Amanda Sima – From Patent to Courtroom – Innovation, Entrepreneurship Betrayal, & Protecting Your Ideas

So you know, my husband and I, we sold our house, we put every

asset we had into this product. We were that passionate about

it. And all I know is I met with

this guy and like 3 months later a copycat product was in market.

I lost my investor. I was out of business overnight.

Hey there and welcome to From the Ground Up show, the show

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I'm pretty excited. I think this is going to be a

fun interview. I am joined by Amanda Sima.

She is an entrepreneur, business owner and patented inventor who

has built and scaled companies from the ground up.

She founded a collegiate apparel company that secured more than

150 NCAA licenses as an inventor.

As an inventor, Amanda developed and patented A spill proof lid

and innovation born from solving a simple but widespread consumer

problem. That invention ultimately placed

her at the center of a high stakes, multi jurisdiction legal

battle involving intellectual property rights and professional

accountability. Amanda is also the founder of

Working Girl Productions, a film and television production

company focused on developing original content and bringing

bold, story driven projects to life.

Amanda uses her platform to raise awareness about the risk

innovators face and the importance of protecting

original ideas. So you got a lot going on

Amanda. I think this will be a fun

conversation. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Never ceases to amaze me to hear my bio.

I'm like, can't believe I did all of that.

Where is that energy? We're excited to hear how you

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MacArthur code.com. So we like to start every

interview clear at the beginning.

You mind telling us a little bit about your childhood and what it

was like growing up and what kind of a childhood leads to

someone with that level of ambition and drive?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I'm originally from Columbus,

OH, good old Midwest. Grew up in a really family

friendly town in a middle class household.

My dad was a police officer. My mom sold real estate for a

while, but kind of mostly stayed home.

And yeah, I mean, I was a student athlete.

I actually was the second in my family to go to college.

My parents were not college graduates.

And I would say from a really young age, I, I saw my parents

kind of living that rat race of life.

You know, it was like nine to five jobs.

Or my dad actually worked nights.

He worked in narcotics. He had a really dangerous job.

And I don't know, I just remember from a really young

age, like 10 years old, sort of daydreaming about what it would

be like to have financial freedom and not even really

knowing what that was. I was just a child.

But I just remember thinking, I don't want to do what my parents

are doing. I have like no interest in that,

right? And so I graduated high school,

went to Ohio State University, the Ohio State University and

graduated with a completely useless history degree.

I majored in history thinking I was going to go to law school.

I have a couple lawyers in my family, took one pre law class.

I'm like, Nope, absolutely not, Not for me.

I've there's no way I could be happy in that profession.

And so I'm like, Oh no, I've got this history degree.

What am I going to do with it? I had AI had a history professor

who kind of became, I became friends with and she's like,

what are you going to do after this?

And I, you know, told her my dilemma and she's like, what

else are you into? And I said, I'm kind of into

politics. I grew up in a family where, you

know, Crossfire, the political show.

I would like sit with my dad and watch it every night.

Like, I wouldn't say we were like crazy political, but we

followed along pretty closely. And so I said, I don't know, I'm

kind of interested in politics. And at that time in Ohio, there

was a statewide gubernatorial race, governor's race.

She's like, I know a campaign manager, if you want to, like,

go and volunteer. And I'm like, OK, volunteer.

Not ideal because I know I have student loans to pay.

But so I called. I called the campaign, went in

to meet, and they hired me on the spot and threw me into

fundraising. Yeah.

And so this was kind of the beginning of my entrepreneurial

journey because as a fundraiser, I traveled the state and I met,

you know, some I met the greatest wealth in the state.

And a lot of them are just like self-made, had an idea, had a

business that they grew. Like I joked, like some of the

richest donors that, you know, would host our events could pass

for like the plumber, you know what I mean?

They're just salt of the earth, like amazing people and

innovators. And I think that was the first

time because I've always kind of been a creator in my mind, but

it, it was the first time that I saw like entrepreneurship

manifesting into financial freedom and into a life.

And, and in some of these cases, these guys and girls built

generational wealth, you know, or they were running family

businesses that like their dad or their grandfather started.

And I was like, I think I can do that.

Like that really inspired me to kind of go out on a limb.

And I thought they just, they're just normal, regular people like

me who are massively successful. And I'm like, well, if they

could do it, I could do it, right?

So that was definitely the beginning.

By the age of 25, I know kind of had my own little fundraising

firm and was taking on clients. So that way, I think that was

maybe technically my first business.

I wasn't like working for a corporation.

I was working from home and taking on multiple clients,

multiple candidates. And then it was, yeah, during my

last race as a consultant that I started my apparel company at

the age of 26, so. OK.

Oh man. Well, you mentioned that you

went to college and got by your own declaration, kind of a

useless degree completely and had some student loans that you

had to pay off and and wrestle with after the fact.

Did that experience shape your view of education?

Is it any different now than it was then?

I wholeheartedly believe that you should not go to college

unless you're specializing in a trade like medicine.

Like you have a path to medicine, you have a path to

law, you have a path to engineering, even in maybe film

or television or something like that.

Otherwise, I am not a big proponent of college.

In fact, and I saw it with my own two eyes.

Like, recently, within the last year, my nanny was graduating

high school and she played volleyball, was going to go and

play in college. She thought played at a really

high level, got injured. So volleyball was no longer on

the table. And I was like, dreading because

I knew she was going to leave soon for college and I was going

to have to find a new nanny. And she came to me and said, I

decided not to go to college. And I'm like, what?

Chloe, that is crazy. Like what's happening?

She's like, I was going to go for volleyball and I'm not

playing volleyball anymore and I think it's a waste of money.

I wanna do something like my dad did.

Her dad has a successful heating and cooling company and they do

really well and he didn't go to college and her mom didn't go to

college and they are massively financially successful.

And I was like, I know it's sort of trending with this new

generation, but that was like the first time I saw it.

And I said, Chloe, as a business owner, I cannot tell you how

smart that decision is. And she went and got a real

estate license. And yeah, she's going to

probably end up starting a business like her dad, a small

business. So the point is, yeah, I just

think that college largely can be considered a scam for many

people. And if you're considering

college, if you're listening and you're younger and you're

considering college or your kids are considering college, if it's

a trade, go for it. If not, find something else to

do just because there's, you know, technology these days and

taking people's jobs. I think it's too risky.

I think it's too risky. Well, and there's a lot of

people, like you said, you get a history degree and what do you

do with that other than come back and teach other people

history? Yeah.

And I was not going to be a teacher or like, yeah, I mean

that. Teachers are so important.

By the way, God bless you if you major in education.

You know, I have 3 kids at school like, But no, I did not

want to be a teacher. So I got a lot of writing.

I think maybe the benefit out of it is I got a lot of writing

experience and, you know, having had businesses where you're

writing business plans and creating pitch decks for

investors and things like that, OK, maybe it helped a little

bit. Yeah, yeah.

But like you said, a lot of the the tools that are available

now, I know spell check changed my life when that started being

included in everything. And now with AI everywhere, you

can Polish things up without losing your voice and and makes

even the writing process a lot easier.

I'm a big proponent of it. I really am.

I of AI and chat GPTI think it's great.

I think it, it's an amazing tool.

It, it needs to be used as a tool.

Exactly. A lot of the technology things,

we, we try to let them take over or we try to make it take over

and do it all for us. And all of those things, there

still needs to be a human being with some critical thought.

And creative, that's the yeah. Yeah, Yeah.

I think those are the two things that are most lacking in our

education system and our culture today is critical thinking and

creative thinking. And you take someone with some

critical thinking skills and some creative thinking skills

and put them in front of a an AI tool and they can do some

incredible things. And you take someone that lacks

critical thinking skills and give them an AI tool and you can

wind up with a disaster. Agree, agree.

Yeah, like let it can't be your immediate like go to.

But I think if like for me, if I'm having trouble sort of

organizing my thoughts around anything, I use it as a tool

just like you said. Yeah, Awesome, Awesome.

Well, it sounds like you you kind of dove into politics.

You kind of only had really one job after college before you

started doing your own thing and then launched your own company

in a completely unrelated field. Can you tell us about that

process? What inspired you to start a

clothing company and and what did it look like getting that

started and off the ground? Yeah.

