 Hello and welcome to this episode of Fort Worth for we're here at Create Fort Worth and have an exciting lineup for you today. We have Cara Waddell with childcare associates, Bill Chin who is CEO of the tech network and Jose Alfaro, who's CEO of co-starters. I'm ready to get this episode started, so let's go. And now I'm here with Cara Waddell, who's president CEO of childcare associates. They're performing a very vital role here in Fort Worth and Tarrant County in the area. Right? Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks for being here. Yeah. Thanks for being here. Tell us a little bit for our viewers that don't know what childcare associates does and how wide a birth you really have in the area. Tell us about it. Yeah. I mean, 50 plus years ago, this community was experiencing a crisis in childcare because women decided to work outside the home. We had more single parent households than ever before. And so childcare became this crisis and there was illegal childcare and church basements opening up and our communities came together like we do and looked at the data and said we can do better. And they formed an organization which later became childcare associates that we build some new early learning facilities and brought best practices related to young children zero to five. So childcare associates is really just about issues facing children zero to five. And there are lots of issues, I would say. Back up for a second. 50 years ago. Yeah. And it's really hard, I think, for people to understand this, that maybe they, as you focus on it, your grandmother didn't work. My grandmother did. But a lot of people didn't. My mother was a homemaker. But really, people in the late 60s, early 70s, women started going into the workforce. Yeah. And it was a whole new thing. And maybe you had an aunt or a grandmother or someone to take care of you. But if you didn't, you had to find childcare. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. I wrote an essay award-winning in the county for why I want to be a homemaker. Oh, wow. And so I'm like, I believe in homes. I believe in strong families, I always have, and was raised in one. But yeah, not every family can, should or want to stay home. We obviously have a country where we have most families are dual income in some way. And so we need that support. Lower income families especially need that support since the cost of childcare is just inaccessible for them. And we're really more focused on, especially our at-risk or disadvantaged households where they just can't do that 100% on their own. We're trying to kind of give not just the working parent a boost, but the child a boost in their learning and development as well. Yeah. And I'll say this, homemakers, great. My mother was one. There are people that really want to focus and stay at home with their children. Yeah. I married a woman that had no desire to stay home and she always wanted a career. And that's great too. And so we need everything. And what your organization is focused on is making sure that there is quality, affordable childcare for people in this area. Absolutely. And give us some of those numbers of what it really takes in putting on the table of what salaries need to be made to afford childcare in this area and how y'all help with that. Yeah. I mean, lower income families, it can absorb 25, 30, 40, 45% of their household, depending on the number of their household income, just to pay for childcare. And that becomes disadvantageous really to those families. Yeah. And so, you know, Texas loves families, but Texas also loves working families. Right. And we have to be able to step up on behalf of our working families. And so we manage resources that are available for low income families to, you know, access and help pay for that. But we're also interested in making sure that that child is not just in a babysitting environment, that they're in a high quality sitting in front of a TV or something like that. They're really getting education while they're. Yeah. There's roughly a thousand licensed childcare programs in Tarrant County and we've contracted with 600 of them. So we're working to improve their quality and that they're using a curriculum that they have qualified educators, but it's tough. The, you know, a childcare educator in Tarrant County on average earns $12 and 60 cents. Wow. An hour. And so we pay our parking lot attendants more. We pay our Bucky's cashiers more. And these are the people that are taking care of our children. Our babies, right? We care deeply about, but it's not a system that's designed. You know, when you and I were young, there was a public education system. There wasn't really a childcare system. Right. Well, today we really have the same system we had when we were young. That's true. Fifty years later. It's 100% relied on parents with just a little bit of public assistance for our lower income families. And it's not doing well, especially after COVID. And so we're really having to rethink, do parents, are they 100% on their own, have to take care of their children from zero to five? Or are there some supports that a loving community, a loving state can rally around