Bearcats Mean Business podcast

Grant Freking: (00:00)
What does real world success in business actually look like? Welcome the Bearcats mean business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's, Carl h Lindner College of Business, where inspiring career stories, honest lessons, and fresh business perspectives from the people building impact in the real world. Come together, tune in for inspiration, practical business insights, and forward-looking thought leadership on how ambition turns into action. And now for today's episode,

Marianne Lewis: (00:31)
Dan, it's such a pleasure to have you here today. Thank you.

Dan Schimberg: (00:34)
You're welcome. I'm excited.

Marianne Lewis: (00:36)
I think this is a great opportunity from for us all to, to learn from your experience, your role model. I mean, I think your, personally, I think your career journey is fascinating as an entrepreneur and as a leader. And I wondered if we could just dive in there, because you started rehabbing a single property near uc, the University of Cincinnati, and it was, I think in the 1980s. What did you see that others overlooked and right our backyard?

Dan Schimberg: (01:03)
Well, I was a student at uc, and it was back in the, when the, when the, uh, movie animal house was filmed. And honestly, you could not find a nice place to live. And I'm not talking about granite countertops. I'm I, I'm really referring to windows that operated, maybe central air conditioning, off street parking, just normal, uh, middle class regular people who want a nice place to live. And uc was, was emerging from a, from really a commuter school to, to a university, um, where people wanted to live there and they just couldn't find good housing. And so what I wanted to do was create housing units that really didn't exist and safe, clean, good, good working windows, functional, maybe a dishwasher. And I remember the other landlord saying, I don't know why you're fixing it up. You don't need to do that. They'll rent it anyway. And it was at a time long before the internet, of course. And, and so there was no reputational harm that other landlords had by treating their residents poorly. Mm-hmm . And I didn't care about that. I wanted to provide a product that didn't exist.

Marianne Lewis: (02:30)
It strikes me that because you were a student at uc, you also knew how much it mattered to those who were actually living in those facilities. I mean, it was personal as well as professional.

Dan Schimberg: (02:40)
I was never able to stay in one of my housing units for more than one year because they were so poorly maintained and the landlords were, were not respectful of their residents. Um, and I really wanted to change that.

Marianne Lewis: (02:58)
I, I think, I think, think it's remarkable how much you and your efforts have changed our, our region all around the campus. And thinking of you as an entrepreneur, because it's always about taking risks and managing uncertainty, but you were making bets on neighborhoods that a lot of people were avoiding at the time. Um, how did you develop the confidence to keep investing when the outcome was so uncertain? 'cause that's such part of the process.

Dan Schimberg: (03:25)
Ignorance. It's bliss. Yeah. There, uh, had I, it was, it was more difficult than I thought it would be. Um, entrepreneurs by nature are extremely optimistic human beings. Um, I really planted a flag in Corryville mm-hmm . At the time. And Corryville was a, an outright dangerous neighborhood. Um, but so perfectly located between what was then General Hospital, which is now uc Health and the University of Cincinnati. And it was just, it, it's a pretty small neighborhood. It, it's really only four blocks. Mm-hmm . By about five blocks. And it just didn't seem like a massive task to start rehabbing houses. And they were so beautifully located. Yeah. Um, but the crime kept popping up. Mm-hmm . Uh, I remember once we were rehabbing a multi-family building in Corryville, and the kids in the neighborhood kept throwing rocks through our new windows. And so I got a bunch of the kids together and I said, every Thursday the ice cream truck's gonna come. I'm buying all the kids in the neighborhood ice cream from the ice cream truck if there are no broken windows this week. And that's ultimately how that's beautiful. We built, got the kids in the neighborhood to start behaving, and I just had an open wallet at the ice cream truck that came down, Corryville and all the kids lined up and I bought 'em all ice cream every Thursday. .

Marianne Lewis: (05:01)
Okay. I love that. It's, it's, it's a different version of the Broken Windows Theory for Right. New York City. I like it. It's the ice cream version of it. Yeah.

Dan Schimberg: (05:10)
It's great.

Marianne Lewis: (05:10)
Um, we've been talking about your entrepreneurial capabilities and, and how you started with your risk taking. I wanna move to leadership, but before I do, I think it would be helpful for others to understand how you grew. I mean, can you talk a little bit about your scale? 'cause we said you started with one property, but I think before we go to the leadership, it's helpful for people to understand you now run a big organization and that scale is really impressive.

Dan Schimberg: (05:38)
Yeah. It, it, um, uh, when you start a little company, you never imagine it being a big company. Mm-hmm . And it really happens organically for most people. Um, and, and so we really, I was a one man show. Uh, I would go see a banker and then I'd show an apartment, and then I would fix a dishwasher, and then I would paint, and then I would go look for another house to buy. And so, and what happens is in small organizations is you, you only have so many hours in a day. And so the only way you're gonna grow an organization is begin to lever your time mm-hmm . And by levering your time, you take off one hat at a time, um, and you give it to someone else. You, you hire a leasing agent and, and now they're out. And you have to trust that they're doing what they say they're gonna do.

Dan Schimberg: (06:37)
And, and one of my, uh, core values is, uh, hire the people you trust and trust the people you hire. Um, I, I've always given our employees a lot of autonomy, and I tell them to bring their brains to work mm-hmm . And I expect that. Um, but really it was, it was a slow, slow crawl. Uh, in the beginning. I really wanted to be a big fish in a small pond, basically own all the buildings myself, and do whatever I could do within the capacity of my own ability to finance those. That turned out to be a, a decision that slowed my growth for really 15 years until I had to go out and embrace and find investors, give up slices of the pie, and become a smaller fish in a bigger pond, which ultimately allowed, uh, us to accelerate our growth over time.

Marianne Lewis: (07:43)
And it is such a challenge with, with entrepreneurs with scaling because it, it, you're trading off some of the control, but you're doing that through trust, as you said, through partnerships. Yeah. How did your leadership change? I mean, you talked about a little bit how you scaled, right? With handing off the hats. I love that I can picture the in Yeah. That metaphor, but how did your leadership style?

Dan Schimberg: (08:06)
I had to get used to people, um, bringing problems to me. Um, when you're doing it by yourself, you're really, you're the problem solver. Mm-hmm . And, and to lead, you're really asking your team to continually identify problems, finding solutions. Um, and, and, and getting out of the weeds was very difficult for me because I was the guy doing all the weeding for a long time. Um, but it was really building that core group of what now is almost our executive team. Mm-hmm . Uh, because they've been there for 20 years, many of 'em, um, and really allowing them to run with the ball. They understand the core values of the company, and I would hold them a accountable, uh, to, to, to lead, uh mm-hmm . For me and with me. And, and I think, you know, my leadership style is one that is, was rather unstructured in the beginning, I will admit mm-hmm . Um, and, but I really leaned on them to, to find the solutions and, and drive the company to our core values that we all agree on. Mm-hmm . We also, um, uh, quickly moved to having kind of annual, uh, retreats to make sure that the communication interdepartmentally was done. It, it, it, it's one of the bigger challenges as you're growing an organization, that everyone knows what people are doing. Yeah. Why they're doing it, how, when, and so interdepartmental communication, uh, has always been a, a focus of ours.

Marianne Lewis: (10:08)
And it sounds like you've, you've, even, as you've, you've grown and been more hands off, you're still very hands on. And maybe it's in the conceptual pieces, and you think about how, how all the puzzle pieces are fitting together. So, well, one of the things that we've talked about, I mean, you work so closely with our, our uc Center for Real Estate, and I, I've come to deeply value that group. I mean, I, I'm, I'm not in real estate, I'm in management, but it is so interdisciplinary, and it's something I valued with Gary Painter coming in and thinking about our work with engineering and with dap. I'm gonna ask you to put a little bit more of your urban planner hat on, because I love, when I hear you, you, you talk and think aloud. You do think, like, very much like an urban planner, even though you're very much a, a investor. And you think about the finance side, which is more what we think is maybe a typical real estate approach. Um, but you, you seem to balance in, I think, in exceptional ways, the realities of business growth and the investments and partners that come in there with the responsibility of shaping neighborhoods. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how you manage that balancing act there.

Dan Schimberg: (11:19)
I care deeply about the neighborhoods, especially in the neighborhoods of the uptown. Um, they're critically important to the university thriving. Mm-hmm . Um, in the late nineties, short Vine as an example, really fell into deep despair, and there was a lot of serious crime homicides. And we gathered the University of Cincinnati, the city of Cincinnati, a couple major stakeholders along with us, and we did an urban renewal plan. And I had never been involved in an urban renewal plan before. And, and it created a roadmap. And many of these urban renewal plans go, go into a drawer somewhere mm-hmm . And it's a, and it's a big wish. Um, and, and we took that urban renewal plan and carried it around with us and went into the Corryville Community Council and said, this is what they said we had to do. And continued to drive that. I'd go to the city, I'd go to the university.

