Evolving the Path to Entrepreneurship at StartingBlock in Madison

Beth Ott: We want to get the founders before they put in a bunch of time, money, and effort, so that they're not wasting time, so that they're not wasting, I mean, they can certainly pursue whatever it is that they wanna pursue, but at that point, I just say it's an expensive hobby.

Jacob Miller: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Startup Wisconsin Podcast.

In today's episode, we're heading down to Madison, Wisconsin to sit down with Beth Ott, the Director of Entrepreneurial Programming at StartingBlock. If you're not familiar with StartingBlock, it's one of Madison's key entrepreneurial hubs, but what makes it special isn't just the coworking space or the events they host.

It's the intentional way they think about community building. And supporting founders at every stage of their journey. Beth has worn many hats over the years, and she brings a really thoughtful approach to creating the kind of environment where entrepreneurs can actually thrive. We dig into StartingBlocks, evolution and impact, including some of the programs you might not know about yet, including LEAP Year, one of their newer initiatives.

We also explore what makes Madison a great startup community today, but what I really appreciated about this conversation is how Beth thinks about showing up with heart and purpose in this kind of work, and her advice for anyone just getting started, whether you're just launching a business. Or looking to mentor others.

So let's jump into my conversation with Beth Ott from StartingBlock.

Beth Ott: The very starting point of my journey with education was this desire to help other people and to help them, uh, learn something. So watching them learn something that they previously didn't know or helping them understand a really hard concept.

When you see that light bulb come on, and this is like maybe the cheesiest thing that a teacher could probably say. Mm-hmm. But I'm gonna say it anyway. Like when you see that light bulb come on, there's something that happens inside of you and you're like, I want to help more people experience that, experience, that light bulb moment.

So that's how I got started in education. Uh, I work with a lot of different types of students, so the spectrum of students is like. Students that know what they're doing and just need a little support. And then you have students that, you know, need a lot of, lot of support, but are also really smart. Um, the, the gamut of students that I worked with was wide and large, so that really helped hone my skillset as far as like different types of people and how to work with them, the, the entryway into entrepreneurship.

Uh. I got my entrepreneurship bug, um, in, I. I would say college, late college maybe. During my first teaching year, I met a good girlfriend and we started flipping furniture. This was back when all those flipping furniture houses or shows were like real hot. They would like paint the furniture or restored or slap something on it, and I apologized that I was part of that.

Uh.

We

Beth Ott: appreciate that. Apologies. I'm very sorry for all the really nice pieces of wood that I painted over. Oh. But, uh, throughout that part, um, we transitioned into actually restoring furniture. So we actually ended up in a pretty nice place. Uh, people would give us vintage, uh, furniture that we would actually restore rather than ruin with, uh, great chalk pink.

So, um, we. That business was called House on Jenny Street, and that was really fun. We did like the market scene. Yeah. Um, selling our, our wares and vintage stuff and people really liked it. And then, you know, we just started growing up and found different things to work on. So that was sort of my entryway into entrepreneurship while I was teaching.

My last teaching job was at Clark Street Community School. It's a innovative charter within the Middleton Cross Plains Area School District. So they do seminars based on topic, not subject. So you can think about it, like if you wanted to learn about science, you could approach that from a variety of different ways.

The way that we choose to approach it is, uh. You could learn about science via the weather and take a class called natural disasters, or you could learn about, uh, prehistoric eras during Jurassic Clerk. So we got to play around with how we delivered instruction. One of the classes that I taught was with Scott's wife and it was called Clark Tank.

So it was a version of Shark Tank, but for Clark Tank or for Clark Street. So we. Led, uh, students basically through a startup scene. So starting with, uh, they had to go interview. Entrepreneurs and business owners. And let me tell you, watching high schoolers make phone calls because we required that they had to make a phone call.

Uh, and you know, they hated us, but they, it became into this whole thing like having a teenager pick up a phone and call somebody that they don't know.

Yeah,

Beth Ott: you, you should try asking a teenager to do that. I don't know if you know. Well, I tried calling

Jacob Miller: an order in it, this restaurant Oh. Where my parents are from.

Mm-hmm. It's all ran by teenagers, basically. A little sub shop and uh, called four times, no one answered. And I walked in and there was six people working and no one answered the phone apparently. I get it.

Beth Ott: Yeah. No, but having teenagers, they have to make a call. They would go step out into a separate room 'cause they didn't want anybody listening.

Right. And they would take some deep breaths and go and they'd be like, okay, I'm gonna go make this call. We would, we would write out a script for them. So it was like, hi, my name is blank. I'm wondering if I could interview the owner of blank. Can we set up a time for me to do that? I'm in a class that is having this do whatever, right?

Like three sentences. They came back in and they'd be like, I did it. I made the phone call. Oh my gosh. And like cheering kids, other kids are clapping and you're like, I'm so glad we could work on this life skill of making a phone call. So. Sorry about that, that tangent. So that was part of like,

Jacob Miller: no apologies, that was like, apologize.

Beth Ott: That was like maybe the, the first task that people did in, in Clark Tank was they had to make a phone call and it was a big deal. So they, you know, they interview entrepreneurs, they figure out what mindsets of an entrepreneur there are, uh, what you need. And then we start walking through the problem, uh, what sort of problems do you wanna solve?

And so we do some. Activities and brainstorming and, and group work to uncover things that they wanna work on. Uh, trying to find solutions. They do, you know, prototyping and then we get to the pitch part. Um, and Clark Street has an amazing history of public presentations in, in how we prep students to speak publicly.

