We are here now with Dr. Smirti Agarwal. And
I met her at just an event a while back. And so you
have been on my list to have on this podcast of someone I wanted
to have on. She has been a successful entrepreneur and
has taken a step back from the first company and is launching a new
one. But I want to just start all. And the new company
is very helpful for new entrepreneurs. But I want
to start at the beginning and have you tell us about your first
journey into entrepreneurship and what that was all about.
Yeah. So thanks, Mary. It was so exciting to
meet you at that networking event and I'm so glad we met.
So. Yeah. So I'm Smriti. I started
my journey as a grad student. So I was doing my PhD
in genetics. I was working on neurodegenerative,
rare neurodegenerative conditions that lead to blindness. So I was
understanding both the cause of it, like looking at patients and
understanding the cause of these rare diseases. And then also
I had the fortune of working on a
therapy. So I worked on gene therapy, which is a treatment
for these children. And so while I
was doing my PhD and I actually had just started
my first few weeks at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston,
I was asked if I wanted to consider the MD PhD program.
So in that, I said yes, and I will
finalize and make this decision after. I have
observed surgeries, like I've seen surgeons in action and I've seen the process
and what it entails day to day. So I went and
shadowed surgeons and really got into it. So I ended up shadowing,
shadowing like hundreds of procedures. And I would go to training,
like hands on training events, and I would go into surgery for brain
surgery, you know, women's health, like
hysterectomy procedures. I would observe a lot of
oncology, like cancer procedures, pediatric
procedures. And throughout this, I
guess, process, what I understood was that the system is
flawed. Okay. And why it's flawed. It's like, well, if
your surgeon tells you that they're going to do their best, they truly mean
it. But is that really the best for you? And
that just. That's an interesting debate, I imagine.
Right. And how they learn is it's a skill. And
surgeons just like any other skill, they learn by practicing.
So when you're practice, practice, practice, practice makes perfect and then you get
really good at it. But when you're practicing, you
know, overcoming the learning curve on patients, then that leads
to compromise and quality of care that the
patients don't deserve. But there is no alternative solution to
this. Right. Because like I said, it's a skill. So
I understood that problem. I really, like, had
deep conversations with surgeons who were very vulnerable
with me on this topic. And they explained to me, you know,
what this. How this makes them feel, and, like, how this affects their day
to day emotionally, you know, psychologically,
all of that. And once I understood the problem, I started
diving deeper into the solution. So that was the start of my first
company. That's fascinating. So say the name again. Lazarus
3D. Lazarus 3D? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So tell us
what that is. Yeah. So Lazarus 3D, it's a platform. And what
we provide surgeons is the ability to rehearse
upcoming cases before they operate. So let's say, you
know, Mary had a surgery coming up and your doctor told you
it's going to be really complicated. You know, I've not
seen one like this before. What we do is we take your scans,
so MRIs or CTs, and create replica of you
of your organ with its disease and deliver it to
the physician. So your surgeon will get a organ
replica that is a copy of your specific
anatomy, and it cuts and bleeds, realistically.
So what that means is that surgeons can basically do a dry run of
your upcoming case before they do it on you. And this gives them
basically an unparalleled ability to not
just validate their plan, but modify
it and perfect it before they do it, before they have the real case.
That is fabulous. And I don't really think I
understood what that all was when you were first telling me about
it. Oh, yeah, yeah, I can imagine. That's just so. I
can see how that would be so helpful to a surgeon to have
that and so comforting to patients.
Yeah, yeah. And the patients often get to hold it too,
like the replica of their kidney or their
brain. And it just. I think it boosts confidence
and it builds just confidence
in the dialogue that you're having with the surgeon. Like, hey,
yeah, you know, we're not just going into this blind. Like, I've really
done, you know, the rehearsal, and
I am going to be really genuinely providing you
the best quality of care. That's awesome. Yeah. So as
a. Because we're now at Reno Startup Week, I see you again, and there's lots
of entrepreneurs here and there's a lot of tech here also. So much
tech. Tell it. Give us some ideas on what was really
helpful in building this. You had, obviously had a great model
and there was a need there, so that's probably fundamental, I imagine.
