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

Hey there and welcome to From the Ground Up Show,

the show where we encourage and inspire the next generation of free thinking leaders

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Today, I am 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, Amanda developed and patented

a spill-proof lid, an 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.

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

Awesome. Well, we're excited.

Where's that energy?

We're excited to hear how you did it.

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So we like to start every interview clear at the beginning.

Do 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,

Ohio, good old Midwest. Grew up in a really family friendly town,

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.

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 saw my parents kind of living that rat race of life.

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 no interest in that. 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.

have a couple lawyers in my family,

took one pre-law class. I'm like,

nope, absolutely not. Not for me.

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 a history professor who kind of became,

Ha ha.

I became friends with and she's like,

what are you going to do after this?

I 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,

okay, volunteer not ideal. Cause 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 would host our events could pass

for like the plumber. You know what I mean?

They're just salt of the earth,

Yeah.

like amazing people and innovators.

And I think that was the first time,

cause I've always kind of been a creator in my mind,

but

It was the first time that I

saw entrepreneurship manifesting into financial

freedom and into a life. 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'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.

Yeah.

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

was taking on clients. I think that was maybe technically my first business.

I wasn't working for a corporation.

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. Yeah, at the age of 26.

So.

Okay. man. Well, you mentioned that you went to college and got

by your own declaration kind of a useless degree and had some student loans that

Completely.

you had to pay off 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.

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 gonna 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 gonna leave soon for college

and I was gonna 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 am not playing volleyball anymore

and I think it's a waste of money.

I want to 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 gonna probably, you know,

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 technology these days and taking people's jobs,

I think it's too risky. I think it's too risky.

Yeah.

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.

yeah, mean, that teachers are so important,

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

You know, have three kids at school,

Yeah.

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.

Okay, maybe it helped a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, but like you said,

a lot of the tools that are available now,

know spell check changed my life when that started being included in everything.

Uh huh.

And now with AI everywhere, you can polish things up without losing your voice

and makes even the writing process a lot easier.

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

I have AI and chat GPT. I think it's great.

I think

it's an amazing tool. It needs to be used as a tool.

Mm-hmm.

I think a lot of the technology things,

Exactly.

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

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And creative thought.

thought. ~ I think that's the,

Mm-hmm.

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 ~ 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, 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,

Yep.

I use it as a tool, just like you said.

Yeah.

Yeah. Awesome.

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

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 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, there's multiple layers to it.

Definitely there's that 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 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'm nobody.

But who's my competition in my product category?

And

How large is that market? How reliable is that revenue?

you think everyone's buying team merchandise every year.

They don't even need more team merchandise,

but they're still purchasing it they're purchasing it as gifts.

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

I mean, I'm such a hypocrite. I'm like,

college is useless, but I went and started a collegiate para company.

You

But then you look at like how many schools,

and I was like, whoa, the numbers get big pretty quickly.

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

It's, 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 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 not.

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 going to convince these giant entities,

Yeah.

Ohio State University, that they should license me?

Like that was pretty daunting.

But again, if you have a product or a service that you're passionate about

and you are extremely confident in,

you will take on the largest tornado of whatever business you're starting.

And so that's how I felt. That's how I felt about my product.

yeah, I mean, 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,

be like, hey, get on the bandwagon.

And that's exactly what happened.

So I did end up, 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 terms,

like once you get Ohio State, it's such a big school,

it's such a big market.

that other schools would follow.

And that's exactly what happened and the licensing portfolio just kind

of snowballed from there. yeah,

Okay.

mean, it was, and 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, as an entrepreneur and especially starting something new,

I love that you say you got to fake it till you make it because 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 to get the sale to be able to follow through,

Exactly.

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

It's a cart before the horse scenario,

Yeah.

you know? And that was absolutely in licensing.

Like I had amazing samples that I procured.

they, but now I got to mass produce them.

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

Yeah.

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,

Yeah.

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. Sorry, I'm totally new to apparel.

My background is in the construction industry.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So what does that process look like?