So we felt pretty good about that. But you're asking us to do that for, uh, to, to pitch their product. Um, and we had maybe five days to prep them on how to pitch their product, do the slides, uh, do a script, and then take a video of it, submit it. And because the whole, the main goal of this class was they had to submit their pitch to the Madison Pitch contest, the Madison College pitch contest.

So, uh, the first year we did it and then like. Five of our kids got selected for the final rounds and we're like, oh my gosh. Like that's when we knew, we're like, okay, we can actually do this. We actually know how to instruct and it shouldn't have come across as a surprise, like the teachers that I've worked with in my past.

And this goes from, you know, the group that I worked with at Clark Street and the group I worked with in Oregon and up in Minnesota. Clark Street had some of the most amazing teachers that I've ever worked with in my life, so I shouldn't have been surprised that we could actually do this. Hmm. You know, that we could actually instruct a group of kids, uh, to solve a problem that they have in their life.

Build a business around it, pitch it, and then go on to win. Yeah. So that was, uh. I mean, I can't take all the credit for that, you know, it was a group effort. But that's when I was like, okay, like, yes, I actually like talking and teaching about entrepreneurship. I could do this. Yeah. Yeah. And so I ran that class a few more times and then, uh, the situation.

On how I got connected with Scott was he just had a job opening at the time and, um, the situation at within like my own personal life, there were just things that aligned really well. Yeah, with me leaving one job and going on to the next, so

yeah.

Beth Ott: Um, I was really, really lucky to land that position because it wasn't like he created it just for me.

He was looking for somebody to do in-house programming. So, uh, it really was one of those cheesy stars. Aligned.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Things, it sounds, well, just the way you described, like when you see someone experience that light bulb moment. Like being able to do that with, you know, people that are building like real businesses.

Yeah. And like it's the real world and it impacts them. It impacts maybe their immediate family. It impacts, you know, the community. Right. There's just so much to that. Yeah. And so

Beth Ott: in that process of, of business building, the moment that you see a founder understand like either how they're gonna get traction or if, when they finally understand their target market, right.

Especially if they had thought something differently prior, like if they thought their target market was blank, but then they ran some tests or they talked to the people, uh, and then they're like, oh yeah, actually people don't want. They want this. Like that's the moment you're like, yes, exactly. That's why you do customer interviews.

That's why you build the business model first. That's why you stress test your business first. Yeah. So it's like, no, we want to get the founders before they put in a bunch of time, money, and effort, so that. They're not wasting time so that they're not wasting, I mean, they can certainly pursue whatever it is that they wanna pursue, but at that point, I just say it's an expensive hobby.

Yeah.

Beth Ott: You know? And so do you, like, do you wanna continue pursuing it knowing that it's probably just gonna be an expensive hobby that the way the, the way your business is set up right now, it's, it's not viable. It's not feasible yet.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Uh. Let's talk about, um, the programs you have at Sergeant Block, just kind of like from a high level, um, as far as the accelerators?

Mm-hmm. Like related, related to what we're talking about. Um, so you talked about the hard tech accelerator, you talked about, we heard about MathWorks, uh, earlier today. Um, maybe just kind of run through all of them and, and what, what, how they're different and like, who are they for maybe?

Beth Ott: Yeah. So. High level.

We have, uh, I would say two base programs that then we combine to be some of our industry specific accelerators. So our two base programs, one is a six week pre-accelerator called Level Set. That's the one that, um, we run most frequently. Uh. Because it's only six weeks and that's the, the stress testing before you put in the time, money, and effort class.

So, um, in six weeks, our goal is to not develop your widget or your service, but it's to really work on the business model. Let's make sure that things are set up so that they are desirable, they are viable, they are feasible. So we stress test those areas and that's in level set. The next level up is actually called.

The next level. Uh, and that's the 12 week. That's the 12 week accelerator. That's where you spend more time talking about customer discovery, problem discovery, making sure things are aligned correctly. Are you solving the right problem with the right solution for the right people? Hmm. And so that one is a 12 week accelerator.

Then what we do is we take, we combine all of those and we run a sort of, uh, squished together industry specific accelerator. Mm-hmm. And so we work with different industries around town. Uh, it could be banks, it could be, um, corporations, it could be really anybody that is looking to put more energy into solving problems around blank.

Yeah. So, uh, we have run accelerators in the past with Summit Credit Union with Associated Bank. Um, we're running one this year with American Family Insurance. They are interested in, uh, the housing market. And so we have a. We're running a housing accelerator slash challenge slash miniseries slash um, thing this summer.

Jacob Miller: It, it's, it sounds like it's a work in progress, like it's a compare, like Yeah. What does this actually look like in practice? Yeah. Yes.

Beth Ott: And, and it took us a lot. We're still working on it, but we think we've sort of landed on it. Yeah. But the, the housing market one, um. That one really came from like, oh, Madison has a housing shortage.

Hmm. How do you solve that? And that is such a multi-layered, multifaceted problem with as many stakeholders as you can shove into an elevator, um, that we didn't realize that it would take us three months to really figure out. What exact problem we are trying to solve. So mapping that, that problem set and that problem criteria took us way longer than we thought.

So back to the accelerators. We have level set, we have next level, we have the industry specific accelerators, um, and then we have LEAP here.

Jacob Miller: Oh yeah, this is the new one. Yeah. So, uh. Maybe talk about it first and then I have questions around it, so, okay.

Beth Ott: Uh, okay. So leap year, this is where I start to get a little bit excited because like it's, it's literally the merge between my two favorite things, which are like education and entrepreneurship.

So the workforce is changing and we all know that. We know and. Yes, AI plays a large part of that, but it's also just changing in general. Right. Education in general has not changed in the last century. They always say that if somebody were to try time travel from the past to now and they were to get dropped in a school, they would be like, yep, I know exactly what this is.

