Redefining Entrepreneurial Success: Lessons on Growth and Grit

In this episode, dive deep into the entrepreneurial spirit with Joah Spearman, founder of TenYour, as he shares his journey of resilience and innovation. Discover how Joah transitioned from various entrepreneurial ventures to founding a company aimed at providing financial peace of mind in the unpredictable job market. From his early days of strategic lawn mowing to facing the challenges of the pandemic, Joah’s story is a testament to the power of grit and foresight in entrepreneurship.

Listen as Joah discusses the impact of his unique insurance product on communities, especially those affected by layoffs, and how his upbringing influenced his entrepreneurial vision. Gain insights into the crucial lessons learned through adversity and the importance of mental health awareness among founders.

Thanks for tuning into the Beyond Normal Podcast!

Don’t forget to like and subscribe to stay updated on all our future episodes from Beyond Normal Media. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comment section below—we love hearing from you!

Connect with Joah Spearman and explore how TenYour can offer you a safety net in today’s volatile job market by visiting TenYour’s website.

Transcript

Kenny: 0:28

Welcome. Welcome everybody another episode of the beyond normal podcast. I'm your host, Kenny groom. We are in season six. I can't believe it. We've made it this far. We've got a very special guest today. someone who I've been following for quite some time, their entrepreneur journey. they are a serial entrepreneur in my eyes. And so I thought, you know, why not have this, incredible founder on the platform today to share their story with you all. the founder today that we're going to be speaking with his name is, Joe experiment. He is the founder of TenYour, which is offering an incredible, insurance product, for those that could be impacted by layoffs. and just the dynamics of the, the, job market now, incredible product. I am a consumer of this product myself. And so I just wanted to, bring Joel on and let him, share a little bit about his entrepreneur journey is really incredible. so without further ado, let's bring Joel to the stage. How's it going there,

JS: 1:28

how you doing?

Kenny: 1:29

Doing great. appreciate you, uh, you know, being able to spend some time with us today. letting our viewers know what it's like. in my eyes, I call you a serial entrepreneur. I'm not sure if you go by that or you feel that way. Yup.

JS: 1:42

I mean, I'm on number five now, so,

Kenny: 1:44

Wow. That's incredible. So let's start out, give folks a little bit, obviously we're going to talk about TenYour a little bit, but give folks a little bit of background about, Joa prior to you starting a TenYour, what you were doing, like what, what, what was it like being a young, a Joa, back in the day?

JS: 2:02

I would say that a lot of the traits came through early, from when I was four and five years old. My grandmother would ask me what I wanted to be and I would say bending man. so it was, it was very, very clear early that that business was something that I had a knack for or a desire to pursue. I think in a lot of ways. To be an entrepreneur is to be a futurist. And so since I was a kid, I was always, I think initially I was applying my futurism to my own life. I grew up very, very poor, single mother, youngest of three boys. And so I was aware of those conditions and that while I grew up with a lot of love, and support from my grandmother and my uncle and my mom, obviously. I also knew that there was opportunity that was beyond what I had access to. And so honestly, I started my first business, without really knowing what entrepreneurship was. I was 11 years old and I started cutting grass for, I borrowed a lawnmower from a neighbor and started cutting grass for neighbors in our like little working class duplex neighborhood. And then in the fall at rake leaves, And then at school I would sell bubble gum and I would use that money to help pay for my own school clothes. I paid for my own field trip to Washington DC in eighth grade. so I, I, I got those early experiences of having, feeling a sense of pride with not having money so much as like getting myself access to things or opportunities that I otherwise wouldn't have had.

Kenny: 3:34

Incredible, incredible. just thinking like the lawn service as a first business, like that is A great way to kind of cut your teeth right as a first time business owner.

