Growth Mavericks

What would you do if your life changed in an instant?

In this episode of Growth Mavericks, Adam Callinan sits down with longtime friend, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Janne Kouri to discuss the diving accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down—and how that life-altering moment ultimately led him to build one of the most impactful paralysis recovery organizations in the world.
Before his injury, Janne was building technology startups, scaling mobile gaming companies, and living the Southern California dream. Then one dive into the ocean changed everything.
Rather than accepting the limitations of traditional rehabilitation, Janne discovered cutting-edge recovery therapies and eventually founded NextStep Fitness, a nonprofit dedicated to helping people living with paralysis, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and other neurological conditions continue their recovery long after insurance coverage ends.
Adam and Janne discuss entrepreneurship, resilience, recovery, fundraising, leadership, purpose, and why life's biggest setbacks often become its greatest opportunities.
Most importantly, Adam asks Janne a powerful question at the end of the episode:
"If you could go back and choose not to dive into the ocean that day, would you?"
His answer says everything.

🚀 What You'll Learn
  •  How Janne built and scaled technology startups before his injury 
  •  The accident that changed his life forever 
  •  What paralysis recovery actually looks like 
  •  Why the rehabilitation system is broken for many patients 
  •  How locomotor therapy helps create recovery opportunities 
  •  The founding story behind NextStep Fitness 
  •  The importance of community during recovery 
  •  Entrepreneurship after adversity 
  •  Fundraising lessons from building a mission-driven organization 
  •  Why great leaders know what they don't know 
  •  The power of simplifying and focusing on what matters most 
🧠 Key Takeaways
✅ Adversity often reveals purpose
✅ Recovery doesn't stop when insurance coverage ends
✅ Building the right team is more important than having all the answers
✅ Great entrepreneurs stay adaptable
✅ Community changes lives
✅ Focus creates progress
✅ The hardest experiences can lead to the greatest impact

⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:22 Meeting Janne Kouri
03:56 Growing Up Between Finland and America
05:42 Building a Mobile Gaming Company
08:07 The Accident That Changed Everything
13:10 Life Inside ICU and Rehabilitation
17:29 What Is Locomotor Therapy?
20:57 Recovery and Regaining Function
24:57 Building NextStep Fitness
26:43 Launching Loncaro Long Drink
30:04 Entrepreneurship and Adaptability
33:26 AI, Authenticity, and Building Brands
40:36 Lessons From Adversity
44:24 Entrepreneurship After Paralysis
48:19 The Question That Changes Everything

🔗 Explore More
👉 NextStep Fitness: https://www.nextstepfitness.org
👉 Loncaro Long Drink: https://www.loncaro.com
👉 Growth Mavericks Podcast: https://www.growthmaverickspodcast.com
👉 Pentane: https://www.pentane.com
👉 Janne Kouri: https://www.instagram.com/califinn/
👉 NextStep Fitness Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nextstepla/
👉 Loncaro Long Drink Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loncarolongdrink/

Creators and Guests

Host
Adam Callinan
Adam Callinan is the founder of Pentane, a financial and advertising command center that empowers brands to drive predictable revenue and intentional profit. Previously, Adam co-founded BottleKeeper, a bootstrapped consumer brand that scaled to $8M in sales within three years – without employees – and was later acquired in 2021 as an eight-figure business with a team of four, marking Adam's second successful exit.

What is Growth Mavericks?

This podcast dives deep into the tactical moves that drive business success, as well as the mental and physical resilience required to sustain it.

Hosted by Adam Callinan, a seasoned entrepreneur with multiple exits, an avid outdoorsman, and an family man with crystal-clear priorities, each episode unpacks real-world challenges, actionable insights, and the mental and physical disciplines that fuel long-term personal and professional growth.

Whether you’re scaling a startup or refining your mindset, disrupting your default is how business and life strike a balance.

Adam Callinan (00:03.722)
Janne Kouri (00:04.785)
Hello, can you hear me okay?

Adam Callinan (00:06.712)
Can.

Janne Kouri (00:08.147)
Does this fit in interfere at all?

Adam Callinan (00:11.618)
No, not at all. Can't hear anything.

Janne Kouri (00:13.033)
Okay, sweet.

This feels like one of those COVID interviews where they're doing the interview and they have no pants on.

Adam Callinan (00:21.934)
Well makes you think I have pants on, buddy. That's my podcasting secret. No pants party.

Janne Kouri (00:28.881)
Yeah, my buddy Will Reeve, he got busted on. He's a one of the hosts that Good Morning America. I don't know if you ever saw that, he got busted during COVID. You know, he's like in his apartment, he's in his boxers, but the cameras scrolled down.

You can find it. Look up Will Reed GMA boxers. That's great.

Adam Callinan (00:51.224)
Yeah, there's there was a lot of those funny things during COVID. Some of them were pretty rotten. The weird weird stuff people were doing and there's like team Zoom calls and stuff.

Janne Kouri (01:00.349)
Yeah.

my god, it's hilarious.

Adam Callinan (01:05.207)
Yeah. So how you doing, man?

Janne Kouri (01:07.977)
I'm doing good, just got out to the desert, just wanted to take a couple of days off and chill out. And I'm back on Saturday, but reveling in my next victory yes last night.

Adam Callinan (01:20.3)
Yeah, yeah.

Janne Kouri (01:22.237)
Do you watch it or see highlights?