Yeah. So I think people start with an idea and
then they come up with a solution and then they build a solution and then
they try to sell it, right? We did not do that. Okay? We
identified the problem, okay. And we worked
alongside our customers who are physicians, surgeons,
and these are best in class surgeons to build a product
together with them with their input, with their insight, with their
feedback. And we iterated on every,
you know, advice, every piece of data point that
we were generating from their, from, from the
collaborations and together built that product, right?
And we always kept patients first.
Like that was really like the underlying,
you know, principle was patients come first.
And we're building this for the patients and we're doing it to
empower their surgeons so that they have the best tools to provide the best
care. So that's how we built it. And actually
right at that, the beginning of it, when I
never like exhibited my own company, I never built my own
company. This was my first rodeo. And
so we went to a trade show and at this medical
conference, we showed up with our table chair or
whatever and we'd set it up and it was a 10 by
10 booth. So the surgeons we were working with were telling their friends about it,
and their friends were telling their friends about it. And it was just all very
organic until a point where a medical device
marketing executive came by and said, oh,
can you make this for me? And I was like, oh, you're, you're a medical
device company, like, why would you need this? And then they told me
that if I could create a bladder for them that had
like different, like bladder, so there's polyps which
are like cancer, they can be cancerous. So can you create
a bladder cancer model for me that I want to,
you know, demo my device on? Okay. I asked them,
yeah, we could do that. And so I said that. And then I was
like, what are you using today? And he said he was using a pig bladder.
Like, literally, like they will go to the butcher shop or somewhere
and get like animal parts or
another company was using a bell pepper to do
the cystoscopy. That's the procedure. That's fascinating, right?
And so I was like, can you show me what you're doing? And they literally,
they took me to their booth. And now these are like extravagant,
you know, multi million dollar booths for these
Fortune Hundred, Fortune 500 companies. So he
showed me in this very extravagant booth,
lo and behold, the pepper. And he was doing the
demo on that pepper with all of the surgeons
that walked by. And I was like, this is a joke.
And he's like, nope, this is the best we have. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
So then I was like, this is it. And we started
like at that point, I went to every single exhibitor and I was
like, what's your product? What are you doing to do your demos?
And tell me, is that really like serving your
needs? Like, are you happy with that? And that just
opened up a entire
division of the company which was focusing
exclusively on medical education and training for
new products. When they launch new devices to the market,
they should be doing demos on things that are
more human right and representation of the human disease
than, you know, a bell pepper.
I love that. So then you started doing that. Then we started generating revenue
from that. And that revenue actually funded
all the other things that we needed to do, like all of the material science,
R and D, our patent protection
for legal, our regulatory
filings, like for the FDA, our
hiring of the first employees. All of that was funded or not all,
but a chunk of significant chunk of it was funded from
revenue with these customers. That's
fabulous. Yeah. So where is it at today? What stage is the company at?
Yeah, so fast forward 10 years. So it's been 10 years, so
that's okay. Yes. 10 years in the
making. And you know, we broke a lot of things and we learned a lot
of things in that process, but today it's already
on the market. So the patient specific models are FDA cleared.
They have billing codes for reimbursement. They are
in large health systems across the country.
And we also work with pretty much
the best medical device companies that are global companies
in providing them with demo units.
So for, for hands on demo and training purposes.
And their teams are so much happier,
I can't imagine. Because it's safer for humans
and safer for doctors to not freak out that they're
not practicing on a human for the first time, really. But something more
human, like to brilliant. They would have done training also
on cadavers. So I just wanted to share that. Okay. So, so
cadavers are like, you know, people and once they
pass away, they want to donate their bodies to science. And so medical
schools have these cadavers and you learn anatomy
on that. Right. So you learn like you know, the different organ
systems and gross anatomy. Right. But
those cadavers don't have diseases. So if you're a brain surgeon
trying to like learn how to treat a solid
tumor in somebody's brain, you will not
get that training from the cadaver because it doesn't have that
disease. So this was sort
of a big leap forward
paradigm shift in how people learn and
how people treat patients and all of that. That is amazing. I
love that so much. Thank you for going into so much explanation
because I don't think I knew all of that. Cause right now. So
you're new to moving back to Reno or moving to Reno? To Reno. To Reno.