JS: 3:45

So I have two older brothers, my middle brother, he and his best friend who they were both two years older than me and they were cutting grass for our neighbors And, but they, I saw, I kind of studied their business and this is me, 11 years old studying their business and their business was they'd borrow this lawnmower from a neighbor. They would go knock on our neighbor's doors and say, Oh, can we cut your grass next weekend? And they would say, we'll cut your grass for 20. And so they would get, you know, five, six neighbors would do that. So they would, I'd be like, okay, they're all, they're, they're making a hundred dollars a weekend and they're splitting it. So they're both getting 50 and I'm like, okay, that's good. But I was like, man, like it doesn't seem like cutting grass is that hard and what I went to the same neighbor and said, Hey, can I borrow? I went to borrow his lawnmower on weekdays. So I would go to the neighbors on like Tuesdays, Wednesdays and say, can I cut your grass for 15 and so, I went around cutting. And so basically I price cut and I, I basically within like one summer I had all the business. I was cutting like 12 and 15 yards a week, 15 each and getting, making six, 700 a month on my own. So my first Jordan, I remember buying the Kevin Garnett Jordans when they came out for my, you know, like it was like, and I say that I, it worked out because at that same time, I, I, my, my brother's, interest in music productions was sparked and I convinced my mom to buy him a keyboard and equipment to start doing that. even though I took the lawn mowing away from him, I got him toward music production. So I feel like it worked out.

Kenny: 5:26

It worked out for sure. Oh my God. I feel like that's a lesson. Like that's like an MBA, like grad school level, like lesson and like business one on one in terms of undercutting your competitors for a strategic advantage. So speaking of that, learning, lessons in business early on in life, you went the, college route. you went to a university. tell us a little bit about, where you went, and then like what that did, for you in terms of, you know, maybe sparking or, stoking the flame, from an entrepreneur perspective.

JS: 6:02

Yeah. I increasingly, you know, because of the cost of college. And also the fact that so many people have college degrees yet don't have real gainful employment I understand why some people are kind of questioning whether or not college still has value in the way that maybe it did 10, 30, 50, whatever years ago. But I, for me, college was a big part of my story. I mean, I, I'm the first person in my family to graduate from college. I worked really hard in high school. I got great grades and was really involved. And I applied, I applied for a hundred, over a hundred scholarships, my senior year of high school. And I won 30 of them. So I pieced milled a bunch of everything from 500 to 5, 000 scholarships. And I was able to basically pay for myself to go to college at the university of Texas in Austin. my thing is I wasn't some great student. I think, honestly, I think I was like a 2. 7 GPA student in college. I mean, I had a few semesters where I got a 4. Academics wasn't my focus. My focus was access. So I went to college really to get access for myself knowing that no one in my family had had that kind of access. my first semester on campus, the first thing I did, I remember I went to class the first few weeks, I got the syllabus for all the classes and I kind of made a decision. I was like, okay, I can work really hard academically and get A's. Or I can save some of that time and I can work full time and I decided to work full time. So I got a job. I apply, I called and emailed the athletic director for the university of Texas, the Texas Longhorns, every day for 30 days. And then I eventually got a job in the media relations PR department for the Texas Longhorns. So all four years of college, I did media relations. I learned how to do media training. press conferences, doing game day stats for ESPN for the basketball team, football team, helping to run Texas relays. So I got really valuable experience and access just by being at a really big public university. And so I think that actually is what prepared me most for entrepreneurship as a professional, more than like going to the classes.

Kenny: 8:13

I think that's a real. That's a gem there because like, like you knew yourself, right? You knew what you wanted to get out of that situation and you're paying all that money anyways. Like you said, you got scholarships, but somebody's paying all that money. tuitions are rather, you know,

JS: 8:30

Even when I was going, it was, I think it was like 4, 000 a semester for tuition. I think now it's like, you know, 14, 000 or something.

Kenny: 8:40

Yeah, exactly. So, but you knew yourself to know like, Hey, here's how you get the most out of this situation being in this, university, the network, the access, like you talked about. I'm curious, like, what do you tell, like, what's your advice? If you're talking to somebody now who, you know, could be similar story to you, they have that entrepreneur, you know, that they have that skill set, that DNA in them at a young age. But they also want to navigate college. And now the costs are what they are. Like you mentioned, like, what advice would you give somebody, who wants to go into entrepreneurship, but is looking at that, that, university as a route.