Adam Callinan (01:23.66)
No. I saw highlights but I did not watch it.

Janne Kouri (01:26.76)
my God. We just come back and then be eight. We're down twenty nine in the third quarter.

Adam Callinan (01:33.656)
That's yeah. I didn't realize it I know they were down. I didn't realize they were down by twenty nine. That's impressive.

Janne Kouri (01:38.075)
Yeah. Yeah, how San Antonio gave that up, I've no idea.

Janne Kouri (01:45.242)
yeah.

Adam Callinan (01:45.868)
Never know unless we find out in ten years that there was a mafia ring sports bet.

Janne Kouri (01:52.134)
Yeah, yeah.

Adam Callinan (01:53.966)
That implicates half the league. sweet. So have you ever have you ever done a podcast on Riverside?

Janne Kouri (02:04.191)
no.

Adam Callinan (02:05.089)
Okay. So when you when we're done, like when I do a little sign off Diddy, don't hang up because the one, 'cause we'll talk afterwards, but to the the video and audio are actually downloading on your computer right now and it uploads slowly in case there's like a glitch or a blip or something. so it's being saved on your computer. And at the end of the episode, sometime I mean most of the time, it like it needs another minute or two to finish up updating. Mine needs like twenty because I'm using Montana Wi Fi and I'm

recording with a four game camera. so that's it.

Janne Kouri (02:39.329)
question, 'cause when I talk for a long period of time, I can get light edit. do you edit at all or if I if I have to take if I take a one minute break, I can take a one minute break. Okay.

Adam Callinan (02:46.861)
Well, for sure. A hundred percent. Yeah, I mean we

Adam Callinan (02:52.801)
Totally. Yeah, we can absolutely edit whatever we want. I mean, it's not a it's not a live feed or anything, so we can tweak whatever we need to tweak.

Janne Kouri (03:00.36)
Okay, cool.

Adam Callinan (03:02.707)
but yeah, otherwise you have any other questions, anything that stands out.

Janne Kouri (03:09.821)
no, that's it.

Adam Callinan (03:12.759)
Okay. Well, we're just gonna go.

Janne Kouri (03:13.641)
Is that a home studio or do you do it somewhere else?

Adam Callinan (03:16.725)
the fact you don't know means I set it up right. No, this is it's literally it's a my house. My when we built my in-laws a guest house on the property and moved them out of our house, I was able to reclaim big chunks of the house. And so I took over a room that's one of like our master guest bedroom thingy master suite. I guess you can't call it a master bedroom anymore. That's like triggering. I don't know.

Janne Kouri (03:34.322)
Nice.

Janne Kouri (03:42.796)
my god.

Adam Callinan (03:43.721)
Our guest suite has a huge chunk of the room that's like this big empty space that I converted into my office at home. Yeah. Which is great. I really like being at home with kids around and stuff is fun.

Janne Kouri (03:50.173)
It is.

Janne Kouri (03:55.623)
First, let me go on airplane mode.

Just so I don't have anybody.

Adam Callinan (04:01.581)
yeah.

Janne Kouri (04:05.969)
Yeah, cool.

Adam Callinan (04:10.871)
Sweet.

Janne Kouri (04:12.551)
In fact, I'm stalling a little bit here.

Adam Callinan (04:15.969)
Yeah, it's okay. The the video quality in the recording is way better than what we see on the screen. Yeah. And that's the whole thing of it it being actually saved on your computer and it uploads like as it can upload. And again, it'll it'll depending on your Wi-Fi. I mean, mine's at 40% right now, which means it'll take like 40 minutes for mine to finish uploading. And when we're done, like we can move on with our day or just like hit mute and paw, you know, video off or whatever and just let it run the background. that's it. Yeah, straightforward.

Janne Kouri (04:22.067)
got it. Okay.

Janne Kouri (04:42.469)
two.

Adam Callinan (04:47.095)
So you and I have known each other since when? Since like 2000. I moved to Manhattan Beach in 2013. man, we don't talk about that. My one of my many failed businesses. Actually, it wasn't it wasn't failed. I had to stop doing it because it because bottle keeper started working. It was like, damn it, I guess I gotta pick one.

Janne Kouri (04:54.737)
When you start your wine club?

Janne Kouri (05:01.577)
But that's

Janne Kouri (05:07.497)
But I think we met for the first time at your wine club. I think Bloom introduced us through Athletes Touch. So I think that's where we met, was at your your place at Panam Beach. So whenever you started that, that's when we first met. So I don't know, maybe like two thousand ten. No, later.

Adam Callinan (05:23.573)
So that would have been yeah, that would have been closer to probably two thousand eleven ish. Something like that.

Janne Kouri (05:29.211)
Yeah. Those are fun though. I mean I'm at shooking there, I meant crawling there. Yeah.

Adam Callinan (05:38.156)
Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna get Adam Cron on here too. I keep forgetting to reach out to him. So we this goes back. I mean, that the quick version of that is I had started a wine company called Pick Wine, like P I C K Pick Wine, that was a wine app. Cause I know a lot about wine. I went to wine school in college. I worked at a wine store that sent me to wine school. To be clear, I didn't go to wine school college. And I wanted to help users or like consumers who have a tendency to go into stores and pick wines by labels, which is why they designed.