Dan Schimberg: (12:24)
This is the plan we all agreed on. And I kept pulling it out. That plan was the 2004 Corryville Urban Development Plan. And if you look at that plan today, we have, we have completed that plan. Okay. That's impressive. And that plan called for 2000 people to be new residents, to be living on short vine, for example. Big, one of the big challenges in doing this is dragging the investors along because investors, they may not care about the neighborhood. They are only returns, they're only looking at returns. Mm-hmm . And, and so we have a passionate group of investors who are willing to follow me into these neighborhoods. That's fantastic. And, and I think it's critically important. Mm-hmm. And it has paid big dividends because when you are successful, you are part of the renaissance of a neighborhood, and you do get those returns. And so, um, yeah.

Dan Schimberg: (13:24)
There's a, there's a writ high risk there, but there is a reward there of mm-hmm . Being in Corryville 20 years earlier than others. And in Mount Auburn. Um, and, and I'll tell you one of the best examples is we bought an acre of land in Corryville where the Eden sits today, and it was auctioned off by the city of Cincinnati in the early 1990s. And they started at a dollar, and I bid a dollar, and I bought it for a dollar. No one else bid on that in the middle of a real slum, uh, where crime was very, very high. And so that's, that's the reward side of it. That's the risk side of being able to see a neighborhood, being able to see something around the corner before it's developed mm-hmm . And, and then relying on your instincts to, to take it there and understand the risk reward of that.

Dan Schimberg: (14:25)
Mount Auburn is another prime, prime example mm-hmm . Where everyone was talking about connecting up to town and downtown. Yet there had been no private investment in Mount Auburn in almost 60 years other than Christ Hospital. No. Investors were going in there, building housing, building apartments, building infrastructure, remodeling the parks. And we identified that 60 years, the message when everyone was talking about Right. Connecting uptown and downtown Uhhuh . And so we, we assembled the land for Wellington Alto. So we went into Mount Auburn, found investors who were willing to spend a hundred million dollars in Mount Auburn, and now Mount Auburn has taken root.

Marianne Lewis: (15:07)
I I love hearing you, Dan, because I can, I can picture in my mind, I mean, you are such a developer. I mean, yes, there's the physical development, there's the neighborhood development, but there's very much the human development. I mean, and you see these working synergistically Yeah. And you, you clearly are able to share that vision effectively with investors, whether or not they, not or not, they really wanna lean into the really big pictures It is gonna pay off Yeah. As

Dan Schimberg: (15:30)
Well. And the, and you have to bring the neighborhood along. You have to, I mean, especially to

Marianne Lewis: (15:35)
Sustain

Dan Schimberg: (15:36)
The fact that Hollister Street is a two-way street now, which allows people to cut up to Mount Auburn from Vine Street, which used to be one way down. Mm-hmm. Right. It, it takes ambulance traffic away. It helps. Right. But you have to be able to bring these ideas to the neighborhood, to the city, and marshal them through. And there is no return on investment for us to do that other than get to see the neighborhood flourish mm-hmm . And ultimately all boats rise with the tide.

Marianne Lewis: (16:06)
Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think in that, in that developer mindset, let's go a little bit more into the human side because it strikes me that you've always taken your, taken your role as a role model and a mentor. Seriously. And when it comes to young and rising leaders, I'd be interested in what qualities you're looking for in, in young professionals entering real estate or entrepreneurs today that you see, oh, I see that spark. What are you looking for?

Dan Schimberg: (16:35)
Um, you know, it, it's a great question. First of all, when I meet my mentees, um, I always meet them e either seven 30 or eight in the morning for coffee. So the first thing I look for is someone who shows up on time. Mm-hmm . Absolutely. And I also look for people who aren't so worried about making a lot of money early on. Um, so I'm looking for people who are trying to develop the craft. Okay. Um, and, and understand that a lot of people come and they say, I want to be a developer. There is no major for developers. There is no, a, a, a developer is someone who has suburban, suburban planning mm-hmm . Some architects, some finance, some, and a lot of different pieces that are put together. Um, and so what I look for in mentees who come and ask for advice is, where should I jump in?

Dan Schimberg: (17:38)
What do I need to be learning? They're not asking, how do I go make the most amount of money tomorrow? Mm-hmm . Um, it's really what do I need to learn? Where do I go to get that? How can I be involved? Can I watch, you know, something I learned, uh, through a process is people only learn through three different ways. Experience, exposure, and formal education. Mm-hmm . The three E's mm-hmm . And how people pursue that is, is very, very important. College MBAs very important educationally. Mm-hmm . But then it's, are you gonna go swim? Are you gonna go watch someone learn how to swim and, and are you gonna take these plans down to the permit desk mm-hmm . Or are you going to send someone else? And getting that experience and exposure is really how you ultimately become a developer. And so I look for, I, I look for kids especially who are prompt and want to understand how they need to learn the craft. Mm-hmm

Marianne Lewis: (18:45)
. I love that. Three pronged. I mean, they're all ease. They are. And we, we invented cooperative education here because we believe that they can work together really well.

Dan Schimberg: (18:56)
They need to.

Marianne Lewis: (18:57)
I, I mean, if you can build that synergistic Yeah. The exposure, the experience, and the formal education, it's a win-win. And you've worked with uc and Lindner a long time. I mean, you have quite a pipeline of Bearcats in your office. I wonder what, how you might describe our students if you were talking to other employers as we, we build out our pipeline for partners, co-op, co-op employers in the future. Is there, is there something that you see of the work that we do and, and what can we learn from your experience? Well,

Dan Schimberg: (19:30)
The co-op program is, is unmatched, uh, as far as I know. Um, and I encourage so many employers to take advantage of it because it's really the other, the other two E's. Yeah. Um, it's the experiencing, the exposure, exposure that, that, uh, co-op students are getting. And, and you need all three to learn to understand, um, and to succeed. Mm-hmm . Um, the students coming outta uc, especially in the co-op program we've had, we've had so many. Our vice president of property management, who's on our executive team, started as a part-time leasing agent, and then co-op, and then ultimately has worked, uh, his way all the way through the ranks. But we love our uc co-ops.

Marianne Lewis: (20:20)
I, and I love to hear that, Dan, very much, I mean, you were once in their shoes, right? You were a student. If you were looking back and, and talking to yourself then, is, is there any particular lesson or lessons you'd really want us to be instilling in the student today to help them on this journey?

Dan Schimberg: (20:41)
That's a, that's a great question. Um, you know, we, I'm thinking about our co-ops that, that we've hired. We often try to get co-ops in six month tranches instead of three months. Mm-hmm . Um, we found that they, three months, by the time the onboarding, the training, um, it, it felt too short to us because there's so much to learn. We found that our, our six month co-ops were very, very successful. And so we would kind of seek our six month co-ops. Um, but it's, uh, I, I told my son, uh, uh, who's in Chicago working for a real estate company. I said, Jake, do not worry if the, if you need to go get your boss a cup of coffee. Absolutely. That's fine. You're in the room, you're learning, you're getting experience, you're getting exposure. And, um, so it's really, don't worry about if you're sweeping a floor or you're preparing a spreadsheet or you're getting coffee, or you get called into the executive team meeting to help, uh, present something. It's all part of the, it's all part of the final cake that you're building. Yeah. It's all, they're all ingredients. Um, and you have to, you have to be willing, uh, to do all of it. You do to, to bake a cake. You can't just put, you know, you can't forget the flour or the eggs or the, or the vanilla. Um, you really need all the ingredients to become a, a young professional.

Marianne Lewis: (22:14)
You know, don't

Dan Schimberg: (22:15)
Be too proud.

Marianne Lewis: (22:16)
Don't be too proud, and don't be too inflexible. Because the one, one piece I heard you saying, it was something we thought so much about when we were moving the college to mandatory, um, co-op, which engineering and DAP have been, since it's the onset, certainly engineering from the onset, we realized we needed to have a more flexible program because different employers want different things. And I think the sixth month is a wonderful example of something we could lean into more. Yeah. Because I agree the ups and downs of, of startup and, and ramp down, there's a whole value to every, the way you just said it. We could use you as an example for others. So thank you for that.

Dan Schimberg: (22:54)
You touched on real estate being interdisciplinary mm-hmm . And I remember speaking with, uh, Dr. Ono Santa Ono mm-hmm . And he, and he really pushed kind of the interdisciplinary piece to it, because real estate is, it's architecture, it's urban planning, it's finance, and, um, it's sales. It's, it's, it's every piece. And so the interdisciplinary approach to it is, is critically important to be teaching and for the students when they're considering co-ops, uh, to explore and understand, even though they have their eyes set on finance or their eyes set because mm-hmm . That experiential learning, uh, helps, helps you when you're putting your assumptions in the spreadsheet mm-hmm .