I know exactly what they do here. And that wouldn't be possible if you were to like be transported, you know, into like a car field or. Car, uh, car field.

Automotive.

Beth Ott: Thank you. An automotive field, automotive, uh, assembly line. Oh, sure. Or something like that. Right. Manufacturing, man. Thank

you. Yeah. Okay.

Beth Ott: It wouldn't be impossible if they, you know, got dropped into manufacturing plant or in downtown, or in small businesses or on a train or an airplane or anything like that.

But education is the one thing that hasn't changed. Our arc of change is just so much slower. And I don't think it has to be. The problem is that you have to, you're the, the friction at which you are working to change education is so hard to change. But I think we are getting to that point right now, which is why I was so excited to launch Leap Beer because the point in our.

Society in our world, all around us things are sort of at this inflection point. Things are changing and they're changing rapidly,

and so I'm looking to transform the future of education is really what I'm trying to do. It's like an easy task, right?

Jacob Miller: Yeah, yeah. Sounds, sounds so simple. All I have to do is

Beth Ott: launch a program. It's super easy, so.

Transforming the future of education right now for me looks like leap year. It looks like giving students a third option. Most people think that after you graduate or when you take a break, you have like two options. You, you can go get more education. And that can, that can look like a lot of things, right?

So the education could be in trades, it could be in theater, it could be, uh, in a formal two or four year college. So you can go get education or you can go to work. And again, that can look like a lot of things. It could be an internship, it could be an externship, it could be study abroad. It could be, uh, you know, work, work for your parents.

It could be do some side hustles. It could be find a real job. What, whatever real job is, I don't have one. So, I mean, that's

Jacob Miller: the question today. Yeah. It kind of goes back to where this whole thing, it's like what is a career anymore? What,

Beth Ott: yeah,

Jacob Miller: yeah,

Beth Ott: yeah. I mean, what is a career in the era of, of. Influencers.

Jacob Miller: Yeah.

Beth Ott: That's a career.

Jacob Miller: Yeah.

Beth Ott: It's wild.

Jacob Miller: The amount of careers that exist today did not exist 10, 15 years ago.

Beth Ott: I know, I know. And that's the thing is like when those people were in, were in high school or were going through their educational career mm-hmm. They didn't even know that those careers existed.

Yeah. So how do you. Instruct them. Well, yes, the very basics. Reading, writing, math, all of that stuff is great and lovely. And can we get past that to talk about what the real thing is, which is some kids don't wanna go to school or do more learning and some kids don't wanna go straight to work and they actually want to build their own thing.

They want to do what they wanna do and they wanna learn how to make money off of it. Mm-hmm. That's called building a business. Yeah. Whether it's doing something that you want or finding a problem that needs solving and then monetizing it, that's called building a business. Why is that third option less desirable than the other two?

Hmm. I don't even think most people think that it's available to them post-graduation or post-college graduation.

Jacob Miller: Yeah, I'd imagine it's one of those things where if you grew up. And, and, and I mean, in my family there's a handful of entrepreneurs. Mm-hmm. Um, I have an uncle that became a mechanic, bought, you know, got his own shop, sold his shop recently, all that kind of stuff.

But yeah, I wasn't like surrounded by business owners. Um,

Beth Ott: I would be interested if he would identify as an entrepreneur.

Jacob Miller: Oh, that, yeah.

Beth Ott: Because that's also Yeah, that's, that's

Jacob Miller: a really good question. Like I don't think he would

Beth Ott: Right. But he is.

Jacob Miller: But he is. Yeah.

Beth Ott: And, and that also I think is a problem, is that people think like entrepreneurship is relegated to like, I don't know, maybe a tech field or a biofield or maybe just innovation where you have to create something new mm-hmm.

And novel when really entrepreneurship is owning your own business and learning everything that goes with it. Mm-hmm. So. Why, why is that not celebrated? Hmm. I get that. Being an entrepreneur, there's risks involved, and I think that's probably why. Yeah. You know, parents, they, they wanna protect their children.

Yeah.

Beth Ott: You know, they, they don't want them to be in risky situations. It's why parents also Yeah. You know, are worried when their child chooses the armed forces. It's a risky situation. They don't want their children in risk.

Mm-hmm.

Beth Ott: Is that maybe why they don't encourage entrepreneurship?

Jacob Miller: Yeah. I don't know.

And it, it's interesting too because there's a lot of, um, career paths that are available that have been available in colleges and even technical schools where, um. That what they went to school for in 10 years may no longer be. Mm-hmm. Like something that they can pursue anymore. Yeah. So even if you do something that seems predictable, like everything's pretty much unpredictable at this point.

Beth Ott: It's really unpredictable.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The,

Beth Ott: um, shoot, what was I just gonna say? It was something about, oh, a lot of colleges, so. The, the gap that leap year sort of fills too is this time bound commitment too. So yes, you can go to a traditional four year college and learn some business and maybe get an entrepreneurship certificate, um, or even like a degree in entrepreneurship.

Four year colleges are also rooted very heavily in theory. Mm-hmm. It's very possible that many of the projects that you might be working on in a business class or an entrepreneurship are theory-based situations. Like, pretend you are building a blank for this type of business. Yeah. When you are building your own business, that theory all of a sudden becomes reality.

So now you're not just building blank for this fake business. You are now building this for your own business. So. The stakes just got higher and all of a sudden you are more tuned in to learning and doing the right thing because you own your business and those results matter. Mm-hmm. So could I go to a four year college and, and get the same education?