To just have a means to get a better education of what is based what is on the shelves of the store based on what's inside that store. So it was like updating real-time inventories and these things. But we needed a bunch of user data to rate a boatload of wines. So we used to host these crazy wine parties where I'd go and and buy wines from all over the world that I knew were unique or interesting and not super expensive. I mean, some of them were like 10 bucks. And we would yeah, host these like hundred person parties.

That we just needed like ratings for wines. That was such an epic time.

Janne Kouri (06:41.863)
Yeah, so it was a success in many ways.

Adam Callinan (06:45.269)
It was. I met a lot I met a lot of great people, including you. so obviously I know your story, but that's not the point. I wanna share your story and your your background because it it is one that has been really incredibly impactful on me. And I think it's an important share story to share. So can we go back to I mean you can go back as as far as you want. I mean, even from from Finland if you want. I'll let you kind of take take the early

Early part.

Janne Kouri (07:16.209)
yeah, I would say I've been you know I've lived like a million years in one lifetime. My background is just it's kind of all over the place and which I am grateful for. so my heritage is from Finland. my father and I my parents got divorced when I was about six and my father and I my father's the first one out of the family.

To move out of Finland and he got a teaching job at NYU. So that brought me to the States. And he grew up in north of the Arctic Circle in a small town in Lapland. And you know, he moved to New York and brought me because you know he was really going after the American dream and wanted me to have that same opportunity. so I grew up in New York City.

He a professor at NYU. Then I ended up going to high school in Connecticut and then college in DC. and then I went ski bombing for a year after college in Jacksonville, Wyoming. And after that, you know, I moved back east, back to DC. And I really still didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. And my cousins from Finland came to visit, and Finland was like,

Their technology was so far above what was happening here in the US when it comes to mobile. And like we didn't have text messaging here. We didn't have gaming on cell phones. So we decided to start a gaming company in Finland and within a couple of years became one of the largest mobile gaming companies in the Nordics. and it was going great for about three to four years. We probably had about fifty employees.

Then the bubble burst and we went right down with that ship. I remember we met with Comedy Central in New York. We like shook on a deal and were supposed to go back to their offices on the next day to finalize everything. And then my cousin and I wake up in the morning, turn on the news, and it's like Comedy Central fires an entire digital department and like a hundred employees.

Janne Kouri (09:44.402)
And we had just gotten out the night the night before and like we had no money at the time, like went and got a great state dinner and bought like a thousand DVDs at Tower Records. I'm dating myself. But but again, like with your blind thing, it was an amazing experience as a first time entrepreneur, you know, kind of learning on what to do and what not to do.

And I have a lot of really actually funny stories from that business. But anyway, long story short, I ended up moving to California, working for my cousin running an another gaming company called Havo. And I was running North America for the company. And we had probably eight offices throughout the world, and it was during that time

when I broke my neck in a freak accident in two thousand and six. And so life was pretty much perfect at that time. I had a great job. I just bought a house close to the beach with my girlfriend. And then one instant, you know, I'm paralyzed and you know, everything is it was a terrifying time of my life and you know

When you're in an ICU and in the hospital, am I ever gonna be able to have a family? Am I ever gonna have a job again? Like, how long am I gonna live? And it was really scary, but I was very fortunate, thanks to my girlfriend now wife, to be able to do rehab, one of the best doctor rehab specialists for spinal cardiac in the world. She worked with Christopher Reed when he got injured at UCLA.

She's developed the most preeminent state of the art therapies for people with spinal cord injury, but also brain injury, stroke, CP, MS, kind of any kind of neurological condition. So I was very fortunate that I had to do that rehab in Louisville, Kentucky. But I knew I wanted to move back home to California to be around my friends and family and community. But there's nothing like there was in Louisville in the entire state of California.

Janne Kouri (12:09.127)
And that was shocking. There's no progressive rehab anywhere in California. And there still isn't to this date outside of our facility. so we came up with this idea is why don't we take what they offer at the best hospital-based rehab setting in the world out of the hospital, put it into a community setting, so when anybody living in paralysis

Has their insurance drop them, they can still have access to affordable care within their own community for the rest of their life. So we built the first next step paralysis, rehab and fitness center in June of 2008. And now we have six centers throughout the US. We're building two more in Pittsburgh and Fort Wayne, Indiana next summer. And we've got two in Ukraine and

Three New Zealand, so it's been amazing to see the growth, but at the same time, when you see that growth, you just realize the need for what we're doing. And you know, we get no government support. Insurance companies don't cover what we offer. So it's it's very challenging from that that perspective. But which is sad that they don't want to support this population.

But we've made it work now for you know, eighteen years and we continue to grow and I probably spoke too long there so

Adam Callinan (13:47.855)
No, you just covered your whole life in about eight minutes. So so we're gonna we're gonna dig in to to a number of things. We're gonna wind back the clock a little bit to fill in some context.

Janne Kouri (13:53.351)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (14:04.576)
You went to Georgetown. You played football at Georgetown.

Adam Callinan (14:10.84)
What position did you play?

Janne Kouri (14:12.875)
defensive tackle. Which was funny because in high school I played running back, D back, and like wide receiver.

Adam Callinan (14:24.706)
So you were a fast tackle.

Janne Kouri (14:26.779)
I was a f yeah, fast quick tackle, which helped.

But I also went from one ninety five in high school to like two eighty in college just from eating a lot of lot of steak and cheese.