So as an entrepreneur who has had ideas and has built

companies from these ideas, yeah, there's multiple layers to

it. Definitely there's that.

You know, sort of, aha. Moment where you're like, wow,

that would be a really good product.

That aside, then I do my research on any given market

that I'm considering entering. And so when I have the idea for

collegiate sweaters, fashion forward, college apparel,

there's there was multiple things for me to consider.

Number one, who's my competition in this category?

Because we're talking about an industry where Nike and Adidas,

like some of the largest companies on the planet are

competing, obviously. And who am I?

I am nobody but who who's my competition in my product

category and how large is that market?

How reliable is that revenue? You know, you think everyone's

buying team merchandise every year.

They don't even need more team merchandise, but they're still

purchasing it and they're purchasing it as gifts.

That's and then so I already know that it's a reliable

market. Everyone has an affection for

their school or their team. And then I'm thinking, look how

many schools look. I mean, I'm such a hypocrite.

I'm like, college is useless. But I went and started a

collegiate apparel company I that you look at like how many

schools? And I was like, whoa, the

numbers get big pretty quickly. And you know why?

I mean, I think we all go into business for financial freedom.

It's I mean, it's not get rich quick or anything like that, but

definitely like I want to build some wealth.

I want to build some wealth for my family.

And so it kind of the business has to check those boxes and

collegiate apparel for me, checked those boxes.

And I, I had a grandmother who, you know, was an Ohio State

merchandise absolute hoarder. Her basement was full of

merchandise over like decades and decades.

And she gave me a sweater, like a vintage sweater from the 80s.

And I was like, whoa, this is really cool.

What if, you know, I created this and modernized it and it's

a little bit higher quality. At the time, the market, the

industry was super sleepy. So meaning there's giant

dinosaurs of companies operating easily with no competition.

And it was like T-shirts and sweatshirts.

So not only was my product unique, they like would never

see me coming, right? It's just, they're just old

decades. We call them like Evergreen

companies, like been around forever.

And so that's important. That was important for me

because when we're talking about licensed apparel, apparel aside,

the licensing is very competitive and it's very

complex. These schools have to approve

you. You have to show them that

you're making a product that will sell and generate

royalties. It's easy.

I mean, I think they get a lot of people who apply for licenses

and they turn down. And so I knew that was going to

be a difficult part for me because again, if you have

listeners who are entrepreneurs, founders, creators, business

owners, and you're just starting out, really, there's a lot of

faking it till you make it type conduct, you know?

And I'm like, how am I going to convince these giant entities,

Ohio State University, that they should license me?

Like, that was pretty daunting. But you know.

Again, if you have a product or service that you're passionate

about and you are extremely confident in, you will take on,

you know, the largest tornado of whatever business you're

starting and so. That's how I felt.

That's how I felt. About my product.

And yeah, I mean, we started, we started applying for licenses at

smaller schools because I thought if I got a couple under

my belt, then I could go to a larger school and see it be

like, hey, get on the bandwagon. And that's exactly what

happened. So I, I did end up, I mean, I

have an affection for Ohio State, obviously, because I went

there and I just thought it would be really, really cool to

be one of their licensees and see my product on fans.

But it was also like a game changer in turn, like once you

get Ohio State at such a big school, it's such a big market

that other schools would follow. And that's exactly what happened

in the licensing portfolio, just kind of snowballed from there.

And yeah, I mean, it was, we were, again, we were getting

licenses at really big schools with no sales history, but just

like a really compelling product.

I'm really proud of that. That's great.

Yeah, You said two things there. I want to do a circle back on

one of them was yeah as an entrepreneur and especially

starting something new, I love that you say you gotta fake it

till you make it cuz I've talked to a few people and it felt that

way myself. A lot of the time you're out

selling something before you figured out how to do it yet or

not, and you have exactly sailed to be able to follow through.

But yeah, it's kind of a dichotomy.

You're you have to put all your enthusiasm and your belief and

your confidence into it before you really even know if you can

do it or not. It's an excellent point.

I mean almost every business is like a chicken and egg scenario.

It's a cart before the horse scenario, you know, and that was

absolutely in licensing like. I had.

Amazing samples that I procured like they but now I got to

produce mass. Produce them.

And I'm like convincing these guys that I can mass produce

them even though I've never mass produced apparel in my life,

right? But yeah, you just kind of have

to step outside your comfort zone.

Believe that you can do it, sell to others, that you can do it,

that you can deliver, and just do the best you can.

Yeah. So sorry, I'm, I'm totally new

to apparel. My background is in the

construction industry. So what does that process look

like? What parts of that process can

be outsourced or should be outsourced and and what parts

have you brought in house? Yeah.

What does that look like getting an apparel company up and going?

Yeah, so. I it was.

Definitely learning on the job for me.

I knew what I wanted to produce. I had no idea how to produce it.

So and I, you know, I, I didn't go to fashion school.

I wasn't an. Artist, I can't draw for the

life of me, but I knew in my head what I wanted to, what I

wanted to make. And so I had a friend who is a

graphic designer and I said, hey, would you like for 50

bucks? I don't even know what I'm paid

or 50 or 100 bucks. Would you like sketch this out

for me? I'm going to tell you what's in

my brain and will you sketch it? She sketched it out and then I

just started sourcing. Overseas I, I originally started

trying to find a factory in the States.

I just wasn't successful. There just were any factories I

could find domestically that specialized in nits.

And so I went overseas. I sourced overseas, basically

just said, hey, here's my sketches.

I didn't, I knew how I wanted it to fit, but I didn't really know

how to spec it out. So I simply would just, I would

go shop, I would go buy sweaters.

If I like the way it fit, I'd measure it.

I'd send those measurements to my factory and I had a good

enough trading partner where they really, they went through

the design process with me because there was a lot of trial

and error. And I we, we just kind of kept

doing that back and forth until finally you get a sample in hand

where you're like this is it OK, The fit is right, the quality.

Right. And that was probably, I mean it

was a multi month process. It wasn't a multi year process,

but I'm grateful that I had a factory that was like patient

enough to do that with me. But yeah.

And then just from there, as the company grew, I would just get

inspiration like this is and that's apparel, that's the

industry. Everyone's kind of influencing

everyone else about what they're coming out with next.

And so if there was like any given trend, I would sort of

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Again, that was athlete fresh dot shop slash from the ground

up show. That's really interesting that's

I've never even kind of tried to wrap my head around what that

would look like. Like I.

Said it was hard. My expertise.

It was hard because I had never, I really had no desire to work

in apparel and fashion. I probably never would again.

It's very, very difficult. Like I see the companies guys

that you buy from your clothes. There are very talented people.

Like it's a it's an art, it's complex, and kudos to anyone who

does it really well. Seriously.

Oh man, Restaurants, beverages and fashion, I think are like,

what about the percentage of companies that can actually make

it and the number of things you have to put together to, to

really build something in one of those industries?

I'm I'm always looking for new ideas and new investment

opportunities, but restaurants, fashion and beverages stuff I'll

probably never touch. Because yeah, yeah.

It takes a lot of work, a lot of skill, and just kind of perfect

timing to make it all work. It.

That's exactly right. The timing is everything and

customer satisfaction is everything.

And we all know just how impossible that could be, you

know, if you've got a large market.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, and if you can make the best product on the market, but

if you can't get the right connections, if you can't get it

on the right shelf in the right store, if you don't have the

right location for a restaurant, man, it's it's those are just

some difficult industries, so. Yeah, highly competitive.

Highly. Competitive.

One other thing I wanted to circle back on or, or maybe just

make a comment myself talked about the, the motivation for

starting a company of making money.

And I love that. I appreciate that you just come

out and say that because I think that's something that in our

culture has been villainized a little bit.

And man, I do not know a single business owner that doesn't have

some really quality values and some altruistic values towards

their customers, their employees.

It takes an incredible, incredible amount of work, a lot

of risk to start a company to to get out and do something.

And people don't do that unless they really do believe that they

can change the world, they can change their community, they can

build a company where people want to work.

They can build a product that is going to benefit people.

So man, to make it worth it for those people to do that and take

that risk, there has to be a win at the end.

There has to be at least the opportunity for a win.

Yeah, I mean, I think if you villainize.

