that we should know about you?
Personal Interests of Curtis and Kurt
00:01:15
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I like swim.
00:01:16
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That about sums it up.
00:01:18
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Okay.
00:01:18
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So it's skiing, swimming, running a very successful company.
00:01:21
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I feel like your life is pretty full.
00:01:22
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So that's great.
00:01:24
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And Kurt, it's of course great to have you back on the show.
00:01:27
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We'll have a link to your bio in our show notes.
00:01:30
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As always, we like to ask this question.
00:01:32
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What's something the audience doesn't yet know about you?
00:01:35
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One of the things that I collect, which has become increasingly hard to justify, is watches.
00:01:40
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But it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep this up because I will literally find that in any given month, I've got six or seven dead batteries.
00:01:50
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I'm constantly batching these things up and taking them down to a place and getting batteries replaced.
00:01:55
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And so it's kind of silly, frankly, but I enjoy it.
00:01:59
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Now, Karen is our host.
Curtis's Early Tech Fascination
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We always want to know something new about you as well.
00:02:03
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So let's hear it.
00:02:05
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Actually, this is something I just recently shared with the team.
00:02:07
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I love car mechanics stuff.
00:02:10
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I love changing the car oil, changing a serpentine belt, changing the spark plugs.
00:02:14
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It's really relaxing.
00:02:15
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That's something I really enjoy.
00:02:17
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I want to see you do an engine overhaul, a full engine overhaul.
00:02:20
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Okay, done.
00:02:21
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Deal.
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We'll do it.
00:02:22
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But I'm so excited for this discussion today.
00:02:26
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Curtis, your entrepreneurial story starts way back to your Idaho roots.
00:02:31
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What was it that first intrigued you about entrepreneurship and tech?
00:02:34
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For me, a 28K modem was the front door to the rest of the world.
00:02:40
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The community that I grew up in is largely based economically in agriculture and the internet.
00:02:47
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And my first computer became just a vehicle of learning.
00:02:52
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The dial-up sound is one that is near and dear to my heart and just represents so much of those early years.
00:03:02
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After some of that early exposure at home, there's a pretty unique facet of legislation in Idaho that allows high school students to get academic credit towards a high school diploma while working.
00:03:16
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So it's just a work release.
00:03:19
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And there was a teacher at the high school, Daryl Muck is his name, still in teaching.
00:03:25
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Mr. Muck developed a theory that he could staff the entire district's IT support team with students using this bubble of work release opportunity.
00:03:38
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And so he did it.
00:03:40
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Most of the focus of the program was based in A-plus PC troubleshooting, server administration, and the physical ramifications of server upkeep.
00:03:51
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And so you'd get a whole bunch of this training.
00:03:54
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And then from 10th grade to 12th grade, you could do work release and then function as an IT support rep inside of the district.
00:04:01
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And
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I was really fascinated with machines and with the computers.
00:04:05
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But at the end of my freshman year, he sat down with me and asked me what I wanted to do.
00:04:11
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And I was pretty fascinated with just the ramifications of web development.
00:04:16
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And this was just...
00:04:18
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prior to HTML 2.0 coming online.
00:04:21
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So I expressed to him my interest in web development.
00:04:24
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And a month later, midway through the summer, he shows up at my house with a bunch of Dreamweaver HTML books and just says,
00:04:34
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read these books and help me make a case for this, we can build a curriculum for students to follow.
00:04:40
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We spent a good chunk of the rest of the summer reading that documentation and playing around with Dreamweaver.
00:04:45
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And then the first semester of my 10th grade year, we built a website for the district.
00:04:53
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Ultimately, I think that was probably a really great introduction to entrepreneurship because we would just get notes from the district about things that they wanted to put on the website.
00:05:02
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And the website was largely just an open brochure at that point.
00:05:06
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And so it was a pretty literal translation from scope of work to deliverable.
00:05:12
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And it wasn't until college that I heard the word entrepreneurship.
00:05:16
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But you were doing it
Intrinsic Motivation in Entrepreneurship
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from that early age.
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And it's really clear.
00:05:19
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And it's easy to see how that built this momentum that just kind of is in this passion that followed you into adulthood.
00:05:25
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And so I think that's such an incredible experience that that teacher created for you.
00:05:29
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Hindsight is so interesting because now you can view that teacher as a real front door into entrepreneurship and that you then kind of like carried that passion with you into adulthood.
00:05:37
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But like without that teacher, you may not have been on that path.
00:05:40
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Probably safe to say, right?
00:05:42
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Yes.
00:05:43
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Circumstance is definitely indicative.
00:05:45
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I think I'm not that good at growing wheat or potatoes.
