841: Transforming the future of education through EDUpreneurs w/ Chase Eskelsen

WEBVTT

00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:01.203
Hey, what is up?

00:00:01.203 --> 00:00:04.610
Welcome to this episode of the Entrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:00:04.610 --> 00:00:25.310
As always, I'm your host, brian LoFermento, and if there's one thing that I absolutely love about entrepreneurship, it's that it has the power to change the world, whether we're talking on a societal level or in today's episode, you're going to hear from an amazing edupreneur, an educational entrepreneur that is changing the game and the landscape of education.

00:00:25.310 --> 00:00:29.147
One business, one entrepreneur, one mission at a time.

00:00:29.147 --> 00:00:31.213
So let me tell you all about today's guest.

00:00:31.213 --> 00:00:32.924
His name is Chase Eskelson.

00:00:33.226 --> 00:00:37.100
Chase has spent over a decade in various educational positions.

00:00:37.100 --> 00:00:47.753
He started his educational career as an administrator focused on strong operational metrics and scaling full-time online schools, both charter and district schools.

00:00:47.753 --> 00:00:59.851
Upon leaving the school management position, he supported nationwide ed tech company, with one foot in the academic policy world and the other in governmental affairs, supporting digital educational options.

00:00:59.851 --> 00:01:04.932
That's the cool thing about entrepreneurship is we have the ability to bridge these different domains.

00:01:04.932 --> 00:01:17.231
Here we're talking today about something that impacts all of our lives education and something that is often quite convoluted in the world of government, and Chase is willing to bridge all of those as an entrepreneur, to make a change.

00:01:17.231 --> 00:01:30.813
He then served as the chief operating officer of an education nonprofit where he oversaw launching new hybrid schools and supporting the acquisition of educational opportunities, until he started his own business in late 2021.

00:01:30.813 --> 00:01:32.483
He's going to tell us all about that.

00:01:32.483 --> 00:01:42.682
His business is a one-stop education consulting firm, supporting schools and businesses and fellow edupreneurs through the First Skin, ed Mastermind programs.

00:01:42.682 --> 00:01:51.784
I'm so excited to hear not only the way that he thinks and the way that entrepreneurship is changing the educational landscape, but I think he's doing some really cool things with his own business.

00:01:51.784 --> 00:01:53.370
So I'm not going to say anything else.

00:01:53.670 --> 00:01:56.725
Let's dive straight into my interview with Chase Eskilsen.

00:01:56.725 --> 00:02:03.121
All right, chase, I'm so excited that you're here with us today.

00:02:03.121 --> 00:02:04.365
Welcome to the show.

00:02:04.365 --> 00:02:05.668
Thrilled to be here.

00:02:05.668 --> 00:02:06.879
Thanks so much, heck.

00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:08.525
Yeah, you've got a lot to live up to today.

00:02:08.525 --> 00:02:09.407
I'm going to be honest.

00:02:09.407 --> 00:02:11.733
I feel so excited about our conversation.

00:02:11.733 --> 00:02:13.044
But first things first.

00:02:13.044 --> 00:02:14.508
Take us beyond that bio.

00:02:14.508 --> 00:02:15.510
Who the heck is Chase?

00:02:15.510 --> 00:02:18.329
How did you start doing all this incredible work that you get to do?

00:02:19.740 --> 00:02:21.661
You know that's a great question.

00:02:21.661 --> 00:02:24.182
It's something that's always been inside me.

00:02:24.182 --> 00:02:28.006
I've always wanted to start my own thing, whatever that thing was.

00:02:28.006 --> 00:02:47.640
I went 10, 15 years without knowing what the thing was, but I knew that I was in education and I knew that there were a winding path that allowed me to touch a lot of really interesting areas.

00:02:47.640 --> 00:02:53.111
The way I like to say it is, it's a very non-traditional career trajectory.

00:02:53.111 --> 00:03:05.312
I don't know if that makes sense or not, but it makes sense to me because I've touched so many areas of the education landscape that it allows me to understand all the connection points.

00:03:05.312 --> 00:03:13.353
And I think that's what makes First Connect a little bit different is we understand not just the one piece of the puzzle but how they all connect together.

00:03:14.419 --> 00:03:15.663
Yeah, and I think it's interesting.

00:03:15.663 --> 00:03:17.308
You talk about these puzzle pieces.

00:03:17.308 --> 00:03:19.284
I said it at the top of today's episode.

00:03:19.284 --> 00:03:22.858
There's so many players within the world of education.

00:03:22.858 --> 00:03:28.568
Obviously there's the educational institutions themselves, there's governmental influences, there's policy.

00:03:28.568 --> 00:03:29.592
There's so much of it.

00:03:29.592 --> 00:03:35.012
Chase, you not only entered this world, but you decided to be a change agent in this world.

00:03:35.012 --> 00:03:43.006
Walk us down that path of all the different stakeholders and players that you identified an opportunity in, and you said you know what?

00:03:43.006 --> 00:03:45.991
I want to enter that arena and help be part of that solution.

00:03:47.614 --> 00:03:49.247
Yeah, well, again it starts.