Success or villainize making money from a business, then

you've never started a business. It's a really ignorant thing to

say. It's such an ignorant thing to

say because at the real entrepreneurs and business

owners can be very self hating, self deprecating.

We're not not these like cocky greedy.

I mean, no, no, does that exist? Absolutely that exists.

But honestly, you know, those we all started from somewhere.

Most of us, almost all of us started from nothing, right?

We're starting from scratch. And yeah, to your point, the

amount of work that goes into it and then beyond that, the desire

for a happy customer, the yearn for a happy customer is genuine.

And you know, and again, these are people who are using

products created by really big companies and that are making a

lot of money. So it's it's just a really

ignorant statement to me. Money, we money makes the world

go round. We all need money.

Because all the the good things that can come out of a company

well run, the taking good care of their employees, offering

great benefits, paying people well, making a great product,

all of those things are a result of making profit.

You you can't pay your employees well if your products don't make

money. Yeah.

And the vast majority of people don't are not business owners.

They like the stability of a job.

They like a stability of income. Benefits go out to eat.

Once a week, Like, no, I mean, it would blow their minds that

the lives that we lead with and all the risk, you know, that we

put everything we put on the line.

So, yeah, I mean, companies obviously serve such an

important purpose. And I met so many in Ohio.

I still do meet business owners who are so they it, it's, it's

not lost on them, their success. It's almost serendipitous to

them. It's God's intervention in their

life. They are so grateful for their

success and they give back. I my investor for my second

company, an incredible business person, was very successful in

distribution twice had two companies that he sold and very

high net worth. And he, he feeds the homeless

through a church in downtown Dayton.

And the only thing they have to do, they have to sit through

service. So sit through service and then

they open the doors and they give them everything they need.

Free meals, free toiletries, like things like that, like, and

those stories are a dime a dozen, honestly.

I mean, there's so many business owners are so philanthropic and

pay it forward with their success and like, those are the

stories we need to be talking about.

Oh yeah, I love it. I saw a quote the other day.

It said entrepreneurs are are are the only people on earth

that will work 120 hours to avoid working 40.

That's so right, that is. And yeah.

Yeah, it just there is that level of effort and you know, I

used to remind some of my employees sometimes there were

there were a lot of months where I paid to go to work.

The number of people that are willing to sign up for a deal

where if you work really, really hard, if you put in those 120

hour weeks if and all the stars align, you might hit it big, but

also you might spend a lot of money to work really hard and

get nothing out of it. That's a big gamble.

That's a big risk. You're, you're signing up for a

ride. And so, you know, when it works

out, that should be something that's celebrated and held up

and and that's a win that benefits society.

Those are not people taking advantage of others.

Again, it takes one to no one and if you have anything bad to

say yeah about entrepreneurs creating wealth, then you just

you haven't gone through the journey.

So maybe keep your thoughts to yourself.

I love it. I love it.

So what was it that made you decide to go all in on apparel?

I know you talked about kind of seeing an opportunity, but was

there a moment when you were like, this is it, I'm doing

this, I'm going all in? Yeah, that was definitely when

we got the Ohio State license and when we got the Ohio State

license I brought. On some like friends and family

money because apparel and especially light licensed

anything. Just because the sheer number of

like schools, when you get into the really big doors like we got

into Amazon, then they're buying multiple schools and then you

have multiple items in your line.

As I said earlier, the numbers get big very quickly.

You need a lot of capital. You need a lot of capital.

It's not a cheap industry to be and it's probably why it's such

a high barrier industry. It's not like, well, you know,

maybe I start a heating and cooling company and I got to buy

a couple trucks like it, it, it's like you need like 7

figures, you know. And so when we got Ohio State,

just having that market alone, I knew I had to, you know, run

this full time because as I mentioned, I knew that the

licensing portfolio would grow from there.

The demand would grow from there.

Some other schools would want once our, our garments caught

on. And so that was like that was

2000, maybe 12 that I, yeah, I went full time.

I stopped consulting and worked a lot of months with like no

income and like because at this point I sort of been self

funding the business. I was doing OK enough like in

fundraising, but the same and I had a work, been supportive,

husband worked. I was a young mom.

And when I quit consulting and I started the apparel full time

and again, if you have listeners who are business owners, a lot

of them like I went for a long time without a paycheck and that

was hard. That was hard.

We definitely had to like adjust our lifestyle and our life

sacrifices again like that. You just don't hear, you know,

that much about we talk a lot about successes.

We don't talk about failures and sacrifices.

And so, and then I think it was like after I had like a healthy

handful of licenses, I finally brought on outside investors who

wrote big checks. And yeah.

And then I ran, I ran that company for about 12 years.

It definitely got to a point where it was too big for me to

lead. It was too complex.

I was just on another podcast earlier today and she said it

right. Like founders or?

Not CE OS necessarily in certain industries and like had grown it

as much as I could, but I like was not equipped to.

Take it from company to corporation, if that makes

sense. Yeah.

Yeah. Bitter.

It was bittersweet to step down, but like every other sick and

twisted serial entrepreneur, I already had something else in

the works. So I'm like, it's OK, I'll move

on to my lid. I'll move on to my plastic lid.

Oh, man, that's great. That's great.

So what you said there reminded me.

Dave Ramsey often says after 20 hours of or 20 years of really

hard work, all of a sudden you're an overnight success.

And I. Think you know?

Yeah, like you said, no. Nobody sees the the months, the

years without a paycheck. Nobody sees the investment.

Nobody sees the sacrifice, they just see the win at the end and

they've all got their little comment about how it must be

nice they they didn't see the work that it took to get there.

Yeah, you got they got lucky. They that's my favorite.

They got lucky. It's like, OK, no, you create

your own luck, right? Luck didn't have a lot to do

with it. Luck wasn't there at 3:00 in the

morning when I was still working.

Luck wasn't there when I put all of my savings into.

It exactly. It's yeah, I say all the time,

like. Success stories are boring to

me. I think failures are fascinating

because you can't have one without the other.

One leads to the other. So, yeah, I mean, there's, there

was a lot of failing and like scary times leading up to yeah,

that that day that we've got our giant Amazon purchase order and

you're like, it's, it's like from a movie.

You're it's like all the years. It's like a montage in your

head. You're going through all that

you went through to get to that point.

And it's an incredible feeling. That's awesome.

Well, that leads into my next question here.

At what point were you most afraid, and what were you afraid

of? Oh gosh.

So with the first business. I definitely was most afraid

when we took on. We got to a point where we

raised friends and family money, then we wait, raised private

investor money and then we took on a bank loan.

And that was probably the scariest for me because, you

know, it's one thing to fail and like lose investor money.

They're they're used to losing money, right?

They win some, they lose some. You know that you're probably an

investor. Do they like it?

No, but it's kind of baked into their business model.

Well, bank loans aren't that way.

And I just remember we, we took on bank debt like an SBA loan

and we were growing rapidly and we just didn't have access to

enough money. And I thought like this bank

financing is going to put us out of business.

All, everything I've grown up to this point because it's not that

we didn't have customers, right? We like, we just weren't

properly capitalized for like the trajectory of growth that we

were on. And that was a really scary

point for me. And actually, it LED up to me

kind of stepping down and exiting because my investors and

I disagreed on the path to growth.

Really, really scary because you look at something that you've

built that could be gone overnight.

You know, if we take on all this business and we can't fulfill

it, we can't pay the bank loan back.

Like that's all scary stuff. And it was definitely new

territory for me. But I mean, again, it, it all

ended up fine, thankfully. I know that there's a lot of

companies who take on debt and they go bankrupt.

I've had friends who have businesses that have, you know,

been in that such a situation and that wasn't us, but it was

definitely like kind of a scary fork in the road for us and with

the business and definitely stepping down and like moving on

to something else that was kind of scary.

You know, I've been doing it for 12 years.

I had like everything into it and to like walk away was kind

of scary. But it in hindsight, it was

time. OK.

Well, that's a great segue to lead into what came next.

I I know you got something going on with the lid here.

You want to tell us a little more about that?

Yeah. So I'm an inventor.

Creator like a unfortunately I'm still dealing with maybe some

drama over my creation of this lid but again, like many

entrepreneurs, whether you're providing a service or a product

you're. Solving a problem.