00:05:49
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And like 4-H was my brother's thing.
00:05:53
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And he was phenomenal at it.
00:05:55
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But I wasn't exactly a great fit.
00:06:00
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And so this invitation to work on this thing where I have a little bit of interest gives me exposure to a path for sure.
00:06:09
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I think all of us individually are grateful for the Mr. Mucks or whoever that represents in our life.
00:06:14
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And Kurt, so you've worked with dozens and dozens of entrepreneurs.
00:06:18
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You've had a chance to hear their stories, know how they got started.
The Role and Value of Mentorship
00:06:22
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Do you find that Curtis's story about someone giving him sort of like that front door, you know, path into entrepreneurship is a familiar one?
00:06:29
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I don't know that it's necessarily familiar.
00:06:34
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What it does, though, is it illustrates something that I care about a lot when I meet founders and think about companies to invest in, which is I always want to see some fundamental why.
00:06:45
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in an entrepreneur.
00:06:46
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And sometimes that why can relate to the business they've chosen to start.
00:06:51
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There's a problem they want to solve that has deep personal meaning.
00:06:55
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And in Curtis's case, what I saw were a couple of things that I think were indicative of this strong intrinsic motivation.
00:07:02
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One was that he had this teacher that had given him an opportunity to learn technology, which many of his friends didn't have.
00:07:12
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And that he got paid for it as well.
00:07:15
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And so there was some additional motivation to spend his time that way.
00:07:19
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And because Curtis is a very intellectually curious person, the combination of those two things, I think, put him on a path to see opportunity that many of his peers didn't have the chance to see.
00:07:34
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To some degree, it was that contrast, that seeing what could be on the negative side and having a teacher that was showing him what could be in a positive sense that made it easier for him to make the choice to build a life filled with opportunity.
00:07:53
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And that kind of deep sense of purpose and motivation, I think, is an X factor with successful entrepreneurs.
00:08:01
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Clearly, just acts of mentorship and opportunities for that can make a huge difference in a person's life and their career.
00:08:08
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And Curtis, right now, do you have someone in your life that you would consider a professional mentor now?
00:08:14
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It's more of a bench.
00:08:15
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I think a panel is probably a better way to define it.
00:08:19
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Anytime you run up against a place where you've got a question or there's a hole or a lack of knowledge, just finding somebody is really great.
00:08:30
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I did a short period in my career in film.
00:08:34
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I loved it.
00:08:34
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But one of the things that I always found to be really interesting is if you call the director of a project, they'd never call you back.
00:08:42
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But if you call an assistant director, you can buy those guys lunch all day long.
00:08:47
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All day long.
00:08:48
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And they had just as much visibility on a project.
00:08:51
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And so mentorship for me is fairly synonymous with the idea of...
00:08:56
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just finding the people who know something about what you don't and then learning.
00:09:04
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I also want Kurt's thoughts on this.
00:09:06
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Why do you believe it's important for entrepreneurs to have a mentor or a bench of mentors?
00:09:12
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First of all, they can always be found, right?
00:09:15
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It's never the case where an entrepreneur that really wants a mentor can't find them.
00:09:22
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Many of us who've had rich careers or developed some deep expertise in a particular area,
00:09:29
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We actually really enjoy and love sharing that and seeing other people have the opportunity to grow from it.
00:09:35
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It's very rewarding.
00:09:37
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And most of us had that provided for us by someone else, right?
00:09:41
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That's how we were able to do it.
00:09:44
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So to a great degree, choosing a mentor or having a group of people that someone can turn to is a strong, positive indication of a desire to learn and a willingness to be coached.
00:09:55
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I think if you don't see that in a person, it can sometimes be indicative of the opposite, that there's a sense that, hey, I've got this.
00:10:02
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I know what I'm doing.
00:10:03
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That's a negative signal in the start of a relationship between us as a funder of companies and an entrepreneur.
00:10:08
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Because writing the check is just the start of the relationship.
00:10:11
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And we're going to go through some tough times together.
00:10:14
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And being in a position where you're working with someone who is willing to take hard feedback when it needs to be delivered, or when the person is feeling stuck on an issue that you'll get a phone call...
00:10:25
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That's the kind of relationship you want.
00:10:28
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And entrepreneurs that have mentors and can identify them and can describe things that they've learned from them, I think, are ones that, by definition, want to grow and learn and tap resources that can help them.
00:10:42
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And that's a really positive signal for how the working relationship will likely unfold.
00:10:47
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Kurt, you mentioned that anyone who wants a mentor can find one, but I do think it can be a little bit of an intimidating process for people.
00:10:54
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So I want to hear from both of you.
00:10:55
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First from Curtis, how do you approach a mentor?