Yes. It will take four years for me to get a piece of paper that says yes. I now know my stuff and things about business. And entrepreneurship. Could I go to a technical college? Madison College has a great entrepreneurship program. Um, and it's a two year program. They do, they, I know that they work with small businesses.

They have an entrepreneurship in residence. Their, their program is still two years. Mm-hmm. Leap year is, is one year. Really nine months of focused. Instruction and support on your business.

Hmm.

Beth Ott: And that's way different than, than learning and applying it to somebody else's business.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Yeah. 'cause you have like skin in the game.

Beth Ott: Yeah.

Jacob Miller: Yeah.

Beth Ott: All of a sudden the phone goes away and people start paying attention. I talked with, uh, a couple young guys a couple weeks ago that I think would be like a perfect fit for leap year. Um, one basically did online education before it was cool, you know, like virtual education before it was cool.

And then convinced his parents to let him pursue his dream job or, you know, his business after graduating high school. Um. His parents, their first reaction was like, why don't you go to college first? Like first go to college and then do this. Um, the kid eventually went out and went all in on his business after high school and they're crushing it, but, um, I think they should be in my program too.

Nice. Yeah. So like there's, there's small people. Leaper isn't for everybody.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Is there, um, uh. Like an age, I dunno, high, I guess the age limit I guess, is there, what are the kind of the credentials for someone to apply to?

Beth Ott: Yeah, so for LEAP year we're really looking at that like 18 to 26-year-old.

Jacob Miller: Okay.

Um, so post-college you could still,

Beth Ott: yeah. Yeah.

Jacob Miller: So that's what I'm saying. So leap it could be the year after college year high school.

Beth Ott: Right. Okay. So it could be the year after high school. It could be the year after college. If you wanna take a gap year, I think you should consider taking a leap year.

Mm-hmm. There are people too that I just talked with, uh. Somebody over at StartingBlock and their daughter went to college at Eau Claire for a year, and then they're done. They're done with college. It wasn't for them. Hmm. It could also be for that like leap year could be for that person too.

Yeah.

Beth Ott: Like if you are not sure, but you have a desire, that's the one thing that I'd probably say is, is needed for, for a leap year type of program is like either agency or desire.

Yeah. So you either have to be willing to do what it takes to build your business, or you have a desire to learn how to do it. Um, but beyond that, like the age requirement doesn't matter. It, and the business type doesn't matter and you don't, you don't actually have to have a business idea.

Jacob Miller: Interesting.

Beth Ott: Prior to coming to LEAP here? Yeah. We spend four weeks actually just talking about. Cool problems to solve.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Is, yeah. Is there for the application process, like what is that? Like if you know I'm, yeah, maybe I went to college for a year two and then it's like I've just been kind of working in an industry maybe for a year or two, and I'm like just kind of curious what my other options are.

Like if I were to apply and that I was in that situation, like what would the interview process be like?

Beth Ott: Yeah, so I mean, it's always free to apply, so I would say if you're interested. Apply anyway, and then we do, uh, an interview to figure out if you're the right fit for the cohort. So we run this class in cohort situations, so we'll have a fall cohort, a winter cohort, and a spring cohort.

And so trying to figure out the, the melding and the matching of cohorts is one part. Uh, figuring out where people are in, in their business development. Um, that's, that's a me problem. That's something that I can solve. I can, and. Frankly, that's like what teachers do all day, every day, is, is you work with people that are at this level and at this level, and I have to instruct them both.

Yeah. At the same time. So if you come in without an idea, or if you've been in business for two years and you're banking, you know, 1 million a RR, can I help you both? Yes. Does the curriculum that we use help both? Yes, because it's, it's less about, you know. Going through a checklist of do this, that, and that, and more about a mindset and a framework of continuous iteration and involvement.

Jacob Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Awesome. So.

Beth Ott: Yeah. Leap year.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Leap year.

Beth Ott: Leaper don't take. Where can

Jacob Miller: people find out more information about leap year?

Beth Ott: StartingBlock madison.org/leaper is the best place to find it. Um, I think everybody should probably tell all their friends about Leap Year.

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Beth Ott: Yeah, so. One of the biggest things that the software uses and that, uh, I see opens up founder's eyes is like the traction roadmap. So we map out sort of their customer factory and how do they move customers through that first entry point and all the way to making them paid customers. If you can see those numbers and make those numbers work.

That's when I see light bulbs turned on, and that's where I see hope start to exist.

Mm-hmm.

Beth Ott: Because all of a sudden they realize, well, I only need to get in front of blank amount of people. And if we use, and you know, this is just plain with numbers too, so we get to move things around. So if we use a standard, you know, like 10% acquisition rate to 10% conversion rate, um, certainly I tell founders like.

Go Google it and figure out like what is a standard conversion rate for blank industry or for blank product? Like see if there's something out there. But if we use just standard 10%, all of a sudden people start to see like, oh, I would need to get in front of that many people, and I think I can do that.

They're like, yeah, I can, I can host webinars and I can put flyers and I can, you know, do do this type of marketing. Um, and then, you know, if I can get 10% of those people and all of a sudden they see the numbers and they actually start to see it work the reverse. Maybe like, not a light bulb moment, but like a light dimming moment.

But I also think it's a light bulb moment. Light dimable, a dimmable light bulb moment, okay. Is when they realize the numbers won't work. Oh, so all of a sudden, because of the way that they have priced things, or their offerings or whatever, they realize that they would have to get in front of a massive amount of people in order.

To get that many paying customers. Sure. You know, and, and the traction roadmap, we don't use a linear progression. We use, you know, anywhere from like a two to three to five or 10 x, but we're talking about by year three. So the software allows us to say, okay, by year three, this is what you're going to make, or this is what you could make, but this is how you gotta get there.