00:03:49.247 --> 00:04:02.931
Because I was in a school, right, I was actively involved in running a school and supporting the team, doing all of the educational pieces, and I just kept seeing things like this is awesome, you know, full-time online.

00:04:02.931 --> 00:04:04.567
This was way before COVID made it cool.

00:04:04.567 --> 00:04:08.313
That was a decade before COVID made online learning cool.

00:04:08.313 --> 00:04:13.669
We looked at the situation and we said what can we do different, what can we do better?

00:04:13.669 --> 00:04:28.637
And so we implemented some of those things and we grew the enrollment from I think it was 1,200 roughly students when I started we grew it to 8,000 students in that school and then we launched a second school, got them up to 6,000 students.

00:04:28.637 --> 00:04:31.564
And that was with the district program here in the state of Texas where I live.

00:04:33.048 --> 00:04:44.985
And every time that I would get to an interesting spot in life where someone would come with a new opportunity, a new offer, I was really careful to always listen to what they had to say.

00:04:44.985 --> 00:04:45.689
There were times when I wasn't necessarily looking for a new offer.

00:04:45.689 --> 00:04:46.076
I was really careful to always listen to what they had to say.

00:04:46.076 --> 00:04:57.367
There were times when I wasn't necessarily looking for a new role, but I still wanted to hear that opportunity and I said no to a lot of opportunities and then you know, there were a couple that were just too good to be true.

00:04:57.648 --> 00:05:05.271
When I went to the nonprofit, they came to me and they said look, we've seen some of the things you've done in a government and public affairs arena.

00:05:05.271 --> 00:05:07.648
We've seen some of the things you've done with launching schools.

00:05:07.648 --> 00:05:14.560
We think that online learning was really innovative a decade ago, but it's not innovative anymore.

00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:24.567
So how do we take the very best of that in-person experience and the very best of that digital experience and cram those two things together and beyond that?

00:05:24.567 --> 00:05:31.112
We also have funding available so you can actually go and dream up something crazy and cool and actually make it a reality.

00:05:31.112 --> 00:05:35.208
So when you get an opportunity like that, you don't say no.

00:05:35.208 --> 00:05:37.293
You just don't say no to that.

00:05:37.959 --> 00:06:11.884
Yeah, chase, I love that overview for so many reasons, especially because I hear behind your answers is I hear that level of excitement from you, and I think what's really interesting is that when we think of the educational landscape, we don't often think business, we don't often think entrepreneurship, and I think what's fascinating about your business is you actually facilitate the change, not only across these institutions but with edpreneurs edupreneurs I want you to talk about that landscape because obviously there are businesses that are in the background supporting these associations.

00:06:11.884 --> 00:06:13.208
You talk about it before.

00:06:13.208 --> 00:06:23.468
Covid made all of this stuff cool, but that's innovation at play and obviously COVID was a catalyst, it was an accelerator for so much of what I imagine happened within the educational world.

00:06:23.468 --> 00:06:25.112
But what are those players?

00:06:25.112 --> 00:06:26.644
What are the business elements?

00:06:26.644 --> 00:06:30.901
Who are these edupreneurs and what sort of solutions are they coming up with?

00:06:33.629 --> 00:06:40.547
I love that question and it's something that I'm very passionate about, something that we've made a core pillar of First Skin Ed.

00:06:40.547 --> 00:06:53.793
When I started my company, I started hanging out with other education entrepreneurs and I realized that most of them were teachers or administrators who had a great idea.

00:06:53.793 --> 00:06:55.925
Right, they're in the trenches every single day.

00:06:55.925 --> 00:06:59.802
They ask themselves the question there's you know, how do I do this better?

00:06:59.802 --> 00:07:01.406
There's got to be a better way to do this.

00:07:01.406 --> 00:07:13.843
And, sure enough, they go and they figure out how to do it and the idea is fantastic, it has legs, it has merit.

00:07:13.862 --> 00:07:19.194
But what I started noticing far too often was these education businesses were failing, and I wasn't okay with that because the idea was good.

00:07:19.194 --> 00:07:21.564
So I started digging in saying why are they failing?

00:07:21.564 --> 00:07:28.824
What's going on here that's preventing these entities from serving students and teachers better?

00:07:28.824 --> 00:07:32.392
And I learned a really valuable lesson really early on.

00:07:32.392 --> 00:07:34.204
It's not because the ideas aren't great.

00:07:34.204 --> 00:07:48.505
It's because, simply put, these are educators, not business people, and they've got no idea how to do some of those basic business principles in order to get their idea, their product, their service, whatever it is out to market.

00:07:48.505 --> 00:08:06.810
And so we started the education entrepreneur, the edupreneur, as you've so aptly called it several times thank you for using our verbiage there the edupreneur mastermind and we started bringing these folks together and sitting them down and saying hey, you know, you have to have clean numbers.

00:08:06.810 --> 00:08:09.668
You were at a school, maybe you were a principal.

00:08:09.668 --> 00:08:11.786
You always had a guy for that.

00:08:11.786 --> 00:08:13.964
Right Now you're the guy.