Marianne Lewis: (23:45)
Absolutely. And look, learn how to work with others from different disciplines Right. Into that bigger model. I, the, the other piece that's a little different from interdisciplinary is, is almost inter level. And what I mean by that is you think about the community in a really beautiful way, and I have found in, in my line of work that the greatest leaders think about their jobs well beyond their organizations. You think about Cincinnati, you've always thought about Cincinnati, and you, it shows in your volunteer work Yeah. As an example that goes well beyond, I mean, into healthcare and research and community organizations. I, I would love you to share a bit why you take the time to do that, because I'd love the students in particular to understand there's a, there's a bigger world out there than your job, and your job matters a great deal, but you've, you've leaned into volunteerism in some really impactful ways. Why,

Dan Schimberg: (24:39)
Um, I get enormous satisfaction from, uh, seeing a problem and being part of the solution. Mm-hmm . Uh, and that core satisfaction, uh, runs through my professional life and my non-professional life, and no different than I saw a problem of not being able to find decent housing as a student and wanting to be part of that solution is the same when I see elderly people and they're unable to care for their yard. And I got involved with people working cooperatively, and I could see how this helped. I could see when I walk down to over the Rhine and there's, and I'm stepping over litter on my three mile walk to Findlay market to understand that we have a trash problem in Cincinnati and getting involved in Keep Cincinnati beautiful. I get enormous personal satisfaction and professional satisfaction out of seeing and identifying a problem and being part of a team that finds a solution to it. Mm-hmm . And it really will be my next chapter when I hang up my developer hat. Um, I want to lean into that. I want to be part of the solution as problems come up. Cincinnati has been a great city. It's a five generation city for our family, and, uh, I really want to make it as good as it can possibly be, and we'll do what I can, what I'm able to contribute,

Marianne Lewis: (26:27)
Which we've already seen, is enormous. Thank what you can contribute. I mean, I, I sometimes feel for the students today in that and, and, and debate how to show them how much this area has transformed. This is not the same place it was when I got here in 97. You've been here since 80, and it, it continues. What do you see as the future? You look in your crystal ball, I mean, where you just shared where you're gonna go. Yeah. You're really gonna lean in more to the community. What do you see as the opportunities for Cincinnati and particularly the area around campus?

Dan Schimberg: (27:03)
Uh, I, I love the urban core. Mm-hmm . Uh, in Cincinnati and other urban cores. I, I'm, I'm so interested in the lifestyle of living the urban core versus suburban. Mm-hmm . Um, uptown is really the second largest economic engine in the city. Um, I guess you could consider the greater Cincinnati airport as, as, as a, a big economic engine also. Mm-hmm . When you really look at it as downtown and uptown, the, the, uh, interchange at Martin Luther King and the innovation corridor, uh, still remains really the biggest untapped urban resource in Cincinnati, uh, by far mm-hmm . Uh, the biggest opportunity. There's, there's a billion dollars of development still to happen, and the connectivity of all of the jobs up here at Children's Hospital, uc, health University of Cincinnati, the ho, you know, the other hospitals, Christ Hospital, and the proximity to downtown, the, the proximity to the highways, the, uh, the, the corporate, uh, integration that you see is, is managing through their 18, 19 hub.

Dan Schimberg: (28:23)
Um, I think there's just enormous, enormous upside, uh, in the uptown still. Mm-hmm . Still laughed. I, I think, you know, we've seen a a, a, we've seen a great recovery from, from the blight of the eighties and nineties and really early two thousands. Um, we have repopulated the neighborhoods, uh, I think working on, uh, the pedestrian connectivity mm-hmm . Is gonna be critically important. It's gonna be very, very interesting as ai, autonomous vehicles and all these other pieces continue to, um, emerge. It's obviously going to change the trajectory, but I think it's quite, um, I think, I think we're well on our way, but there's a lot of rope left in these neighborhoods.

Marianne Lewis: (29:14)
I think that's very exciting. Yeah. Because there is more potential. Excuse me. We'll cut that out. Mm-hmm . Um, it, it's exciting because there is such potential ongoing, I mean, we're gonna continue to watch it transform, and I hope it continues to make you proud. It certainly makes me proud and energized of what's possible ahead.

Dan Schimberg: (29:35)
And you see the university, I mean, practically weekly, they're announcing new buildings, new initiatives, new uh, programs, how they're, how they're rolling things out, how it's growing. Um, I mean, the, this university is not sitting on its hands and

Marianne Lewis: (29:51)
It stands for under construction.

Dan Schimberg: (29:52)
That's right. Um, but, but I mean, it's, it's been extraordinary. Mm-hmm . And our growth and the neighborhood's growth is only but for the growth of Children's Hospital, uc Health, the University of Cincinnati, their surrounding institutions we're really, um, part of it. But it it's the institutions that need to continue to thrive and create the jobs and create the platforms for the students to want to come here and stay here.

Marianne Lewis: (30:23)
Yeah. Oh, make it a magnet. Yeah. I mean, a attractor and

Dan Schimberg: (30:27)
Retention and retain Yeah.

Marianne Lewis: (30:28)
Both. I, I absolutely agree. Um, this has been such a wonderful conversation because it is, it epitomizes why you're being recognized at our major event for the uc Real Estate Center, and I'm really excited about that. Thank you. And I wondered if you'd just share why and how you've been working with the, the Center over these years, because we so appreciate you.

Dan Schimberg: (30:54)
Thank you. Um, it was really interesting. We were doing a lot of work in Tallahassee, Florida at the same time. We were doing a lot of work here, um, about really, if you go back 10 years, um, and I was already really involved in the real estate school here, a BEARE member. Mm-hmm . And then you had asked about leadership and employees. We had several employees really step up. Craig Kaufman in our office, um, really stepped up into a, a leadership role at the, at the school. And I think it's just critically important. Um, development and real estate are just, are just so important to a city and mm-hmm . Supporting the real estate school like we were doing at Florida State University that has an extraordinary real estate school. Um, it, it, it's brought us a lot of joy and a lot of success and we've been able to watch these kids grow out of this program into real, real estate professionals Oh, absolutely. In the city. And I have a lot of friends who run companies in town that, uh, came out of the co-op program and came out of the real estate school specifically, uh, that are thriving. And it's been really very, very rewarding to watch and see.

Marianne Lewis: (32:13)
I love to hear that. Thank you for helping us develop the future professionals of development of real estate, but also for continuing to help this, this region thrive. Great. It is such a pleasure, Dan.

Dan Schimberg: (32:24)
Thank you. My pleasure. This has been fun.

Grant Freking: (32:27)
Thank you for listening to this episode of Bearcats Mean Business. If today's episode sparked a new idea, challenge your thinking or helped you see your path a little more clearly, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share the episode with someone in your network. Thanks for being part of the conversation. And remember, real world success begins here at Lender.

Grant Freking: (00:00)
What does real world success in business actually look like? Welcome the Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business, where inspiring career stories, honest lessons, and fresh business perspectives from the people building impact in the real world. Come together, tune in for inspiration, practical business insights, and forward-looking thought leadership on how ambition turns into action. And now for today's episode.

Grant Freking: (00:30)
Welcome Finn. Welcome Bowen. Thanks you both for being here. Um, let's start at the beginning. Your upbringing. Would you guys say your upbringing was defined by brotherly love or brotherly shoves?

Finn Alexy: (00:43)
So definitely brotherly love. I think at this point in our careers, you can't really have the high amount of output and results at this point without it being brotherly love. Like it kind of speaks for itself with the results. Um, I just think that my relationship with Bo and I've described this publicly as well, that it's almost like I'm wearing a suit of armor and it feels like I can't lose because I have this super strong relationship. And even if everything went south, even if all our business business ventures failed, I would always be able to fall back on the fact that I have the best brotherhood and best relationship with my brother in the world. Nice. Hmm. Awesome.

Bowen Alexy: (01:19)
And yeah, exactly the same on this side as well. Uh, Finn and I have grown up together. We've done almost everything together since we were little kids. Um, we have a very similar story, very similar background. And just to be able to do this with him and so much together, it's just been a dream come true, honestly. So

Grant Freking: (01:36)
Was the goal always to get in the business together?

Bowen Alexy: (01:39)
Um, no. Honestly, we, you know, it's Bo in capital was something that kind of just happened. Um, when we were in New York City and we talked to Steven Wang and formed that first kind of handshake deal, um, we needed an LLC to run that transfer through and make that first investment. So Finn and I, forming that together was not something we initially planned long term, but something that we just developed on the fly and then something we just kind of ran with and took off.