Mm-hmm.

Beth Ott: Well, if any of those numbers along the line cause them to pause, that is a success. Yep, you're right. You would have to get in front of, you know, 500,000 people every month. Mm-hmm. In order to make X amount. So let's talk about what that looks like for marketing. Let's talk about what that looks like for outreach.

How do you imagine that going? What, what is your skillset in this? You know, so we start having those conversations. Um. And so that to me is just as, as successful as watching somebody say, oh my gosh, these numbers work. I can make this work.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. It's like a sobering truth, like

Beth Ott: Yes. Yeah. Oh,

Jacob Miller: like, oh, uh, I need to like make some decisions is now Yes.

Like kind of thing,

Beth Ott: right? Yeah. It's like, okay, well are, do you wanna charge more for your product? How do you do that?

Jacob Miller: Yeah.

Beth Ott: What do you change?

Jacob Miller: Well, and I would imagine what's probably great about the tool you're talking about and just the mentorship and the programs is say. Now that I have this framework that I can follow, here's the information I have today.

Here's the different levers I can pull. Yeah. Yep. Whether it's price changing, different market.

Beth Ott: Exactly.

Jacob Miller: Whatever. Like you give them that mental framework, uh, where before they may have not, maybe they ins instinctively did it.

Yeah.

Jacob Miller: Or they just like with their gut, you know, did whatever. Mm-hmm. Um. But now they're like, okay, I'm gonna follow this framework because this has been proven to work.

Yep. This makes things look very clear. And if I were to pitch to an investor, make them clear for them.

Beth Ott: Yes. And so then one of the last exercises I do with them too is practicing how to tell different stories. And one of them is their money story or their traction roadmap. Can you tell, talk to me about your numbers?

Yeah. And what they all mean. What does it mean that you have to get in front of X amount of people? How are you gonna do that? What does it mean? To have a 10% acquisition rate, how are you gonna acquire them? Mm-hmm. Was it, how are you gonna convert them? Yeah. So all of the, being able to talk through those numbers and having the confidence to then go talk to somebody and be like, yep, I have this offer.

This is how I imagine talking to people, and this is how many people I have to talk to. Like, that builds confidence.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like that's like half the battle is just like confidence building? Oh, huge. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Like it, I mean, I'd imagine like. I have this idea and I'm just gonna keep pitching it.

Yeah. But then the more questions that come up, they're like, well, like, if they don't know how to answer it. Yep. Then it's like, there's obviously the lack of confidence is very clear. And so like, I mean, I would imagine that's probably just the biggest pattern change of behavior is like, oh wow. Like everyone come outta this program, they ha may not have every single answer, but they have more answers than before.

Mm-hmm. And it gives them the confidence to keep going without us.

Beth Ott: Yeah, exactly.

Jacob Miller: Or, or to not keep going. You

Beth Ott: were

Jacob Miller: saying like it's like, Hey, pivot, or Hey, I'm gonna like go back and just see if there's maybe a different mm-hmm. Business idea I can pursue or whatever. Yeah. Yep.

Beth Ott: All of that is right on, because what also happens is that if people can't tell me by the end of six weeks.

What exactly their business is because, you know, you come in and, and you might think it's this for that person, but then this group of people may like it and I can imagine, oh, and all of a sudden they want it to be something for everybody.

Hmm.

Beth Ott: Uh, by the end of our classes, if they can't tell me exactly what their product is or their service.

Or their business. Mm-hmm. Then I know like they're, they're just not ready to keep moving. They gotta go back and do some iterations.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Um, I wanna talk about some of the, um, stuff with community and, and, uh, within Madison and Wisconsin, um, from your perspective and then maybe even just StartingBlock, you know, what.

With your position and then with starting what StartingBlock does, what, what has been like really great about being a part of Madison? Like from that perspective, like locally, uh,

Beth Ott: Madison is. Very true to the Midwest, uh, standards of living, which means that we love helping people. We love giving people direction and telling people what to do.

So, uh, one of the events that we put on weekly is like a Million Cups is 1 million cups that's up in the third floor at cafe, a StartingBlock. And anybody can come pitch. Uh, they sign up ahead of time. Uh, and we usually ask them to have like an ask at the end, which is like connections or feedback or blank.

Uh, the, the group that comes most frequently, uh, loves offering suggestions and everybody's very happy to network and, uh, help each other out. So, and even in within the StartingBlock community, uh, the founders that work out a StartingBlock. Really value connection. That's why they're there, you know, that's why they're there.

And not at, uh, some empty building that just happened to have some rooms that they wanna lease. Or At home. Or At home. Yeah. Or at Noodles and Company. Somebody told me today they work out on Noodles and Company. I haven't heard that one yet. Yeah, something's new. Uh, so that's why they come, is for the community.

And so to keep building that community. They, you know, participate in all these things and they give feedback and they network and they give suggestions and, you know, they build friendships. And I think that's what I really like about the, the Madison network. Um, we're, we have a lot of resources in Madison for entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

Beth Ott: Both on campus and off campus. So, um, you know, it's not. For a lack of, you know, if entrepreneurs want help, it's not for a lack of resources, I'll tell you that. But there, you know, as with anything, the problem with that is like, I don't know that we're that clear on what we all do Great. In the, in this ecosystem.

Yeah.

Beth Ott: You know, like. Could we, as StartingBlocks say, this is our goal, this is who we work with, and this is, this is what we do. Well, we're, we're place-based. We're interested in solving, uh, you know, what we call great lakes problems. You know, so we're really, so StartingBlock, that's what we're focused on is, is those larger great lake problems and supporting our local entrepreneurs and.