00:08:13.964 --> 00:08:23.620
So here's how you go into QuickBooks and you utilize that tool effectively and make sure that you are set up for success.

00:08:23.620 --> 00:08:32.230
So we brought in a bookkeeper and she just walked them through tips, tricks, best practices on how to use QuickBooks effectively.

00:08:33.341 --> 00:08:36.471
We then brought in a small business lawyer and Brian this is hilarious.

00:08:36.471 --> 00:08:40.150
When is the small business lawyer ever the rockstar?

00:08:40.150 --> 00:08:41.546
Like lawyers aren't the rockstar.

00:08:41.546 --> 00:08:44.267
There's jokes about lawyers and it's probably for good reason.

00:08:44.267 --> 00:08:52.808
I know I've got a lot of family and friends that are lawyers, but they're not the rock stars normally, but in this group they're the rock star.

00:08:52.808 --> 00:08:58.147
This guy came in and described here's how I need you from a lawyer's perspective.

00:08:58.147 --> 00:09:09.505
I need you to prepare before coming to me, because if you do X, y and Z, you are going to be so much more successful and pay me less on the long run.

00:09:09.505 --> 00:09:11.309
And so this guy was just fantastic.

00:09:11.309 --> 00:09:18.471
He described what to do, when to do it, how to do it and when you don't necessarily need to use a lawyer so fantastic.

00:09:19.212 --> 00:09:23.567
As that thing continued to grow, we realized a couple of interesting things.

00:09:23.567 --> 00:09:28.621
The kind of keynote speakers, if you will, were fantastic.

00:09:28.621 --> 00:09:45.153
But there was an additional need and so we started a second segment of our Entrepreneur Mastermind that we call Curated for you, and that's where our team goes out and finds products, services, ideas, opportunities specifically curated for education entrepreneurs.

00:09:45.153 --> 00:09:59.164
So a great example there's a fund, the Vela Education Fund, and they do education grants for entrepreneurship, and we brought them in and said hey, you know, here's our group, here's what the makeup is.

00:09:59.164 --> 00:10:05.544
All we want you to do is to describe to them what grants you have coming up.

00:10:05.544 --> 00:10:07.892
And then we want you to answer two questions.

00:10:07.892 --> 00:10:13.097
The first question what is it that you all are seeing in the grant applications?

00:10:13.097 --> 00:10:15.023
That's moving that down the pile.

00:10:15.023 --> 00:10:25.182
And then the inverse what are you seeing that you say we really like that and that moves it up the pile so we can hopefully get some of these education entrepreneurs grants.

00:10:25.182 --> 00:10:32.363
I'm so happy to say we had six or seven of our members last year get a Vela education grant.

00:10:32.363 --> 00:10:34.950
So super cool opportunity.

00:10:34.950 --> 00:10:52.730
And then, finally, we realized there's another segment that's missing, and so we added a third segment to our mastermind that allows our members to go into the membership portal and submit business related questions where we can use the brainpower of the group to solve them.

00:10:52.730 --> 00:11:05.022
One of our more recent examples was one of our members was struggling with ads on Instagram, and so they posed the question to the group and we were able to work it out real time.

00:11:05.022 --> 00:11:08.106
They shared their screen, they worked through the problem and it was solved.

00:11:08.106 --> 00:11:17.583
So super cool structure and incredible education entrepreneurship Members.

00:11:17.865 --> 00:11:28.390
I think it's probably interesting to know who are our members, because I think a lot of people ask that question, like are there enough education entrepreneurs that you could fill in a mastermind?

00:11:28.390 --> 00:11:30.666
Yeah, we do, and we're actually super niche.

00:11:30.666 --> 00:11:36.893
So we request that you're in the K through 16 education space somehow.

00:11:36.893 --> 00:11:44.740
Number two we request that you are the key decision maker, right, the business owner.

00:11:44.740 --> 00:11:49.062
We're not really interested in helping the managers or directors kind of move up that ladder, business owner.

00:11:49.062 --> 00:11:51.490
We're not really interested in helping the managers or directors move up that ladder, business owner.

00:11:51.490 --> 00:11:55.203
And then, third, our preference is that you are in your first three years of operation.

00:11:55.203 --> 00:12:03.942
We want to really niche down to the business owners just launching, help them get through that first three to five years and then they're set up for success and can serve students better.

00:12:04.605 --> 00:12:11.892
Yeah, chase, so much about not only what you've built that I absolutely love, but really that perspective I think it's such an important thing to call out.

00:12:11.892 --> 00:12:17.615
Is that a lot of us, when we're in our roles, the roles of practitioners we don't understand all of these?

00:12:17.615 --> 00:12:19.402
You call it the business foundations.

00:12:19.402 --> 00:12:26.509
We don't know those things because a lot of people have never run a business before, which is a totally different skill set from being that practitioner.

00:12:26.509 --> 00:12:35.109
Whether I'm an educator, whether I am a web designer, if I then go out on my own, I'm no longer just a practitioner.

00:12:35.149 --> 00:12:37.177
So hearing the fact that you bring all these people together is an incredible resource for people.