Okay. Like me to Reno. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I
grew up on the east coast. I went to school in Houston. Then I moved
to Oregon to build this company. And we moved to
Oregon during COVID. Those were such good years,
weren't they? Yeah. Yeah. So we had a business
pivot where we were making, you know, 3D
printing PPE supplies, and then we were sourcing
supplies and became the largest supplier to the Harris County Health System
in Houston. And then when that crisis was sort of
marginally averted, we decided to
go focus on the core products. So we pivoted back to
our core technology, the patient specific models
we were submitting to the FDA at that time. So it gave us that flexibility
to actually, you know, move and
find our facility. We wanted to be in Oregon or
just west coast in general because for many reasons, but
we found, we'd found a spot. So now we have a 25,000 square foot facility
there. Okay. And it's doing well. So
I last year exited. I'm in the process of
exiting from my company. Okay. And that was
like 10 years of go, go, go, grind and hustle, bustle. Right.
Like, just no breaks. So this time I
put the brakes and I took a break. And
that was definitely the most stress,
anxiety, PTSD inducing. Oh, no.
Taking the break was the anxiety producing thing. Yes.
At first I was like, yeah, you know, I need to step away. And
I wanted to do that for many reasons.
But after I did that, I was just like, really
miserable. So I talked to mentors,
I talked to advisors, I talked to other founders
that had, you know, stepped away. And
I just asked them, like, why did you do it? You know, how did you
manage that and would you Recommend it? And 100%
of them were like, yes, we recommend this. And
their advice was to not dive into the next thing until I was
really clear on
whether I was ready for that next thing, to commit to it. And also
just to reset.
Your cortisol levels are so high because you've been in that
fight or flight. Yeah. For so long. For a decade. And so
they basically advised me that there was going to be a significant
reset and there was an identity crisis where you're like, I was the
face of the company, I was the founder and my public
identity and Persona was tied to the brand
that I built. And so everybody's
like always asking you like, how's the company doing? And you have that
hesitancy to say like, you know, actually I've taken a break.
I've have sort of stepped away momentarily from
that. And yeah, so that was
last year. And then fast forward into
it. I came to this realization that all
of the problems that I was dealing with as a first time founder
with my first company are real problems that every
founder, every entrepreneur deals with. Right. This is not
unique to me. Okay. I was not special. Right.
And so how can I help those other
founders, those other innovators that are also
perhaps stuck in meaningful ways that
helps them accelerate their journey without making
the 500 mistakes that I made. And
so this is leading you into your next thing, this thought? Yes. So this
is leading to, you know, we're still at
the very early stages of it, but it's my new
venture, it's Atlas 360. So Atlas
360, the goal is to go
in and help startups. So I most,
most of my background has been med tech and biotech and basically
provide executive leadership where they need it most. And so
it could be in operations when you don't have
processes, you don't have systems in place and you're doing everything
yourself. It's exhausting and it can lead to burnout
and you don't want it to get there. So how can we
get in there and address it before it takes the best
of you from you? And then also
when companies, you know, lots of people like build good products
or solutions but they don't know how to bring it to the market or they're
struggling and they're getting no's, or they're getting rejections and they're so like personally
affected by that. Or a fear of
success or a fear of failure or a fear of failure. Fear
of talking about it, not knowing how to
ask for help or not knowing why they should or when they should ask for
help. Yeah, exactly. And can they ask for help? Because
it's their company and you know, should. They
may not feel comfortable asking for help. Right. And so
it's difficult. And it's also difficult to find people that have the exact set of
skills that you are looking for. And let's say you
find that person but you can't afford them full time. So what do you do
then? Right, so that's where I step in and
I come in as a fractional C suite. So I can be
your fractional chief operating officer or fractional
chief commercial officer or chief strategy officer and
basically, you know, get to the
grind and help you with whatever your
biggest urgency is. Right. Like you're always fighting fires. So
having a lending hand in that can be really
helpful and especially from somebody that's been there and done
that and they know exactly what you're going through. The other
thing that I'm really good at is product
positioning. So when you have a product and
you want to create a strategy, your go to market strategy
and you want to bring in your first customers, paying customers,
it can be overwhelming and it can take a long time.