That means that they might not be venture backable. That might mean that they're opening the storefront. Yeah. You know, so, so that's sort of our, our sweet spot and just anybody in general that wants, and again, here, here comes the problem is like anybody in general that wants a community of like-minded entrepreneurs.

That's who we support is starting black. But then what does Bio Forward do? Mm-hmm. What does, uh, the Black Business Hub do? What does, uh, Joanne do? And like, how do all these different, um, you know, what, when do you bring in the SBDC? When do you bring in, bring in uic? When do you bring in the law entrepreneurship clinic?

So there's a lot of resource, like there's a lot of resources, but it's a matter of like. Can we sort of all come together and figure out what are we all good at and how do we all work together? That I would say is maybe one of the larger, um, issues both in the Madison Dane County area and broader Wisconsin.

Yeah. Area. You guys are doing an amazing job. Like even just by creating a newsletter that pulls together all of the different things that are happening in Wisconsin. Yeah.

Jacob Miller: Like, and I, I feel like I'm only getting a little bit like I, every week I'm like, or sometimes I don't find out about something until the day after.

Yeah. I publish new, I'm like, well, yeah, now I missed it. And like it, you know, and I do my best to, to catch those things, but I also feel like I still don't know. And I, and I wanna keep that mindset like, I'm like, there's gotta be more out there. 'cause it probably is. Yeah. Right. Um, and then, you know, the fact that you're talking about that there are so many resources and I still think there's, there's two things.

There's an awareness problem. Yes. People just don't know. Yes. What to look for, where to look, who to talk to, and it's not their fault.

Yeah.

Jacob Miller: And then the other part of it is, like you're saying, is like. If there was a way for all of us to understand who's all here. Mm-hmm. What are we, what are all of our strengths?

And, and if someone comes through our door, Hey, guess what? Like, what's, what are you dealing with? Mm-hmm. Oh, I'm gonna in introduce you to these people. Right. Because they're actually a way better fit for you than we are. Right. We would love to help you, but, and we can to the best of our ability, but. We recommend talking to them too.

Beth Ott: Exactly. So like, that's what I think also needs to happen in this community, um, you know, is just trying to define who's where and what they're doing and what they really wanna be working on and all of that. But no, I really like your job, your work with the, the newsletter and, um, where that's headed. So what is the future of Startup Wisconsin?

Oh,

Jacob Miller: we're gonna, we're gonna talk about that soon. Yes. Now. Yeah, we're gonna, Andrew and I are actually gonna do an episode, so that'll be the first episode is just talking about Star Wisconsin. Okay. The things we've been experiencing, you know, the vision, um, stuff like that. Talking about the show. Like what mm-hmm.

Why are we doing the show? Um, have these conversations like just openly talk about, you know, we're all trying to figure it out. We're all doing our best like. You know, everyone has really good intentions for the most part, but I think there's, there's an opportunity for us to, um, and I know, uh, there was a recent, uh, study done with a few folks in Wisconsin on the ecosystem and just Really Oh yeah.

The one Scott

Beth Ott: Resnick. Yeah. The state needs to get

Jacob Miller: aligned and like, have you found that

Beth Ott: article yet?

Jacob Miller: I haven't found it yet. Yet. I haven't found it yet. I wanna see it. And Scott,

Beth Ott: Scott was like, I emailed

Jacob Miller: Scott. We need the article. If anyone has access to this, send it our way. Um, so. Because I think like, again, I don't know.

I don't have the answer to how to solve all those problems either. Yeah. But like, hey, like the, the thing that I know and I can do right now is just aggregate information.

Mm-hmm. And organize

Jacob Miller: it in a way, uh, where it's people can find it.

Yeah.

Jacob Miller: Okay. And then the other problem is like a lot of people don't even know we exist either.

So. That's, again, there's that, so it's like, okay, I'm just gonna keep, we're gonna keep pushing forward. This is another format, another channel. Like Yeah. If we're talking about these things for people to discover us or just get a better understanding of the people mm-hmm. Behind the scenes, like trying to do these things and just understand like, hey, there's like really passionate, caring people out there, like, want you to succeed.

Right.

Jacob Miller: Or, or want you to understand like, Hey, this is what it's really gonna take. And it might not work, or hey, it actually will work. And it's better than you ever thought,

right?

Jacob Miller: Like, there's anything could happen. Yes. You know? So it's, I think, I think there's just a lot there and it's, it's a beautiful thing.

So I think, you know, we're all kind of like tumbling through this whole experience of trying to figure out, like, 'cause, 'cause we, we all like care a lot. I know about like entrepreneurs, about our state, about our, the cities that we live in. Um. I at least I personally feel like it's not really about. As much as I, you know, it's like about Wisconsin, I think it's about the people that live in Wisconsin and like sometimes the resources they need.

Do you get

that?

Jacob Miller: Sometimes the resources they need aren't actually available here, and I think that's okay.

Yeah. So how

Jacob Miller: do we connect them? How do we help Wisconsinites get resources from wherever, if it's from Chicago?

Yeah.

Jacob Miller: Or, or, or customers. Yeah. Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit. Like, how do we really start to collaborate?

Because like us just staying inside our walls mm-hmm. Doesn't benefit us either. No. So. Chicago's not very far either. Neither of those Minneapolis, twin cities. So it's like, okay, let's like really figure, figure out. Well, and that's, that's like success, not like, oh, how do we do it by ourselves? How do we just do it?

Like how do we really just make it happen? You know?

Beth Ott: Yes. And and that's part of also building the greater Midwest ecosystem mm-hmm. Is like in Madison. What are our strengths and what is our sort of industry? Right? Yeah. Where, what do we focus on a lot out of Madison? Well, people may say like BioHealth or something like that.