And at this point my second daughter was 2 years old and

going out to eat, I was just like, if anyone has kids out

there, like if grandkids or nieces and nephews, like the

toddlers just spill everything when we go out to eat with the

kids cups, the restaurant kids cups.

And I just remember like, you know, they would bring out a cup

in a straw and she would tip it up because that's what she does

with her sippy cup at home. And I thought, why don't they

have like they have disposable lids for adults?

Like why don't they have disposable lids for kids?

Like they're, they make a path to population.

And so I'm like, surely this already exists.

It sounds pretty common sense, right?

Well, like I said, with any industry, I've got to check a

few boxes and it's like, does it exist first of all, or is there

like major competition kind of with a similar product?

And then is the volume really high?

And I, I was just shocked to find I couldn't find anything

like what I was thinking in my head.

And then I, and then once I started designing it, I thought

this is truly like a billion dollar concept.

And I'm not saying that like flippantly consumption in

plastics and particularly cups and lids isn't in the multi

billions worldwide every year. And this was a strawless lid for

kids around a time when the world was like going strawless.

And so it was pretty serendipitous.

I'm like, Oh my God, I have a billion dollar idea.

And I was so excited about it and found an engineer.

I found an Arrow. He's like an aeronautical

engineer. He built airplanes and he was

referred to me, but I think he had like a 3D printer or

something. And so he helped me design the

prototype. I found another engineer who

perfected it. Yeah.

I went and got a design patent on it.

And God, I've never been so excited about a product in my

life. I pretty easily raised capital

for it. I mentioned the business owner

before with the church. I had met him through politics,

pitched him on the concept. He loved it and signed on like

right away. And again, another industry that

takes a lot of money, a lot of money plastics.

So yeah. And I.

Kind of got a knack for that. Yeah, I want to make money.

I want to make money, you know what I mean?

And it's like, and honestly, we kind of laugh about it, but the,

the the reward has to outweigh the risk.

And the risk is kind of immeasurable.

I mean, if you really think about it, it's, it's just, it's

not only putting your assets and your own money into something,

it's putting your energy into it.

It's putting your psychological health into it.

It's at the expense of time with your family.

So in my mind, you know, and that is different for every

entrepreneur and business owner. But for me, I was interested in

building generational wealth. I don't come from generational

wealth. And I, you know, felt very

gratifying to me to know that maybe I could secure few, you

know, my future kids and grandkids and great grandkids,

like they're, they just have a head start at life like I was

really. And I'm, I am really into that.

And so in the financial freedom component, we have such a small

time on this earth. I want to spend it with family

doing what I want. I mean, I'll probably work till

I die, but like, you can't put value on that either.

So anyway, that's kind of why I invested in the lid.

I think after raising capital pretty quickly, that was like a

justification in my mind that it was a valuable product.

Raising money is very hard and especially for women, like it's

just impossible. And so I thought, OK, I have a

really good product here. So unfortunately my story gets

sad because once I started, you know.

You create something novel, you really kind of keep it under

wraps as long as you can, but you get to a point where you

it's, you have to start selling it, you have to start marketing

it and you got to expose it a little bit.

Every protection in place. Like I had a design patent, Ndas

were signed, but that's sometimes that's not enough.

And so I started sort of shopping sales reps and all I

know is is I met with a sales Rep who represented like a major

domestic plastics competitor. I say competitor, I was nobody.

And they're like a billion dollar corporation, but like,

you know what I mean? Like plastics company that was

like operating in the same lane. And all I know is I met with

this guy and like 3 months later, a copycat product was in

market. I lost my investor.

I was out of business overnight, out of out of business

overnight. And so every attorney I spoke to

was like, you don't have a patent case because the

products, even though they're very, very similar, if they look

different, they look just different enough.

You can't go after anyone who's knocked off your product.

That was a really hard lesson for me to learn.

So, you know, my husband and I, we sold our house, we put every

asset we had into this product. We were that passionate about

it. And it was as kind of like

overnight it was, I was out of business and having just grown a

business, I mean, I had not obviously never experienced

this. Like it was a huge set back.

So I kind of went away for two years.

I'm like, there's nothing I could do.

I'm just kind of thinking what can I do next?

In the meantime, my family and I moved and it wasn't until like a

few years ago that I was just kind of searching the Internet

for like the copycat product just to see if they were still

selling it. And I saw that the corporation

had not only gotten their design patent on my design, they got a

utility patent. And so for, I'm assuming your

listeners maybe don't know a ton about patents, but if you create

something, there's two kinds of protections you can get.

You can get a design patent that protects how it looks kind of

worthless in my opinion, if you get a utility patent that

protects how a product functions, if that said like a

whole other layer of protection from infringement.

And so because our lids, even though mine looked a little bit

different because they function the same.

Even if I wanted to say, you know what, I'm going to compete

with these guys because my product is better, I now legally

can't. I mean, they could sue me for

patent infringement. They could take all my sales.

They could put me out of business again.

And that really lit a fire under me because I thought I know that

they got their hands on my product inappropriately and they

took it. And that's my design.

That is my life that I put into that.

And I started calling attorneys again.

God, it's, that's the worst. I can't even tell you how many

attorneys told me no because attorneys like love to say like

you don't have a case. They love to say I'm expensive.

They love to say like, you know, or they don't want to go after a

big corporation. So it was really emotionally

tolling, but I finally found some attorneys who were like,

you know, you don't have a patent case, but like, you have

claims here, like you have trade secret theft claims, you have

breach of contract claims. I had no idea what any of this

was. And so I and I went straight to

the corporation and told them what happened to me and they

said, OK, we'll investigate it. Meanwhile, I hired an attorney

or a couple attorneys to kind of pursue these claims.

And so at this point, and if your listeners are familiar with

statue limitations, I was like 8 months away from my ability to

file a lawsuit if I if I chose. And so I hired an attorney and

for like 6 months we just were, we were disagreeing a lot on my

case and he was billing me a lot of money.

This is a big law firm. And I just was like I started to

get really suspicious. Like I just felt like at every

turn that we maybe had an advantage, he would turn it into

like a disadvantage or like no, that we don't have that claim

anymore. And like it was just that

constantly. So towards the end of his

representation of me, my suspicion was at its highest.

And suddenly out of nowhere, I'm terminated as a client by the

law firm. And they don't explain why.

And I'm super bummed about it because now I'm less than 90

days away from my statue limitations and I got to start

all over with another attorney against this multi billion

dollar corporation. And so I found another attorney

who's like, OK, I'm really interested in your case.

Let me talk to the former partner on your case.

I want to get his thoughts. I'm like, yeah, sure.

Here's his name, here's his number.

Well, that attorney calls me back in an hour and says the

partner on your case is working for the law firm now that

represents the corporation. So the entire time he's

representing me, he's negotiating employment with

opposing counsels firm. And it's like, did I walk under

like, because now I'm like, did I walk under a ladder when I was

little? Like now like I'm dealing with

the betrayal and losing my product and all of that.

And now I've lost my case. I mean, how am I going to hire

an attorney? What?

I'm going to go to a lawyer and say, can you take on my case in

the next 90 days? Oh, and by the way, the partner

on my case was negotiating with like, I don't know what's been

exposed. So at this point I took matters

into my own hands and I filed A lawsuit pro SE, meaning

unrepresented by an attorney, against my attorney and against

the law firm. Subsequently, I hired an

attorney. So now I'm represented, but I'm

in a lawsuit against the corporation and then all the

lawyers involved and all the law firms involved.

And it's been a three-year process.

The legal system is no joke. And you know, I'm I'm not

telling this story. So I'm out promoting a lot,

including my case, because there are so many creators, inventors,

business owners that are victims of some kind of corporate

conduct that puts them out of business.

And for like every one of me that fights like so many go

away. And so, and I don't want to

scare any listeners too from starting a business, but there's

also just things I would have done, extra protections I would

have put into place that maybe would have mitigated this level

of like litigation. So it's a really sensational

crazy story. Unfortunately, I'm going through

it, but I thought I'm going on your three and like, how can't

like every entrepreneur, how can I turn a negative into a

positive while I'm waiting for this legal mess to wrap up?

You know, I'm anxious to start another business, but I can only

do one thing at a time. And unfortunately, I've been

battling this for, yeah, just too many months.