JS: 9:19

I think if there, I don't want to say it's a regret, it's not a regret, but if there's one thing that I didn't do in college, one thing that I'm really proud of is I've made some lifelong relationships, friendships, connections in college, where even investors in my last business are people who I met in college 20 plus years ago. So I knew how to build relationships and not just networking from a transactional standpoint, but really building real friendships and relationships. But I think to that end, one thing that I would recommend anyone who's entrepreneurial in college is you have at least four years where you have an amazing opportunity to both dabble in a safe kind of beta like environment, with different business ideas, different things like that. But I think even more so, I think college is a great place to find, co founders potentially. Whether that's people who are studying, you know, whether, let's say you need a technical co founder, find out people in the computer science program. Let's say you need a business co founder, find someone that's studying business. Let's say you want something like more like an advisor or a mentor, a future board member, like maybe that's a professor or a faculty member. And the thing is, is in college people are really eager for connection like that. So whether it's a professor that, that, you know, they see a younger version of themselves or someone who's willing to take more of a risky path and like maybe going into academia, I think there's so many opportunities. For people in college to, use the fact that it's kind of a closed environment, to build relationships that can pay huge dividends in their entrepreneur career.

Kenny: 10:50

Yeah, that's dope. but being a part of the university that you were part of as well, like, I think it's one of the universities where there's this network, right. Where you can kind of do business in Texas. For example, You don't have to necessarily say, Hey, let me boil the ocean. let me do the whole entire world. Like, let me start in this one place where there's tons of value

JS: 11:11

Yeah. I mean, it's like Facebook, obviously Zuckerberg started that at a Harvard. when I started local or years later, it was, it was on the backs of, of belief that, you know, Austin was enough. Like I, I like in Atlanta, they have these shirts. and the hats and stuff and says Atlanta only needs Atlanta and from like a music industry standpoint, you can see that, like, there's a whole ecosystem out of hip hop that Atlanta has just kind of lifted itself to the studies that's in with organized noise with outcasts and so, so depth with Jermaine Dupri and all that. And from there, in Austin's the same way with local businesses, and I saw that in college, you know, companies like Dell, Dell computers started at the University of Texas campus. Tito's Vodka started in Austin. It's now the biggest vodka company in the world. Whole Foods started in Austin. So there's very much like a buy and support local ethos that was there. And so by the time I started my first businesses, my purview was like, Hey, if I can make this work in Austin, then that may be enough.

Kenny: 12:10

So you mentioned localer, that is the previous business you spent a long time, building that out into what it was. Can you talk a little bit about, um, you know, you starting that, some of the learnings from running that, for the amount of time that you did, what, seven, eight years, maybe, and then where, where that is, where that company is now. Cause we know that you're focusing on

JS: 12:32

Yeah. So I mentioned that, you know, TenYour is number five company for me. And I, before Localr. Before TenYour, I had three other businesses. One I still have, which is a social media kind of executive communications company working with clients. Like my first client actually was FedEx back in 2009. now I have a few CEOs as clients of different businesses from, startups. That have raised a seed round up to 150 million, uh, organizations where I'm mostly just kind of sharing thought leadership and in CEO support. my second business actually was a sneaker boutique in downtown Austin that I had for a few years doing brick and mortar retail. from that experience, I closed the sneaker shop and then I created and ran the first ever fashion and style segment of South by Southwest festival. but we, each of those few businesses. I, with the sneaker stores in particular in the South by Southwest event, I only did those for a couple of two or three years, and those experiences were really rich, but I decided after that I was like, man, I really want to my next company. I wanted to be something that I feel like I can do for at least seven years. So when I had the, when I, when local came about, I remember meeting with my first investor and I committed to him. I told him I was going to do this for at least seven years through hell or high water. And there was a lot of hell and high water. I ended up actually because of the pandemic ended up tacking on more years. So it's been, I found it local there in December of 2012 and ran it for over 10 years. And actually just last week, a week ago today, actually, I just managed to facilitate a transaction in which. I bought out my, um, uh, in essence, did it like a debt buyout of my investors and now I'm the sole owner of Locler. And so I still continue to run the business, but unfortunately, after the pandemic, it just wasn't going to have the kind of venture sized acquisition outcomes that we wanted. And so it just made more sense for me to take over as a sole owner, making it more of a lifestyle business where it generates revenue, but nothing that's venture size at the time. So that's still going in the background. but that experience doing something for 10, 11 years through good times, bad times through the pandemic, I mean, I think I've experienced everything you can possibly experience as an entrepreneur rate, fundraising, team building, having to do late, having to do, having to fire people, landing partnerships with big companies like, JetBlue and Nike and lift, match dot com. scaling from just Austin users to users in 200 cities around the world, language translation, different mediums from apps to websites to print, you know, like we did it all. So all that experience is getting poured into anything I do in the future. And immediately it's getting important in a TenYour. I felt like. My next venture, it would take me maybe a year and a half to get where I took. It took me 10 years to get local or, and here I am month, 10 into TenYour. And it's, we've already eclipsed where local or was in year 10,