Adam Callinan (14:41.592)
How tall are you? I know the answer to this, but it's important. Okay. So 6'4, 280. You move, you, you go through the the boom bust cycle of the 2000s.com, or I guess kind of early pre-2000s.com. I don't know what exact year that was, but your DVD dating puts it in there from Tower Records. And then and then end up end up on the beach. Can you

Janne Kouri (14:43.484)
Six more.

Janne Kouri (15:04.008)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (15:10.904)
Can you talk about like that day? Like what were you doing on the beach that day when you jumped in the water and got hurt?

Janne Kouri (15:17.609)
playing volleyball and super hot days, super busy day at the beach too. So tons of people in the water. And between games I just you know, like I did every day of the summer and throughout the year, I'd run in to the ocean. I'd swim a lot for just exercise. On that day I was just gonna cool off for a few minutes and I'd never hit a sandbar in my life before and I just ran, dove through a wave and

You know, the currents were pretty strong that day, I guess, and just dove into a wave and just hit a sandbar and instantly fractured my C five six vertebrae. And I don't know how, but somehow I got flipped on my back. So I was able to take a couple of deep breaths. and like I said, there's so many people out there that nobody in the water saw me out there, but somebody on the beach.

Saw me floating out there and ran out and grabbed me and pulled me to pull me to shore. And so I was very, very lucky. And I remember thinking when I was floating out there on the back leg. This this could be like, you know, one of my last breaths ever. And for some odd reason it wasn't like scary. It was a pretty calming feeling.

Adam Callinan (16:39.886)
So you know, some time passes. Obviously, I'm sure you went into ICU and some pretty intense hospital stuff. What's the typical duration that a hospital that like you after an injury like that that you stay or are allowed to stay in that hospital environment?

Janne Kouri (16:58.451)
So it's all depends on what kind of insurance you have. I very fortunate to have great insurance through my company. so there's well, there's two things. So I was an ICU for two months, and once I got healthy enough, that's when you get moved to a hospital based repe center where you can start your recovery process. it depends state by state, but on average throughout the US.

Your insurance covers you for about thirty days of hospital-based rehab. In California, it's probably closer to about sixteen days. like it's it's it's frightening because thinking about my situation, I would if I got kicked out of the hospital sixteen days, you know, out of rehab sixteen days after I got there, like I probably would not be alive today.

And because this with this type of injury, it's it's a lifelong recovery. So you need to have access to those resources for your entire life, not only to recover and make strides in recovery, but also to stay healthy and you know not get sick. There's so many secondary complications that can kill you if you don't have access to these type of resources. Like you know

You're very active. Like imagine one day somebody told you you just have to sit down in that chair for the rest of your life and do podcasting. You can't exercise. Like that's gonna affect your life drastically and gonna affect your health drastically. Like why wouldn't it infect somebody ten times more that's living with a spinal cord injury or a stroke or a brain injury? so that's a challenge we're trying to solve.

Adam Callinan (18:56.91)
In the in that hospital setting where they're doing hospital PT for that, whether it's sixteen or thirty days is a fantastically short period of time to I'm using air quotes like rehab from something like that. What are they teaching or what are they trying to get you to do? What is the the instruction like?

Janne Kouri (19:15.554)
Every hospital based center is different.

The one I went to was the most progressive in the country and they are pushing you nonstop to try to get you to recover. And the problem is with the hospital-based centers that we're very fortunate next up we don't have to deal with is all the bureaucracy and the insurance companies that say, Well, we don't cover that, so you can't do this or that.

Next step, if you're medically cleared, we will push you to your limit if you're doing it. so every center is different. Like one big thing we realized real quick is because the traditional thinking was once you have this type of serious injury, the hope for recovery is almost zero. So that's why a lot of like physical therapists didn't get into the field of neurological recovery.

They focused on a field of recovery where they thought they could make a difference. But like Dr. Hunkba, Dr. Berman, Dr. Edwardton, who were on the cutting edge, they've shown that you can recover 20 years after your injury. but most hospital-based centers, they are literally just trying to like teach you how to brush your teeth. You know, maybe try to help you get to rest.

Like the day to day task as opposed to focusing on true recovery.

Adam Callinan (20:59.096)
Which in that period of time is about all they can really do.

Janne Kouri (21:03.571)
Correct, but even then, you like you can figure out how to brush your teeth. You can just hop on YouTube and be like, you can figure out how to brush your teeth, you can figure out how to get dressed, like you can do that with your nurse, caretaker, you know, family member. you don't need a PT or a hospitalist rehab center to do that for you. You need them to help you do whatever they possibly can to get you out of that chair.

Adam Callinan (21:12.194)
Yeah. Yeah yeah, sure, that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Callinan (21:35.886)
Can you explain what locomotor therapy is?

Janne Kouri (21:41.406)
Yeah, so locomotive therapy was invented by Dr. Harkman, Dr. Edgerton, rest of peace, Reggie, at UCLA in the clinical setting. she worked with Christopher Reeve after he got injured. And basically it's you are on a treadmill in a weight bearing harness.

And this treadmill can hold up to 9500% of your body weight. and they can also lower it down as much as needed or as much as you can take. and then you've got a trainer on each one of your legs, one running the computer, and one on your hips. And basically what they're doing is taking you through a walking pattern.

While you're weight bearing, because weight bearing excites the nervous system, and while they take you through this walking pattern, the goal is to you know ignite the nervous system. And by doing this repetitive mo motion, what you're trying to do is create recovery.