So, So definitely I've come out of it as an entrepreneurial

advocate, want to be a sounding board for anyone who's maybe

going through something similar, has gone through something,

maybe is in kind of my spot and doesn't know what to do, doesn't

know where to turn. And I'm here to say that, like,

expensive litigation shouldn't scare you.

And it's not even the only solution.

Like there's so many other avenues to, you know, righting

the wrong. And so, yeah, my, all because I

wanted to just sell a lid, Eric. It's like, insane.

I just wanted to sell a sippy cup lid.

Yeah. Oh, man.

And so, you know, it seems like you got hit pretty hard with a,

a right and a left there being taken advantage of by a a sales

Rep and then an attorney. You said there there's a lot of

lessons you've learned and things you would have done

differently. Could you expand on that a

little bit? What I mean, how can an inventor

protect themselves better and avoid being taken advantage of

like that? Yeah, so definitely I got bad

legal advice in the beginning, my patent attorney, because, you

know, we kind of giggled about just how common sense my lid

seemed. But it really what it was pretty

novel. It was globally, globally

unique. And she, she actually tried to

talk me out of a design patent because she said surely this has

to exist. And I'm like, I promise it

doesn't. And I want to get a design

patent. And she was shocked when I got I

got the design patent in the United States.

I got a design patent in the European Union.

And so it truly was globally unique and I wouldn't have

gotten the patent if it wasn't. And so she said, don't go for

the utility patent. It's it's expensive.

It takes a long time and you probably won't get it.

It's much harder to get. And it's like, and I fell in

line with that advice. And that was a big mistake

because the corporation went and got a utility patent on it.

And so that's just like, you know, a very elementary, like,

what would I have done differently?

But I do, I kind of use the analogy when we have a business

or we have an invention or creation that we want to

protect. I kind of use a, a castle

analogy because people are like, I was just on a podcast where

he's like, my listeners want to know, how do you build a boat of

protection? And so then I built this entire

castle analogy, which is like, well, a castle has walls.

Walls are important, critical. It can be knocked over and those

walls to me are like NDA's if you're sourcing overseas,

they're called NNN agreements or NDASNNNS or patents, right?

Not really bulletproof, but critical.

Still have to do it. Well then you know the castle

has a bridge and the bridge is like give it's like who has

access to you or who has access to your product?

Who has access to your internal materials and you're in control

of that bridge. And that's a critical

protection. So like in my in my situation,

believe it or not, I actually had a exact same situation with

my apparel company where a corporation got their hands on

some of my internal materials and they tried to knock off my

designs and they went to my factory.

And so as I'm yeah, I know. So as I'm talking about the

bridge and who you're controlling, who has access to

you, like I tell everyone, if you're in the like early stages

of a business or creation, like keep everything really low as

local as possible. My engineer was 20 minutes down

the road from me. I didn't go search for the best

firm that way, you know, if he did anything to me like that,

Well, first of all, those guys, they're part of your community,

they're your neighbor. He's a fellow Ohio.

And like they take those NDA seriously.

It's their business, it's their reputation.

So like I'd say I tell everyone to keep everything like as local

and close as possible when you're outsourcing anything.

I sourced overseas, but I found a smaller factory that rather

than a big factory with reputation with big customers, I

found a factory who saw my product.

I sold them on my product and we I sold them on growing together.

So when I found out that company was doing what they were, I mean

I found out from my factory, they came to me, they honored

our agreement, right? Instead of they could have

easily taken on both customers, but no, like they were small

enough that they saw value in me and that we could grow together

and that protected me from that piracy.

If we're talking about the Moat, in my mind, the Moat is the most

powerful protection you can have out in free terrain where

competition is like the Wild West and like, how do you keep

people out, right? And for me, that's just, it's

just brand equity and customers that are loyal to you.

That takes time to build, but that's your greatest protection

when you have brand equity. That's not something that even

the largest competitor can replicate, right?

And so sales and marketing, sales, I said, I say sell, sell,

sell like that. I keep saying brand equity, but

like that reputation and market with your customers is your

greatest protection. So have you seen this product?

Is it out to market yet or? Are they selling it?

Oh, yeah, they're selling it. Yeah, I mean, they are.

So the company that produced the copycat product has since been

acquired by another plastics company.

So, and that plastics company who are the defendants are

private equity backed. So we're talking about like

money on the most giant level, right?

And power at insane levels. And so, yeah.

And doing research like they had, you know, these companies

put out annual reports for their investors and like my my

products right there. They're like massively investing

in it as part of their whatever growth plans.

And yeah, I know that. I know it's out there.

Obviously they're a private company, so their sales are

proprietary like we wouldn't, we don't really know how.

I just know I've seen them in like large distributors.

It's a bummer. Oh man, yeah, that has to be so

disheartening and have such an amazing idea and an industry

changing idea and lose it out of your fingertips like that.

Yeah, it's, I have to be honest, when I first saw the copycat

product, I my, my first reaction was not panic because first of

all, I thought my design patent was going to protect me.

Obviously it did not. And I learned that very quickly.

But at first I'm like, well, I have a design patent and I'm

actually kind of flattered. I mean, companies of that size

don't. And I, I was, so I was flying

under the radar. It's not.

Like, I was out there selling widely.

So even if they got their hands on it inappropriately and took

it that way, like I was like, OK, I have a little bit of

swagger. Like they obviously like I

created something really cool. And it wasn't until, you know,

obviously I lost my investor. I think it just spooked him

obviously and you know that I saw it in market that and knew

found out my design patent like wasn't going to protect me was

disheartening. But at first I was.

I was honestly kind of proud. I'm like, I mean, I created

something really cool that you obviously wanted really badly.

Yeah. So what what does the path

forward look like from here? Do you have, I mean, what it

what is your level of confidence moving forward with your suit

and and what does that path look like?

Well, I know, so we have two different lawsuits right now.

They're both pending, just pending different motions.

I am confident that it will resolve in my favor because the

truth always finds a way of coming to the of the truth

always has a way of surfacing. And so I'm confident that

justice will be. Done on a sort of larger

fantastical scale. I would love to change the

conversation surrounding what I would.

Call like inappropriate growth of companies on the backs of

creators. If we can even change a little

bit a part of that ecosystem, I'd be thrilled.

I use the the analogy a lot. Like in this country, we have

antitrust laws and that's to prevent like, giant corporations

from buying each other up and like just becoming too powerful

at the expense of the consumer. But like, there's really no, but

that kind of stuff is happening behind the scenes kind of at a

slower pace, just, you know, creating on the backs of of

smaller, underrepresented business owners.

And they're growing their business that way.

Some corporations will blatantly knock off your patent because

they'll they're betting that you don't have $2,000,000 to

litigate it in court. And it's like, can we just have

this conversation where that's not right?

I don't think we talked. About it enough and I it is.

Scary. I mean, I get that it's scary

for, you know, a regular Joe who has started a business and maybe

this has happened to at the hands of really large, powerful

corporations and they're not interested in, you know,

battling that. I think it's a conversation we

need to have just protecting compassionate about the patent

process. I think it's way too complex I

think. That it's way too much of a

behemoth of an institution that favors corporations and not

small business owners and not small creators.

And that's a shame. I mean, no one should be, you

know, no one should be stopped from pursuing financial freedom

through creating because they're afraid of this conduct and they

know the system won't protect them.

So I'm passionate about that. I mean, I think there's a lot of

conversations we can have surrounding patent reform.

So really personally started another.

Business going to move on with my life once this resolves, but

go I'm going to continue to keep having that conversation and

advocating for entrepreneurs. So what?

What would be a viable solution? I mean, if if you could rewrite

the laws, rewrite the story, what would that process look

like? What would you like to see

happen? Well, definitely, you know, I,

I'm not an so I'm not an expert in, in patent reform.

I have colleagues that are like on the Hill lobbying for like

legislation on all levels that that fixes, you know, some of

the loopholes there. But I mean, I would like to see

patents more enforceable. I mean, if I'm just really going

to say it as as sort of plainly as possible, I just don't, I

cannot comprehend how you put someone through such an arduous

process that's expensive and then it doesn't protect their

business and it doesn't protect their.