just to make sure that they can work and they can be a strong and independent family, as well as the child can show up ready to learn in school? Yeah. And that's an idea too. When we were growing up, I think I did half-day kindergarten. Yeah. And eventually they realized we got to expand this to full-day kindergarten. Now we have pre-K. But I think what's happened overall, and I'd love your opinion on this, is we now understand that zero to six, you're soaking up so much information during that time, and it doesn't just start at four or five or six, that you have a lot of learning to do so you come in ready, right? Yeah. The brain grows the fastest in those zero to three years, but it's the age, and from a child zero to 18 or zero to 21, it's the age we least invest in. So the area of greatest return on investment, we actually put the least amount of money in. And it's hard. It's hard to fix that now. We love public education, and we love schools, and we need more resources for that. And it's very hard to kind of make the argument maybe we should be helping families more with young children. That's tough. It's tough. And it's an important point and something I have to continue to talk about. What are some of the things I know you've done a lot at the local level, on state level, federal, I mean, tell us some of the things that you see and you've been working on to ensure that we have the resources coming into, it's not just Tarrant County. How many counties? Yeah, the 14 counties that also surround Dallas and Tarrant what they call North Central Texas, and so basically almost every county in North Texas except Dallas is where we're supporting child care programs, growing a core of quality early educators. And so it's challenging. We've been able to, we do get state resources that we deploy. So we cut over a million dollars a week in checks on behalf of low income working families to help offset the cost of their care. But we're not working in those programs, we're working with the educators. SMU comes in and evaluates our quality child care classrooms two times annually, gold standard assessment tool. And then we go back in and coach and say, here's the things you're doing really well. And here's some areas we can help boost what you're doing so that children are able to learn in those settings. How do they affiliate, how do you find these child care centers? How does they become part of your network? Yeah, we have, we've mapped, it's the find website, find, I'm not going to remember it now, I was like, what's it called? But we've mapped on behalf of Tarrant County all of the available child care that's licensed and regulated. And then we have mentors that go out and meet each of these providers we host professional development trainings where we're meeting them, but then also encourage them, take the next step with quality with us. Let's go a step further. Let's go a step further. Yeah, and we have hundreds of programs that have stepped up and are doing that. And so a parent today can look for a Texas Rising Star program. It's kind of like a star rating for a hotel system. And find out, are they three star or four star, four star being the highest? And it's a little bit of a consumer guide for parents so they know what they can be looking for. Did not know that existed. Yeah. That's a great resource for parents as they're looking. So you wear a lot of hats, sort of, I mean, I think, right? Presidency, tell us a typical day in your life, what you're balancing out. Gosh, I don't know if there is a typical day. And what I love, we have about 550 employees and they are the ones who are out working directly, one-on-one with families and engaging. We manage a tremendous amount of public dollars, but we try to not tack like a government agency, which we're not. We try to be responsive to what parents need. We know how to check all the boxes, but we're really trying to be responsive to what families need on the ground. And then we show up at the legislature and we show up at city council and county to be able to say, this is what's not working. This is what parents need. How can we fix these problems together? So we're both on the ground delivering services. We're also helping all of the providers in the early education and childcare space. And then we're also showing that period to say, we run these programs and here's what we're really struggling with and cannot do without either additional public investment, or sometimes it's just eliminating unnecessary red tape. Right. Right. Or there's some initiatives that you're working on now that you're excited about? Tell us about it. Yeah, there's one right now. We're so grateful for Tarrant County investing in a pilot program. They use their one-time ARPA dollars. And we've been able to go in and create contracts with a sampling of about 20 childcare programs. And in that, we've gone in. The lead economist from Rice University has been coming and meeting one-on-one with the childcare providers. So they're realizing the economics of childcare programs. We just don't really understand them. And so that we don't know how to fix them. So he's been building that out, but we've been now