What parts of that process can be outsourced or should be outsourced?

And what parts have you brought in-house?

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

Yeah.

Yeah, so 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 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 make.

And so I had a friend who was a graphic designer.

And I said, hey, would you like for $50,

I don't even know what I'm paid or $50 or $100,

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 originally started trying to find a factory in the States.

I just wasn't successful. There just weren't any factories I could find domestically

that specialized in knits. And so I went overseas,

I sourced overseas, basically just said,

hey, here's my sketches.

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.

Yeah.

I would go buy sweaters. If I liked 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 we just kind of kept doing that back and forth until finally

Yeah.

you get a sample in hand where you're like,

this is it.

Okay, the fit is right, the quality is 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 design around that.

And so when we're talking about like the many skews that we ended up developing,

a lot of it were my original ideas.

Later on, it was just inspired by like mainstream fashion trends.

Yeah,

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that's really interesting. ~ I've never even tried to wrap my head around what that

would look like. Like I said, that's way out of my expertise.

It was hard. 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,

You

there are very talented people.

It's an art, it's complex and kudos to anyone who does it really well,

seriously.

man, ~ restaurants, beverages and fashion,

think are like the percentage of companies that can actually make it

~ went out.

and the number of things you have to put together to really build something

in one of those industries. Man,

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

but restaurants, fashion and beverages stuff,

I'll probably never touch because it takes a lot of work,

Yeah, yeah.

a lot of skill and ~

just kind of perfect timing to make it all work.

That's exactly right. 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 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. And one other thing I wanted to circle back on,

Yeah, highly competitive. Highly competitive.

or maybe just make a comment myself,

you talked about the motivation for starting a company of making money and

I love that. 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.

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 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.

Yeah.

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 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

it is.

using products created by really big companies and that are making a lot of money.

So it's just a really ignorant statement to me.

Money makes the world go round.

We all need money.

does all 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 can't pay your employees well if your products don't make money.

Mm-hmm.

~

Yeah. And the vast majority of

people are not business owners.

They like the stability of a job.

No.

They like a stability of income benefits.

Go out to eat once a week. It would blow their minds,

the lives that we lead and all the risk that we put and everything we

Yeah.

put on the line. so, yeah, companies obviously serve

such an important purpose. And I met so many in Ohio.

I still do meet business owners who are so,

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.

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.

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,

things like that. 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.

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

said, ~ entrepreneurs are, are the only people on earth that will work

120 hours to avoid working 40.

And, ~ yeah,

That's so right. That is, 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 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, signing up for a ride.

so, um, you know, when it works out,

Yeah, it's...

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

a win that benefits society. Those are not people taking advantage of others.

Again, it takes one to know one.

if you have anything bad to say about entrepreneurs creating wealth,

then you haven't gone through the journey.

so maybe keep your thoughts to yourself.

Yeah.

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,

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 friends and family money because apparel

and especially licensed anything just because the sheer number of 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 in.

It's probably why it's such a high barrier industry.

It's not like, well, you know,

maybe I started heating and cooling company and I got to buy a couple of trucks.

It's like you need like seven figures,

you know? And so when we got Ohio State just having that market alone,

I knew I had to 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 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

Yeah.

Because at this point, I had sort of been self-funding the business.

I was doing okay enough in fundraising.

And I had a supportive husband who 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, I went for a long time without a paycheck.

And that was hard. That was hard.

We definitely had to adjust our lifestyle and our life.

Sacrifices, again, 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.

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. Founders are not CEOs necessarily in certain industries.

I had grown it as much as I could,

but I was not equipped to take it from company to corporation,

if that makes sense. ~

Yeah. Yeah.

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 okay, I'll move on to my lid.

I'll move on to my plastic lid.

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

~

~ yeah, you got,

they got lucky. They, I, that's my favorite.

They got lucky. It's like, No,

~ yeah. Luck didn't have a lot to do with it.

you create your own luck, No.