Kenny: 15:40

Yeah. I love to see, like you're able to apply all those learnings, whether good or bad, right. And there's an acceleration that happens. I'm curious. Like all the things you went through as a founder, like you mentioned the highs, the lows, you're, you're, you're, you're hiring, you're firing, you're doing all those things that come with the job. like how do you maintain your mental health, through, all of these situations?

JS: 16:04

That's a, that's a great question. Honestly, maybe the most important question that founders should be asked that are often not asked. I say this from experience because I. face some very, very, very dark and challenging times from a mental health standpoint. Um, in mostly in as after the pandemic, like 2022 Was a very, very tough. The end of 2022 was very brutal. I spent that, you know, post pandemic, I spent probably six months just pivoting the business to survive the pandemic. And we, I'll say this, we had our best quarter ever in Q4 of 2019. We were on the verge of having our best quarter ever Q1 of 2020. And it was that year, 2020 was lining up to be a breakthrough year for Loclear. And this is after seven plus years grinding on this thing. And then the pandemic hits and we basically lose 95 percent of our business like that. And I, and basically spent the next six months doing a hard turn on the business. And, um, and, and then really just grinding for a couple of years, working towards trying to land some type of exit and having. Really fruitful acquisition conversations with some of the biggest tech and finance and credit card companies you can think of in the world. And there were some great conversations that, you know, we felt like we were on the doorstep of finally getting that breakthrough, maybe getting that exit. That was going to be attractive to us as myself, as a founder, my team, and then our investors, and at the end of 22, they, they just didn't happen. and it was like the season where all those big tech layoffs started happening and the interest rates going up and it just was perfect storm of not a good moment for us and, and it was, and I can, you know, I'll say openly, for the first time in my life, there were, there was a couple of months, the end of 2022, beginning of 2023, where I was, at an all time low, I was near suicidal. And I know that there are some founders who have shared that they've had those experiences and, but not many and, and now I'm super open about it. I put so much of myself into the business and also into trying to pursue this outcome and feeling the weight of all I have this cap table with all these investors, people counting on me and, and it just, it was just heavy in my, my lead investor. I should also mention was just a phenomenal man. And he passed away, several years before due to an unexpected heart attack. Obviously, um, I guess they're all unexpected. And, um, and I just, I just felt like such a high level of responsibility to honor his investment and trust in me and all my investors. And it was a lot of pressure that I was putting on myself. And I think that that led to like being after those acquisition talks ended. I mean, I remember I woke up in a San Francisco hotel room. that 4 a. m. and honestly, I was contemplating ending my life and it was, you know, I felt like, you know, that was a week after getting all these rejections from these companies saying, you know, after all the good conversations we had, you know, We don't, we don't think we're going to be to do it and all this stuff. And it was just, I felt like, man, I had just wasted 10 years of my life and I didn't have anything to show for it. but coming out of that in high part, leaning on my faith, leaning on good friends, it helped me to see that. Hey, even without that big outcome, that big, financial outcome, there is so much that I gained in those 10 years. And honestly, maybe I gained more in that experience as a person and as a leader and as an entrepreneur than even if I did have that outcome with that business. And now that's kind of part of what's pointing me into not just TenYour, but my life going forward. So I feel like I'm already starting to reap the benefits of getting through that tough time.