adding a supplement, kind of a baseline, like a rising tide to their budget so that all of a sudden they can afford to pay their teachers $18 an hour. We make sure that the children of childcare educators working in those programs also can access childcare. We're helping offset those costs. We found out by boosting them to $18 an hour, they were suddenly not qualifying for things like food assistance and others. And so there's all of these repercussions that come when we try to fix things that sometimes we aren't aware of. And it's a really... Unintended consequences. Unintended. And so, but we have really a national lens. We were written up in several things recently where they're saying we think a way moving forward is not just to give a voucher to a parent so that they can help pay for childcare, but let's also give an assistance to the program itself. It's like subsidizing the farm as well as giving a family maybe food assistance if they're needing. We're saying let's offset some of the costs so that we can pay people who take care of our babies a living wage. And that's important. It's interesting you use that concept too because having worked in D.C., Farm Bill and everything else, we do give subsidies to farmers to plant or not plant, depending on what the economy looks like. We do give food subsidies to low income people that need it. And so really you're talking about the same thing, that same model here. We are. And subsidizing. And so it is interesting we have some time... We aren't investing everywhere we should be probably in our children. Absolutely. And our childcare system is made up of the faith community. We've got churches and mosques and temples. It's also made up of small nonprofit agencies, small businesses, minority owned businesses and sometimes chains. And so it's a patchwork quill. And learning like how do we support that? That's something that Texas is good. We like business. We like different approaches to solving a problem for families and letting parents have choices. And childcare offers that. We just need to figure out how do we better support it. Wonderful. So one last thing I want to talk about, one of the projects we've been working on for a long period of time in Las Vegas Trail. You were one of the original members as part of the LVT RISE, before even LVT RISE existed as an organization that we're putting time and effort into Las Vegas Trail. And so one of the things I'm very excited about that we've been working on, y'all have been working on for a long period of time, is a Head Start facility, which y'all run Head Start and administer all that. Tell us about that facility and very excited about it. Yeah, well, first of all, I mean, Head Start for those that don't know is kind of early education on steroids. It's a fully, a program that's fully covered. The parents pay by volunteering in the program. And they participate and participate in their child's learning. But it's kind of a whole child-to- whole family approach. Working with the child, we're also working with parents. These are families that are particularly lower income. We have children in the foster care system, some families experiencing homelessness. And so it's a family intervention, as well as a child program. So we were, when we saw the data that came together on Las Vegas Trail, we have these early Head Start centers and Head Start centers across Tarrant County, across Fort Worth and Arlington. But it's difficult to just pick one up and move them. Sometimes this infrastructure rebuilt was 30, 40, 50 years ago. It's aging. Then we built it for preschoolers. Now we need it for infants and toddlers. And so when we saw the data on Las Vegas Trail, we knew this is a chance to go in and really model to our community about how we not just build a massive school, but build a neighborhood expression of care and provide the supports that a specific community needs. And we just cannot wait. We're just starting, I know, to get it in place. It's taken a while. Those government systems, you know, man, I- Government systems. But we'll have a capacity. I mean, this is what I think is we're moving towards to, as a city, is really locating a lot of services at our community centers or government offices. And that's what we're doing there. We're going to put a Head Start facility on the LVT Rise, Rise Community Center campus. There was a lot of hoops to jump through there because it's parkland. But I'm very excited about that. We have the library there. We have a lot of classes that are re-held there. Big brothers, big sisters. Our Boys and Girls Club. Sorry. Boys and Girls Club that's there. And some other services. We have a food pantry next door. When we don't have a food pantry nearby, we'll build it within the early learning campus. And so, you know, I don't look like it by looking at me, but we have, you know, we've been in Stop Six for years. Our campus director's been there for over 50 years. He's from that community. And a lot of times, our employees have lived and worked in our from that same community. And so we just can't wait to be in Las Vegas Trail and really begin to have those services available. And you do prenatal