Janne Kouri (23:03.741)
So I think like running on a treadmill, but you're in a harness, weight bearing, and you've got four people hop helping you go through the proper kinematic kinematics, like you were walking.

Adam Callinan (23:16.386)
And so it's that just to tie this up, it's that s therapy. I know there are a lot of other therapies. Obviously I've I've spent quite a bit of time in the next step facility in LA when we were living there. It's that therapy that you brought to the community. You took it out of the clinic and into the community.

Janne Kouri (23:32.179)
That correct, yeah, that was we were the first community based facility in the country to offer that. but everything we do in the facility, you know, kind of revolves around you know, that concept. And the one thing we do and we pride ourselves on is the second one of our clients comes into the facility, we're getting them out of their wheelchair immediately.

Nobody's worked unless they're coming in to just work out on their own for a couple hours, you are out of the wheelchair right away.

Adam Callinan (24:14.222)
And so for context, and then we'll we'll move on. When you got injured, when you were in the hospital, what was your with you know with the C five, C six spinal cord injury, what was your functionality? Like what were you able or what were you not able to do?

Janne Kouri (24:33.575)
I couldn't move anything below my neck.

Adam Callinan (24:36.3)
Okay. After

Janne Kouri (24:37.929)
So I could do I could do this with my hands a little bit, but that's it.

Adam Callinan (24:43.638)
Okay. So by then being in a position to take advantage of that type of technology and then bring that technology into the community, which obviously gave you full time access to it, what is you know, what is what are you able to do now that you were expected to never be able to do?

Janne Kouri (25:06.951)
Well, this is all I was expected to be able to do. so it's probably about

Three months, two months into my rehab, that freezer rehab in Louisville, that I started wiggling my toes. And then from there just started growing. I could eventually was able to walk with a walker with support from my trainers. transfer into bed, get into bed by myself, drive a car, get into the car by myself.

A lot. A lot, yeah.

Adam Callinan (25:43.631)
Yeah. Have a dramatically more functional. I mean, I I think it's important to to bring that up because to the listener that's not familiar with this, like the the delta from injury to today for people that have access to this can be really dramatic. And it sort of like flies in the face of common knowledge around spinal cord injury or neurological disorder.

Janne Kouri (25:47.091)
Yeah.

Janne Kouri (26:06.387)
Well, I was talking about this with somebody the other day.

You just don't know these we assume, you know, we're in the United States. California's the sixth biggest economy in the world. You assume these resources are available to us given the taxes we pay and and they're not. They're not.

It's and then s and then the other challenge is when people get thrown into this

Hey, you don't know you've no idea what's going on.

'cause it's such a shock to the system. Most people don't have access to, you know, those resources that can guide them through this extremely challenging time of their life. So everybody's kind of stuck there fending for themselves and doing everything on their own. Like I remember when I was in the hospital in Kentucky.

Janne Kouri (27:15.653)
I had friends and family, I was there for a year. I have friends and family visiting me every day. To the point where we felt like we were just entertaining people. And it got to the point where it was like almost annoying, like, my god, can I just get like a day of rest? But I was like so grateful for it, but I wouldn't have I don't think I'd be alive today if it wasn't for that, you know, support from you know, my loved ones. And there's all these people, you know, on my floor.

But never had anybody visit them. So that's also one thing that we're trying to do next step is create a community of support through our staff, our trainers, through the other folks, you know, in the facility that it's a great place for let's say a mom with a son that got injured to talk to another mom that had a young one, you know, child get injured to learn about what they're going through and

ask questions so it's yeah. It's a frightening situation to go through, but that's kind of what we're trying to do is provide that support network resource network.

That's vital.

Adam Callinan (28:33.55)
Yeah, certainly is. Being as entrepreneurial as you are, I mean, next step is a massive lift and it's something you've been working on for a long time, but it's not the only thing. I feel like you're one of the more entrepreneurial people that I know. You always have some things going on. What are you outside of next step, where are you spending your entrepreneurial time?

Janne Kouri (28:58.483)
So back in two thousand nineteen,

I have this idea with my cousins probably in two thousand five, six.

So in Finland we have a alcohol beverage called the long drink. And it was invented initially for the 1952 Summer Olympics. The Finnish government put out bids to all the distilleries. they wanted low low A B V, like five percent, canned drink that they could serve at the Olympics, because Finn love to drink.

And they didn't want to be serving like bottles of vodka to people. So this company came up with the initial long drink called Longheto. And soon after became the national drink of Finland, and still is today. You know, with me, my friends, and my family in Finland, and all they drank.

was long drink. And at the time we had like Miceart Lemonade, you know, these shitty wine coolers. Like there was no great like canned cocktails in the US. And I saw a great opportunity there. And right when we started like putting the business plan together is when I broke my neck.

Janne Kouri (30:34.739)
So fast forward to twenty nineteen, I was back in Finland and my cousin owns a brewery in Finland. And he started the Omaya of Long Drinks. And he had me taste some of them when we're like just relaxing at the beach at the Baltic. I was like, my god, this is amazing. And by that point, you know, next step we were running great, amazing board of directors.

Great team. I thought I could kind of merge the two ideas is I was looking for like another passive project. But what if I start bringing long term to Finland, I mean to the US? There's one other great one. and we could piggyback off them and their success and at the same time get back to next step. So like a percentage all of our of all of our proceeds goes back to supporting next step.