00:12:37.177 --> 00:12:42.162
But I also want to call this out because I think it's so important for listeners is that hearing you talk about these grant opportunities.

00:12:42.162 --> 00:12:45.950
The world wants us to succeed as entrepreneurs.

00:12:45.950 --> 00:12:49.844
There are so many resources, whether it's grants like the Vela Education Fund.

00:12:49.844 --> 00:12:50.868
They want other people to succeed as entrepreneurs.

00:12:50.868 --> 00:12:52.433
There are so many resources, whether it's grants like the Vela Education Fund.

00:12:52.433 --> 00:12:54.000
They want other people to succeed because it makes the world a better place.

00:12:54.179 --> 00:12:59.500
Good business improves the lives of all and, chase, it's exactly your business also serves that gap.

00:12:59.500 --> 00:13:08.647
Firstkin, ed, you want to see edupreneurs do better, because it then makes the educational system better, which in turn makes society better, so many lives better.

00:13:08.647 --> 00:13:11.413
So I think it's important to call those resources out.

00:13:11.413 --> 00:13:18.187
I want to ask you some examples, because it's clear to me that you came armed with examples here today which we so appreciate and our listeners love that.

00:13:18.568 --> 00:13:25.480
With that in mind, what are some of those examples of educational entrepreneurial enterprises that are changing the game?

00:13:25.480 --> 00:13:31.457
Because I think for a lot of us obviously I've been out of the educational system for a while now I don't have kids, so I don't see it.

00:13:31.457 --> 00:13:44.067
My niece and nephew have started school, they're in kindergarten, so I see kind of that side of the world, but for a lot of us not in education, it seems outdated and I hope that there are amazing entrepreneurs changing the landscape and thanks to you I know that there are.

00:13:44.067 --> 00:13:52.106
But give us some insights into the world of whether it's ed tech or even beyond that, just educational entrepreneurial solutions.

00:13:54.272 --> 00:14:01.929
Yeah, I think one of my favorite examples right now is a good friend of mine, a member of our mastermind, tamara Becker.

00:14:01.929 --> 00:14:17.403
She's based in the greater Phoenix area and she is launching micro schools and I don't know how familiar you are, or the listeners are, with micro schools, but this is absolutely taking the education industry by storm and I gotta tell you I'm here for it.

00:14:17.403 --> 00:14:18.826
It is so exciting.

00:14:18.826 --> 00:14:30.835
Here's the idea it's a small group of students spread across multiple grade levels, learning from a very individualized manner.

00:14:30.835 --> 00:14:57.232
So, tamara, with Adamo Education, she's got a couple of different locations and that's the beauty is that micro school leaders are saying, yes, I can go launch a school with 20 to 40 kids, but I can also launch a second one 20 minutes away and capture both kind of markets if you will also launch a second one 20 minutes away and capture both kind of markets, if you will where our students are not going to sit in a classroom with 30 other kids and do the drill and kill right.

00:14:57.299 --> 00:15:04.668
I think that's maybe one of the biggest takeaways that parents had during the COVID time is when everything got shut down and everyone was sent home.

00:15:04.668 --> 00:15:12.205
They were now sitting next to their kid as the teacher was drilling and killing all day.

00:15:12.205 --> 00:15:21.475
These kids were up behind a computer for six, seven hours in some instances and, if we're being honest, the learning experience doesn't take that long.

00:15:21.475 --> 00:15:31.215
The reason that school days start at eight and end at three is because they have so much wasted time during class, in between classes.

00:15:31.215 --> 00:15:40.490
All these things Kids could and should be done by noon, by one o'clock at the latest, right, because they can still get the same amount of learning in these micro schools.

00:15:40.490 --> 00:15:49.495
But then they also get to layer on top of that their passion projects and incorporate that into their learning their passion projects and incorporate that into their learning.

00:15:56.039 --> 00:15:58.700
The other thing that's really cool and what we're seeing are folks creating amazing content through digital means.

00:15:58.700 --> 00:16:15.811
You know, it doesn't even necessarily have to be online content, but it can be digital infrastructure that allows for, you know, great project-based learning, and there's a couple of different groups out there that are creating the video content, the interactive content.

00:16:15.811 --> 00:16:27.969
That is kind of what we thought it was going to be like 15 years ago, when Steve Jobs stood in front of the Apple crowd and showcased the parts of an atom for one of his keynote speeches.

00:16:27.969 --> 00:16:31.624
Right, that was super cool back then, but it never came to fruition.

00:16:32.004 --> 00:16:42.522
We are finally seeing education catch up with some of those pieces on the curriculum side, and what that means is these students' experience is completely different.

00:16:42.522 --> 00:16:45.767
It's not just a static book anymore.

00:16:45.767 --> 00:16:56.952
You get to move and touch and feel and adjust and zoom in and zoom out and understand how this piece of this science course connects to the greater science world around us.

00:16:56.952 --> 00:17:00.110
It's amazing, really cool opportunities.

00:17:00.110 --> 00:17:01.956
And that's just two of.

00:17:01.956 --> 00:17:07.713
You know 50 different things we could talk about, but education is growing and expanding so quickly.