Luck wasn't

there at three o'clock in the morning when I was still working and luck wasn't there

I-

when I put all of my savings into it.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It's a 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 got our giant Amazon purchase order

and you're like,

It's like from a movie. 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?

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 used to losing money, right?

They win some, they lose some.

Yeah.

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 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.

Everything I've grown up to this point,

because it's not that we didn't have customers,

right? We just weren't properly capitalized for the trajectory of growth that

we were on. And that was a really scary point for me.

And actually 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.

Yeah.

But I mean, again, 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 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'd been doing it for 12 years.

Yeah.

I had like everything into it.

And to like walk away was kind of scary.

in hindsight, it was time.

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

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

You want to tell us a little more about that?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, so I'm an inventor creator like I unfortunately am 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 two years old and going out to

eat I was just like

If anyone has kids out there, 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 and 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 up half the 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 was just shocked to find,

I couldn't find anything like what I was thinking in my head.

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 is

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 was pretty serendipitous.

Yeah.

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

And I was.

so excited about it and found an engineer.

He was like an aeronautical engineer.

He built airplanes and he was referred to me,

Okay.

but I think he had like a 3D printer or something.

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,

lot of money, plastics. So yeah,

and I started, yeah,

You've kind of got a knack for that.

I want to make...

I want to make money. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

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

but the reward has to outweigh the risk.

And the risk is kind of immeasurable.

I mean, if you really think about it,

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, in 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.

it felt very gratifying to me to know that maybe

I could secure my future kids and grandkids and great grandkids like they're.

They just have a head start at life.

I am really into that. And the financial freedom component.

Yeah.

We have such a small time on this earth.

I want to spend it with family doing what I want.

I'll probably work till I die,

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,

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. so I thought,

okay, I have a really good product here.

So unfortunately my story gets

sad because once I started,

you know,

You create something novel. really kind of keep it under wraps as long as you can,

but you get to a point where 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,

I met with a sales rep who represented like a major domestic plastics competitor.

I say competitor, I was nobody and they were like a billion dollar corporation,

but like, you know what I mean?

Like plastics company that was like operating in the same lane.

Yeah.

And all I know is I met with this guy and like three months later,

a copycat product was in market.

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

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,

sold our house, we put every asset we had into this product.

We were that passionate about it.

And it was 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 setback.

So I kind of went away for two years.

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.

That's 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, 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.

Yeah.

to me and they said, okay, we'll investigate it.

Meanwhile, I hired an attorney or a couple attorneys

to kind of pursue these claims.

And so at this point, any of your listeners are familiar with statute limitations.

I was like eight months away from my ability to file a lawsuit if I chose.

And so I hired an attorney and

For like six months, 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,

Yeah.

I started to get really suspicious.

I just felt like at every turn that we maybe had an advantage,

he would turn it into like a disadvantage.

like, no, we don't have that claim anymore.

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 statute of 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,

okay, 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 counsel's 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?

now, like I'm dealing with the betrayal and losing my product

and all of that. And now I've lost my case.

mean, how am going to hire an attorney?

I'm going to go to a lawyer and say,

can you take on my case in the next 90 days?

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 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 every one of me that fights,

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 year three and like,

how can, like every entrepreneur,

how can I turn a negative?

into a positive while I'm waiting for this legal mess to wrap up.

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.

Yeah.

definitely have 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,

Erick, it's like insane.

I just wanted to sell a

Yeah.

sippy cup lid. Yeah.

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

and a left there being taken advantage of by a sales rep and then an attorney.

You said 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 we kind of giggled about just how common sense

my lid seemed, but it really was pretty novel.

was globally unique. And 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 it.

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

It's much harder to get. And it's like,

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 a creation that we want to protect.

I kind of use 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,

but can be knocked over. And those walls to me are like NDAs.

If you're sourcing overseas, they're called NNN agreements.

Or NDAs, NNNs, 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.

like in my, in my situation, believe it or not,

I actually had an exact same situation with my apparel company where

a corporation got their hands on some of my internal materials.

Hmm.

and they tried to knock off my designs and they went to my factory.