And our company's called Loncaro, L O N, C A R O. and it kind of all just came full circle. So it felt it felt great and it was like the right time to to actually do it. We had time to spend on it.

Adam Callinan (31:51.47)
How long have been working on that? A couple of years?

Janne Kouri (31:54.524)
yeah, this July we'll be in market for four years, but we f officially kind of started working at WeWork in two thousand nineteen.

Adam Callinan (32:05.582)
How is it bringing a like a pre-made cocktail, alcoholic cocktail to market? I would imagine it comes with all sorts of complexities and difficulties around distribution and the laundry list of legal

Janne Kouri (32:25.769)
I had a lot of people tell me they're gonna think about doing it.

Adam Callinan (32:29.294)
That means it's probably a good idea because it's hard. The good stuff's always the hard stuff.

Janne Kouri (32:33.395)
Yeah.

Yeah. it is an extremely well the the biggest challenge we've had, I would say the market completely, the whole industry completely shifted like right after we launched. there was so much consolidation.

Between you know, with the distributors, retailers, and that continues to happen. Like one day, a buyer for some real chain, you know, will be your buddy Bob. And then next day you call Bob and he's like, I'm no longer there. I get replaced by Jim. And you're like, And you like just spent a year of creating a relationship with Bob. And now you have to, and then now Jim is responsible for deciding on what brands they're gonna bring in.

So it's like you started from scratch all over again, day to day. Like you never know what's gonna happen. But so what we've learned is you gotta be super nimble, super flexible, just and be able to adjust at the moment's notice. And make sure you have options like supply chain, and I'm sure we dealt with that with bottle keeper. And so if somebody tells you all of a sudden like,

You what, we can't get you aluminum for three months. You better have option two. and there's yeah, there is just so much competition. And when you're a small brand, you know, you're going up against the big boys. And they have endless amounts of dollars for marketing. So you just gotta be very you have to be very grassroots organic. And you better make sure you have

Janne Kouri (34:30.033)
best product in the market, great branding. you have to be authentic, all natural. And the market also really cares about you know brands that give back.

And they want to know who you are as you know, founders. You're not just some multi billion dollar company. I think especially the younger generation loves to hear that you're just a small team of regular folks trying to make it happen.

Adam Callinan (35:07.96)
That I think is really consistent, especially now in the world of AI, across pretty much anything consumer facing. You have to be authentic and tell a story or you know, at this point we can like barely tell what's real and what's fake in anything that we see anywhere. And so it's yeah, I I see that. I mean, I live that very much across now Pentain and and pretty much everybody that talk that I talk to is it's all about the authentic, real connections with consumers.

Janne Kouri (35:23.571)
Yeah.

Janne Kouri (35:38.035)
Now what do you think about like the mix? The AI is can be very useful, obviously. So how do you like

Adam Callinan (35:47.404)
Yeah.

Janne Kouri (35:47.994)
I obviously like do you just especially when it comes to social media is AI off the table to be authentic or can you can you nibble you know kind of use it a little bit here and there?

Adam Callinan (36:03.233)
Yeah, I think

Let me be clear. I use AI an incredible amount. Like I have a full agentic. I'm, you know, I went from open claw, now I'm onto Hermes agent, like full agentic infrastructure inside of Pentain. None of it is or very little of it is actually in the application because I'm really sensitive to AI doing math. But but I use it, it runs incredible volumes of actual blocking and tackling work and development work.

throughout our infrastructure in ways that are safe and protected and not overly exposed. Where I think AI gets tricky is where

When you're showing a consumer something and there are people involved in it, meaning

You know, using AI to brainstorm something is a I mean is you know, pun intended no-brainer. Using AI to help draft things, you know, particularly legal things in this world of trying to reduce legal costs as much as possible, is gen depending on what it is, is generally also a no-brainer. using it for a lot is a no-brainer, but I think where it gets really tricky is in in writing social posts, consumers and just people in general are getting really, really sensitive to this like coin term AI slop.

Adam Callinan (37:27.98)
Because we're getting really good at recognizing what in writing is human and not human because they follow patterns. The other thing that I think is really tricky and where it gets really bad is when you're using AI to recreate human experience. Meaning if you have a product photo and it's AI, like who cares? Nobody knows. Nobody cares. The second in which you start putting people in those photos and those people are AI or the videos that you're showing the people literally don't exist, that's when people lose their minds.

Janne Kouri (37:33.95)
Yeah.

Janne Kouri (37:54.643)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (37:57.743)
And I don't fault them for that. I mean, we just get into this like weird, creepy realm. And maybe I'm sure over time we will desensitize to that. But today, that's sort of the the hardcore no-go, gotta be super careful zone. And why it's so important to have real conversations like this. I mean, that's one of the reasons there are a lot of reasons I do this podcast. One is to have conversations like this that are about real life and real difficulty and real challenge and how what we do.

Janne Kouri (38:13.895)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (38:25.856)
having completely different experience bases to overcome those challenges and and make it to the next day or the next week or the next month. The other part is to show real humans having real conversations and like dropping an F bomb and you know, screwing up language. Like we're not gonna go through here and remove all the uhs and ahs and likes and so's because that's how people talk. It's real. It's authentic. It's kind of the point.

Janne Kouri (38:45.054)
Yeah.

Yeah, good answer.