Finn Alexy: (02:04)
And in regards to our family's company, it never felt like something that we could fall back on. Mm-hmm . Like even sophomore, junior year of college, it was still like in, its up in its upbringing, I should say. Yeah. And we, we never thought that like, oh, this is the plan post grad. Uh, but then right before graduation and post COVID, it did take off and then we were like, this is the best possible decision we can make.

Finn Alexy: (02:29)
Not only for our family, but for our personal careers and just moving forward. Uh, 'cause our dad needed help, our mom needed help. And then it's, it's really just we want to support them as much as we possibly can. 'cause you see these stories of like, there's no succession plan, uh, founder of a company's work until he is 60 or 70 years old. Right. And we didn't want that to have to be our parents. Like if they wanna work, obviously yes. And we could absolutely use their help, but we didn't want to feel or have them feel forced to kind of work into their late sixties or seventies.

Grant Freking: (02:59)
Yeah. So then the integration to the family business felt more natural for you guys. You never felt like, all right, even after we graduate, we have to do this. It's more like, we want to do this. Yes. Yep.

Finn Alexy: (03:06)
Absolutely. Yep.

Grant Freking: (03:07)
Cool. So what, what was your first like, business or like entrepreneurial memory from when you're younger?

Finn Alexy: (03:12)
So first entrepreneurial memory actually comes from our dad. Mm-hmm . Uh, when we were like 10 and 12 years old. And Alexy Metals first got founded, he actually took a home equity line of credit out on our house and pretty much risked everything and leveraged everything in his own entrepreneurial path. And he bought a skid of braised scrap. And what braising scrap is, I can get an a braising a little bit. It's basically a process like welding where you're connecting two parts in a manufacturing process. But instead of, instead of fusing those parts together, you're applying a precious metal filler alloy. So like gold, silver, platinum, and palladium. And this skid that he bought happened to be gold and there was a gold bra ring in between a ceramic and a metal joint. And then he knew that the gold was in there because at his former job, he had sold that gold bra ring into that component.

Finn Alexy: (04:03)
So he took the risk, bought the skid with no plan on how to get the gold out, which was very risky at the time, especially our, especially for our family. Mm-hmm . Uh, and then he ultimately did figure out how to chemically refine it back out into pure gold, like pure gold bars, pure gold grain. And that is basically the origin story of Alexy Metals. And Bo and I being 10 and 12 years old as he's going on this entrepreneurial path and entrepreneurial journey, uh, we were coming home from school and like crushing up these components in our basement, trying to expose the gold braze alloy to later refine back out and be pure. So we just kind of grew up around entrepreneurship. We grew up around our dad having these like serious ambitions. Yep. Uh, he's been a huge inspiration for us.

Grant Freking: (04:46)
What are like the overall kind of leadership lessons that you've kind of gotten from your father over the years that you maybe you could distill, distill down to like just a couple of them that you kind of take with you and you kind of need something to fall back on?

Bowen Alexy: (04:58)
Sure. Yeah. There's so many, you know, we've watched him for years and we've been around the business from when it first started in our basement, all the way to what it is now, which is roughly a $20 million company. So to kind of see that and kind of grow with him and see the steps he took has just been incredible. Um, and one of my key takeaways since Finn and I manage a lot of the day to day at Alexy Metals is, um, you know, be hard on problems, be soft on people, kind of thing. Like there will be problems, there will be things that come up, you will get frustrated. But it's important to remember not to take out those frustrations on the team. And remember that the problems are what are causing all these frustrations and rifts, you know, it's not the people. So you just gotta be easier on your people. And um, that's something he taught us really early on because these people are working for you and they're here to help you. So to treat them poorly is just not a good thing to do. Right.

Grant Freking: (05:45)
Yeah. Treat 'em all as part of the solution, right? Mm-hmm . Yep. Now Northeast Ohio is not too, too far from Cincinnati, but it's not exactly close. How did you guys end up at Lender and uc? Mm-hmm .

Bowen Alexy: (05:54)
Cool. Yeah. I, uh, answer this one. Sure. Yep. My, um, when I was a senior, um, kind of, I didn't really know where I wanted to go to college. I didn't know what I wanted to study. I was like, is college even for me kind of thing. Yeah. Um, so what I did is I did a big Ohio tour. So I went to Ken Bowling Green, I went to Miami, Ohio State. I went to Cincinnati, I went to ou. I did all the big Ohio schools 'cause I wanted to stay in state kind of thing, uh, in-state tuition and whatnot. Mm. Um, and I toured all these schools and I didn't like bg, I didn't like Miami. Ohio State was like, yeah, we'll let you in, but you gotta spend a semester at our Mansfield campus. And I was like, well, no. Came to uc.

Bowen Alexy: (06:34)
And I was like, wow, this is incredible. I'm like, the campus is amazing, the people are amazing. Everyone I talked to was really nice. And they really sold this vision of like, this is the school for the future. Like next truly does live here. And the people that come through here leave this place and bring something valuable not only to their workplaces, but to the world as well. And, you know, I'm a big fan of red, white, and black, or those are my colors. So it was a really natural fit. And from the second I came here my first day in August, 2020 to when I left, I had a blast. And all the lessons and friendships I forged here are always with me by heart. So,

Grant Freking: (07:07)
Yeah. And the two years since you guys graduated, what have, what have you, what were your main takeaways? I think that what are like the main Lindner lessons, I guess, that you would, you guys that stick with you in your day-to-day dealings?

Finn Alexy: (07:19)
Sure. I would say, and we've actually pitched this and like kind of shared this with some uc classes already. When we're guest speaking, I have two really strong examples, but the first one would be like, I think you can go in upward spirals in your life very quickly. And that's what happened to Beau and I, like, we graduated, we got a article in the News Herald because we were like these brothers that graduated at the same time, like, how did a 22-year-old and a 20-year-old graduate at the same time? How did they start at their family's business? So we did get like an article feature coming right outta college, which is very rare. And then that article feature was actually read by a state senator named Jerry c Serino, and he issued us citations as Ohio's fine as citizens. Mm-hmm . And then because we were named Ohio's fine as citizens, it was this pressure of like, how do we live up to this award?

Finn Alexy: (08:07)
How do we live up to this honor? And then that was the origin of BowFin Capital and the origin of like, how can we justify this achievement? And that's when we reached out to DUB and ultimately became like podcast guest speakers and economists there in the short term while we were speaking on their podcast mm-hmm . And then ultimately angel investors in the company. So it's like, it's crazy how you can just go on an upward spiral very quickly, but that doesn't happen if you're not working as hard as you possibly can every single day. Keeping your mind open to opportunities and also trying to provide value to other people is like my main takeaway from the whole thing. Uh, with our dub example, uh, we basically reached out to them and it was a pitch deck that I had done in Lindner for Derek Schumann's class, uh, digital entrepreneurship where I was like, literally week before graduation, I was scrolling through Instagram reels, like just procrastinating doing an assignment.

Finn Alexy: (09:02)
And I came across this ad for a real startup company and my project in the class was to do a pitch deck on a real startup company. So the company was called Dub mm-hmm . Uh, they were like a innovative stock trading brokerage app where you can copy portfolios of other people or famous investors or famous politicians. So I took them, I did the project for 'em, got an A plus, got a 4.0 GPA in my last semester. And then fast forward to like post Ohio's fine as citizens citations, I was scrolling through my MacBook and like literally just deleting files, like deleting Spanish syllabuses and just stuff I didn't need from undergrad. And I came across that pitch deck and I was like, maybe I should try to send it to someone at dub, send it to 'em for free. And I was like, Hey, this is a college project that I got a a plus on, like if you guys could use this to get venture funding.

Finn Alexy: (09:51)
Absolutely. Me and my brother also have this precious metals background in the brazing and industrial side of precious metals. And one of their portfolios was based around precious metals, and that's how we got the invite to New York City and ultimately the handshake deal to become angel investors. And then when we came back to Cleveland from New York City, our lives were kind of forever changed. Mm-hmm . So yeah, it's just like you can go on these crazy upward spirals and if you provide value to people first, like our dub example where, hey, here's a free pitch deck, here's a social media content, here's venture funding from us, here's unlimited amounts of promotional value, then it's insane how it's reciprocated and it's insane how these things kind of come back to you in a multitude of ways.

Grant Freking: (10:35)
Yep. Yeah. Let's translate that to like maybe like almost like a mentorship thing for like current students. How would you talk to current students or or phrase discussion about like risk and failure and experimentation mm-hmm . Given your journey, your father's journey, and sort of box that into something that would be digestible for like current lit students if you were maybe in your next next guest lecture for them.