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 early stages of a business or a creation,

keep everything really 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, if he did anything,

to me like that. First of all,

those guys, they're part of your community.

They're your neighbor. He's a fellow Ohioan.

They take those NDAs seriously.

It's their business. It's their reputation.

I tell everyone to keep everything 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 I sold them on growing together.

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

I 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,

Yeah.

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 most,

In my mind, the mode 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? so sales and marketing,

sales, say, sell, sell, sell,

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? Are they selling it?

yeah, yeah, they're selling

it? Okay.

it. 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 have, 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.

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.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

man.

It's a... I have to be honest.

When I first saw the copycat product,

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.

mean, companies of that size don't...

And 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,

Yeah.

I was like, okay, I have a little bit of swagger.

Like I created something really cool.

And it wasn't until, obviously I lost my investor,

I think it just spooked him, obviously,

and that I saw it in market.

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, what is your level of confidence moving forward with your

suit and what does that path look like?

Well, 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 this,

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 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.

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 smaller underrepresented business owners

and they're growing their business that way.

Some corporations will blatantly knock off your patent.

because they're betting that you don't have $2 million 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 talk about it enough.

it is scary. I I get that it's scary for 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 battling that.

I think it's a conversation we need to have just protecting.

passionate about the patent process.

I think it's way too complex. I think 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.

mean, 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,

gonna move on with my life once this resolves,

but I'm gonna continue to keep having that conversation

and advocating for entrepreneurs.

Yeah. So what would be a viable solution?

mean, if you could rewrite the laws,

rewrite the story, what would that process look like?

What would you like to see happen?

Well, definitely. So I'm not an expert

in patent reform. I have colleagues that are on the Hill lobbying

for legislation on all levels that fixes some

of the loopholes there. I would like to see patents more enforceable.

If I'm just really going to

say it as 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 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.

It's like, I think I'd like to see reforms around that.

Definitely.

So I'm not like a legislation geek,

if there was legislation that really,

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 gotta be something in place.

Otherwise, it's just not gonna stop corporate bad actors.

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 that 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 is just too big.

Look what happens.

Look what happened to me, you know,

for 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

Mm-hmm.

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 like to see some kind of legislation and lobbying that favors small businesses

Yeah.

and creators.

Okay. So, what advice would you have for a young person that's looking

to start their own company that has a product they're excited about or an idea?

What advice would you give to them?

Yeah, mean, so I mean, 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 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,

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 gonna

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 loyal customer base,

and your brand equity. And at the very least,

you could stay in business. If you're out there and you've got sales,

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. yeah,

I think that, uh, you know,

the, largest, 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. so, um, you know,

I think educating the consumers about,

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

and where it comes from is a big piece of that.

And, uh, 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 big corporations taking over

is individuals with great ideas,

Mm-hmm.

continuing to chase their dreams.

I think with technology and social media,

it's a great point to continue

to educate consumers.

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

A corporation can't recreate that,

Mmm.

right? Invented by a mom, who solved the problem?

Yeah.

It's just things like that, brand equity like that,

especially these days. My daughter's 14.

She's like, mom.

Don't tell anyone you use ChatGPT because they'll cancel you overnight.

Because right now, guess ChatGPT or AI,

the younger generations are like,

it's bad for the environment. And so that's the big trend right now.

So to your point, yeah, mean, you want to be communicating with your consumers

Yeah.

as much as possible. That's so critical.

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 still fighting this legal battle,

but are kind of trying to just move forward,

press forward onto the next thing.

Do 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 UCLA, I 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 really never had that mindset before.

It wasn't like, oh, I'm gonna build the next like giant apparel company.

I kind of always thought I'm gonna grow it and sell it,

right? And probably the same with my lids.

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 series,

one unscripted series, two scripted series that I've written.

I'm 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 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. I, it's ridiculous.

Ha ha ha.

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

yes, I'm the oldest person in all my college classes,

but that's okay. I really enjoyed it.