Adam Callinan (38:50.092)
I've thought about it a lot. It's it's it's just such a it's such an an invaluable tool. I can't it's it's even I it's not even just a tool. A tool like massively minimizes, which is a totally contradictory statement. It very much minimizes the reach and capacity that AI can have and how helpful it can truly be. But it is a double edged sword.

Janne Kouri (38:51.561)
Yeah.

Janne Kouri (39:16.475)
Yeah, I think it just well not for many people, but I mean for most people I have friends who've been doing a deep dive for years. It kind of just snuck off snuck up on us out of nowhere. At least that's how I personally feel. I'm like all of a sudden it's like we're in a whole new world.

Adam Callinan (39:36.16)
The competency of the models has has hockey sticked, you know, in the last

Probably year, but it continues to it, it's still on that like logarithmic trajectory. It's just going straight up. So, like every and in my good example of this is a year ago, I could, I'm gonna use the four letter word vibe code. I guess it's yeah, vibe, vibe code. Developers hate vibe coding. My development team at Pentain, including our CTO, are now because what I can build and develop, and I do have some architectural understanding from a development standpoint because I've

Janne Kouri (39:52.563)
Yeah, yeah.

Adam Callinan (40:15.022)
This long enough. What I can build and do and develop with my underlying agent models using the latest models, you know, whether it's generally it's from OpenAI, but Claude or OpenAI. I use OpenAI because it's way less expensive because I can use a OF OAuth login and it'll cost $20 a month instead of if I use API tokens with Claude, it'll cost $28,000 a month. Yeah, super nerdy. I can build incredible tech.

Janne Kouri (40:36.105)
Now you get now you get really nerdy on me.

Adam Callinan (40:42.242)
That's good and safe. And we're now like building all that infrastructure into Pent A. So it's like it's an insanely valuable thing that I couldn't do that six months ago. I started being able to do that well enough in maybe February. And now it's like the d dev team's like, yeah, do it. It's great. Just keep going. And I can make the product move so much faster as a result of it. So it is, it's changing.

Janne Kouri (41:00.553)
Nice.

Janne Kouri (41:03.849)
That's awesome. Now how

Do you think it makes it a lot easier for competition just coming real quick?

Adam Callinan (41:15.67)
It I do. I I think it depends on what what you're talking about as competition. Do I think

Building a SaaS platform today that's just another SaaS platform is a death note. I mean, there's no reason to there's no reason to do that. And it has having seen this coming for quite some time, we you know, we have really focused heavily on building into arenas that are not AIable to build revenue models and technical and executional expertise, you know, in

You know, we just did a big partnership with paid ad network that we now have our own paid ad network. We have the Pentaine Ad Network that gives small e-comms and brands that are under 50 million in revenue the ability to access ad inventory that's generally only reserved for companies like Live Nation that are spending a million dollars a day. So now, so it's so we are focused on going and finding those types of things that add insane value. And the software product, frankly, over time, it'll just become free. It'll be like our customer acquisition tool.

Like sure, you want to go try to vibe code this thing. One, you better be really good at math because it's going to screw the math up. It'll actually do the math correctly. It's going to screw the equations up. Because the equations are not logical in a lot of cases. So go nuts. Or you can just use this one for free. And by the way, we can do all this other epic stuff to help you drive revenue in your business in ways that you don't have access to. So we spend an incredible amount.

Janne Kouri (42:48.233)
It's awesome.

Adam Callinan (42:49.976)
Well, time will tell. It's the it's the thesis. We're just starting to move on that, but but it is fun. So where how do you look at

Janne Kouri (42:51.815)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (43:01.73)
You know, building how do you look at difficulty, like entrepreneurial difficulty and the stress that comes with entrepreneurship and the wild ups and downs? How do you look at that differently today than when you were doing it, you know, with your, I think it was your cousin in 2000?

Janne Kouri (43:23.971)
Janne Kouri (43:27.497)
I mean it's

Janne Kouri (43:31.399)
I've always, you know, I'd like, you know, let's I I'll go back with it. Like I after college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I just zero idea. I was like, all right, I'm gonna go ski bombing for a year. I got done there, I'm like, I have no freaking idea. then my cousins and I were at a bar in New York and we just started chatting in my

One cousin was like, I want to build this kind of magazine. It sort of like when Flash also first came out. and then my other cousin was like, Well, I've used friends that have a mobile game in like four or five. They build Flash websites, and they're really good mobile programmers. And then I was like, Well, do you get a fantasy sports in Finland? And they're like, No, we have no idea what that is. So we created this company that

We launched the first fantasy hockey and soccer websites in Finland. And then we launched this magazine. And then we were creating flash websites for companies. And then also mobile games. And we called it Orchid B like Orchid the Flower, because we're doing a million freaking things. And our idea was like we'll use the magazine to promote everything else.

And we'll get customers by building a slash websites. But then soon after we kind of realized that the mobile gaming was the one thing that was gonna make money for us. But back then it was just like we didn't know what the hell we're doing. We're like all like twenty-three, twenty-four years old. We were just having fun. And like I didn't feel like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. Now I definitely

kind of feel that like with the next step it's you know especially the first I don't know twelve years every year you you're part of this you know we'd be at our December board and like All right how the hell are we gonna raise eight hundred thousand dollars this year to keep the doors open and every year is that same constant

Janne Kouri (45:52.534)
never-ending challenge that every year we have to raise this money or these people aren't gonna have access to to rehab resource they you know need and deserve. So while I love it more than anything else in the world, that's just a lot of added pressure. So just dealing with that and then with Long Caro

Same thing, like you know, we raised a bunch of money through through friends and I want to make them a great return on investment. but that's the challenging part, I think, now more than back then is just there's a lot of people that have put their trust in me, my team, and I want to make sure that we're successful.