00:17:07.713 --> 00:17:10.744
It's a really exciting time to be in education.

00:17:11.628 --> 00:17:12.512
Yeah, Chase, I'll tell you what.

00:17:12.512 --> 00:17:18.549
Hearing your vision of education, it makes me believe that you said it where we all thought we'd be 15 years ago.

00:17:18.549 --> 00:17:20.823
I think that that new era.

00:17:20.823 --> 00:17:28.892
So my niece and nephew are six year olds Like I said, they're in kindergarten and I would imagine that the educational world that they're going to go through is nothing like what we went through.

00:17:28.892 --> 00:17:30.096
I think about the technology.

00:17:30.096 --> 00:17:34.085
So, someone who has an Apple Vision Pro, I caved I've got to be an early adopter.

00:17:34.085 --> 00:17:37.843
I see how much that is changing our ability to learn something.

00:17:38.144 --> 00:17:40.493
Chase, the other day I learned a heart stent procedure.

00:17:40.493 --> 00:17:52.789
Why, I have no idea, other than it was so incredible to interact with it, and that was from a third party app that edupreneurs just like yourself and the people that you serve are building for the sake of teaching others.

00:17:52.789 --> 00:17:56.448
So I think it's so powerful seeing all of that and that last point that you made.

00:17:56.448 --> 00:18:07.313
I want to pick on that and I want to go so much deeper there, because you talked about building those connections that maybe we may not previously have seen because we did live in such a fragmented educational world.

00:18:09.119 --> 00:18:11.290
Chase, our listeners know that we always ask our guests what's your zone of genius.

00:18:11.290 --> 00:18:18.737
I love your answer because it touches to that point connecting seemingly non-connected facts to tell the whole story.

00:18:18.737 --> 00:18:37.035
Talk to us about where you picked that up over the years and over your career and what that means to you in the work that you do, especially in I'm going to use that word again fragmented, especially in a landscape where educational is so fragmented, with the governmental influences, the edupreneurs, the educational institutions.

00:18:37.035 --> 00:18:40.001
How's that play into it all?

00:18:40.102 --> 00:18:43.465
Fragmented is a perfect way to talk about it.

00:18:43.465 --> 00:18:45.868
The problem that we see is in education.

00:18:45.868 --> 00:18:47.430
The problem that we see is in education.

00:18:47.430 --> 00:19:05.013
People go really, really deep on one specific area and they stay there for 10, 15, 20 years, being able to come at this thing from such a varied background, you know.

00:19:05.013 --> 00:19:21.124
Going back, I don't want to rehash my total experience, but I understand from an operational and financial perspective how different decisions that we make at a local school can impact the academics and instructional integrity of what's actually happening in front of the students.

00:19:21.124 --> 00:19:27.705
Then I layered on top of that the public and government affairs layering with academic policy.

00:19:27.726 --> 00:19:36.522
Right, right, I was sitting with these uh wonks that were doing 30 and 40 page stat nerd I don't even know what to call stat nerd like that's all it is.

00:19:36.522 --> 00:19:45.648
These people are doing things that are so deep into one specific question, but then they would turn around it and say what, what do we do with this?

00:19:45.648 --> 00:19:49.007
And so to be able to then distill that down to a one-pager.

00:19:49.007 --> 00:19:52.308
This is how you explain this topic to a school board, right?

00:19:52.308 --> 00:19:54.182
School boards are filled with non-educators.

00:19:54.182 --> 00:20:00.683
In most instances, these are community leaders that don't know the ins and the outs of the educational sphere.

00:20:00.683 --> 00:20:18.846
So being able to take all of that and distill it down and then reading a bill that's been proposed and describing that back to a legislator or a policymaker saying this is what was proposed, here are those unintended consequences, right, they're always there Every bill.

00:20:18.846 --> 00:20:20.390
They're always in there somehow.

00:20:20.390 --> 00:20:28.005
And so to be able to look at that and say, based on how this bill is written, here's how it will impact the parents and parents need to have a voice in this thing.

00:20:28.005 --> 00:20:29.602
Here's how it will impact the parents and parents need to have a voice in this thing.

00:20:29.602 --> 00:20:34.291
Here's how it'll impact the school, the principals and the teachers.

00:20:34.291 --> 00:20:36.843
Here's how this is going to impact the students.

00:20:37.765 --> 00:20:53.173
And when you start to connect all those dots for people who usually only see the teachers and usually only see the parents and usually only see this, you know the staff and say no, no, no, let's look at it holistically, big picture.

00:20:53.173 --> 00:20:55.080
Here's all those different impact points.

00:20:55.080 --> 00:20:56.986
And then running the nonprofit.

00:20:56.986 --> 00:21:17.471
Now, now you're getting that business side in and understanding all the different implications of the physical structures of the businesses and the all the adding governmental issues that you have when you have to now deal with the local, city and county crazy, for lack of a better word like that.

00:21:17.913 --> 00:21:42.826
You know, you get into some of these cities and it's just ridiculous the amount of hoops you have to jump through to get a school launched and so to be able to connect all of those dots back into one main thing, and that one main thing is making sure that students can have a good education that is impactful to them long beyond their last day of high school.