Well, back to what

you said about education, if you have a dream,

if you have a goal, a trade that you're headed into,

that education can be invaluable,

but just going to school to go to school.

yeah.

Yeah.

Don't do it. No, no. Yeah. And it's,

it's neat. It's neat 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 into,

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. 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,

organizing through struggle, thinking creatively.

And I don't want to use the term normal.

If you're a normal person, maybe that's it.

But if you're a non-entrepreneur,

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,

um, 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.

But okay, they're fired and go apply right now.

Fire your attorney?

So you can submit questions to me through my site and then on air through

my own podcast, 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 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.

Don't go buy an expensive business consulting package.

Come to me.

with your question. just know that I had so many questions in the past that

I had nowhere to turn to get those answers.

Yeah.

Not 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

Mm-hmm.

and maybe bring on other consultants and have a team of people working it?

Yeah, I haven't, you know, I've kind of been looking at Brain on Loan

as like sort of a philanthropic thing.

I am not looking at it as 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 sounds like a great idea to me.

Sorry, my brain's kind of spinning now hearing that idea of,

Yeah.

you know, you could have a virtual board of directors and,

you know, the whole fractional assistant,

fractional CEO thing is kind of taken off.

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've 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,

the decisions become so much clearer.

Yeah.

When you're in the middle of it,

Yeah, excellent.

you know the right decision, but the right decision is so hard.

Yes.

And sometimes

you just need somebody else that's not emotionally charged.

It's not emotionally in it to step back and say,

okay, like this is hard, but this is the right decision.

Mm-hmm.

This is the right path. You know,

That's such an excellent point.

you know that.

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

No. No.

There are

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

I have a friend who has a business out in California.

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, 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 her.

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 chat GPT,

like to get real life experiences,

get advice based and experience in business from a startup perspective.

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that idea and the brain on loan 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.

Mm-hmm.

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 Low? Let's see.

I'll just wait for it to happen,

you know?

Yeah.

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

That's perfect. I love brain on loan.

Yeah. Thank you.

That's, nobody can take that now.

Pick by brain, that's right.

So yeah, that's awesome. Well,

that, I know we're, rolling back quite a bit,

kind of going out of the agenda here,

but, ~ that brings me back to,

wanted to circle back and talk about stepping down from your original business.

I'm sure that was.

an exciting time and a emotional time.

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

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

but probably exciting to celebrate what you had built and that

it became something bigger than maybe you could handle.

Can you tell us a little bit about the conflicting emotions and maybe

the process of deciding to do what you did there?

Yeah. I ran the company out of Columbus,

Ohio. Columbus is a smaller town,

know, where this is not Manhattan.

So it's a smaller community. I,

Well, I'm from Wyoming, so that sounds pretty big to me,

okay. Yeah. You. Okay. Yeah.

but...

It's definitely bigger than Wyoming,

but yeah. So I became a little bit well-known

and the company did throughout town and throughout the state.

And so

I think there was like a lot of surprise when,

like we got a lot of media surround and we had like some celebrities with

our stuff on and things like that.

like, so when news broke that they were kind of handing over the reins

to someone else, I definitely got like surprised responses.

And I took that sort of negatively,

like I had failed because, or like I was a failure because I couldn't like keep

growing it.

So there was definitely that a little bit of a feeling of embarrassment and failure.

And I wouldn't say 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. 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. Cause I had been doing it for 12 years and like you said,

120 hours a week. 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?

I can even thinking back now,

those feelings are still really raw.

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 was like young again. I just was like invigorated.

I was fearless. It was just exciting.

was like a new fresh start. So I think really important

for maybe anyone 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 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 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 away?

Now,

I exited my equity position and in return for,

like I was, I had personally, what's the word I'm looking for?

Sorry. Like I was on the bank note.

I was on the bank, like for, yeah.

Yeah, ~ personal guarantee, yeah

Yeah, I personally guaranteed the note.

it was like, I got out of it debt free,

but, that's, mean, that's,

scary. We're talking seven figure debt.