Kenny: 20:04

All right. that transparency, man, is, is definitely appreciated. like you said, there aren't enough, I don't know if there's not enough founders talking about it, or it just doesn't bubble up enough with just all the stuff that's out there, but it doesn't seem like, um, there's, there's, there's enough resources, for founders specifically when they're going through something stressful like you went through. Somebody telling you a lot of no's for something that you worked so long for. You put a lot of blood, sweat, equity into to have folks just kind of shutting the door on that. seeing those dreams, not necessarily play out the way you want to. but you know, I'm glad to be here with you today and I definitely appreciate you, using your platform, across all social media, networks to really. Make sure folks know that mental health is, something serious that should be prioritized.

JS: 20:54

Thank you. And you know, one thing I would just say to is, you know, founders, I think we put a lot of the pressure on ourselves. Obviously, we're leading work. We're pursuing a vision, a passion. We're leading a team for fundraising all these things. I think even right now in the last, year and a half, and this is part of the partially why I'm focused on TenYour. a lot of people in general and over the last, I think, 15 years, Post recession, you know, I think millennials in particular, we put so much of our identity into our work and into the companies we work for, the job titles we have, the pay we get this, this last, you know, this post recession era in the 2010s, 2020s, it's so much emphasis has been on like getting the bag and having a certain title and all this stuff. and while that's impressive and important in some ways, I think we've put so much emphasis on it that. Even it's not just founders who are experiencing these moments of mental health low. I think within this last year and a half, we've seen so many layoffs in the industry, like tech, for example, and it's been very tough for people To have the, the not just dealing with the burnout and the, the, the whiplash effect of the pandemic, shutting down things, but then racing back to work and intensity, and then now being laid off. And I think that it's just really important for people to really try to think about how to get themselves peace of mind, even beyond their jobs. And so much of, you know, you, you mentioned TenYour as an insurance company, and I would say. We're, we're insurance like in our, in what our product is, but really we're a peace of mind company. Like a lot of what. The reason why I'm doing this is because growing up, you know, poor, as I did, as I said, you know, my mom never making more than 50, 000 in a year. And, you know, working two and three jobs and just seeing that struggle, I just see how much it weighs on people to not have peace of mind, especially financial. it's really important for people to figure out how they can get a sense of, self and a sense of identity and peace of mind that isn't always just attached to their job or their business. And I'm saying that from experience of not necessarily doing the best of that for some years and now really prioritizing that.

Kenny: 23:08

I love that. so you touched on a lot there, but I just want to, pivot a little bit in terms of, existing outside of work, existing outside of, your nine to five, or even, running your business as a founder or CEO. I think you have an activity that you go to, quite a bit. you want to tell folks, what, it's prevalent if anybody has followed you on social media, but tell folks a little bit about your, uh, your, your activity that you're all in on outside of the work stuff, all the, uh, the, the, the businesses and things that

JS: 23:40

Yeah. So I mentioned when I was 11, I started my first business and in that following year, I started my lifelong kind of passion, which is distance running. So at 12 years old, I, you know, I realized I had two older brothers who were 6263. I probably wasn't going to be beating them at basketball or football. So I decided to start running. I started running track and then high school added cross country and I just kept it as a lifelong interest. And so In the last couple of years, especially during those tough times I mentioned in 2022, I really dug in deeper into the running and I've always done races and 10 Ks and marathons and stuff, but these last couple of years I've gotten into ultra marathoning. So now I'm running, I did a 50 mile race last November. I've done three 30 mile plus races this year. I had another one on deck later this summer and then another 50 miler later this year. So it's really been a place for me. to meditate to kind of be still, obviously I'm running, but be still mentally and spiritually when I was younger, I think running was a time where I would be working through business ideas and coming up with ideas and going through my to do list and things like that. And now, honestly, I'll go run three, four, five hours solo and be working actively to not think about that stuff at all. And just really getting to a place of peace and clarity. And then I come back fresh to the business and things like that. So, it's, it's something that I've built friendships out of. I mean, my best friend, I met. Through high school, in high school, cross country practice, my kind of like surrogate fathers, my middle school and high school track coach, so many of my good friends I met through running and very much like entrepreneurship and tech. it's, I've built a community, in, in, in friendships and network through this passion. And so it's, it's been, it's, it's been there for me very much like a good friend for almost 30 years now.