Yeah. Fusion. Now apparently we have a couple fusion. Yeah. Which is

Jacob Miller: really cool. I think it's awesome bio. Yeah.

Beth Ott: Um. But then what is Chicago and where do, when do we send people to Chicago and what is that industry connection?

Jacob Miller: Yeah. In

Beth Ott: Minneapolis, same thing like

Yeah.

Beth Ott: What are they really working on? Yeah.

Other Minneapolis, what would they consider their industry strengths and Yeah. And sort of network that they have available to them up there.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. And just the idea of tackling the Midwest as a whole. 'cause there is a, a Midwest. Startup Midwest or something. Newsletter, I can't remember what it's called.

I've reached out to them a couple times. Um,

Beth Ott: did you

Jacob Miller: wanna buy their

Beth Ott: handle?

Jacob Miller: Huh?

Beth Ott: Did you wanna buy their handle?

Jacob Miller: No, no, no. I just think that like. The idea of like trying to understand the entire Midwest is a lot. Yeah. That's like was, you know, just handling Wisconsin is bulling the ocean too. Mm-hmm. Like, you know, the term, it was brought up earlier today.

You know, whether you're go, if you're, if you say, Hey, we're a product for everybody, you know that. And even too, like if you. You know, for startup Wisconsin, like, we're not gonna be, we can't solve all the problems of Wisconsin in the startup ecosystem. Like, we're gonna solve what we can in just one problem at a time.

Um, you know, starting with just awareness of what's happening. Mm-hmm. And like, how do you get plugged in no matter where you live or whatever, or what problems you have, here's the organizations that can help you, or the accelerators or whatever. Um, but I do think that like, there needs to be some sense of like, okay, what's going on in each state, each major city?

How do we kind of map all that stuff out? And what's kind of cool about this AI stuff is that it'll hopefully help us solve that problem. Right. A little faster than, yeah. Than just manually doing it all. But, um, but I, but yeah, it's, it's just something that we're trying to figure out and, you know, we've been talking about, um, just experimental programming that we wanna try.

Mm-hmm. We start Wisconsin that we'll, we'll bring up in the future. Um, but like. Right now it's like, it's just Andrew and I and, uh, we're doing our best to just do with, with the resources that we have today.

Beth Ott: So, 'cause another problem is resources.

Jacob Miller: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that, that's like capital, like how do we have a budget to actually execute on it, right.

Do we have the talent on our team to actually follow through on it, that we have a budget. There's all those missing pieces. Um, and they'll fall into place when it, when it, when they're, when they're supposed to. Um, but you have to have a strong vision to make that happen too. Yeah. So that's kind of, we're in that vision stage it feels like.

Uh, and we're getting closer and closer to the other side of that. So

Beth Ott: I like this idea of building like a Midwest coalition of, of startups at ESOS and stuff like that because the problems that we're facing in the Midwest. Really should come from the solutions from the Midwest.

Hmm.

Beth Ott: Like you can't think that you're gonna slap a East coast or west coast solution onto a Midwest problem.

Yeah. It's just not gonna work. So we need local founders, people that have lived these problems, that have lived the experiences here in the Midwest to address these problems. So that's why we need. Somebody, but that's why we need a connected ecosystem.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. And I, I feel pretty strongly about, um, like, you know, the programs and the, and the, the pilots that run from all the different organizations across the state.

I wish there was more like, kind of like, uh, data sharing across like, Hey, how did that program go? Like, what went well? What didn't go well? How do we really like, share those things with each other so we can say, oh wow, that actually that program and that city worked really well. Like, let's try it here.

Right. And see, and like. From their learnings and stuff, let's like reimagine it for us, take their best practices and then try it again. But then like mm-hmm. It's almost like we have to keep iterating ourselves too, and not just like, let's try this. And then it like goes for a year and then it's gone and then it's like, okay, well what was the point of that?

Like, you know, I don't know

Beth Ott: was, I don't know if this was in that article that we can't find, um, sure. But. Did it talk about, or if it was just something else that I read, but there's not a lot of research out there about entrepreneurial, uh, best practices.

Jacob Miller: Hmm. Like entrepreneurial, like ecosystem support.

Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Beth Ott: Yeah, yeah. Like that is a gap in the, the research community and field is like, there's nothing that's specifically about how you best support entrepreneurs and the types of programs that are best out there. Yeah.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Maybe it's time for us to write that book.

Beth Ott: You guys go for it as we're trying

Jacob Miller: to figure it out.

Beth Ott: I'm done. I'm done writing. You're done writing. I'm done with being educational.

Jacob Miller: Nice.

Beth Ott: Yeah.

Jacob Miller: Um, but yeah, I like, I'm trying to think of, uh, how I wanna wrap it up. I also wanna be mindful of your time because this is a little after three.

Beth Ott: Yeah. Do you have a fun question that you're gonna end every single podcast episode with?

I

Jacob Miller: don't have like a one. What type of,

Beth Ott: no, no. It needs to be like, what, what job or business or entrepreneurial idea. Do you wish most would get solved? Or what problem do you, so I do

Jacob Miller: have questions I actually didn't ask. Um,

Beth Ott: because I would say somebody needs to freaking invent, not invent, um, was it called where you go from one place to the other?

Jacob Miller: Uh, transport.

Beth Ott: Transporting. Yes. Teleporting. Teleporting. Teleporting. I was looking at trans transporting. That's, yeah.

Jacob Miller: So look. Star Trek, basically. Yeah.

Beth Ott: Yeah, because oh my God, I would just travel so much. If we could figure that out. Can can somebody do that?

Jacob Miller: I know it sounds pretty easy.