00:21:42.826 --> 00:21:58.111
And so that's really, from my perspective, where that all comes from is we have to connect those dots, because if we don't, kids are going to stay in the same system that has broken areas, and we've got to fix those, and so we have to connect those dots.

00:21:58.111 --> 00:22:04.257
It's really nothing else other than it has to be done, and so that's where I come at it from.

00:22:08.940 --> 00:22:09.301
I come at it from.

00:22:09.301 --> 00:22:22.332
Yeah, chase, I love the fact that you talked about unintended consequences of bills, because where my head goes, I'm like I'm glad you're reading these bills because you're right, I don't think anyone really knows how all of these things whether it's legislative bills or policies within an educational institution we don't think about those downstream effects.

00:22:22.332 --> 00:22:37.147
And I think the work that you're doing is so powerful and you talk about those, the connecting of the dots, and that's why it's fun for me to talk to you not only as someone who's an expert within the educational landscape, but someone who started your own business and you're part of that change in a really important industry.

00:22:37.147 --> 00:22:41.891
I can't think of many industries more important than education, which leads me to this next question.

00:22:41.911 --> 00:22:50.233
Chase, I have no idea which direction you're going to take it in is, when you identified this opportunity to be a change agent, what were your thoughts?

00:22:50.233 --> 00:22:51.102
Where did you go?

00:22:51.102 --> 00:22:53.910
As far as all the different solutions you could have come up with?

00:22:53.910 --> 00:22:59.622
You could have teamed up with developers and gone into ed tech you could have I don't even know the landscape of it.

00:22:59.622 --> 00:23:05.807
There's so many options that you could have done, but where was Firstkin Ed born out of what was your thought process to arrive on.

00:23:05.807 --> 00:23:09.712
Not only do I want to be a solution, but this is the solution that I want to help bring to.

00:23:11.621 --> 00:23:21.275
Yeah, you know, I love the way you worded that question, because there are so many different areas that really set us up for success long term.

00:23:21.275 --> 00:23:31.827
When I think about how we got to where we are today, the genesis of the entire organization was at the nonprofit.

00:23:31.827 --> 00:23:54.204
We had some strategic partnerships that were good in many, many instances, fantastic but it wasn't the exact right solution for every student, and I knew we could do better for students if we didn't have some of those kind of strategic partnerships that we were required to use, and so that was what really caused me to jump out on my own and to start this thing up With.

00:23:54.204 --> 00:24:01.950
That said, I think it's really important, specifically for the listeners who are on the edge.

00:24:01.950 --> 00:24:08.009
I want to start something, but I haven't started yet, or I don't know exactly where to go.

00:24:08.009 --> 00:24:23.613
The advice that I would give was probably first set yourself up for success today so that when that opportunity lands, you're ready to go, and I'll give you a couple examples of how my family did that effectively.

00:24:23.613 --> 00:24:33.990
First, I can't go any further without thanking my wife, because without her support, none of this would be possible today, and I've put her in some crazy situations.

00:24:33.990 --> 00:24:41.273
As most entrepreneurs do, they put their family in some crazy situations, but without her support none of it would have been viable.

00:24:42.119 --> 00:24:43.423
And so we did a couple of things.

00:24:43.423 --> 00:24:45.592
First, we got financially set up.

00:24:45.592 --> 00:24:56.335
You know you are obviously taking on a big risk by starting your own business and you want to try to mitigate as many of those risks as possible.

00:24:56.335 --> 00:25:00.621
And so one of the things that we did is we got completely out of debt before I launched my business.

00:25:00.621 --> 00:25:06.261
No car payments, no credit cards, because we already had so many other risks we didn't need any more.

00:25:06.261 --> 00:25:07.464
So that's what we did.

00:25:07.464 --> 00:25:22.319
And then we sold our house and we bought a much smaller, much older, not nearly as nice as the house we had and my wife again thank you for doing that but we paid cash for it.

00:25:22.319 --> 00:25:23.539
We did not have a mortgage.

00:25:23.539 --> 00:25:28.112
We got as much of our risk set aside as possible.

00:25:28.112 --> 00:25:39.769
And then we also set up several relationships and I got to say from the early days, you know my kind of anchor client who I'm still with and I absolutely love them.

00:25:39.769 --> 00:25:51.747
They're doing amazing work to elevate the parents' voices through the legislative process, and so I really get to stay involved in the political landscape from the education perspective.

00:25:51.747 --> 00:26:08.553
I made sure that with them education perspective, I made sure that with them we would be successful to support all the things that they need, as well as allowing us, through First Gen Ed, to do some of these other crazy and wild ideas, and so we set ourselves up for success there.

00:26:08.994 --> 00:26:10.780
Secondly, I would say that proximity matters.

00:26:10.780 --> 00:26:26.019
Every single opportunity that we've had through First Skin Ed has been through who we know or who those people know, and it really matters your network as far as what you will be able to do.

00:26:26.019 --> 00:26:29.067
We're doing things today that we had no idea that we were going to do.

00:26:29.067 --> 00:26:34.126
We had zero plan on supporting education entrepreneurs on day number one.