Bowen Alexy: (10:57)
Sure. Yeah. We always, when we're given those presentations, uh, end it with like some key takeaways that we've learned. Um, and one of the things that we've learned and what we pitch to students in these classes is that you have to lead with value. Like you have to come in and provide something. Like not just a service, but provide some insights, provide something like maybe they're not seeing, not just in addition to capital. So you gotta form almost like a partnership and provide further value than just, Hey, we're gonna give you some money and then we're gonna be hands off. Like when Finn and I got involved with all of our angel investments, it's, it comes with a strategic partnership aspect and we talk with the founders, give our ideas. If they run with 'em, great. If not, um, it's like, well, you know, just let us know if you need help or if you wanna bounce some ideas kind of thing. But, um, we always say lead with value, you gotta make yourself stand out and that's a great way to do it. Yeah.

Finn Alexy: (11:46)
I would just say the same kind of like upward spiral example. Like everybody in their last semester of college is go going through the motions. So like, the grades really don't matter. I have a job lined up post grad, like they, they don't really care. And I would just tell everybody in class like, start putting your best foot forward now because it's unbelievable how fast you can rise and how fast you can move through the ranks. Mm-hmm . And I would just say like, as much as you could put into something is what you should be doing. Like our prime example, when it was our last semester, I didn't have to get a straight a semester. Like we had a job lined up at our family's company, we didn't have to get good grades, but it was that decision to get a 4.0 GPA in my last semester.

Finn Alexy: (12:27)
That led to me trying on the Derek Shewmon project, which ultimately led to dub mm-hmm . So I would say these school projects and these school examples can turn into real world examples if you put your best foot forward and work as hard as you can. Yep. And Derek Shewmon was one of the classes that we actually guest spoke in, so I was like pointing at a chair and I was like, I literally sat in that chair less than a year ago mm-hmm . And we've turned this story into all of these successes. So you can do the same if you just try as hard as you possibly can, work hard and do the right thing.

Grant Freking: (12:59)
You just never know do you,

Finn Alexy: (13:00)
You just dunno. No, it's

Grant Freking: (13:01)
Crazy. Let's go back to the family business for a second. How do you resolve disagreements and keep things business and not personal when operating the family business?

Finn Alexy: (13:10)
In terms of like, interacting with our employees or Yeah. The family dynamic.

Grant Freking: (13:14)
Yeah. Well, let's touch on that then, the family dynamic after that. Yeah, sure, sure,

Bowen Alexy: (13:17)
Sure. Um, yeah, again, uh, kinda what I said earlier, what Grayson's quote and one of his big lessons is hard on problems, soft on people. Yeah. So, you know, we've had a, a couple of those scenarios where people are having problems or people are frustrated, you know, the work isn't allocated properly. So they've raised those concerns. And what Finn and I have tried to build in our tenure as a culture of collaboration and teamwork, like we're all just helping each other out. If we see someone's overload with work, we step in and help. You know, we make sure everybody's helping. There's no one like, just kind of sitting around while someone's doing all the work. So we've kind of created a culture where, you know, communication is key. If someone's having a problem, we've had a few of these, they can talk to us whenever, call, text, or we can sit down on a one-on-one, we will work together with them and we will identify the problem and help them find a solution. And we've done that a couple times successfully. And a lot of the times it's just, Hey man, you know, I'm working really hard and, you know, so and so isn't doing that much and I kinda need some more help. It's like, all right, we'll talk to 'em, we'll spread the work out kind of thing. So, um, just a real culture of collaboration, teamwork, helping each other out.

Grant Freking: (14:19)
Do you feel like the employees at this point now are comfortable coming to you guys for, for issues like that? For sure.

Finn Alexy: (14:24)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Grant Freking: (14:25)
Mm-hmm . Yeah. And so is there anything, um, I'm wondering about past experiences or was it just growing up in the company or other past experiences that kind of helped you guys get to that point of being able to resolve, you know, disagreements like that? I guess like, you know, peacefully not to say like anyone, anyone doing crazy, but sort of like smoothly and kind of like professionally. Sure.

Finn Alexy: (14:42)
I, I think it's more about just earning the respect of the people that have worked there for longer than Bo and I have mm-hmm . Like, especially coming into the company like immediately after graduation, we were putting ex in executive roles. 'cause it's our family's company, we understand the inner workings of it, but some of these people who were say on the production floor are like, oh, those guys don't know what they're doing. Those guys haven't seen the rapid growth. Those guys don't understand how we do this specific job, for example mm-hmm . But me and Bo coming into it knew that we couldn't change too many things at the same time. Like, we were going to make changes and everybody knew that, but we wanted to do it slow and we wanted to respect the processes and the things that they were already doing mm-hmm . And then we approached that by basically being like, Hey, this is how we currently do it.

Finn Alexy: (15:24)
We understand it and we respect that this is how you do it, but how can we troubleshoot it and do it better moving forward. Mm-hmm . So that was kind of the logic there. Uh, we did have to earn our respect too, just based on work ethic as from not only the employees at the company, but also the industry as a whole. Uh, we did work like 14 hour days coming outta college. We worked a 36 hour long shift where a machine went down critical machine. And then once it got turned back on, uh, there was a pile of production jobs that we had to get done and it was sun up to sunrise until they were all done. So that earned a lot of respect there as well. Mm-hmm . And then just our own ventures in BowFin capital and some of the things that we're doing on the side is very easy for people to be like, okay, these guys are serious not only about their career at Alexy Metals, but their career in general.

Grant Freking: (16:10)
Mm-hmm . Yeah. My next question is actually, and you kind of answered it there was like, did you feel the need to prove yourselves, but it sounded like you didn't even need to, you just showed up and instead of just telling them that you're gonna do it, you just show up and do it. Especially when there's a critical situation

Finn Alexy: (16:21)
Happening, and that's the, that's the right way to do it too. Yeah. Yeah. Like if you just start talking, then nobody takes you serious. Yeah. But it's all about getting your, rolling up your sleeves and doing the work yourself. Yeah. Right.

Grant Freking: (16:30)
Let's, let's expand the scope of the conversation a little bit. What innovations and disruptions, I guess maybe to your, maybe your industry or maybe just business in general mm-hmm . Sort of excite you guys or maybe even concern you a little bit about what's happening in the business world. Sure.

Finn Alexy: (16:43)
So our industry is very traditional manufacturing. It's slow moving. All of our competitors are multi, multi-million dollar companies, hundreds of millions dollar companies or billion dollar companies. So while they are innovating, they're innovating very slowly and they don't feel the need to implement modern technologies into their current manufacturing processes or into how they sell these brazing alloys to their customers. Mm-hmm . So that's really where we've come in and where our data's come in in a lot of ways. Uh, like Bo can touch on some of the innovations with the website and some, some things like that.

Bowen Alexy: (17:17)
Sure. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, in 2020, Grayson and his team at the time launched an initiative to form the first e-commerce platform in our industry where customers can buy product braise alloys, um, even gold and silver we offered at one point, we don't do that anymore, but you could just buy like your shopping on Amazon, you add it to your cart and check out and it's tied to the precious metal markets.

Finn Alexy: (17:39)
Yep. Which was an innovation that has never been done in our industry before. Yep, yep. And there's never been anyone who's experimented with e-commerce either, but it's a very successful, very profitable revenue stream for the company.

Bowen Alexy: (17:50)
Oh yeah. And not too much work. We just have to update the pricings that make sure the inventory's up to date and, you know, but we're gonna really dial that in. That's a big plan of our future expansion and end of 2026 and even 2027, we're gonna get that up and going have it be one of our chief revenue builders. So

Grant Freking: (18:07)
When you guys, uh, do talk to students and, and building, I guess kind of like you tell 'em about the sort of new things that are going on your company with the, the, uh, both in capital mm-hmm . What are some of the questions you guys get in return from them about if they wanna sort of emulate your path or just general advice about kind of like, what's like step one? Um, what are some of like the, I guess the more common responses from like, I guess the current students or like the even people that may reach out to you online or whatever it is.

Finn Alexy: (18:33)
Sure. Like there's a lot of questions about people's, like self-doubt, whether that's starting a company or whether that's like failing at something. Yeah. And our advice to them in, if they're in those moments where they're down is like, okay, in, in those moments you have to flip your thinking mm-hmm . And be like, what if I can pull this off? And then it changes the whole conversation of like, oh, I'm down. I can't figure this out, I can't do this, I can't do that. Yep. But then you flip it and you're like, what if I'm the guy that can figure this out? And then it's just nothing but up from there. It starts one of those upward spirals of thinking and actual momentum like I was talking about earlier. Yep.