Yeah. 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 I walked away with my experience of running the business.

That's it.

Okay. 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 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 enough money, first of all.

And banks are, they're just more rigid than.

than equity, you know what I mean?

And that can affect your business,

you

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.

I 1000 % wish once things started picking up that I hired

a CEO that had experience,

particularly in apparel and growing companies,

because founders and CEOs are different and CEOs 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 just, 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

Yeah.

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 I was 26 when I started that and like,

I think you're gonna not know a lot of things.

So I've lightened up on myself a little bit.

Yeah.

Well, that's good. It sounds like an incredible success

and it's incredible experience and now has led to bigger things.

So, ~ yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Brighter

things on the other side of it for sure.

Good deal. Yeah, that bank debt,

an investor can take kind of an IOU,

the promise of, we're using this money to grow,

Mm-hmm.

but that bank requires a payment every month and they don't accept IOUs.

Well, 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.

Yeah.

So it's like, it just wasn't the right funding mechanism for our business.

Okay. So if you had to start over from scratch tomorrow

and start a new business, what would that be?

Hmm. That's a loaded question.

Cause 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 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 % have other businesses that I'm going to do,

not at other products I'm going to do.

Okay.

And I'll tell you offline, but I'm not going to tell your listeners because someone

will take it. Someone will take it.

Okay. What

But I do have one.

would it be? You've kind of done two businesses in more the product in the things.

Are you still interested in kind of a product business?

Mm-hmm.

Or would you lean more towards a 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 by any now 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. Yeah.

Okay, interesting. Yeah, that'll be interesting to see.

Mm hmm. 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 my businesses

and continues to get me through what I'm going through now.

So yeah, I'm going to 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.

I used to feel badly

for myself in the times that I would struggle in my businesses.

And I think my greatest takeaway 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 makes us grow as people.

know, 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.

so definitely has gotten me through the best and the worst times.

And it kind of makes, you know,

we do giggle, we talk like, 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, and 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 highest stakes game that

is massively in his hands. And so for sure,

it plays a huge role. think anyone who's successful in any way in their lives

and they are religious, attribute it to God.

I just don't know. There's no other explanation.

There's no other explanation. I mean,

Yeah.

it's just wild stuff.

So if you are religious, thinking about becoming religious,

he delivers. Please, he will deliver your dreams if you believe.

Spread his word.

Okay. 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 a release platform?

Is there something we could look forward to seeing some of your creations hitting

the market?

Yeah, have a, so I have a director lined up that,

well, I wouldn't say lined up,

because 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,

Mm.

but it's also comedy. mean, some of the things I've experienced

are just purely comedic.

And so that's my scripted series and 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 very personal to me. And so,

yeah, probably, 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,

your coaching and it was it Lend Your Brain?

Did I get that right? 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, brainonloan.com. It's just a one,

well, a two page website, but just right there on the landing page,

you can submit your question. Comes right to my email inbox and I reply

to everyone and I say, I'll let you know when I air it,

when I answer it and 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 in that advice.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. And is the podcast Brain on Loan as well,

if they want to search and find that?

Okay. Awesome. Well, I will make sure we get all of that in the show notes

so they can link right there 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?

Ooh, on your show. Yeah,

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.

Okay. Well, I might reach out and see if you could make an 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. think that, again,

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, by the way,

don't be afraid of bank debt. 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 guy's 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, 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 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?

Or, are corporations taking 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.

think that in certain consumer product categories,

there's tons of opportunity there.

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 you've been pirated

and that litigation and be willing to fight that fight.

And I think, 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 then you don't have to start something from scratch.

You can grow it. so no,

Yeah.

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 wish you the best of luck and I'm really pushing for you

Thank you.

in your legal battle. And I'll be excited to watch your series when it comes

Hehehe

out 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 five minutes.

It's just a weird ability I have.

you

I don't know.

Yeah,

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 ~ yeah,

Thank you.

it's just a different kind of mindset.

Wonderful. And thank you guys for joining us here on From the Ground Up Show.

That's right.

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