too, right? You go out with the mothers and do a lot of work to prenatal. And they're bringing, yeah, I mean, what a better time than to catch a woman and a family right when they're getting ready to have a child. And so we'll engage. We'll work with them and make sure they're getting the healthcare they need, answer questions. And they're with them even in those first early months. That also guarantees them a spot potentially in the program. So they're kind of on a waiting list, but they're not just sitting around not getting services. They're getting the help that they need so that their child can be born healthy and strong. And then we'll take it from there with them, with the parents. That's wonderful. Well, Kara, thanks for all you're doing. Thanks for the leadership in this community and really taking this issue that I don't think a lot of people really see as an issue because they've figured out themselves. But when you really boil it down, how much your income is being spent on childcare, what does that mean? Are we keeping our good people not going into the workforce? Good women or men? Because they can't figure out the childcare system. Yeah. And it just makes sense. So I appreciate all you're doing for the community. Absolutely. Thank you. Being really a thought leader in this area for us. Well, on Child Care Associates has really been about making sure every child, regardless of neighborhood or zip code, has access to high quality early education care. I'm sure your kids had the help and support they needed. We want to make sure that happens in every zip code and it's a privilege to serve in that way. It's wonderful. Thanks for being here. I appreciate the conversation. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Yes. Now I'm here with Bill Chen, who is CEO of the DEC Network, an exciting program that's now here in Fort Worth, Texas. Welcome. Thank you. We're excited to be here. For those that don't know what the DEC Network is, tell us a little about it and what your role is as a CEO. Yes. So we're a 501-3C non-profit. We work with entrepreneurs. Just had our 10th birthday. Okay. Congratulations. Happy birthday. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Well, we've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs all the time. It's been a lot of fun. Again, as a non-profit, our job is really just to get these folks the resources they need so they can grow. And those resources often include mentors, curriculum, and increasingly capital trying to get them funded. Funded. So as part of the DEC Network, we now create, you've created, you've helped create here in Fort Worth, create Fort Worth. Tell us a little bit about that, what that looks like, and how that's really beneficial for entrepreneurs here in Fort Worth. Well, for us, it's a dream come true. I'm a Taren County guy. So I really... You spend a little time East, right? Yes. Exactly. So my GPS takes me right down to Fort Worth. Right? Automatically. I love it down here. And obviously, if you were going to pick a town in America to just not know anyone and just start with $1,000 in your pocket, Fort Worth has got to be on the top five. Wow. I mean, just the economics here is just amazing, the growth. The people are so welcoming. So, you know, this was a natural for us, and we've been wanting to do it. Sure, I've been with the DEC for a network for five years. And really that entire time, we've been plotting to come to Fort Worth. We just had to find that right moment, and I think we found it. It's been great. Everyone's been very welcoming. And it's been a good start. Good. Well, we're here in your space that's here on Bryan, right? Yeah. And near Southside. I'm really proud. It's a beautiful space. So people should come check it out. What do you see here if you've looked at the market, the opportunities for entrepreneurs and the challenges for entrepreneurs? Yeah. I mean, the opportunities are just boundless. You know, it's such a great community. It's rare that you find everyone on the same page. I mean, the government has just been incredibly helpful. You know, I was so lucky. You know, in the 2000s, I was in Silicon Valley. Okay. And got a little bit. It's booming now, right? Yeah. In fact, I just flew in yesterday from San Jose. Okay. And it was incredible to be part of that. And that was the one thing that I remember. I mean, there's been a lot of books written on that incredible success. And my memory on those books all say the same thing is everyone was on the same page. You had the universities. You had the government. You had the community leaders. You had the news. You had the nonprofits. Everyone was singing from the same sheet of music. And no one was really worried about credit. Everyone was just worried about how do we create an incredible ecosystem. And what I saw back then in Silicon Valley is exactly what I see today in Fort Worth. Just incredible collaboration. Everyone sets the egos aside. Everyone just wants to build. And it's fun to be part of. And so, as an entrepreneur, what, with Create4Orth, what can I expect if I want to show up here and say, I need some help. What does that look like? Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. Do you want people showing up here? We do. I mean, I love that. We love that question. Yeah. And we spent a lot of time trying to answer that question. And so, you know, we welcome people to walk through the front door and say exactly that. And we are going to tell them all of the myriad of resources that are out there, not from the DEC network, although we'll certainly list those. But really, just as an ecosystem, just as a community, there's a lot of things provided here that they don't have in other communities. So, you know, if you've got that question on entrepreneur, this is the right place to ask it. And what we're going to hope to do is refer you to the right person for you. Yeah. And it's so individual. And that's why you need a little, you know, you're going to start with that question. Then we're going to have a few questions. Yeah. But hopefully when we're done with that process, we'll steer you to the right entity to help you at this moment. Okay. Because you've got a lot of resources here in itself, too. Absolutely. Any highlights there of things are like, this is something maybe unusual people haven't thought about? Yeah. I'm not sure, you know, I'm not sure this is going to be a shock to anyone, but I think that we've certainly found that mentorship is really key in entrepreneurship. Sure. You know, I was a professor for entrepreneurship at SMU. So I'm a curriculum guy. I mean, I have built a lot of curriculums. But the truth that is once you've sort of formed the legal entity, you've formed a platform for a new business. But once those are done, you diverge from that curriculum so fast. You know, it's almost like every week you wake up with a different job description as an entrepreneur. That's an entrepreneur, right? Exactly. Which fire are you going to put out at this moment that's hitting? Yeah. You know, curriculum can't keep up with that, but a mentor can. A mentor in the same vertical. Someone who has worked within that industry, who started a business with that industry, that resource that's going to be able to keep up with that massive, massive change in your weekly job description. Yes. For sure. Is there some standout, the biggest myth someone might have as an entrepreneur starting off? Do you have any thoughts there? Yeah. I mean, there's certainly some myths out there. I mean, look, I wouldn't be the first person to just talk about like this is undiluted business, right? I mean, like, you know, I'm really a pretty good steward of corporate money. I mean, I really think of it as kind of my money. But then the minute I became an entrepreneur, I realized how wrong I was. I mean, you are shielded from that undiluted stress. You're in a corporate setting, right? You don't see all the problems, right? Exactly, right? When it's your money, when it's your money, all of a sudden, you're like, yeah, I was a good steward of corporate money. You have no idea the stress level when that's your money and the marketplace dynamics, and there's stress with that. But there's risk with that, but the reward is tremendous. I mean, if you look at the folks we admire in America and the business world. Entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs. Absolutely. For sure. The reward is incredible. Yeah, it's funny. You talk about your money versus someone in your job, probably a good steward of it. But when it really is, you start making decisions a little differently and maybe have people relying on you. Maybe your family, but also employees and moves you're making a little different. Are there any standout wins, something that you're proud of in your career? Like you've helped someone, you've helped sort of make it or on the path to make it and that you're rooting for? Any thoughts? No, thank you. I love that question because, I mean, over 10 years we've helped a lot of great folks and you know, it's a pleasure to do all that work. One that really jumps out of me is the job creation that we've seen has been incredible and that's a currency, essentially, of what we do as a non-profit. But sometimes it really counts where those jobs are. And so we have this amazing entrepreneur right across from my office. I have an office in Redbird in the southern sector of Dallas and within the last 12 months she's hired over 150 folks. Wow. And the wealth transfer and the job creation. What kind of business? So it's mainly, it's in the education space. Okay, okay. It's really innovative and she's mainly hiring consultants to supplement the public school curriculum. Okay. Really necessary at this point. And she's just blown it up and she's such a lovely person but so smart. I mean, she did all this work. You know, people talk about luck. I watch her come in at 7 a.m. I see her leave at 7 p.m. If that's luck it's done, it's a lot of hours of luck, right? It's bright. It's bright, right? Right, yes. And it's so fun to just watch. She's so humble and then I see that personally and her family and the wealth creation that she's making for her family but also for community. I mean, she's creating jobs in an area where there's a lot of unemployment. We have a tendency in DFW in general for