Bowen Alexy: (19:11)
And I would say too, like I was involved with a couple clubs and they did goals where you set like, you know, there's, there's an acronym out there I'm forgetting right now mm-hmm . But you do little goals. You don't just say, all right, I'm gonna run this marathon. And you say, all right, I'm gonna start by running one mile today, tomorrow I'll run, maybe try to do two or three. So you start small and I kind of, what I would say is, don't say I have to be here. Just say, I'm gonna do this today. I'm gonna learn this, I'm gonna execute on this. Start small. And little wins contribute to big wins.

Grant Freking: (19:40)
Right. Do you guys recall any like, sort of, I guess, hard truth moments from mentors? Whether it was, you know, an, an instructor here, you mentioned, you just mentioned clubs. Yep. You know, from, maybe it's from your dad or someone in the business about, you know, learning from like hard truth moments. Like, hey, maybe sort saw someone sat you down like, Hey, I need you to fix this and here's what I want you to do. And like, how did you kind of respond to that and sort of take the next step?

Finn Alexy: (20:03)
Sure. Interesting question. Uh, unfortunately no, like there's never been like a monumental mentorship moment. Just a bunch of like little bits and pieces of knowledge that we've strung together into this story. Um, but yeah, it's almost now like we, we don't have any mentors 'cause we've rapidly rose to the level of mentorship ourselves, whether that be giving back to students or like this podcast for example mm-hmm . So it's hard to be asking other people for the answers when you're supposed to be the person with the answers. So I, I would always recommend mentorship and recommend you go find somebody in a more successful position than yourself. But even like career-wise, we've rose to the level of our current mentors. So it's very hard and that there's never been like a wake up call kind of thing for many of these people because it's like we've always found the right steps forward and we've always figured out how to do the right thing and work very hard along the process.

Bowen Alexy: (20:57)
Yep. And, you know, we'd be foolish to not say like, guys in our industry who have been doing it for like 30 years, like our dad, for example, we're not ever gonna not take his advice or not ask him about a situation. So of course he'll be a mentor in a lot of capacities. And even our sales manager, shout out Mr. Craig Chastin wanted to get him in there. Yes, sir. Um, was, you know, they have over 35 years of industry experience. So to not take advantage of that would just be foolish on our end. So

Grant Freking: (21:23)
Yeah. Let's, let's end this with a pitch Sure. For students, um, that are thinking about, um, you know, maybe they're 17, 16 years old and the sim maybe a similar, uh, position where you were, they're taking their tour of Ohio and they're Yep. Trying to figure out what school to lock into mm-hmm . What, what is it about lender that kind of, um, is like the piece, just the piece of your guys', um, journey that you think has helped you? And then what would you say to students that are thinking about maybe duplicating that?

Bowen Alexy: (21:50)
Sure. Yeah. Um, well, when I was a senior too, I remember I took the a ACT couple times and I did some training where I had to rewire my brain to be more academically focused and figure out how to solve problems. And I remember coming to Lindner that really clicked with what I did that prior, that previous summer. Mm-hmm. So when I came in, I had that mindset to just succeed and do well. And Lindner gave me the tools and the chance, uh, to make that happen. Whereas like Ohio State was like, yeah, you're gonna have to go spend a semester at, um, Mansfield campus when uc was like, no, get in here. Do what you wanna do, we're gonna make it happen. And I said, all right. So this was definitely the school. This was the fit. This is the place where, you know, it's on, it's all, it's on all the posters Next does live here and this is where next is gonna thrive.

Finn Alexy: (22:38)
I just going off of like the next steps mm-hmm . Like for, even for the state of Ohio. Sure. Uh, I just think Lindner itself in the college business and uc in general is like a rapidly up and coming university. Yeah. It's probably going to be the biggest university in the state of Ohio in a couple of years. It's gonna overtake Ohio State is what I would predict. Absolutely. And I think Lindner's a huge part of that. Mm-hmm . And just to, for me and Bo to kind of be a part of that like promotion and be a part of something bigger than ourselves is what drew me to Lindner. And that's what kind of inspired us to come back and promote as much as possible. 'cause we did get an immense amount of value from professors here, from students here, uh, from our actual uc education.

Finn Alexy: (23:18)
Yep. Like if you go BO was, uh, marketing major mm-hmm . Minor professional sales, and I was a major in entrepreneurship mm-hmm . And when you combine those two things, you literally have our playbook or blueprint for BO in capital where I can identify startup companies and basically do a valuation on 'em. Mm-hmm . And Bo can provide marketing and customer service and relationships Yeah. After we book an angel investment. So it's like this perfect combination for us to kinda showcase our skills we learned at Lindner, our skills we learned in our family's business and our skills that we learned before. Yep. So I would, you know, obviously stand behind the Lindner College of Business and promote as much as possible. Yep.

Grant Freking: (23:59)
Well, I appreciate you guys making the trip down here today. Thank you for both being on Bearcats Mean Business.

Finn Alexy: (24:05)
Absolutely. Thank you for having us.

Grant Freking: (24:06)
Thank you for listening to this episode of Bearcats Mean Business. If today's episode sparked a new idea, challenge your thinking or helped you see your path a little more clearly, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share the episode with someone in your network. Thanks for being part of the conversation. And remember, real world success begins here at Lindner.

Grant Freking: (00:00)
What does real world success in business actually look like? Welcome the Bearcats Mean Business, the official podcast of the University of Cincinnati's Carl H. Lindner College of Business, where inspiring career stories, honest lessons, and fresh business perspectives from the people building impact in the real world come together. Tune in for inspiration, practical business insights, and forward-looking thought leadership on how ambition turns into action. And now for today's episode. Jeff, thank you for being here. You grew up in Ohio and you went through the co-op program as a UC business student. What impact did that early professional experience have on the trajectory of your career?

Jeff Karcher: (00:43)
Honestly, everything, uh, really did one just financially enabled me to be able to go to school Yeah. And finish school. Uh, but secondly, I was very fortunate to get a role, uh, at an investment boutique up in Cleveland that introduced me to the institutional equities world, which back in the mid eighties, at that time, that was pretty much an Ivy League dominated industry. And I was very fortunate to work for a very well known and, and just terrific mentor. Uh, that enabled me to kind of just see what, what the business was like. And I really fell in love with it. I had always had an interest in the stock market as a kid. And, um, getting a job, a co-op job in it really kind of accelerated and really kind of confirmed everything that I had thought I wanted to do.

Grant Freking: (01:26)
Jeff, you talked, touched on your co-op experience. For students here going through co-ops. Um, they may not know exactly where they wanna land in finance and capital markets. What advice would you give them about just general exploration, about exploring opportunities in these fields?

Jeff Karcher: (01:43)
Uh, I, I would say follow what, what interests you for one. And you may find out that isn't necessarily what you really thought you wanted to do. Uh, and there's nothing wrong at all with not knowing what you wanna do for whatever reason. I just, I kind of did, but that doesn't mean everybody does certainly. Um, and co-op I think gives you a great opportunity to, you know, find out in more of a test trial kind of fashion, do I like this or not? Do I, do I excel in this Right? Or not too? Um, I was always very curious and always wanted to learn. Um, so for me, um, you know, getting into the industry that I did, one of the kind of interesting things about it's good and bad is you get to learn a little about a lot, but not a lot about a little. Mm. I mean, you get exposed to a lot of different industries, a lot of different sectors, uh, different companies, uh, and how they approach things and running a business, but you never become an expert in any of them. So that's kind of perhaps the downside. But I always thought for me, um, the one thing I liked was being able to understand a, a broader array of, of information and, and sectors. Yeah.

Grant Freking: (02:43)
What always strikes me is like, you figure out maybe what you don't want to do when you co-op too, which is, I think, so eminently helpful in your career journey.

Jeff Karcher: (02:50)
Accounting. Yeah.

Grant Freking: (02:52)
for you. Accounting For me,

Jeff Karcher: (02:53)
It was accounting.

Grant Freking: (02:54)
Okay. Okay. Let's shift to some topics on capital markets and then your current role with the Texas Stock Exchange. You spent nearly a decade leading listings efforts in the southeast for the New York Stock Exchange. For many people, the IPO process is very mysterious. Right? What actually happens behind the scenes that you can talk about when a company prepares to go public, what are like the top things that maybe people just don't know about,

Jeff Karcher: (03:17)
Uh, getting ready in time? Um, the one thing that companies quite often think of, uh, Hey, let's go public, and then in three months, six months, we're gonna, we're gonna do that. Uh, and that really can't happen that quickly. Um, you really have a lot to prepare for and going public, there's a lot of disclosure you gotta do controls, accounting, uh, audits that have to be done. Mm-hmm . Uh, HR departments, compliance departments, um, there's, there's a lot of things that companies quite often kind of forget about. They're just thinking about, Hey, we make good widgets and innovative widgets, and it's growing like crazy and we're awesome. And they know that very, very well, but they kind of forget about the backside of preparing a business and getting ready for becoming a public entity because it's a different animal. Uh, at that point, you are reporting to shareholders and to the owners of your company, and you have a responsibility for that. And there's a lot of protocols associated with that too. And not, the companies don't always necessarily have a good understanding of that. Uh, there's a lot of really good firms out there that help companies get ready to go public. Um, IPO readiness firms that consult with them and, and say, Hey, here's kinda the stage where you are. Here's the kind of industry and the company that you are will help you get ready. And they make sure that all their ducks are in a row before they go public.