Kenny: 25:35

Yeah, I love the, just a way to escape like the thinking, you're probably thinking about so many different ideas on any given day, just with, the businesses that you run. And so having that outlet, yeah, I think that's really cool. I think everybody should have those outlets, right. Where it's not necessarily like, there's no KPI, there's no metric, right. You're doing it because it does something for you. It fulfills

JS: 25:59

Yeah, well, I will say that there is a KPI for that, but it's Strava it's,

Kenny: 26:06

Oh, got it.

JS: 26:07

it's, it's kind of like, uh, it's, it's, You know, am I more fit now than I was three months ago, but it has

Kenny: 26:13

Got it.

JS: 26:14

has no attachment to like my business or my livelihood. Like I'm not counting on running for sponsorships or money. If anything, running is a place where I spend a lot of money because I'm like traveling to run these races. I just qualified for the Boston marathon. So I'm already scheming on like, okay, am I going to do it next year or not? That kind of thing.

Kenny: 26:33

That's so cool, man. I commend people who can get out there and that's a similar, like, I've heard people who are into running talk about, like, I don't know if it's called like runner's high or whatever, but it's like, you get

JS: 26:44

Yes, it's

Kenny: 26:46

and there's nothing in, there's nothing in your way and you're just,

JS: 26:49

It's real. You know what? The only thing I can compare runners high to as an entrepreneur is when you're gelling as a team, when you're in a flow, like I mentioned, I said, Q4 of 2019 was our best quarter ever. And Q1 of 2020 was about the I felt we were in this, we were gelling. It was like all those years pouring into localer we were in flow. It was like the meeting, the meetings were going well, people were starting to get to where they wanted to sign contracts. things were happening and it was just flowing. And that's the only thing I can compare to runner's high where it's like, the first couple of miles of any run are hard because they're just like, you have to get your body moving. But then there's a, something switches where. You stop thinking about what you have to do and you start just doing it and you get into a flow and you know, the longer you run, the more you can get, you can get yourself to a place of staying in that. Like I've, I've had mornings where I'm in runner's high for like three hours, which is just unreal. And which, but I've also had months in the business where it's like, man, this month just like blew by just everything clicked. It was all firing. And, you know, you have that. And, but a lot of what the ultra marathon has taught me is you really. You're really trying to get yourself to prepare for the, you know, a lot of runners called the pain cave. And it's like when, you know, anyone can be good when they feel runners high. It's about when you don't feel that and you don't feel good.

Kenny: 28:23

got to push through.

JS: 28:24

entrepreneurship is just like that. It's like, it's not going to, things aren't going to be clicking. You know, you're going to have to, you know, maybe you're gonna have to switch up your team and, Maybe you're going to have to pivot and change your business model, all these different things you have to be prepared for that stuff. and so that's what I think my experience with local alert has equipped me with going forward.