So I mean, I think there's a reforms that can even to design

patents really that, you know, maybe they're a little stricter

on, you know, our ability to either go after copycat products

or just maybe not Willy nilly issue design patents like they

are, you know, if it looks different enough, like I think

I'd like to see reforms around that definitely.

So I'm not a like a legislation geek, but if there was, if there

was legislation that really I would say solves the corporate

piracy issue, right, This kind of conduct in business, I don't

know what that legislation would look like, but there's got to be

something in place. Otherwise it's just not going to

stop corporate bad actors like, you know, and again, like we're

all entrepreneurs, like we are free market capitalists for

sure. But there's a limit to like that

Wild West mentality. And I think the corporations are

still sort of running wild out there and doing what they want

and wielding their power and their money in their favor.

And honestly, I do feel like it's harder than ever to start a

company. You could like to start a small

business, run a small business. No, that dream is still alive.

But if you want to, like, start a company from a creation, the

competition's just too big. Look what happens.

Look what happened to me, you know, from one product.

Like these corporations all started with one product, right?

They all started small. Then none of them were born

overnight and they're just getting bigger and bigger and

bigger and I feel like it's. Harder and harder.

Than ever to achieve that American dream through, you

know, ownership. So kind of a long answer, but

definitely I'd be, I'd like to see some kind of legislation and

lobbying that favors small businesses and creators.

OK, So what advice would you have for a a young person that's

looking to start their own company that that has a product

they're excited about or an idea?

What advice would you give to them?

Yeah. I mean, so I mean, it just

advice obviously depends on what your product is and what the

industry is. I mean, I said it before.

Like the basic, especially now with technology, the basic

protections of Ndas, and even though patents aren't

necessarily enforceable, like you really got to check those

boxes and those are easy boxes to check that it in the

beginning that at least gives you that Peace of Mind as you're

starting to expand your business.

And definitely don't let my story scare you away from, you

know, I mean, I think that even though corporate piracy is

common, I think on this level, it's kind of rare.

I think the greatest advice I could give for someone who's

like, I got a really novel product, I'm afraid someone's

going to take it like fly under the radar as much as you

possibly can. And that goes back to

contracting local, selling local, you know, you're getting

an investor. Find local investors, like try

to fly under the radar as much as possible.

I think the mistake that I made was so I'm going to, I want to

hit market fast and so I'm going to hire a sales Rep and he's

going to get me in as many doors as possible.

Well, you know, he had a corporate client that could

benefit from my product. And I think that my desire to go

big quickly affected my thinking.

It affected really, I think what I'm preaching right now like the

mindset of just staying local and so, but definitely, I mean,

if you have a novel product, it's only a matter of time

before someone's going to try to knock it off again.

Would love to stop that behavior or minimize it.

But until then, your greatest protection can be those sales,

that customer loyal, that loyal customer base and your brand

equity. And at the very least, you could

stay in business. If you've out there, if you, if

you're out there and you've got sales, you know, you can create

something for me, unfortunately, they stopped me before I even

got into market. So find a way to get into market

where you're like really flying under the radar.

That's some good advice. And yeah, I think that, you

know, the, the largest, the greatest democracy in the

history of the world is the free market economy.

All, all of us as consumers vote with every dollar that we spend.

And so, you know, I think educating the consumers about

where they buy from and what they're buying and how it's

sourced and where it comes from. Is it a big piece of that.

And I think, like you said, even encouraging others to do, even

if it is scary, even if it is hard, even with stories like

yours to go for it anyway. You know that that's how we

fight back against the the big corporations taking over is

individuals with great ideas continuing to chase their

dreams. I I think with technology and

social media, it's a great point to yeah, continue to educate

consumers. Like I, I thought my greatest

piece of marketing for my lid was invented by a mom.

Like a corporation can't recreate that, right?

Like invented. By a mom like who solved the

problem. And so it's just things like

that, brand equity like that, especially these days like my

daughter. My daughter's 14.

She's like, mom, don't tell anyone you use ChatGPT because

they'll cancel you overnight. Because like right now, I guess

ChatGPT or AI, the younger generations are like, it's bad

for the it's bad for the environment.

And so that's like the big trend right now.

So to your point, yeah, I mean, you want to be communicating

with your consumers as much as possible.

That's so critical. I can build.

That can make knocking you off pretty irrelevant to a

corporation, yeah. Yeah, Yeah, that's a big deal.

Well, I know you mentioned that you've now started another

company and are are still fighting this legal battle, but

are kind of trying to just move forward, press forward on to the

next thing. You want to tell us a little bit

about that and where did you get the idea?

What is it all about? Yeah, so, well, I have a couple

things I'm doing. I started a film and production

company going back to my college.

Experience. For like a split second, I

considered majoring in film and television and I didn't instead

of going to UCLAI stayed here in Ohio.

But it's always been a passion of mine.

I've always been a writer, obviously a creator.

And at this point in my entrepreneurial journey, I'm

really looking for sort of a legacy business that maybe I can

pass down to my kids. And I, I, I really never had

that mindset before. I wasn't like, oh, I'm going to,

I'm going to build the next like giant apparel company.

I kind of always thought I'm going to grow.

It and sell it right and. Probably the same with my lids

that now I'm kind of in a different phase of life where

like it's something I envision myself doing until I die.

And again, that's that operates for like decades.

And so I started a production company and I've written, I have

a couple unscripted, 1 unscripted series, 2 scripted

series that I've written, hoping to produce those over the next

year after the resolution of the lawsuit, the litigation, really

see it as something I could truly enjoy.

And again, like all of my businesses, I do my research, I,

I study. So I went back to school and I'm

getting my writing and directing certificate because, you know,

I'm not just, this is a different realm.

I can't just jump in like I, it's ridiculous.

Like know what I'm doing. So that's been, yes, I'm the

oldest person in all my college classes, but that's OK.

I really enjoy. It what you said about

education, if, if you have a dream, if you have a goal trade

that you're headed into that education can be invaluable,

but. Oh yeah, just.

Going to school to go to school. Don't do it.

No. No.

Yeah. And it's it's neat.

It's neat to to meet all of the kids in my classes in film and

television because some of them want to go into editing.

Some of them. Wanted to go they want to go

into lighting or not it's not necessarily like acting,

writing, directing there's. So many jobs in the film and

television industry, they probably don't have enough

people to fill those jobs. So really cool area that I'm

super excited about. And then I've also created a

platform called Brain on Loan. And it's literally just that

it's my brain on loan to entrepreneurs, to business

owners, maybe even to non business owners who are maybe

struggling in their life somehow.

I think entrepreneurs and especially I know in my case and

what I've gone through wearing every single hat being in

complex litigation. I think we have, we're extremely

talented at unpacking complicated situations, you

know, organizing through struggle, thinking creatively.

And if I don't want to use the term normal, like if you're a

normal person, maybe that's but if you're a non entrepreneur,

like those are sort of immeasurable talents I think

that entrepreneurs have. And frankly, it comes from us

surviving setbacks and us surviving pain and us surviving

uncertainty and creatively thinking through any challenging

situation. And so I've created this

platform where literally, you know, you can send me questions.

I've already gotten so many questions from entrepreneurs

like you wouldn't believe it. I had one who said my attorney

said not to get a utility patent.

Can you give me advice? I'm like if I can even help one

person like that. Fire your attorney.

OK, they're fired and go apply right now.

So they so you can submit questions to me through my site

and then through my on air through my own podcast.

Like I'll kind of go through those through my political

career and through my business career.

All through my business, I've just met really fascinating

people, most of which I'd like to have as guests on the show

that can just like give their perspective on any given topic.

I don't really don't like to call it an advice podcast as

much as it's free knowledge. I don't want anyone to not start

a business because they don't know where to start.

They don't know how to start an LLC.

They don't know how to copyright or trademark their logo.

Like don't go buy an expensive business consulting package.

Come to me with your question. I just know that I had so many

questions in the past that and I had nowhere to turn to, like get

those answers, you know? But everyone has a mentor in

business. So I'm just hoping to be that.

And again, like I said, spend my time positively just giving

back. Yeah, that's awesome.

Is that something you would be looking to expand and maybe

bring on other consultants and and have a team of people

working it? Yeah, I haven't.