Grant Freking: (04:28)
Okay. And in, in that same vein, what are the biggest misconceptions the actual founders, and maybe the chief would be chief executives themselves have about going public, about maybe what they are responsible for and not responsible for?

Jeff Karcher: (04:44)
Yeah. Well, that's, that kind of gets to one of the bigger picture issues that there's been with companies going public. Um, we're down almost 50% the number of public companies today versus 1997. Wow. 50%. And one might say, well, so what, what, what does it matter if somebody that makes widgets is private or public? Well, the fact of the matter is, public companies average about a third more employees in private companies, and they also pay them more on average. So if you do the math with that, that's better for the economy and everywhere. Um, you just have a greater society with that. And then secondly, or thirdly, you have, um, companies being private, others don't get to share in that growth, in that wealth. Um, I think one example that's gonna be become quite evident soon is you have, SpaceX is gonna go public at $1.5 trillion or something along those lines.

Jeff Karcher: (05:33)
It's a 23-year-old company. Um, why did it wait so long? Yeah. Um, they all have good reasons for it, but what if they had gone public when they were, say 10-year-old company? You know, that 13 years of growth that we've seen, all that wealth, you know, translates into your 401k, my IRA, my dad's pension, my mom's ETF, et cetera. Um, and so you wanna bring more of that private growth and private wealth into the public marketplace. And for us, one of our key missions that we have at the Texas Stock Exchange is to create an, an environment that's less onerous in terms of the reporting disclosures, which is one of the things that they would be responsible for. Uh, the costs associated with being public have become draconian in many cases. It just should not cost as much as it does to go public, but also to stay public. Um, and, um, the, the governance has been weaponized in the marketplace, and we're looking for ways, and we already have changed a number of protocols, uh, in the marketplace specific to the landscape in Texas for public companies to be able to operate under, under a, a more pro-business friendly listing environment. Mm-hmm.

Grant Freking: (06:39)
You just touched on a few of 'em, but I wanna ask like, kind of the overall question related to your position as global managing director for the Texas Stock Exchange. What is the, I guess, chief business problem that the Texas Stock Exchange is looking to solve?

Jeff Karcher: (06:51)
Um, it's really a little bit of what I just just mentioned. Yeah. And the fact of too many companies just don't want to be public or the ones that are, have a great deal of difficulty in operating publicly because of some of the reasons I I just mentioned. Yeah. You've had a transition over really 30 years, uh, and by no one's fault, but just as kind of boiling a frog kind of, uh, increase in terms of regulatory disclosure such that, you know, companies have bear a an excessive burden in many cases of, of reporting and the cost associated with it. So, for example, in Texas this past year, we actually helped author and pass some legislation that really specifically targets some of the very costly and complicated processes for being public proxy threshold, proxy oversight, uh, and then what's called business judgment rule. Um, those three things, I, I won't go into depth here on those 'cause they're, I'm not an attorney and they're very legal.

Jeff Karcher: (07:48)
Um, but they are very, they're people should know. They're just a very costly component to being public. They're very onerous, very time consuming. And so by putting in some thresholds that are specific to, um, being in Texas enlisted there, companies don't have to be subjected to them to the same degree that they currently are elsewhere. So, um, the simple way to think of that is it takes up far less time of management so they can devote it to running the business and can save significant amount of money in, in the larger the company. Perhaps tens of millions of dollars of ongoing costs of a company that come out, um, because of that subjectivity that they would have related to what we're trying to put forth.

Grant Freking: (08:28)
Sure. So what is a day-to-day like for you in trying to fulfill this mission of the Texas Stock Exchange?

Jeff Karcher: (08:34)
Yeah. Well, to date, it's been about just kind of putting together the platform. Uh, we're building it from scratch. Everything. The, the trading exchange itself, uh, has been built from scratch. Um, but also the design of what we call the listings business and the listings is what that is. What a public company, uh, that is public goes through. They are a listing on the current exchange, which in today's world is just two, it's NASDAQ and the NYSE. Right? Uh, we will be a third choice for companies to be able to have that. So for me, we, we've kind of set the stage, we've prepared our platform. Um, some of the key details for it will be filed with the SEC fairly soon so that, uh, the world and companies will know. Um, but for us, it's, it's heads down right now talking with those companies.

Jeff Karcher: (09:18)
And really, it's not selling them, it's just educating them on what we're doing because it is so transformational from what they're used to. You know, anybody in the industry or the business today, the only thing they've ever known is just to compare an NYC to a NASDAQ listing. Now it's a third alternative, and that third alternative has completely different characteristics to it than what they've known. Um, so we're gonna be very focused on engaging with companies in that regard. And, and I gotta say that the challenge for us is gonna be getting that message known outside of Texas, inside of Texas right now, the entire business community knows exactly what we're doing, um, outside, you know, very few people really kind of see it's just not been something that's been talked about nationally as much as it has. So for us, it's getting those doors open and having the conversations. And when we do have the conversations, people are very, very struck by the uniqueness of what is going on. But also too, the magnitude of what's going on. It's kind of hard for them to kind of necessarily fathom this is something that could really significantly alter their ability to operate as a public company.

Grant Freking: (10:23)
Yeah. I, I imagine if you're talking to, uh, a company, say like in Illinois, like, and you're reaching out to 'em, like, they'd be like, okay, that's great, but why should I be interested in this venture that's hundreds of miles away from me? And different, potentially different rules, different states, all that sort of stuff. What's your pitch to them in that's case?

Jeff Karcher: (10:41)
Yeah. Um, that's very true. They say, listen, I'm, I'm in Illinois, why do I care about Texas? Um, and the fact of the matter is, is the, the way it's been designed, it is, um, it's, it's kind of designed to be a, a very Texas incorporated company. So you can keep your business wherever you are, but if you incorporate in Texas and list in Texas, you are then subject to kind of a lot of the changes in the programs that we, we would have to offer. So a company doesn't have to move a single employee in order to garner some of the, the advantages that we're gonna put together. Hmm. Uh, and even still, they don't even have to reincorporate in Texas that just, that just would allow them to be able to opt in and provide some of the, the changes that have been done, uh, and the changes that will be done.

Jeff Karcher: (11:23)
There's, there's several more initiatives that we have coming Yeah. In the 2027 session. Okay. Texas only meets every other year, which is kind of interesting. Okay, interesting. Yeah. Um, so, but it's all part of a multi-year plan to be able to develop and foster further and further changes. Um, but outside of that, the platform that we will have that will be released fairly soon, uh, will be very unique too. And it will be very advantaged to a company regardless of where they're located. Um, I would say some of the interests that's really surprised me is from outside the United States. Um, uh, Canada, Korea, Japan, Brazil, Europe. Um, we've had a lot of inbound inquiries from companies located over there because I think what they kind of see at us and what we're doing, we're very aligned with just the business community in Texas, period bus.

Jeff Karcher: (12:11)
It's a very pro-business friendly state, and as a result, you've seen a significant amount of growth, uh, in the state, both in companies relocating there, but also just the growth of what, what is taking place there. And, and it's not just Texas either. It's really kind of a whole southeast region of the United States, um, is the highest and fastest growth region in population, job growth and, and GDP within the United States. And it's because it's an environment that wants to foster growth, uh, because the companies just need to have that ability to be able to grow without further constraints. Right.

Grant Freking: (12:43)
Let's transition to some leadership topics. Um, your work has involved connecting companies, investors and financial institutions. What leadership or relationship building skills have been most essential in sort of navigating that environment? And I'm sure would've been some tricky waters at times. Yeah,

Jeff Karcher: (13:00)
It's, you know, I think networking is something that, and, and networking is part of it. Um, and relationship building apply to everything. Yeah. Uh, that you do. Um, I can remember the first job that I have in the, the investment industry. Um, we were required to have so many lunches, so many meetings with folks to kind of build a network. 'cause we were also a money management business at the time too. And I just remember thinking, I'm, I'm 24 years old. I, I don't know anybody with any money. I don't know anybody of any stature. How in the world am I gonna build this network, um, and, and be able to thrive off of it and contribute to the company? And it's just bit by bit, by bit by bit and over time, and it just, it takes time. But it's something that I think you just kinda always, always kinda work on.