Kenny: 28:41

Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about, um, TenYour, tell us a little bit about, what can, what is the product? Like you said, it's more of a peace of mind for folks, in the current market. Talk a little bit about that, what people can expect, you know, if they go to the site and they start figuring out how they can use the

JS: 28:58

Yeah, that's great. so the idea for TenYour came from two places, one from professional experience and one from lived experience. The lived experience piece I'll mention first because it's the most important. I grew up again, a single mom. She's working two, three jobs. And I remember my mom in her twenties, my brothers and I were all in elementary school. I believe my mom was laid off from a job. And she, you know, she's a sole provider for three boys and herself and she's laid off. And so she, you know, that's a tough time for her. thankfully she followed that up by getting a lot of job stability. she's had jobs for eight and nine years back to back. and in the time since then and from watching her through that and I think what it informed in me is this idea of peace of mind, this idea that like, man, my mom was like we were living hand to mouth, check to check week to week for so many years and that just wears on you, you know, the stress of that and then not having the ability to really think long term financially and, you know, But what I learned so much as my mom, even through all that, my mom was thinking about generational wealth somehow. I don't know how, cause she didn't grow up in it. but she fought tooth and nail and she bought her, bought her first house at 45 years old and she graduated from college at 55 and then got another degree at 60. So my mom is just someone who's just eternally driven and, has stayed consistent. And, and then that's, so that's the lived experience piece. The professional experience piece is that six years ago. I got invited to this retreat, in Omaha, Nebraska, where Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffett's company is based and basically spent a weekend learning the ins and outs of their business. And a lot of people think about Warren Buffett and they think about investing, but they don't realize that actually the big flywheel of their business is Geico insurance and how it's such a big piece of what makes that business go both in generating premiums and revenue and also flow with that, that they're able to invest. And so TenYour, in essence, what we've done is combine those two experiences and say, what would it look like to offer people who are in a predicament around a layoff, a peace of mind where yes, of course, they're thinking short term in that moment about, paying for their bills and finding a new job and things like that. But how do we help them to still keep some focus on a long term goal, like generational wealth? And so the way that TenYour works is it, in essence, we provide a form of financial assistance. to people, that allows them to ideally not max out their credit cards, not empty their savings, not make short sighted financial decisions that prevent them from building generational wealth. and so it's something that I'm really passionate about. It's something that we really need, especially in communities of color. I'm really proud that most of our customers to date across the country are women, unmarried women, or, People of color, people who are maybe the main breadwinners in their families, people who are maybe the first person in their family working in tech or working in industry making, close to six figures or six figures. so really focused on helping middle class professionals, have peace of mind, both with the downside risk of something like a layoff, but then the upside of building generational wealth for their families

Kenny: 32:13

Yeah, I love that the combination of the two, the story goes so well, like you said, you have this lived experience with it and then we know that there's big brands out there. We all have insurance in some form or fashion. these companies are definitely leveraging those pools of assets. And so folks need to have some form of security just with the current, job market is crazy right

JS: 32:36

and future with, you know, with AI and all that. It's like. The reality is this moment in layoffs, you know, unemployment is very low. It has been very low in the United States, like 4 percent and below for several years. but what isn't really being reported is that a lot of the times the employment is counting part time work. It's counting people who don't necessarily have income, like really strong income. they're still relying on different things, you know, here and there to, to make it piecemeal and make it work And with the rise of AI, more jobs in the future could be threatened. So it's really important that people be thinking about employment as, you know, I kind of tell people all the time that everything we have is a subscription. You know, TenYour is product is a subscription, but rent is a subscription. A mortgage is a subscription. A car payment is a subscription. A job is also a subscription where they they're buying your time for those wages, you know? And so it's really important that you should always be reviewing your subscriptions, like, both at the Spotify, Hulu, HBO max, whatever level, but then also at the employment, housing car kind of level. And so a lot of what we're trying to do with TenYour is give people A way to kind of subscribe to the peace of mind and generational wealth at the same time.