So how do we remove the stress from it
or minimize the stress rather? And how do we shrink the
timeline to commercialization and to
revenue generation, which I think is like most important in
any business. Oh, so yeah, so important. So those are. So
that's you just laid out so much. So let me ask because this is
a lot of stuff and I think it's important. I think there's, I've heard, I've
met a lot of people in Reno that are doing fractional
CEO or you know, that kind of. Can you explain to people who have no
idea what you're talking about and they want to start a business maybe what that
means and why that's beneficial. Yeah.
So a fractional CXO, it could
be CEO, it could be
COO, CCO, doesn't
matter. Is a person that has the
expertise, ideally from experience building
other companies in their past and they
bring that expertise and you know, the breadth of
what it takes to build a company. You know, you need to know like
really everything. Right. So they bring that experience
and expertise to you without you having to
hire them full time. So they are sort of like, you can
think of it as a consultant, but they're not just a consultant,
they're operators. And so they're like helping you
build a business. They're in it with you, next to you, you
know, doing things, making things happen. So there's
benefits to the company. The company doesn't have the
overhead of the benefits like that they would have provided
a full time employee. They also don't have the liability
of hiring on the full time employee. Right. And it's
also like low risk in terms of
fit. Like if this individual is not a good
fit for many reasons, cultural fit performance,
maybe like, you know, whatever they are
capable, whatever their expertise are may not be best aligned
with what your needs are or maybe you know, you just want to go in
different directions, you can go your separate
ways. Right. Much easier. Yeah. So it
really is a good start soft spot for companies where they're like,
man, I really like need a clone of me today and I
wish that clone existed so I could grow my business and
like go from my six figures to seven figures or seven figures to eight
figures. But I can't hire them full time. Maybe because
you're a beta positive but you're not profitable
or you just don't want to take on that risk of
bringing in a full time C suite. Yeah, that's very, very good.
So how would someone, would they hire you month by month? Is there a
certain time frame that you get hired for? Yeah, so I
mean that's a good question. I know you're still
developing this. Actually like I've never asked this question, so I don't know how it
works. So it's a contract and like every
other standard consulting contract, it's on specific,
whatever terms you negotiate. So it could be, you know,
like for this duration or, or it could be milestones. Like I want
you to help us achieve this X milestone. Yeah. And
you know, like help us get there. And it's not really
about time because time is actually
very, it's a vague concept in startups. Like
sometimes it's moving so fast where you don't even remember.
Like, like, oh, it's, you know, a whole week
has gone by and you still feel like, you know, where are we in this?
And sometimes it's so slow moving like you're waiting for a customer to
find close a deal and you're like, man, like it's been five minutes
and why are we not done with it yet? Right. So yeah, big
concept. But I like to be like goals
or outcomes, focus. So yeah, that makes sense. Want to structure it and I have
been structuring it that way. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So go to
market strategies. I know I had even referred a friend to you
for a go to market strategy. So what is involved in that? Yeah,
so you know your industry, you know what you're
building, you know your target customer. Right.
But you don't have a complete
like mapped out plan of how you're going to
get the product to the market. So you may
have an understanding of the need
and why the solution is serving that need. But how do
you communicate that to your target customers and how do
you actually. So essentially in
marketing we talk about buyer Persona. So
that's part of the go to market strategy is like you're building the buyer Persona,
you're building your beachhead customers, your first early
adopters who are going to be your early customers. And they're not going
to ask you questions like who else are you working with? Right.
Like, they need it and they will use
it. They will be your first customer. So how do you make that happen?
So all of those components are part of this
strategy that allows you to stay focused.
And essentially it's like a blueprint for how to get those
early paying customers to buy your products.