00:26:34.126 --> 00:26:36.092
That was not on our radar at all.

00:26:36.092 --> 00:26:45.432
But we saw that need and we saw the people around us and we said they need help and we want to help them because we have the people on our team to be able to do that.

00:26:45.432 --> 00:26:49.343
And so that proximity allowed us to have a new opportunity.

00:26:49.963 --> 00:26:51.926
And then, thirdly, dream big.

00:26:51.926 --> 00:26:57.275
I mean really freaking big, because there is so much opportunity.

00:26:57.275 --> 00:27:10.909
And here I am, three years in, and I got to say the water was not nearly as cold, it was not nearly as scary as I thought it was going to be on day number one and here we are blowing and going, coming in three and a half years in.

00:27:10.909 --> 00:27:22.410
It's awesome For those of you who are debating or figuring out get yourself up, set yourself up for success, get around the right people for new opportunities and then dream really freaking big.

00:27:23.412 --> 00:27:24.855
Yes, amen to that.

00:27:24.855 --> 00:27:30.090
Chase, I want to publicly sing your praises here because kudos to you for such transparency.

00:27:30.090 --> 00:27:31.032
This is the real stuff.

00:27:31.032 --> 00:27:37.586
You're taking us behind the scenes not only of your business side of your journey, but that personal side I love hearing shout out to your wife.

00:27:37.586 --> 00:28:01.467
Honestly, that level of support is so key and it's something that I hear behind closed doors so much for every successful entrepreneurial journey is is that loving partner, whether it's a romantic partner you're fortunate in that case or just a partner in any sense that can support you along the way, which is also going to lead me right into my next question about masterminds.

00:28:01.487 --> 00:28:04.356
But I think that this stuff is the transparent truth about starting a business hearing you put those foundational life pieces in place.

00:28:04.376 --> 00:28:20.500
That is an integral part of your success entrepreneurially, and a lot of times we want to separate those two, but one can support the other and I think it's really powerful how you and your family have mutually decided this is the way forward so that you can be of service and a huge impact in an important industry moving forward.

00:28:20.540 --> 00:28:31.522
So, chase, with all of that said, I can't let you go here today without first asking you as well about your business model, because I love the fact that masterminds are such a core part of what you do.

00:28:31.522 --> 00:28:43.266
I think that masterminds as a business model is going to be an emerging trend that we see in the future, as there's a lot of knowledge out there, our ability to bring that knowledge together, to grow together.

00:28:43.266 --> 00:28:49.951
We heard earlier where you talked about someone has a question and there's another member to help out, or you proactively go find an expert.

00:28:49.951 --> 00:29:03.007
Talk to us about that mastermind model, what that adoption has been like for people inside of it, and really what that experience is like, because I would imagine that it's an incredible experience for everyone involved, including yourself, which is why I love this model.

00:29:04.470 --> 00:29:05.673
Yeah, it's fantastic.

00:29:05.673 --> 00:29:22.910
It is such a cool opportunity to be around other education entrepreneurs and really it has allowed both myself and others to have a network of people going through the same things that we are going through and we can commiserate on certain aspects.

00:29:22.910 --> 00:29:26.810
We can cheer each other on when things are going well.

00:29:26.810 --> 00:29:59.415
But it also has opened up tons of new opportunities for us, both professionally, personally and for our members, because there are things out there that we didn't know about but through the mastermind we found out about them and it is actually converted into some business for both us as a business first gen ed, which you know, we do general consulting and different things and and through the mastermind we have been able to walk in and support different members, groups or people that they know.

00:29:59.415 --> 00:30:04.085
But also it has allowed us to find other people to.

00:30:04.085 --> 00:30:05.808
You know, do the conference circuit with.

00:30:05.808 --> 00:30:07.921
You know it always is better.

00:30:07.921 --> 00:30:34.346
Here's a little conference tip If you're submitting proposals to go speak at a conference somewhere, include a bunch of different organizations in your proposal, and having a mastermind of people who are all in education, coming at it from different angles, allows your proposal to rise up to the top of that list, and it has allowed us to speak with different members of our mastermind all over and really open up some new opportunities, one of which is we spoke at a mastermind master.

00:30:34.366 --> 00:30:44.586
We spoke at a conference in San Antonio a year and a half ago roughly, and afterwards we had a couple of different groups come up to us and they said, hey, you know, that was really interesting.

00:30:44.586 --> 00:30:50.406
Do you do you do that kind of talk or discussion for schools?

00:30:50.406 --> 00:30:54.553
And if I'm being honest, I hadn't done it for schools.

00:30:54.553 --> 00:30:58.807
It's not something that I have done that specific area before.

00:30:58.807 --> 00:31:06.186
But as an entrepreneur and your listeners will know this you don't say no, yeah, of course we do, absolutely we do that for schools.

00:31:06.819 --> 00:31:11.347
And they said, well, how much does it charge, how much does it cost for me to have you come in?

00:31:11.347 --> 00:31:15.505
I said, hey, as an entrepreneur, you gotta be quick on these things.

00:31:15.505 --> 00:31:17.689
Hey, I actually have to run.