You know, I, I've kind of been looking at brain on loan as like

sort of a philanthropic thing. I I am not looking at it as a

like a business. Maybe it can like turn into that

if, you know, if it helps anyone in any way, I'm thrilled if it

grew into something bigger, that just means that I'm reaching

more ears and I'd be really happy about that.

And I think that's a really good point.

Yeah, like to bring on maybe other if I'm not available even

or people that would know more than me in some respect, like to

bring on other consultants that could help, that would be

amazing too. But I really just rooted in like

helping others. Yeah, yeah, that, that sounds

like a great idea to me. Sorry, my brains kind of

spinning now hearing that idea of, you know, you could have a,

a virtual board of directors and, you know, the, the whole

fractional, fractional assistant fractional CEO thing is kind of

taken off. And so to have, you know, a

fractional board of directors of other business leaders that can,

you know, weigh in, give advice, give some ideas that might be

great. Because I found just I recently

sold a company that I ran for 12 years and now I'm kind of

advising the new owners. And there's a lot of situations

that I'm finding when I'm emotionally removed, when it's

not my company anymore. Yeah, the decisions become so

much clearer. Yeah.

When you're in the middle of it, you know the right decision, but

the right decision is so hard. And sometimes you just need

somebody else that's not emotionally charged, that's not

emotionally in it to step back and say, OK, like this is hard,

but this is the right decision. This is the right path.

That's such an excellent point. I think you're going to be on my

board of directors. That's such an excellent point.

Because I've said this. On a number of my appearances.

Too that like, what's an important trait for a business

owner? Definitely.

That is being honest with yourself throughout every aspect

of the business. Don't lie to yourself if things

aren't going well because you know, entrepreneurs don't want

to give up ever. And there are there are

situations where you have to pivot or or give it up and start

something new. I have a friend who has a

business out in California and once I promoted that I was

starting this platform, she reached out to me right away and

she's like, the business is I'm pushing a boulder up a hill by

myself. It's affecting my health.

I can't keep doing it. What do I do?

And I got on the phone with her and I said, you're, you got to

be honest with yourself and you got to tap out, sell the

business, do something else. This is not logistically working

for you. You're not equipped to grow it

in a way that you're envisioning it in your head.

And by the way, it's taking a toll on your health.

And so I think that it's really important that as much as you

can as when you're in the middle of the tornado of a business

that you're trying to think objectively.

And to your point, that may not be.

An option and that's why I hope my platform can provide that

option. I was that sounding board for.

I was that objective. Cut it, sell the business.

And she's like, you know what, you're right.

So yeah, I just don't think it exists enough out there.

There's definitely not enough. I would say you know platforms

where you can get sure you can put anything into ChatGPT but

like to get real life experiences, get advice based

and experience in business from a start up perspective.

Yeah, I love that idea and the the brain on loan to to have a

board or a council of people with a lot of different

backgrounds and different experiences and you know, could

speak into different types of businesses, different

situations. That's a fantastic idea.

We given your experience, you might have to edit this out of

the podcast. Make sure we don't broadcast

that somebody else will copy that idea.

I know I'm like, who's going to copy brain on loan?

Let's see. I'll just wait for it to happen,

you know? Yeah.

Oh, man. Well, at least you got the name

down. That's perfect.

I love Brain on loan. That's nobody can take that.

Now pick by brain. That's right.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, that I know we're, we're

rolling back quite a bit, kind of going out of the agenda here.

But that brings me back to, I wanted to circle back and talk

about stepping down from your original business.

I'm sure that was an exciting time and emotional time.

There's loss there was stepping out of the leadership role, kind

of giving that up, handing it over to somebody else, but

probably exciting to, to celebrate what you had built and

that it, it became something bigger than maybe you could

handle. Can you tell us a little bit

about the the conflicting emotions and maybe the process

of deciding to do what you did there?

Yeah, I so I ran the company out of Columbus, OH.

Columbus is a it's a smaller town, you know where this is not

Manhattan. So it's a, it's a smaller

community and. I'm from Wyoming so that sounds

pretty big to me, but. OK, yeah, it's definitely bigger

than Wyoming, but yeah, so I I was, I became a little bit well

known or the, and the company did throughout town and

throughout the state. And so I think there was like a

lot of surprise went like we got a lot of media surround and we

had like some celebrities with our stuff on and things like

that. And like, so when news broke

that they were kind of handing over the reins to someone else,

I definitely got like surprise responses and I took that sort

of negatively, like I had failed because like I was a failure

because I couldn't like keep growing it.

So there was definitely that a little bit of a, a feeling of

embarrassment and failure. I wouldn't say I, I felt overly

negative. I wasn't angry or bitter about

it because I think deep down inside, like I was so spent, you

know, I was so spent. And if and I again, so going

back to just being, it's really important to like be honest with

yourself. And the idea that I could harm

the company in any way because of my inability to run it is

like not something I could stomach.

But it was definitely like, I felt kind of like part of my

identity was gone for sure because I've been doing it for

12 years. And yeah, like you said, 120

hours a week. And, and also a fear of like, I

felt really blessed that I grew what I was able to grow in an

impossible industry as a startup.

And I think I was kind of scared about like, am I going to be

able to do that again? And I can even thinking back

now, those feelings are still really raw.

Like I, there was definitely a fear there of was that my only

chance? Like did I get lucky with that?

And it didn't like really manifest into what I envisioned

it like financially for myself. And a difficult time for sure,

for sure. But I just said this on my my

debut podcast where every week I kind of drop something of value

to my listeners. And I just think there's so much

excitement in starting something new that it very quickly pulled

me out of that mindset. It very quickly pulled me out of

that like kind of bittersweet feeling.

And I, I, I was like young again.

I just was like invigorated. I was fearless.

I, it was just exciting. It was like a new fresh start.

So I think really important for maybe anyone that that's out

there that's at the end of their business or they're struggling

with it and they know they should sell it, but they really

can't let go. There's something really bright

on the other side for sure. I am living proof of proof of

it. And starting something new and

mastering something new just brings pleasure to life.

It just does. So just, yeah, grateful that I

had another idea that kind of yanked me out of that.

That's awesome. And so for the from the more

mechanical side of that, I mean did you exit all of your equity

position, did you maintain some ownership?

What did that look like? Stepping the way I exited my

equity position and in return for like I was, I'd personally,

what's the word I'm looking for? Sorry, Like I was on, I was on

the banknote. I was on the bank like for Yeah.

Personal guarantee. I yeah, I personally guarantee

the note. So it was like I got out of it

debt free. But that's, I mean, that's

scary. We're talking 7 figure debt.

Yeah. So I got out of it debt free,

but I didn't walk away with equity and I did definitely

didn't walk away with cash or anything like that.

I mean, I walked away with my experience of running the

business. That's it.

OK. So if you could go back and do

things differently or structure things differently, would you?

Or were you happy with that result and excited about how it

went? Yeah, a couple things I would

have done. I never would have taken on bank

debt. I, I wish we would have kind of,

we would have gone the equity route and brought on because the

bank was not, it just wasn't, it just wasn't enough money, first

of all, and banks are. They're just more rigid than I,

than equity, you know what I mean?

And that can affect your business.

That can affect how you run your business, the decisions you

make, the growth. Plans so I definitely wouldn't

have taken on bank debt and I 1000% wish once things started

picking up that I hired ACEO. That had experience particularly

in apparel and growing companies because founders and CE OS are

different and CE OS are much more disciplined than

entrepreneurs. I wasn't disciplined enough and

how I ran the business for sure. And I think that you know some

of my decision making and wanting to grow it like we we

just, we were growing too fast. We were growing in a way that we

weren't capitalized for. And so, yeah, if I could go

back, I think. Had I hired someone, I still

would have exited in some way because I knew I wasn't going to

keep running, that I knew I wanted to do other things.

And it's such a complex business that it was kind of life

sucking. But maybe I still would have

retained equity in that, you know, and it could have grown

into just even a small ish investment that was just always

there. But again, you know, and I beat

myself up a little bit, but. And I was 26 when I started

that. And like, I think you're going

to not know a lot of things. So I've lightened up on myself a

little bit. Well, that's good.

It sounds like an incredible success and incredible

experience and and now has led to bigger things so.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Brighter things on the other

side of it for sure. Good deal.