Yeah. And it may involve hiring too. Like, it may involve,
you know, collateral creation, content creation. It may involve
hiring a business development expert. It may involve a
partnership with a strategic business or
entity. It may involve
strategy with contracting through the government
agencies. So you have to, you know, there's like
so many different things. There's so many different things. Yeah. Involved in that initial process.
Yeah, yeah. And I've owned a business and I think I did it all wrong,
you know, but it was Covid era and I was just, you know, I was
an island unto myself. Way too much so in a very
techie ish. Well, you know. Yeah, it was
online sales and shipping, which is tech enough for me. You know,
logistics, all the logistics stuff was not necessarily my
forte. So there's a lot to it. I know there's a lot to it. And
running your own thing. And I know you're giving a talk tonight, which we're going
to be at, about using different AI
tools. Yep. So tell us what you
know on that or what you recommend. Yeah. So when I started my
journey, you know, 12 years ago, we didn't have.
Or maybe they existed, not that I was aware of at that time.
And, you know, nobody was like robustly using it and there was
little awareness of it. So fast forward to the last
few years. We've had these tools that really have been
so pivotal to making life
easier. Like for a founder or an entrepreneur, a
creator or a business owner, where,
you know, traditionally I would have hired a team. Like I would have hired
a agency to do my marketing work or an agency
to do X, Y and Z things
that I needed done. Like if I wanted to create a product
book, I would have brought somebody in to do that.
Today, there are tools that can help you get there.
So in as little as 30 seconds, I can get like a first draft
of my product deck completed.
And yes, it's going to be atrocious.
Totally not to your satisfaction or
may just be completely off too, but it still
really is helpful. And so there are Tools like that, where I have
been using those tools and leveraging them to expedite
the process. And instead of sitting there and
every image with every text box and
whatever margins, I don't have to do that. You know, there are tools
that automate that process for you. And then same thing with
like basic things like spelling, grammar,
even writing an email draft, there are tools that can help
you with that. So I don't think you can solely rely on them.
And yes, Everybody is using ChatGPT, which I think that's a good place to
start. But there are much more sophisticated tools that are like,
tailored to the specific needs
and they provide tailored output for that specific
area of your need. And I think
like. So actually there are more than 70,000
AI tools and apps on the market. Today, which is
overwhelming, right? And we know of like ChatGPT, but there's
2000 generative AI tools.
Okay. It's a lot, right? And so you can't,
I mean, you could just trial and error and like sift through them.
But my talk is focused on the ones that are
tried and true, the ones that I have worked with.
And yes, there are some
tips and tricks, tips and tricks, right. On how to use them and
how to optimize and even really like what the
intended uses versus how I use it is different in
some instances. So I'm going to be sharing that. Okay, you want to talk about
the specific one right now? We're going to do it now. Yeah, sure. So
I think a good one would be like,
customization for the ChatGPT
where you can create your own ChatGPT
and it's a prompt engineering, but it can be pretty simple,
especially if you have a sort of
a outline for how you're going to prompt it.
Then it can really help you build
a custom GPT that you can rely on for business development
or marketing, content creation, whatever.
And the other tool is Gamma AI. So Gamma AI.
I have been using it for quite some time. I really like it. It helps
create pitch decks, it helps create product decks, it helps create
marketing content, like, with ease. Yeah. And I was
just talking to you about this because you sent that to me and
Erika actually had already heard about this and heard some good things about
it. So I, for the talk that I was giving, I put it,
I used Gamma and then realized it didn't translate to
Keynote, but I didn't know that. So. Yeah, but it did help kind of
give me, made me go, oh, like this is. I think it saved
me some hours on that initial to Just kind of put my thoughts. This
is the first time I had given the talk that I gave this week.
So, you know, creating it from scratch and
making sure in your brain you're actually wanting it to be what it is. So
that was a helpful tool. So why that one though? Why do you
like that one? Why? I like Gamma. So I've used so many other tools.