Jeff Karcher: (13:47)
And the way I've always kinda looked at is if, if I just help whoever I've engaged with or met, that's a connection that I have that will just grow and grow and grow over time. And you just never know where an opportunity for you might come from because of that. Or a situation where you're just helping someone. I don't, I don't, I've never done it necessarily to get compensated for it. It's more like if someone has a problem or needs a connection or needs someone some kind of support, you provide it and you help them, you when they win. And over time they just really kind of builds on itself. And I, I, I think that applies to anybody in any kind of role, in any industry. Even if you're in a very technical industry too. Um, you're gonna learn to share traits in, in the industry. And, um, I think that always just kind of benefits somebody, but if you always look to help the other person, good things will happen in time. Alright.

Grant Freking: (14:41)
Building off that, what have you learned about building trust in high stakes financial environments that's sort of stuck with you over the years?

Jeff Karcher: (14:50)
Um, be honest. Mm. Never over exaggerate. Be very candid. Be very objective. Uh, that way you never have to worry about what you said , you said it's good. Um, and I, I just think that if, if, again, it's, if you're helping somebody, helping somebody, but in, in my case, I think in the industry that I've been is you're helping them do their role. That goes a long way. Um, one, one time I had a, uh, one of my clients was kind of struggling with handling the morning call, which is this massive influx of information that, that a investment manager would have. And, um, I asked, I said, could I spend a morning in your office to kinda see what you mean by that? And he said, yeah, that'd be, that'd be great. And so I did. And so I literally sat in my client's chair and seat that morning to see what he goes through in order for me to understand how I can better process and integrate and work with him.

Jeff Karcher: (15:46)
And, and that was an eye-opening morning one. Some of my competitors I couldn't believe were actually competitors 'cause they were kinda all over the place. Yeah. I'm kind of shocked, uh, but two, it really gave me a very good perspective and understanding of what my client is having to go through that helped serve me better to be able to serve them. And I think that's also something that can apply in any industry. Um, if you better understand, you know, who you're reporting to, not who you're reporting to, but who you're, you know, trying to either sell to or work with. Um, you're gonna be able to do your job better. And what that does, I think is, is that builds trust, um, because they know you've got their back. You know, they're trying, you're trying to help them. Yeah. And, um, and that goes a long, long way.

Grant Freking: (16:27)
You went and literally put yourself in their shoes. I, I love it. You spent decades working with companies at pivotal moments in their growth. What traits have you seen in the leaders who successfully navigate these transitions, these big transitions?

Jeff Karcher: (16:43)
Hmm. Um, probably the one piece of advice that someone gave me a long time, and it it's a, a fairly well known adage is God gave you two ears and one mouth. Hmm. Use 'em accordingly. Uh, I think the best leaders I've seen, uh, for companies did just that. Uh, during times of crisis, they, they learn to listen. What is the problem, what is going on? And then because of their background experience, they're able to process that I think appropriately and, and make the better decisions, uh, being rash, uh, lashing out. Um, you know, being kind of more aggressive. I, I don't think really suit serves anybody well, uh, as a leader, particularly a senior leader at a company and during a pivotal time because, you know, you gotta put yourself in your employee's shoes like that they're concerned too, or your customer's shoes, their concern too. Um, it's just how you help them kind of navigate and get through that is what's gonna ultimately matter. And I just think the only way to do that is deep breath, listen, analyze, figure out your alternatives, make your decision, and then follow through on it.

Grant Freking: (17:46)
Jeff, after decades in the industry, uh, you're now reconnecting with the Cincinnati business community. We talked before airing about some of your, your fun experiences this week in Cincinnati mm-hmm . What role, and we've touched on this a little bit, but maybe you can expand about it. What role has network networking really played in your career and how do you make the use of it use of it now?

Jeff Karcher: (18:04)
Um, yeah. It's kinda what I said earlier. It's helping others Yeah. As networking. And, you know, that for me goes way back to when I was in school here. I mean, I reconnected as I mentioned with several friends and guys here recently. And some of that actually turned into some business related connection opportunities that, um, I'm working on. Who would've thought that, you know, 40 years later, fraternity brother, you know, would've had, you know, something like that that would apply to me today of something that I'm engaged with. You just never know. Yeah. And, and, and vice versa actually too, I'm kind of reversing course with, with another one. Um, but I just think it's like, it's just making friends and, and just being engaged with the people that are around you every day, uh, in the moment. And then in the moment over time, it's a series of moments so that it kind of becomes this large basket of, of relationships. And, you know, for me, a lot of it started back at uc here, um, you know, many years ago. And it, it's great to still have the connections from back then still today that are, that are made, uh, but they're also too making new ones too. So for me, reconnecting here with the university recently has been terrific. I look forward to doing more with the university. It's, it's been fun to kinda walk back here on campus and yeah, kinda see some of the buildings still the same and quite a few different for sure.

Grant Freking: (19:21)
Right. Yeah,

Jeff Karcher: (19:21)
Exactly. Yep. Um, I'd say it's a lot better today than it was 40 years ago. It's, it looks great. Yeah. Um, but it's, uh, you know, to me it's, it's kind of coming home to Roos and perhaps it's just, you know, my older age kind of getting to me that, you know, feels that sentimentality of being able to come back, uh, to uc, uh, and, and help others, um, I think is very exciting for me.

Grant Freking: (19:44)
Yeah. Let's close with some advice to future leaders. When you look at the next generation of leaders that are coming out of the Lindner College of Business, or perhaps elsewhere too, what skills or mindsets do you think will matter most? I guess maybe in this economy and the future economy?

Jeff Karcher: (19:59)
Um, I'm a bit old school Yeah. In that regard, but to me it's a, a firm handshake looking the person in the eye, talking very clearly. Don't mumble, don't trail off. You know, stay focused on who you are engaged with at that moment, um, I think is very important. Um, get your head outta your phone is what I tell my kids. , you know, fight on. So it's not like just the business world is my kids. Yeah. Um, and you know, last night the leadership dinner, uh, event that we had here, one of the, the things I talked about, I said, I can remember two things that p and g taught me when I first got out of school and started that have applied to me forever. Um, my kids make total fun of the, uh, the five Ps that I reinforce with them. But it, it holds very true with, with business too.

Jeff Karcher: (20:45)
It's proper preparation prevents poor performance. Uh, and that applies to everything, to everybody all the time, no matter what. And I think about the times where I failed or, or where I didn't do as well as I could have, um, like this podcast and proper preparation, you know, would've prevented poor performance. I think is is something that always applies. Uh, and it's something I think that perhaps gets forgotten about in today's environment because we've become so short term. Uh, I think with whether it's just the digitization of the world, whether it's through devices or the way we receive information and news flows and communication is very short. We're not reading as much, we're not writing as much as lengthy as we were. Um, I think that's important to really kind of think through and, and be very thorough in everything that you do. Um, and, uh, yeah, so it's a little bit of old school, but at the same time too, you know, the economy in the world has adapted so much that it's become very decentralized.

Jeff Karcher: (21:40)
So, for example, in finance, or most of my career, New York was, was it, that was the centralization of if you were involved in finance, it was New York period. Today, that's not the case at all. In fact, one of the things we talk about at the Texas Stock Exchange is JP Morgan has more finance employees in Texas than they do New York today. Um, many other firms are getting along the same kind of ratio too. That would've been un unimaginable years ago. Um, so as people think about their careers and what they're looking for, just know that it, it does change. And it's just because it is the way it is today doesn't necessarily, it's gonna always be that way. So keep an open mind to that. Um, but if you stay, stay focused, show up, do your job, you know, and just be very disciplined, um, success will come.

Grant Freking: (22:28)
Okay. Last one for you. If you could give your younger self, your younger Jeff, who is co-opting here at uc, uh, years ago, um, if you give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

Jeff Karcher: (22:40)
Deep breath. Most daily hiccups are just that they're daily. Okay. And they're hiccups.

Grant Freking: (22:45)
Deep breaths. That's it. Love it. Yeah.

Jeff Karcher: (22:48)
I let myself get caught up in the moment too many times too quickly without taking that deep breath, pausing, reflecting, thinking about what really should be thought or, or what actions should be taken after that. Um, I don't think it ever hurts to deep breath count 1, 2, 3 and then try to respond,

Grant Freking: (23:06)
Think that applies to everything in life and not just business. Yeah. It's sound advice. Well Jeff, thank you for being here. Thanks for being on Bearcats Me Business. Alright.

Jeff Karcher: (23:12)
Thank you very much too.

Grant Freking: (23:14)
Thank you for listening to this episode of Bearcats Mean Business. If today's episode sparked a new idea, challenge your thinking or helped you see your path a little more clearly, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share the episode with someone in your network. Thanks for being part of the conversation. And remember, real world success begins here at Lindner.