But it's now like kind of funning games kinda like one is back then.

Adam Callinan (46:59.416)
Do you think the dealing with the

Aftermath of the injury has made a difference? Like, do you look at entrepreneurship differently after your injury than you did before?

Janne Kouri (47:17.694)
Janne Kouri (47:25.011)
That's a good question. I think back then, like when I was young

Janne Kouri (47:30.762)
it's kind of like this kind of go, go, go, take risk, take risk, take risk. And I think

Janne Kouri (47:40.771)
Now with this injury gives me more time to think like let's prioritize and be good at one or two things. We don't have to be good at a million different things. You know, like for me after the injury it's like

Rehab, rehab, rehab. And for like next step, my whole thing is I just have to fundraise. I don't to focus on much else. I have a team that can support everything else. So just kind of simplifying everything. is what it is what it taught me. Don't try to too don't try to do too much. I think that's kind of one of the biggest lessons I've learned.

If you try to do too much, you're gonna spread yourself thin and you won't be successful.

Like even in the beverage business, like people the biggest mistake, especially small brands can make, is try to expand too quickly and try to go into way too markets, way too many markets too quickly. hey, let's go national. You're gonna run out of money in a couple of months.

Janne Kouri (48:57.289)
So I think just kind of simplifying things is what I learned.

Like what did we open next step? Like we didn't have to reinvent the wheel. Like we had the blueprint at the hospital base we had. Center, let's just take it out of there and put it into a community setting. We don't have to like change anything. We just gotta raise some money.

Adam Callinan (49:23.278)
That's the hard that seems like the hard part to me is they raise the they raise the money every year, year every year, every year.

Janne Kouri (49:30.561)
No, no, it's it's it definitely is. I think COVID definitely like made that way more challenging. 'Cause we were doing we didn't know what the hell we were doing when we launched. We have this facility and like, okay, how do we raise money? I have no idea. So we just started throwing events and our events were successful and kept the doors open and allowed us to hire great staff.

Great trainers, get all the state of the art equipment that we needed. but then once COVID hit, those events went out the windows, we kinda have to reinvent ourselves.

Adam Callinan (50:16.398)
themselves in the in the COVID and post-COVID world, including me. Lots of companies got really disrupted.

Janne Kouri (50:20.295)
Yeah, that's again that's right, I didn't mean to interrupt you. but that's all about being nimble and flexible and being able to, you know, adjust to whatever the you know market throws at you.

Adam Callinan (50:35.554)
Yeah, adaptability is is one of those really, really critically important parts of I think life in general, but certainly entrepreneurship.

Janne Kouri (50:45.299)
Yeah, I think that for me what I've been good at is

Knowing what I don't know.

And like no ego. Like build a team around me of people that are smarter than me, that know understand things that I don't understand.

Janne Kouri (51:12.553)
I think that's been a huge help a huge help for me. Just getting people around you that you can trust that can fill in the puzzle where you can't.

Adam Callinan (51:30.412)
Last question. We're gonna do a a sliding door game. If you could go back to that day on the beach and make the choice to not jump into the ocean, would you would you do it and why?

Janne Kouri (51:46.555)
No, absolutely not.

Adam Callinan (51:49.942)
As in you would you would let it play out the way it played out?

Janne Kouri (51:52.903)
Yes.

why because I've met so many, you know, incredible people like yourself through this injury. I'm very proud of the work we've done at Next Step to help people all over the world. and taking that away from them would be devastating and I still live an amazing life.

I have an amazing, beautiful wife, incredible friends, you know, I'm happy. I love what I do. you know, life's still great despite it's challenging, but it's still great. But we all have our challenges in different ways.

Adam Callinan (52:46.734)
And that folks is why I love this guy. One of the many, many reasons. And yeah, you did marry up like I married up. I still just don't tell Katie. I I have her pretty well brainwashed at this point, twenty years into it, so

Janne Kouri (52:59.279)
Right you did, but thank you. This this was

Adam Callinan (53:00.792)
This is awesome. I've I've been I've been wanting to do this for a very long time. So I I really appreciate you making time in your desert oasis. Where do you want we'll put show notes in or links in the show notes for next step in Lancaro. Where else do you want people to find the brands or find you?

Janne Kouri (53:19.951)
you can find Next Up on Instagram at Next Up LA. Instagram we are at Long Caro Long Drink. It's L O N C A R O. We had our Instagram hacked like a couple months ago. So we lost all thousands of followers. So we're just getting that going again, but that'd be very helpful if you could follow us. yeah. And I'm personally at Cali Finn.

T A L I F I N N. but I don't post that often, but I need to.

Adam Callinan (53:56.908)
Yeah, that's a common theme.

Epic.

Janne Kouri (54:00.809)
But if anybody out there is in the South Bay area, we're doing a charity picket ball tournament for next step at California Smash on june twenty seventh.

Thanks our thread mark blue.

Adam Callinan (54:17.134)
Perfect. We'll we'll make sure this gets out well in advance of that.

Much appreciated, man. Thanks again for taking the time. Cheers.

Janne Kouri (54:25.458)
no, thank you so much. What are we supposed to do now?