So I've used Gemini, which is integrated with Google
Slides. I've used just ChatGPT. Of course it
doesn't like. It gives you ideas and it can create your
maybe outline, but it's not going to
build a deck for you. Then there is beautiful
AI. There are so many. There's Canva AI, there are so
many others. I like Gamma because
it has different, like, sort of starting
points. So you can feed it your entire outline
and you can feed it additional, like knowledge
and ask it to build a deck from that
database or content that you have
provided it. Or you can start with like a blank
slate. And it's like, hey, you know, I'm feeling really lost
and I am feeling low energy and just, you know,
too stressed right now to give it all this
intake. So I'm just going to give it like a glimpse of what
I want my presentation to be on. Okay, it
will start there. And the output, I think it's like,
you know, decent. Right. So I have
high standards, but I think that if you prompt it well
and of course what you put in is what you get out, but if you
prompt it well, it will do a decent job of your first
draft. And from there I can iterate and
modify it to my liking. Yeah, Which I think that's one of the best
things about AI is that you don't have to start with a blank slate. So
sometimes the blank slate is what's most intimidating. But if there's something in front of
you that you can go, yes, no, yes, no, edit this, yes, no, yes, no.
I think you can just get rolling a so much quicker. Exactly.
That's my talk. So it's blank to brilliant. Oh, good. All
right. I just landed on that so fast, didn't I? Went from
blank to brilliant. It's a really good name too. So I love that.
I'm looking forward to seeing it. So tonight that's going to be fun.
So question with chat. So with ChatGPT to get to that.
So it's just driven, custom to you. Is that like
buying it at the different level and then doing customizations from then
or what do you do with. That if you're a solopreneur or you're just
starting out, the plus works. So I think
that's like the $20 mark.
$20 per month, I think. Yeah. And you do have to have the,
the paid version of it because it is a custom
feature and I think it's, it's a
fantastic tool. So. And it's well worth it. So you, you're still going to be
able to do all the regular chat things,
which I use it for so many different
purposes today, like even organizing
my to do list or you can prompt it to
put reminders for you in your Google Calendar.
So there's those features, but the
custom GPT, basically
you can prompt it and you can make it be as specific as you would
like or you can be a little more generic.
So if you're being specific, you can tell it like, what's your brand? What's your
brand identity? You can put your brand book in it. Perhaps it wants
to know your mission vision. Like, you know, it wants to know your core values,
it wants to know your product like it wants to
know your pricing so that it has all this information.
And as you are brainstorming ideas with
it or running different proposals through
it, you can rely on it because it's going
to talk to you as a professional and it's going to.
Only you can limit its data source, so
you can limit it to the information that you have provided it.
So there are all these different,
I guess, components of, of the custom GPT
tool that optimizes your
productivity, like to the next level. Yeah, I love that. And especially
when you're a solo entrepreneur or you're just starting out, there's not a lot
of money and you got to pay your bills and fund your
business and so, you know, skipping steps that you'll get to later. I
know like with our podcast, even we, we are still going to use
a graphic designer to do the logo, but we just haven't done it yet.
So we did something that's kind of simple. I think it was Canva or something
like. But so we kept it simple until you're ready to do the
bigger thing. And that's kind of how you
start things sometimes. Yeah. So that's your mvp. So, you
know, minimal viable product is a perfect place to start
and, you know, leveraging the custom GPT
to make it what you need or what you want it to be. It
could be your executive assistant, it could be
your executive business director,
it could be your legal right. I mean, you don't take legal
advice from It. But a good first pass through, you.
Know, for just basic ideas before you go to someone
who really knows this stuff. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah.
So this is just. You're just starting this out and
do you have kind of. Is there a way for people to find you yet
or you're not quite launched it yet?
Yeah. So most of my, most
of my engagements have been organic. So it's people in my
circle that know me. You know, I have a fairly large
network so they can find me on LinkedIn.
So just Smriti Agarwal on LinkedIn
and connect there. Yeah. But yeah, I'm not
like advertising it or really
I don't have a website and I don't know if I will need it
and I don't want to have a whole pile of clients like, you know, it's
a boutique service, so. Right.
Yeah. There's a limited thing that you'll do with it. Yeah. How did you
find out about Reno Startup Week? And like, I know you're volunteering here and
helping. Yeah, so I found out about Reno Startup Week
through one of the speakers who's, you know,
I've known Christina for a little while. Yeah, I know Christina. Yes, yes,
yes. And we were just talking to her, I was asking her, I was like,
hey, can you tell me more about, you know, like the
network here for entrepreneurs, innovators?