00:10:58
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How do you go about finding your mentors?
00:11:00
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For me, some of the maybe why we go to look is born out of necessity.
00:11:06
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There's just lots and lots and lots of questions when you start a company.
00:11:10
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And for me, quite often, the first place to go, Karen, is a text message to Kurt to just say, Who do you know?
00:11:18
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What do you know?
00:11:18
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Not surprised by that.
00:11:19
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Yeah.
00:11:19
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Yeah.
00:11:20
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I had an investor fall asleep in our second pitch, our second pass at the pitch.
00:11:25
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And God bless him.
00:11:28
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Like, Hey, he probably just, he probably just needed a nap, but there's feedback there.
00:11:33
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When I sat down with Kurt, the first three minutes of the conversation, there were similarities in his perception of what was coming.
00:11:41
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And then he started to explain his experience and his intersection between marketplace and healthcare and just the landscape that he'd seen.
00:11:48
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And,
00:11:49
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That was unparalleled.
00:11:51
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I hadn't talked to anybody, anybody who had done that.
00:11:54
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Marketplaces aren't really common in Utah.
00:11:56
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And so you sort of walk away from that experience and go, OK, I think there's something I can learn from this guy beyond the scope of just the initial question.
00:12:06
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It's good to know that all I had to do was not fall asleep in that first meeting.
00:12:11
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Right.
00:12:12
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I can clear that part.
00:12:13
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I can do that.
00:12:15
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And leave a really strong first impression.
00:12:17
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But this sort of formal ask to be a mentor is not useful.
00:12:24
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When people do that, it feels like they're almost asking you to accept an assignment.
00:12:29
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I'm just like, I'm not sure what I'm even signing up for.
00:12:32
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The way I like to be approached is bring me a problem for which you think I might have some insight or would like some help.
00:12:41
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Then what happens next is there's sort of a critical test, which is I gave you feedback on the first question you asked.
00:12:50
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Fine if you come back for clarification and there was something you didn't quite understand or you do some experimenting with it and it's like, well, that didn't quite work.
00:12:57
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Can we talk again?
00:12:58
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The times where it's really frustrating, however, is where someone will ask for help, I'll give them feedback, and they don't do anything with it.
00:13:07
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And then three months later...
00:13:10
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you'll get the request, hey, can we have another conversation?
00:13:12
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I'm like, sure.
00:13:13
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And then you find you're having the exact same conversation again.
00:13:15
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And it's like, well, wait a minute.
00:13:18
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We already talked about this.
Giving Back Through Mentorship
00:13:20
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And you just didn't do anything with what I suggested.
00:13:24
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I just lose patience at that point.
00:13:27
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And I think as long as a person like me or anybody else...
00:13:31
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who does this and provides this sort of support.
00:13:33
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And Curtis does plenty of this with his own team and other people as well.
00:13:36
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As long as you see that people are earnestly seeking to act on what they hear, there is like endless patience and desire to keep that up.
00:13:45
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What responsibility do you think people have to serve as a mentor?
00:13:49
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Curtis, you first.
00:13:52
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My perception over the last couple of decades of a self-made man or a self-made woman have pretty drastically changed.
00:14:02
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Entrepreneurship, in a lot of ways, is standing on a lot, a lot of shoulders.
00:14:10
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To kid yourself into the belief that you drug yourself up from your bootstraps is a bit of a misnomer.
00:14:18
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So, yeah, I think, you know, Twitter statement summary, Karen.
00:14:21
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Yeah, I think there is a responsibility to give back.
00:14:24
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And I think there's definitely good reasoning to suggest that the best path forward for for us collectively.
00:14:31
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You can tell that you're really passionate about it.
00:14:34
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I want to just keep like picking your brain on it.
00:14:36
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But Kurt, I want to get your response first before we dive in a little bit more.
00:14:40
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Life's a team sport.
00:14:42
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It just is.
00:14:43
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Humans are social animals.
00:14:45
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And as a result, we naturally tend toward, I think, interdependency because we learned fairly early on that the things that we create together are always better than the things that we try to do alone.
00:15:00
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I think what naturally develops for most people is a pretty clear sense of
00:15:06
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that at various critical points in their lives, there were people there that made all the difference.
00:15:12
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I can name them by name at critical points in my life where my life went in a different direction because somebody took an interest and saw in me more than I saw in myself and took risks that I did not justify receiving to put me in places and in opportunities where I could really prove what I could do.
00:15:34
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And just having had that experience, I think, naturally develops a desire to say, boy,
00:15:42
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Some critical people did that for me.
00:15:44
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I'd be a jerk if I didn't do that for others.
00:15:47
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So it just becomes this virtuous cycle.