Yeah, that bank that an investor can take kind of an IOU, the

promise of hey, we're using this money to grow, but that bank

requires a payment every month and well, they don't accept IO

us. They don't.

And you know, if you're a fast growing startup, regardless of

the industry, it's kind of expected that you operate at a

loss if you're growing and banks don't want to see losses.

So it's like. No, it just wasn't the right

funding mechanism for our business.

OK. So if you I had to start over

from scratch tomorrow and start a new business, what would that

be? That's a loaded question because

at any given time I have like so many.

Well, I'm not going to give you my business idea.

I was going to say for the for the gal who has had her ideas

stolen and been taken advantage of, that's probably not a fair

question. Yeah.

All I'm going to tell you is I 1000% of other businesses that

I'm going to do not. OK.

And other products, I'm going to do that.

I'll tell you offline, but I'm not going to tell your listeners

because someone will take it. Someone will take it.

But I I do have one. Would it be you've kind of done

2 businesses in more the the product in the things, are you

still interested in kind of a a product business or would you

learn more towards the service business?

Actually this one that I have in mind, which again would be just

in my mind like a side hustle would not be a business that I

would be equipped to run, But and you know, I'm invested in my

production company, but it's such a good idea that I can't

let it go. And it actually is a combination

of the two which I've never done, service, Service and

product, OK. Yeah, interesting.

Yeah, that'll be interesting to see.

Yeah. This is my favorite question I

ask every guest. Are you a person of a particular

faith tradition, and if so, how has that affected your

leadership and the running of your businesses?

Faith is so faith is what got me through everything with both of

both of my businesses and continues to get me through what

I'm going through now. So yeah, I'm going to get, I'm

going to kind of get on my God platform right now because there

is definitely a power stronger than us that has plans for us

and pulls us through difficult times.

And I used to really, I used to feel badly for myself and the

times that I would struggle in my businesses.

And I think my greatest take away from the pain that I've

been in, you know, in growing both my companies is that, you

know, if you have if you're a business owner, like you expect

or anticipate sometimes bad things to happen, you anticipate

setbacks. And I actually have a different

mindset now. My mindset is to happily

anticipate to welcome, to ask for pain, to ask for setbacks,

to ask for failure. That is, that's what that's what

makes us grow as people. And you know, that's those are

God's gifts to us. They honestly are.

And especially with my litigation, I truly have felt

for the first time like I'm fighting really bad actors.

I'm fighting really bad spirits. It's like way beyond my ability

to combat without God by my side and only he has the strength to

fight evil on this level is just how I feel.

And so definitely has gotten me through the best and the worst

times. And it kind of makes, you know,

we, we do giggle. We talk like, oh, I'm here to

make money. If I'm being honest, I just

fantasize about how I can return once I achieve my financial

freedom. How can I, you know, put that

back into the universe in God's name?

And then so I've definitely, I mean, I was raised Catholic,

always been religious, but I would say my relationship with

God is on a completely other level because I think I'm

operating at the high stakes, highest stakes game that is, you

know, massively in his hands. And so for sure it plays a huge

role. I think anyone who's successful

in any way in their lives and they are religious attributed to

God, I just don't know. There's no other explanation.

There's no other explanation. I mean, it's just wild stuff.

So if you are religious, thinking about becoming

religious, He delivers. He will deliver your dreams if

you believe. Spread His word.

OK. And I know you're working on

your production company. You said you have a few series

kind of in the works. Do you have a timeline or

release platform? Is there something we could look

forward to seeing some of your creations hitting the market?

Yeah, I have a so I have a director lined up that I

wouldn't say lined up because we haven't, we're like not under

contract or anything, but someone I really have in mind

who's so. Talented and an established

director. I'm not going to direct my

series. What I've written is something

loosely based on my experience as a female entrepreneur, which

is drama, but it's also comedy. I mean, some of the things I've

experienced are just purely comedic.

And so that's my scripted series, and I hoping that we can

start filming by the end of the year.

What I want to do is film a pilot, sell the show.

That way, you know, we maybe have the financial backing to

like, really see it through. It would be an expensive

production. And again, you know, I'm in the

early stages of this business. I've never written, directed or

produced anything. So I'll just be like that

producer who's sort of learning as I go, but very, very

passionate about the series. It's it's very personal to me.

And so, yeah, probably, I wouldn't, I say we probably

wouldn't see anything until maybe later next year.

Those things take time. Well, I will be excited to learn

more about that. And I know you've got a lot of

things in the works. You're you're coaching and it

was it lend your brain. Oh, brain on loan, brain on.

Loan, Brain on Loan, there we go.

So if some of our listeners want to take advantage of the

resources you have available, maybe find you at Brain on Loan,

what is going to be the best way to get a hold of you or get a

hold of those resources? Yeah, Brain on loan.com, right?

It's just a one, well, A2 page website, but just right there on

the landing page, you can submit your question comes right to my

e-mail inbox and and I reply to everyone and I say, hey, I'll

let you know when I air it, when I answer it and like listen to

the upcoming episode and hopefully obviously I want to

answer their question, but I'm just hoping that other listeners

have that same question. And so we're just kind of

spreading the goodness that way and that advice.

OK. And is the the podcast brain on

loan as well if they want to search and find that?

OK, awesome. Well, I will make sure we get

all of that in the show notes so they can link right there and

and get to you and all the resources you have available.

Is there somebody that you'd like to see on our show?

Somebody you know that has a unique story, a unique business,

somebody that you'd like to learn more about?

Oh, on your show, I mean, I think there's a lot of people

I'd love to see on your show. I don't think that.

I mean, maybe no one that you would know or your listeners

would know, but maybe that I. Know I know great.

I know some great guests for your show for sure.

OK, well I might reach out and see if you could make your

introduction. I'm always interested in a

unique story, a great story, and just learning more from people

with awesome experiences and stories to tell.

Yeah, Yeah. I think that again, that that

story about financial freedom has so many layers to it.

It could be starting a business. It could also be buying a

business. You don't have to create.

You could, you know, if it's a, if it's a, by the way, don't be

afraid of bank debt. I mean, banking bank debt is

perfect for all kinds of businesses.

And if you want to, you know, go buy, like, like I said, like a

local heating and cooling company where the guys just aged

out and he's ready to retire. Like that's a path to financial

freedom, right? So I think that, gosh, that's, I

mean, that we could have a conversation for days about how

to achieve that financial freedom.

It's not just about, you know, going to college and and getting

a degree and working in sales, Like it's so much more than

that. Yeah.

So what what is your view on that?

Do you feel like there's more opportunity now than there has

been before? Is the American Dream still

alive? Are are corporations taking all

over and ruling everything? Or is there still opportunity

for the young person that wants to do their own thing?

No, I mean, I definitely. Think, I think in the services

business and the services industry, I think there's still

tons of opportunity there. I think that in certain consumer

product categories, there's tons of opportunity there.

I definitely harder than ever to build a company from a product,

absolutely. But would I advise someone to do

that? Sure.

But I would just say now more than ever, you just want to make

sure you're properly capitalized, right?

And like you have not only money to develop the product and to

sell the product, but to, to take on a corporation.

If if you've been pirated in that litigation and be willing

to fight that fight. And I think in because, because

that's the ugly truth that's a little bit harder to build, but

it's definitely in services and maybe small product categories.

And again, like, I think there's a lot of small businesses out

there that are up for acquisition.

And, you know, then you don't have to start something from

scratch. You can grow it.

Yeah. So no, I think the American

Dream is definitely still alive in that respect.

Well, thank you so much for joining us here.

You really do have an incredible story, man.

I, I wish you the best of luck and I'm really pushing for you

in your legal battle and I'll be excited to, to watch your series

when it comes out and, and see what comes next.

You just seem full of ideas and energy and enthusiasm and you're

definitely somebody to watch to see what happens next.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

At any given time, I have like a million business ideas in my.

SO even if you have listeners who are like I want to start a

business, this is my interest, hit me up.

I could probably think you up a business in 5 minutes.

It's just a. Weird ability I have, I don't

know. Yeah, it's it's the

entrepreneur's curse. We're always thinking of

something new, something different.

And we're really good at starting things, not always

following through, so. Thank you.

Yeah, yeah. It's just a a different kind of

mindset. That's right.

Wonderful and thank you guys for joining us here on from the

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