And I just wanted to mingle and like get to know the community
and see where I can support people. You know, I'm an advisor and a
mentor to other early stage founders. And so she was telling
me that I should come to, you know, Startup
Week. And I was like, what is that? And she said, oh, she's a speaker.
And I was like, like, what's happening? Like, I was just,
what does that mean? And this was a few weeks ago. Yeah.
So after she told me about it, I was very excited
and also disappointed because I had not had a chance to like,
you know, plan it in my schedule and like, you know,
apply to be a speaker or, you know, panelists. And so
at that point I reached out to the organizers and I was
so glad that there was an opportunity to volunteer. I think that's
good. Great opportunity. It's been great for me because I've get,
I've gotten to know people, like folks from the government,
the Economic Development office here In Nevada, the
SBDC, you know, other entrepreneurs, funders.
There are VCs here. So it's been really awesome. Yeah,
it's such a good community. I'm so glad you're here. So. Okay. So personally,
what brought you to Reno? Like, why did you choose Reno? Yeah. So
you know how it is. Like, you know, you've been in the same
place for so long and like, when you want to hit that
reset button and you're in the same place, like
your environment, it's going to impact you and it's like,
who are you talking to and what you're doing in your day to day. It's
going to be the same old things. So I wanted to sort of start fresh
and hit the reset button. So I looked at options, you know,
looked at Washington, California and
Nevada. I like Nevada because of its proximity
to Lake Tahoe. Tahoe is
a good draw. I'm like, I would say a
novice skier. Like, I'm on the blues right now, so. Nice. Good for you.
Yeah. So I figured, you know, with Mount Rose being so close
by and like, it being an affordable city
and it being so close to the Bay Area,
why not? So I took a leap of faith and landed in Reno.
Yay. Well, I'm so glad you're here and I'm so glad I met you too.
So. And I'm looking forward to tonight and ways that
I know we're always looking to ways to make things go faster.
Something about a podcast, which of course, we're not really doing this to make money,
so something about a podcast needing to go be. Be really
good, but also to get lots out on socials and
interact in a way that's
time is time. At this point, it's not even money, but we
gotta make use of the time because we only have so much of it. Yeah.
I mean, I know that all the tools help. Yeah, yeah. Other
podcasters like the tools that I mentioned, you
know, you could become a partner with them. They could be a
sponsor for your podcast. Hey, well, there you go. Like, lots of
podcasts, take note. Monetize. Yeah, yeah. Like, they'll put in the
ad even if you're listening to the Spotify podcast. Like, they'll have
featured brands, right? Yeah. Hey, over
time, we'll grow as fast as we can, and we're going to do some of
that stuff. So that sounds like a good idea. So thank you so
much. Anything in closing that you want to add for this?
Yeah, I mean, it's been good. And
I think for anyone that is sitting
with the idea in the back of their mind and just
anxious or uncertain of, you know, should they do it,
should they not do it, they should take a leap of faith and should just
go for it and, you know, break things, make
mistakes, don't be afraid, ask for help, get
advice. You know, go to the people that
came before you, like the people that have done it and have had success in
their careers and learn from them. Yeah, for sure.
Everybody is more than happy to give back, and everybody is more than happy to
pass their knowledge along and just, you
know, don't be your own
bottleneck. Yeah, that's my advice. I love that. Don't be your own
bottleneck. That is excellent advice. Well, thank you so much
for coming on today and for just. I'm so glad I caught you.
And like I had said, Erika and I set up out here and we have.
We have had some scheduled this week and we have more scheduled this week, but
today we're like, let's set up on campus. And as soon as we did, it
started getting cloudy and then there was. It was noisy over there. It was
noisy inside. And then everyone's kind
of clear going to their different things. I think so. But I'm so glad
I caught you today because you were on the list. I'm like, for a while,
I'm like, I gotta get her on. So. Yay. Thank you to everyone
listening so much.