00:31:17.689 --> 00:31:18.775
I'm in another meeting here in a minute.

00:31:18.775 --> 00:31:21.545
Here's my car, email me, we'll get all the details worked out.

00:31:21.545 --> 00:31:29.673
So that bought me a little bit of time to figure out how to put that package together, but ultimately it did work out and we did support that school.

00:31:29.673 --> 00:31:37.282
We did some professional learning opportunities for them some professional development, and we did the entire state of Texas.

00:31:37.282 --> 00:31:43.423
There's a network of charter schools and we did a professional learning online for the entire network, which was so cool.

00:31:44.165 --> 00:31:50.067
Chase, I love these little tidbits of behind the scenes, of the way that you think on your feet and come up with these solutions.

00:31:50.067 --> 00:31:56.180
Listeners, every single one of us can use that little hidden hack that Chase just shared with us here on the air.

00:31:56.180 --> 00:31:57.827
What a brilliant way to buy time.

00:31:57.827 --> 00:32:04.010
And I'll, honestly, I'm going to tag onto that, because that's the hardest thing when someone asks us on the spot, hey, how much would that cost?

00:32:04.010 --> 00:32:05.182
I'm a big believer.

00:32:05.182 --> 00:32:07.108
I'm not going to give you a price right here, right now.

00:32:07.108 --> 00:32:08.300
Let me sit down and think about it.

00:32:08.361 --> 00:32:11.226
And, chase, that is such a tactful way to do exactly that.

00:32:11.606 --> 00:32:20.586
You've been such a wealth of knowledge, honestly, in so many different ways, and I publicly again I want to shout you out and give you kudos because I can see you here on video as we're talking today.

00:32:20.586 --> 00:32:35.309
Listeners may not be able to see you, but I'm sure that they can feel that you've got a big smile on your face the entire time you talk about this stuff because you care about this stuff and you're not only doing amazing work, but you're doing it from a place of wanting to be of service and wanting to be that change agent.

00:32:35.309 --> 00:32:39.276
I don't think I've ever said change agent in a short amount of time as much as I have here today.

00:32:39.276 --> 00:32:40.824
So, chase, huge kudos to you.

00:32:40.824 --> 00:32:55.172
I know that listeners will be keen to check out all the great work that you're doing within the educational space and, as far as other entrepreneurs who just want to get a taste of your brilliance and see how you operate on a business perspective, even if they may not be in the educational landscape, drop those links on us.

00:32:55.172 --> 00:32:56.694
Where should listeners go from here?

00:32:57.681 --> 00:33:04.669
Yeah, you'll want to check out our main website, firstkinedcom and the firstkined that's a fun Danish word.

00:33:04.669 --> 00:33:06.688
I'm very Danish on both sides of the family.

00:33:06.688 --> 00:33:11.310
Firstkin means peach and peach is a throwback.

00:33:11.310 --> 00:33:18.386
I grew up on a peach orchard in northern Utah, so for those of you in Georgia, you definitely do not have the best peaches but Ferskined.

00:33:18.386 --> 00:33:23.294
F-e-r-s-k-e-n-e-dcom.

00:33:23.294 --> 00:33:24.536
Ferskinedcom.

00:33:25.220 --> 00:33:26.984
Yes, listeners, you know the drill.

00:33:26.984 --> 00:33:30.882
We are making it as easy as possible to go deep down the Chase rabbit hole.

00:33:30.882 --> 00:33:35.209
We are linking to his business website, which is Fersk edcom.

00:33:35.209 --> 00:33:39.756
We're linking down below to that in the show notes, wherever it is that you're tuning into today's episode.

00:33:39.756 --> 00:33:41.887
We're also linking to Chase's personal LinkedIn.

00:33:41.887 --> 00:33:43.948
It's how we initially came across his work.

00:33:43.948 --> 00:33:56.791
So if you want to connect with him, you hear this is an amazing entrepreneur who not only adds so much fun and humor to his stories but is so transparent about the reality of being an entrepreneur and being part of that change in a really important industry.

00:33:56.791 --> 00:34:02.386
So, Chase, on behalf of myself and all the listeners around the world, thanks so much for joining us on the show today.

00:34:03.169 --> 00:34:03.951
So happy to be here.

00:34:03.951 --> 00:34:04.531
Thanks again.

00:34:05.941 --> 00:34:11.505
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:34:11.505 --> 00:34:15.483
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

00:34:15.483 --> 00:34:24.688
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

00:34:24.688 --> 00:34:33.467
There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

00:34:33.467 --> 00:34:34.851
These are not sponsored episodes.

00:34:34.851 --> 00:34:35.759
These are not sponsored episodes.

00:34:35.759 --> 00:34:37.143
These are not infomercials.

00:34:37.262 --> 00:34:40.630
Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

00:34:40.630 --> 00:34:51.588
They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

00:34:51.588 --> 00:35:00.070
So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

00:35:00.070 --> 00:35:01.420
We also have live chat.

00:35:01.420 --> 00:35:07.460
If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom, initiate a live chat.

00:35:07.460 --> 00:35:16.860
It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always, every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.