Worth and Dallas to think of ourselves as we look at the data and we say, look, we've got zero unemployment but when you dig a layer deeper oftentimes that's, you know, negative unemployment. In other words, we can't find enough people, qualified people in the southern sectors and in the southern sectors, they've got massive unemployment. It's a little like saying I've got one hand in ice water and one hand in boiling water and on average I'm okay. Well, you're not okay. You have problems in both places. So I love that Ms. Niki's created so many jobs in a place that jobs are really valued. That's amazing. No doubt in our community there's disparity and there's disparity from one part of one section of our city and other sections and so the more things like this you can find resources and people to help it really is a game changer for them. It really could be as you said a path to generational wealth. So thank you for what you're doing here in the community. I really appreciate you bringing your expertise here and really helping those that have great dreams turn those into reality. So I appreciate you Bill. Thank you very much. Thank you. It was a good scene you get. And now I'm joined by Jose Alfaro who is CEO of co-starters. I had to have you here. Great. Thank you. So for those that are viewing and watching that don't know what co-starters is tell us a little bit about it and how your journey to become CEO. Yeah. So co-starters is a national accelerator program that works with cities and innovation centers and incubators that helps incubate and start and help entrepreneurs thrive specifically in There's a lot of accelerators like tech stars that are focused on high growth, innovation, you know, technology, and they get a lot of VC investment. We're a little bit different in the sense we have the same tools and resources, mentorship, but we're really more focused on really creating and revitalizing those main streets or those neighborhoods and across the nation. So we're in 100 different cities, including Fort Worth, and continuing to expand. And so the journey to becoming a CEO actually is, you know, I always say this about co-setters. You know, they're like, well, how is co-setters founded? It's a long story, probably the story from another day. But I always say I get to be the steward of what a lot of civic business and community leaders in Chattanooga built, right? So co-setters was built under non-profit and then we brought it into the private sector and I've been involved in many facets. So, you know, growing or being in the hospitality industry, I wanted to do something different really under and starting a few businesses, so I've started a few businesses, one succeeded, one failed miserably. Which is part of being an entrepreneur, right? Right, yes. And so, but there were so much that I learned and I wish I could impart some of that wisdom to others. So I started just becoming a mentor and a facilitator in Chattanooga when it was starting. When I was growing, the, as we were buying the business out to, or the IP to make it into a business, I just started going in, it's like, hey, how can I help? And so, you know, obviously I'm really good at sales, so they're like, yeah, yeah, come on, help us sell. And they're like, well, you're really good at business and obviously my training in the corporate world. And so from there, you know, we had a lot of talented individuals, but not really anybody that knows how to really scale up a business and grow it. And so, back in 2021, I was appointed CEO and really focused on, you know, growing the market, creating a brand that is par to all those different technology accelerators like Y Combinator, Generator, Techstars, but also showing people that there's a place to have multiple different types of entrepreneurship programs in their cities. And to allow, we're not allowed, but to help cities and mayors and council members and economic developers think differently about entrepreneurship. Like, did you know this that like in, in one of the cities that I work at, over three years, we helped them create 400 jobs. Okay. How did you do that? So, we supported 20 new, 200 new business initiatives, right? Okay. So, within them starting through our program, they go through our program and we help them basically validate their idea. Okay. So, they come to start a coffee shop. It's like, great. We started telling them, I was like, no, there's no more need for a coffee shop validated. Right. Go out to the market, see if there's a need. And because they build in that, and they were helping them start small, we're helping them create some type of test model. Right. Maybe a proof of concept. A proof of concept. Right. Yeah. Before they go and spend $100,000 on something that they don't know is going to work. Right. And so, from the day one, we're showing them how to be profitable. Okay. Right. So, for one year, they're already full-time working in their business. And in their second year, they're high in their second person, 30 year, the third person, and they're growing. Right. So, on average, nationally, our businesses that get started with us, 85% of them that go through a program start a business, 70% of them are profitable. Okay. Right. And their first year. First year, which is a big deal. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then they're growing 150% year over year, which allows them to hire more people. Right. Right. And I always talk to cities, and I'm like, I know you're on a round, you're on attraction and retention, but what about the talent in your backyard? Right. Right. And the traditional business models out there to help, like the SBDC, SBA, the Chambers, nothing against them, but they're very traditional. They're very antiquated in the new world. Right? You want to start a business? The first place you go to is Google. In the new world, like a tech world. Is that what you mean? Yeah. We're doing a lot more online. Yeah. Right. You go online and you find everything. Everything there is easy or accessible. Right. Or you can understand it. Right. So, one of the cool things that we've done are three, I would say three things that makes us unique is we make things accessible. We make things simple. So, we write everything. All our programming, all our mentoring, all our training is done at a seventh grade level because we want to make entrepreneurship accessible to everybody. Right. I don't care if you graduate high school, you have a doctor's degree. Entrepreneurship is hard. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And so, we got to give you the fundamentals to do that. Yeah. The second thing is people need a community. Right. There's a lot of times when these entrepreneurs go siloed and they're on their own. They're trying to figure it out on their own. It's like, no, you need a community. You need somebody to challenge and test your assumptions. Right. And then the third thing is we believe in the person. Right. So, a lot of times, small business investments, a lot of times happen when you have a great idea in the tech space. Right. Right. VC venture capitalists will go out and give you all this funding. But, like, there's great ideas happening in the lifestyle world. Right. And how can we invest in them? Right. So, I'll look at an example of, like, Sriracha. Right. Started out selling it from the van, just figuring it out. Now, it's what it's like, I think a $55 million organization. Yeah. My girls love it. They use it all the time. Yeah. So, we don't... Apparently, there's only certain brands they like. I'm just going to be honest. Because there's other sitting in the capital. They're like, we don't really like that. So, you've got to find the right one. And so, there's multiple of these stories where you just don't know. Right. But can we allow the entrepreneur to decide if they want to be a high growth venture? Or a lifestyle venture? But then, also, can they switch halfway through the business cycle? It's like, no, I have something here. Can I franchise this? Can I expand it? Can I grow it? There's a lot of opportunities here. It sounds like you wear a lot of different hats. Yeah. So, what's a typical day like for you? Is there a typical day? I don't know that there's a typical day. I would say right now as we're growing, there's certain things that I want to keep close to me. I would say definitely supporting the team. So, I have designers and writers and a marketing team and operations, customer success team. And they're always asking questions. And I'm trying to empower them to really handle some of those challenges that come up in serving our clients. Delegating a little more. Yeah. Right. So, but as we grow, there's just a lot more challenges. And we're trying to expand. And my thing is, I don't care how great your process is, if you're not focused on the customer, we're failing. Right. So, a lot of that. And then I would say a lot of talking to, you know, shaking hands, kissing babies. So, talking to mayors and, you know, economic developers, going to a lot of trade shows. You said how many cities? 100? 100 cities. And you were in Dallas, you said, for a little while. And then moved to Chattanooga. And we were talking a little bit before. And then you came back and you're here in Fort Worth. What really drew you to come back or come to Fort Worth? Yeah. Well, you know, so my wife's family is from the Dallas Fort Worth area. My wife actually... We call her Fort Worth Dallas. Yeah. Fort Worth Dallas area. I'll make sure I do that next time. So, my wife worked at Cooks when she was doing her internship after graduating. And she really liked Fort Worth. I really enjoyed Fort Worth when I lived in Dallas. And so, when we were moving back, I was like, you know, I just want to still have that sense of culture, of people, of connection, of creative artists. There's something unique and special about it. And so, as we were looking, you know, I went to Waco. I went to Denton. We went to Fort Worth. Went to Weatherford. And we're like, you know what? Fort Worth just feels right. And it just felt right. And, you know, haven't looked back. So, yeah. Haven't looked back. That's great. What does it mean? What's the mission overall? What do you... What's success look like for you? For me personally? Yeah. For you and for the group too. I mean, what is it? Yeah. That's