00:15:49
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You're the beneficiary of it.
00:15:51
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And so you naturally feel a sense of not just obligation, but desire to do the same for other people.
00:15:58
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I'm the same.
00:15:58
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I could name people who were there at key intersections in my life that changed my life and their gratitude I feel is never ending.
00:16:06
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So I agree.
00:16:07
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Curtis, I want to know, at a very real tactical level, how are you incorporating mentorship in that culture and that community into your startup?
00:16:16
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To Kurt's point, it's a team sport.
00:16:19
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We try to create opportunities on a weekly basis for vocalization of ideas.
00:16:26
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We don't always know where the next wave is going to come from or what the next opportunity is going to look like.
00:16:31
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And so the group thought independently contributed and then measured holistically is a really good indicator of how to get there and something you'd be a fool not to try to encourage in a company.
00:16:46
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Kurt, how have you seen what Curtis was just talking about impact Nursa?
00:16:51
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I haven't spent a lot of time with a broader NURSA team.
00:16:54
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We just haven't had occasion to do that.
00:16:56
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But on many occasions in conversations with Curtis and with Drew, Curtis's co-founder, we'll get into discussions about current challenges and things the company is trying to work its way through.
00:17:11
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And Curtis will oftentimes bring up sources of ideas that came up inside of the company that
00:17:17
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for how to deal with that or things that he's researched outside of the company.
00:17:20
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I've connected him up with other CEOs in the Kickstart portfolio that are also running marketplace companies.
00:17:26
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And there's sort of this group of them now that are kind of routinely talking and sharing ideas and even investing in each other's companies, which is really cool.
00:17:33
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I think it's pretty organic.
00:17:34
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Again, it's pretty natural to CEOs that want to learn and respect the capabilities that people bring to the table on their teams and are willing, independent of position, experience, and hierarchy, to judge any idea on its merit and act on it when they see good ideas.
Importance of Morning Routines
00:17:53
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I mean, I feel like I say this often, but I could keep talking about this all day.
00:17:57
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But Curtis, we ask everybody on the podcast this question.
00:17:59
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And so I'd like to hear from you.
00:18:01
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What's an effective practice you've implemented in your work or personal life that's had a great impact on your success?
00:18:09
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For me, morning routines are critical.
00:18:12
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For me, that's some component of exercise and time for personal reflection and study.
00:18:20
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It doesn't happen every day.
00:18:21
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But for me personally, mornings and morning routines are a pretty critical piece of staying on track and getting things right.
00:18:30
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Thank you.
00:18:31
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Kurt, any response to that?
00:18:33
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This was maybe seven or eight years ago for me that I re-implemented a habit of regular exercise.
00:18:42
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For me, that's six days a week.
00:18:44
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And other than times when I literally can't do so, meaning I'm injured or I physically can't do it, that time is completely sacred for me.
00:18:54
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I've learned both in a positive sense from doing so and in a negative sense when I haven't.
00:19:00
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that my own mental health, my physical health, energy level at work, my calmness, the degree to which I can cope effectively and productively with the normal stresses of life have everything to do with whether I am consistently incorporating exercise in my routine.
00:19:21
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In contrast with Curtis, I'm a night exerciser.
00:19:24
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We just all do what works for us.
Conclusion and Gratitude
00:19:26
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But having it in the schedule makes all the difference.
00:19:29
Speaker
I think what you said about doing what works for you is key.
00:19:33
Speaker
And thank you for this really rich, amazing discussion.
00:19:36
Speaker
I had a lot of light bulb aha moments, but I think my biggest takeaway is really just a big thank you to all the people who have helped all of us in our life.
00:19:44
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People who serve as mentors, people who are willing to help and give people a leg up.
00:19:48
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It's just, we're all really grateful.
00:19:49
Speaker
And Curtis and Kurt, I'm grateful to you for being here today.
00:19:53
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So thank you so much for the discussion.
00:19:54
Speaker
Thank you, Karen.
00:19:56
Speaker
Thanks to you guys for having me.
00:19:58
Speaker
And of course, thank you for listening as we dive deep into what it takes to create the perfect pitch.
00:20:04
Speaker
If you want to learn more about our investor, Kurt Roberts from Kickstart or our co-founder, Curtis Anderson and his team at Nursa, we'll have a link to the company and a longer bio in our show notes at kickstartfund.com.
00:20:15
Speaker
You can listen to more episodes of Perfect Pitch wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:20:19
Speaker
And if you like what you're learning, leave us a reviewer rating.
00:20:21
Speaker
We'll be back next time with more insights from entrepreneurs and the investors who fund them.
00:20:25
Speaker
So be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a thing.