Kenny: 33:47

Yeah, I love it. so tell folks, how, how can people, connect with the brand, start seeing, you know, what tools are, what, what tools and tiers of the 10 year product are relevant to

JS: 33:58

Yeah. So, the first way to start, I would say is if you go to TenYour. com and that's T E N Y O U R. is if you go there, you're going to see, first you're going to see a video with my mother and I talk, sharing a lot of her life experience and thinking about generational wealth, which I think is really just motivational, inspirational, whether that's her experience or not. And then second, you're going to see something that's it's, it's a button on there that says, see if you qualify. And it's a three minute online survey and it'll, in essence, ask you a few questions and it allows us to see if TenYour is something that makes sense to you. And, and I'll tell you, if you do that survey, you will hear from me if you qualify. I'm about a third of the people who do it do qualify based on their job history, income levels, et cetera. And I personally reach out to them and follow up and say, Hey, like I would love to get 15 minutes with you to talk about TenYour and share you with you what it is exactly. so that's what I would recommend people to do is go to the website, start there. Um, we'll be coming, we've been more or less in stealth for the last nine months or so, but we're going to be coming out of that soon. we have some great funding partners already raised some institutional funding. And so we're going to be coming out of stealth more fully soon. And I'm really looking forward to that. So people can really access it even more.

Kenny: 35:14

Yeah, that's awesome. I can't wait. I already used the product, so I appreciate you for, offering it, to me early, Joah, working for startups. which I've been doing for the last couple of years. it's just always good for me to have just an additional kind of safety net, for myself and my family to keep us

JS: 35:31

Yeah.

Kenny: 35:32

You know, you have shared so much with us. your journey is incredible. you are a serial entrepreneur in my eyes. I'm excited to see what you're going to do with TenYour and just all the other, endeavors that you have now already on your plate or the ones that you're thinking of, in closing, I want to give it to you, like, what do you want our listeners to leave this conversation with? We always give it to our guests, to close this out. what do you want folks to remember from this conversation that we had?

JS: 36:00

You know, I really hope that they remember that the lessons come from everywhere. You know, the lessons come from everywhere. Came from watching my brother and his friend cut grass. They came from watching my mom, respond to a layoff. they came from my college bosses when I was working for the Texas Longhorns who taught me more about entrepreneurship, honestly, than anyone in tech individually has, they, the lessons come from everywhere. And mostly I've learned that the lessons actually come the most from struggle. If you have an easy. Then it's not that growth isn't happening, but not nearly the kind of growth that happens when you're struggling and facing challenges, overcoming challenges. Um, so I, I think that is just really important that, you know, I think a lot of times people look at millennials, look at Gen Z and they say, oh, we, we want it too easily. We're too entitled. What I, what I would say is I think that we are actually a couple of generations that have already faced so much adversity in our careers, both starting with the recession 15 plus years ago now, the pandemic, and the rise of ai. I think just having to respond to that, not having the kind of security that previous generations were offered. If they got a high school diploma or a college degree or got in a union membership. I think that we're a very resilient couple of generations. And I think the important thing is not to necessarily pursue ease as much as to lean into where those struggles are to pursue growth and whether you want to pursue entrepreneurship or not. If you pursue growth, I think that that's actually what's going to be fruitful for you in your entire career, financially, spiritually, mentally, emotionally. I have a young college, uh, sophomore who, or she just finished her sophomore who I've mentored for several years now. And she was struggling her freshman year of college, being away from family and friends. And she was like, Oh, I'm thinking about transferring, getting closer to home. And I told her, I was like, Hey, you're a really capable Caterpillar right now. And you're going through that growth phase of deciding, like, are you going to become a butterfly? And it's like, there's nothing wrong with caterpillars. Caterpillars are awesome. But do you have to choose, do you want to be the fly and roam and have more access than you would as a caterpillar? you're on the ground, you're moving slow, but it's a butterfly. You hit, you know, you can see a lot more, So it's kind of like that. You got to decide, like, do you want to metamorphose, metamorphose or whatever? Do you want to transform in that way? So for me, like the experience that I mentioned with local or in the Lowe's mental health wise, now I'm sitting here, year plus later, realizing that may have been the most formative personal and professional experience I have ever had and ever will.

Kenny: 38:45

I love it, man. Your transparency, you're leveraging your platform, to give people honest, dialogue on, founder journeys and just would excite you like things like running. I enjoy seeing it. And I'm really looking forward to being a customer of 10 year moving forward and may, and just seeing where you take the company, thank you for being on. And, thanks for our listeners for tuning in to another great episode of the beyond normal podcast.

JS: 39:12

Thank you.