a great question. Catching me on a different day, right? Yeah. Right, right. And the thing for me, success looks like that you're able to do what you are passionate about, right? So... You've been able to come alongside someone and build whatever they're passionate about, right? Yeah. Right. And so... But also removing those barriers, right? How can we remove those barriers? Because I think a lot of times, you know, we say opal and blanket statements, like they can pick themselves up from their bootstraps or give, you know, teach them how to fish. And I'm like, there's a lot of statements that we just put out there without understanding the real family, you know, regional differences in dynamics. And so for me, like, success is can we listen more? Can we desire to understand more so that we can truly help individuals find what they want to do? Because a lot of times people don't know what they want to do. Sure. It's really hard. I'm still trying to figure it out. Right. You know, you asked my wife, she said the same thing, you know? So, yeah. So I think that's probably what I would look at success. Like, that's what I want us... I mean, I want people to think about co-certors. That's what I... Like, he's like, not that co-certors is like dominating the market. Sure. We will do that if we're investing in people well. Sure. That's a great philosophy. Are you seeing certain trends happening right now in the business community? So, yes. Right. So, like, if you look at Fort Worth, it's very similar to what's happening in other cities, right? Especially in rural America. So, you know, back, I would say, from 2010 to 2020, there was this big push for innovation, technology, and even the smaller cities who didn't have the infrastructure to bring in technology companies had a hard time. And what I always tell people, though, is, like, hey, you know, if you're going to move a technology business and you have the infrastructure, you have the university, you have the workforce, do you have a culture? Right. No. Why not? That brings that together once it's accepted. Right, yeah. Because nobody wants to just work all day long, then go home and do nothing. They want to go out and have a drink with their friends, have good food. People are... There was some community, right? Exactly, right? So, community is really important. So, I would say there's a big push right now. And then now, post-pandemic, there's a big push for people to have a quality of life, not necessarily of, like, they get to do what they want in the sense of, like, how can I enjoy my experiences, right? So, we lived in an industrial age where it was all about factoring processes. And then we went to the technology age or data age. I believe in the next couple of years, we're going to be moving into what I call more of an experiential age where AI and all these things are going to make life easier for us. How can we experience things, right? Because now, we can have friends all over the world. We can have connections all over the world. We can have things done for us easily. But, like, what people want are those experiences. Why are coffee shops growing? I mean, we have what? There's five coffee shops within this area. They want connections. They want community. Breweries. And then there's, like, all these different things like the axe throwing and all these different fun activities. But that's all entrepreneurs. There are entrepreneurs too. And so, I do believe that there's a revival in entrepreneurship. What I get excited about is that it's not just one sector. It's not just innovation and health and science and AI, but it's also around community. And that's really exciting. So, you're seeing that in Fort Worth as well. Yeah, I love that you've hit on community, quality of life. The small business aspect, that's really what we're talking about, are encouraging and supporting small businesses. When people have an idea of making sure that it will financially be feasible for them and work what we're doing. And so, I appreciate your time. I appreciate all the things you're doing to help in that sort of sphere. And just thanks for being with us today. Absolutely. It's been a great conversation. And how can people find you? Yeah, so I'm at the Create Fort Worth. We're here right now. Yeah, so I'm here. But also, like, connect with the Create Fort Worth team. So, Co-starters is being deployed at Create Fort Worth. So, a lot of our programming and a lot of the business leaders in the Fort Worth area are going to get trained to run some of our programming in the community. So, if you ever want to have an idea or want to know more, come and talk to me. But also, talk to the Create Fort Worth team. They can help you also connect you to the right resource and getting you started and getting your idea and business started. That's great. Thanks for being here today. Appreciate it. Thank you. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Fort Worth Forward. I love doing these shows. So, I get outside. I learn a little bit more about the community and what's happening. I hope you do too. If you have any ideas for us, send them our way. Again, thanks for watching. Appreciate it.