Beth Ott: Okay. Yeah. About about as easy as, you know, whatever thing.

Yeah. Time, travel. Time

Jacob Miller: travel. It's the same. Yeah. Yeah. Um. I, uh, I guess, uh, so no fun questions to end. Got it. Well, you answered a lot of the questions that I was, or you just like intuitively answered a lot of the things I wanted to talk about, which was great. Oh, good. So now I'm like, oh shoot, what do I ask?

You know, if someone is, um. Like just kind of somewhat interested in like, they have this business idea, but they're like, I don't know, like what would you tell them? Like, you know, maybe it's a friend of a friend. Mm-hmm. And you met them, they're like at a restaurant. 'cause they're like, oh yeah, come over, hang out for a little bit.

And they're like, yeah. So I'm thinking about this thing. Like what would you be telling them? Like for advice? Like, Hey, you should do this, you should do that. Like, what would you tell 'em? Um,

Beth Ott: I think I'd probably tell them to go talk to people first. Uh, maybe read the mom test before they go talk to people.

Hmm. Uh, I would. Tell them to think about how they could like prove to me how, how they think it's desirable, how they think it's viable, and how they think it's feasible. And I'd say prove it. And then come back to me.

Jacob Miller: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So do you, do you think they should reach out to StartingBlock? Like what would that, I mean, and that's my question is like you're telling 'em that stuff, but like, it, would it first step be like, if they were to like, do it by themselves, like what resources would you recommend to them?

Beth Ott: Yeah. So, um, mom

Jacob Miller: test as a book, right? So,

Beth Ott: I mean, you know. Let's say a friend of a friend we're meeting over beers and they're like, I this really cool idea. I'd be like, great, tell me more about it. Yeah. And then if I think it has some legs, I'd be like, you should apply to Level Set. So Level Set is like our six week pre-accelerator, but it's also free because of a grant from Edix, so.

Oh,

okay. Um.

Beth Ott: The stakes are low for you to test out your business idea and wouldn't you rather test your business idea and know that it's like, has potential before you start investing a bunch of time, money, and effort into it?

Yeah.

Beth Ott: Like if you can test your business. And so yes, you can do that with Level Set or you can, you know, go read the Mom test.

Hmm. Uh, stress test, the, the desirability viability feasibility on your own. There's a couple books out there too that you could do. So there's this sort of like, do it on your own mode, or if you wanna do it with a group of like-minded people, that's when you should connect with us.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any, any people you wanna like, give a shout out to that, like, obviously you've been a StartingBlock for you.

You talked about Scott. Are there any, is there anyone that like. Over the past year that has been super helpful to you, like in your role, um, specifically that you're like, oh man, this, this person like, helped me so much.

Beth Ott: Yeah. Well, I mean, I think for sure Scott and Leslie, uh, the other two thirds of StartingBlocks, so we're a team of three.

Yeah.

Beth Ott: Um, so we run, StartingBlock. We're lean and mean and scrappy, and we pull it off and, you know, we, we pivot when we need to and we do what we need to to keep it running. Um, so obviously shout out to them, the, the founders, I mean, they are really fun to work with. And so I love working with people that have business ideas.

Um, so everybody teaches me something, you know, whether that's, uh. Something about myself or something about business that I didn't know or something about a new industry that,

you know,

Beth Ott: I can't know everything about every single industry, so I know surface level about a lot of stuff. But

yeah,

Beth Ott: all these founders have deep, deep knowledge in their industry.

So, um, that sort of. Quells the, the knowledge quest part of my brain that, you know, likes to keep learning things and so the founders always keep teaching me something new. So I really enjoy that, honestly. Like I'll just shout out my own coworkers again from Clark Street, like, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't be where I am or who I am today without them.

Yeah.

Beth Ott: Um, because. Like I said, we were a crew of some of the, the most amazing teachers ever and we had, we co-taught all the time together, and so I learned so much from my peers. So I would say shout out to the OG Clark Street team.

Jacob Miller: Yeah. Love it.

Beth Ott: Yeah.

Jacob Miller: Um, how, how do people, um, that are curious about StartingBlock and the programs that are available, how do they learn more about that and how can they contact you if they're curious to ask you questions?

Beth Ott: Yeah, so I would go to the StartingBlock website and I would sign up for a tour. They are, uh, Leslie will give you the most amazing tour, and I'll be surprised if you were not a member by the end of that tour. Um, StartingBlock has some amazing, uh, amenities and it's an amazing space. So, uh, we're. Also next time you come over, oh, that's tomorrow.

Jacob Miller: That's tomorrow.

Beth Ott: You'll see a renovation in action. Oh, okay. Yeah. So big, big things happening over a StartingBlock.

Nice.

Beth Ott: Um, so I would say sign up for a tour or sign up to know more on our website. There's, there's, you know. All of that sort of information on there. You can sign up for a newsletter. If you're interested in Leap Year and you think that it might be for you or somebody that you know, I would say shoot me an email directly.

Yeah. And that's at beth@startingblockmadison.org.

Jacob Miller: Thanks for joining us on the Startup Wisconsin Podcast. We're on a mission to discover and share the stories of the passionate people making things happen. Within Wisconsin startup and tech ecosystem wanna support the show. Don't forget to subscribe and get updates.

If you're feeling generous, you can share rate and review our podcast to help others find us. And if you have any questions about the show or know someone you think we should interview, feel free to reach out. Email jacob@startupwi.org. Wanna discover events happening across the state? Head to startup wi.org to see what's happening in your city.

You can also find currently available pitch events and startup accelerator programs available for founders right here in Wisconsin. Alright folks, until next time, let's keep moving Wisconsin forward.