You're Not Thinking Big Enough with Congressman Steve Womack

He slept on the floor of a radio station he couldn't afford to staff, got told by the local coffee shop crowd he'd be out of business in six months, and ran that station for 45 years.

Before he was a U.S. Congressman, Steve Womack was a Startup Junkie: a broadcaster's son who talked his way into a shoestring AM station in Rogers, Arkansas, and built it into an institution. In this episode, he sits down with Daniel Koontz, Jeff Amerine, and Caleb Talley to trace the throughline from that station to the Rogers mayor's office to Congress, and the entrepreneurial instincts that never really left him along the way.

⏱️CHAPTERS

0:27 – Welcome, Congressman Steve Womack

1:06 – His "Marvel Origin Story"

4:13 – Building a Radio Station From Scratch

8:37 – Proving the Skeptics Wrong

11:07 – Lessons From Football, the Army & "Make Your Bed"

17:18 – Underwriting "Errors of Enthusiasm" as a Leader

23:09 – The Vision Behind Rogers' West Side

25:04 – "You're Not Thinking Big Enough": The Pinnacle Promenade Story

27:16 – Northwest Arkansas' Growth Challenges

32:06 – The Walmart Origin Story (and What Comes After It)

38:21 – The Case for a Skilled Trades Campus

41:27 – Government, Debt & a Coming Social Security Reckoning

47:40 – Advice for Entrepreneurs and His Younger Self

54:17 – A Tribute to Lt. Jason Hunt

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Learn more about Congressman Womack: womack.house.gov

The Startup Junkies Podcast is brought to you in part by ARISE, helping Arkansas tech and tech-enabled startups grow with no-cost coaching, capital navigation, and expert connections. Learn more at ARiseArkansas.org

What is The Startup Junkies Podcast?

Candid conversations with the founders, operators, and investors building companies in Northwest Arkansas and beyond.

The Startup Junkies Podcast is hosted by Jeff Amerine, founder of Startup Junkie, a Northwest Arkansas organization that has provided no-cost consulting, programs, and events to entrepreneurs for more than 15 years. Each week Jeff and the Startup Junkie team sit down with people who have actually done it: first-time and serial founders, small business owners, investors, accelerator alumni, and the ecosystem builders working alongside them.

Expect real stories, not lectures. How they got started, how they found their first customers, how they raised money or chose not to, what nearly broke them, and what they would do differently. Topics range from validating an idea and finding capital to hiring, marketing, leadership, scaling, and selling the business.

With more than 450 episodes since 2015, the back catalog covers nearly every stage of building a company in Arkansas and the Mid-South. If you are starting something, growing something, or helping founders do either, this show is for you.

This feed also carries Querido Emprendedor, our Spanish-language founder series, and the Fuel Podcast, featuring companies from Startup Junkie's Fuel Accelerator.

New episodes weekly. Show notes, transcripts, and the full archive at startupjunkie.org/podcast.

Startup Junkie's mission: improving lives through innovation and entrepreneurship, from Northwest Arkansas around the globe.